Well, THIS reminds me why I want to abandon the "city" life

What a freaking day. It started at 3:15 this morning, when my alarm jolted me awake by blaring what I would normally consider an absolutely spirit lifting song by "The Who". I slammed the snooze button down and pulled the covers over my head. Nine minutes later I was once again jolted awake, and decided to drag my dead tired butt out of bed and into the shower.

I guess this really is not so different from any other school day for us, and any day that starts at 3:15 in the morning can't be all good, but I feel I needed to tell you to make you feel a little pity for me as I continue with this story.

A little side note: In case you're new to the BackToBasicLiving website and aren't aware if our little journey, my husband and I are in our mid 40s. We live in a small town in the Shenandoah Valley and commute 150 miles a day, round trip, into Washington, DC to work. We recently had an epiphany and discovered that everything we've struggled for in all these years, is not worth it to us. We are now attempting to sell our home and move out to our 65 acres and homestead. Our goal is to get back to basic living and start enjoying life with purpose. You can read the whole story on our website, but not before you finish listening to me whine...... and by the way, if you are looking for a beautiful 3400 square foot home in the Front Royal area, WE HAVE YOUR DREAM HOME! Contact me immediately!

Where was I.... oh yea, so we're up at around 3:30AM, fight our way into the city to jobs that are killing us, and the whole time repeating to ourselves that "This is worth it. Tonight we will drive out to our homestead in the middle of 65 acres and life will be good." I'm serious. We're repeating that over and over again just to get through the day. So the day finally ends and I head out of DC to pick up my wonderful husband at 2:30PM. That sounds pretty early doesn't it? Seems like we got a pretty good start to the weekend, don't you think? We'll NO. NO it's NOT early ENOUGH. Seems EVERYONE and their brother ALSO thought it would be a really nifty idea to leave work at 2:30PM this afternoon and head to Front Royal on I-66.

The traffic was horrendous. But that's OK. I'm telling myself "This is worth it. Tonight we will drive out to our homestead in the middle of 65 acres and life will be good." So I was trying to not get too terribly stressed - and that ended up being a total waste of time. Because I DID get stressed. No, not just because of the traffic, which was obnoxiously, ridiculously, stupidly stupid. But because an 18 wheeler wrecked last night on I-66 around Delaplane and TONIGHT on I-66 they still had that section of the road down to 1 lane. No, that wasn't a typo. The accident was LAST night and they still haven't cleaned up from it TONIGHT. 24 hours later and an 18 wheeler carrying lumber is still wreaking havoc. LUMBER. Not one million gallons of gasoline, but lumber.

So we decide to take 55, which is a two lane road that parallels I-66. That should be better, right? WRONG. It probably would have been better if 19,000 other people didn't have this exact same idea in mind and if one of those 19,000 hadn't run into a tree in his/her excitement of escaping I-66.

So we finally make it past the moron that couldn't contain his excitement and are now are TWO hours into our 75 mile one way commute. And we are not happy. But finally, things start looking up. Everyone else decides to jump back up on I-66 after Delaplane. But we're smarter than that. Now I-66 will be congested with all these people diving back on, so we'll just STAY on 55 and outsmart them all! We'll be in Front Royal before they even finish merging onto I-66! We're brilliant - and we laugh maniacally. This is GREAT! Gawd, we are SO ..... yikes! What is THAT? Why is it going round in tight circles? And why is that pickup truck barely off the road with it's driver standing there scratching his head? Oh, I see. It is a deer in the middle of the road that has been clipped in the hind end by that pickup truck and now it's back legs don't work, so it's flailing wildly on it's front legs and can only go in a circle. In the middle of the freaking road. Great.

So here we are, 2 hours and some change into the commute from hell, staring at a flailing, injured deer standing between us and home, with no guns. Because even though we work in one of the most crime infested cities in the country, guns are illegal there. That's right, they are illegal - which honestly does not seem to bother the criminals that use them in that city every day. But we are law abiding citizens for the most part, so we have no gun on us for this particular situation. Fortunately, a good ol' boy that WAS prepared pulled over to help out, so we eaked between the deer and it's poor victim and continued down the road.

I am proud to report there were no other major events in our journey and we pulled into our driveway a mere 2 hours and 45 minutes after leaving work. I am not kidding. 2 hours and 45 minutes. The sad news is we were so frustrated and irritated from the commute, that we decided to wait until tomorrow to go out to the homestead. After being on the road for 2 hours and 45 minutes, neither of us had the heart to pack up the truck and drive the additional 40 miles. How sad is that?

Well, the good news is we ordered a pizza and drank a couple of beers and are feeling much better now. We'll be heading out to the property tomorrow morning and I'm really looking forward to it. Bernie's excited too - right after he bought his back hoe off of ebay, I promised I would clean the inside of it for him. As exciting as that job sounds, I've been putting it off. Tomorrow I'm taking all the cleaning supplies out and cleaning that thing for him. He couldn't be happier. He's so darn easy to please..... which probably explains why he's stayed married to me for going on 20 years.

Sorry this is not my normal "homesteading is great" post. It probably would be if we were actually homesteading as I write this. But today was reality. And it really serves to remind me why we decided to give up this lifestyle in the first place. It's just not worth it. I'd rather be out on our property and working 12 hours a day there to make ends meet than continue to live a life that sucks the life blood out of us. I guess you never know what you left behind until you leave it. I look forward to leaving it. Yes, we'll know what we left behind. And it won't take us 2 hours and 45 minutes to come to the conclusion that we don't miss it.

Live Free,
Penny