Did you know that halogen lightbulbs for pools installed in 1996 are difficult to come by? They are. There is one of them available in the United States right now, and it is currently in Dallas, Texas. I, however,  am not currently in Dallas, Texas. It doesn’t matter though. I need that bulb. The bulb alone costs about $35.00, and then there’s the shipping cost. Of course if I want it in a hurry, it will cost more.

I have lived in this house for a little over two years and have never had a functioning pool light. Apparently I’ve been living on the edge, because this is a hazard, according to the inspection that was done on the house. It wasn’t a hazard back when my inspector looked at it, but now it is, and it’s up to me to remedy this situation so that my buyer doesn’t stub his toes in the dark when he goes night swimming. Having this responsibility makes me feel important, like I have a civic duty to keep my fellow human being safe from this apparently very real threat.

Why is it that when I’m the seller I have to bend over backward to change and fix everything, but when I’m the buyer I’m lucky if the air conditioning even works? The kicker is the house I’m selling is priced considerably less than the one I’m buying! Still, I’m really excited to say that I’m buying my next house. I found it last Friday, looked at it again on Sunday, and wrote an offer last night. This morning it was accepted. HOORAY! There are lots of good things about it, and a few things that are less great, but right now we’re not going there. Right now we’re trying to get out of THIS house. That means fixing a few things and packing a lot of things (well, everything actually) and doing lots of chores, like calling the utilities and setting up a forwarding address. What a pain.

I’m trying to remain calm and take things one step at a time. It’s tough, though, when all progress seems to grind to a halt over a single lightbulb (that I went to four stores to locate, then called two other places before, hopefully, finding it in Dallas). Hopefully the bulb issue will be resolved shortly, so that we can figure out why the new bathroom faucet is leaking. One step at a time. One step at a time.