Quaternary: The Truth Comes Out
OK, here it is.
A little background: Kevin and I met and married in Moab, Utah. Land is very expensive there, and it is exceedingly difficult to grow anything but sage (heavenly aroma) and prickly things. We have both wanted a piece of land to homestead for years. I was pregnant. His parents had a converted carriage house on their property that we could live in for free. So we moved to Missouri and got crappy jobs that didn't pay very much because we didn't need very much.
We toyed with the idea of long-term carriage house living, or building a house on the in-laws' ample acreage, but decided the on-the-edge-of-town location and the proximity to parents just didn't cut it. We bought--with some help from a parental loan--18 acres in the country outside of a teeny rural community, about 40 miles from Columbia, MO and 100 miles from Kansas City.
Now this is a sweet piece of land. Imagine a piece of paper. Grab it on the long sides with your fingers and catch one of the short sides with your thumbs. Bend it so it forms a mellow U/bowl-shape with one short end higher than the other. That is how the land lays--high on three sides, sloping down to the fourth. Dam that fourth side, and you have a 1-2 acre lake. There are three nice size groves along with a small stand of large oaks that didn't want other oaks in their "bubble." The rest of the land is pasture grass. One of the long sides of the land--the one closest to the dirt road--slopes south, creating a perfect passive-solar home site and garden site. Our house is bordered by roads on the north and east sides, a neighbor's pasture land on the south, and a neighbor's woodland on the west. We can see one house, but it's way up on the southeast corner and, once we plant an orchard, we'll only see them in the winter. Still, there's no need for curtains. It's quiet. There are a lot of stars.
Our vision is simple: we want to build an off-the-grid home that is actually connected to the electric grid (if the cost isn't too high) so that we have the option of selling electricity to the power plant that we generate from the sun. We want to grow as much of our own, organic food as possible and sell the excess at farmer's markets or to restaurants/enlightened grocery stores. We want to spend as much time working at home as possible--hopefully all of it--and work for ourselves. We want to further the cause of local economies and build community. We want our kids to run around like Huck Finns--exploring, fishing, raising animals, tracking mud indoors--instead of sitting in front of the idiot box or rushing to the mall for $80 jeans. I want more time to quilt and read. Kevin wants more time to turn wood and write.
Ask yourselves, dear readers--what do YOU want from life? Are you doing what you really want to do? Do you lament spending 8-9 hours a day away from your kids/partner/online poker? Do you hate living in debt, even if it's "acceptable" debt such as a mortgage or student loan? Do you ever pull a Betty Friedan and look around and say "Is this all?" Do you realize that you will die one day and think Holy Shit! If I get to my deathbed after XX years doing this, I'm going to be pretty pissed at myself!
I do.
When I got laid off of my Missouri teaching job, Kev and I decided to make a change. We would move to Ohio, get good jobs (my big plan was to make a fortune selling pre-need funeral plans), buy a house and sell it for a profit, and use all the money we made to build our dream house at Hot Waffles.
"Hot Waffles" is the Stevie-coined name of our future farm. That's right. Hot Waffles.
To make a long story short, our Ohio plans aren't working out according to plan. My funeral sales job was a disaster that put us further in the hole. My job here is "nice" and pays pretty well, but read the deathbed paragraph and you will understand how I feel about its long-term potential. In short--and I'll get into details another time--our incomes have expanded but so has our spending. We're not saving anything (outside of my 401K), we're not going to make much of a profit, if any, off of our house, and we're not paying down our debt quickly enough. We figured on staying here another 3-5 years, but . . . why?
We've made a decision. We've fully examined all of our options. And we're heading back to Missouri, ASAP.
I have decided to share all of the sordid details--how much we owe, how much we need, the results of our research on just how in the hell we're going to pull this off, how much I'll miss my friends and family. Some of you might be curious about the details--I know I am. I know that I've often been frustrated by the rosy, detail-free articles about people who flee the city for a "simpler" life, but it always seems like they were investment bankers earning high six figures--someone who had made enough money to retire early, so la tee da--big deal! How hard is it to build an awesome house in the country and sit around on the porch all day when you have half a mil in the bank??
Kevin and I are not in that group. We shant be retiring early. We are making the decision to remove ourselves from a lifestyle that we can afford and consciously make less money in order to have more time to do what we've always wanted to do. And it's kinda scary! As I said to Kevin last night, if we do this, we have to commit to it. I don't want to get out there and work two crappy full-time jobs and get in the same trap that we are in here. It's a real change.
Don't despair my Japanese Friends (and mother)! We'll be here at least another year. It's scary to lay it all out here like this because it's a big life decision and . . . what if something changes? What if we fail? Then I'll look a big idiot and they're all gonna laugh at me!
Oooo . . . the drama. That's some good bloggin' material, right there.
A little background: Kevin and I met and married in Moab, Utah. Land is very expensive there, and it is exceedingly difficult to grow anything but sage (heavenly aroma) and prickly things. We have both wanted a piece of land to homestead for years. I was pregnant. His parents had a converted carriage house on their property that we could live in for free. So we moved to Missouri and got crappy jobs that didn't pay very much because we didn't need very much.
We toyed with the idea of long-term carriage house living, or building a house on the in-laws' ample acreage, but decided the on-the-edge-of-town location and the proximity to parents just didn't cut it. We bought--with some help from a parental loan--18 acres in the country outside of a teeny rural community, about 40 miles from Columbia, MO and 100 miles from Kansas City.
Now this is a sweet piece of land. Imagine a piece of paper. Grab it on the long sides with your fingers and catch one of the short sides with your thumbs. Bend it so it forms a mellow U/bowl-shape with one short end higher than the other. That is how the land lays--high on three sides, sloping down to the fourth. Dam that fourth side, and you have a 1-2 acre lake. There are three nice size groves along with a small stand of large oaks that didn't want other oaks in their "bubble." The rest of the land is pasture grass. One of the long sides of the land--the one closest to the dirt road--slopes south, creating a perfect passive-solar home site and garden site. Our house is bordered by roads on the north and east sides, a neighbor's pasture land on the south, and a neighbor's woodland on the west. We can see one house, but it's way up on the southeast corner and, once we plant an orchard, we'll only see them in the winter. Still, there's no need for curtains. It's quiet. There are a lot of stars.
Our vision is simple: we want to build an off-the-grid home that is actually connected to the electric grid (if the cost isn't too high) so that we have the option of selling electricity to the power plant that we generate from the sun. We want to grow as much of our own, organic food as possible and sell the excess at farmer's markets or to restaurants/enlightened grocery stores. We want to spend as much time working at home as possible--hopefully all of it--and work for ourselves. We want to further the cause of local economies and build community. We want our kids to run around like Huck Finns--exploring, fishing, raising animals, tracking mud indoors--instead of sitting in front of the idiot box or rushing to the mall for $80 jeans. I want more time to quilt and read. Kevin wants more time to turn wood and write.
Ask yourselves, dear readers--what do YOU want from life? Are you doing what you really want to do? Do you lament spending 8-9 hours a day away from your kids/partner/online poker? Do you hate living in debt, even if it's "acceptable" debt such as a mortgage or student loan? Do you ever pull a Betty Friedan and look around and say "Is this all?" Do you realize that you will die one day and think Holy Shit! If I get to my deathbed after XX years doing this, I'm going to be pretty pissed at myself!
I do.
When I got laid off of my Missouri teaching job, Kev and I decided to make a change. We would move to Ohio, get good jobs (my big plan was to make a fortune selling pre-need funeral plans), buy a house and sell it for a profit, and use all the money we made to build our dream house at Hot Waffles.
"Hot Waffles" is the Stevie-coined name of our future farm. That's right. Hot Waffles.
To make a long story short, our Ohio plans aren't working out according to plan. My funeral sales job was a disaster that put us further in the hole. My job here is "nice" and pays pretty well, but read the deathbed paragraph and you will understand how I feel about its long-term potential. In short--and I'll get into details another time--our incomes have expanded but so has our spending. We're not saving anything (outside of my 401K), we're not going to make much of a profit, if any, off of our house, and we're not paying down our debt quickly enough. We figured on staying here another 3-5 years, but . . . why?
We've made a decision. We've fully examined all of our options. And we're heading back to Missouri, ASAP.
I have decided to share all of the sordid details--how much we owe, how much we need, the results of our research on just how in the hell we're going to pull this off, how much I'll miss my friends and family. Some of you might be curious about the details--I know I am. I know that I've often been frustrated by the rosy, detail-free articles about people who flee the city for a "simpler" life, but it always seems like they were investment bankers earning high six figures--someone who had made enough money to retire early, so la tee da--big deal! How hard is it to build an awesome house in the country and sit around on the porch all day when you have half a mil in the bank??
Kevin and I are not in that group. We shant be retiring early. We are making the decision to remove ourselves from a lifestyle that we can afford and consciously make less money in order to have more time to do what we've always wanted to do. And it's kinda scary! As I said to Kevin last night, if we do this, we have to commit to it. I don't want to get out there and work two crappy full-time jobs and get in the same trap that we are in here. It's a real change.
Don't despair my Japanese Friends (and mother)! We'll be here at least another year. It's scary to lay it all out here like this because it's a big life decision and . . . what if something changes? What if we fail? Then I'll look a big idiot and they're all gonna laugh at me!
Oooo . . . the drama. That's some good bloggin' material, right there.
posted by lulu | 11:47 AM
3 Comments:
Lulu:
It's a race, my dear.
I wish you the best wherever you end up.
Spec
Very well.
Happily (for my selfish self) you won't be leaving tomorrow and I already knew some of these plans.
I have plans of my own . . . for you, Kev., and Stevie.
The 4square should collect enough money to buy you a water-driven/solar-powered/crack-powered? generator and a minimal laptop so you can continue to blog back to us.
Of course, you would have to rename the blog "Hot Waffles" but we'd all understand.
Well - there go all my plans for a semi-communal chicken and llama ranch, and adjoining School of Hard Knox, smack dab in the middle of our dear, delivered Swing State. No utopian community, no friendly free-range livestock for eggs and wool, no rock and roll tai chi hoe-down out in the barn on Saturday nights. That's okay, I'll get over it.
Your land and vision in Missouri sound perfect. Your life and prospects here are - less than perfect. It's cool to be included in your expanding circle, and it will be fun to see your continuing adventure unfold. Let's enjoy the next year to the max!
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