To don'ts

8 A.M. Wake up confused/disoriented and wander around the house looking for granite counter tops.
9 A.M. Awake from a nightmare about a house without a two car garage. Note: The house also fed on human flesh.
10 A.M. Eat a healthy breakfast in preparation for a day of looking at houses.
11 A.M. Look at nice house a second time. Admire the crown molding/nickel handled cabinets. Try to figure out what crown molding means. Wonder if cabinets in kitchen match paint. Try to find out what exactly constitutes a match.
11:30 Examine the exterior of the house and wonder what the house would look like with French doors. Suffer from brief despair that I now know what that means/would look like. Wonder why the French get credit for doors.
12:00 Walk to the metro. Step over bits glass shattered on the street. Credit the neighbor's for being boisterous. Relay the story of Jesus turning water into wine to give credence to drunks.
12:30 Shop at a farmer's market.
1:00 Drive to another house.
1:30 Stand outside the house and wait for the agent. Conduct the peering in a mailbox slot tour before moving on. Have a brief conversation with S about whether the house is haunted.
S: I just want to see whether it's haunted 24/7
J: Because it's not really a problem if it's just a nine to five thing.
2:00 Drive out to inner ring suburbs to admire ritzy houses.
2:30 Admire a house in which the crown molding has not been finished. Wish that it had been. Realize my now intimate relationship with crown molding.
2:30-4:00 Look at houses just out of our price range presumably to make us both despair.
4-now-Think/rethink houses. Search for new houses. Become depressed about searching for houses. Affirm my belief in two houses from the day before. Get depressed. Search for houses. Get sleepy/accept the two houses.

People are always apt to offer you "to do" lists in your life: go see Mecca, go see France, date a French woman who wears pink underpants. The latter being advice I received from a fairly disreputable source. Anyhow, I'm thinking of offering up a to don't list in this blog for potential home buyer's.
To don'ts

1) Don't start looking for a house until you and your spouse/partner/household pet companion have decided on the proper number of cabinets that should occupy a kitchen. Obeying this rule will allow you to save a lot of time when you begin the housing search.
2) Don't begin a housing search in DC without a few hundred thousand dollars to throw around. Housing searches are best conducted by/with rich people. My advice to unmarried folks is always to marry rich. People's looks will fade but their money will always be green enough to buy them new one's.
3)
3) The third to don't, (related to above and violated today horribly) is to never look at a house that his outside of your price range. What you realize when you begin to look slightly above your price range, is that if you had an extra 50,000 or so on hand you could probably afford your dream home in a good neighborhood with a bunch of no good dirty hippies and a back yard big enough to raise pigs. The reality is that people who are in that situation are probably wishing that they just had 50 or 100 thousand dollars more so that they could afford that rec. room or television, or wet bar with celebrity bar tender Pierce Brosnan included. The real American Dream is not owning a home, but owning a home that is slightly better than your neighbor's. This whole process is exhausting!

10:30 P.M. Put up a sign that says, "this is a no talking zone" around the chair that I'm blogging in.
10:35 P.M. Create a safe blogging environment and begin to type.