Putting down roots

This is a pretty big announcement, or at least it feels that way to us: We have taken our house off the market. We are not selling our 12-acres-with-farmhouse, and we are not moving to Oregon. The reasons are many and complex, but basically they boil down to this: We couldn't sell our place here for nearly as much money as we'd need to set ourselves up out west. We would have taken a massive quality-of-life hit.

The other thing that happened is this: When we first put our house up for sale last November, we were malcontent here. Maybe it was the election; we felt surrounded by unlike minds and isolated from culture. But during the intervening time, we started to love this place all over again.

Was it Mary Engelbreit who first said "Bloom where you're planted," or was she quoting someone more authoritative? I hope it's the latter. Because 13 years ago, after I made an agonizing decision about where to go to grad school (possibly by flipping a coin--I can't remember now), my stepmother sent me this print, which actually went a long way toward putting my mind at ease. I'd hate to think that all my issues can be addressed by folksy platitudinous illustrations. And I don't want to know what sort of decision I might make that could be summed up with "Life is just a chair of bowlies."

Anyhow, having made the decision, we feel...I don't know, free. We've been living in limbo for a year now, waiting for something to happen and unwilling (for obvious reasons) to invest too much in our lives here. Now we are building shelving units, ordering fruit trees, planning for chickens and goats*. I am a little sad that we won't get to realize all our grand plans in the Pacific Northwest. But I am a lot happy that we have such a great place in rural Georgia.

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* The s.o. has just about had it with mowing all our open acreage. So we're recruiting some help!