Montello, Nevada bound

Well, as usual, life creeps in the door and smacks you in the face.  The wife decided to kiss the tail end of another car in our Mercedes and now we gotta fork out repair money.  :(  She just earned herself a double duty of "tire pounding" in Montello!

Still trainin' the ol' noggin' for life out there.  My Earthship books came in! and I have been face deep in those.  I feel very confident at this point.  Just gotta get the finances straightened out.  Also had a lead today from a friend/collegue who recommended me to a company that sells and installs Wind Turbines.  They will be hiring this summer and will definitely be considering the Nevada area.  Makes good money too.  We'll see what happens.  That could possibly speed up the move exponentially.

My anxiety, although more stable, has really grown.  Life has been just flying by the last 10 years but all of  sudden when you get a goal like we have, everything seems to just slow down.  Our biggest struggle at this point would be budget.  I will have 1 credit card paid off tomorrow.  1 more credit card to go, then onto a tiny loan.  We have started shopping lighter and smarter, eating more soup and sandwiches and barely eating out at all.  If we had tried this before Montello we would've hated it but it's pleasant to the both of us.  Jennifer especially gets tired of the same old food and stuff but she seems to be handling this quite well.  We'll see how that goes.  haha  I've made a little bit of money on ebay the past week and we'll be filing taxes this weekend!  It will be nice to have some momentum with money for a change.  The wedding and then the holidays about dried us up.  I will be price shopping this week and next for building supplies and see just how cheap we can get the Earthship built for.  I will say this, the roof was a worry for me but after reading the books by Michael Reynolds I am actually excited about the roof now.  If anyone know of a company within 2 hours of Montello that sells "Vigas" (aka dead, rough cut logs) please hook me up with some info.

For everyone reading this in Montello or on their way to Montello, thank you for your inspiration and thank you for your frame of mind.  It seems to be the one thing binding us all together.  We all feel the same about life and where we want it to be.  I may be speaking for myself but I feel that God has a plan for Montello and it will happen with us.

Alright, I have made some new friends, spent weeks now (every second I haven't been working, eating, or sleeping) studying, and we have purchased our land.  Tonight I decided to go ahead and buy the Earthship Volume 1 & 2 books.  Found a deal, both for $50.  All the research I have done has been great, but there is so much more I need to know so I hope these books will fix that problem.  There is also a video of a couple that built an Earthship like the one we want to build from start to finish.  I am trying to justify spending $28 + shipping.  We'll see.   I am also considering building a couple wind turbines now as well.  I have found so much info and solar power and wind power on the internet.  Anyways, that's all.  I'm off to bed, night.

Wow, things move fast sometimes.  I have officially made a friend going through the same thing we are going through in the same area as us.  Preston, from http://montellooffgrid.blogspot.com, emailed me after I "Followed" his blog.  He has already made friends with some other Montello "transplants" and is moving right along with his adventure.  We have shared some good information with each other about our plans and I'm glad we met.  It may just be my excitement but something tells me this move will be a really great thing, not only for us, but for Montello.

A little about me...  I have never felt like I "fit" anywhere I have been since I was at an age to care.  I am a very sociable person and making friends has gotten easier and easier for me over the years.  I'm a very outgoing, outspoken guy and I love people.  Over the last 2 years or so Jen and I have learned a lot about friendships and the "city".  What we learned, we don't like.  Even though we have a couple of good friends that we know we can trust, we know now that the majority of our friends are really only concerned with themselves.  That makes me feel depressed because I have learned more and more how to be selfless.  It mostly comes from my belief in God and Jesus.  Jennifer has spent the last 4+ years growing with me as well so we are on the same page.

How does that relate to where we are now?  At first, the idea of moving out west was a joke but even when it started to materialize it was more or less a place to escape relationship problems.  (w/ friends)  Before our wedding we almost purchased 40 acres in the valley to the west of Pilot Valley with a friend. That fell through, going back to the friends issue, and we just put off the whole idea since the wedding needed us right then.  We had a great wedding and it definitely drew us closer to family.  On the other side, it really pushed us away from our friends.  Long stories...  After that we spent 2 months cleaning up the leftover bills from the wedding and then along comes the holidays.  After that we began getting antsy about this Nevada idea again.  We talked pretty hard about it this time and it felt different than before.  Even though we had ignored it for so many months it had been growing into the monster that it is now.  Up until now we have splurged our money on useless things and not saved properly.  We have been irresponsible with our debt and bills.  But this idea to clean up those issues, pack up, move to Nevada and try to live life the way we believe everyone should live has really changed us.  As I sit here and type this out my nerves are on edge because I want this so bad.  I want to DO something for a change.  I have spent so many years wondering what I was going to do to impact...ANYTHING.  Hating a job that hated me back.  It isn't about money with me, it isn't about feeling successful for making a lot of it.  It's about the satisfaction of working hard for something that directly affects my survival.  It's hard to feel that working for a company where there is no real accountability.

So back to the plan.  Still no timeline established but I assure you when we set one it won't be long from that point.  LOL  That's sorta how we are.  When I have an idea, I start learning and working towards that idea the same day.  Nothing different here.  Project #1 Solar Panels!  I have been doing my research and by February I will have everything I need to build my own solar panels.  There is still more research to do but I am confident at this point that this will work.  If it does work I will move onto to Wind Turbines.  When I get to that point I will blog about it, with pictures, stay tuned.

Welcome to our blog!  This will be slow at first but will eventually become a habit.  My wife and I just purchased 10 beautiful acres in Northeast Nevada right outside of Montello.  Our goal is to work off some debt, save money, make LOTS of plans and as soon as possible move out there and begin working on our Earthship home.  If you're not familiar with Earthships then I urge you to get familiar and ask yourself why you aren't seriously considering them yourself.  This world isn't getting any bigger and our resources are becoming a serious issue.

Once we are settled in there we want to farm using our Earthship home and eventually building an Earthship greenhouse.  We know we want to grow Lavender and harvest to sell Lavender products.  We have many other ideas but we will hash out those details in time.

To begin learning about Earthships check out Michael Reynolds and what he has spent most of his life doing.
“A man who does not plan long ahead will find trouble right at his door" -Confuscious