Moving

Today we live here.

Funny how that happens. You start to dream outside the box (hint: our dream isn't a "job", a mortgage and house in the 'burbs) but you're faced with a situation out of your control to make that dream a reality (our US immigration process).

So back to the drawing board you go. You cry, you write, you consult another lawyer, you process, you talk, you dream more, you research. You make a plan. A big plan.

A plan that will require you to work your butt off. A plan that will take commitment and perserverance. A plan that requires you to give up certain securities (like a steady paycheck) and trust in untold and unseen providences. 

But before you can even commit to that plan you make a preliminary reconnaissance trip. Then another.

And then you commit. You have no clue what you're committing to. You can't anticipate the loneliness in the journey, the work it will take, the challenges along the way.

You also have no idea the beauty and joy that awaits you. The dreams you will realize and the people you will encourage along the way. The "pinch me, we get to live here" feeling you'll have each day.

These last days of December, two years ago to the very day we first came to the Gaspé peninsula, I'm remembering all of this.

In those early days of this journey I had no idea how this was all going to work out. I still have no idea!

But if these past two years have taught me anything it's that this next year is going to be good one. 

Wishing you a Happy New Year with many adventures and untold blessings for your journey!

The last update a couple months ago (could it really be over two months ago since we've updated you all?) left somewhere around "we're (almost) buying land and going to build a yurt". It goes without saying, after this post's title, plans have changed.

In the process of considering the land and determining our budget we arranged to have a realtor come look at our house and give us an idea of what we might list it for next winter/spring. We were this close (put your thumb and forefinger together with a 1/4 inch separation) to buying a piece of unserviced land to build a yurt next summer when we found out the news: In today's market our house is not worth what we owe.

This was a mild shock and I suppose the news should have been expected given the economy. Needless to say, the market value of our home has definitely derailed the land/yurt plan for next summer. The world would not have ended if we had went ahead and bought the land but doing so would have tied up our resources more than we want. Afterall, we want freedom not be be burdened with a piece of land but no money left to buy a yurt in live in.

So, after crashing real hard (Renee has a hard time adjusting to sudden, slow or any change really) we came up with plan B. We had talked about this option already but put it on hold while seriously considering land/yurt.

Plan B - Maybe We'll Travel Instead

What about the house?

Although it was initially shocking how little our house is worth in this economy it didn't take us too long to bounce back with an alternate plan.

Damien's current working visa expires October 2011 and we are moving before that time. We don't have the option of waiting for years to sell our house before finally moving. We're not disappointed (honestly) about not buying the land and building a yurt next summer. We would still like to do that someday. But for next year we're making other plans and here is what they are:

We keep our house and rent it out. Our house has 2 suites - a regular family house (where we live) with a fully finished and renovated basement apartment. We will find a good property manager and rent both suites. We will keep the house as an investment and when the time is right we can sell it.

With the house taken care of we can think about moving anytime next spring/summer when we've found the right tenant and property manager. This option actually makes the planning easier. We don't have to think about when and if we'll sell. 

Plans for next summer

So once we leave Maine then what? Well, we'll need a place to crash. A cheap place to live while we initially launch "phase one" of making a family livelihood. Thank goodness for parents. Renee's parents have already offered their 30 foot camping trailer for us to live in for the summer on their property in Nova Scotia. I think they'd even let us stay in their house (wink). A place to just hang for awhile before moving to the Gaspe.

But we are also thinking that this "in between" time, before we settle in Quebec, might be the perfect time to live one of our family dreams - to travel across the continent with our children and/or do an extended backpacking trip.

Our goal is to build a livelihood that we can take anywhere. Or, have low enough living expenses that we can take chunks of time for travel and adventure. Or ideally a combination of both. Why not try that out next summer?

Freedom is what we want. Freedom to work at what brings us joy. Freedom to adventure. Freedom to spend our days together as a family. This traveling option gives us that so it's something we are seriously considering.

You know what that means, right? It means Adventure in Your Back Yard might be coming for a visit!

But as the title of this post says "all plans are subject to change". We are learning to hold these ideas in our hands and hearts loosely. To not get too caught up the emotion but to look for the open doors and walk through those while accepting others that close.

Blogging as a Part of our Plans

All along we have talked and prayed as a family for the right doors to open. We don't know the path we are to take but we know, with our whole hearts, we are to walk forward. And in walking forward the right opportunities will come our way.

In this update where I laid out our timeline for these two years I said that during these current months Damien planned to be making contacts, working on his resume and basically getting his name out there for on-line work. Though our long term plan is to build a family livelihood (ie: Renee contributing her creative skills and talent) to start off we're relying on Damien's experience and skills to earn our living as we adjust and figure out how to live and work together.

Our writing and photography are starting to open doors for us, taking us one step closer to a family livelihood becoming reality, not just a dream. I can't divulge too much of what's brewing right now but it's exciting stuff and it's coming our way because of our blogs and the on-line presence we have built.

When we started blogging seriously (ie: writing for an audience wider than our families) we made an intentional choice to focus on quality content and being authentic. We want to be the real deal. A family that doesn't just write about the outdoors and natural healthy living but a family that lives it.

We haven't pursued advertising on our blogs, mostly because we can't due to visa restrictions. Instead, we hoped that by building quality content for the long term our blogs would someday financially benefit our family, either indirectly or directly.

We are starting to see some of those indirect benefits even now and are excited to see what new opportunities will arise in the near future. Of course, as we are able to share more about these developments we will do so.

How Do the Kids Feel About This Change?

We've been asked by family members how the kids feel about this impending change in our lives. In two words, mostly excited. 

One of the biggest challenges for Brienne is the thought of parting with stuff. She is the family packrat. Though we have scaled back toys significantly we are planning to scale back further and move just the most important possessions. 

For Celine the disruption of personal space and the change of comforting routines is her greatest concern.

Laurent has the least worries about the move, as long as he's got his sketchbook and a pencil he'd be ready to start a new adventure tomorrow.

With the kids we focus on the positives of this change more than the work that must be done. We are also starting to talk about ways to find personal spaces and maintain comforting routines regardless of where we are - a tent, a yurt, staying with family, etc... This is new for us and we are going to grow as a family in this regard.

We also talk a lot together about what this move will mean for our family in terms of our collective desires to travel and have adventure before the kids are grown.

Up until this point our updates have mostly discussed what this move does for us as adults - livelihood freedom. What might not be clear (and now is a good time to set it straight) is that we want this livelihood freedom for the sake of our family life. Our goal is not to build careers but to build family.

Our plan is to fully support our children as they come into their young adult years and find their own paths for earning a living and being independent. We intend to do that by offering our skills, talents, gifts, strengths, and earning potential to help them meet their goals.

We want to participate with our hands, head and heart to launch our children's dreams and desires as they grow. We are super excited about this. We do not fear the "teenage years".  We anticipate it will be a time of industry, activity, and adventure. And making this change now will start to put those pieces into place. This is one of the reasons we feel the urgency to move and decided not to wait for our permanent residency here in the states.

The time is running out for the years left with our children. We need to make the most of them. Now. 

Our children know our plans to support their dreams, we speak of it often, so I think they look on this move differently than they might if we were simply moving for say, a better paying job. They know this move is part of their future, not just about opportunities for the adults.

Homeschooling is also in our favor in that our children are not closely attached to a school peer group. Family life together is the center of our daily life, not a school schedule or classroom buddies, so the kids haven't expressed the "normal" loss about leaving friends.

After writing these dreams and plans, private thoughts that have been mostly expressed in the safety of our family, I think "wow, people are going to think we're crazy". That's ok. We walk closer to that line with each new adventure.

News of our move will be made public first thing in the New Year after Damien has given notice at work. I won't have time to write another update here and my next moving update will be published "for all eyes" in early January at FIMBY. So stay tuned. We'll post a notice of that here as well.

It will be interesting to see how plans change between now and then.

Over the last ten years, as long as we've been in the United States, Damien and I have talked about moving back to Canada. Never seriously though until last fall. Whenever we'd discuss the possibility it was always a "maybe one day" option. But that path was always way too daunting to consider seriously. And we were happy here and felt it was the right place to be at the right time.

Well it no longer is the right place because of the unknown number of years we will still have to wait to become permanent residents. And so, as we've started to talk about here; we are moving back to Canada.

And now all those daunting aspects of uprooting from Maine and returning to our home country are starting to become reality. An exciting reality some days and other days it's a difficult, tiring, scary and crazy reality.

This journey is not all high points, which has been the tone of many of my updates. Updates written looking back at decisions made and outcomes (albeit small) already realized. I'd like to write a bit of the struggles we face in this process. I hope to look back and read this in the future and say "look at what God has done" in spite of all the obstacles. That is my prayer and really my hope in all of this.

For now we're hanging our hats on words from the book of Jeremiah,

For I know the plans I have for you...plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Crazy

Keeping that hope in mind I'd like to share some of the challenges we are facing:

• We have a moving deadline of next summer because our current visa expires next fall. We could renew that visa but we are investing our money in moving. When our visa expires we MUST be out of the country, we won't have the money it costs to renew it. Leaving the country is not the same as moving to an different state.
• We have lived for 10 years in a foreign country. We have established residence here in every sense of the word (except for immigration permanent residence) - credit history, banking, insurance etc... After this many years our excellent Canadian credit history is gone and the banks will not accept our flawless US credit history. We are starting from ground zero. Good news is we plan to not need credit.
• We own a home, or rather a mortgage company owns our home, and we are looking to sell during an economic downturn. We have factors in our favor - the condition of our home, the apartment we rent, our location. Still, it's very possible our house could take months to sell (God willing it will not take years) but we have to move - see first point. Renting our home out while living in another country is possible though difficult and expensive. It is our sincerest desire to sell our home as quickly as possible next year.
• Our home may not sell for much more than what we owe on our mortgage. That would make our moving plans difficult, though not impossible.
• Damien has a full time job, which is a wonderful thing, but in his spare time has to also gear up to be independant of full time employment. He needs to start doing work for which he can't be paid, which as you might remember is the reason we're moving, no freedom. He needs to make contacts and get the word out there that he will be available for contract work come next summer, all while not getting the word out there quite yet.
• We need to find a piece of land to buy. We made the decision to build a yurt out of three possible options - rent a home, buy a home (hard when you have no credit and we don't want a mortgage anyway), buy a small piece of land and build a yurt. The yurt idea appeals to us on many levels but is not a straightforward undertaking. There's the little issue of finding land within our price range and location requirements then there's everything else (see next point).
• We have to juggle and try to schedule finding and buying land, giving notice at work, selling our house, buying a yurt, actually moving, building the yurt and not earning income for a period of time all within the next twelve months.
• Our current tenant (who is one the best we've ever had) is considering moving. Finding a new tenant and then putting the house for sale in the New Year while keeping a tenant will be challenging. Losing a tenant directly affects our savings account.
• I've forgotten to mention the predominant language in Quebec (the Canadian province we're moving to) is French. And four of us five don't speak French.

This is why I ask myself, sometimes daily "Are we crazy?". And on the really bad days I feel scared. Not for long and not in a gut wrenching kind of way because deep down I KNOW everything will be alright. But if you look at all the pieces at once it can be very overwhelming.

I'm so thankful for Damien. My Mr. steady with a heavy doses "if it's not crazy it's not worth doing" mentality. His enthusiasm, trust in God and hard work is keeping us on course. Likewise, I am keeping us on course in my own way, mainly by focusing on managing our home well during this period of change and transition. Taking care of details, it's what I do best. Worrying about the details is what I must let go of.

Lonely

We're a team, drawing closer together all the time in our common goals and vision but it's lonely to walk this road.

The road has been lonely for some time now, to be honest. We seem to have such strong convictions or lifestyle choices that, though not intended at all, alienate us from people. Homeschooling with a strong family tie, whole, natural plant based eating in meat/processed foods society, following Christ but not attending church, spending a lot of time together outdoors as a family, pulling away from a consumer culture and the list goes on.

And now this... the desire to have no mortgage, work together from home, live in a yurt in the woods to afford us the opportunity to further adventure with our children. If there are other people like us we haven't met them personally. Sometimes I feel our family has dropped off the map of "normal and accepted" behavior.

We have few peers or confidants besides each other. Mentors? Even fewer. We are not trying to be "different". Our desire is not to be unique for "uniqueness" sake. But we strongly want to pursue these interests of ours and to live according to our values, even if it's difficult.

I'm not complaining. Just stating how things feel.

Thankful

But the truth, which is more important than feelings, is that we have so much to be thankful for and there is much joy in everyday living. RIght now I am holding onto this advice from the apostle Paul to the church in Thessalonia.

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

That just blows my socks off. And is what I need to hear each day over and over again.

So, here it is, my list of thanksgivings. The little and the big.

• My parents who have offered to help during these transition periods and in building the yurt.
• Our friends with a backyard pool who have shared this refreshing resource with our family all summer.
• The very close relationship we have as a family; together as a couple and with our children.
• The freedom we have to entertain alternative living ideas and the opportunity to have a grand adventure as a family. Many people all over the world over also have counter cultural ideas but have no freedom to live according to those convictions.
• This beautiful summer, our outdoor adventures so far this season and our bounteous share from the farm.
• The butterflies and birds who daily visit our backyard flowers. I so appreciate their beauty while cooking at the kitchen counter.
• Damien's job a mere 5 minutes from home which pays our bills and then some.
• Our health and overall physical and emotional well being. Life is full and will get even busier as we progress with this move but we feel up to it.
• Friends and family, near and far, who are supporting us with prayer and encouragement.
• The connections we are making to further us on this journey; meeting with a northeast yurt manufacturer, writing opportunities and current land purchase negotiations. Lots is happening behind the scenes that we just don't have time to write about.
• God's loving-kindnesses which are new every morning.

This is a time of great change in our family. The journey feels alternately lonely, crazy and scary. Cultivating a thankful heart seems to be the best, if not the only, course of action.