Til The Cows Come Home

Any one home? I'm back. (photo from the web)

Such a fun phrase, til the cows come home!  It means for a very long time.  It is slang we use a zillion times for so many things. The phrase goes back before 1829. For instance, in Scotland, cows in the highlands are put out for common grazing where there is plenty to munch. In the fall, the cows head home because food has become scarce. (from Wiktionary)

The cows came home for me last week.

My dream of moving to a cottage was squelched for the time being. My cow that came home was the reality I am not moving. It has taken a good bit of time to reach this decision.

The Cottage In My Mind blog is new, but I have been out to pasture for quite a few years, thinking I would buy my little cottage and move.

I finally talked to a mortgage broker and the delusion I could keep my house in Decatur, and qualify for a new mortgage on another piece of property, was put to rest.

Kindly, but firmly.

I have to sell my house before I can buy another with a conventional loan. Most people do that, but most don't have six dogs. No realtor wants to show my house full of dogs, or so I've been told. It would be a nightmare, as I well know. I know my dogs.

There is owner financing, but hard to come by.

I've exhausted myself trying to think how this would work. The cold hard facts can't be ignored.

I was sad. It hurt. My dream was not within my grasp. I've had my heart broken more by old houses I've loved briefly than by men I've loved longer.

Houses have always been my passion.

A Victorian cottage, or small farmhouse, is always flirting with me. No matter where I am, the allure reaches me.

At a book club meeting last Saturday it was suggested I might enjoy the book A Year On Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball. It is a fictional story of three women without men, their children grown, who take on buying and renovating an old farmhouse. Right up my ally.

The author's bio made my heart race. She lives in a renovated barn in the North Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains with her dogs, four I think. She enters them into agility contests. Add to that she has over 80 published works of fiction. She is living my dream.  I was envious of her lifestyle, without even knowing about her. My life in my  house with my dogs seemed to pale in comparison. Once again I cheated on my house, with another I had not even seen.


"I want to be her!" I wailed to the head of the meet-up group later, after I'd bought all the books in the series on Amazon.

"We all do." Her reply was so simple.

Simple and true.

Some folks want a big mansion with all the high end perks. There are those of us who want the cottage, farmhouse, bed and breakfast, you name it, the elusive dream that comes with the ownership of such properties. I don't think about the work, the renovation, I just look at the final product. It is the life I want.

Or is it?

Sometimes I wonder if I am running in place and getting no where. My cow coming home made me stop running and start thinking.

What if I could turn my ranch house into the cottage in my mind?

I've lived in it for thirty years. It was built in the late 1940s. So it has some nice age. I've spent so much time thinking of leaving it, I haven't thought about what I could do to stay here and fix it up.

Old houses have ghosts. I have my own ghosts here, caring and loving ghosts. Memories of my late husband come back to me in the late night hours. My three beloved dogs ashes are in the back yard. Perhaps it's time  I learn to live with my own ghosts rather than to take on new ghosts some place else. My ghosts don't keep me from living my life, enjoying my house. I just think other ghosts are more exciting. You know, the grass is always greener ghosts!


"Why would you move?" I am asked that question when I tell friends and strangers I am looking at houses in a small town forty miles up the road. "Your location is perfect. Are you nuts?"

I am nuts. On many levels for many reasons. The universe keeps me sane. Keeps me in balance. I just need to read my signs better. I thought the universe wanted me to move when I found the Craftsman bungalow that stole my heart, then crushed it, as I realized the yard was too small for my dogs. (Was that only a week or so ago? How fickle I can be. I was ready to look at another house this week.)

But the universe sent me to a mortgage broker who spoke the truth and changed my pace.

My ghosts, my dreams, my reality. I need to find a way to live with them all. I am not moving any time soon.

I am happy in my house with my dogs. How do I always manage to forget that?

It is time to take my energy and work on my house. Let's see how that goes! Meet my house below. Watch for its changes!

My average 1940s/50s brick ranch. Not a cottage, but something to work with!

View of the front yard from steps. Not all my land, part of a right-of-way on the side.

My split rail fence is mostly on the ground. The water company repaired a leak on their side of the meter and jack hammered up the end of my drive. The new concrete is an eye-sore.

My herd will include some handymen! Stay tuned.....

Photo from the web