Status Report: October

Well, it has been a good while since I reported anything about the house.  I have to say that it is a little intentional.  It’s been a hard summer.  Chas and I spent the majority of it with family and friends, while Nathan worked on the house.

He got a lot done, of course, without, uh, distractions (ie, me & Chas).  However, we’ve been back together for a while and as you would expect, progress has slowed.  Life keeps getting in the way, the yard needs mowed, the camper (where we are currently staying) needs to be worked on, friends invite us over, the yard needs mowed again!

That isn’t to say that nothing is getting done.  I’m happy to report that we are almost done with deconstruction.  It seems like I’ve been saying that for a few weeks now, but it’s really true.  All the drywall has been removed and now Nathan just has to clear out the living room and rip up the floor.

Then the good part begins:  CONSTRUCTION! (after a visit from the Orkin man – my personal hero)

I’ve been assured by many that this part will go much quicker.  I hope so because deconstruction has almost broken me.  I knew this was going to be a LONG term project.  It is a marathon and not a sprint, but considering I have trouble with a 5K, I’m a bit impatient. 

Every time we push back a deadline or something gets in the way, I want to scream and stomp and throw a tantrum that would make your threenager look like an angel straight from heaven.  I have to stop myself and realize that this is just a season.  Each time I am convinced that we will live in a 30-ft camper for the rest of our lives and I have to renew my mind.

Right now, we are hoping to winter over in the camper.  The roof will hopefully be done by winter and we will actually move into our house in spring.  If all goes to plan, we may actually be done by our projected date of 31 Dec 2016.  This is our plan, our hope, and our prayer.

As for right now, I’m trying to lean into the discomfort.  I am trying to realize that things could be worse.  I’m trying to remember that the suffering makes the joy that much sweeter.  And above all, I’m trying to do all of it to His glory, since that is what it’s all about anyway.

Friday Favorites

5 Good Things about Living in a Camper

It’s been a while since I wrote a Friday Five/Friday Favorites (Life, man!), so I thought I’d couple a few things together with this entry.  Whenever our son is being especially negative, I make him stop and list 3 positive things.  If he’s negative about a situation, he has to list 3 things that he’s thankful for.  If he’s negative about a person, he has to list 3 positive things about that person.  You get the idea.

Well, lately I have been VERY negative about a lot.  Including, but not limited to, our living situation.  Specifically the wonderful, blessed camper that we are living in (it was loaned to us free of charge by a friend for as long as we need – blessed!).  So, I figured that I would list 5 positives for living in this transient way.

1. A smaller home means a smaller area to clean.  Seriously, it takes about 2 minutes to “clean up” the kitchen.  Smaller counter space means less to wipe down.  Not to mention that there’s only one spot of carpet that I have to worry about!  Less cleaning makes me a happy camper!  (Haha! See what I did thar?)

2. No rent.  A lot of people have questioned why we’d move out of a perfectly nice apartment before the house was done.  Well, it makes no sense to me why we’d continue to pay to rent an apartment when we have a home.  Less money out means more money to go to the renovation.

3. Transient lifestyle.  This one is a bit harder to define, especially if you’ve never lived this kind of crazy life.  Whereas the nomadic/transient life can cause a fair amount of stress, there’s also something really freeing about just living.  So there’s really no place to store my yarn so it just sits in the floor?  Okay.  Chas sleeps on the pullout, so he has to keep all his stuff piled neatly in the living area?  No problem.  Once you realize that you can’t completely organize/control this situation into submission, there’s a bit of freedom.

4. You think more about what you buy (groceries).  I love food and I love to cook and I also love to grocery shop.  I love the colors and the fresh produce.  I like talking to the butcher and finding out new things and recipes.  It’s just fun.  However, with limited pantry and refrigerator space and limited cooking tools, I have to think more conservatively before I buy.

5. Our homestead.  If we were still renting a place, I wouldn’t get the opportunity to live out here on our land.  And it is beautiful!  I really do love it.  It’s quiet and peaceful.  It’s so amazing to watch the sun set over the rolling, green hills.  It’s pretty cool to walk over and grab a chestnut off the tree and crack it and eat it.  It’s even fun to watch the squirrels and birds and, even, the wooly aphids roam about.  I can’t imagine being anywhere else.  Especially today as I drove home from town and saw the leaves changing and the sun setting.  

Deconstruction is hard...

As I sit comfortably in a nice, cool living room in a beautiful, fully finished home, I do feel a little guilty.  As I posted just a little while ago, we are in the midst of restoring our very own little farmhouse (with lots of 'potential').  Right now we are smack in the middle of the deconstruction phase.  And let me tell you there is a lot to demo.

Yet, as I sit here in comfort and blessedly using the wifi, the Hubs is currently 'roughing it' by living in the house while tearing it apart.  He's got his tent and a little kitchen area set up in the living room (we won't get into the bathroom situation, but he does have a solar shower).  He doesn't mind at all.  He even kind of enjoys it.  That helps mitigate my guilt (I'm house-sitting for friends while he roughs it and Chas is at Singing School).

Today, I went out to visit and help where I could.  As I looked around, I was terrified (and not just because of the bugs buzzing around outside).  I couldn't help but think of all that the Hubs was tearing up and how awful it all looked.  I knew that this was going to be a lot of work and that gutting a house was never pretty.  But this looked worse that I had imagined.

This is the kitchen.

I knew there was a lot of work to be done and a lot that had to be torn away (eventually, the entire kitchen is going to be completely removed from the house and redone).  Knowing was one thing, seeing it in progress was something completely different.

The is room was formerly known as the bathroom.

So, I had my freakout moment and the Hubs sat me down and began talking to me.  I wasn't hysterical, but I was kind of having a meltdown like a 2-year old.  He asked why I was upset.  I told him that it just seemed like house was in a horrible state and that it was never going to get done.  Things were so much worse than we had thought and planned.  We'd never get done and never be in budget (told ya I had a flair for the dramatic).

Random detritus in current bedroom #2 (eventually to become pantry & utility room)

As I unloaded, the Hubs just smiled and told me that this wasn't near as bad as it looked.  Yes, there was a large mess (the dumpster was just unloaded, so we can get this cleaned up a bit!), and things looked worse, but that was just one step of the process.  And it is a very hard step.  You see, since the entire house isn't a lost cause, we have to strategically remove the rotten and damaged parts, not just destroy the entire structure.  But once that is done, we'll rebuild and repair the damaged areas and building always goes faster than deconstructing.

I have reflected on that this afternoon.  It makes a lot of sense and I understand why it's the case.  But does this just work for houses?  Isn't it hard for us to strategically cut out the rotten or diseased portions of our life?  Doesn't it look messy and seem like nothing good will ever come from it?  But how wonderful is the rebuilding stage!  It's amazing how once the damaged parts are removed and we allow God's Holy Spirit to come in and fill those spots and begin that work of remaking us, things begin to take shape again.

I know that we have a long road ahead of us.  It may not be pleasant and it will be hard.  However, I have to remember not to just focus on the mess that's before me, but to look at the entire picture.  I think I need to do this in all areas of my life, as well.  It's easy to focus on what's being removed and not focus on what is being built  That's why we must keep our eye on the prize that is set before us and encourage one another so that when one is struggling, there are others there to help carry the burden.

Take Two...

I posted a looong time ago that we bought a little piece of land, 2 acres, and that we were planning on building our dream home/homestead there. Fast forward two years and things have not gone as planned. Some for the better, some not so much. 

However, God has blessed us and now we are the owners of a new place, 5 acres and our very own little farmhouse (built in 1905!). 

The pic is a little dark and the house quite obviously need some love, but isn't it darling?!  

I have to say that almost everyone I've shown pics to says the same thing, "It has so much potential." 😀 

I haven't let that get me down too much. However, there's been plenty to get down about. Things thus far haven't gone, shall we say, smoothly? 

We knew this was a fixer upper and we had a pretty solid plan before we'd even closed, but man, it has been a consistent struggle since Day 1. I know that this is a journey and I need to just relax and see what God is going to do. Because I know it will be glorious. 

It will be a lesson in faith and trust (two areas where I need major help). It will also be an adventure, right? 

Land, ho!!

Oh, where to start!!  I think I'll take a cue from one of my favorite singing (almost) nuns, Maria von Trapp and start at the very beginning, after all, it's a very good place to start.

A couple years ago, God gave the Hubs and I a couple clear directives.  One of those was to move to Middle Tennessee.  It was kind of odd, since the Hubs was on active duty at the time and since we owned land in Missouri where we'd always hoped to retire.  But, we listened.  It took a while, but we made it to Middle Tennessee, still a little unsure.

We knew that we needed to sell the land in Missouri and get some land in Tennessee, but we weren't entirely sure how we were going to go about this.  You see our place in MO, had earned a pretty funny nickname: The Barn of Many Wonders.  We had acquired quite a mass of things and not just little things here and there, but some rather LARGE things.  Like cars, car parts, furniture, and a '47 2 ton truck.  In other words, the contents wouldn't really fit in a Uhaul.  Still, we knew what we had to do.

So we did it.  It worked out great, really.  This past summer (2013), the house we were renting sold.  It kinda freaked us out at first, but we started looking for places to rent.  We found one, but it wouldn't be ready for a month or so, so we decided to got to Missouri and stay with my fam.  While there, the Hubs could go over to our land and start clearing out the junk and liquidating the rest.  When he wasn't in SWMO (Southwest Missouri), he built a bathroom for my parents, but that's another post entirely.

So, with the barn empty (mostly), we listed the land and waited.  We were blessed because it really didn't take long.  I'm not sure the exact date we listed, but we moved into our new place at the end of August/beginning of September and we closed on the land at the end of October.  It was awesome and scary all at the same time.  We'd completed our first phase, but now we were without land.  For the Hubs, it was the first time in his life that he'd been without land.

The TN land search was underway.  We searched, high and low.  All over middle TN, and let me tell you, that is a large area.  It took a while, a lot of help from our real estate agent (a blessed man!), and a LOT of work from the Hubs, but we finally found our place and closed last week (3 Jan 14)!

So, what now?  Well, a lot of work to begin with.  This particular piece of land has been severely mistreated.  It's going to take a bit to get it taken care of properly.  After that, we'll begin our home.  We've already been drawing up plans for homes and I've been pinning like mad.  I have no idea when we'll actually break ground or even be finished, but I cannot wait.

The other big part of our plan isn't quite as easily named.  We want chickens and a garden and to be as 'green' as possible (even though, I detest that term) and be somewhat sustainable.  I don't really like the term homestead and farm isn't acurate and we're definitely not 'preppers.'  The best term I've heard used is 'farmette,' but I think that is just because it's a fun word and a little bit girly.  (Kinda like the time the Hubs and I laughed and refered to him as Quasi-Clergy, just because it was a funny word). I don't like to label it and I don't think I identify with any of those groups either.  I do like to read from each of those areas and I think we'll incorporate several of those ideas, but not the entirety.  

In any event, we are heading in a new area and as scary as it is, I'm really excited.  I know that it is a huge undertaking and we really do have quite a road ahead.  I hope to detail it here.  I really want to have some sort of log of our journey and progress.  First up will be some pics, but I'm telling ya, it is not in a good condition right now.