Remember how I dreamed about an online friend finally conceiving? Well, I just got an email from another woman on the listserv; she'd had a dream about me - pregnant with a girl! It made me tear up; I hope, hope, hope she's some kind of prophet. Funny how I can dismiss my own dreams, but want to believe so much in somebody else's.

We found our house tonight.

It was not gorgeous. It wasn't even lovely. It was attractive, and it was a house that felt "right." It felt like someplace in which I could definitely visualize raising our first child, though I think we'll be in Racine by the time we have a second.

It has three bedrooms, one and a half baths, a nice-sized living room, and a large eat-in kitchen. The two-car garage has an attached workshop, there's a big attic, and a large wooden deck stretches out into the pretty, fenced back yard. A row of closely-spaced trees separates the front yard from the road (which is quiet enough as it is) as if to say, "You will not be looking in here!" I would be walking distance from the library, and Eric would be close to the interstate.

The price is more than we wanted to spend, but we've come to understand that initial listings are mostly fantasy on the seller's part anyway. They're asking $103,500; we'll probably offer $90,000 and see about going from there. Of course, it would be imprudent to offer without first having a mortgage loan, wouldn't it? I'm positive we can get ninety, though, so we'll do some soul searching. At any rate, we can't do much right now with Eric going to Racine next week.

There's already an offer on the house, but the other realtor told our that the offer was "ridiculous." I don't know how ridiculous it was, and I'm a little worried that they'll make a better offer before Eric can get back from Racine and we can up the ante. I realize that there will be other houses, but this has been the only house in our price range so far that hasn't made me cringe for some reason or other. We visited a second one tonight, which happened to be permeated with a sweetly sickening scent of decay throughout; Eric and Joan were guessing that an animal may have crawled underneath and met its fate. Appealing, no?

I don't like competition; it makes my palms sweat. I don't want anyone else to look at our house. I want to make an offer and keep everybody else away. I'm a little sympathetic for the sellers; they just bought this house in June and are being forced to leave due to a job transfer. There's no way they're going to recoup their down payment. In such a position as ours, though, I don't think I can afford to empathize a great deal. They have what I want, and I have to get it for as little as possible.

So we came home and made love. Eric started talking tech, and I'm a pushover for geek speak. He was talking dual partitions, and I was gazing into his eyes. Before he could complete his thought, I was in his arms, and we were kissing wildly. When all was said and done, our clothes were strewn between our starting point, in the bathroom, and the bedroom floor, and we were lying breathless in the mightily destroyed bed. Perhaps it was a catharsis from actually having a positive house hunting experience; last time was something of a shock.

It's been a long time since we've made love without feeling, at least in the backs of our minds, "compelled" to do so. Eric didn't even realize that I was fertile until halfway into the event. I knew it (or think I knew, if I'm reading my symptoms correctly), but was able to suppress the thought easily until afterward. It was sex for sex's sake, and we did it out of love for each other rather than purely out of a desire to procreate. Heaven help us, we may just get through this time!

By the way, remember that mutual friend of Eric's and mine that I thought was writing us off? She messaged me today! We had a good long chat, and while she still claims to be busier than she can sanely handle, she's going to make an effort to call more often. I'm glad. She was such an important part of our lives for so long that I'd hate to see her walk away.