It's an Adventure, Right?

How it all started...

What had I just agreed to?

It was Easter Sunday, and I was feeling a bit sorry for myself. In that moment of vulnerability, I searched Land for Sale Near Me and saw 24.77 acres pop up on my screen. It was a piece of land we had wandered around on a couple of years ago. The owner (who grew up on this property and split the farm with her two brothers) wasn’t willing to come down on her price to which I gave a silent thank you God for hearing my prayer.

You see, I liked where we were. I still do.

I knew it was a property Todd liked, no loved, and I was quite sure he had no idea it was for sale again. (Little did I know he had our real estate agent check on it some months back.) So, I put it in my GPS and entered my oldest daughter’s address. I was curious to see how far away we would be from her. Todd had, by this time, joined me on the front porch swing. I continued on my phone, what was the harm? He couldn’t see what I was looking up.

Except Sally…my GPS navigator…shouted the property address from her imaginary roof top like the tattle taler she is. I looked up hoping he hadn’t heard. He looked at me and started 20 questions: why are you looking that property up? That was the Martinsville property, wasn’t it? What are you thinking? It isn’t for sale anyhow…or is it? Let’s talk about it. Why did you look it up?

Dear God. What have I done? I liked where we were. I still do.

We’ve lived in this house for 20 years now. I swore when we moved in May 2005 this would be it. I was so tired of moving. Of uprooting. I like the stability of where I am. I like routine (ahem…control). My man of 40 plus years whom we will call Mr. Idea Man? Not so much.

We got married in Biloxi, Mississippi. Moved to Oklahoma City nine months later. Had a baby. (Yes, I traveled from Biloxi to Oklahoma through Texas in July in a truck with no air conditioning due with my first baby in a couple weeks with little money and no plans of where we would live once we got there…young love is dumb love.) Moved back home three years later post discharge from the USAF. Stayed with his parents for six months while he looked for a job. Found one in Cincinnati. Moved to a small rental until we could find a house. Bought our first home a couple years after moving here. Had two more babies and pregnant with the fourth. So, we sold that place for something bigger in the country. A couple of years in we decided we couldn’t afford it thanks to Dave Ramsey. Sold that place. Moved to a rental while our smaller house was being built. Moved to that place. Got pregnant…again… (surprise!) Had nowhere for kid number five to lay his little head so we decided being in a subdivision really wasn’t for us anyhow so moved to a rental while we started a new build. Nine months later we moved to our current location. Whew.

That’s a lot of moving. Eleven times in the first 20 years of wedded bliss, with only a couple of those as a military family. The rest of them were us being nomads within our school district. I’d like to tell you the last half of our 40-year union was spent in peace and contentment. But Mr. Idea Man can’t be still.

We have looked at and walked so many properties and next adventure possibilities over the past 20 years it makes me dizzy to think about it. We’ve looked at houses well beyond their fixer upper years that Mr. and Mrs. Racoon have moved into and welcomed several generations of babies. What do you think? Nope.

We’ve put bids on two properties with houses on them. One my youngest daughter freaked out so much about moving that we withdrew the offer (I was also anxious about it and not ready to move), and another was a maple syrup farm. Which sounds delightful except Mr. Idea Man was travelling a ton for work and we still had a few kids in school and sports and music and…so nope.

We compromised on one small 14-acre farm that he wanted to try his hand at flipping the house, which was a hoarder’s paradise, with the understanding that I would NOT be moving there. He split the property into smaller lots and sold everything. Our real estate person said we were fortunate as it doesn’t always turn out that way that fast.

That kept Mr. Idea Man busy for a few months. That was in 2015, and we have had the moving discussion about every six to eight months or so since then. How do I know this? I have a five-year journal that reminds me of last year’s journal entry and the year before that. Last year’s entry:

April 19, 2024

Today was a good day! Walked the trails for an hour with Todd. We lunched, I read some. He did hear from work and got some directions moving forward. (PS He did talk to me about moving again…)

Even though we’ve lived in the same home for the past 20 years, it’s not been without lots of Mr. Idea Man’s ideas. Just when I think he was settled in, he would bring up moving again. Sigh.

Every party has a pooper, and I pooped on every moving party he tried to throw. It’s not that I don’t like to try new things. I just wanted to do them in our current location.

Because I still like where we are.

So, what changed? What possessed me to look up land for sale? What was I thinking on Easter Day, April 20, 2025 when I said, okay to buying 24.77 acres?

To be continued…