Things will go wrong.

"We can assure you:
    1. You will experience problems and headaches."

That stopped me in my tracks. For three weeks prior to that moment, I had been filling out countless forms, signing everything from loan applications to booklets warning me about the presence of lead paint to checks for more than I paid for my first two cars combined. Yet this was the first time any of it gave me pause.

I was buying a house, but did I really know what I was doing?

The "Expectation Clarification" form provided by the Home Inspector includes 21 items in the "We can assure you" list, none of them positive. It's a very detailed list that can be summed up in one very clear point: Things will go wrong.

But can't I, Jill Factotum, a Jill-of-all-trades, handle those things? Granted, the house is 50 years old and the previous owner rented it to someone who didn't take very good care of it, but she's got a solid foundation and a lot of potential. That should be enough, right?

[...crickets chirping...in the basement...]

I bought the house, complete with crickets in the basement. And now, a year later, I've decided to share the lessons, trials, and triumphs of that first year. You may think it would have been more appropriate to blog these things as they happened (I think so, too), but even the best laid plans are subject to Lesson #1: Things will go wrong.