The Texas Adventure that started it all
Our Texas Adventure was kinda a big deal for us. We actually made 2 trips to Texas. The first was spur of the moment, turned 6 week long soul seeking hiatus. The second trip about a year later was slightly more planned and lasted 6 months. Slightly as in instead of going with no clue on housing or income like the first time, at least we had offers for both.

We learned a lot on both trips – like how to live on no income, how to live solely on food storage with scarce fresh food, situational awareness from being in an isolated part of a big city, no heat/ac in temps from low teens to 100, hit and miss running water, no refrigeration and of course how to live in tiny spaces with a slightly larger than normal family. Yes we often joked about it preparing us for the Zombie Apocalypse. Truthfully, if things weren’t as challenging there we wouldn’t have entertained this prompting. Let alone jump and actually do it!

It all started with a blue bird sending us to Texas. As plans were being made and finalized, our Suburban broke down (sept 30). Quickly followed by divine help to purchase a new (to us) Excursion. Whew! That was close!

Little did we know, that would be the least of our problems for a while. Upon arriving to the House in the Country City, we learned things were not exactly as they appeared 600 miles away. After living in an interesting motel for 4 days that seemed to stretch on for eternity, the house we were to be staying in was cleared out enough for us to kind of move in. Two adults, 5 children and a lab in 1 bedroom, the master thankfully! Very tight for 7 people but we were out of that motel. After a month of that, our living space was doubled to about 400 square feet when the living room was cleared out (the same room we stayed in during the hiatus)! Tiny living? We totally got this!

Mr. was busting his butt for 15 hours a day and the money, well it just wasn’t coming in. Then we were robbed. Nice. A month into being there, that new to us truck broke down with a fuel and oil leak. Even better. By the 2 month mark, we decided to totally switch things up, the current setup was not working –Mr. would stay home and I would go to work. Then life threw another curve and the truck broke down again with a fuel injector issue, on my birthday, days before I was to start Job#2. This however, came with a massive sign from God. We were blessed with our Crappy turned Miraculous Christmas.

Finally things started looking up a bit. We settled into a routine and life smoothed out. For a few months anyway. We found out we were expecting again! Then another series of unfortunate events unfolded and within a 30 hour stretch the decision was made to move back home. The U-Haul was picked up, house packed and loaded, drove home and unloaded within 26 hours. Record time!

Just like that, 2 weeks later we were setting up camp on our newly purchased homestead carrying on the learned principles from above but on our own land. I did find this post sharing my hatred and fear of things like bugs and the pitch blackness to be rather ironic given our current off grid country life. Ahem. Yea. Like I’ve said, it is only by Divine Providence we are where we are. This suburban girl with a deep dislike for anything country am proof that when the Lord lays something on your heart, what He calls you do to, He extends grace and equips you for – in all ways.