What Surprising Things Have You Purchased in 2020?

Recently, a friend posted a link on Facebook to an article about unusual things people bought during the COVID-19 quarantine. Some took up new hobbies, tried different foods, and used services they hadn’t previously tried. I wanted so badly to comment, “Wait’ll you see what we bought,” but I bit my tongue (fingers?) because it wasn’t a sure thing yet. I couldn’t keep a secret from my immediate family, but this is our first big ‘reveal’ to the rest of you… 

 As I wrote in our last post, we had our travels changed dramatically by having to cancel all of the plans we’d made through the end of July. We’ve been in East Tennessee since the beginning of April, staying by this beautiful lake. We decided that in the event of another major event that necessitates going off the road, we should have somewhere dedicated to park the RV, so we looked for a small piece of land. Ken’s prerequisite: must be on the water and have a dock or the ability to install one. (When we were dating, he owned a piece of property near Knoxville; he has a brother and a sister in this area.) Everything we looked at was either ridiculously priced and/or had such a steep slope, it wouldn’t work, but we really had nothing else to do but scour Realtor.com.

Next we scouted out property with a cabin on it; we could rent the cabin on Airbnb or VRBO while we were out of town. When we couldn’t find anything like that, we changed our search to a lake house, thinking we would love to live in it when we’ve had our fill of full-time RV life. We looked at a few fixer-uppers and decided the last thing we wanted was a huge project. Then, Ken showed me a really ugly house that I quite honestly did not want to go see, but as they say, “It’s what’s inside that counts.” It had a lovely view and seemed like a great investment.

We closed two weeks ago on our lake house, “R&R @ Watts Bar,” which we hope to enjoy with our families and maybe retire to someday. In the meantime, we are strongly considering testing the short-term rental waters with it, which will require renovations in the basement. Overall, the home is in great shape and just needs some fresh paint. The landscaping, however, has not been tended to in probably years, so that will be the biggest challenge. We have decided to stay and work on it, living in the house, until we head south for the winter after Thanksgiving. Buying a lake house was nowhere on the radar, but wherever you go, there you are! What surprising things have you purchased in 2020?!