In four days, I'll be turning 29, which sounds shockingly old and makes me want to down bottle after bottle of $10 wine and cry while watching Dawson's Creek Season 2 (the best season, obvi) and reminiscing about the good old days, when the $5.60 an hour I earned was considered pretty good money, my biggest worry was keeping my average above 90%, and I never got less than nine hours of sleep every night.

As old as I feel right now, I still feel way too young to be a homeowner...yet, today a pretty big step in the house-buying process happened. Over the weekend Pete and I put in an offer on a lovely four-bedroom house about 20 minutes out of the city. The owner counteroffered, we went back with a new price, and this morning we found out our offer has been accepted.

I keep alternating between "woo hoo, we're going to have a house!" and "oh my effing gawd. We're going to be PO'." I have never been in debt in my life. Having a six-figure mortgage is panic attack-inducing for me, even though our monthly costs are barely going to be higher than our current rent and bills. It's scarily adult.

In the weeks before our wedding, all I wanted to do was go home to my parents', sleep in my old room, eat cereal for breakfast, play with the dog, and not have to think or worry about anything, and today I find myself feeling the same way. I can't wait to go home this weekend and spend a couple of days not thinking about home inspections or bank meetings or paint swatches.

As thrilled I am to have found our new home, I'm excited to stop thinking about it for a couple of days...probably because we've been searching for the perfect house like homeless banshees and agonizing about this and that appointment and this and that meeting. I'm pumped to take a deep breath and focus on other things this weekend: my little sister's wedding shower, my sick horse, and catching up with family and friends back home.

We have our house inspection this Wednesday, and if all goes well, we'll pay a small deposit and then wait until mid-July for possession. This sounds like a long time to some people, but for us, it's perfect. It gives us time to find a washer and dryer, a barbecue and a lawnmower. We'll have time to pick out our paint colours and decide which furniture to put in which room. We're not rushed in cleaning out our apartment and deciding what to chuck and what to keep.

I wonder when or if wanting to run home when things get stressful, or crazy, or start feeling like too much to handle, will end.