The Little House Living Show – Episode 018 – What’s Been Going On

The Little House Living Show – Episode 018 – What’s Been Going On

Thanks for joining me for the Little House Living Show podcast! My hope for this podcast is that it will be a new way for me to connect with you, my readers, and for you to be able to listen to my words even if you are driving or having a busy workday.

In today’s podcast I’m talking all about what’s been going on with our family and sharing some BIG news. I hope that you will all catch up on this life update and join me for future podcasts!

If for some reason you are having trouble listening to the podcast here on the page (slow loading speed), please use one of the links below to listen through Spotify, iTunes, or Stitcher.

What’s In This Episode?

• What’s Been Going On (big news)
• Q & A About Life

Links Mentioned in This Show

• • Submit a Question for the Show
  • Contact Me

Subscribe to the Podcast

Want to subscribe to this podcast to get the latest episodes each week? I hope that you will be able to join me for the next show!

Click here to subscribe on Stitcher

Click here to subscribe on iTunes

Click here to subscribe on Spotify

Podcast Transcription

Intro (00:00):

Merissa (00:10):

Hello and welcome to the Little House Living Show. This channel is for those trying to live a simpler, slower, and more cost-effective life. My name is Merissa and I will be your host and your friend as we journey along together to find new tips and advice as well as lots of encouragement.

(00:36):

Hey guys, welcome back to the Little House Living Show. I’m so excited to be recording these again and to jump back into podcasting. It has been years since I’ve put a new podcast up, so I’m hoping to get back into the same schedule that I was in before, which was every two weeks. And I also felt like this was a great way to kick it off. We’ve had some big life changes lately or we’re about to, and so I wanted to be able to share those with you. And I felt like this podcast was the best way to do it. So I’m just gonna jump right in because I don’t want this podcast to be super long. Fun fact, I already recorded this and felt like I rambled too much, so I am now rerecording it to make it a little bit more concise and a little bit less rambly.

(01:21):

So the biggest news that I have is that we are selling our homestead and we are moving. I’ve had a bunch of questions lately about where is Frugal Fridays? How come you’re not doing that anymore? Have you stopped the series? And the answer is no. I haven’t stopped the series, but it is on a little bit of a break as you can probably imagine. We’ve had a lot going on lately and I’ve been spending a lot of time getting the house ready. And so that is just not something that I’ve been able to do because Frugal Fridays is a very time consuming blog posts. I definitely plan on doing it again in the future, but for now I just needed to take a little bit of a break. So if you’ve been wondering where that went there’s your answer and I will get it restarted again as soon as I have the time and the mental capacity to be able to work on it.

(02:09):

So I’m just gonna go through this podcast as a q and a. We’ve had a lot of questions from our friends and family about why we’re moving and what we’re gonna be doing. And so I just wrote those all down and I’m gonna go ahead and try to answer them here and just talk about our new adventure that we’re gonna be on. So of course the main question is why are you moving? Everybody sees our place and thinks we have it all. And while we do have a very nice place, it is very large. It’s a lot to take care of. It’s very time consuming and it’s also very expensive. We live in a very expensive area and so land was not cheap here at all. And just in the last year, our taxes have gone up by over 60% ’cause home values have gone up so much.

(02:58):

So one of the biggest reasons why we’re moving is because we just prefer to live a more modest lifestyle and we don’t feel like we’re able to do that here even though we are able to make, you know, our mortgage payments and stuff with the income that we bring in, it’s just, it’s not something that we’re comfortable with. And we’ve gotten more uncomfortable as time has gone on. We, when we first moved here three years ago, I told my husband that this was not my forever house. We have done a lot of work to make it a beautiful place and we’ve been very comfortable here and have very much enjoyed our time here. But we have gone back and forth over the last three years on whether or not we should sell or whether or not we should stay. And after a whole year of very hard praying we’ve decided that it is the best for us to move on.

(03:53):

And so while that’s sad, and I know that we’re gonna have some sad days where we miss things here, we’re very excited about our new life and to move on to our new adventure. So the kind of the follow-up question with that is how did we know that this was the right thing? Like I said, we have been praying about this transition for a very long time. We’d go back and forth because we would see all the work that we put into things and not wanna leave it. But ultimately we knew that there was so many things that were leading us to make that change. And then when we finally did make the decision and we finalized that decision that we were going to move, there was just an incredible piece that both me and my husband felt. And that was kind of our acknowledgement that this is the right thing.

(04:40):

There’s hard things about it, but this is the right thing moving forward. And that’s how we knew that this is what we were supposed to do. So then the next question after that is where are we going? And my fun answer to that is we have absolutely no idea. We are not planning on settling back down again for, for the time being. Something could always change and come up, but at the moment we are planning on moving into our camper and we are gonna be traveling. So I am not quite sure where we’re gonna end up. I don’t even know where we’re going first at this time. It is just something we’re going to pray about whenever we decide to make a move and figure out where God wants us to be. So let me kind of expound on that just a little bit.

(05:30):

So one of the reasons why we want to sell our place and move on is because my husband and I have always felt called to ministry. We’ve done ministry in different capacities over the last about five years. But since we’ve been here, it’s been very difficult to do some of the ministry work that we have felt called to do. Some of that is my husband has always felt called to encourage and to walk with those from the group that he grew up in. My husband grew up in a very fundamentalist Christian cult and so he has always felt called to work with those people and it’s been very difficult with the busy jobs that we have in the busy life that we lead. And so he is gonna be working more on that. And then we’ve also always had a calling to people in rural areas because that’s our people and that’s who we are is we come from rural areas and we know the struggles that life can bring in those areas.

(06:34):

And so we are hoping to connect up with people and with churches in various rural areas around the country and be able to help them with practical needs, whether that be helping them with building projects, helping them with ministry or outreach or helping them with food pantries. We are just kind of open to seeing where God leads us to and that’s why we don’t know where we’re going yet because we’re gonna pray about each move before we make it and travel as much as necessary to be able to meet the needs of our, our people, our people in the rural areas. So anyway, that kind of explains it a little bit and then to go with that, what are we moving into? So we had have had a camping camper for about the last five years. It’s just something small that we’ve taken out on the weekends.

(07:28):

When we have time, we are not moving into that despite my strong opinions that we should. But I was overruled by the rest of my family that wanted something a little bit bigger. So we went ahead and purchased an older fifth wheel that we are gonna be renovating. I’ve actually started on an already, or at least the demolition phase, which I’m very much enjoying and I will be sure and blog about that with plenty of pictures in the future. So we’re gonna be making that into our home and making it comfortable. We also, one of the big things is we want to make it so that it’s completely off grid. We do not wanna be a burden in any way on the people and the places that we’re staying while we might be doing ministry work. And so setting it up to be totally off grid is something that is, it’s just something that we really want to do.

(08:18):

So that’s what we’re gonna, we’re gonna be working on in the coming weeks and we’re excited to do it and make it our own. Okay, so then the question that naturally follows that is, what about all your stuff? What are you doing with all your stuff? And I’m surprised at how many of our friends and family have asked about all of our stuff and where it’s going. I personally, I don’t, I don’t care that much about my stuff, but yeah, it’s been kind of a major topic. But anyway, so we are currently working on cleaning everything out of the house. I’ve got three different sections of piles. One is stuff we’re getting rid of, one is stuff that we’re keeping and is gonna go into a storage unit and then one of stuff that’s gonna go into the camper with us. So it’s been very easy for me to find stuff that we’re just going to get rid of.

(09:05):

Like I said, we have kind of a big place here and so we’ve got a lot of like animal supplies and that and gardening supplies that we just don’t need or can buy again in the future. So we just don’t need to keep them right now. Stuff that’s gonna go into our storage unit has been a little bit harder of a decision because I’m not a hundred percent sure what we’re going to need in the future. So for right now, it’s mostly stuff that is sentimental and that we, we know that we’re gonna wanna see again someday. So that pile is actually quite small. I think I’ve only packed up about 10 boxes of sentimental things right now. So that’s good because we’ll be able to have a smaller storage unit to put that in. And then stuff that needs to go into a camper.

(09:47):

That has been the most challenging because since we’re renovating our camper, I don’t quite know what the space is going to look like yet and what I’m going to have room for. So at the moment I’m just kind of keeping out everything that we currently use every day and that’s most likely going to go into the camper. But it’s gonna be hard to say until we have finished in the spaces and I know what kind of space I have to organize. And then the stuff that we’re getting rid of, we have decided that we’re going to have an auction. We just thought it would be easier to get rid of stuff all in one day versus have like list stuff individually on marketplace and have people come pick it up or not pick it up. That’s kind of always a pain. So we felt like that was the best option for us and we’re currently working on getting ready for that.

(10:36):

All right, next question. So why don’t we just rent our house out? I was surprised at how many people have asked us this, but for us, our answer always goes back to why we’re moving. And that is to simplify and to downsize and just to live more modestly. I don’t want to be a landlord. It is not something that we’ve ever desired to do. And since we won’t be here, we either, we probably have to hire someone to manage that. And that’s just stress that we don’t feel like we should have. In the past when we have done ministry work, we have felt that it is best for us to just kind of cut all the strings and be able to have complete freedom to do the things that we need to do. And by keeping the house, even if we are renting it out, that’s just one major stress that we still have.

(11:29):

And then the other thing is I think a lot of people bring that up because they think, well what if you are gonna move back here? And our answer to that is, we don’t know when we’re gonna settle back down and thus we don’t know where we’re going to move to or where God is gonna call us to. So we kind of think it’s a little bit foolish to hold onto something when we really have absolutely no idea that we would come back to this area anyway. So that is kind of some of the reasons why we wouldn’t just rent it out. Are we giving up on homesteading? And what about the current state of the world? So I don’t want to pretend that we’re just ignorant with what’s going on. I am not big into watching the news. My husband does sometimes, but it’s not something that consumes us.

(12:18):

We’ve always believed that we are not going to sit here and be overtly worried and concerned and stressed and panicked about things that are going on in the world because those things are out of our control. And if we sit here and completely live our day-to-day lives ruled by that fear, then we’re gonna make decisions that we probably shouldn’t make. And like I said, it’s not wise to be ignorant and it’s always good to just, you know, keep an ear out and know what’s going on in the future in case things would need to change. But we don’t believe that we should let our lives be ruled by fear of the unknown. And especially when we’re called to do certain things, we think that it would be not good to just ignore that calling just because we have some kind of fear or worry. Yeah, so we’re not giving up on homesteading in the future.

(13:14):

That could be something that we do once we settle down. I’m kind of excited about the possibility of us helping other people at their homesteads if that’s something that’s in our future. We just, we really don’t know since we are praying about going into rural areas in different rural ministry, we’re just not sure what that looks like. But for us personally, we don’t have plans to settle down on our own piece of land. Now, like I said, that could change. I don’t know what the future holds. Anything that we would do would not be without a lot of prayer first. And so it’s something that could be in our future. But as far as like having a bunch of land and having animals, I don’t foresee that in our near future. But continuing on with simple living and frugal living, which I think are kind of the core pillars of homesteading, those are things that we’re still going to be able to do in our camper.

(14:08):

Alright, and then last I wanted to touch on does it change little house living? So 14 years ago when I started Little House Living, it was actually about, and I know that this is hard to imagine living in a little house <laugh>. So I don’t think that us moving into an RV changes what Little House living looks like. I will still be blogging about recipes from scratch. I will still be talking about simple living. I will still be talking about Frugal Living. None of those things are going to change. Are you going to see less pictures of chickens? Probably, but maybe not because we could be staying with someone that has chickens. So maybe there will still be plenty of chicken pictures. I’m not sure. So I don’t think that it’s going to change Little House Living. If anything, it may change it in some good ways as I will just have a little bit different perspective than I’ve had for the last couple years, kind of being in my large homestead bubble here.

(15:06):

But I’m excited for those things and like I said at the beginning of this podcast, I am going to start podcasting again about the same topics that I blog about on Little House Living. And I’m very excited to do that. I’m very excited to hopefully book some upcoming interviews. So it’s not just me rambling to you, but that there’ll be a lot of insight and a lot of knowledge going into this podcast in the future. And I’m excited because it’s something that I can do no matter where we’re at. So that will be a positive change that is coming to Little House Living. Otherwise everything else will pretty much remain the same. So I hope that clears up some things. I know this was kind of a large bomb <laugh> to drop and probably a shocker to a lot of my readers, but maybe this helps you understand a little bit about our future direction.

(15:55):

We’re very excited as a family. Our kids are very excited, way more than I thought that they would be to move on to a new adventure. And so we’re excited to make that change with them and to see everything that God has in store for our family in the future. So if you do have any questions, be sure and just reach out to me. My email address is usually somewhere that can be found. Otherwise, I have a contact page on my site. And if you have any questions about what we’re doing or about the type of ministry work that we’re going to do, or maybe even if you are in a rural area that has some kind of need, just reach out and I’d love to hear from you. And yeah, thank you for listening to the podcast today. Like I said in the beginning, I am going to get a podcast up now every two weeks. So I hope that you’ll tune in in the future and see what’s going on. Check out the interviews that are coming up and everything else that’s going on, little House Living. Thanks for listening, guys.