Here is the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT I've been waiting SIX YEARS to make!!!

I've been mentally composing this post for weeks, no, years, and I'm just gonna go for it okay?

WE SOLD OUR RECORDING STUDIO.  WE HAVE BOUGHT A NEW PLACE TO LIVE AND WORK!!!!



That's right -- we'll be in our own home again!!  I can finally stop having dreams and nightmares about the cute bungalow we sold.  I can stop dreaming and obsessing, both waking and sleeping, about whatever home would be ours in the future.  It's really happening.  It's for real.  The deal is firm.  The sorting and purging and packing up of our belongings has been started, and about a month from now, we'll be moving into OUR NEW HOME!  And Jethro will drastically cut his commuting time!

I can say, for real, that this house, our new house, our home, is gorgeous and perfect and wonderful… the kind of house I'd ooh and ahh over and wish, faintly, that someday I could live in a house that pretty.  Dream come true?  Pretty much, yeah!

I AM NOT KIDDING, THIS IS OUR FRONT PORCH!!!

There is only one flaw with this place.  One problem, one serious flaw.  

It does not have a barn and pasture.


Yep… we're moving… are you ready for this?  Deep breath… to town.


AAAAAAAUUUUGGGGHHHHHH!

BUT WAIT!

It's okay!


Whaaaaat?  Heidi the Hick is moving to town and it's okay?  Yes it's okay.  But what about my need for wide open spaces and surrounded by fields and horses in sight and a clear view of the horizon?

We found the perfect town lot.  I mean, if you have to live in town, this is the place.   It's on a side street that gets very little traffic, because the road heads out of town to a dirt road, and there's a nasty old wooden plank single lane train bridge that has to be crossed before you reach the side road, so most people just avoid taking that road into town unless they have to.

Our house is between bridges; the "Thunder Bridge" on the way out of town, and a bigger bridge over the river on the town side.  There's one house between us and the river.  Then the river curves around so that across the road, we've got two small houses and then acres of flood plain before a lovely view of the riverbank.  This means that even though I'll be technically living in town… I'm still looking out my window at a hay field!!

That flood plain means there won't be any construction across from us.  And there won't be anything built behind us either, because there's a train track back there.

It's a landlocked obscure little street. We've got municipal water service, but all the houses are on septic systems.  (This is really why we ended up with the place; it was sold to someone else for a couple weeks, but after the septic inspection they decided against it.  So we were like, heck, septic system needs replacing in ten years?  Hell that's better than s***ting in a bucket!  Let's put in another offer!!!!)

I am obviously not going to be thrilled about leaving the farm.  I love the farm.  I love being in the country and I love this specific property.  But, it's still here.  The horses will stay here, and I am only a 7 minute drive away from them.  It's not ideal, but it's something I can do.  They won't suffer.  They might not even figure out that I don't live in the house across the lane from the barn anymore.  The farm is still going to be part of my life, just as it has been for my entire life.

Here's the thing… my husband, for over five years, has been working in Toronto.  That's almost two hours away from here.  And I can't be inconvenienced to do a 7 minute drive, there and back, twice a day?  I can do that for him.  It's worth it.  I actually do love my man more than my horses, believe it or not.

As for the work situation, it's looking like we can figure that out.  This has been terrifying.  Honestly.  Is there a thriving music industry in Smallburg Ontario?  Ha.  No.  Well, is there a thriving music industry in Toronto?  There is, but it's pretty hard to make a living. When you're paying Toronto prices for everything, it's just not worth it.  Not for us.

He'd be in the control room, looking out at his beautiful live room, with the three massive windows, and he'd be thinking about how much it costs to pay for it.  He's not tracking every day.  But he's got to pay for that big studio.

Very soon, we'll start building our new studio in our backyard.  We'll be going from 3500 square feet to 750 sq ft.  There will be absolutely no wasted space in our new studio.  Jethro will still have to drive to the city to record in big tracking rooms which are owned by other people.  It's okay.  If he has to stay overnight, getting a hotel room is way cheaper than the mortgage, condo fees, waste removal fees, commercial taxes and utilities that he's been paying.  He can record in the city and bring it home to mix it in his backyard.  I can sit beside him and write stories if he gets lonely.

Until our new studio is built, all of our gear will be set up in what would normally be the living room and dining room in our house.  We'll be hanging around upstairs, which is fine because that's been our arrangement in the farmhouse.  Our house has 4 bedrooms, so the biggest one will be our office/TV room.  Setting up the studio in our house isn't ideal either.  Well guess what?  Nothing is ever going to be perfect!  I'll take excellent over perfect any day.  We have had all the discussions about who will be the biggest problem -- him playing the same three words over and over for several hours, or me tiptoeing up the squeaky steps from the kitchen.  We'll be okay.  Gotta have some challenges in life, right?

Letting go of the studio has been difficult.  We love that place.  It's been good for his career, it's been a wonderful place to work, and it's been something we could be proud of.  But it's time.  Letting it go means getting our family back together.  Bucky heads off to college in September, but he has a home to come home to.  Selina can stay with us until she's ready to go out on her own.  I have thanked our magnificent studio and set it free.

It won't be a studio anymore.  A church has bought it.  We're okay with that.  I like to think that the drum booth, with soundproofing and three windows, will make an excellent room for parents to take their screaming infants during sermons!  We did have a hope that someone else would continue using it as a studio, because it's such a unique and beautiful and well functioning studio.  But in almost five years, this was the only offer we got.  Ever.  So it's time.

Our next home isn't what I had expected or planned.  I should just get used to that.  That is life.  This is not a farm.  A couple years ago we did some math and realized that we would not get a farm.  That was hard to accept.  I had imagined touring a small farm with my husband and kids, and what it would be like to picture our life in that house.  Instead, the two of us went looking at what we decided would not really be suitable for us, but by the end of the weekend couldn't stop thinking about it, and put in an offer with our guts in a knot.  And got overbid.  And then got a second chance at it.  It's in town, it's beautiful, and it's about to be ours.

I'll have to put up thick curtains to block out the street lamps, and the train whistle that we now hear as a mournful echo from the other side of the highway will be basically in my backyard… hey, it didn't hurt Jimi Hendrix to have a train practically on top of his studio… we'll be fine.  As fine as we are here, just different.

Seriously, it's beautiful.  Look at this.  Can you believe it?  The current occupants are friends of ours and they have taken loving care of it for the last two years.  They are happy for us.  The whole thing feels pretty good.  

So you saw our front porch, and this is the back porch.  BACK PORCH.  TWO PORCHES.  I am going to consume so many cold beverages in the summers while sitting here.  Or there.  That will be my hardest decision - front porch or back porch?  Am I extroverted or introverted today?    

And this is the patio Jethro will cross on his way to our future studio in the backyard.  Our backyard which is quite private and as you can see, doesn't have uncomfortably close neighbours.  It's about as country as you can get while still having good internet.  

Know what else this house has?  Old woodwork, new wiring.  A shower.  Like an actual shower.  And a dishwasher.  For real.  A dishwasher.  Also a stone foundation cellar that a 6 ft tall person can stand up straight in.  And an unfinished attic.  Which our daughter thinks will be hers.  It also has room for a Digidesign console, a gear rack, a 7 ft grand piano, and old upright piano, three boxes worth of kitchen stuff I haven't seen in six years, three beds, some dressers, a few truckloads of books and records and CDs, and four people and a small dog.  

Home, is really just inside a person and inside a group of people.  We've always had Home, and now we will have a House to put it in.