May the games begin!!

After Jeff and my combined 13 years of renting, we are headed into the great world of home ownership. We are looking forward to it. No more money grubbing useless landlords for us, hopefully forever! Instead of pouring our hard earned money into a empty hole we will be pouring it into a hole that will show some progress of being filled.
We have our closing Friday and the church is helping us move in on Saturday. I have already been doing some things at the house liking tearing out wallpaper. But more on that to come.
Been some crazy times for us. I am trying to plan next years crop as well as plant some fall bulbs and clean up from this first crazy year in farming. Jeff has been trying to make enough to keep our heads above water until next years crop. And in the middle of that we have been trying to sort through and rid ourselves of some of our junk from combining households, get teeth taken care of, get the real estate agent to actually work for us, get the lawyer to do his job for the closing, deal with bad landlords, and start working on the house. And soon Christmas will be here and sooner than that Jennifer and Tim's wedding in Columbia. But I do thrive on too much to do, so I guess I won't complain. And there is so much more I'd like to do.....start classes in aromatherapy and herbal medicine, build a small greenhouse, plan a workday for the church, make dried flower wreaths, make more soap, make cheese and yogurt, start a graywater system....well you get the idea.

Jeff and I put an offer on this house today!!! Should be under contract by the end of the week and we should be moving in by the end of the month. It was a hard decision because we had to realize we were buying it for the sake of the house and not the land. When we first saw it we were so excited because it was just what we were looking for; a small fixer-upper house and some land for the flower fields. And then the next day we found out that no they had divided the land so that the steep land was with the house and the tillable land was being sold for $22,000 an acre. Way more than we could pay and really way over the market. We were so disappointed. It took us a while to get back on our feet and decide that we could still lease land around to use and at least we would have a house to live in without paying money into the black hole(rent). The four acres that it has with it is not really useful for our purposes (although we may put a few sheep out there). But are hoping to make do and possibly with the real estate market dropping off we could offer to buy some of the land around at a more reasonable price.

Don't get me started on the price of property here. It is ridiculous what people think they are going to get even with the market like it is. But I guess it will catch up with them.

We are back!!!!!! Good times in JAPAN. Pictures to come soon.