Constructing a House - the easy way

We have been told construction has begun!

I find if difficult to wait these days knowing that hundreds of miles from here our home is in construction phase and we don't get to watch it get built. That is the way with manufactured homes. From beginning to end, the home will be constructed indoors out of the elements - in 10 days or less!

We officially placed our order for our house August 19. We were told 30 days in process and then it would be shipped to Hot Springs. Next Thursday the 30 days is up and the house will be on it's way to us! Imagine a loud scream of excitement here!

As we wait, the land continues to undergo changes. For the last few weeks Jack and I have been spending a lot of time at the crystal mine. Each time we go, we fill the back of the truck with white quartz and beautiful crystal clusters. These are now lining the driveway on our land but eventually will be used to outline flower beds and make a labyrinth. We purchased a wood shredder at a yard sale and now have a way to make our own mulch from the trees and branches grown on our land.

I have been crazy about visiting our local Lowe's Store on a weekly basis. As their garden inventory dwindles, they put the remaining plants on sale for 75% off. I have purchased a variety of trees, shrubs, flowers, sedums and fruit plants from $3 to $1 each! I am very excited about the Angel Trumpets, elephant ear and the dinner plate hibiscus plants. Now, scattered around with all the quartz rocks are various sized potted plants, all waiting for their new home. Fortunately, Arkansas has had an unseasonably cool summer and I have not had to go to the land to water every day!


The shed/cabin/work shop work continues toward completion. We have made the structure our home away from home and love the time we are able to spend there. Jack worked hard to complete the deck and I worked on creating flowerbeds. We hope to spend next week shingling the roof and finishing the trim. Ok, I'll be honest here, Jack will do the shingling and trim - I will continue to play with and in the gardens. Inside insulation and sheetrock will wait perhaps until next spring. There is no hurry to finish that until the shed will actually be used as a workshop.

We believe we will be very busy out at the land next week so Jack has the week off from work. We expect to close on the house loan around Monday. The foundation for the house should be going in as well. Other projects include the installation of an electricity pole and digging trenches for the water, sewer, and electrical connections to the house. (This includes electricity to the workshop.) Once the house is "planted", we have ten days to build the front deck and the carport. I say "we" but I am including my contractor in this! He will be doing the majority of the work. Once the house is in place, I can begin planting the various perennials, shrubs and trees I have collected - at last count this was about 75 various plants. (That does not include the 100 iris plants a fellow master gardener gave me - those are all ready in a flower bed.) I also have about 2 dozen cannas to transplant from our rental house. And I was sad when I left all my plants in Minnesota!

Last week, we paid a security deposit for a tiny one bed room apartment in Bryant, AR. I wish we could move out to our land permanently when the house is done, but we have two more years till Jack retires. Trust me, we will be out there as often as possible until it we retire there! I should have the gardens done by then!

Wow, February? Really?

Was it really February the last time I posted? Guess it's time to do some catching up!

It's a rainy July morning in Arkansas. The sky has rumbled all morning and finally Father Sky is releasing the blessed rain. Jool, our cat, is not too pleased with the commotion... she continually tries to climb up my shoulder for comfort.

Our Arkansas Adventure continues to bring us great joy. We love our land and are excited about all the changes that have taken place over the months. The land is now cleared and leveled, ready to accept our home. Our contractor took out more trees than I thought necessary at the time, but now I am happy with the openness of the area around where our home will sit. (More garden space in the sun.) We added raised beds along the driveway and forsythias and iris now welcome us as we drive up the lane. Several weeks ago we began building a shed for all our garage treasures. There will be no garage on our new house to begin with so Jack needed somewhere to store all his tools. Actually building the shed has gone slow due to equipment problems and time restraints. We hope to "get er done" this weekend when we will spend yet another long weekend laboring in the process of building. The septic system was installed about a month ago and while we were vacationing in Branson MO, the electric company visited our land and installed poles and electricity to the neighborhood! We will get hooked up after the house is delivered. All that is left is pouring concrete footings and delivering the house!

Last week, Jack and I excitedly made the drive to Hot Springs to visit Clayton Homes; the manufacturer/distributor of our new home. We submitted our paperwork for the bank loan and selected all the features we want in our dream home. We are anxiously waiting for loan approval and wondering what the price tag for our home will come in at. We restrained ourselves from structural frills like brick exterior and super high roofs but added features that would enhance our living experience - like a built-in desk, big tubs and lots of book cases for all my crystals and books!

If all goes according to plan, our new house will be delivered in late September and we can move in immediately! The cats will move out to the house in December when our lease is done on this rental house. We have found a very small affordable 1 bedroom apartment in Benton that will serve us well until Jack retires. (His darn cell phone still doesn't work on our land.) Once we are settled, Jack will really have a hard time keeping me away from the crystal mine!

It still amazes me that we have been in Arkansas now for 8 months. The time flies by so quickly and before we know it, we will be celebrating Christmas in our new home. I am looking forward to seeing you all as our guests! Happy Summer! Joanne

Below is a link to the floor plan of the final house we ordered for our land. We have flipped it so the door to the carport will be on the west side. Let us know what you think! You will have to cut and paste the URL to your browser!

http://www.sehomes.com/customer/details.php?model=EZ-436

Manifesting

Manifesting

Jack and I did a ceremony at our church on New Years. In the ceremony we let go of everything that was keeping us from connecting with our Christ center by performing a burning ceremony. We wrote down everything we wanted to let go of on flash paper and then symbolically burned it up. Once you create a hole, you need to fill it up or the negative will come back. We were each asked to fill the emptiness with a written description of what our dreams and desires looked like for the New Year. The pastor said she would mail the letters to us in July so that we could see the power of prayer and manifesting.

It was an easy letter to write. Jack and I wanted to see prosperity in the lives of all our family and friend’s lives, as well as our own. We defined that prosperity as an overflowing abundance in love, health, finances, knowledge and spirituality. I wanted a fulfilling job, Jack filled in with his own personal wishes. Both of us wrote on how we wanted to get a home on our land before he retired from Walgreens. (That is at least 2 ½ years away.) We also wrote that we wanted to keep our house payment as low as possible as we planned to live in this house for many years after we retired. We asked that God’s will to be done, for our highest good. You know where this is going…

Last night we headed out to visit our favorite rep, Darla, at Clayton Homes in Hot Springs. We wanted to let her know about the model home we were thinking about purchasing at Luv Homes and wanted to get a quote from her on what our dream home would cost if we ordered one from her. We also wanted to know if we could still use Bud for the bulldozing work if we didn’t buy from her. Bud is an independent contractor that does all the preliminary home site work for Clayton Homes – before the house is actually delivered. He quoted all the jobs we need done and we really liked his honesty and his price!

We are so happy we decided to come clean with Darla! It turns out Luv Homes is a sister company of Clayton Homes. The same parent company owns both! Darla told us if we chose to buy the model home, she could have it transferred to her lot and she would make the sale. That meant we could still use Bud for either home! More importantly, Darla would still be our rep no matter which home we decided to purchase.

All that was left for us to do was decide on which home we wanted. We could buy the model home now and get a break on the price or wait and order a home in November and get exactly what we wanted. The final decision came down to the fireplace and comparing the mortgage payment/total cost for each option. It seems we couldn’t add a fireplace to an existing prefab home as no insurance company would cover it! With the recent power outages because of ice storms, having a second heat source was important to us.

We asked Darla for a quote on the cost of ordering our dream home with all the changes we invisioned. In less than 24 hours she called us back with the news. The difference in the cost between buying the model home and ordering our dream home was only $3,500 – the same amount we would have to pay in additional rent if bought early! The decision was a no brainer - we decided to wait and order our dream home in several months. The house will be on our property, ready to live in, sometime in late September or October. I can’t believe it – in less than a year from moving here, we will be living in our dream home on our land (part time) – with an unbelievable low house payment – about a third of what we were paying in MN.

Now that’s manifesting!

The Next Big Decision

Several weeks ago I wrote about our decision to purchase a manufactured home. Last week, Jack and I stopped in at another manufactured home site and found our dream home on their lot. We were just looking as there are about a dozen of these places around here that sell pre-fab homes. It was so fun seeing our future home and walking through the kitchen and living spaces.

The model home on display didn’t have the fireplace in the living room, the sliding glass door off the dining room or French doors into the den like we wanted, but it was the exact layout of what we are planning to buy! You can imagine our excitement when we found out the model home was for sale – available for immediate delivery – at a $14,200 discount. And, the company would throw in the cost of building the foundation the house would sit on- as a bonus.

This has been a lesson on trusting our intuition and listening to the inner voice of God. We immediately went home and began meditating and praying. And we continue to ask God if we are to take the model home or if we are to wait as planned and order our dream home in October.

We have done lots of comparing. If we bought the model home, we would be “settling” on something less than what we wanted. But, we could make a lot of improvements with $14,000. We would also be putting this house up in April – about 6 months ahead of our plan. Although we plan on renting something in the Benton area for weekdays, we don’t really want to have the $1000 rental house bill and a house payment. We figure we would be overpaying rent by $3600 through November but would be able to homestead our house a year faster. If we “ordered” our home, we would be making more decisions about the interior of the home, like deciding on floor, carpet and wall colors. We would have the house built more to our liking - with the fireplace, sliding glass door and den. And of course we knew, some of the changes would involve additional charges.

Next we looked at our two sales reps. Darla is a sweetheart and we totally trust her. She gave us line item costs for everything that needed to take place to get the land ready for the home. She connected us with a contractor that would do most of the ground work if we went with her. We loved the contractor’s honesty and willingness to work with our plan. (Even though he can’t save all the trees.)

Both Jack and I had an uneasy feeling about the person we would be working with if we bought the model home. We didn’t feel like he would be dishonest, but he was already pushing a $15,000 beautification package for getting the home and grounds “installed”. We like the idea of itemized costs rather than a package deal that would contain things we don’t want or need. And he kept saying "bring in your land deed; bring in your land deed"… hmmmm

I am so thankful we don’t have to make the decision over night. As a matter of fact we get the sense that we are to take our time and really understand the benefits of one home over the other. I have to admit, I liked the idea of having our home delivered by April. But I am not going to let my excitement get in the way of what is best. I don’t believe the money is the greatest factor in our decision. So, for the next week or two we will continue to gather the facts and pray for Gods guidance as we make our next big decision.

Spring is in the Air

I warmed up the ole garden tiller yesterday! I love digging in the earth and planting. Yesterday afternoon was all about breaking up the soil, adding the compost and enriching the garden with mulch and fresh black dirt. Today, I plant.

For the past few weeks I have been outside cleaning up the vacant lots on either side of our house. It saddens me that the builders of this community had to leave such a mess on every vacant lot - old lumber, broken trees, remnants of plumbing and pipes, clumps of cement, piles of debris; bits and pieces of other peoples homes left behind to pollute the land of future home builders. Add to that years of weeds and neglect and it makes a very unsightly mess. We have these messes on both sides of our rental home.

Little by little, Jack and I have been picking up the pieces and throwing them out with our weekly trash. We have cleared away weeds and made room for a vegetable garden. The dumped boards will find a home in garden projects on our land. The re-bar became markers for identifying where our house will go in and tomato stakes in the future. We recycle what we can and throw out what should have been disposed of year's ago. We are loving the transformation - even the energy around our home feels uplifted.

A while back a friend explained to me why she sensed gardening is so important to me. I am a "feeler" - in the psychic realm I am known as an empath. I pick up on what other people are feeling and take it on. Whether I am driving down the road or walking through a mall, I attract what is going on around me and feel the emotion as if it is my own. There was a time when I didn't understand what was happening. I would be feeling great (myself) one moment and then walk into work and suddenly I would shift to some other emotion. I would feel tension or anger, apathy or fear; whatever was being sent out by those around me. I have learned now to block it or - when I take it in, to find a way to release it. When I garden, I release that energy back into the earth to be transmutated. I love the feeling of being grounded and get great satisfaction from planting and cultivating beautiful gardens. The process is also very peaceful for me and I feel it is where I experience my greatest God connection.

Saturday morning I finally connected with the Master Gardener program here in Saline County. For whatever reason, I was not able to connect until now and missed the training for this area. I will be allowed to volunteer with the other Master Gardeners but will have to take the training next January before I am officially a Master Gardener in Arkansas. One of the gardeners adopted me for the afternoon and took me around to view the various projects managed by the Master Gardeners. It seems that Benton wants to be the capitol of Crepe Myrtles. They are everywhere from small shrub to tree size! I guess I will be planting a few of these on my land as they are very beautiful in both the spring and the fall. And yes, I am already making plans for the pond we will have on our new land!

It actually feels good volunteering before I take the training. I will have a year to learn and explore the area. I have a multitude of wonderful teachers to teach me about the difference of gardening in zone "8" (This area was recently upgraded from zone 7 - another symptom of global warming.) Did you know that tulips are considered an annual here? Yup, there is not a cool enough period of time after the tulips bloom to allow the bulbs to rebuild. We get too hot to fast! I am behind the season as I should have already planted my broccoli and cabbage - that can go in mid February! Oh, we have two growing seasons in Arkansas. The first is now through the end of June and the second starts the end of August. Guess the plants don't like the heat and humidity of July and August. I wonder if Jack and I will...

Our forecast for the next 10 days is mid to upper 50's moving into the 60's. It appears we will not drop below freezing for the next 10 days. Hmmmm, Spring is in the air - I am so tempted to plant a tomato bush!

California, Facebook and the Soul

I spent this past week in California and all I have to show for it is my new facebook account. Ok, so I got a little bit of a suntan, managed to read a few books and visited the ocean. It was a good week.

Jack had to go to LA California for a week of training on the AGFA machine for Walgreens. This is the big machine hanging out in the photo department that prints beautiful pictures - when it's not broken down. We have one such machine in Little Rock and Jack will now be responsible for it's care. There was actually a repair ticket on the machine waiting for him when we got home last night at midnight.

While Jack studied and learned about this fabulous machine, I hung out at the pool, read and played with our computer in our hotel room. On the two evenings when Jack was let out of class before dark, we headed to the ocean and enjoyed the water and the sunsets. I felt no draw to visit the sites in the area alone. Even Disneyland held no attraction for me - which is good, because we had no time.

I spent my days at the hotel - walking, dining alone, hanging out at the pool and in our room. And that is when it happened! A friend sent me a link to join facebook and I decided - why not - I have time to learn. I followed the link and was transported into a new cyber land of faces, details and photos of family and friends from my way distant past! I am now connected with a group of really dear people in my life, three of which are old friends from my Jr High years in Raton New Mexico! How cool is that!

California was also good for me in that I had lots of time to do some soul searching. I am struggling to understand where I am supposed to head next in the job market. My skills are in the corporate world, but my heart is somewhere else all together. The head says get a job; make money, work, work, work. The heart says I have been given this opportunity to follow my dreams - look around - explore. It was really important for me to look inside and find where the messages were coming from and what was motivating my actions.

It all came together last night at the Dallas - Fort Worth Airport- gate 4. We were waiting for our plane and chatting about the week and all that we both had learned. Larry King and guests were blaring overhead - talking about shooting wolves in Alaska and how to find a job in this wonderful job market. The guest said something that really resonated with me. I don't remember his words exactly, but what I heard was - chuck the old, do something fun, make a change! Follow the heart! He gave several examples of what others had done and then gave a list of the industries that were still hiring in this tough market. Jack and I were chatting about jobs and dreams and expectations at the same time... I shared my thoughts and fears and self imposed expectations. I was able to get really clear about what Jack was seeing, what I wanted and the boundaries I was creating for myself around working and contributing to our partnership of marriage. As we talked, I felt this weight being lifted off my shoulders and I could see that there was room and opportunity for me to branch out without fear of letting Jack or myself down. Our sharing opened me up to a place where I could give myself permission to explore without worry of the income or the skill requirements or limiting expectations - mine or Jack's.

Right now, I don't know what my future work life looks like. But, I am excited to start exploring and see where my intuition leads me. You can bet, first on my list will be several local garden centers! And I know my next job will definitely be green!

Our Dream Home, Delivered!

Floor plan view of our "Dream Home"

Jack and I have made our decision. We will be buying a manufactured home for our property rather than build a house on site.

We were able to make it to Hot Springs again to visit our favorite pre-fab home manufacturer’s rep, Darla. For over an hour we bombarded her with our many questions. When the grilling was done, we were satisfied. She was going to be making a sale.

We picked out a lovely 1,800+ square foot home with three bedrooms, an office, fireplace and oak kitchen cabinets. Our dining area will feature a 5 foot sliding glass door and our heating/cooling system will be a heat pump. We would have liked to do the geothermal system but we were told that runs another $25,000 – installed.

On Sunday, we met the site development person, Bud, at our property. For about $1,000 Bud is going to level out our hill - so our prefab house can go in along with space reserved for a carport. For $300 + materials he will create our driveway out of a gravel and clay mix that is very popular around here. We have to move our septic system location from the original plan...it doesn't fit in the current area. Bud will work with the original guy who mapped it out to get the plans changed and get the update approved with the county and heath board channels. The foundation of the house, connecting electric and plumbing and anything else required to set up the house will be done by the installers. Once the house is in place, we will be responsible for adding the decks and a carport/shed. How is that for manifesting easy!!!

There is some sad news though. As much as I wanted to save the trees, it's going to be brutal. Bud said he is required by law to grade the land away from the house by at least 10 feet. This is to insure that water does not drain under the house which would cause black mold; a serious problem around here because of our hot and humid summers. Also, our lot slants in two directions away from the top of the hill. Bud and his crew will have to level it in both directions to get the home to sit level and drain properly. There is at least a 6 foot drop from east to west and equally as large a drop from north to south. A lot of earth will have to be moved to the lower areas.

Our septic system plan involves four - 75 foot long trenches – dug 4 feet deep for laying the drainage system. That is in addition to the tank area and the pipes that go up to the house. The installer will use a backhoe for this work. It is possible to go around the larger trees, but the tree root systems will be compromised. All the smaller trees will be removed as they are too small to go around. The Oak trees are the majority of smaller trees.

In addition to all of that - the home is delivered in two halves on trailers. The site will have to be graded so the truck drivers can pull the house into position and still have room to drive the truck and trailer around the other side and get back to our driveway. There is a sharp drop on the east side of the house down to a gully that runs to the creek. Even if we put in a site built home, a lot of this work would need to take place to secure this side of the land. It was a sad day on Sunday, for me and the trees.

The upside of this is that we will now have a nice area to build a pond on the east side of the house, and we will have additional sunny areas for planting gardens. We were told that most of the trees growing on our land are considered scrub by the locals. Other than the oak trees, what is left is fast growing pines and a lot of weedy shrub stuff. We plan to replace a lot of the lost trees with Oak, Maple and local trees. I am thinking a magnolia tree in the front yard would be awesome!!! Zone 7 – I have a lot of trees to choose from!

We have also made decisions on our timing! Our current plan is to have the site leveled and the drive way put in by the end of March. This will give the land and drive way time to settle before we actually move the house in this fall. We are looking at having the house delivered November 1. That would give us a month to move out of our rental house and find a cheap apartment somewhere in Little Rock. Our plan is to live in the little apartment during the week and live out on the land on weekends, holidays and when Jack takes vacations. Preliminary numbers confirm that we will be able to rent a small place and pay our mortgage for the same amount we are currently paying for rent! Now I am wishing we only had a 6 month lease on this place. The time will be good though - in November the place won’t look so much like a construction zone when we move in as we will have the whole summer to work on landscaping!!!

The Land Is Calling

Here we are on one of our many adventures at our land. Even with little rain in the past few weeks, our creek is flowing at a fast rate! Behind Jack is our creek to the east and behind Joanne is our creek to the west.

Our land has been calling to us a lot lately. When Jack was not on call this month, we hung out at the land. We absolutely love it there and realized there is no way we can wait for Jack’s retirement to build our home!

One of our top priorities while visiting our lot this month was to determine where we would build our home. We wanted to be on the top of our hill, but not risk falling off into the ravine by the creek. We also wanted to be sure the builders would have adequate space to move their machinery around with minimal damage to the trees. I want to protect as many of the trees as possible. We spent hours moving around the stakes and running guide lines. The whole time we discussed all the work ahead of us. Because there are no housing codes out in the country we realized we would be babysitting this project to be sure everything was done to our expectations. And, there was so much we were going to have to do on our own if we were going to be able to afford the house of our dreams and still have a small house payment!

After marking out the dimensions of the dream home and spending some time cleaning up brush and trash; we headed to Hot Springs for a quick meal. On the way, we went by another one of those manufactured home places. We had spent a day in December checking out these type homes and were really impressed with what we saw. We were concerned though about the homes depreciating rather than appreciating in value, and had a lot of questions still. We decided to stop again and learn more about these homes.

Two hours later, we left with a bunch of our questions answered, a pile of brochures and a web site address to explore for more home design options. We had toured several of the homes and were really impressed with the quality and design of the homes. We realized with a manufactured home, we could buy a better quality built home for a lot lower price- like about 35% less than the cost of building a stick house. The manufactured home would be built to code because of all the HUD supervision at the manufacturing site. Most importantly, we didn’t need to hire a contractor or babysit the project – the manufacturer would take care of everything from site preparation to water and electric hook up. And, most of the costs were included in the price of the home!

We went home and read through all the materials and thoroughly explored the website! On the last page of the website was this really nice home with about 200 more feet of space than we were looking for. But, the house met all of our requirements for our dream home and the extra features were really nice.

Somehow we knew, we wouldn’t be building a home, we would be buying a manufactured home instead. And, once it was delivered – we could move in immediately. Now all we had left to do was figure out the timing.

The Pizza Experience

Friday night is date night - thanks to some good friends of ours, the Petersons, in MN. This is time Jack and I specifically set aside each week to be together and reconnect after a long work week. Lately, we have been using our date nights for dining experiences in our new community.

Last Friday night we went to a place called Larry's Pizza to see if their pizza could satisfy the pallet like a good ole Gina Special from Gina Maria's Pizza in Eden Prairie. We knew it was a pretty tall order, but we thought the place was up to it!

As we walked up to the front door we could see there were people standing around everywhere - lined up along the building, in the entry area and surrounding the hostess. I actually got excited thinking we had found the perfect pizza on our first attempt!

We slowly made our way to the hostess desk and starting asking questions. It appears we had arrived for the Friday night Pizza Buffet (also offered on Tuesdays) with all the salad and pizza you could eat for $10.00. We are trying to avoid buffets as we have found we tend to overeat and we knew we should have left. But, with so many people milling around waiting to be seated, we figured it must be really good pizza!

After 20 minutes of sipping on beverages, we were led to a numbered table. We dropped off our beverages and headed over to the salad bar to fill our plates. For the number of people seated in the restaurant, there was not much of a pizza selection under the warming lights. We headed back to our seats with salads. Within 2 minutes of sitting down, a waitress walked by us with a pizza in her hands and she was yelling out - "Garlic Ranch Chicken"! Following close behind was a co-worker offering "Peanut Butter Cookie with Chocolate". Shortly after that, a pizza ingredient I recognized - pepperoni - was offered. It was like a reverse buffet. The servers carried the pizzas around yelling out the ingredients and if you so much as twitched in their direction, they hand delivered their offerings to your plate. After snagging a few pieces of pizza in this way we were able to taste the wares.

It was what I call cardboard pizza – paper thin crust piled with a wild variety of ingredients, sauces and spices. They were offering pizzas I couldn't have imagined - even in my sleep! Ever try a margarita pizza? How about baked potato pizza. Not me! But people around us were gobbling them up like there was no tomorrow!

We decided we would try to snag a piece of the peach desert pizza. The desert was offered when we first came in but we didn't know how the game worked so we didn't snag any. We figured a fresh peach pizza desert would come out of the kitchen - eventually. After 10 minutes of waiting and watching, one of the servers spied us and came to our table. He noted we were not snagging pizza anymore and was wondering if we wanted refills on our beverage. We asked more questions and learned that if you want something special, you have to flag down a server and he/she will write down your table number on this huge white board by the kitchen. When the pizza of choice comes out - the server delivers the slices to the tables listed on the board, first.

I requested the peach pizza dessert. We had ample time to watch our fellow diners and servers as it took 20 minutes for the peach pizza dessert to be delivered - direct to our table. The server laid several small slices of the pizza on our plates and left yelling out "Peach Pizza Dessert." Jack and I figured peach must not be a local favorite. While it was delicious(much better than any of the meat and vegetable pizza's we tried) and well worth the wait; it will be a long time - if ever - before we venture back to Larry’s Pizza and his pizza buffet. As we battled our way through the massive wall of people still waiting to get seated, we decided the draw was on the quantity of pizza available - not the quality. Our search is still on for the perfect Arkansas pizza.

A Fresh New Year

Greetings from the warm southern state of Arkansas. As I check out the Minnesota weather on the internet, I am reminded once again of one of the many blessings of our move. While the North coils under a freezing arctic blast, we continue to stretch and grow under the southern warmth of sunshine.


And, we have been busy.

New Years Day seemed like a perfect opportunity to get outside and play in the sun. Our destination was the Coleman quartz mine and the forecast was calling for temps in the 50's. We were fortunate our weather had been favorable all week; no rain meant that we would not be digging in mud. It felt good to be outside digging in the earth and looking once again for her treasures - even though the ground was cold and our fingers froze up quickly. We came away with happy hearts but realized we probably wouldn't return again until the end of February. (Spring) This is "show" season as most of the mine operations are geared to preparing and attending the various shows around the country. The focus at the Coleman mine we were told was packing - no trucks were working down in the mine. Of course, it was a Holiday! We were content with going through the existing piles that were dumped the previous week. Most of the piles seemed to be from clean up work as there were not a lot of crystals to be found. Again, we were just happy to be outside – In January – digging in the earth.

Last weekend we finally made it out to our land for some quality time. We can only go on the weeks that Jack is not on call as his work cell phone has no reception on the land. We are working to find a solution to this phone issue as it will limit when we are actually able to move to our land as well.

We spent the weekend mapping out where we want our new home located and clearing out some of the small brush. The land is filled with very large pine trees and smaller oak trees. Our goal is to have a very minimal impact on the land and only remove as many of the larger trees as are absolutely necessary. A lot of the bush and clutter around the house site will have to go though as we don't want to encourage snakes and critters to take up residence in our immediate living space. We also enjoyed walking along our creek and spending time in meditation. It was so peaceful in the woods! I know I will have to visit the woods often until we can actually move out there.

So far this year, we also attended our first Course in Miracles class and were able to participate in a healing session at our new Unity Church. The course class was a little more structured than we were used to but both Jack and I realize that is what we need right now. At the healing session, we met a woman who has connections with the Psychic community of Little Rock. She also gave me a lead on a possible job at the University of Arkansas - in their research department. It was enough to motivate me to update my resume, get a haircut and freshen up my suit.

This afternoon - I think I'll head over to the local job service to see what is available in the area - besides retail! It feels like it's time for me to find a pleasurable way to earn income as we continue to settle into our new home and community.