Where I Want to Be

Strawberry in the back field
Why am I not there yet?

I hesitate to link to this amazing blog I found because then no one will ever want to read mine again. Heck, I don't even want to read mine again. I just want to slip through the ether and materialize out the other side.... to this farm, this life. She even has my dog, Friday. This is what I've wanted my whole life. This is what my dreams are made of. Why can't I find it?

The closest I've ever come is Tempe Wick. And that's a distant memory. I'll never find mine in New Jersey, not unless I win the lotto. So, depression sets in. In the past two days, I've called no less than 10 contractors to tape and mud the new walls and replace my rotting deck. Guess how many responses I have gotten? Zero. I've said it before, I'll say it again. No one in NJ wants to work on my puny house when they can be working on the $6 million mansions down the road. It's a futile escapade. Even Angieslist, which was a life-saver in MN, has been no help here. I am hopelessly zip-coded, a greasy french fry lost in a bowl of caviar.

The house is dirty. And unfinished. The weedy grass is 2 feet high. The barn needs painting. Contractors are working hard at the estate across the street, erecting a new (and quite tastelessly designed) entry gate, which makes the place look like some kind of suburban apartment complex. Ugh. There is no oil in the tank; therefore, there is no hot water this week. No shower for me. Good thing DH is away on another continent, taking photos of the English countryside as he travels from one financial meeting to another financial meeting. "You'd love it here," he says. Duh. My DD talks of attending Oxford, and living in Cornwall. Where does she get these ideas?

So, as the house gets darker and the walls close in, I listen to a woodpecker tapping on my roof while I live vicariously through photos of a farm in Missouri. I suppose I should get off my butt and go hang some drywall.