West vs. East Coast

I received a lot of comments in regard to my post on Humanure. Some comments were in regard to their opinion of composting toilets. But many were in regard to the following paragraph:

As I have mentioned previously, my husband's passion is not medicine. His passion is permaculture. He wants to buy some land on the Eastern side of the United States (Virginia? North Carolina?) and farm. He'll practice medicine. But only enough to afford our home and land. He wants to have as much time as he can to work our land.

The comments were asking when and why we switched from our plan to move to Washington. I thought I had discussed this on my Daily Blog previously, but in looking back, I found no record of me mentioning it.

It is true that for the last five years or so, we have been making plans to move to Washington State. There were many reasons why, but most had to do with picking a place that met JB's desires for land. He wanted a certain type of growing season. And we liked the fact that the people were a bit more "organic" in nature.

JB started looking at land. We even had a real estate agent and made a trip there to look at the area. We loved Whidbey Island and were seriously considering buying something there. This was a major decision. Whatever we bought, we were planning on living there for the rest of our lives. Making this a place that will stay in our family for, hopefully, generations.

But Abigail's birth changed all that. There were three main reasons that following her birth, we began altering our thoughts about where we wanted to settle down, but the final decision basically boiled down to:

1. Distance from family: While JB's sister lives in Oregon, our family is from South Florida. While JB's parents hope to move wherever we live, my parents and brother will probably stay in South Florida. Isaac's birth family is in South Florida. Washington is quite a far way away. This didn't bother JB much at all. However, it did bother me. A flight would be an all-day affair. And coupled with the item in number two, it was a bigger deal.

2. PPD: But the biggest reason we altered our plans was the depression I battled after Abigail was born. Germany was a gloomy place. It has a very similar climate to Washington. It is very rainy. Very overcast. Not a lot of sun. I found myself quite annoyed by that while I was there. Complaining about it a lot. Add to that depression issues and it was a big deal. We didn't want to buy a place and then realize the climate was hurting me. JB started thinking and started talking to me. If I was battling depression, did we really want to settle down in a place that seasonal depression could play such a significant role?

In the end, the depression and location issues became too overwhelming, and we went back to the drawing board. We realized that we needed to rethink where we were going to live. In the end, the need for more sunlight and a closer distance to family caused us to change our minds.

We are now, definitely, looking at the East coast somewhere. We love Asheville, North Carolina. We love Abingdon, Virginia. We'll see where the Lord settles us down. JB is looking at land, and we are thinking that we might purchase something in the next year or two.

I hope that explains it!