Hunting for a house is like shopping for a wedding dress: you're supposed to know when it's "the one" but you have to outbid 746 other people to get it. And just when you think it's yours, this is it, the perfect one actually exists, it's completely possible someone will grab the dress and rip it from your cold, tear-stained hands while you sob uncontrollably on what is now someone else's front lawn.

OK, it's not that bad. But it is hard. You're supposed to like a house enough to invest your life savings into it, but not so much that you can't move on if you don't get it.

1522 Sunrise Boulevard

I stared up at the beige-bricked house, memorizing every detail from the faded yellow paint on the garage doors to the long green branches that stretched towards the front lawn. Interlocking brick led from the driveway to the front door, beckoning like a yellow brick road. My heart swelled. It's ours.

I heard his footsteps behind me and felt his arm wrap around my waist. "Hey, baby. We're home."

I pried my gaze off the front door. Our front door. I couldn't help but smile. "Home."

Justin frowned in an exaggerated manner. "And it only took us what, sixty houses to find the right one?"

I laughed, the funny part being that he wasn't joking. "Something like that. All it took was a schmeeny bedroom, a basement prison and gastro to get us here."

"I know." Justin took my left hand in his, running his thumb over my engagement ring. "It's like it was meant to be."

I knew he didn't just mean finding our home. I felt my throat tighten as I followed his gaze to my finger, staring at the ring he had given me five months earlier.

I wrapped my right hand around ours. "I love you."

"I love you too." Justin smiled. "You know what's too good?"

My mind drew a blank. "What?"

"Our house doesn't smell like smoke."

I nodded surreptitiously in the direction of our neighbour. "But our neighbour does." I could just make out our neighbour smoking on his front porch. Luckily he didn't seem to have heard us.

Justin's eyes closed. "Why does this always happen to me? It's like I can't remark on smells without the wrong person being around to hear it."

I muffled a giggle. "Just bad luck, I guess."

Justin nodded towards our house. "Ready to go inside?"

I took a step forward. "You bet."

Dorothy said it best: there's no place like home.