I can finally let go of a dream, happily!

Our previous home, the one we just moved out of, was the
home I had fallen in love with so long ago, the home I wanted to
move into since my husband first moved to the prairies of
Saskatchewan, the home I had asked him to go take a look at, to see
if it was possibly THE home for us, the BIG
BEAUTIFUL home
that was so fabulous on the realtors listing was my
DREAM home. The size of the house was
fantastic, plus
there was a two car garage and 87
acres. I felt it was a piece of heaven on the prairies! When we
first moved in, I shared about my love of the great big beautiful
home: http://homesteademporium.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/the-long-way-home-continues/
But… as our Long Way Home seems to have proven over and over
again this past year… It just was not meant to be. Here we are,
after our third move in one year. When we were first given our
notice to move out, I
grieved. Really,
I did. I loved
that home. What’s not to love? The kitchen was amazing. The great big tub with the
great big crack that my hubby fixed, was my favorite place in the
world whenever I was stressed. I could never understand how the
previous person’s who lived there all left the tub cracked, and
unusable, when they could have enjoyed it all that time as much as
I did! Don’t get me wrong, the
homestead we are in now has a LOT that I’ve enjoyed from the start,
the big barn, and the beauty of the mature yard site. As Shaylah
said the other day, it offers the best of all we loved about our BC
hobby farm, trees and trees galore of ALL sorts! Nature at it’s
finest! This, I love about our homestead. There’s also a HUGE
garden, and lots of fruit trees. I love all this about our new
homestead too! However, there were things
I didn’t like so much. It’s much less land, just under 18 acres.
The home is much smaller then the home I had fallen in love with,
but in all fairness, it is still 2400 square feet, so it’s not
small by any means. The house…it’s well
used, a typical prairie farm home that’s in need of a good amount
of love. The kitchen is the exact same kitchen from when the home
was built many years ago. The bedrooms are small, our bedroom
furniture won’t fit and even with half of our bedroom suite out of
the room, my husband and I are still hitting our knees on the
remaining furniture, just the bed and the dresser, every day. My
sewing room is unfinished and certainly not ‘refined’. I’m trying
my best to pretty it up, and I’m actually getting there. It’s
difficult with a rather small,
no, a
non-existent
decorating budget, but I do have lots of fabric at my disposal,
and, I am creative. I have full confidence that I’ll do more then
make it work, I’ll make it beautiful. However, the house does have
it’s positives too. The fact that I even have a sewing room is
huge. Many women don’t have sewing rooms. I know that I am blessed
and I do appreciate that. The floors in the house have all been
updated and are good, even if not what I would personally choose.
Although there’s wood paneling everywhere downstairs in the
basement, the upstairs walls have all been freshly painted in
neutral colors and I have
NO desire, after
THREE moves in one year, to even
TOUCH a can of
paint, so that’s a BIG plus. And I know that just as we’ve done
before, Graydon and I will turn this well ‘used’ home into a
wonderful retreat one day. We know how, and we’ve done it well, we
can do it again! I really do love the barn,
the huge shop and quonset on the property are awesome for my hubby
and son, my soon to be humongous garden is like none I’ve had or
even dreamed of, and the every loving fact that we are
FINALLY home to
stay… this week I learned a
REALLY big lesson
about watching out for what you want in life because sometimes
you’ll regret it! This past week, we had insult added to injury. To
add to the difficult task of paying for TWO homes, half way across
the country from one another, and all the bills that go along with
TWO homes, and our main income barely covers the two mortgages
alone. Then there’s the extra’s in life like FOOD for seven, often
eight people (our pre-adoptive son spends several weeks
at a time with us, we don’t hold fund raisers, or ask for aid for
this adoption), gas to get to work, incidentals that pop
up etc.. To add to all that, this week we received our final bills
for the BIG BEAUTIFUL home I loved so much. The electricity bill,
and the gas bill. Whoa
Nelly! On top of our monthly payments for
electricity and gas that we’ve been paying all along, we were hit
with just shy of TWO thousand dollars for electricity, PLUS just
over ONE thousand dollars for gas!! In just EIGHT months of living
there! It seems the monthly payments were ‘guesstimated’ much too
low, and believe me, they were already high! I assure you, we are
NOT frivolous people! We’ve lived in many a home before, and never
had these kinds of costs!! It’s sheer craziness! I told my husband,
that extra cost may just be worth the
knowledge that I will NEVER,
EVER regret not
being able to stay in that BIG BEAUTIFUL ‘dream’ home! I am SO
happy to have had to give
up my dream home now. I’ve learned my
lesson, and learned it well! BIG dreams come at a cost, one I’m not
quite willing to pay the rest of my life! I
really just wish that lesson hadn’t come at such a ‘literal’ high
cost! And now it’s time to get back to
sewing! I tell myself in times like this, to the tune of Dory’s
song in Finding Nemo, “just keep sewing, just keep sewing…” and I
thank God, over and over again, that I LOVE what I do! So remember,
when you shop at Homestead Emporium, YOU are making our ultimate
family dream a reality. YOU have helped, and continue to help, our
family live on this wonderful new homestead of ours. My
NEW dream home.
The one YOU and good friends, have helped us to attain! The dream
home that won’t cost us an arm and a leg for the rest of our lives!
You help us get by
every.single.day!
YOU even help with our adoption! Even if you can never adopt a
foster child yourself, you have the knowledge that you helped
another family who could! For that, as I’ve said before, and I’ll
say it again, we are
very thankful!
We’re staying positive. We’ve gotten this far! The house in BC WILL
sell! It WILL
happen. And then we’ll be truly living the ultimate
dream!