The Back Story

Good Afternoon:

Welcome to No Regrets Ranch. Why am I doing this?  Actually it was suggested my my eldest grand-daughter one day.  "Gramma, you have some mad skills.  Why don't you Blog?"  So, I guess, here I am.  The intention is to create a document for my grandchildren, so they might have a record of why we do what we do and how we do it.

First of all, the name "No Regrets Ranch", came from "Live your life . . . With No Regrets".  Ranch was just added since it is a nice fit.  We're not really a ranch, but rather an acreage with a collection of critters, a couple of vegetable gardens, a greenhouse, beautiful flower beds and an amazing view.  We purchased the bare land back in August of 2008 after Papa threatened to tear up our yard in town, to "re-do" it, says he.  We had just completely renovated the main floor of our modest 1990's bungalow and had landscaped the simple, grassed yard to become a beautiful oasis in both the front and back.  Our ultra narrow, single car garage was his workshop and he simple ran out of things to do.  There was no way I was going to let him tear up the yard, because I knew it would only be a temporary fix. This is a guy who needs projects and something to do, all the time.  I knew we could only travel so much and I had to keep him busy for the next 40 years or so, or he would drive me batty!  This prompted a search for an acreage with enough space to occupy him into our soon to be retirement, and well beyond.  The piece of land we found gave him a completely blank slate to work with - it was within our budgeted amount, was completely bare, virgin pasture with 2 trees, partial fencing, and close to town, on hard top. Win/win/win for me!  It was on the market for literally days.  We made an offer, it was accepted, and so began the whirlwind of purchasing the land, designing the house, planning the landscaping, out buildings locations, building the house, selling our home in town and simply completely transforming our lives.  We had a small idea of what were getting into as we had lived in the country for a brief time in the 1990's and always had the dream of owning our own piece of property to create the self-sustaining lifestyle we both longed for.  This was to be our "forever" home or "the pine box exit" house, as we have called it.  We broke ground in May of 2009 when we had a contractor frame our house and get it to lock up stage.  From there, in August of 2009, we took it over to finish it ourselves.  Our son is a cabinet maker so he designed all the cabinet layouts for the house.  Our daughter helped to lay the hardwood and friends and family assisted where they could, when we needed a hand.  Other than the electrician and plumber, we proceeded to complete everything else ourselves.  We moved in in November of 2009.  It was an absolute blur! 

So, this is the back story of how we got to where we are.  From here forward will be snippets of our day to day lives and activities therein. 

Thank you for joining me as I share our journey.

Gremlynn