[photo of rain and fog covering the mountain]

If I thought I had developed patience before, I was celebrating before really knowing true patience.  

Preparing to sell a home (remodeling a bit), selling it, moving in with out-of-state family and living with them while looking for a new home to buy, going through the buying process (rescheduled 3 times), and now trying to get construction companies in within a dry weather window… it’s taking way longer than I imagined and it’s really been driving home the patience lessons.  

My husband warned me, if we go the route of buying raw land instead of one with a move-in-ready house, we are talking 1-2 years of extra time living with family, unable live on our land until it’s approved to live in by the county.  It would take that long, because we would be doing as much of it as possible by ourselves.  DIY!

Some suggested getting a small trailer and living on the land.  I liked that idea well enough to do it, but efforts to buy a small (affordable) trailer panned out about as well as trying to find land with a live-in-ready home on it: not at all!  We drove hours away to dealers and were told everything on the lot was sold out and waiting for pickup.  Plus, waiting lists for buying new was months long and out of budget anyway.  So we quit barking up that tree a while ago.  Besides, we still do not have a gravel driveway up to our intended house site.  Meaning, even if we had found a trailer, we would not yet be living in it on our land anyway.

It took 3-4 attempts at scheduling the property closing and we are currently headed for the same rescheduling ordeal on trying to get this driveway built.  

I may sound like I’m complaining, and I am a bit, but in reality, I understand all the delays.  They have each had their own solid reasoning and I do want things done right and not rushed, leaving gotchas for later.

And honestly, I do not mind living with my in-laws, they are truly kind people and never give us grief.  It’s a symbiotic situation, in that we do give them $ each month and they do need both that boost and the extra helping hands around the house.  After all, helping them out is one of the #1 reasons why we moved to this area.  Living with them for now is a blessing for us all.

I just miss my stuff, you know???  Nearly all my earthly belongings, are in storage, packed in so tight they are effectually inaccessible.  We now have a growing collection of things we own double of. haha  This includes some of my winter wardrobe, because… when I packed to move from Ohio in April, I didn’t presume I’d still have my stuff in storage by winter.  I figured we would have bought and moved into a place by now.  That was not so.

Patience teaches a lot.  To me it teaches how to be okay in this moment when so much is not ideal, was not planned, and is not resolving any time soon.  We make the best of each day, and we have loved ones around us that support our dreams in very real and tangible ways.  I really couldn’t ask for more than that.  

In a year from now, hopefully, we will be moving in or moved in already.  But in the meantime, we get plenty of time to iron out the more specific details of the things we have in mind to do, to build, to take on, to dig into.  There is SO MUCH we want to do… there’s too much to ponder all at once.  With what’s up to bat right now, there’s not much left to think about regarding the driveway.  Everything is planned and thought out and on the schedule, even if the schedule keeps getting pushed back by the rainy weather.  We are focusing our ponderings elsewhere.  

Namely, where will the house actually sit?  We will “finish” the driveway to that exact location when we have the foundation put in place.  We had plans on where the house would sit, but we’ve revamped them at least a couple of times already, and are considering a 3rd position of the house.  Now my husband wants to see all those possible locations cleared, so we can see any boulders underneath (for sure a hindrance when trying to level a spot on the side of a mountain), etc.  And rain is keeping us away many days from that as well.

Patience is required.  Not having patience would mean higher stress.  I can’t really say that I have a lot of stress these days.  I know the world is up-side down in many ways and I am one of the ones on Facebook fighting the good fight to raise awareness of our freedoms slipping away, and that can be stressful at times.   But I have come to be at peace within the chaos.  If you were to read my fb daily, the perception might feel otherwise, but perceptions don’t represent full truth.  The truth is, I am happy.  I am living life to the best of my ability and I am pursuing dreams that are literally unfolding as fast as I can recognize them before me.  This is feels amazing.

My husband and I were talking last night and it occurred to me that the property we purchased had literally been on the market before we put my house on the market.  It had 4 saves on Zillow.  Four!  And two of those were my husband and I’s.  So there were two other saves and the property was on the market for over 14 months!  In this crazy seller’s market, it had not generated much interest.  How is it that it was left for us to discover and bargain the seller lower in a market like this?  Miraculous I tell you!  It was like it was waiting just for us!  And I believe that is true. I believe we literally create our thoughts and dreams in time.  And this particular dream has been set into a nice unfoldment that feel natural and timely. I thank the Universe every day for the gifts it provides us.

So things are going well, very well.  Patience may be needed at times, but over all it feels like this great big long unfolding from one detail to the next, and that is very exciting to me.  I want to say “I can’t wait to be living there”, but I can, and I will.  Time goes so fast anyway, so before we know it, it will be move in time and we will be dealing with a whole new set of projects before us: chicken coup, sheds and more runs to donate household items as we unpack the storage units.