Why we're all doing this
Back in August, we talked here about making a Major Lifestyle Change. It was not the change we ultimately made. Before the whole move-back-to-Florida thing came up, we had our eyes on a piece of property in deep rural Texas.

The house was situated on 10 acres of land approximately 15 miles south of nowhere. It was built, depending on which property record one believed, in 1893 or 1912. It was in remarkably good shape for a house that old, but it was going to require a lot of work. But we saw what the place could be. As soon as I made my peace with the idea of living in a rural area and having my Very Long Commute made even longer, I was excited about the idea. I had a vision of a place where my friends and co-workers from the Very Large Metropolitan Area could come spend a weekend far away from the city lights and the traffic and stuff. They could bring their kids to ride horses. They could bring guitars for all-night jam sessions on the second-story porch. It would have been an escape hatch, a place where my family would welcome everybody we know to come and experience some much-needed simplicity.

But, in a world where all things happen -- and don't happen -- for a reason, the deal fell through. Our house didn't sell in time, and another buyer showed up with cash in hand. That buyer showed up the day I was interviewing for the job in Florida.

The thing about that house was this: It was the closest thing we had seen so far to a place that fulfilled a vision.

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One night in 1990, not long before we were married, The Wife and I had one of those up-all-night talks. In that conversation, we described to each other what our Home would be like. It was going to be rural, but not so rural that a career wasn't accessible; it would be old, a place with a history; and it would be surrounded by so much land that our kids wouldn't even know how to spell "neighbor." It was going to be about 10 miles north of Anytown, where I was going to fulfill my goal of being sports editor at the Bugle. I was going to work 11-4, come home for supper, and go back to work about 8-11, to make sure the paper got out.

Reality, of course, has thrown us some curves. Reality dictates that:

a) We live within access of a major metropolitan area, because that's where the career opportunities are.
b) We live in a house that's not going to cost us a lot of money.
c) We live in a house that's not going to require extensive construction.
d) We live in a house with access to high-quality public schools.

When we moved to Cincinnati to fulfill (a), we bought our first house. The family at the time was me, The Wife and The Old Daughter, who had just turned 1. It was a 2-bedroom, 1-bath built in 1912. It was in a neighborhood that admittedly had seen better days, and it wasn't going to be a good long-term solution for us, but it was a great experience and fun while it lasted.

The house, on Taylor Avenue in Bellevue, Ky., was three miles from my office in Cincinnati. We could see the Ohio River, Riverfront Stadium and the Cincinnati skyline from our backyard.

The house was part of the 1912 version of a subdivision. It was identical to the house next to it, and you couldn't walk between the two houses with your arms outstretched without touching both houses. The lot was 30 feet by 112 feet. The house was red brick, with a big porch (on which we immediately installed a swing) and the hardwoods inside were beautiful. The place had actually benefited from neglect; as nobody had ever bothered to "update" the place, much of the original house was intact. Old, but intact.

In a kitchen drawer, we found the receipt for the work to uninstall the original gas light fixtures. The receipt was dated 1977.

The house also had a story, which I unearthed by spending a day at the county courthouse.

At the courthouse, I followed the deeds backwards through the big books. The house's first owners were a young couple named Knaebel. A 1913 city directory listed Mr. Knaebel as a "laborer;" a 1933 city directory listed him as a "foreman." The Knaebels had one son, sometime around 1915. The son was listed in a city directory from the late 1930s as an "artist," and he lived in his parents' house.

The elder Knaebels died in 1952 -- she on Oct. 4, he on Nov. 18. The obituaries noted that she died in the house on Taylor Avenue, and he died at his son's residence in a nearby town. The son received the house and the remainder of his parents' estate, valued at something in the high four figures.

He owned the house and rented it from 1952 to 1977. The next owner rented the house out from 1977 until 1995, when a well-moneyed couple bought the house as a rehab project. We bought the house from them three months later. The first time I walked on the front porch of this place, as soon as I turned the knob on the door, I told The Wife, "We're home."

This place was Home for 13 months. Then, in pursuit of a better job and a better neighborhood for our daughter, who was going to be school-age at some point, we moved to Florida.

We bought a typical Florida suburban place -- one story, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, about 2,000 square feet. The Wife put her considerable decorating talents to work, and when we left 2 1/2 years later, it was a typical suburban place with a seriously cool personality. It was a very comfortable house, in many ways.

Having made that place our home, we left it behind to move to Texas in 1999. We moved for two reasons -- it was a good career move, and I had long held a desire to live in the homeland of my ancestors. I am, at heart, a Texan, no matter what my address says, and it seemed to be destiny that we live there.

Our search for a house led us into suburbs that were a long way away from downtown, because, they said, that was our best chance of fulfilling criteria (d) above. One of the benefits of this is that we were able to look at very, very nice houses in our price range, houses that we wouldn't have come close to being able to afford without a Very Long Commute. I did, in fact, openly express skepticism that I had done anything to deserve to live in a house as nice as the one we finally settled on. The house was not even 10 years old, but for what we needed, it was perfect in every way -- except, of course, its location, 33.8 miles from work.

The house was nice, but it just never quite became Home. This led us to the house out in the sticks, the place that could have been our Home. Yeah, it was a hell of a long way from work, too, but it was going to be worth it. It was in a rural school district that was fairly well-respected. But it wasn't meant to be, and, as it turned out, it wasn't meant for us to stay in Texas. We wound up making a complete U-turn.

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Now, back in Florida, we're in a house that's much different from the one we left. It has flaws, but we're in the process of making it ours, and I have no doubt that The Wife will inject this place with a personality all its own.

I also have no doubt that this place will be, as has been our history, temporary. At some point -- maybe many years in the future, when the fact that Florida's rural schools are atrocious will no longer matter to us -- we'll pursue the rural dream again. Hopefully there'll be some "rural" left in Florida by that time. At some point, maybe we'll be able to afford a better suburban house, and we'll move there instead.

But Home is not just about a house, or what the license plate on your car says. It's not about your job. Have we found our home yet? I don't know.

But I do know that we have found Home.