Still waiting.

So… here we are. Over nine months since Blaine got his CDL, we sold the house, Blaine quit his job in Missouri, and we packed up and moved north to my parents’ in South Dakota with the plan to stay with them short term while we got things lined up to buy an acreage in South Dakota. We’d live in the camper on my parents’ acreage while we looked.

Blaine got a job driving a two-trailered semi hauling grain from elevators to other elevators or to ethanol plants. We got approved for financing a loan for a house for more than we could possibly afford, set a budget for what we can afford, and waited. Our budget is more than double what we sold our house on five acres in Springfield for, and nearly triple for what we’ve ever paid for a home. We had high hopes for something that we loved.

We dug through the storage unit for school books come August. We didn’t plan on doing school here. There was a mad dash trying to collect what we needed for school. Many random things we own we’ve had to re-purchase because we can’t find it in the storage unit.

Lachlan was born in September via emergency cesarean. We never imagined we’d still be here when he was born.

I had to have surgery again in October. We thought, again, that maybe that’s why we were still here. My life is significantly difference after the surgery, much to the better. I’m strong enough to help move now, where I couldn’t when I was pregnant and early postpartum.

My dad finished their chicken coop/dog kennel to make a bunkhouse for Blaine and I and the two little boys. The bigger kids moved into my parent’s house upstairs and we moved into the bunkhouse in November when it got too cold to stay in the camper.

Christmas rolled around. We always thought we’d like to be near family that we could spend holidays with… but we didn’t expect to be quite this close.

Lachlan turned six months old March 7.

Kids are rapidly finishing school subjects. We’ve oddly completed almost a full school year here. Eden is about to graduate high school, and Liberty is about to graduate with her associates degree, but they have no one to invite for a celebration. Friends have been hard to find.

We’ve been to auctions and driven miles and miles to look at any property even remotely close to what we want. There’s not much out there for sale, and nothing remotely close to our price range. We’ve priced buying land and putting a mobile home on it. We’ve gotten quotes on moving an old house and putting it on a basement on an acreage. We’ve talked to land and home owners to inquire if they’d sell, talked to landlords that don’t like the idea of twelve tenants in their home, and we’ve researched running power and water and bringing in gravel and laws on how many acres are required to be able to put a house on. We’ve researched crossing state lines and what the laws and taxes look like elsewhere. The realty website get refreshed dozens of times a day, while we live in my parent’s house and try to manage a second household alongside theirs, with different priorities, different likes and dislikes, and trying and failing to not invade every inch of my parents’ lives that were quiet and so much cleaner before we showed up.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick. That’s about where we are these days. Waiting and waiting, with less hope for the future than we had at the beginning of all of this. We didn’t come into this with a plan B, and we’re not sure what that even looks like.

And still, we wait.