Six weeks to Health!

 Happy Halloween! We've officially been here for six weeks! Some days I can't believe we've been doing this for six whole weeks and other days, it feels like we've been here forever. In the six weeks since the move, my health has changed drastically. I'll explain. 

I have IIH, or pseudo-tumor cerebri. Basically, my spinal cord makes too much spinal fluid which then pools inside my head around my brain, causing my eyes to bulge, my head to feel like I have some sort of constant brain freeze type headache that is debilitating. There is no cure and the only medicine you can take for it has the worst side effects that most people can't tolerate. I can tolerate it, but it makes me extremely sick and have some of the worst pain that it almost isn't worth it. Stress increases my heart rate, therefore, making the spinal fluid pressure build up worse. 

Since moving, I haven't had one flare up of that. I haven't had one fluid headache yet, nor have I had to take that medication. And that's rare. Usually, I get it about once a month, lasting about two-three days, making it where I am almost bedridden for at least a day, but not once since moving. 

I also have gastroparesis. For those that don't know what that is; it's where your stomach is paralyzed, therefore your food just sits in your stomach so much longer than it should, sometimes to the point of rot. My flareups with GP consist of severe vomiting, not being able to eat for days on end, or other gastro issues that I don't want to dive into. I would almost stay in a flare of some sort. Stress was also a key factor, matching with what I would eat. I've only had one mini flare since moving here, and I think it had more to do what I ate, than anything else, as it only lasted about twenty-four hours. With my gastroparesis, I could write a list of everything wrong with my entire digestive tract, but to shorten it, my esophagus spasms so frequently that I choke on food, and my bowels and intestines are slightly paralyzed, so food has always been an issue, causing severe distress when trying to eat. But so far, in six weeks, only one mini flare. 

I have lupus as well and that causes joint pain, dislocations, subluxations, and overall fatigue among other things. It makes me feel overall like crap. However, since moving here, I've only one one day where my hip was trying to dislocate, and I could attribute that to walking most of the day on very unlevel ground. Before we moved, my joints trying to slide out of my place was an all the time thing, causing me anxiety and pain on a weekly or sometimes daily basis. 

Between those and my more minor issues, when you add my anxiety and all the things causing me stress, I stayed sick. My immune system was garbage. I had strep throat so constantly that they wanted to remove my tonsils as an adult because my body couldn't keep up. Every time the kids were around someone that even had a cold, I would get sick. When I carried the kids to the doctor, even for a well visit, I would get sick. 

I haven't been sick since I've been here, except when my throat got blisters from the acid from my GP flare, and I'm used to that. Not being sick in six weeks is huge for me. Especially being out in the woods around trees and grass. We even got a cat, which I used to be highly allergic to and I haven't had a single problem. So, I say all that to say this... Sometimes changing your environment can heal your health, more than any medication can. I was on so many medications trying to heal my body, when the real issue was stress. I haven't stopped my anxiety or seizure medicines. But I have been able to take less medications for things that I used to take a lot of just to get through the day. (Allergy, OTC pain meds, stomach meds, acid reducers, things like that.) 

So next time you think you're depressed, sick, or anything like that... Try to change your surroundings, or even the people around you. Maybe the stress is so much that your body can't handle it and it's responding the only way it knows how! 

It will be worth it...

 You think when you go off-grid, in an RV, on 9 acres with your family that it'll be all family time and joy and fun. You think about sitting in the hammocks, around a fire-pit making smores, and sharing stories that you never did back in the city. You think about cutting down trees with your son, and taking walks with your daughter, and cuddling up, the entire family and watching horror movies, because now you live in the woods and that makes it so much better. And don't get me wrong. All of that happens. 

But what you don't get told, is how hard everything is. What they don't tell you is, even though your monthly bills go down, your daily bills go up. The gas into town and back skyrockets because before, I could drive all over the city and not spend as much in gas as we do on one trip to town. They don't tell you how much less space you have to move around, so people get grumpy when someone spends even one more second in the bathroom than someone thinks they should. When in reality, it's not about the bathroom, its aggravation caused by something different entirely. They don't tell you that everyone wants their own space eventually, but there just isn't enough of it inside to get your own actual space. 

The constant chores, the constant needing to do something but wanting to rest, the constant need to make money but not knowing where to start, the constant need to want to see progress but not seeing progress and feeling down. I had huge plans for this land and seeing it look the same the last few weeks has been eating at me, gnawing at my very soul, even when I knew deep down that it would take time, but knowing I should be doing something but not knowing what to do, almost makes me physically ill. 

There are times when I need to step outside and take a small walk, just to clear my head. Try not to cry, even when I know that sounds silly. Homesteads weren't built in a day. Ranches weren't built in a day. Nothing great was built in a matter of weeks, but something inside me tells me that if I were any good at this, and if I was going to succeed, that I'd be further along. There's a voice inside me telling me that I'm failing. Not just failing myself, but failing my husband, failing my children. They deserve better. They deserve to live in a farmhouse, with giant tubs and a huge kitchen. They deserve to read books on a wraparound porch and walk out to stables with horses and drive up a road that is nicely graveled or paved. They deserve the world and instead, I have this nagging feeling that I am letting everyone down. It hasn't even been six weeks yet, and while I know having those things at this point would have been completely unattainable, I can't help but feel a sense of guilt that I haven't done more for them. 

I think as a mother, guilt is one of the strongest feelings we ever feel. As a wife, as well. I feel guilty when I'm not spending time with my husband, and I feel guilty when I'm not doing things with my children. I feel guilty when I'm not doing things to better our lives and then I realize instead of doing anything for myself, all I've done is sit in a pile of guilt and made myself sick. 

However, I look at this land, from the window that I'm typing this out and I realize that people want me to fail. People told me that I'd fail, that I wasn't meant for this life. That it was too hard and that I didn't understand what hard work was. People didn't understand why we chose this life, this state and this town. "Why would anyone want that for themselves? Why would anyone want to work harder than they have to?" is what I got asked. And I remember thinking back to that quote... "The hard is what makes it great." Everyone wasn't meant for this and a lesser woman, and a lesser family would be giving up. 

But I want to take this land from scratch and turn it into something beautiful. I want to take this wooded, undeveloped land and turn it into something my kids can be proud of. I want to look back in a year and say, "Wow! We really did it. Can you believe that?" And then do it again in five years. My goal was never to be better than someone else or work harder than someone else. My goal is to work harder than I've ever worked. To be someone I've never been. To do something that people think about doing, but don't have the chance to do. That takes effort. It takes grit to work harder than you have to and make something out of nothing. We could have bought a house on land that was already maintained, but that's someone else's work. It wouldn't have been ours. I know, that with every ounce of progress we make, we put our all into it. Blood, sweet, tears, and 100 % of us went into this. 

So doing what we do, is not easy. Regardless of the cute pictures I post on social media, it's hard. There are times when I wonder what kind of hell I got us into. And there are times when I wonder if we will ever see any kind of progress. But then, there are moments when I watch my son cut down trees with an axe (which, if you've never done it, is much harder than it looks) and there are times when I see my daughter, completely unafraid to be outside, at night, in the woods with just a flashlight, knowing she couldn't even be out in the front yard at our old house when it was dusk. And I watch my husband learn new ways to bond with the kids and really be there for us and be present in the moment. And I know that things will eventually fall into place. 

Our fences will get built. Those trees will eventually be cleared, and our dream will be built. Pastures will be formed, and animals will be placed. Great things take time and until then, learning to embrace the hard will be a new normal for me and trying not to feel guilty will take me some time. And until then, I will learn to ignore the negative thinking telling me I wasn't built for this and instead, I will focus on what I can do to make this the best and most welcoming homestead, that not only feeds our family but is truly a gift to the community as well. 

Hauling Everything to Town to be Self Sufficient !

 When we moved out of our home in the city, we didn't have time to build another home before we got to Savannah. Our choices were an RV or an overpriced mobile home. The mobile homes we had looked at were more costly than the home we were leaving and knowing it wouldn't be a permanent home; I just didn't see that as practical. We also didn't want another large mortgage payment when the goal was to be self-sufficient and out of debt. So, an RV just made sense. However, there are some major differences. 

An RV requires more planning with almost every aspect of living. If you lived in an RV park, or on land that had sewage and water, these things would be slightly different. However, we live Off-Grid, so that isn't the case with us. Our planning is precise and meticulous down to everything we buy and every trip to town we make. Not only to save money but because space is limited in the RV. 

For instance, our power is run from a generator that is run from gas. Every two days on our way to take the kids to school, we have to take the truck into town with the gas cans in the back and fill them up. On that particular day, that will be the only errand run that morning. When we get home, we will fill the generator up and put the gas cans away. That day is usually the day we spend doing work around the land, whether that be cleaning out the chicken coops, cutting down trees, surveying the land or some sort of bug/predator control. If we don't get water on gas mornings, then before we pick the kids up from school, we will leave early and, on our way, to get them, run to Wal-Mart and fill up our four, 5-gallon jugs with water, so we will have water for showers, dishes, animals, and to the flush the toilet for the next twenty-four hours. 

On the morning that isn't gas day, we will drop the kids off, go to Wal-Mart and get water, stop by Kroger or the meat market in town and get some groceries for the day or two, and then come home. If laundry has to be done that day, then we will pack the car down with the jugs, the dirty clothes, and stop at the laundry mat before the supermarkets and come home with clean clothes, water, and groceries. 

On days that we have to dump our black tank, we try to align it with gas days, so the truck is only used on days it has to be used since we are currently borrowing the truck, and we don't own a truck yet. However, the dumping station is close to our house, and because of the mishap I explained in a previous post, we would never put our poop suitcase in the truck and take the kids to school... (Just in case it decided to explode in the school parking lot) So that is something that we will make two trips for. 

We also don't have a mailbox, so in order to receive mail, we have to drive twenty-five minutes to the post office to our PO box. And I'll admit, I'm extremely lazy about that. Unless we have to go to Lowes or Tractor Supply for something for the dogs, cat, or chickens... I probably won't go there because it's so out of the way of everything else and I just don't think about mail. 

Also, another thing about living where we do... There is no trash pickup. Usually on gas days, when we use the truck, we pile all the trash we've accumulated into the back of the truck and drive it to a local dumpster station. There are seven in the county. The closest one is near our small airport about twenty minutes away from here. So, we drive there, and separate our trash into regular trash, wood, or the other few things they have, and then disperse of it. So, that's definitely different than living in the city where you'd throw it in a can out front and they'd pick it up once a week. 

However, on the weekends, we try to do something with the kids that isn't just work. We've gone to visit family, we've done things in town that they've had going on, but some weekends, we have just rested because life can get busy and hectic and some days it's nice to have nowhere to be or nothing to do. 

Life has changed dramatically since when we lived in the city and were two blocks away from my parents, across the street from Wal-Mart and all other major stores, 3 miles away from my in-laws, and living with my oldest daughter and granddaughter. There is planning to do everything, to buy everything, to go anywhere. We even have to plan what we cook, because all the appliances are half the size they were just a little over a month ago. And that's something to consider. In order to live this lifestyle, you have to be ready for dramatic changes. I knew this is what I wanted, and my husband and I discussed how different it would be, and we discussed it with the kids before we made the change. 

But no one knew exactly how much of a change it would be. How could we? My kids had lived in the same house their entire life and I had lived in the same two block radius my entire life and my husband had lived in the city his entire life. But as different as things are, and as much as life has changed, this RV lifestyle is amazing. Because while we are stationary now... I know at any time, we could hook this RV up and go anywhere we wanted to, and our entire home is here. (Minus the chickens and barn cat) I know that our life has purpose and meaning now. We have big dreams and goals, regardless of how many people called us crazy. And there were a lot. 

And that's the thing. People will look at you like you are insane. But here's the truth. People don't have to understand your calling and your dreams. They don't have to like your choices. It's your life, not theirs. If they don't believe in you or don't like your choices, that's okay too. Because this life is short and if I've learned anything, it's that I'm going to do what makes me happy and brings me joy. Because this world is ugly, and half our world is on fire, the other under water, run by politicians on all sides who would like nothing more than a country of robot citizens and I figure, the only way to truly rebel, is not to rely on them. 

So, this is my goal. To become debt free. Completely. To become self-sufficient. Raise my own food, grow my own food, find enough people to barter and trade with for things I can't raise or grow, and when the world collapses, whether that be in a year, or twenty, not only can I provide for my immediate family and extended family, but I can help those around me and I can teach those how to do the same for themselves. Because if enough of us learn to take care of ourselves, and take care of each other, maybe... just maybe... we can get through anything. 

Side note- Order a gas siphon from Amazon. Then put it down in your water tank with the water jug being higher and let it go! No more holding the heavy jug, using a funnel. Easier on your back and you can do other things while your water tank fills up! 

Human Remains... ?

 Not long after we moved to our property, we decided to take a walk... get to know the land we own. We walked through the tall grass; we walked through the woods down to the small creek we have. I was taking pictures and just taking in all the beautiful sights we have. We were also taking notes of the countless things we would have to do, the machines we would need to do it, and the costs needed to do the things. 

However, we came across a deer antler, that had obviously come from a young deer. I picked it up and we decided to keep it. As we don't have any experience hunting and don't plan to start this season, I knew we wouldn't have any sort of antlers hanging on the RV walls any time soon. As we walked a little further, my son found a bone and picked it up and ran towards me with it. "Mom, I found a bone!" he yelled. Now, I watch enough crime shows to know that we live in the country, away from everything and my first thought was that we had bought some kind of serial killer's dumping ground. We brought the antler and the bone inside and I put the bone in a Ziploc bag. (For evidence, of course) Then we went back out looking. 

I turned into one of those female crime shows CSI's. I was out there, moving branches, moving leaves that had fallen. I was determined there were more bones. And low and behold, I found another. This one was curved slightly but looked to be the same age and was in close proximity to the other bone that had been found. At this point, my mind was racing with possibilities. What if we found a skeleton? Would I be in trouble for moving these bones? I couldn't just leave it. I wasn't sure if I could remember this spot the next day and I didn't have signal to call the police right away. 

Before I go any further with this story, I need you to understand that I'm from the city and if I found bones on my property, I would have police cars, CSI, detectives, the whole calvary out there in minutes. I'm not used to country life. 

So, after finding that bone, I looked a little while longer then made my way out of the tree line, where I found yet another bone, this one looking more like a flat bone, something like a piece of a skeleton. At this point, I was almost completely convinced that it was human. I came inside, laid the bones out on the table and started googling, human bones versus animal bones. The search took me almost an hour because it was animated pictures and not what I was looking for but when I finally found actual bones, the human bones on google looked more like what I had on my table then the animal bones did. I was convinced. Our land was full of human remains and we were being watched by the souls of their bodies and I was in full breakdown mode. What was supposed to be our perfect land, was now something from a horror movie. I put all the bones in a bag, that I had named "Jane", and I started googling missing persons from around here. 

Because I never do anything halfway. Not only was I going to find the rest of this woman's body, but I was determined to find out who she was. (And yes, I'm perfectly aware I could have given the bones to police, and they could have found out, but I had just moved here and clearly, I needed something to keep my mind occupied and having just moved here, I didn't want to go to the police without concrete evidence of Jane's body being on my property)

I sent the pictures to a couple of friends, one who has a friend in the medical field. That friend said the bones definitely looked human and at that time, I decided Jane needed justice, so that night, I decided, even without the rest of Jane's body, and no other missing person's located, I would go to the police. 

We dropped the kids off at school and went straight to the police station, Jane in hand. First, we went to the actual police station. The lady at the desk was sitting there sweetly, and I explain my situation. 

"Hi. We just moved here and were walking the property and I found bones and I think they could be human, and I just need to talk to someone. Or something. I don't know. I'm from the city, so I don't know how this works." I'll never forget her face. She smiled and asked where we lived. I explained where we lived, because at the time, we didn't have an actual address yet. She said, "Oh. That's a county thing. You'll have to go to the sheriff's office. Do you know where that is? They'll handle that. I'm so sorry though," she said. We did know where it was, and we headed straight there. I decided in the car to try and explain it more calmly. 

When we got to the sheriff's office, we walked in and the lady at the desk was just as sweet. "Can I help you?" she said. 

"Yes. We just moved here. I'm originally from the city and we were walking the property, and we found deer antlers and then my son found a bone and he brought it to me, and then we found two more bones and they might be human, and I just don't know. Can someone look at them or how does that work? I'm sorry I moved them. I wasn't sure what to do," I said. She kind of laughed and then told me she'd have to see if they had a deputy in to come out to the property to see them. That's when I laughed and said, "Oh no need. She's in my purse." 

So, she leans over, and I hold my purse up, like a child, as if to say... See! I brought it with me! She tells me to hang out and she will get someone. We stand in the lobby, and I ask myself over and over why I overshare like I do. But I can't help it. It's like something about talking to people, causes my mouth to word vomit and I have no off switch. That's something I plan on working on. A few, embarrassing minutes later, a deputy walks out, putting gloves on. 

"Whatcha got?" he asks. And I pull Jane out and explain it all over again, apologizing for moving the bones and that I know I wasn't supposed to move them, but they were pretty far in the woods where I don't have signal and wanted to make sure someone saw them, in case they were human, I wanted to make sure the family got justice. 

Just for the record, I was trying to do the right thing, but I sounded insane. 

He takes one, looks at it, then says, "Ma'am, this right here is an animal bone. You can tell because a human bone, the end would be bigger. Y'all really are city folk. You're gonna see a lot of bones 'round here. It's the country. Now, if you come across a hole with a lot of bones, you call. Or if you find a human skeleton, you call. But these, you go on home and give these to your dog." He handed me back Jane. I said thank you, as composed as I could, and we left. 

So, in case you're wondering, I did not give Jane to my dog. I will probably never go back to report anything again. And he was right, I am definitely city folk, but I'm learning. There are things in the country that are just different. I keep Jane in a drawer, almost as a reminder of that day, because it made me remember who I was. It may be animal bones, but I truly believed it was a person, and I was determined to find them, so even though I was wrong in my assumptions, I was determined to do what I felt was right. And instead, it makes a funny, just moved to the country story. 

So, if you're thinking of moving to the country and you're from the city, let me give you a piece of advice. There are bones on the property. Unless you find a human skeleton, don't worry about it. The people who are from the country, can spot a city person, a mile away. But that's okay because they are usually really nice about it. One more thing, the bugs out here, are unlike any bugs I've ever seen. The size of hummingbirds, so be prepared. They will literally set my ring camera off all night. But it beats sirens, crime, and neighbors any day! 

Poop Suit Case Troubles

 Living off grid in an RV can be fun, if you let it be. You have to take everything as an adventure, or else things have a way of turning into a nightmare very quickly. I don't know about anyone else, but before we bought our camper, I had never even been in one. My in laws owned one and we had seen it, but as for staying in a camper long term, or even a weekend... I had never. Talk about a learning curve. 

We had watched all the YouTube videos possible before the big move. We learned how to stabilize it, how to organize it, how to decorate it. You know, things we thought were going to be the important things. However, what we didn't think about was the fact that we had the wrong size hitch in order to pull it. (The guy at the RV place let us borrow one to tow it to Savannah and it had to be returned) Not to mention, once we got it here and in place, we didn't want to keep towing it thirty miles to dump the tanks and obviously that black tank (where the toilet dumps into) fills up rather quickly with four people. So, what are we supposed to do? 

Thankfully, Amazon had poop suitcases, that you just pump your black tank into, haul into town and dump wherever they will let you dump. First off, I want to say that this invention was amazing. HOWEVER, the logistics of towing poop into town, will have you questioning life choices. Secondly, I want to point out that, having come from the city, the idea of pumping human waste, into a plastic box, then dragging said box, down a highway to an RV park to dump it, made my husband and I stronger together, and you'll know why by the end of this story. 

So, our poop suitcase came in at the post office, because you know, we don't have a mailbox here... because we don't live on an actual road. We went to pick it up. I was incredibly excited because with every flush of the toilet, you were assaulted with a rotten poop smell that can only be described as nauseating. When we got home, we read the instructions and put the suitcase handle on, and it was ready to go. We then emptied the black tank for the first time. To my surprise, the little end was clear so you could see everything that went into the suitcase, on top of it filling the fresh air with almost week-old poop. 

Ahh. I picked this life, remember. 

And then, once it was full, we put the lid on the suitcase, and we felt something that was akin to proud of ourselves. With every step and everything we learn here, there is some sense of accomplishment and some sense of pride that comes with it. We drag it to the truck and attempt to hook it to the hitch, only to realize that the hitch is wrong for this attachment too. This is where pride quickly turns into despair. We stare at one another, silently, almost as if to see if the other one hates that one yet. My husband then decides we can put it in the back of the truck and take it that way. 

We go to open the tailgate. It won't open. Now, I'll have you know that every single time we've gone to open this tailgate since we've been here, it has opened. But the one single time, we desperately needed it open, it refused. Almost as if God was like, "I just want to see how this plays out, guys." And I don't know if you guys know but picking up a 30-gallon suitcase full of human waste, is not light. It's heavy. Imagine 30-gallons of water, containing bricks. I mean, what have we been eating? 

Once again, I look up at him to see if he hates me yet. He doesn't. So, he hooks the handle onto the hitch, and it seems sturdy enough to hold, because he assures me there's a campground not too far away. It's closer than the RV park, he said so it shouldn't be too bad. I trust him, hop in the truck and off we go, toting our poop down the easement and onto the road. Our flashers going, us barely moving, and our poop, bouncing along behind us. Keep in mind, we just moved here, there's no signal anywhere, and we're just having to follow the one road sign we saw to get us to the campground. 

We drive for what seems like twenty minutes down a winding road with private property signs on every few trees. I start getting concerned. I keep saying, this is the wrong way. Let's just go to the RV park, like we had planned. And this is where I got the look. The look of... "We have poop barely attached to the truck, and you want to drive this, twenty minutes down a highway?" I tried to be quiet but if you know me, you know I can't, and I continued to argue about it not being that way, until finally he had to turn around. BUT, he couldn't just back up with the poop suitcase attached. We had to get out, detach the poop, move the truck, then reattach the poop. 

Just as we were standing there, detaching the poop, it started to rain. Because why wouldn't it rain? Why wouldn't things be harder than they needed to be? I'm furious. He's furious. I hold the poop case while he moves the truck, then we attach it back and silently drive slowly all the way to the highway. Once we got almost there, we realized there was a line of cars behind us, so he pulls over into a church parking lot to let them go past because no one should have to follow to some city slickers, doing 15 mph, in the rain, toting poop. 

This being the neighborly city that it is, someone stopped and asked if we needed help, noticing the slow driving and the flashers. He waved his hand on and said no. I thought to myself, "Doesn't he see our poop suitcase? Obviously, we have to drive to slow!" After what feels like an eternity on the highway, we get to the RV park. I was relieved for this nightmare to be over. I just wanted to dump the crap, literally, and be done. My husband gets out of the car and walks around to go inside then comes back to the driver door and stands there. He doesn't say anything for a minute, and I couldn't read his face. 

Then he gets in and stares at me. "It's gone," he says. I couldn't believe it. What did he mean, it's gone? "It must have fallen off somewhere. I don't know," he said. I sat back in the seat. I thought for a minute. 

"Well, this is going to be the weirdest Easter Egg Hunt we've ever been on, but we have to go find our poop!" So, we retraced where we had been, looking off the road, into ditches. The rain was coming down harder now, making it that much harder to see. No YouTube video had prepared me for driving twenty miles to look for our poop suitcase, I can promise you that. We finally decide to go back to the road that we had been arguing at, that had private property all around it, and low and behold. Our poop suitcase was right there. Like a $300 treasure box that we desperately needed, only it didn't contain gold, it contained the waste we had expelled for the last week. Finding poop had never been so exciting. We jumped out of the truck and beside the suitcase was the hitch, and it was broken. So, towing it back, was no longer an option. We would have to find the strength to lift it over the tailgate and into the back of the truck. 

I thought, with everything we had been through, we could find the strength. My husband stood it up on one side and got in front of it to decide how we would make it work, and before any decisions could be made, the bottom holding lid popped off and human excrement flew out of the hole, like you see water busting through a fire hydrant. The lid flew across the street, poop filled my husband's tennis shoes and bottom of his pants and he stood there, too stunned to move. My fight of flight response was broken, because instead of rushing to get the lid, my hand only went out in front of me as if to say, "Oh no! What could be happening?" Nobody said a word as the rain poured down upon us, and the poo scattered on this abandoned street. 

Once the flow slowed, my brain finally started to work, I rushed to pick up the poo covered lid and handed it to him, even though at this point, it was a little late for the lid. He took it, screwed it on and tossed it in the back of the truck. We got in the car and before we knew it, we were laughing hysterically. All the tension that had been there had dissipated and all that was left was a feeling of... "What in the world happened?" 

I say all that to say this. If you plan to live in an RV full time but you have no experience in an RV, I suggest doing the research on every part of it. Don't be like us. Don't look at the fun stuff and ignore the messy details. Figure out how you will get water, how you will dump tanks, if you won't be hooked up to water and septic. Figure out how you will have electricity. Because we were tested that day. And luckily, we didn't fail, but it was a trying day to say the least. 

But every day can be an adventure if you let it, like I said in the beginning. When I look at that day now, I barely remember us arguing or the depth of the argument. But I do remember his face when the suitcase exploded. I do remember us laughing so hard that our stomachs hurt. I remember standing in that street, hopeless, rain pouring, wondering what to do, and now when we dump the black tank, we know what we're doing, but we still make mistakes sometimes. Things still happen that don't go our way. But if you let everything get you upset or stressed, you'll miss the fun parts, and living like we do... There are so many fun parts that getting upset over every little thing that goes wrong, would be a waste! 

Bit of Backstory, eh?

 I grew up like most everyone my age. Being almost 38 years old, I spent most of my time outside, playing with the neighborhood kids. We rode our bikes further than our parents ever imagined that we could. We hopped fences to play with dogs in backyards we didn't know, and we found wild animals and tried very hard to convince our parents to let us keep them as pets. Growing up, my mother, who was also an animal lover, did agree to quite a few things and I had a lot of animals as a kid and my dream when I grew up was to own a zoo. 

However, like most people, real life got in the way. Becoming a zookeeper was too many years in school and the school was too expensive. Not to mention, I met my husband not long after I graduated high school, and college just wasn't as important as it should have been. Fast forward a few years and owning animals took a backseat to having babies and writing novels. By the time I was twenty-five years old, my dream of owning a zoo was no longer even on my mind and what I really wanted was a child, living somewhere grand like NYC, in a penthouse, just writing novels for a living. Well, by the time I hit thirty-five and had some kids, I realized that living in a city like New York with children, would definitely cause me more stress than I was already experiencing, in just the smaller city that we already lived in. 

By the time we got to the year 2020, I realized just how serious things were getting and how unhinged things and people became in the city. My kid's school system became worse by the year, our neighborhood got worse, the city became more dangerous every year. But I kept telling myself that it was just my anxiety and that everyone felt like that, and I should just overlook it. For years, I told myself that it was just my imagination and that nothing was that bad.  I tried everything to take my mind off of how bad things were getting, until the last year. My eyes opened to things that I had been trying to keep them closed to. 

I paid more attention to the food industry and how the animals were treated. Not to mention what was actually going into the meat or what they were telling us was meat. I started looking more into the school system and what was being allowed and tolerated, also what wasn't being taught and what was being taught. I looked at the city we lived in as a whole. When my children couldn't play outside at 11 and 13 years old because we heard gun shots at all hours of the day and night, and when there were adults walking down the street with backpacks, overdosing in the middle of the road just houses down from where we lived, I knew I had to do something. 

My children were unhappy with their schools and their lives in that city. I was unhappy with our day to day lives because nothing was safe, and my husband was unhappy that everyone was unhappy. So, I started looking at ways we could leave. Our house needed repairs. Not just small repairs, but repairs that would cost tens of thousands before we could sell it to get a profit. My husband truly believed we were stuck, but I refused to believe that. I started looking at land in Tennessee. Living in Alabama, it wasn't that long of a drive if we found some, so I had hope. 

What I didn't realize is that in order to get a loan for land, your credit score needed to be almost perfect, or you needed major collateral. Yet, another thing standing in our way. In the last several years, major changes had happened in our family causing our finances to change and our credit to drop exponentially. But I watched my kids get more and more depressed as the days go on and I couldn't handle it. So, I kept looking. After a couple of months of secretly looking, and then two months of my husband aware that I was looking, we found a few properties that were owner financed properties. I thought to myself, how perfect that is. It gives us land to work on while we figure out what to do about the house! 

We all packed in the car and drove to the first property. It was completely wooded, on a steep slope that went straight down and back up. It would have been perfect for sledding in the snow if the trees were gone, but unless we had thousands upon thousands, the land would have been useless. On our way back home, we found another few tracts of land that were owner financed. So, we made a little detour and decided to check it out. It was perfect. Some of it wooded, some of it cleared. Close to a road, but you use an easement to get to it, so no major traffic. 

We discussed it over that weekend and my husband was still on the fence. "How will we come up with the down payment? How will we make the monthly payment with all these bills?" he would say. And honestly, I didn't know that. I didn't have an answer for it. But I did know that it felt right, and this was the land we needed. Big purchases are always something we discuss beforehand, but this time, I emailed the realtor and told him we wanted the land and signed the deed paperwork while my husband was at work. The best part was, I had two weeks to come up with a down payment, so we could figure that part out later. To my surprise, my husband wasn't angry. 

We made a plan and discussed it with the kids that we'd move the next summer. (We bought the land in July) That gave us not quite a year to prepare the land for a home, sell our home, and be ready for a homestead. Sounds perfect, right? A couple weeks into school and my daughter all but refused to go. She was sick with anxiety and worry. The school had gotten repeated threats and threats over social media had been rampant. My son, who usually didn't let things bother him, had been so sick about going to school, that he had used all the excuses he could come up with not to go. 

So, my husband and I sat down and talked again. We changed the moving date up to Christmas break. We thought that would ease the kids minds a little and help them realize that their current situation wouldn't last long. A few more days go by, and the social media threats against the school got worse and we kept the kids home for a few days, for their peace of mind, and ours. Finally, after a long weekend, I contacted someone who buys houses, "As Is" thinking that it wouldn't work, and that it was mainly just a scam. He came out and looked at the house and offered me more than we owed on it. Frankly, I was flabbergasted. Our house, which had been our home for thirteen years and that we loved, had more things wrong with it than right, by this point. 

Once he left and sent the contract over, the closing date on our house was in thirty days. This was it. We had the land in Tennessee, that nothing had been done to. It was undeveloped, so there were no power poles, no septic system, no well dug. The grass hadn't even been trimmed. And now, we had a closing date and had to move out of our home in thirty days. Things had progressed much faster than anticipated. And while we were all excited, thankful and blessed to have this opportunity, I immediately felt the anxiety rushing in. 

What would we live in? We didn't want another giant mortgage bill and even if we had, our credit score would never allow it. We didn't want to get an apartment, because then all of our finances would go to that and leave nothing extra to fix up the property. We knew how much money we were getting back from the closing of our home, so we knew what we had to work with. So, my husband and I and our two kids sat down and had some deep discussion. 

We decided that for a short amount of time, we would buy a camper, live in it, while we fixed up the land, build fences, pay off some debt and build credit, that way we wouldn't have a mortgage payment. We would have extra money to spend on things we wanted, versus what we needed. And we weren't scrambling to find a home builder or loan company that would be willing to give us a loan in that short amount of time. 

We took the kids, we picked out an almost new, 30-foot camper that had everything we'd need, minus a washer and dryer, and put a down payment on it to hold it. The closing date came on September 19th, and on the 19th, we picked up our camper, and drove straight to Savannah, TN with our dogs and our chickens. 

We've been here a month, and I can honestly say that it's the most at home I've ever felt. We've had our share of culture shocks because living in the city and living in the middle of nowhere is very different. We don't live in the city of Savannah. We live in the county. Luckily, we have neighbors who are the absolute greatest to one side, and I haven't met anyone in Savannah who isn't nice, neighborly, and helpful. Completely different than where we left. But we had to make some changes for sure. I'll get into those in the next post! But, if you've been thinking of leaving the city and starting a homestead, or just leaving the city in general... I highly suggest it. I've been less stressed, less sick, and my overall happiness has increased, and I've seen that in all of my family members! 

But follow along, and I'll give updates and share how it's going. I've learned a lot in the last month about RV life, country life, bugs, what to do when you find bones on your property, how much horse poop your dog can eat before he gets sick, and how to dispose of your RV black tank, via a poop suitcase! It's all vital information!