The Art of Rallying

      This one is cool. It's a geodesic dome! 7.5 acres, right on the Osage (which is the most beautiful piece of prairie in the U.S.), the house has crumbling siding, but the interior is in great condition. The ceilings are cathedral-like, four bedrooms with a real, actual master bedroom and bath, and an unfinished basement. It has the most square footage of anything we've looked at by far. I mean, we could actually potentially have a bedroom for each of our six kids!

    So put an offer on it you say? Oh I did. Well, I tried to. See it's HUD owned and after briefly considering cowboying it, I decided to actually recruit the services of a real estate agent. Who wanted me to recruit the services of a bank (sigh, our dream of buying with cash is blatantly inadequate at this point anyway), and we put in an offer a week later, which was a day - ONE DAY - too late. They had accepted an offer from someone they had been negotiating with for a month.

    I only cried a little. I just wish they had mentioned something like, hey lady, ya better move fast 'cause this guy's about to close. Or, don't get too attached 'cause someone beat ya to the punch. Or psst, word to the wise, don't go letting your kids pick out bedrooms or anything.

  It's okay, there's other fish in the sea. I can rally.

  Like this:

On the prairie. 5 acres. Looks clean. Cool grandfather tree in the side yard. Oh, and two miles from paved, decent roads. There is no way a bus is getting anywhere close to that house.

Or that one in Ark City that I was too despond to take any pictures of. Mark liked it. So I called about it. Yeah, under contract yesterday. To someone else.

We'll keep looking. I can rally.

House Hunting

It's a good thing gas is cheap right now because we have driven hundreds of miles looking at different possible places to live.


There's the "I knew that price was too good to be true"

Unfortunately, the only thing in store for this old victorian is probably a bulldozer.

There's the "that is NOT a four bedroom - or a three bedroom"

It's too bad, Mark loves this craftsman style of house.

There's the "um, call me paranoid, but I don't think a trailer house in Oklahoma is the smartest choice"

It was right by the highway anyway.

Here are two that I loved, but really were out of our price range.

Complete with friendly dog.

Lovely view of the lake included.

Too far away.

Probably too many repairs, it was full of junk inside.

This one actually could have worked, but it went up for auction before I could bid on it.

Five acres on the way to Kaw Lake.

The grey building in the background is an old school house.

The search goes on...

So, here we are

in Oklahoma.

My husband no longer has a job.

We no longer have a house.

We are staying in my mom's three bedroom house. 

Nine of us

And it's awesome because we are going to be living our dream!

(And I dream big)

We are tearing up the road looking at every possible property in a one hundred mile radius.

Whatever happens,  I am incredibly blessed because we didn't plan this five years ago when we bought our (now previous) house as a fixer upper. We didn't know then that I would be getting to the bottom of my personal barrel. That I would need a change like I need water. But I'm a prayin' kind of girl and I think all those prayers added up because we are here and it's like magic and I can't wait to see what happens next!

Our Journey Begins

Steps to Making an Oklahoma Homestead:

(It helps to make a list, it barricades you from the notion that you are leading your family down a dark pit from which there is no return!)

Step: 1

Sell your house.

 Check

Step: 2

Pack all your Belongings. (Get rid of as much as you can stand to.)

 Check

Step: 3

(This one is the hardest.) Say Goodbye to your Family and Friends and LEAVE.

Check

Step 4:

Find the place where you will relocate your family, grow and raise everything imaginable, be happy, be successful, build your dream house on, and . . . grow into the person you want to be.

Totally do-able right?

I guess we'll just have to find out! Let the adventure begin.