We’re Moving! (I Think…)

Our little cabin has been home for three years now, and we have made so many good memories in this place. Our two youngest children were born here, and the last three years have been a growing, stretching time as we learned how to live off grid, and worked on finishing the cabin and clearing land.

We’ve gotten to know a lot of neighbors, and Andy especially has formed many friendships with the guys on our road. But it’s been hard to live so far from church family.

It all came to a head this past spring during quarantine when everything was shut down and we didn’t see friends for weeks. I was struggling with postpartum depression over that time, and just felt very cut off and lonely. It has been good to reach out, to help out our neighbors and talk about Jesus with them, and yet when we were struggling there was no one close by to reach back and be a support for us.

We drive almost an hour to church, and most of the church people either live close to church or beyond it the other direction. It makes it really hard to see church family other than Sunday mornings.

After a hard spring, and a lot of prayer, we decided to try to move closer to church, and we bought a 6 acre parcel last summer 40 minutes up the road.

We spent the fall finishing up some last touches on our cabin, and our place officially got listed on the market last Tuesday.

We had 3 people interested the first day.

At least one offer is in the making, but it’s amazing how long the paperwork for an offer takes. We’re waiting to hear back from our realtor that it’s for sure.

We showed the place to a young couple last Thursday and they really liked it but also knew a better offer than they could do was already on the table. The realtor who came with them said we should start packing. She said there is nothing like this on the market right now – a working homestead with multiple acres. 

Suddenly we needed to find a place to live, so we looked at some houses on the market, thinking perhaps we could just buy a house instead of building. Last Thursday afternoon we went and looked at a house. I was excited about the thought of just buying something, and from the pictures it looked really nice.

It wasn’t. It wasn’t laid out well and would have required quite a bit of remodeling to fit our needs. Also, the downstairs looked very much like they had DIYed everything, learning as they went. The trim didn’t match up, and the gaps were filled in with gobs of caulk.

All of these things could have been fixed or overcome, but the house sat a lot closer to the road than I was comfortable with, and it had neighborhood covenants in place with rules like, no more than two dogs per family, no goats, no houses left unfinished for more than 2 years etc, etc. We have two goats and four dogs, and want to have more animals someday, so that was a deal breaker. 

I was disappointed that there wasn’t a simple direction ahead, but I was glad the decision was so obviously a no.

We also looked at a fixer upper house that we could possibly flip before building a new house, and although I see a lot of work that would need done, Andy sees a lot of potential. Right now we’re praying that God would make our path clear before us, and trying to decide between the fixer upper or trying to get at least a basement built on our land so we can move into that.

These things have taken up most of our time and waking thoughts. I’m finding I like to KNOW what is going to happen and plan for it, and this state of upheaval in our future is good for me. I’m learning to trust God more and give my worries to Him when they crowd my mind.