It’s official. We’re homeowners! Congratulations?

We signed all six inches worth of legal documentation yesterday, which means we are ALL IN.

After fourteen years of responsibility-free renting, our family unit is all excited…and all freaked out by mile-long to-do lists and sky-high price tags. We also share a collective splitting headache and a growing obsession with where to get good boxes.

I have warned my husband to be on guard. My female nesting instinct has been suppressed all these long years, I’ve watched decades worth of HGTV, and now it’s ON. “The Precious” is in my hot little hands at last. Smeagol and Gollum have been unleashed in my head, and they are going at it.

I like the Smeagol side, which is contentedly twitterpated over a new family home to dress up and make our own and turn into a loving space for family and friends. I don’t see that side nearly as often as I’d like.

The Gollum-ish side is my default mode, all twitchy and nervous and covetous over everything I see on Joss & Main. It’s the side that will not sleep until Precious perfection is mine.

Gollum skulks around with all this seething insecurity, convinced that our new house (as cute as it is already) will end up looking less like a magazine and more like a circular for Bob’s Furniture Warehouse (scratch and dent section).

Clearly, I need an intervention. I’m fretting entirely too much over rugs.

So here’s a prayer I wrote…or actually, revised…for lunatic new homebuyers out there like me who need balance restored to the Force. Who need to be happy with what they have and all the wonderful opportunities that await in their new home. Who need to take a very large Chill Pill.

It will be okay. It will be pretty. And in the big scheme of things, it doesn’t even matter.

Jesus had a rock for a pillow. Ease up.

So this prayer is for me. And for you, if any of this crazy sounds familiar.

The Serenity Prayer: Not-So-Extreme Makeover (Home Edition)

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change (like this problematic lack of closet space and that ’80s-era skylight);

The courage to change the things I can (like the shower stall that looks like it could teleport through time);

And wisdom to know the difference. (The handicapped ramp definitely goes.)

Living one newly packed box at a time;

Enjoying one freshly painted wall at a time;

Accepting hardships like a kitchen reno as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful bathroom

As it is, not as I would have it (with handmade ceramic tiles and a clawfoot tub);

Trusting that He will make all oaken toilet seats right

If I surrender to His will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this house

And supremely happy with Him

Forever in the next. (I hear there are mansions…)

Amen.

(I don’t have to await God’s voice to know this toilet seat has to go, right?)