Sometimes while my husband and I are planning, we will exhaust the possible scenarios ad nauseam. These talks last several hours. My husband will end the rabbit trail with, “And what if a meteor falls on our house?” The point being, you can plan wisely, but in the end, you need a smiling Providence.

I noticed an interesting pattern in a book I’m reading, Our Homestead Story. In the self-published book, the author recounts his comical journey toward a more agrarian or self-sufficient lifestyle, and just like my own life, things never go like they’re supposed to.

On the author’s farm, the cows won’t budge, the chickens die mysteriously, the orchard doesn’t produce, and the raccoons are merciless. I began to wonder last night if we both experience fiascos for the same reason (lack of good planning) or if we both just personify that cartoon guy with the black cloud and dust ball over his head.

A quick Google search revealed that the author (with eight children now, half of them grown) is still working at it though, which makes me think that the book’s playful tone is due more to a merry heart rather than flippant morbid resignation. In the book, the author stresses the importance of asking help from folks “in the know” instead of going hog-wild down a new path alone. This is good advice.

Last year, we purchased a few modest rental units. (I’m stressing the term, “modest.”) This move wasn’t so that we could make more money and thus buy more toys, but so that we could one day be financially independent, free from the corporate rat race. Greg doesn’t want to work until he’s 90, at least not at a regular job. All the gurus say that rental properties are the perfect passive income situation, which should make you wonder why all the gurus are cashing in on book royalties to tell you this if rentals are so lucrative. This is Clue #1.

In real life, all the people we talked with about rentals said, “They’re a headache.” Within the first month of our landlord tenure, we got to see what they were talking about. There were two death threats, an eviction, numerous repairs, our rent money stolen, and if that wasn’t enough—we received a letter from the city threatening to condemn the place in 30 days. (There’s more, but I don’t want to turn this into a book.) I figured, though, we were just getting all the bad stuff out of the way the first month so that we could get on with making a small return for our labor. In fact, it all seems pretty easy in comparison to that first month.

We have a contract to sell all of them now. We’ll have to fund our looming arthritis prescriptions another way. However, our education on the subject wasn’t for nothing. Why not use what we’ve learned? Like the author in Our Homestead Story, I’d like to dust myself off and keep going. After all, knowing what not to do is part of knowing what to do.

[Greg, dear. Honey. Don't have a heart attack. My next idea will be great. Trust me.]

Avoiding fiascos involves a whole lot of planning for possible outcomes. Accept the fact that there will always be stray meteors. As far as the little black cloud, though, all I can suggest is an umbrella and a merry heart.

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good,
and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
~Matthew 5:45b