5 years

 We are nearly to the 5 year mark of owning the land, and just after that anniversary, we *should* be moving to it. We are coming right along in moving forward, damn all that fear and anxiety of the unknowns of that while also dealing with all of the regular Spring stuff like flooding in the low areas and invasive plants waking up. I have an appointment next week with my surgeon and I will be picking his brain at just how much physically I am allowed to do right now, and what kind of movements are okay.

Things are becoming a whirlwind, so Woodchuck and I again are dividing and conquering. There are some things that he is taking the lead on, some that I am, and then we meet in the middle. My friends must have all known that I needed a little cheer section recently and gave me some adorable gifts! A crocheted cotton hair bandana and a little moth stuffy for my car dashboard from one friend.

And this lovely card, infused with flower seeds, from another! You plant the whole card as one piece, or you can tear it apart into pieces and bury the pieces around! 

I was finally able to get back over to our sons house with Woodchuck to help him. Of course it was to help carry drywall, a large sheet where I had to lift that, limp from the garage to the house, walk backwards up a few stairs, and into the bathroom. But it was just that one sheet, and we did it! Woodchuck got the hole for the outlet slightly off and had to cut it larger. No biggie.

On one of the trips when I wasn't with him, Woodchuck found an old bottle in the wall, with some old razor blades. I plan on putting the bottle back in (the blades were not removed), along with a note of when the bathroom remodel was done! 

He also found a very worrisome bundle of wires! Was my grandfather the one that wired these lights up, because this looks like his work! Flashback story time: when I was growing up, we spent A LOT of time at our grandparents house. In the kitchen, the microwave was on a cabinet just to the left of the fridge. If you grabbed both handles at the same time, you got shocked. My brother told me to grab them one time and I said no and he told me that the wiring had been fixed. I was young, very young, early Elementary school young, and I believed him and got shocked. 😂 All of the wiring that Grandpa did inside and outside looked like this.

On our next trip out the land, we started to see with different eyes. Getting closer to living out there, now bumped up in the timeline, makes it to where we can REALLY start envisioning it done. I believe in manifestation, whether it be intentional or unknowingly done. So we always look at the spot where the house will go and talk about where the porches and doors will line up to.

I am on my own on this trip out! Woodchuck needs to finish fixing the turn signal situation on the truck, and then he wants to change the oil in my car since I've overdue. So I came prepared with my phone for picture taking, and a couple of books. With how crazy the previous several days have been, I could use a bit of rest and nature! The day was warm-ish, but at this time of day (later afternoon), I am a bit chilled. 

On my way by, I checked the slumping edge of the pond and found more holes starting. I'm tired of fixating on this stuff, and am giving myself permission to walk away in this moment and get some peace.

This tends to be the bench we use most. It gives us views of the watershed, the second forest at our back. Especially at this time of day, it is one of my favorite spots to feel closer to the sinking sun. I was hoping we would get great views of the sunset here, but the trees block it...and I'll take that. 😍 I brought two books because I was starting a new one, and in case I didn't like it, I brought a back up. 😂

The sun is starting to set and I haven't heard from Woodchuck yet, so I started to head back. I decided to see how bad the garlic mustard situation was going to be, and kind of wish that I hadn't! The seed bank can last for 10 years, and I am only half way there into eradicating it. I tried bending over, and picked enough to fill the gallon ziploc bag I had with me, but my hips were screaming the whole time. I will need to find another way to do my work this Spring!

I have been looking into this kind of tool, which seems like every company and their Grandpa has a version of it available!  I inquired in an invasive plant group about a tool that maybe some body else has found? They are well-meaning, but I am getting a lot of comments to ask the boys scouts, schools, neighbors, friends, grandkids (I don't have any), spouse, etc. Folks, there is a reason that I have been doing this alone for the last five years! I found those repeated suggestions stressful, actually, but I do understand they are well meaning, and don't have the time to read through all of the other comments to see that others brought it up and I already responded about it. There is a different brand that I think I am going to go with, but this is the kind of design.

While Woodchuck and the electrician properly wired up the boys bathroom, my friend (the electricians wife) and I went for a walk in a county park that I used to work at. The challenge of wearing my Smart Watch every day, and closing all of the rings every day, is working out well. But. I'm wondering if I am doing too much? My hips ache all of the time now, but seemed to have started after having an incident with the right hip that was fixed a few years ago. It's been a couple of weeks now since that incident and it still hurts. I have an appointment to see my surgeon next week and am hoping he can shed some light on the situation. I am averaging 4-5 miles every day, and at least 10,000 steps. Again, I wonder if I am overdoing it so close to surgery. I can become obsessed with things like weight and how my body looks, so I am trying to be really careful about this. I decided to weigh myself only once a week, and if I am still too hard on myself, or too obsessed, I go down to once a month. I actually forget to weigh myself this week, it's been so crazy busy!

That is one mighty big burl! There were smaller ones farther down the tree too. Look at all of that beautiful tree resin!

Some times I'll see animals in the water, but not today. I sure wish they would do something about the invasive plants! I have been walking past the same honeysuckles for nearly 9 years now! When I inquired about removing them myself, I was brushed off and told that someone else does it. But, um, actually they don't. I found out by working at the county parks that it's all a numbers game. It's about 

how many visitors come to the nature center every day that it's open, how many attend the programs offered, how the outside amenities are utilized. But I digress.

So we went from a beautiful, warmer day to right around freezing the next. Woodchuck wanted to walk on the land since he was busy working in the barn last time. It was windy, freezing, cloudy and, of course, as soon as we got the land, it started sprinkling. I absolutely don't care. I played out in it as a child, and I will play out in it as an adult!

The flood water continues to rise. It is up into the grass, heading to the shooting range area for my bow and arrow, and will only continue to wear away at the new bank created on the actual pond. This needs to be fixed ASAP.

The watershed is only a couple of inches from overflowing on this side too.

Maybe I knew it before and forgot, but this is goat willow. And it is not native. Adding that to the list to research. Sigh. I seem to remember asking about it once in a native/invasive group and someone said that they'd rather have the goat willow than no willow at all. 

We also found the spice berry bush, since I finally remembered last year to mark its location on the map we use while out there. This one, on the watershed, always has cocoons on it, but the one in the forest doesn't. I checked with a native plant group and if the bush in the forest had been smaller, I could have transplanted it. So it's just going to stay where it's at and nature can work her magick. I hope one day to see something emerge, but I need to research more when that happens.

I found this tiny nest that was probably dislodged in the high winds we keep having. I tucked it into a nook of a pink oak tree that was nearby.

Woodchuck found these galls!

Pretty much the only green thing out here is the path of clover and most invasives, lol.

                                        I did find one stinging nettle plant, which is native! 

I also found several more Oothecas.

So beautiful, and yet such a pain in the ass, lol. I get that it's not the fault of the pond! It wasn't done correctly by the previous owner (and we found out no permits were applied for the pond, or the ditches.) We took on someone else's lazy project and now we have to fix it, simple as that. Whomever gets the land after us will have a wonderful place that is, hopefully, fairly worry-free and fixed, lol.

We've started all processes of getting the new house situation rolling. We've signed all of the initial documents with the facility building the house, we've started the process of getting the construction loan, but Woodchuck is struggling with that and I need to step in tomorrow to help, and we went this past Monday to get the building permit. They changed the address, so that creates more footwork for us to get it changed with all of the agencies that had the first one. They deny ever issuing us the first address. Story of my life that I have to interact with people who make mistakes and not take ownership of that. I also thought we had 30 days from the time they send us the invoice to pay for the permit (I read that on their website, but maybe it was outdated information), but they sent the invoice last night, minus two porches that need to be on it (that will change what we pay), and said it was due the next day. I am not paying it until they have it with the two other porches. We had a whole conversation about that while at their office, and maybe I misunderstood her, or maybe she misunderstood me, but I want it resolved from the beginning so that I don't find out along the way that it wasn't done right and we get blamed for it and fined.

It's been that kind of stuff NON-STOP this year. Nearly every agency, organization, situation, has had us (mostly me, since I don't work outside of the home anymore), making calls, sending emails, providing document proof because someone didn't do their job right. The insurance company for my surgery because they denied coverage. I am due a refund from the hip brace company and have the proof that an extra payment was made and they keep telling me I paid what I owed. I was able to get on a payment plan for my surgery, but we had to pay for Woodchucks the morning of the surgery when he checked in. The IRS says we never filed taxes in 2020, and is charging us $5,000, but our tax preparer provided the proof that we did file. We always file! So on and so forth. It is exhausting and maddening. All while trying to do everything else in a day that we need to.

I am grateful that we can still keep up with all of this, but admit that it's getting harder. I am loving the process of purging the house of STUFF, because STUFF takes up too much time, energy, and is a distraction. I've always been a clutter person. My house is cleaning and picked up in the center, with clutter around the edges and on flat surfaces such as the kitchen table (which Woodchuck also clutters) and my desk. I have my hands in A LOT of pots. It is something I hope to get better at keeping under control in the new house, especially with less stuff. 

Today is all about working with the banking lender to get documents to her, get more housework done, continue to purge/pack/clean, and wait for the big storms to come in later this afternoon/evening.  Thanks for being on this journey with us!

And the verdict is.....

 Have you felt the ups and down too? The back forth? The yes and no? Sweet Jesus, what a ride the past 5 years have been. Yes! We have owned the land for that long now. Remember that 5 year plan I had? HA! But a decision has been made, and we've had a whirlwind past 5 days. Are you ready to hear all about it? Let's go!

We decided to go out for dinner the night before his surgery, and as usual we were disappointed with the food, the drink, and the cost. I can't even say we had fun, he was tired after working all day, and the drink and food only made that worse. I was tired too. It seems like we are always tired and we are ready for some fun and r and r. I had some Irish Whiskey Kahlua drink. I only drank half of it. I ate a few bites of my food and then brought the rest home and gave it my son to eat.

 Woodchuck's surgery went well! I had to have him there at 9:30 and unfortunately, it took them nearly an hour and a half to finally get him back into surgery. In the meantime, we had hurricane force winds that, of course, started knocking out the power as soon as they started his surgery. It was Friday the 13th, but honestly, Woodchuck comes with his own set of curses 😂 The surgery went quick and they were able to finish it before having to cancel all other surgeries scheduled for the day because the power kept going out. We were both very grateful for decent travel weather though since the surgery center was an hour away.

Thankfully I had enough time in the morning to throw an Irish stew with bison and good Irish stout in the crockpot. It smelled SO good when we got home! I got him settled in, I showered, then made the homemade dumplings. Unfortunately, he couldn't taste it because his nose was plugged with stents. So I told him I would make it again when he can smell and taste better. I also have to double the stew recipe because this wasn't nearly enough for the three of us and then to provide leftovers.

True to form, he made an appointment for us the following day in Nappanee to look at some home models. He really was feeling well enough for that appointment, but of course, right after he made the appointment, the original contractor we hired for the custom house called him and said he wanted to meet us at the land with the septic guy to stake out the house. All of this time we have been sitting here waiting, being told "two more weeks" for months on end. In fact, he told us LAST YEAR in the Fall that he would be there in a couple of weeks to stake it out. And he still doesn't have the blue prints. And he still didn't go to the county and register himself, or get permits, etc. We knew this appointment to see the model homes was going to be a make it or break it thing. So I drove us an hour East from home (plus they are an hour ahead of us), and we got right to it. Show us the home. If we like what we see, show us the numbers.

Was this doggie that was waiting in the car for its owner going to be our good luck sign?

We liked what we saw, but I was still a bit iffy on numbers. We could likely remedy that with letting go of some upgrades, but some we weren't going to budge on and I swear that everything we like in life is considered an upgrade and therefore, costs more money. 😂So we spent some time there going over everything, picking out options--which were few and far in between. About three options for every category, but honestly? That was a nice change of pace from the MONTHS and NUMEROUS trips we made to four or five different home improvement stores trying to find every single aspect of a house from the ground up that we liked. And what we liked that would ensure a quality house for long-term ended up being our undoing on the custom house idea.

When we got home, Woodchuck called the contractor and asked if we could get the cost of the home lower? We got the usual initial answer of "I don't know". Woodchuck told him that after crunching more numbers, getting the appraisal for this house, and after both of us having surgery within the first 3 months of this year and having deductibles and medical bills to pay, we see that we aren't going to be able to afford the custom home at the price point quoted. So we asked if we change our mind on supplies and go with less expensive options, can the final price of EVERYTHING for the home--including the septic, well, etc. be no more than $250,000? We got a "probably not" and a statement that he wants to build a quality home that is going to last us and that we are going to be happy with. I appreciate that, I really do, but if we can't afford to live in it, then we can't move forward with it. So we cut ties with him. We are still on the hook for the cost of the blue prints, and never received a quote about those, so I hope we don't get sticker shock, especially since we aren't going to use them. There has been a lot of wasted time and money along the way of these 5 years, but it's water under the bridge and I can't get hung up on that.

We took the following day to rest. The weather was crap, he has limitations right now, and my hips were killing me. I was glad to see that he napped on and off for most of the day. Yesterday was his post-op. Yep! Just a couple of days after surgery! They were able to cut the stitch and pull the stents out and he was able to breathe! It was another hour drive West for that appointment and the weather was brutal. Slick roads, with cars sliding off all over the place, and random snow squalls. We talked on the way home about the quote the home place in Nappanee had sent us, things we forgot to ask, and what were we feeling like was the right thing to do? The sale price of the home was only good through yesterday, so if we wanted that price, we needed to make the decision fast. 

We decided to drive back out there. Yes, an hour East on slick roads and in snow squalls, to make the final decisions. We took the deposit with us that we would need to pay to lock in the sale price. One of the things I mentioned on the drive was how, we as humans, remove the option for so much joy from our lives. Take the conditions we were driving in. There really was no "have to", we could have transferred the money to them electronically. There was no rushing, we were able to take our sweet time, even if it took two hours to get there. But for the most part, most of us "have to". You have to get up and travel in the Winter weather to work instead of going for a walk in it, or being able to sit by a window with a book and cup of hot tea and watch the beauty. I am so lucky to be able, for the most part, partake in the joy of each day now.

The weather followed us out there, but was on and off every place, all day. When we arrived to the business, it was wet outside, but sunny. Within moments, we were being pelted with ice pellets on high winds. The first order of business was to go back through the model home. The two windows on the far left would be the master bedroom, the two windows to the right of the door are the living room. Farther down the home there are two other windows, one for each bedroom. The stairs for any entry door are not included.

This is the kitchen in the model home. Though ours will look similar, there will be some differences, because again, nearly everything is an upgrade, lol. Our cabinets will be a different color (picture to follow), the counter tops will be a different color (initially I chose butcher block for the island until I saw the price and switched it back to Formica! 😵). I opted out of the "tiles" behind the stove, there will be a different microwave, which I won't even use anyway, so that's no big deal, and the stools are not included. The doorway to the left is one of two doors to the pantry. All appliances are Whirlpool, the European range hood is standard with the home design and it comes standard with a double basin stainless steel sink. The other side of the island has drawers and cabinets as well.

I had picked another counter top initially on Saturday. It reminded me of granite and the desert sandstone, but Woodchuck didn't like it--said it looked messy. After thinking about it, messes would not get seen on it and therefore not cleaned up by anyone else but me. So I went with this instead.

These are the cabinets. We didn't get hardware because I have some here that I purchased awhile back.

We had the option of carpet or linoleum flooring. It was the ONE thing that we could not agree on at our initial appointment on Saturday. We haven't had carpet in over 20 years due to allergies, and since I am the one that cleans, I know the downsides of having carpet. Dust collects under furniture and the only way to clean it, is to move the furniture. I LOVE being able to Swiffer underneath of things. The other thing is the cat throws up at least once a week, and the carpet would be ruined in no time. So we left it that he wanted carpet in the living room and bedrooms and linoleum would be in the rest of the house. After thinking on it though, he changed his mind to having all linoleum. It would be easier to clean, and if we ever wanted to change to something else, it could go right over it. Friends, I just dusted under our bed and I am SO glad that he changed his mind!

The siding very closely matches the original color we picked for the custom house. It's a bit more mossy green than this picture portrays.

We did not like the color options for metal roofing, so we went with shingle. I plan on bringing that back up to Woodchuck tonight to make sure that he is okay with that decision. I don't have to love the roof color, to be honest. If he feels like metal is the better option, I'm ok with that...though that will likely be a cost upgrade, lol. The singles are more brown than what they look like here, though they will vary from batch to batch.

I could give a rats ass about shutters, but eh, maybe it will provide habitat for the bats. The rep was a bit freaked out about that! Good thing it's me living in the house and not him! Bats are welcome on the property, just not inside of the house, lol. Sandstone will be the color those.

Since the house does not come with stairs or porches, we have to hire someone to do that. Woodchuck brought up doing them ourselves, but what was the rule, boys and girls? We don't do any of the work ourselves anymore! He said he wants to pay more upfront to go with cedar or redwood....we've had enough of pressure treated lumber over the years. I need to research a bit to see the pros and cons of each option. Have you had experience with either? I would love to hear your opinion and experiences! This diagram was on a poster in the office, so I snapped a shot of it. We were also standing out in the wind and ice getting measurements to decide how big of porches we wanted, lol.  

Speaking of, some of this may come back to bite us financially at the county office. We got the septic permit already....for a three bedroom, two bathroom home (2 bedrooms and one utility room), but this new home will be three bedrooms and two bathrooms, PLUS a utility room. So we will either have to put in for a new permit completely, or pay the difference for an amended one. We talked with the septic guy already and he said the system we were putting in anyway will work for this home as well. When we go next week to get the building permit, that only includes ONE porch. This house will need three. We have no idea the added cost for two more, and will need to come up with measurements before then (note to self, remind Woodchuck of that.)

So there you go! We are moving forward, just differently than we initially thought. I am daring to let myself feel a little excited without the fear of it all getting ripped out from under us or having it come crashing down financially. Because we are using the land as collateral, that prevents us from having to put 10% down like we were going to have to do initially. So many weights taken off of our shoulders.

The timeline gets bumped up though. This place will be ready in June/July, which means Woodchuck will have a much farther commute to work for awhile. The potholes in that county will break your tires and eat your car, so let's cross our fingers that that stuff will be fixed before he has to commute. But the cut in costs will make sure that we can ENJOY our retirement, have some fun, AND be able to continue fixing the pond and have a garden, etc. We also have the idea to build the shipping container into a kind of garden/potting shed. We will see if we can actually make that happen.

In the meantime, I have started really purging and organizing and packing since I have less of a timeline now to do it. Luckily we have the indoor rummage sale we are participating in at the beginning of April! That will help move things out of the house and get some cash. We still don't know if the youngest is moving with us or out on his own. He had appointments on Saturday to look at apartments and canceled them because he was running behind on other plans. That makes things a bit more sticky for me because I don't know yet if I will have one room that has to be a multi-purpose room, or if I have two rooms that can be utilized. That will get figured out. It feels good to be purging. Honestly, we have way too much stuff! 

I have one show that we signed up for in early June, so I am hoping that we will be able to stay with doing that. I could really use for the art that I have done to move into its forever homes. I will have to make hard decisions about supplies to let go of, just incase I don't have room at the new place. It's all good though...it was time to start living differently anyway. I hope that you are excited too! It feels good after five years to finally be able to take the next step!  😍