My husband and I bit the bullet and sold the house one year ago. The housing market was hot, hot, hot, and the house was essentially sold before it was listed. We felt a super momentum and had plenty of dreams as fuel. Suddenly we were in a whirlwind of excitement. We collected our payout and headed south, leaving my two grown kids to life as adults on their own. They were in good hands having good jobs and stable bearings. Such a blessing!

Landing a few states away, at my in-laws, was the short-term plan. We aimed to buy 5+ acres with a fixer-upper house and make a homestead out of it. Four months into our search, we had grown dismayed at the prospect of ever finding any such land close enough to my in-laws, who need frequent care these days, so we agreed a change in strategy was needed. We decided to look for raw land and build. Except, we would convert a shed into a small home instead of doing a traditional site-built home.

The search for land was more fruitful and we soon found the most amazing piece of land with all the items on our “must have” checklist: half way up a south-facing mountain, a natural water source, partly wooded, and in one one of two desired areas of the county (it ended up between both, perfect). Best of all it was only 40 minutes from my husband’s parents. There’s really nothing in this rural town that is much closer than that! Now the operation turned towards the shed home build.

We already had revamped our shed selection and floorplan several times by then. So we were fairly sure of what we wanted and set out to put our plans into action. The county had their rules and they needed us to hire an engineer to convert the non-habitable structure into a habitable one. No problem. We hired one and he got to work. After the plans were delivered we took them back to the county and inquired about the process to submit the construction permit. Their fee was calculated on the total estimated cost of the build, and so we needed to estimate all the materials and submit that with the application. This turned out to be our next stumbling block. My research into the materials costs discovered significant price increases due to post-Covid inflation. We now found ourselves priced out of our current building strategy. There’s this point in our budget where the self-build is less than buying with a mortgage, but more than cash on hand, not to mention builder skills. Of course we could drag out the time-frame so we can pay as we save, but that meant putting our in-laws out (continuing to live there) a minimum of an extra year, maybe two! At this point, we realized we were facing yet another major change in strategy. From land with home, to raw land and shed-build, to raw land and a mortgage on a double wide.

This was depressing to us. Our strategy all along was to remain debt free. But obstacles are the name of the game, and we were becoming adept at facing them and reframing our expectations to adjust to moving targets. It’s about this time that we began to see the positives in this type of “flow”.

Being in the flow, there is much said about learning to live like this, but when it happens on a major scale and for a long period of time, there is nothing left to do BUT ADAPT. This is the perspective we adopted. Consciously, every time we experienced a hiccup in the current plan, we discussed our quick reactions, to be authentic, but then quickly and deliberately set our feelings aside and just got quiet for a spell. This might be days, it might be weeks, but it needed to happen. During this period it let alternatives percolate to the surface. Like magic, some new information or idea would occur and we would adjust our sails and be on track towards that next best avenue. For us, this is being in the flow. And it is leading us towards the homesteading dream we have.

I could go on and on about all the obstacles that stood in our way, but we don’t any longer. We focus on our daily to-dos, and let life unfold the rest. We set our sails in our desired direction and navigate around the rough spots. There is no point in getting bent out of shape when something does not go the way we wanted. It will be what it will anyway, why spend a moment longer than necessary processing the grief of an obstacle encountered? No. Instead, we acknowledge our disappointment and simply get quiet to let the path forward reveal itself.

There is a great amount of trust in what’s not known, but yet to come, involved in our expectations. There has to be. That trust is filled with hopes and dreams and all things wonderful. It also contains the realism that things won’t go as planned. We plan, the universe unveils, and unanswered prayers are simply forks in the road that lead us towards the future where the universe would prefer we be. I would rather have what’s intended for me than what my limited mind can imagine. What the universe has in store for me has always  been far greater than what I COULD imagine for myself anyway!  I put my trust in that. 

So here’s to the path forward! Let it continue to unveil itself, all in due time, just as planned before we came to this world. And let the next great endeavor come to us, in kind. <3