Tuesday is the big day.  I am going to sign on the dotted line for my first house.  It is a lovely two bedroom two bath house/condo.  It was built in 1970. It has hardwood floors throughout except in the wet room.  The feature that I am looking forward to the most is it has a heat pump.  The thought of having air conditioning makes me giddy with joy.  I have never lived in a place with air.  I will never again have to suffer through those long hot nights in the summer. 

I do realize that Portland is not Arizona, but I do not do well in the heat.  The last couple of summers have been especially harsh.  The apartment that I live in now is on the second floor.  My bedroom and the slider in the Dinning room face south.  For the first 6 years, it wasn't so bad because the neighbor to the south had some very nice shade trees.  But at the end of the summer 3 years ago, my landlord, sent a letter to that neighbor stating that her trees caused damage to roof of my apartment building, so her insurance company forced her to get rid of the trees.  Since then, the summer sun has shown into my apartment all day.  This last summer, when we had 15+ days above 90, it was almost impossible to get any good sleep.