How is it early March and stores are bursting with plants, not just seeds?! For this Colorado girl, it’s practically unheard of! Not to mention, I can stroll around outside without a coat, let alone long sleeves! Oklahoma has been a delightful series of surprises. I’ve been in a near-constant state of amazement at the differences between my new home and the previous one. No paying for bags, no constant worry about wildfires devouring thousands of acres in a few hours (though I’m sure it’s still possible), and the general cost of everything!
We’ve been settling in quite nicely so far. We’ve survived our first tornado warning, a nearby wildfire, and the kiddo getting his driving permit. The adventures have only just begun, I know, but this week I’ve been reflecting on those who got us this far. I figured we might as well share more of the backstory for those of you who are tagging along.
In January 2023, J and I started to feel that our living situation was becoming unsustainable. Our mortgage was higher than we’d like, and the garden we planned on using to offset rising living costs had just continued to fail year after year. That’s when we really started to discuss and pray over what the best situation for us would be—not just to survive, but to thrive. Almost immediately, we got the sense that Colorado could no longer be our home. I was NOT ready to accept that, as I had only ever lived in Colorado, and moving out of state was incredibly intimidating. Honestly, I refused to consider it initially. I also refused to consider moving at all, as I was happy where we were and in denial that we couldn’t make our property work.
While I lived in my happy state of denial and delusion, J really started to investigate what it would take to move, where would be a good fit, and prayed for more direction. We’d have discussions about where we could go, and what that would look like, and it was always a vague ‘maybe’ in my mind. But after a year of this, the pull to move got stronger. I finally got on board with the need to move and started talking about what I would need to be comfortable with moving. My must-haves initially led me to believe we would NEVER leave Colorado, but that man of mine insisted we needed to go elsewhere.
My list of requirements included mountains, no major weather such as tornadoes, flooding, and snowstorms, water for the garden and animals, and the ability to have acreage and not be too close to others. If we could get off-grid living, that would be great too, but not a requirement. I also wanted to be fairly close to some form of support system, be it my family or his, as I didn’t want to move so far away and have no one we could call for help should we need it. And so began his search for areas that met my criteria and his as well. During this time, I still lived in a state of denial that this would really be happening. I told two trusted individuals of our plans because I needed to say it out loud before we left. I wasn’t sure it would happen, but if people I trusted knew and supported it, then surely it was going to be an okay situation. And boy howdy, did they approve!
While I was now on board with moving, it was still a long way off in my mind. J kept pushing me, telling me we needed to find something soon. I wasn’t truly on board until October. Things were just so hard, another garden failed, groceries were going up in price, and there was going to be political unrest. I was ready. We told our families and started prepping the house for selling. Honestly, it was so slow, I still don’t think we were truly ready to go. But again, God had a different plan for us, and dragging our feet wasn’t an option. We were approached by a property management company in late November to see if we would be interested in selling our property to them. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. We closed in mid-December and were able to finish living in the house until after the holidays! On January 1st, we started the job of moving stuff to Oklahoma.
The actual process of moving was another adventure that I’m going to address later, but that’s where a surprise baby goat days before loading up animals, and my newly developed fear of running out of gas come from.
I promise to try and get the next part of our story out sooner than this part. I also hope to include more pictures as we go on!
The garden in CO… May is very unimpressed that it was just to dry again.
Confessions of an Oklahoma Transplant 