We are really not much different. We all have our dreams, they maybe different dreams but when we find that Dream that speaks to our soul we all have a tendency to, well, obsess on it a bit. Who among us hasn't drifted off for a second or two, while at work, thinking of that island vacation, stayed up late reseaching the different destination, the different hotels and what they offer. Local fair and attractions. I would say we all have. It may not have been an island vacation, but maybe a new car, a new career, a new business idea, a new house, or maybe it was land.
Land, the plentiful earth (as I heard someone say earlier today) the fertile soil... And the pretty picture all over the internet, land for sale. Amanda and I would stay up til dawn some nights, just looking at different plots and comparing them, this one has a great garden area but that one has a natural spring. This one is close to the city and this one is next to a national forest. And this one, there's just something about it. So many options. We finally made a list of the traits that were important to us.
Missouri, yep, we liked the Ozarks. We need to be close to a town so we can work if we need too. Water, that's at the top of the list. At least five acres, that sounds right. And secluded, private and quiet. Needs a good garden area, pasture area for goats and chickens, but we like trees too. Mortgage has to be under $400 so we can pay it without working too much away from the farm. This is what we want and we stay awake nights dreaming, searching, praying, hoping, wanting...
And about a year after the dreaming had start, we see it. 5.77 acres on the North Fork River (a great trout fishing river), about half pasture half treed, the pasture area above the flood area, 45 minutes outside of West Plains, MO. Actually it has everything we want. Mortgage $350 month. We make an offer, the offer is excepted, we sign some papers, we stop dreaming of owning land and start dreaming about getting there.

Shakespeare said, "to sleep, perchance to dream" We dream while awake, we hold those dreams closer, nurture those dreams more; live, taste, smell and feel those dreams more fully until they are no longer dreams. Dreams become real. We awaken dreams and they in turn awaken us.