It's Been One Year

I first saw this house tomorrow, last year.

I had been daydreaming about owning land for a few years, and had been seriously looking online for about a year before events conspired to put me here.

A year before last year (September 2007, for those who can't do word problems), I was in the Middle East and all over the world in various hotel rooms and apartments (Singapore, Oman, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain, Egypt). In the Middle East, I was in Aqaba, Jordan for 5 months, July through November. If you have to be in the Middle East, go there. It's very nice. Even though, it isn't the kind of place where you (a white, solo, female) can comfortably wander the streets without stress. I digress. As an American, I felt a little culture shock and turned to the internet to transport me to other places. Where on the internet? Real estate listings of farms.

I kept up the online farm hunt as I traveled around the world. It connected me to places that I missed in the US, New Mexico, California, Montana, New York. It didn't matter where, since I wasn't actually looking to purchase. I was looking for a daydream.

I came back to the US in mid-2008, stayed in Oregon with my mother and spent 5 months figuring out what to do with my life (hoping that it would be outside, helping the environment). It didn't turn out that way (yet), but when I got the job I now have in upstate NY, I finally had a location and an upcoming endgame to the farm search. I had also examined so many farm listings across the country that I had a good idea how much 25 acres plus a house would cost.

I started across the country from Oregon to New York on September 10th, 2008. I saw my place online while I was still a few days away, called the real estate agent and made an appointment to see it on my first full day here. That day is September 20th. September 20th is also the day I made an offer on the house that was accepted. The deal closed on October 17th and here I am today. So many things have changed. It's been quite a year!

Note: this is a picture of my house taken from the west (and from a plane) about 20 years ago. The mountain range at the back of the picture is/are the Taconics, right at the New York/Massachusetts border.