Where Do We Go From Here?

As soon as I typed the blog title I immediately thought of the Buffy episode Once More with Feeling and the closing song "Where Do We Go from Here?" There's a wistful, sad and uncertain quality expressed through the music and words. The mood best conveyed my feelings when I decided it was time to move again. But where?

I'm going to give you a preview of the intense internal and somewhat embarrassing dialogue I had with "I", <me> and myself.

"I should make a list."  <Yes! We love list.> Okay, list what you want.

"I want to be around nature not the city." <God, yes, please! And water, could we be by the water again?>  That means getting out of the city and into the country. Do you really want to live out there... all by yourself... with only us in your head???

"People. I want to be around people, but not a lot of them though. I don't want another apartment." <What about water? A lake or a pond? Huh?>  Hmm, still out in the country but populated area, like a small town, but water... that's rich man's territory. We can't afford to rent a house out there or buy land near water.

"I'm not ready to buy land and I don't want a house, remember. I want something small." What about a trailer park and a mobile home? Bet we could rent one of those. <No! You offend our aesthetic sensibilities with that suggestion! I refuse to set foot in a trailer park!> 

*Eye roll* You like camping and stuff. What's the difference between a trailer park and an RV park? <That's different!> How? <I don't know. It just is!>

"An RV park. Can I rent long-term at an RV park? Do you think they have monthly rates?" I don't know, lets find out... *internet searching*... Yep, sure can. About $300 a month, too. Not bad. <An RV park. Really?> They have them by the lake.  <Really!!> And there's people. The kind of people we like to hang out with when we go camping. "True."

After that discussion, day one was spent researching RV parks in the area, especially those that offered monthly rates. Then I researched people living in RV parks for extended periods of time. It looked very feasible, which led to internal dialogue round 2.

"So. If I move to an RV park, what would I live in?" <Oooh! We could build our own tiny house! Squeeeeeee> No we can't. <Bt. Dt. Zt. WHAT!!> We can't build our own tiny house. We don't have enough money saved. We don't have enough time to build it if we plan to move by December. And we don't even have a place to build it. Plus, there's a lot of legal issues with building a tiny house because of Zoning. (Unless we move to Victoria or Houston, Texas.)

<Bt. Bt. But. I want a home. I don't have to have land. I just want a home, one that's mine. Something we can travel in.... And cute, too.> "We can't really travel in a tiny house, either."

 "Why We don't Build Our Houses to be House Trailers"

 "Even if I could build a house on a trailer, I don't have anything to pull it with." What about buying an RV, a motor home? <Those are boring!> "Those are expensive and I don't like the layouts of most of those. Especially the bench dinettes. They're not made for big people."  

Ann Henion's TED Talks which runs through many of the above points. 

"So what do we do?" <So what do we do?> So what do we do?

*typing, researching, Googling, oohing, ahhing...*

The dialogue goes on for quite some time and I'm not going to script out the hours of craziness. Let's just say that from this internal dialogue and resulting research, I made a list.

THE LIST
1. I like living close to nature and a body of water.
2. I like solitude but don't mind living around people... if they're the right people.
3. I want something that I can travel in.
4. I want land to start a homestead.
5. I want a small place but not too small (250 sq. ft. is about right).
6. I want to be able to experiment with different living options.

The list helps me establish the parameters for 'where to go next.'