I guess I'm lucky to have them.

I hate my teeth.

Oh, they're perfectly good,  nice and straight only slightly discolored (thanks soda and coffee). As long as I stay away from certain shades of lip gloss you wouldn't even notice.

What I hate are my gaps. It's like my whole mouth is full of teeth that are a size or two too small so I have all these gaps in my top teeth. I begged my parents for braces when I was younger but my mom had the same gaps growing up and her wisdom teeth coming in had pushed everything together. She assured me that would happen for me too, so why spend the money?

Well, I'm 34 and my "wissies" are still nice and snug, buried in my gums.

I should have paid closer attention to some of the family pictures we have. I have the same smile as my Great-great grandpa Arlie. His never closed up. My first-cousin has the same teeth. But she got braces and they looked great! I remember being so jealous at the time. But, with the confidence of youth she failed to wear her retainer and now you'd never know she once had perfect teeth. It makes me so mad! I wouldn't have squandered the money and time of braces!

I've been thinking about getting braces now, but being poor and in debt, it seems foolish to tack on more debt for something so superficial? I guess I could do what my grandma did in the 50's and just have them all ripped out and go for dentures. Yeah, maybe not.

I really, really hate my teeth.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Kurt challenged me with "Teeth." and I challenged stacie with "That first sip.

Gift or guillotine?

Big, BIG things are a-brew over here and I'm not sure if I can handle it or if I even want to try.

I think my parents want me to buy my house from them, the house I'm currently living in. They'd sell it to me for what they owe on the loan, taking a loss, just to get it out of their hands. It helps that as a first-time home buyer I can get a super low interest rate.

When they bought the house for me four years ago, this was my dream scenario. At the time, my credit history was so bad I wasn't eligible for a loan that would afford me a liveable home in a safe neighborhood so the obvious alternative was letting them do all the heavy lifting for me.  Like most decisions in my life it started out because I was bored and feared getting older with nothing to show for it.

I clearly remember approaching my dad around Christmas 2007 with the idea of capitalizing on the plunging real estate market and buying me a house. Little did I know that my one mention of house hunting would have us looking and making an offer in a few short weeks. Maybe a month? We would only look at bank-owned houses so when we finally found one it took forever to jump through all the hoops and get the keys.

In my head I thought we would be in it together, yes they would be fronting the money but they'd done the same thing for my brother years before and my parents have always been unfailingly fair in that respect. It started out pretty well. I went hog-wild with painting. Deep teal for the living room, bright blue in the kitchen, black and grey in the master bedroom. I am not a girl who is afraid of a little color. Aside from telling me I could absolutely NOT have chickens and nagging me about mowing the lawn, it has been a pretty awesome arrangement. Except I was never an owner, just the renter.

But.

Yes, there's always a "but" isn't there?

Here's the deal: do I want to be tied to this house in Lodi for the foreseeable future? Is the chance to start building equity on such a large scale, essentially for free, too big to pass up? I have a terrible financial track record, no savings to speak of and only just started a retirement plan a few weeks ago (after having the same job for the last 9 years). If something terrible were to happen I'd have no money to fix it.

What do I do?

Seriously.

What?