Waking and the dream is real...

Wow. No wonder I'm so friggin' happy. So far, I've nailed almost all those little goals in that last post.

1. Curtains: 3 out of 4 windows, thanks to Hubs, and 4th will go up later today, because Mom and Meara are visiting from Charlotte.

2. Plants: falls under the "it's a start" category. We trucked the big aloe up here, and I began methodically trying to kill it the second we moved in. Left it outside, and we got snow the very first night. We kept it covered for like, 2 weeks while the temps fluctuated between 40s and 20s, and with a stretch of mild days coming up, I uncovered it yesterday. It doesn't look great, but I'm willing to bet it'll come around. If not, I'll remove the areas that have had it, and try to salvage what's there. It's a royal PITA plant, but it also has great medicinal qualities that I'll be studying now.

Mom J. got us a philodendron that's parked on our kitchen table for now. Once spring hits, I'll probably put it outside.

There's not enough room to start seeds yet, which is fine, given we're having sort-of winter here. I'm itching to buy a rake and hit that mulched area in front of our place, but remind myself that the ground might be half frozen, and it's OK to wait. I put the extra plastic shelves out in that area, and when it's time to start seeds, I'll begin them in the 2nd bedroom before hardening them off out there.

3. Cleaning once a week...so far, so good. This place is old, but everything inside is remodeled (reasonably new cabinet faces, new appliances, more room to move around in), so the urge to keep it clean is very much there. Today with family coming, we're hitting the floors and doing a quick dust...the test will come when we don't have family on the way.

4. Bookshelves, glorious bookshelves! We caved and purchased a couple of cases at Target. Filled them up in the living room last night, and effectively killed almost all the excess in the 2nd bedroom. In the throes of unpacking, I had set up a very utilitarian, but seriously tacky-looking area of books inside sideways-facing boxes in the 2nd bedroom. Got the job done, but looked heinous. We could easily use 2 more bookcases, probably...that will come in time.

Also on the furniture end was a bit of a gem...we were hemming and hawing over the concept of an entertainment center or TV stand. We had purchased some of those little media shelves, but wanted something more. Hit a local furniture place that's purging old inventory to revamp their business, and found a rather ancient entertainment center (the thing had metal rings on the bottom shelf suitable for storing vinyl records!) for $59!!!

There's not enough work, so I'll hit the job hunt seriously next week. Can tell Hubs is worried about that, us blinking and it's March and we're outta money and meds. No way I'm letting that happen. Love it here, so much!

Image from here.

Hello little farm!

I've made a big step toward you. We're moving to Asheville!

Actually, Weaverville...about 15 minutes north of Asheville, to a little apartment building on a main drag, about 5 miles from civilization to the west or the Blue Ridge Parkway to the east. A wonderful first step.

Since my farm dream is also about creating a home, I've been thinking about things that will change when we move:

• Our new apartment will have curtains.

This is a biggie. We have vertical blinds on the sliding glass doors here in Jax. They are one of the larger nuisances for keeping clean, keeping the cat out of, keeping the sun from coming through, etc., that I've ever encountered. Granted, we're saved from these plastic bastards by the fact that we don't have a porch at all, which will take some getting used to, but I'm still happy. As for our other windows in Jax, one is covered with a bed sheet and the other with a beach towel. Yes, I am in my 40s; why do you ask?

• There will be plants.

I have 2 ideas so far on this front. The first depends on the actual size of the kitchen/dining area...pretty sure I won't have the room, but a girl can dream. We have these ugly plastic shelves (that have been used in the past as bookcases, but I'm over it), and I want to put one up, either in the dining area or in the 2nd bedroom, and start my herb and vegetable container gardens. If that won't fly at all (or even if it will), I'm also thinking of building cold frames to place outside next to my apartment's front door (with locks to keep out neighbors and critters). What I find hilarious is that I was thinking of hunting for old pallets, like behind Walmart or something, and procuring some old windows from maybe a Habitat for Humanity ReStore to build said cold frames, and when I look up the idea online, I find this..... and I really don't understand American society sometimes.

• We will clean once a week.

This may sound gross, but when you've lived in an apartment as long as we have, and it wasn't new by any stretch to begin with, there comes a point where you just give up. We should have had new cabinets, carpet, and flooring put in long ago, but our complex isn't the greatest at keeping up with long-standing tenants. The pans under the electric eyes on our stove are past cleaning, the stove's been neglected, and the refrigerator leaks on a daily basis. I can't wait to have pride in my domicile again. With Les not smoking, it should be even easier.

• The bookshelf concept...

I'm pretty sure once we move in and get settled, we'll be as poor as church mice. I'm OK with this, but my lord, I don't want to keep my books in boxes anymore! They've been in and out of boxes for years now, in some form or another, whether it's the "well, I'm not reading them right now" wild hair or the "saving for when we have children" boxes....I'm over it! So instead of keeping them in boxes, I'm going to put them in.....boxes! Turned sideways, painted if need be to shield them from actually looking like what they are, stacked on top of one another as high as they'll let me...if this doesn't work, and the thrift stores don't yield anything feasible, we'll go the lumber and cinder block route or stack them.

SO happy to be able to dream like this and have it be within reach! One step at a time.....

Image from here.

A Spot of Pretty

I don't consider myself much of an "old lace" type of person. But when I saw this image on Tumblr today, my first thought was "farmhouse kitchen window".

Just thought you should know.

This dream ain't going noplace.

Image from here.

What Home Means

Getting the brass tacks from the fertility doc yesterday...my gods, it opened my eyes.

I want a house. I want more room and a place to sink my hands into the soil. I want a yard. I want to live further north, but I'm willing to continue to compromise, if it gets us closer to having a child.

What I do not want, is to start a family, have a child, in that apartment.

That means continuing to put the creation of said child on the back burner. It means saving to move and getting the hell out of our apartment. It means finding work where we want to live, and then finding other means of payment beyond that. I know freelancers don't make dick in this economy, so for me, it means selling my book. Editing it first and then sending it out.

It means learning to save. Stopping all frivolous spending. Downsizing our lives. Working our asses off.

I'm ready.

The New Year

Got to see a chicken up close on New Year's Eve. One of my knitting friends has a small flock. A bunch of us met for coffee and..., and she had to come straight from the avian vet, because one of her ladies is under the weather. We hung out, knitting and chatting, in a zen garden (in the middle of scary Springfield, of all places) with a chicken, a bunny, and a 5 year old darting amidst our feet. Good times. I was in awe of all three of those critters.

Another neat encounter over the holidays: went for a long walk around the inlaws' neighborhood with my niece. She stopped at a corner lot to look for the family's dog, because she knows every frickin' animal within a 2-mile radius, it appears. I looked further into their backyard and discovered that at the far end, they had a shed with a bunch of feathered ladies scratching around. Nice setup, clean looking. The old gentleman heard the dog barking, came out, chatted us up, and we went home with 2 fresh-from-the-backyard eggs, one brown shell, one blue. I was hooked; if I hadn't had K with me, I probably would have asked the guy politely if I could go back and check out his setup.

I'm finally ready to fill my brain with the information necessary to get my farm dreams started. I made it a New Year's resolution. It covers everything from simpler living skills to making things by hand to training dogs and livestock husbandry. This will be a year of buying books, creating a reference library to operate my homestead.

An interesting sidenote is that even though I just got a Kindle Fire for Christmas, I have no desire to download those books to it. I'm using it mainly for leisure and scholarly reading - the classics and fluff. For my farm, I want hardcover and softcover books that I can open and peruse. I just know I'll operate better with that style.

I'm reading what I have before I start buying. That will keep me busy for a while, as I own a fat Eliot Coleman that I found at Chamblin's and haven't cracked the cover of yet. Also, got one of Ashley English's books for xmas, and devoured Barnheart as soon as I unwrapped it. Reading that has me wanting to reread Jenna's other two, which I already own, so I'm set on material for a pinch. But I have my eye on the other 3 books by Ashley, some more Eliot Coleman, and will be researching good books regarding owning and training medium size dog breeds, owning and caring for sheep, and country living/homesteading. The Backyard Homestead and its accompanying Farm Animals guide look great too.

Finally FINALLY feels within my grasp...

Image from here.

Taking Stock

That's Sal from Jenna's farm, courtesy of 468 Photography. Doesn't he look chilled?

Today's Taking Stock is here, because I definitely have the farm on my mind. There's all kinds of thoughts tickling on my brain today.

The ink is barely dry on the new lease, and I'm angry. Angry at how very stuck we are, and how much that stuck-ness is of our own making. Yes, it's that much harder to save when you're only dealing with 1 income for 2 people, but telling myself that moving forward isn't realistic until we've done A, B, and C...when I haven't researched yet whether we need to do all three (in theory) in order to move forward....doesn't serve our futures any better either.

The real estate market is unbelievably soft right now. I spent time this morning torturing/educating myself by looking at homes for sale in western NC. The only real criteria I threw in the search was less than $150K. I was BLOWN AWAY by the selection. Sure, there's fixer-uppers and a ton of research to be done (I had to laugh at some of the fine print..."no septic of note"....yea, even a greenhorn like me can decipher that one) before we can really start looking, but if we don't start now, we're going to be sitting here 14 months from now, signing another GD lease. I can't do that.

These thoughts were also prodded by the inspection we just had. The lenders for our apartment complex did a full walk-through with no other explanation given. I've lived in apartments for 17 years now, and have never had that happen. It spooked me; and while I'm sure it was routine, it got my wheels turning. Sure, they'd have to give us plenty of notice if something drastic came down the pike (like buying us out of our leases if the lenders decided to shut down the place), but it also really brought home how dug into that place we are. Not just physically, but the concern that we'd have real trouble finding other housing because my credit ain't the greatest. Much as we like to talk about how our reliable rental history will work in our favor, it's hard for it to compete when it's going up against a credit score in the low 600s.

Thoughts like that certainly help with the mindset of: "you must maintain stability, because your options are limited." You read about people moving back home in an interim situation, but that's completely not an issue for us. My mom downsized to a 1-bedroom apartment, and his folks' house is busting at the seams (6 people living in a 1500-sq-ft split level). That's fine, we're grownups, I have had no trouble keeping a roof over our heads. I guess the fear comes from the thought that by wanting to disrupt everything to move out of state, you're no longer keeping the wolf at the door...you're opening the door and inviting the damn thing in.

I want a yard for a garden. I want a house. I want to live north of Florida. Those are the big 3......what the hell's stopping us? If we save X amount with each check with a total saved goal in mind, while continuing to improve the credit and research the move, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference when it happens. I don't have to stay in web editing, not even sure I want to, and I'm willing to work my arse off if it means getting us the hell out of Florida. I'm through being pissed because we're not there yet. Our time is now.

Outside: too pleasant right now (mid-70s)...but it's dropping Friday and we're due for our first freeze already on Friday night/Saturday morning...

Inside: meh.

Wearing: jeans, black flats, two shirts, wild hair ponied

Reading: Animal Dreams and whatever credit repair/first-time homebuyer advice websites I can get my mouse on...immense gratitude to Jenna for being the initial bug in my ear with this post.

Creating: lists

Going: OT Saturday

Hoping.....see above.

Keepers...Motivation

This is going to be a planning weekend. No more screwing around.

All images have been referenced before on Ember Madrone.