investments

We've talked about buying land in Montana for years now - somewhere south of Missoula, somewhere pretty. Steve's brother is a realtor in Montana, so he's been keeping his eye on the market for us. When he called to tell us about the 14 acres in the BItterroot Valley, and the price (ridiculously low), we sat up a little straighter. So the thought now becomes - do we take advantage of this sudden opportunity to buy our dream land?

We aren't looking to turn around and sell it for a profit - we want to build on it and have a place to go to every year. Let me tell you about it - it's on the Bitterroot River, there's a stream running through it (hey - "A River Runs Through It" - only 400 miles east of this place), and a pond on the property. There are pine trees and mountains, and it looks positively dreamy from the pictures. Steve calls it "boy heaven." Billy doesn't know what that means, but I do. There's a boy heaven close to Moorhead, a secret little tuckaway alongside a slowly moving stream, surrounded by trees. You can just lay in the 4 inch deep running water, or swim in the 4 feet of water to the other side. You can catch frogs or look at plants. The feminist in me says, "Hey - boy heaven? How about girl heaven? Or kid heaven?" But I understand his logic. He has an older brother - they used to go out exploring all day long, doing that traditionally boy stuff in Miles City. He doesn't mean to be sexist - he's just feeling that juicy feeling of nature and the possible. And besides, my man is nothing less than a full-fledged GUY.

So we signed the papers this morning. It makes me nervous, but then again, pledging amounts of money always makes me nervous, even if I know it's a sound investment, and even if it's what I want to be doing. The conservative side tells me to keep the money in my portfolio, even if the people in charge of the portfolio are losing me a ton of money. I don't know a lot about real estate. But I kind of know Montana, and I know that land is getting bought up very fast by the Californians, and especially around the Bitterroot Valley. It's so beautiful down there. When we go I'll take pictures. We've got our RV and our Rice Krispie bars (okay, maybe our granola bars), and we're ready to travel in a few months.

So the question then could become: what do we invest in? Our time, our money, our energy. What's important to us? How do we determine what's important to us? Sometimes I just DO stuff without thinking about it, and that's probably not always such a good idea, either. I could be more conscious, more aware, more purposeful. Like right now - I'm still in my jammies (give me a break - it's only 8:45), but soon I will get up and have 1 1/2 hours until my first client of the day. How will I fill that time? I could needlepoint (Mom gave me 5 beautiful needlepoint pieces to do that she couldn't finish because of her macular degeneration - I used to needlepoint all the time, so don't think I'm a nerd - okay, so maybe I AM a nerd), I could finish writing Steve's postcard and letter information, I could work on next week's column, I could read, I could rest (I'm still feeling kinda crappy), but I really don't know at this moment. I may just sit here and think about what's important to me, what are my priorities, what I invest in. And occasionally sneak a peek at the pictures of our "boy heaven" that Jimmy sent. And dream.