Are you a risk taker?
A risk taker is defined as someone who is bold, decisive, confident, courageous, creative, innovative and comfortable with uncertainty.
I don’t know if I am a risk taker. I think I am more likely to be defined as someone who doesn’t think things through thoroughly, leaps before she ponders and does what she wants in the present without contemplating the outcome.
What would that be called? Stupid perhaps? Foolish? Illogical?
Perhaps all three.
Anyway, it’s all a moot point. I decided when my husband and I were going to be visiting our hometown for over two weeks that we would change-up our routine and stay in a rental. So I started to look on Vrbo and Airbnb.
Cincinnati, Ohio – a city which I love dearly – is our hometown. But let’s face it: it is NOT a big tourist attraction – therefore there are not a lot of short term rentals around in the parts of the city we wanted to stay in.
One, however, caught my eye. I am always a sucker for old houses built around the early part of the 20th Century. And this one looked perfect, billed as “historic charm meets city living in this adorable cottage”.
I was immediately captivated by the old fashioned front porch with two rocking chairs – adjacent to the huge shade tree.
I already was picturing myself sipping my morning coffee in such a tranquil setting as this:
Three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an updated kitchen sealed the deal and I submitted my credit card immediately.
When I showed my husband the pictures of the interior and exterior front of the house, he too was quite impressed with my find. He did happen to point out that there appeared to be this big gray wall right outside one of the downstairs windows, but I paid little attention to his offhand remark.
A few days before occupancy, we were given the actual address and immediatley I zoomed in on the house and neighborhood. I was in for a surprise.
Sure the shade tree was there.
Sure the front porch with the rockers were there.
BUT, to the immediate left of the house beyond the gray wall was a small strip center and to the right, directly outside the kitchen window, was an auto parts store. And beyond the shade tree, directly across the street were not one, but two, auto dealerships. 
Okay, so it wasn’t perfect.
Did I mention that the two bathrooms were really 1.5 bathrooms and there was no vent in the master bedroom so we turned the air conditioning downstairs to 64 degrees in order to cool off the upstairs? And we kept the ceiling fan in our bedroom running non-stop.
Did it matter? Not really. I still loved sitting out on the front porch each morning sipping a cup of freshly brewed coffee, reading a really terrific book (The Goddess of Warsaw) and waving to the continual stream of pedestrians walking on the sidewalk in front of my rental, headed to the gourmet coffee shop just a block away.
So the closets didn’t have lights.
And the other bedrooms had no dressers.
And the kitchen lacked measuring cups and spoons for my made-from-scratch smoothies.
And I couldn’t watch the 77th Tony Awards last Sunday night because I couldn’t find the directions to the cable TV.
And there was no toaster oven.
Most importantly, though, my husband and I tried something new. We got out of our comfort zone and took a risk.
Let me know what kind of a risk you have taken lately and how it turned out.
And if you haven’t taken one lately, maybe it’s time to expand your little corner of the world and do so.
Keep Preserving Your Bloom,
