Everyone who knows me at least a little, knows that I am not a material girl. At.All. I don’t care much about what people in our world call “luxury items“.

My cell phone is over 10 years old. It doesn’t even have a color display.

The screen of my ages-old laptop is literally broken off. It’s only attached on one side.

I don’t own a tablet.

The only car we have is falling apart piece by piece.

The only material items I am in possession of are my SLT camera and the lenses included with it so I can capture the life of my children. I also own a photo editing program or two. That’s all. Not because I can’t afford it, but because I don’t care about those things. Don’t get me wrong. My kids need something? They get it. No questions asked. The kids really want something? They are likely to get it. Within reason. (I don’t see myself agreeing to a pony living in our basement anytime soon). And obviously they don’t get everything they point their fingers too. I do raise them to learn the value of money. But they are likely to get something they desperately want sooner or later. I can’t help it, I love those little guys ;).

But last time I bought something for me? Can’t even remember it. So I might not have what most people in our spheres call a “luxury life“. Yet I would describe myself as one of the richest people walking the planet.

I have not one, but 4 very precious treasures in my life. I call them my husband and my children. And they didn’t come with a price tag. Because they are worth more than any number could ever justify.

I know I am blessed to have these 4 people in my life and I would trade living in a 100 million dollar mansion to life with these guys under a bridge on any given day.

I don’t know what I ever did in my life to deserve them but I do know to count my blessings every day and and every night. And I do.

Every single day that words like cancer, leukemia, tumor, rape, kidnapping, murder, killing, accident,…, keep floating around somewhere in space far, far, far away from our tiny, little world, every day that we don’t have to deal with either of those words is a great day in my book.

On top of that I don’t care about what other people think or say anymore (haven’t for a long time. Just one of the many great lessons I learned from my amazing husband. “Don’t give a f@!$ about what other people think“). It’s Chris, the kids and I, maybe a few very close family members and then there is nothing for a really long time. I have to say it’s fun in our tiny little world. The days are filled with laughter and awesomeness, I am genuinely happy in and with my life. We love and respect each other, we love where we live, we have amazing friends that we can count on at any time and a great support system. I am hardly ever frustrated, mad, sad, upset, worried or in a bad mood (thinking of it now, I can honestly not remember the last time I was either one of those). Life has dealt me a great hand of cards. I know that. I appreciate that. Always and daily.

Having said that, I have to admit I am human too. I have one material thing, one dream, I want to achieve and turn into reality in this life. I want to have it on top of the things listed above, not trade it for them. It would be my icing on the cake and my cherry on top while always keeping in mind that nothing could ever be as important as this family and their health and happiness is.

That dream is, as many of you know, building a house.

We have been working on making this dream come true basically ever since we met, definitely since we’ve had kids.

It’s been a long and tiring process. First world problems, surely, but still long and tiring.

The naive 22 year old that I was when I met my husband thought we’d just go out, buy some land and get right on to building.

I figured designing the house would be rough and take time, I figured the finances would be a tough cookie.

Not once did I think getting land would be the hard part.

At first – we are talking about 7 years ago – when we weren’t even sure where we want to build, we went to about 35 to 40 different building companies. Compared and compared, talked and talked. Got information on and about everything. Got some more information. Compared some more. We decided on one company that worked best for us and have been in contact with them ever since. They already got the blue prints ready. That was easy.

Once we moved here and fell in love with this place and the people, once we knew we wanted to stay here it all started getting a little more serious. And when it gets serious you have to start talking money. This, I have to admit, was what I was most scared of. I mean after all you hear people talk. So they said “YOU want to build?! You can’t build. Me and my husband, we are both working full time, we don’t even have any kids and we can’t afford building. And certainly not in this area. And you have 3 kids and you don’t even work?! Hehe.“ And they’d give me that pity look. That is if they even had the decency to tell me to my face. Mostly this happened behind my back. So eventually I got freaked out by it and told Chris we needed to talk some serious talks here. We needed to talk numbers. So we went out and got a financial adviser and on top of that talked to some banks. They looked at our income and our expenses, tested this and that and calculated here and there. At the end they all came up with the same numbers.

They told us we were good to go.

This was actually quite a shock to me. I figured they would laugh at us – after all isn’t that what everyone had said?

I don’t believe much in what people tell me, so I asked them all to actually give those numbers to us in writing. I now own a piece of paper with a number on it that approves us to take a loan over that number at any time as long as our financial situation doesn’t change. I could get the loan today. Or tomorrow. Anytime really. The number has got some pretty decent digits. Not shabby actually. Not shabby at all.

First time I looked at the number written down, when Chris and I were alone I looked over at him and honestly said “I can’t believe they will give us this much money. What are they? Crazy?“ (Here’s hoping our financial adviser and the banks won’t be reading this 😉 ). I guess all the hours and endless nights my husband spends on getting degree after degree at the university and the numbers it jiggles around on his paycheck are paying off after all. (Don’t get me wrong, we are not rich AT ALL, we are so far from being rich it’s not even funny. I prefer not to look at our income and expenses, much less compare them. We do save money each month, but it’s not nearly as much as I would want it to be). I guess the bank is just happy with what they see. But we ARE saving money each and every month. We are keeping to a very tight budget so as much as possible is left over each month. We are saving instead of going on vacations to Dubai, Thailand and the Caribbean twice a year. We’re not buying new cars or smart phones or game consoles. We are hardly ever going out to eat. We are only buying what’s necessary. We are buying what the kids need to be happy. And yeah, every now and than we live a little too, but we keep it under very close observation and control. It’s not always fun. But it works. And it’s paying of. And the bank is happy.

– (At this point I have to mention that I have the deepest respect for my husband. While I think I’m doing a pretty decent job with the household and raising the kids, none of this would be possible without him. Everyone in this family’s got their job, I raise the kids and work on the weekends in Munich and Chris works during the week. On top of that though, he is going to university, hardly gets to bed before the early morning hours only to get back up at 5am. He does all of that for not just himself, but also for us. He works his butt off to get extra degrees so that we are cared and provided for. On top of all that, he is an amazing and loving husband and the best dad any kid could wish for. There hasn’t been a birthday, a kindergarten party, not a single school play or field trip that man has missed. He actually works longer during the week so he can be at their sports events some Friday afternoons. He is part of the PTA to teach his kids about getting involved and helping others. He plans family adventures and trips for our weekends. He talks to the kids and listens to their problems and helps them solve them. This guy goes to cooking classes with his daughter and spends his entire weekend rebuilding the kindergarten backyard. He knows about their friends and favorite colors, their likes and dislikes. He knows and frequently talks to their teachers. He is involved in everything. He’s a dad who’s there. It’s no wonder they can’t wait for him to come home at night. Neither can I.) –

So we got the house designed and a company to build it. Check.

We got the bank to approve more than we’ll need. Check.

Then we wanted to buy land. Naive as I was in the beginning I had a list of requirements. Not on a hill, flat, sunny, spacious, quiet, not on a main street, …. you name it. The list is now down to “needs to be just about big enough for a one family house.“.

Problem is, there is no land here for sale. Nothing. Nada. Zip. We get the occasional 10 Million dollar piece of land, fit for a mansion, in the middle of the city (where we really don’t want to be) but really, that would be irrational even if we wouldn’t live so close to the big city and even if instead of raising my children I would go to work. Other than that, we are playing a lottery. One piece of land will come up every 3 or 4 month or so and you got about 2 milliseconds to call the relator before 200 other people do. We get an email as soon as something comes up, we call right away, but we haven’t been the first ones yet. One time I was. The seller then changed his mind about selling because in the first 10 minutes of it being online he got 140+ replies.

It’s hard to buy something that’s not for sale. Not for any price.

Part of it is my own fault really. We are looking in a radius of about 15 minutes, so the kids could still go to the same school as the friends they have known their entire lifes. If we would look for land about half an hour away from where we are now land is available like snow at the north pole. I don’t want to have the kids move away from their friends and schools and preschools though. This might sounds stupid to some people, but to me if it comes down to it a house IS after all just a material thing. Do I want to have my kids cry themselves to sleep because they have to move away from their friends? Just because of a house? I do not. Would they get over it? Surely. They would find new friends in no time. But to me it’s not worth it. It would break their heart, if even for just a while, and to me that is not worth it.

There is also land available occasionally for duplex houses. Again it’s our own fault for not building a duplex house. We have talked to building companies. One kid would have to live downstairs with everyone else upstairs. We do not want that. On top of that we have this dream so we can get away from neighbors. Our neighbors or not bad people at all. They would probably not say anything if I would start drilling at 2am. I still wouldn’t do it out of respect. So owning a house to me means that I can do whatever I want to do. Would I start drilling at 2am in my own house? Most likely not. But it will be good to know that I could. Plus, I am a window addict. Not having windows on one side of the house is a huge no go.

“So buy a house“ people tell us. And Chris would probably even be ok with that. But I am not. I would be buying someone else’s dream. Someone else’s layout, someone else’s vision. Other people would have lived there, loved there, cried there. Worse even, probably gotten sick there or even worse smoked there. I would not know what has happened in those walls. And really people, for THAT much money I better know every stone in the house by heart. And for that kind of money it better be new.

The great thing about my husband is, that while he might not understand that part completely, he’s got my back, like he always does. He knows BUILDING is my dream, not buying. So he’s with me on this crazy journey of waiting. Waiting for land to come along, waiting to make this happen.

I am a huge fan of Dr. Seuss books. One of my favorite ones is “Oh, the places you’ll go“.

At one point it quotes:

“…headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place.

For people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go

or a bus to come, or a plane to go,

or the mail to come, or the rain to go

or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow

or waiting around for a Yes or No

or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite

or waiting for wind to fly a kite

or waiting around for Friday night

or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake

or a pot to boil, or a Better Break

or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants

or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

Everyone is just waiting.“

And so we wait. We could be building a duplex house, we could be buying a house, we could be buying land further away. But we’re not. Instead we are waiting. We are still young, so we can afford to wait, our bank account gets bigger and better by the month. We are not loosing anything but patience 😉

It’s long, annoying and tiring. But I know that in the end it will be worth it. In the end I will have waited to chase our dream, not someone else’s, and I will know I didn’t settle for anything less but the real thing.

In the meantime I will keep a good sense of humor by reading the desperate attempts of people looking for land, just like us. The weekly newspaper search column is always a big hit with adds like

“Family desperately looking for land. We’ll even pay you a HUGE amount of money for it“.

“Couple looking for land. We are even doctors. You might need that one day.“.

“Family with VERY TALENTED kids looking for land“

– I kid you not, those are just a few of the highlights to be found.

After all you gotta see the silver lining and at least take it with humor, right?

The Dr. Seuss book by the way continues after the waiting part by saying:

“NO! That’s not for you!

Somehow you’ll escape

all that waiting and staying.

You’ll find the bright places

where Boom Bands are playing.

….

And will you succeed?

Yes! You will, indeed!

(98 and ¾ per cent guaranteed.)

KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

So…

be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray

or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,

you’re off to Great Places!

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting.

So… get on your way!“

So I guess for now we really do just have to wait and resist settling for anything less then our dream.

We’ll be waiting and ready to take on that mountain, knowing eventually it will happen.

And knowing that while we wait to take on that mountain – with all that we already have and are blessed with – we are already on top of it.