Look-see.

We are seriously starting to plan on moving!

The only problem is there aren't very many houses for sale right now, not like there was back in January when I was looking. I wonder why? Everything for sale now is a cookie-cutter new subdivision house with a 1 acre plot of land. I do not want to live in a subdivision, at all.

There are some places with a few acres that are not in subdivisions, but they are all out of our price range by about $20,000.

I know what's happening--they are building a new huge shopping center there. Previously, when I lived there in college, there was a Walmart and a Kroger. That was it. They also had a run down building with a couple stores in it and that was the mall. There was literally nothing to do there at all. Now that this huge shopping center is going up, they will have a Meijer, a Home Depot and a Lowes, a big Cinemark movie theater, a number of department stores like Belk and JC Penny, several big chain sit down restaurants, and pretty much every fast food place in this area. (This is where the new store Tyler is working at is located.)

It's insane the number of businesses suddenly springing up there. And as a result, they are dribbling those subdivisions over all the nearby farm land, the ones where every single house looks the same.

In some ways it's good, because now the students at the university will have something other to do for fun besides alcohol and drugs. The university is well known as a big party school. Most of the student population gets wasted each Thursday night, no exaggeration. Then on Friday night everyone goes home and it's a ghost town. Now though, with all the new businesses, they can stay on the weekends and hang out at the shops and go to the movies...

But it's also sad, because what was once a small town on the edge of the mountains, surrounded with hills on one side and mountain skyline on the other side, is now turning into sprawling suburbs.

We found this house, about 10 minutes down the road from the new shopping center.

It's far enough out that the 2-lane road turns to one lane. The rolling hills are beautiful. It has neighbors and a 1 acre plot of land, but it's not in a subdivision and the yard backs up to a big barn. Hopefully no one there will care if my roosters are crowing. Someone just down the road had a horse in their backyard, and there are cows everywhere in this area.

I wish it came with even just one more acre, but that's ok. Tyler pointed out that we can save up to by the perfect farm of our dreams, and in 5 or 10 years we might have to move anyway if he gets to own a store. Who knows where that will be.

This house is 1,700 square feet with 2.5 baths and the attached garage Tyler so desperately wants.

We haven't looked inside yet. Which means it may very well be horrible inside, I don't know. You know how that is...

It looks ok in the pictures though.

The backyard looks huge in the pictures, but in person when we glanced at it the space didn't look that big. Rosie was crying though, so maybe I missed something.

I don't think there's room for a cow, but if I can talk Tyler into it (and we can afford it) I think I could keep goats here. I will also plant a very large garden--maybe I can get someone to plow it for me with a tractor.

I'm not sure what that little road is on the right side of the last picture. When we went to the house it looked like the driveway kept going back behind the house, but we didn't drive back there because we weren't sure if people were living in the house or if it was vacant. That would be the road in the picture...but where does it go? To the barn back there? But the barn isn't listed with the house...hmm.

We have to pack up most everything in our current house and then put it on the market. I wnat to start doing that in the next couple weeks, and we can also look at the inside of this house and see if it's nice. The description says move-in ready, which is a good sign. If it's not nice there are a few other houses I have listed to check out, but none are as close to work for Tyler. One of them does have 5 acres and a barn, but it's in another town 12 miles away and the house is much smaller and it looks kind of dumpy.

So that's that. It's not a dream house, but it will do, assuming the inside is nice enough. And also assuming we can sell this house. *sigh* I am not looking forward to showing our house, especially because a) I have a million chickens and b) we will have to be out of the house while it's being shown and it will have to be sparkling clean on a moments notice. I wish I could afford to just send my dogs to the kennel for two weeks when it's first on the market, but we need that money for moving. It will be amazing if we manage to pull this off.

I am dreading and looking forward to packing all at the same time. I can't wait to organize everything into boxes, but it will be so much work!