Depending on how you look at it, that’s not a terribly long time — or it’s half of forever. For me, the time period is significant because if all things remain the same as they are today, this is exactly how long it’s going to be before our mortgage is paid off and we’ll once again own our house and land free and clear.

I don’t know about the rest of the family, but I’m feeling somewhere between euphoric and disheartened about it. Euphoric because I never, ever want to put myself or my family in such a spot again to where we don’t own the only place on this Earth we have to live. And disheartened because our entire plan is to get it paid off so the land doesn’t move outside the family — and so we can move away and start all over from scratch. The only difference is there will be no mortgage this time.

But a lot of things could happen in three years and nine months, right?

And now that I have a specific time frame, all I can seem to think about is, “How can I make this happen, make this mortgage go away sooner rather than later?”

For me, it means ratcheting up my online endeavors so I can help — either by taking care of the electricity or groceries, or something so we can use my husband’s pay to knock this thing out even faster. I’m considering new projects, new strategies, and most of all, stepping outside my comfort zone.

Three years and nine months. It seems so close and yet so far away. I can’t wait till it’s done.