Three years ago we started a journey. Two years ago, I typed these words (on a different, secret blog):

A 30 something couple making radical life changes before your very eyes. Going from suburban mice to city and country mice is going to take a lot of work, juggling and patience. With any luck, hilarity will ensue, but more likely; it will be bloodshed.

Since then, there have been tears. Squabbles. Almosts. We’ve fallen in and out of love with several properties. We bought the condo, and built it out. We looked at more property, this time in the mountains. North Carolina. Georgia. North Carolina. North Carolina. We made an offer on one in North Carolina and withdrew after a survey. We looked more. We shifted and refined our focus. Then we found “the one”. Well, first we found “the place” (community) then we found a house. Then we made an offer and withdrew it due to inspection results. THEN we found it.

We made our offer in January, and closed on our lot in April.

It’s taken some time and some negotiation and a lot of people offering their opinions (*ahem* ladies, do you remember what that was like when you were getting married or giving birth? Mmmkay then.) about getting an architect vs building. We had people saying things like “ohhh my builder? You could draw it on the back of a napkin and he could get it built!” I’m sure. I’m also sure it wouldn’t have any power outlets or running water, and I’d have to enter the front door about 3’ below earth. No thanks.

We’d come across some designs we loved over the years of buying more cabin books than we’ll ever need, ripping pages out of magazines, and viewing models. We agreed to call it a cabbage (cabin + cottage), and one significant thread ran through nearly every design our confused, delusional minds connected with: the architect. A very particular architect who lives outside Nashville. Nashville, a town where The Mc had a conference last month. You see where this is going kids? Ray, a note that follows doe.

We’ve engaged him. We’ve engaged a builder. We’re moving forward, inch by inch, with care and tenderness for each other and the land we’re about to disrupt. With thoughtful intent, and a well nurtured dream nearly achieved.

We’re giving birth. To a cabbage. Approximate due date fall/winter 2012.

Over two years ago we conspired over a series of meals and cocktails, forming our perfect plan for world domination to build the life we wanted.

I sold my condo and moved in with him, then he sold the big house later a year later and we eventually bought a loft. Part one of the plan: complete.

Part two proved considerably more difficult. How do you begin a collaborative painting on an empty canvas when one of you has an affinity for Romanesque and the other worships Dali? When one wants to buy 30 acres of land but can’t decide where or what it should look like (on the water or the side of a mountain with a view? North Carolina, Georgia?) and the other just wants to get. it. done.

One conversation at a time, during long road trips of knitting, podcasts, and debates that shouldn’t be engaged in when you’re trapped in a vehicle moving 70mph. I created a second blog with no links to this one, where we tracked our progress and posted ideas for the future.

We made an offer, we had a survey done, we rescinded our offer. We made another offer, we had an inspection done and we rescinded our offer. I fell in and out of love like a tween in heat. Each one “could be it!” became an annoying anthem, which could have only been worse if Celeine Dion had been the one singing it. I started thinking the blog and the conversations with friends were jinxing our plans – because you know that me talking caused that one house to have polybutylene pipes.

We changed our minds about where and when. We drew lines in the sand, set deadlines and missed them. We fell disheartened, discouraged, deranged. We had Sir Isaac Newton moments where we were clunked on the head with red apples shining from sea to sea – but were they Newton’s apples, or Adam and Eves?

Something happened new years eve as we were about to leave for the night that had us giddy and scouring real estate website search results for a particular area – we’d had an epiphany about where. Now: when? Things started to fall in as it should, as you could only hope and dream and wish for, as you can only truly appreciate when you’ve worked and looked and had your hopes dashed. Disappointment breeds gratefulness?

Less than two months later (last Thursday), we closed.

We’d found it – rather our agent found it for us. It’s a 1ac lot, not 30. It’s on a finger of a lake, not on the water itself and not off a goat trail. It’s in a gated community with a 24 hour guard, so he doesn’t have to worry when I go up by myself. There are 3 lakes for me to drop my kayak in. There are 30 miles of groomed trails for me to walk and run, there is a fundamental love and respect for nature there – where we’ve seen deer, grouse, turkeys and even a wolf on our visits. There are a number of other bits to be giddy about but mostly this: it’s ours.

We are (almost) officially city mice and country mice. Now we just have to decide on our cabbage (cottage + cabin) design and make that part happen. It could take the rest of our lives, but I doubt it…we’ve got momentum now.