An Origin Story

When I was a kid, one of my Dad's many catchphrases was, "Context! Context! Context!" (adapted from real estate's "Location! Location! Location!") While this was touted usually in reference to biblical interpretation, I have found throughout my life that it has many other applications as well. 

I've been feeling it would be a little remiss of me to continue further in my blogging without giving some "Context!" or a bit of a backstory to where we are now. 

So, what happened during the 'silent years' of this blog? The answer is fairly uncomplicated. 

We worked. We bought a car. We adopted a cat. 

That's about it. 

Coming back from Japan, we found ourselves rather at a loss. So we kept our heads down and did the somewhat tedious work of re-establishing ourselves on Canadian soil. 

After a year and a half of this, we started looking around. In particular, at our apartment. We found ourselves paying an awful lot of money for a place that was incredibly noisy at all hours, smelly (our neighbours were smokers of various kinds) and where our dog shared the yard with other dogs who on one occasion were successful in an attempt to jump her. It occurred to us that maybe we needed to look for something else. 

The trouble was, with what we were paying in rent, saving up for a downpayment on a house of our own in that housing market would take us much longer than we were willing to wait. And realistically, we didn't think we could find a rental situation within our budget that would be much better than where we were. 

One day, I was browsing a reality website with some people we knew who were moving to Thunder Bay. I stumbled across a beautiful property in a township just outside of the city, with 100 acres of lovely bush, right along a babbling creek. I sent the link to my husband, saying that we should just move there. He agreed. 

I was joking. He was not. 

We didn't move there. But, I had unwittingly planted a seed in Justin's mind that grew into a rather large shrub quite quickly. We established some facts:

1) We wanted our own home

2) We would not be able to accomplish this in our current situation

4) We wanted a simpler lifestyle, tied closely to the land

5) A tiny house was the only plausible solution

The end. 

Not really. I was going to end it there, but the reality is that it was just the beginning of a long, somewhat arduous journey that may have actually frightened us, had we been given the gift of seeing the future. 

Shortly thereafter, we made a quick decision that felt to me like how I imagine buying an engagement ring might. We purchased three windows, and that was the beginning.