Random update, sadly devoid of pictures...we're trying to figure out how to build a home before Mick leaves for Afghanistan again. We've been thinking a smaller place, a cabin with a basement. The kind of place that would be tight for holidays, but just right for everyday living. So Mick has started cutting trees and clearing ground, and we've begun soliciting estimates for the site work and foundation. Also, hopefully within a few days the company we want to buy a home kit from will give us a quote for the price of the floor plans we've sent them. The idea is that we can build the shell and dry the structure in before winter, and work on the interior during winter. We think if we sell the place we're in now sometime next year we can pay for it all before Mick has his next deployment, and all the money we make during that year will be all savings.

The place would be a small one, and sure, there are lots of things that would be nice to have that our current home plan does not offer, but we think that everybody tends to make do with what they have one way or another, and we humans expand to fill out living space, like goldfish. In Afghanistan, Mick saw families in the double digits living in structures of mud, cardboard, and fabric that couldn't have been more than 150 square feet, and many didn't even have roofs. We suppose that life this side of death is never ideal, and memories and joy are forever, but houses crumble and burn. To quote Brandi Carlile

"Life is too short to waste all your time

Running too quickly to the finish line...

There's no guarantees or promise of wealth

And you're only allowed so much time on the shelf...

Time isn't money it's only a lie

Because everything lost can be found but your time..."

In other words, we would rather live with a small home forever than have the mortgage of Damocles hang over us for 30 years.