Let me begin by saying we are so anxious to get moved to our new homestead, we can hardly stand ourselves. Our hearts are 100% there...but our bodies have to stay in the suburbs for a while. We've had a series of frustrations and events that sometimes make us feel like we'll never get to move - but we're working hard on waiting patiently for God's timing.

Here's what's happening:

* We are waiting on a shipping container. We will not be getting rid of nearly everything we own in order to move into our tiny house motor home.We'll be getting rid of a lot, to be sure. But since we eventually plan on building a home - not a huge home, mind you, but also not a tiny house - we think it would be foolish to get rid of things like beds and dressers, only to have to buy them again later. However, we don't want to pay to store our stuff, either. Our solution is to store our things ourselves in an insulated shipping container - which can later be made into a shop for my husband. But, contrary to what you hear in the media, shipping containers aren't super cheap (even when they aren't insulated) and they aren't all that easy to find, either. So, we continue looking....

* I can't start packing until we have a place to put things (i.e., a shipping container). We literally have no storage at our house and because my time is already so limited (homeschool, working from home, etc.), I really only want to go through the rooms once. So while we have given a lot away already, I haven't done any major decluttering, packing, or cleaning.

* Although I really wanted to clean and make pretty the entire motor home before we moved, our local  government got in the way of that. It seems it's against city ordinance to have any vehicles parked in your front yard, except in driveways. Our motor home does not fit in our driveway. The city planner drove by our house and told us we had to move our motor home; since there was no other legal place to park it on our property, that means we had to put it in RV storage.

Yes, I do think this ordinance wrong. My neighbors all think it's wrong, too. But what's really inappropriate is that our city, our neighborhood, our very street, is full of people parking vehicles in ways the city says is illegal. Most of them have not been cited or asked to move their vehicles. Heck, I have a neighbor who not only has two vehicles parked on his lawn, but he has three vehicles parked in the mow strip - the piece of land between the street and sidewalk - partially blocking the sidewalk. The vehicles in his driveway also mostly block the sidewalk. And while this is illegal in our city - and actually a safety issue since it forces pedestrians into the street, the city planner doesn't care about it. In fact, she informed my husband she was making a stink about our motor home because "things get back to her." She's been told my husband has criticized her.

So we have city employees wielding power inappropriately - showing favoritism to some citizens and applying the law inequally. Nice, eh? Can't imagine why we want to leave this place...

Long story short, I will be unable to finish making the motor home a home until we actually move into it. And now we have another monthly bill.

But it's okay. We're just trying to focus on one step at a time, and enjoying walks on our gorgeous, forested property. It's going to be an amazing place to live.