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Hanging on the Edge

· posted 11/12/2008

Times are a’changin’. Some good things are coming to an end….and some new ones are on the horizon. It’s these transitional, ambivalent times that really try me. I’ve been told that I’m not really a pessimist nor an optimist, but more of a realist. Sometimes that’s not so much fun. I also tend to worry quite a bit. Worry is a hard habit to break. I really just need things to fall into place right now. I’m having to let go of one dream, while we work on achieving another and to get one back that’s been pushed to the side.

I’m mourning. I can’t even type the words. Yet.

It’s not our land. Besides a snag we are finagling with regarding the right-of-way for electricity and the lack of hearing back from the environmentalist on our perk test results, that seems to be still rolling forward. Time is ticking, though. We plan to break ground this weekend – provided it’s not frozen.

The last year and a half is a blur – looking back. There were so many good times, tough times, and so many learning times. There must be a transition to take, but I can’t find it.

Anyone want to buy a turn-key yarn/spinning shop?

…………………….:’(

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Legally Speaking

· posted 11/07/2008

It’s all contracts, applications, details, etc. around here. I’m trying to cover all of our bases and so far everything is going well. We’ve had a few glitches but nothing that we can’t overcome.

The perk test is ordered – should have been done Wednesday and we should hear something soon.

The electric the guys will be able to do themselves and then get cleared. That will save some money.

Our building site is within the 1,000 feet that the electric co-op will put up their line to bring power to us. Now all we have to do is obtain Right of Way from the person who owns the land across the road from us. It appears that may be our seller’s sister – that should help.

The water just needs the seller to remove from his name so we can put it in ours.

We do not need ANY building permits, nor do we have any zoning laws to worry about – how awesome is that?

We have the rough draft of the Land Contract, I’ve gone over it once, and I plan to review it one more time, and then send in the edits to our attorney so we can get that ironed out.

The seller will be in town this weekend and we plan to meet with him. If all goes as planned we will officially SEAL THE DEAL when he is here!

There are many more loose ends that I have tied up this week, but is there anything anyone else can think of that I might have overlooked?

This weekend I will be taking my second born to an orientation at her first choice college. I can hardly believe it. I’m still in denial that my son is in college. And now my first baby girl will be ready to go next year. Luckily she picked a school not too far away. She wants to do the college dorm life thing, but we will only be about an hour and a half away from her, should she ever need us.

So many changes going on….

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My version of NaKniSweMo 2008

· posted 11/05/2008

National Sweater Knitting Month (NaKniSweMo) is upon us again, coinciding with NaNoWriMo as usual. I am contemplating a new take on it – new to me anyway. Instead of casting on yet ANOTHER sweater, I’m going to estimate the number of stitches left to knit on the three main sweaters that I currently have on the needles. (Yes, there are more, two others are currently in hibernation) This would seem more productive to me than adding another to my loooooooong list of projects at this time. And besides, if I work on sweaters I could potentially control the weather and keep winter from coming on full force, at least until we have our cabin built and are moved onto our property.

Speaking of the property, we camped out on it this past weekend. Yes, camping in November is insane, it was COLD, but it was beautiful and we survived. We walked and GPS’ed both the power lines that we need right-of-way to pull power over from, as well as the entire border of our property. We hiked at least a mile, some of it through pretty bumpy terrain. But it was amazing. The stars that night were so crisp and bright. The sunset and sunrise were gorgeous. The air was so refreshing and clean. The night was so quiet – especially after midnight when I awoke to discover that even the crickets were sleeping at that time and ALL was peacefully quiet.

And one of the most exciting things…. we chose our building site! It’s very pretty, with one lone Oak tree right next to it, sort of at the edge of our open land, towards the middle. We love it!

Back to NaKniSweMo, I’ve figured out that I still have about 2,000 stitches left on the first sleeve and the whole 2,880 stitches left on the other sleeve of MnM’s Einstein cardigan.
And for Nicci’s sweater, I’m almost done with the yoke, so it just needs sleeves and the body. I’m estimating that the body will take approximately 30,000 stitches, and each sleeve somewhere around 8,000 stitches each. The total thus far puts me at around 50,000 stitches already, and I haven’t even begun to add up the stitches to finish MY sweater. (Fine by me, the addition started hurting my head any way). This is a real challenge, but I’m in need of one, to keep me focused. Speaking of which….. I’m off to knit on one of the sweaters!

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Contractual Perplexities

· posted 10/22/2008

Contracts, lawyers, utilities, floor plans, packing, storing - there are so many details we are swirling through working out. But it's all good. Even during dream time we experience mildly tumultuous times and it's all worth it. Our dream may not be among the common, but it's ours and it's unfolding.

On another note I am EVER so thankful right now for how MUCH better I feel this week post-allergy-injections than I did last week! Three day headaches that rank up near migraine level are NOT any kinds of fun. 'Short term pain for long term gain' may be one of my most famous quotes but the kind of pain I survived last week is of the likes that NObody should ever have to experience - ever!

I'm off tomorrow, so I have plans to knock out quite a bit around here. For now I'm going to get back to finishing our temporary 'living' room setup. And then I might sit, relax and knit just a little bit.

Suggestion for the day: please consider the true evil involved in going with the lesser of two evils.


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Our Land Adventure Begins

· posted 10/20/2008

While I am ever so excited to be reducing our excessive space (to heat, clean and just plain waste) and trade it in for the whole mind set behind living in a Little House on a Small Planet, it is quite an adventure figuring out the floor plan for our first phase of building. Taking a 5 bedroom, well over 2,000 sq. ft. home down into one that is a fraction of it’s size takes some planning. We started off with a yard sale this past weekend (UGH!) and I even went through every box in the attic. Most of the boxes were from our basement in the previous home and hadn’t been looked into in at least 5 years. It felt good to purge, organize and repack. What we have left over we will be delivering to a local Women’s shelter. Oh, the great lessons we are teaching our children, and it’s a great time/way to do so I think.

We should be finalizing the contract and getting starting with perc tests, foundations, fencing and so much more this week and on into the next month. We are in a bit of a hurry with winter coming on so quickly. The weather went from a late summer/early autumn type warmth (80’s for highs) last week to late autumn chill (barely into the 60’s for highs and toying with the 30’s for lows) here rather suddenly. It is time to knit sweaters and hats and scarves and mittens and socks, oh my!

Unfortunately there has been little knitting getting done around here. But I’m working on changing that around. It’s a wretched catch-22: I have less time for knitting when I need to be knitting the most (for my sanity).

I’m off to dream of open spaces, spectacular sunsets, garden fresh vegetables, amazingly bright star-filled skies and so much more. It’s been a long time coming….

I hope you are experiencing dreams coming true – even if they feel like little dreams. Life was meant to be blessed!

p.s. There will be pictures soon, I promise (myself).

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21 Beautiful Acres!

· posted 10/17/2008

After a grueling, nail-biting delay, our offer has been accepted!

*** Cartwheels ***

This good news is so timely I can’t even express it! So many other things in my life have been topsy turvey, to say the least.

Now to get through the next few days…. Homeschool co-op in the morning, and then work at the shop (pain has kept me away all week), so many lists & phone calls to make and then setting up for a yard sale – ugh! So then there is the yard sale to get through and then the packing and cleaning really kicks into full gear around here.

We have so much learning, preparing and planning to get ready to homestead our own land!!!!

P. S. This post is a test from a new iPhone application that I came across – if it works I should be posting here more often

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This Land is OUR Land?!?!

· posted 10/11/2008

I can hardly believe it. Is it just a dream or did we really negotiate a deal on some land? We have wanted this for YEARS!
It’s hard to sleep. I keep checking my email for the final acceptance.
Pinch.
OUCH!
There is so much to do! There are plans to make, packing to do, purging to happen and so much more.
So much is about to begin. I am so thankful.

We’ll finally live with our sheep!

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