I started journaling about our housing crisis/adventure in January, and oh, it was real, and oh, it was raw. There was drama and tension and disappointment and bitterness. It would’ve made good TV. I may revisit it for publication; nay, verily, I intend to. I think there are things to be learned there and I think keeping it real is important.

But good things are real, too. In the past month, I’ve caught myself “venting” a lot to my husband, my sister, my bestie cuz. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s ok when you need to do it. But I think sometimes I rely on negativity for making conversation. I am not naturally a peppy, perky person; I appreciate that such people exist, but I don’t aspire to be one. Sometimes—I confess—I think I might even be afraid of joy, of gratitude, because I’m afraid I’ll lose myself, which just goes to show how a person can be afraid of the very least likely thing to happen. Am I afraid I will stop reading Poe? Am I losing my natural spectral pallor and consumptive flush? Am I likely to stop thinking death sounds like a nice, long, quiet rest? Not really.

But on the other hand, do I not believe that joy and gratitude are right? That my children need me to set a good example in those regards and that my husband would appreciate a hopeful word now and then? That my words effect my mindset and that my mental health is not well served by only looking on the dim side?

So instead of leading off with drama and tears, although it is important to me that you know they are there, let me lead off with good news: at least 11 years ago, we purposed to pursue mortgage freedom, and we are finally making some meaningful progress.

I know it was at least 11 years ago because I had a blog about it in 2014, Tinker’s Refuge. The Wayback Machine archived a lot of those old posts, and I’ll be sharing some. They’re rather poignant for me to read, written as they were when we had little children who are now nearly grown. My hopes included them spending the golden years of their childhood in our forever family homestead, and now. . .

But there, I’m straying again. I was talking about goals achieved, not missed. We checked off a big one in January when my husband attended a Purely Post & Beam timber framing course at Shelter Institute, something we’ve been aiming at for probably 14 or 15 years.

A couple of weeks ago, we took another important step when we ordered a tiny house from Lancaster Log Cabins. On another day, I’ll talk about how we reached that decision. It was not an easy one and it involved compromise on everyone’s part—it was no one’s first choice. However, one huge blessing has been that we got instant buy-in and even excitement from the kids. I am so thankful for that.

We will not be able to buy it without a loan; we came so close, thanks to the sale of our cabin two years ago, but we need cash on hand for site work and to begin our foundation built home. However, it’s a 15-year-loan instead of 30 so I’d say that puts us halfway to mortgage freedom! It also is about half the monthly payment of our rent or our last mortgage + HOA fees.

Downsizing will be hard; we know that. We’ve always had fairly small houses, but the house we rent is large (for us, anyway) and I’m afraid we’ve expanded to fill it. However, there are certain things we are looking forward to:

1. Every time I do chores, I think “Soon there will only be one toilet to clean and no stairs to vacuum.”

2. There won’t be dishes in the sink waiting for the dishwasher because there won’t be a dishwasher. It will be wash, dry, put away.

3. There won’t be counters full of clutter because there will be hardly any counters.

4. There won’t be able to be as much clutter because we won’t be able to have as much stuff. Less stuff means less work to maintain it.

Now, I know some of you are whispering, “She doesn’t know; should we tell her?” Don’t worry; I know. It will be annoying at times to have only one toilet. It will be a constant yet even more necessary chore keeping clutter at bay in a small space. I know. And I also know that my ability to deal with it will be in direct proportion to my determination to see the good aspects of it.

Although we’ve paid our down payment on the cabin, our loan doesn’t close until tomorrow, so that’s the next big step. I’ll keep you posted!

Upcoming topics:

1. Why mortgage freedom?

2. How we decided on a tiny house and what else we considered

3. All of my feelings positive and negative about tiny houses

4. Prior schemes for mortgage freedom

   . . .and more!

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