Closing Time

It’s over! We closed officially on our home/land on the 12th of November. After squatting for over a month, we finally have title to our home. To alter the lyrics of the infamous song “Closing Time” by Semisonic

…Closing Time

You can finally go home and you won’t stay here

It’s a bit of  a stretch, but you get the idea.

Divinely purposed timing

I do not know why Hannah and I felt inspired to move here. I do not know why it took over two years to move into a home that was a simple manufactured home on a bare, flat, 5-acre parcel.

But I do know that this is God’s timing. I know it from so many processes that had perfect timing. Some to my frustration, but others to my benefit that I could not have imagined. Some of the great blessings were that I was able to avoid the costly impact fees. Or that the process took long enough that we avoided a costly over engineered foundation.

I’m grateful we went through this awful process to get to know some great friends/neighbors that we wouldn’t have met if life had gone “according to plan”

A wedding in China

I was gone for about 5 days spanning Nov 5th-11th. One reason I didn’t write last week. Here are the highlights from that trip.

  • Tim got Married
A bride and groom in front of ornate white flowers in the shape of a crecent moon

I’m excited to have  another sister in law. Penny is fantastic!

  • Chinese food (other than weird stuff with frogs legs, or chicken feet) is mostly Asian food that you can get here. Except some exciting dumplings
Multi-color and flavored dumplings
  • Tim’s wedding was in a beautiful location, in a beautiful building, and had more flowers than I could count.
Ornate white flowers
Professional picture of waldorf istoria in Shanghai
Man standing near the lights of Shanghai city at night

Closing costs, soft and otherwise

I don’t find any good reason to keep costs secret, so I’m going to lay out all the costs that it took to build this home, in spreadsheet fashion!

Feel free to peruse if you are inclined. But essentially it cost what we thought, and then some. But by the miracle of God, we were able to avoid impact fees almost entirely. Which saved us enough money that we are planning to get a garage as soon as we can! (which will be at least 2 months😊 ).

New adventures!

I think I’m going to take it a bit easy (after building a fence, getting comcast run to the home, and a permit for a garage…whew) while winter slowly arrives to CA.

I assume it’s coming…

It’s been in the 70s with not a trace of rain.

Soon I hope to begin a home aquaponics greenhouse. But I will keep you all informed with the upcoming adventures.