Times A Wastin’

November already?!?!?! When did that happen?!?

Time is just flyin’ away on me it seems, still wondering if that’s a good or a bad thing. I’d like to think I’ve settled in to my new place ( as much as one can settle in to a temporary home ) and a funny thing happened…I don’t feel the need to jump in my car as soon as I have a day off and escape to  somewhere else/better. Could it be because I’ve found what I was looking for? Not sure about that just yet but I think it’s a promising sign. I still feel an urge to explore every nook and cranny ( and when you’re shaped the way PEI is…there’s a lot of nooks and crannies! ) but it isn’t done because I need to escape…it’s done out of curiousity and a need to know where I live so when someone says they’re from Belfast my mind doesn’t automatically think of Ireland. I realized with my most recent trip that I’ve officially driven the entire perimeter of the Island now ( with multiple zig zags across ) so I think I have a pretty good idea of where I live. When a client tells me where they live I can usually picture the area now so that’s a bonus. I also think I may have found the area I want to settle down in, if this is indeed where I decide to settle…but now that I’ve potentially found it I seem to have opened up a big ol’ can o’ worms in my already overthinking brain. I’m ready to settle down…which leads to, I’m ready for my tiny house…which leads to, I’m ready for my acreage to homestead on and have my big garden and hobby farm…which leads to, how am I going to do that as a single girl with minimal savings? It’s frustrating to feel like you’re so close to potentially realizing your goal only to realize…achieving it could be incredibly difficult. So this is where I’m at…

I know I want a tiny house. I know what kind of tiny house I want and I know what is important to me in a tiny house. I also know, I can’t build it myself. There was a time that I was so gung ho to build it myself, ‘I am mighty single girl and I can do anything!’ but I have to be a realist and know my limitations. Hey, maybe I could build it myself…but how long would it take me? How much money would be wasted on me potentially screwing up certain important things and needing to do them over? Or, along those lines, how much money would be spent on getting a professional in to do the stuff I couldn’t do? Yes, completing the project myself would be immensely rewarding…but at what cost? So, that being said…getting someone else to potentially build it for me is anywhere from 40-75k depending on what features I realize I must have and the ones I can live without. Add to that that lenders aren’t on board with the tiny house movement and I won’t be able to get financing for this little endeavor. There are several small acreages around the Island that have smaller homes on them that are going for roughly the cost of a tiny house and I could get a mortgage for them…but then I give up the mobility a tiny house offers as well as potentially needing to put more money in to the existing home to get it livable. So there’s that.

Now, for the homesteading part. I read…a lot. I research…a lot. I’ve wanted to do this for years so I’ve been reading and researching this lifestyle for years. I know a few people who are venturing in to this way of life so they’ve been a tremendous resource for me but here’s the catch ( and hear me out before you jump to the conclusion that I think I need a man to do this…that’s not what I’m saying )…they all have a partner to help them financially, physically and even emotionally, I have a single income and I work full time. Why is that a catch? I work full time outside of the house and where I would like to settle I would have to commute, as I do now, to my job. That’s 30-40 minutes to work in the AM, 8.5 hrs at work, 30-40 minutes home in the PM. If I have a small hobby farm/massive garden…I can’t be away from the house 5 days a week for 9.5 hrs a day. It won’t work. It won’t run itself. But, I can’t afford the hobby farm/massive garden if I don’t have the job I do. So, there’s the catch. I’m not saying I need a man but having another person would make my dream closer to my reality a lot sooner, in my opinion. I think my biggest problem is that for so long I’ve wanted this and now that I’m in a place that it could happen I want it all at once instead of slowly building up to it. I feel like I wasted years getting to this point and now I just want to be there. I was with someone for close to 10 years that I thought had this goal as well and that’s what we were working towards…and then that person was gone and I still had this goal but I felt like I was now even further behind in accomplishing it because I would be doing it solo…I needed to start my dream from scratch it seemed. To say I’ve felt frustration, anger as well, would be a gross understatement. But…those feelings don’t do me any good. So…

I started thinking about how I could spend more time at the homestead instead of in an office and once again…frustration. Frustration that I’m 38 and I wasn’t doing more to have an ‘at home’ career 5-10 yrs ago. Why was I not doing the Medical Transcriptionist course then? Why did I not research dog grooming schools when I lived in an area that actually had a program? Why did I continually stay in jobs that made me miserable, doing nothing about it except making my spouse miserable right along with me? And then…now here’s the topper, what if I had done all of that 5-10 yrs ago and was happier/successful in my life and career…would I still be with my spouse? And then I mentally slap myself…why is that even a thought for me at this point?!?!? It’s been 3 yrs!!!! And, is that not putting the blame for our relationship ending solely on my own shoulders?!?! Why would that even cross my mind?!?!? Isn’t it fun to delve in to my thought process? Yeah…super fun. So after this little train of thought goes off the rail in my mind I start to think, ‘well, why not look in to it now?’…so I do and to do the MT course online…6000$ and it will take a year. OK…well that doesn’t really help with my plan to save up for my homestead…how about dog grooming…well that’s 6000$ as well just for the course…but it’s in Moncton and is a 4 month course which means I’d have to pick up and move to Moncton for the short term with the animals…do the course full time ( so no working to bring in a decent income ) and then move back here and start the business…so I’d be looking at needing about 10k saved up for that option to cover all the living expenses on top of the course fees…OK, once again…not really helping my plan. So, once again, it becomes a matter of me prioritizing…do I want the stay at home job first…or the home and acreage? I’m sure most would say the home and acreage and I get that…but do I just cross my fingers that once I have that that I won’t have any number of unforeseen expenses and have to delay and then delay some more any sort of career change until I possibly have to abandon that plan?

So many thoughts running through my brain and for whatever reason I feel like I’m running out of time even though I know that’s not the case. I need to focus on what’s working and what’s good…I’m in the Maritimes…a goal I dreamed about for 5 yrs…and it finally happened. It wasn’t easy and it took some time, but I got here. Do I do the same for my homestead? Set the goal and trust that it will happen…just maybe not for awhile?

sdp