Sunday, November 18, 2012

The Great Adventure

Some people, like our youngest daughter, have great adventures when they're young. Some of us opt for jobs, children, responsibilities and wait until we're old. We are in that crowd. The old crowd.

But it's never too late to have an adventure, and we're on our way. Sort of. Here's what we're going to do.

We are currently lining up all our ducks to get out of Oregon for at least six months a year. I have a neuromuscular condition that makes me hurt—bad—when it's cold and damp. Which, contrary to the rest of the country, is most of the year. In case you missed it, we live in Oregon, specifically Beavercreek which is more or less close to Portland. Where it rains.

My doctor actually told me to take the geographic cure, and I want to please her. Since pleasing her means not appearing in her office to repeatedly debate narcotics vs. pain (I'm for neither), we have decided to go on an adventure.

You can read all about us, and the rest of the cast, in that tab called Cast of Characters. But Jenny (aka The Old, Short One) is going to retire. YAY! And, I, for health reasons, am essentially retired in place (although without the money since I'm The Young, Tall One and still 18 months away from Social Security). That's plan one.

Plan two: Buy a motor home. We are looking for something in the 2003 range since the bank won't finance anything older. We are also looking to move from a 2400 sq. ft. house into 400 sq. ft. of motor home.  This is probably the biggest adventure because I am an inveterate collector of stuff.

Yes, I am going to sell the books. Most of them. Now that I'm almost old, I can't read most of them anyway, no matter how many prescriptions my eye guy writes, so I got an e-reader and have now accumulated thousands of books in one small space instead of needing a whole house to hold them all. I will only keep the hard to find ones, just in case I someday write that book on atonement theology I've been threatening to write for years. (Hint: I'm against it.)

So, here's the agenda:

  • Get money. We're working on this one. Big sale coming up. Also an Indiegogo crowdsourcing campaign.
  • Buy RV. Also working on this. Need opinions on the motor home vs. fifth wheel issue.
  • Trade two cars with payments in for one with no payment (or at least a very low payment). This is done. We now have no van, no tent trailer, and just the Prius and our bikes. Once we have the RV, we may get rid of the Prius and just use our bikes and rent cars if we need them.
  • Give stuff to kids and friends.
  • Sell what the kids and friends don't want.
  • Store the stuff we may want if we ever become housebound again.
  • Figure out what to do with the house (we hope to rent it to friends so we can park here in the summer....we have a whole 1/2 acre so we won't be annoying.) (Okay, I just heard some of you say, yeah, right. Yes, I will probably be annoying, but people will remind me to stop and I will.) However, the bank may have other plans. More on that later.
  • Be ready to go by spring at the latest.
We wanted to leave by October because we wanted to be in Texas before the end of football season. Yes, you heard that right. I wanted to go to some Texas football games. Not because I love Texas. Not because I have a clue about football. (Read this for more about me and football) But our only grandson (at least until 12/12/12) plays football in Texas and we wanted to watch. I would, as usual, annoy Jenny with my irreverent comments about the sport while she yelled at umpires or referees (or whatever they are) about bad calls and talked about conversions and other such esoterica. I would watch the game when Tyler is on the field. The rest of the time I would wish there were cheerleaders in club football so I could watch them instead. Maybe there are cheerleaders in Texas middle schools. I hear cheerleading is almost as serious as football down there.

We had hoped to spend the first winter of the Great Adventure in Central Texas near Ft. Hood because, come spring, our oldest daughter and her family will head off for three+ years in Korea. We wanted to use the Killeen area as home base and explore from there, spending plenty of time annoying her family. Our oldest grandchild will come back from Korea a college freshman, so we still hope to get some mani/pedis with her before she leaves. When she comes home, she will have A Life and little time for us.

This same daughter is also having a baby in December and we want to spend time with this new human. She also has Tyler and Amelia (whom I call Millie, but who calls herself Mia.). Tyler is 12. Millie is 1. Our daughter and her husband like kids. A lot.

Anyway, that's what we wanted to do. But life has a way of changing things and now we may be stuck in rain and cold for another winter. One that I will spend most of in bed. My condition is that bad. Still, I'll find time to write and time to post and maybe time to finish my second novel so it can get published. (I see my publisher glaring at me right now if she's reading this. Actually, she's my business partner in a publishing house that we own together. More on that later as well.)

So, enough for that. A brief introduction to us. Stay tuned as we fight discuss all the stuff we have to do. But I had Highland Still House chicken pot pie for dinner, so I'm starting to nod off.







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