I often look forward to the weekend yet am always surprised when it's time for the Friday Five. Here is this week's edition:

1. How many houses/apartments have you lived in throughout your life?

Seven apartments and two houses.

2. Which was your favorite and why?

My favourite house is the one I'm living in right now. It's my favourite because it's the first home that I actually owned and picked out (with Mark) totally on my own.

3. Do you find moving house more exciting or stressful? Why?

I find it to be a little of both but the exciting usually overshadows the stressful. When I know that I'm moving, I want to do it right then, as soon as it is confirmed. I'm very organized and packing never takes me very long (as long as I have lots of boxes!). When we were getting ready to move into this house, we were living in an apartment that had been lovely when I moved in but, due to complete mis-management, had turned into a dump so the prospect of getting out of the building and away from our slumlord was really exciting. Every day after work, we drove by the house, anxious to get into it. Fortunately, we only had about 3 weeks to pack up and get moved. Any more than that would have been intolerable for me, I think.

4. What's more important, location or price?

Again, it's a combination. When we were looking at homes, we had specific areas of town that we were interested in and we had a pre-approved mortgage for a certain sum of money so we knew, exactly, what we could spend. I suppose if money isn't an issue for you, you can get whichever location you want. We love where we live. The neighbourhood is about 60 years old and is right on the edge of the downtown core so it's like being in the suburbs and in the city at the same time. We're central to everything. Luckily for us, it's a working class neighbourhood so everyone looks after their homes and there is a relatively small percentage of "yuppies" around. It's mostly couples like us or retired folks.

5. What features does your dream house have (pool, spa bath, big yard, etc.)?

We have a lovely huge yard but, if I could build my dream home, it would be in a rural area (but on city water, with high speed internet access) and have a gym, garage, pool, spa, huge kitchen and gigantic master bedroom. Having said that, I wouldn't want to actually clean a house that big so I'm happy to stay where we are and made modifications as we can afford them.