Tuesday Coffee Chat

What journey do you most want to take? It can be a geographical place, an emotional or spiritual quest, or even a creative pursuit.

I received a comment this morning from a long-time blog follower I didn't even know I had. She told me that she has followed me for years, that she is from our previous city of residence, that she would often see me at the school and various other places, and how much she has enjoyed the realism of my blog all these years.

I was touched! I also wish she would have introduced herself so that we could have possibly been friends.

But that got me thinking about the journey we took to get where we are now. In August, we will have lived here in our little home in Missouri for four years. I started looking back at blog posts from about the time of our move. We were getting ready to have a presidential election. And here we are again. Some of the reasons we downsized and moved to small town Missouri was because of the likely results of the election. We wanted to hunker down in a safe and simple place and raise our kids with a simple and healthy need versus want mentality. Our premonitions came true as to what our country would be like this year at the end of that administration. And now we embark on the possibility of another 8 years on the same downhill track. Boy am I thankful we are where we are. I feel safe.

I was looking at the before and after photos of just the outside of our house. I thought I would share.

I felt like we were moving into a summer camp cabin.

A little more cottage than cabin.

And we're not done yet. There is always something to be modified in a home that is two years shy of being 100 years old. And even in looking at this most recent photo I see that I really want that dangling branch cut down!

But, dang, I am pretty darn happy and content here.

The journey to contentment is not an easy journey, especially when you have lived many years in the middle of the "Keeping up with the Joneses Show". I hated that show. Sometimes you have to just yank the bandaid off and make that big change. It's certainly easier for some than others. But I think the journey has been a positive one overall.

So where do we go from here. Are we here for good?

Never say never and don't ever say absolutely. You just never know where life is going to take you. Four years ago I certainly didn't believe that we would be packing up everything we could fit in this little house and moving within three weeks.

My ultimate dream would be to move out into the country on a little plot of land into an old farmhouse (or even a newly built one that looks like an old farmhouse) with a small barn, a pond, a garden, chickens, an old horse, and a teacup piggie with lots of room to roam.

This is a journey we talk about with our kids because Collin and Kyndal share the same dream and would even like for us all to move onto the same piece of property. It's something we have begun to discuss a little more seriously and to tentatively make future plans to accomplish. I'm not sure the journey would be as dramatic a one for me as it would be for Rick. He is a big city boy who has not yet even gotten used to living part-time in a small town. But I think the seclusion from the craziness of the world, even a small town world, and the freedom to do as we please, would cater to his needs of controlling his environment. Plus we'd be all set if the world shut down or the zombie apocolypse arrived. I just want to be able to sit on my porch swing with a cup of coffee (or a glass of wine) watching my grandson play with the dogs while the chickens peck the ground. It seems like a pretty nice way to live out the last half of my life.

I've got our compass set in that direction.