Is it crazy we are full steam ahead with a home remodel a few months into a pandemic?

I don’t think so. Or maybe I do. It depends what time of day you ask me.

Besides being incredibly lucky to still be employed, thanks to two UX tech jobs, we also had purchased a little house in 2012. It cost my entire life savings up until that point; I was 26 and working 3-4 jobs to make it all work, and even then I was hanging on by a thread. I had my full time advertising job, I had my weekend freelance gig for a real estate agent, my weeknight design job redoing a well-to-do blogger’s website, and my gig as a design/fashion blogger and all the PR/emailing/schmoozing that comes with that. I was also balancing being really good at my job(s) and being in a relationship. Oh yeah and we got a cat, Suitcase. I was exhausted all the time, and when it was all said and done I was pretty much back-to-zero broke. Buying a home, especially an old one is even more expensive than you buffer for.

Since then, my career has evolved and so has my salary. So yay. The point is we were able to put some roots down in the Bay Area, which was nuts and insane. We all know the headlines now about millennials being set up for the uphill battle of a lifetime to afford anything just about anywhere. So look at me, a girl who grew up super duper poor, coming to the US from Mexico, growing up in LA, then busting my ass through high school to get a scholarship to UC Berkeley. Which brought me here to the Bay Area. It felt like a real achievement (and still does), being able to look around and say “This is a piece of shit, but at least it’s my piece of shit.”

The house was far from ideal. Is far from ideal — as in, it currently is a house from the 1920s with about 100 years of problems. I know all about delayed gratification. I can put my mind towards anything and just blast forward until I achieve the goal. I power through. I push myself, past pain, yell at myself to rub some dirt on it, cry for a minute but then get back to work. That kind of work ethic. The kind that can get toxic if unchecked.

Well, this story isn’t about an unchecked work/life balance. It’s about finally committing to putting my needs first. Nick and I are moving forward by essentially going back: we are tearing our house down. Starting over. New rules. New life.

It’s terrifying. Exciting. Expensive. But we are two highly committed alphas that have our sights set on a beautiful home on top of the beautiful land in the pretty little neighborhood we already have roots in.

More updates to come. Obviously.