What irritates you about the home you live in?

I really like our house. It’s gorgeous – a well-kept Victorian. I do get irritated by unfinished projects – like, when we replaced the floor, we didn’t put the baseboards back everywhere. That is annoying. I also get irritated when I step on a dead mouse, or – possibly worse – a dead mouse head. There are hieroglyphics dating between the eras of May 2018 and Dec 2022 that I don’t value highly. It gets itself messy fast (talk about victim blaming). Some of the neighbors get drunk and play really loud music regularly, and sometimes are aggressive. We don’t have much of a yard.

But, really, I love it. We’ve made it our own with loving house projects. It’s been a cradle for our family for nearly 5 years, and many families of mice for far longer (we call them all Templeton). It’s a comfortable yet elegant lady. My babies have made the house their home, whether through putting an X on every wall they feel they own, or drawing sheep on the walls, or trying to put in new windows (with a hammer and a wall). The walls actually bear a lot of abuse, and they stand firm and accept it all. We live busy, active lives in our house, and things pile up, including messes – evidence of us focusing on more important things, like cuddles. We live in a mixed income neighborhood, and we have made good friends here, and had lots of opportunity for understanding and compassion. We rarely have to mow.