the dwelling pictured below will be my first house. not a house paid for by my parents, not an on-campus dwelling shared by sorority sisters, not a georgetown "townie" apartment, or an over-priced miniature one bedroom in yuppie-ville. a house of my own (and tim's). granted, i won't be paying a mortgage on the thing, so i won't really "own" it, but it sure will feel like it with these california rental prices.

i'm very excited about the whole thing. well, not the moving part, but the decorating and settling in part. for the first time i will have more than 500 square feet to (with the help and input of tim) put together the way i would like. no roommates to argue with about the furniture layout, no discussions over whose picture looks best over the couch, no issues surrounding whose dishes are better and should be used.

well...now that i think about it, i suppose all of that will probably occur. but i'd rather have those discussions with somebody i love than with somebody i am sharing a small, overly furnished apartment with. no offense to the people i have lived with before this, but i am sure you can all agree that moving in with a significant other is different and better for many reasons.

tim may not always feel that way as i am sure that there will be many "discussions" surrounding pictures, decorative items, furniture layout, etc. as one of the alumni council members said to me this past weekend: "you mean, tim will be allowed to have a say in things. but it's not necessarily what will happen."