~With our own 12 hands~

For those of you who have been reading for a while you will remember that our house is for sale. (new readers~ my first few posts talk a bit about this if you feel so inclined to read back) After months and months of ceaseless labour our finished home was placed on the market....and there it has sat. We took it of for a few weeks to take care of some banking business and last night we re-listed, lowering the price.

Dad-e-o and I had a great conversation after our realtor left and the kids were tucked in. The question we mulled...What are we going to do? What do we want?

We've been kind of avoiding both of these thoughts. Just enjoying this time of quiet and the break from such heavy work. We've briefly checked out listings, but there is nothing we're interested in.

When we first started working on our house with the vision to sell held steadily in focus, we planned to build when we sold. We weren't just planning to build any ol' house but a passive solar straw bale home of our own design. And while we built?? we planned to live in a yurt and enjoy the simple life. We wanted to become a self sufficient as possible...a huge garden and green house, chickens, goats...maybe even horses. We wanted Dad-e-o to be able to build a shop/studio on our property and create his art at home. We wanted to live as minimalistaically as possible and build our house by bartering with friends and trading with other folks who would become friends. We wanted to reduce our mortgage to nearly nothing so that we can actually LIVE our life and take time to do all of the things that we dream of doing.

As our house came nearer to completion we realized 2 things. (well, many things actually, but 2 more predominant) 1. That building a house ourselves while homeschooling and such was a LOT of work...maybe more then we wanted to tackle at this point. and 2. that we couldn't afford to buy vacant land because the bank wanted us to finish our house on what we consider to be a totally unrealistic time frame. We wanted to build our house slowly...without the stress of dates pushing us to burn ourselves out.

So we decided to look into buying a house on acreage...a relatively finished house. The thing is, every time we look we get this feeling like we should just turn off the computer and do something else. Like we are somehow missing the other part of the picture.

We were sitting last night, in the living room, Dad-e-o putting fresh strings on a few of our guitars, me nursing sleepy Sweetie Boy, ponder the questions.....what do we really want?

Are we going to buy some house that doesn't need a tone of work? A house that will essentially keep us right where we are....in a place that doesn't equate to our life style. A house that leaves us with an "affordable" mortgage. A house that is so conducive to this typical western way of living...a way of living that we will settle for?

Something just feels wrong about that.

So then maybe we should just stay here? This house has been transformed into something that is not only esthetically beautiful but energetically as well. We have used as many "green" building methods as we could. We designed it so that the energy of a large family could flow through it in a calm manner, where there is a place for everything. It is on 3/4 of an acre in a beautiful neighborhood close to all "amenities". This house is nicer then anything we can afford...granted we can transform a hole in the ground into something breathtaking in a matter of months BUT....

we need to keep moving forward. We need to keep our vision in our minds. We can't just settle for mediocrity because the market is slower, it's easier or because our vision requires work. Something else that I've realized is that I actually LIKE work..really hard work that keeps you so busy you don't have time to be bored or idle. Work that propels you towards something, manifesting the vision with your own 2 hands. There is something so soulfully rewarding about this kind of work.

As our conversation moved and shifted we came to realize that on sooo many levels we NEED to keep our focus on our vision. Every time we try to shift our focus to a more "normal" picture it just feels wrong. And so we went to bed with a renewed inspiration...we may not know exactly how, but we will manifest our vision, with our own 2 hands....well, with our own 12 hands.

(and more when our new babies come home...many hands create light work)

(You can scroll down to the bottom of the page to turn off the music and listen to the video)

~stradeling the fence~

My mind has been on one thing for so long......renovation. Its been going on for 3 1/2 years now but its really been in the last year that we have done NOTHING else. Being immersed in a project this large has really engulfed both Dad-e-o and I. I am however, glad to announce that we are beginning to think of other things!!! You know what this means??? We really ARE almost done. Things left on our to-do list: fill pinner holes in woodwork, tung oil plugs in woodwork, finish painting the deck (which is 75% done), finish putting on trim in and out, wash windows, install shelving/rods in closets, seal grout in entry, put screens on windows/doors, cover bathroom vent w/wood beam, get eavstrough's installed on deck extension. Other then that its clean up and yard maintenance....thats it!!! Holy Kershomly!!

We've been talking a lot about what we are doing with our future. Weighing heavily in on the subject of moving. We really need to make sure that what ever decision we make is THOROUGHLY thought through...every pro and con weighed, every detail addressed. In so many ways where we live provides us with everything we need. Close friends and family. A community that I have really made an effort to be actively involved in. Work for Dad-e-o as well as a need for my skills as doula and childbirth educator. ( I can hear you thinking, Why would you ever move??) But....the big question is~ Do we want to stay here forever??

When we sell our house we will be buying land. We will build our dream house~ a passive solar timber frame straw bale, as well as Dad-e-o's shop in which he can work from home. I will plant huge gardens, have chickens and a year round green house...maybe even goats if I can get my kids to drink the milk. We do not plan to ever move again. I want to have a nursery in my house in which my children and there children will play. I want to put down serious roots...see my perennials flower year after year. I want my children to be able to frolic in the forest as children and re-visit those forts and pathways as teenagers. This will be our forever home.

And this, dear friends, is why it is sooooo important to us that we make the right choice for our family. We will not be moving later on down the road if we find that Nelson wasn't quite what we'd hoped it would be or if we find that there just isn't enough to offer our children in this tiny little town.

But there has been a shift in my heart....I no longer feel fearful of making the wrong choice. When I look to the future it is with a light heart and an open mind. Being here, in a place where I can think about more then just renovations, I find my heart looking towards various other aspect of our future. I suppose its kind of been like pregnancy. When your pregnant you think about your tiny baby. You obsess over the eminent birth and the rather short post partum period. You might skim over childhood/adulthood lightly but real the focus is the immediate future. Once you give birth however, the child, the amazing, ever evolving, completely unique child becomes the focus. And as time progresses you look back and laugh at how, during pregnancy birth seemed like the culmination of your existence, but now it was just a blip (be it a life changing/soul altering/earth shifting blip) in the vast landscape of parenthood.

So this house is our baby...born beautiful and awe inspiring. And now as we sit here and our focus shifts to everything the will be wrought through the painful birthing process that has been these renovations. (by the way, as time passes you'll come to see that nearly everything relates back to birth in my mind)

well....the purpose of this post was suppose to be the things we have actually had time to think about lately. I guess I will have to wait until later as my time for blogging has drawn to a close this morning. I will however leave you with this.

My heart is full of babies!

more on this when next we speak....or write/read.