Looking for a home and reviewing our options

My husband and I have a goal to be in a house before or soon after our new baby comes.  We are currently in an apartment, which is just the right size for our family of 3.  Not the right size at all for a garden.  What is the point of marrying a man who loves to garden if you don't have a big huge yard to plant things in??

We searched for homes before moving in to our apartment, but we couldn't find anything that we liked, or we were outbid by companies wanting to tear down the one house on acreage and build 3 or 4 houses on the land.  We didn't find anything in time for our wedding and we needed somewhere to live, so here we are.  Apartment life is not for us... heck, city life is not for us.

Since we are looking at buying our first home as a couple, we are looking into a lot of different things, such as maintenance.  In the apartment, nothing is really our problem.  If anything breaks or needs repaired, we just call the handy man and he comes and fixes it.  Nothing belongs to us and so it's nothing to worry about.  Water heater goes out? Doesn't cost us a dime.  Window gets stuck? They come and fix it the same day.  Dryer vent clogged?  Not our dirty work.  It's very convenient, but like I said, this life isn't for us. 

Before we met, I owned a condo.  It's long gone by now, but it was similar in a way.  All of the things inside were my problem, but all of the things outside were taken care of by a friendly little old man who lived a few doors down.  Porch light bulb gone bad?  That's on the outside.  Gate to the fence won't shut properly.  Outside.  Window breaks?  They covered that, too.  My gutters were cleaned, my grass was mowed, and the water hose was insulated when the weather got cold.  Again, very convenient, but not for us. 

The problem is that I don't really know how to do those things.  My husband does.  He learned from his dad.  I think it's one of those man to man things.  He has even climbed up on my parents' rooftop and cleaned their gutters.  He has mowed their lawn.  He has insulated their water hose spout.  He's even weeded my moms garden. He's a manly man, and that is great because I am much better at taking care of things inside the home and he is great at taking care of things outside the home... and also large appliances. 

Without him, I don't know what I would do.  I have a whole collection of Bob Villa books back from before their was the internet.  I could read those and learn how to take care of things myself.  That is how I learned to change out a toilet... in theory. I could get one of those Home Warranty set ups.  It's like a program where they take care of your appliances and household things.  I could sign up for to get helpful hints via twitter or Facebook.  I wonder if they have a tickler service.  Like how my car flashes little lights at me when I need an oil change or a tire rotation.  My TV tells me when I need a new bulb.  Maybe there is something like that for houses?

I don't know how the Hubs keeps it all straight in his head about what needs to be done when.  He's not only in charge of the house, he's in charge of the cars, too.  My car's little tickler thing comes on and I have to take it in to get the light turned off and not get any of the services done because he gets them all done early.  It's really nice to not have to worry about things getting taken care of.  I wonder if he feels the same way about dinner?

Does he think, "It's so nice not to have to worry about dinner and just know that when I walk in the door it's going to smell like some  kind of delicious food in there." or "I have no idea how my clothes get from the laundry basket back into the closet, but I am so glad that they do.  I never run out of pants and I always have such a selection!"  I think he probably does.  We make a pretty good team.