Maddie Celebrates 365 Days of Being a Homeowner

One minute, you're lugging cardboard boxes into your new home, wondering how you'll fit your mattress through the front door, and the next minute you are celebrating one year down from the comfort of your living room.

Over the weekend, my fiancé and I celebrated a big milestone: we have officially been homeowners for 365 days, and we came out unscathed (for the most part). It was a fairly easy-going experience. Maybe it was the excitement of having our own roof over our heads, but the first year seemed to pass us by in a flash.

It may have been easy-going most of the time, but we didn't escape the year without a few bumps and lessons along the way. The funniest lesson was certainly not funny at the time, but we can look back now and laugh.

We bought a fire pit, and we were so excited to use it that we set it up right on our wooden deck in the backyard. Turns out a fire pit and a wooden deck don't get along very well. An ember fell onto the deck and started a fire, burning a hole through three of the wooden planks in the deck. No one was harmed, except the poor deck and our dignity.

Our deck took an "L" and our washer machine leaked a few times, but the hiccups did not outweigh the wonderful memories that we accumulated over our first year.

I consider myself lucky to be experiencing the roller coaster of homeownership with the person I love. I'm excited to see what the next year brings!