See, the irony (is this an appropriate use of "irony"?) here is that when I say "stable" and "long-term"...it was still probably only going to be for 7 months or so. Because I still HOPE to pull off the plan of getting my butt to grad school for a January start. (Though that would have been a lot easier to do with a stable base of operations to be applying/planning/etc. from.) But still those 7 months would have been 1) the longest I lived in the same place in years and 2) a chance to catch my breath and have a home before launching back out into the madness of grad-school-or-whatever's-next.

Instead now I'm back to the same old insanity like last year, of winter housesit -> cobble something together during the last part of the spring because it's only like two months so it's not worth trying to rent somewhere -> away during the summer because not earning money = don't want to pay rent -> find sublet for just the fall because I'm leaving after that. Exhausting.

That was why I was willing to sacrifice freedom (travel as much as I want over the summer!) for stability (live just ONE PLACE for the entire time from now until January).

You are smart to own a house. I want to own a house. The place where I live, which I will not name specifically in this particular spot because internet and so on, makes that prohibitive. But I think about it all the time!