Determined

It’s been a stressful 24 hours. Not for any reason other than we don’t want to leave our house for any length of time. I can’t believe I’m saying that. But this is the first real home…all our own, with its faults and all, that I feel needs me. A house that needs me? I believe wholeheartedly that Brickle knew we would have to have a project and a hard one at that, in order to cope with his absence. I feel this house saving me literally every day. And now…we have to take a break from it. And I’m scared.

Traveling full time for over eight years with our dogs in an RV was hard! People kept telling us that we were living the dream. But they only saw the good parts of it. Because I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for us for taking a harder path. And I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for us now. Not even because we’ve been thrown this curveball. It is part of this journey to fixing this house. It is part of what we have to do and part of how we had to get Brickle here in time.

Where will we go at the end of the week? We don’t know yet. We would like to go to the UK, but the price is too much. The exchange rate is too much. So our choices are Albania or Montenegro. We don’t know much about either place. But they are not part of the EU countries. That makes it so we can stay there until we get our test results back. We also have a friend with a friend, I say this chuckling, that has a place in Albania we can stay at for a good price. We need a good price. But we need somewhere safe as well. And somewhere Fruitycake will enjoy. He deserves to be happy no matter what  our circumstances are.

We will have someone to look after our house and check on it often. We also were able to secure a gate and cameras and secure Brickle’s resting spot. Even at night, it will be protected.

A few good things about this detour is that we can get internet ordered and delivered for our arrival back and not have that huge issue to deal with. We can also finalize sponsors and get delivery set for solar, etc.  We also know what we have to deal with now. We had to jump in to this project and live here very quickly. Very. Quickly. But we now have more of a plan. And things will move faster once we get back.

How long will we have to stay gone? It depends on when our test results come back. If we both have failed the test,  we can come back in three months, worse case. We don’t feel like that will happen. But that’s the specific.

We are more determined than ever. A couple good things about taking a break from renovation is clear. First, we can regroup physically. It’s been hard on our bodies and minds. We now can get it together a bit without collapsing. Also, we have a suitcase full of documents and papers and pictures of the house and its history, which we don’t even know yet. And now, we will be able to do some videos on the history for you. We know you’ve been asking.

This will all work out. And we thank you for your support. Questions? Ask away!

-Rachael