Ruggles...

Hello, friends! 

One of the hard things about looking for a house when you live out of town is that you have limited time to actually look at houses. When you are moving within town, you can make appointments as houses come onto the market, do your research, and look into the neighborhood, especially if you don't know it already. When you're from out of town, you're cramming as many appointments as possible into your one visit, meaning you're spending less time at each house and not able to do as much research. Add to that the lack of institutional knowledge of a city or neighborhoods, and it can be a pretty stressful time. 

When Meg and I were looking for houses, I kept going back to my realtor said when I started looking for houses in CoMO. He said that the first dozen to two dozen houses were going to be me figuring out what I DIDN'T like. Then, at some point, I'd walk into a house and know that it was the one. That's what happened with the CoMO house, so I figured that we'd be in for a similar ride this time around. The only difference would be that instead of taking 2-3 weeks, we'd be trying to see that dozen or two dozen houses over the course of a day or so. 

A few houses were eliminated for us. We'd go online, see a house that we liked, add it to our "check out this one when we visit Omaha" list, then see that it was sold before we even had a chance to get into town. That hurt a bit. However, when we DID get into town, that's when the fun started. Friends, we saw some rough houses. There was one house that was fish-bowled in the kitchen, so everything ran towards the middle of the room. There was the house that was huge with lots of rooms, had that creepy, old school Victorian, murder mystery house kind of vibe. We saw a house that had a kitchen on the second floor (they don't show you that in the photos). Then, we saw the house on Ruggles Street. 

Growing up, I'd gotten into my head that you've finally "arrived" as an adult when you have a two story house. Most of the houses we looked at were two story but were also kind of too small. Our house is a ranch with all sorts of room. Just like the CoMO house, both the main floor and the basement have big living areas, perfect for hosting (and we've learned perfect for running around if you're a 3-year-old). The house was completely renovated, meaning the appliances, paint, and everything was new (although we also see now that the workmanship isn't perfect). What really sold me on the house though, was Ruggles Street itself. We walked into the house, absolutely fell in love with it, and walked out wondering if we'd found our house. As we pulled out of the driveway to the last house on our list, I saw Black, LatinX, and Asian kids all walking home from school. Ruggles was going to suit me just fine. 

Since moving in, we've only had it confirmed that we picked the right house and the right neighborhood. Meg has already made friends with a woman who lives down the street with 4 kids (the youngest 2 are a little older than Ezra and Thaliea). I've become known to the kids in the neighborhood as the "bike pump guy" for when their tires are flat. We're next to a park and not too far from some great coffee shops. (We actually have 2 coffee shops that are right next to each other. Meg's favorite has story time for the kids on Fridays. My favorite is a coffee shop AND a bike shop. How perfect is that?!). 

I knew that making Omaha home was going to take some time, especially after spending 10+ connected to CoMO. Ruggles Street has been a huge part of making that process go a lot faster. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam