In January of 2024, it will be 2 years since we moved in with my in-laws! It has been one wild roller coaster ride that seems to not be slowing down any time soon! I am unable, due to our current living condition, to be brutally explicit about everything but I just want to give an update on life.

Initially, my in-laws wanted to sell their property, buy a house closer to town, and have us live either with them or have a modular home built on the property for them. However, due to the high real estate prices (and low valuation of farm land), this was not financially feasible. So, we moved from a less-than-one-quarter-acre downtown house onto roughly 23 acres. We had such high hopes and plans!

We knew it would be a challenge, adjusting to living with other people after living alone for so long. We had no idea just how challenging it would be. You never really know someone until you live with them. I know this door swings both ways, since I am not an easy person to get along with, but I knew I could make it work. The main issue was there was no room for us here.

We moved from a roughly 800 sq. ft., 2 bedroom home with a garage to a bedroom. We were without any internet for almost a year, having the worst cell phone reception (I never understood the term “Internet Desert” until we move out here, and we only live two miles outside of the city limits). Despite a barn, there was no spare room for our things. “We’ll just get some cargo containers.” We bought two 20-foot cargo containers, yet we still have things at our old house (which is why I am truly thankful my sons are living there).

If this was one of those old homes in Utah, with two kitchens, that would help immensely. However, sharing a completely stocked kitchen (including refrigerator) with another family is difficult. We bought a second freezer … there still isn’t enough room. We have considered buying a mini-fridge and having that in our bedroom, but our space is already so limited.

As for my animals and farming, I had to give all of that up. Thankfully, my former neighbor bought my pheasants from me. My quail came out here and were fed to the land and air spirits (predators fed well for a week while we were moving). I am unable to farm because there are already plans in place for this area or that area.

We began this journey thinking we were finally going to have the space we needed and the ability to help wherever we could. Our hopes got raised, then shot down without a second thought. Now, we have notched that back to being merely caretakers. We are here to fix up the property, “getting it ready to sell.” There were so many projects my in-laws could not keep up with that we still have not completed. We are also here to take care of them if they need it (there have been two health scares that justify our move out here).

What have we learned from this experience so far?

• We LOVE living alone
• We LOVE having our own dog (they have two)
• We LOVE cooking (we never realized how much we loved to cook until we could not)
• We LOVE being able to plant whatever plants we want
• We LOVE living in the country, on small country roads (this property borders a rather busy highway that used to be a small country road)
• We LOVE having neighbors way over there
• We LOVE raising animals that may end up on our table
• We LOVE our drama-free life
• And we still LOVE each other, through all that life has given us over these 25 years together.

Stay tuned for our next chapter, which will be a few years from now. Until then, I have a few other bits of my life to share (I am SO HAPPY to have decent internet)!