And so the house hunt begins..

You know what's probably a really bad idea? Searching for a house during my busiest time of year.

But I just can't help myself! I'm so excited to buy my first house. But the house hunt is already off to a bumpy start.

I've been casually searching for houses online since around October of last year and there haven't been a ton of homes that have caught my eye. I keep saying if I could just pick up my current apartment and move it into a house; that would be my ideal home. I'm apparently pickier than I thought!

I contacted a realtor early in January, and finally got to meet her last week over lunch. She's awesome and I really think she can find me my dream house. Once she started sending me listings, I couldn't wait to start looking. There was one house I kept going back to over and over again that I thought for sure was "the one" so Melissa and I had an appointment to go look at it last Saturday, along with a couple of other houses I liked but wasn't as crazy about.

Then Thursday came with bad news from my realtor. The house I loved had been leased to someone else. The seller got desperate (the house hadn't been on the market that long) and ended up leasing the house even though they knew they had a potential buyer coming to see the house on Saturday.

I thought I was going to cry. I don't know why I was so attached to a house I had never seen, but every time I flipped through the pictures I could imagine myself living there. So by Saturday, I was less than enthusiastic to continue the house hunting because I knew those houses weren't going to be right for me.

Ryan tagged along, entering his commentary where necessary, and summed it up pretty nicely with, "On a scale of 1-10, these houses are about a 5." Whomp whomp.

But I tried not to get discouraged! I went home Saturday and spent endless hours stalking houses again. And you know what I found? My dream house. It is almost the identical layout of my current apartment (open floor plan complete with kitchen island) and it's brand new. Construction complete last month. And the kicker? It's below my price range.

Is it too good to be true? I don't know. I'm going to look at the house tonight with my experts in tow (my realtor and my mom) and I'm hoping to report back with good news.

Have I just jinxed myself?

I sure freakin' hope not.