The Compound

The Infamous Compound. I have yet to come up with a fabulous name for our future residence, but I'm working on it. :D



So, let me tell you a little about this Compound. In case you were wondering how it got started, here's the scoop...



PJ and I don't want to live in our current area forever. Actually, he'd probably be happy to stay here forever, but *I* don't want to stay here, so we decided that after the kids graduated from high school (June 2014 for the youngest, if you're keeping track at home) we'd move somewhere. Preferably somewhere cheaper where I can build my dream home and he can play his music as loud as he wants without pissing off the neighbors. As it turns out, my dad plans to retire to NC, so after some consideration, PJ and I decided that NC sounded like a good place to go.



I want to build a house and have a horse or two. I sorta like the idea of horses without the cleaning part (mucking out stalls...) and so I was trying to talk my sister into going in on the idea with us. She actually likes mucking out stalls. Anyway, she and I joked about she and her husband and me and PJ all living somewhere and we'd call it a The Robins-Haas-Powers Compound. Of course, at the current moment, her husband wouldn't be caught dead anywhere near a country home, so it didn't really flourish into much, but we'd still joke about it on occasion. Of course, I shared this with PJ and the idea to get more than just a house in the NC suburbs (pick one...Raleigh, Cary, Charlotte, Wilmington) might not be a bad idea.



And then the idea grew...we could buy a big parcel of land (like 20 acres!) and build our house and a barn and a few more smaller homes (bungalows) for when the kids/family visit...closer than staying in a hotel, but not quite comfortable enough to stay forever. And then we thought about all our friends who we'd miss if we left this area and they stayed and decided we should just invite them along with us. They can live in our bungalows and make motorcross/dirtbike/ATV tracks and race and generally act like rednecks in the back 15 acres.



And guess what! Some of our friends actually want to go! And we've even managed to convince some family (though I think we'll have to strong arm PJ's parents - hi Judy!).



So, now this Compound has turned into a Monster. It's probably going to cost like $2mil to make this happen and we have a lot of friends/family who want to live there with us. I'm not sure the NC economy can support the massive influx of able-bodied people we'd bring and I'm pretty sure PJ and I won't make enough money to support them all. UNLESS THEY START GROWING ALL OUR FOOD... like raising cows and vegetables and stuff. And now we're getting into cult territory... :-O



Please pass the Kool-Aid.