Thursday, January 23, 2014

Starting the Countdown

Jenny is now announcing weekly how many weeks she has until retirement. (FYI, tomorrow it will be five). That means we leave on the Great Adventure in seven weeks. Suddenly, I am compelled to make lists:

Things we have to do:


  1. Plan a retirement party for Jenny. I think 54 years in the work place deserves some sort of recognition. And, yes, she started at 13. As did I. But I kept taking time off to spawn and care for kids, and have been living in a state of semi-retirement since 2002 when my brain quit on me during surgery.
  2. Finish packing the trailer, especially the basement which has been just a dumping spot since we got the thing.
  3. Take the fifth wheel into the dealer AGAIN, this time for things that broke while it was in their care.
  4. Go visit the grand kids in Seattle for a few days before we head out. We'll be gone until around September this time out, and they change so much at this age.
  5. Figure out how to Skype our daughter in Korea so we can talk to her kids.
  6. Get rid of stuff. We want to have a sale, and we're also looking for folks who want to foster some of our stuff until we decide (if we ever do) to settle down again. If there is something you want, let us know.
  7. Put the rest of our stuff in storage.
  8. Make sure we have email addresses, phone numbers, etc. of all our friends. If you think we don't know how to reach you, let us know.
  9. Check the truck and the RV for problems and get them fixed. Considering how much we've spent on the beasts in the last two months, it better be done by now.
  10. Go to my disability hearing. I've been waiting for two years (pretty typical, I understand), but finally I have a hearing on February 4th. Prayers and good thoughts welcome. The money isn't the big deal here. I get about the same from Social Security as I will from disability, but the difference is in health care. Without disability, my health care (thank God/dess for Obamacare. I wouldn't be insurable without it.) and copays will take all of my Social Security. (If you have a messed up brain, along with fibromyalgia and insulin-dependent diabetes, the meds are enough to bankrupt you. In fact, I will have to apply for aid from the state because my meds will cost me close to $500-$1000 a month, and the Kaiser health plan on the exchange is about $600 a month. The combined total is more than I can get from Social Security.)  If I get disability, I will also get Medicare. 
  11. Make sure our wills are up-to-date and that we have copies of them and all the other paperwork we may need on the road. Even though we are now legally married in Washington, and that marriage is recognized in Oregon, we'll be travelling through lots of red states. So the paper trail is still important.
  12. Make sure the animals are up-to-date on their shots and get health records for them.
  13. Renew our passports. Since we may dip into Canada and Mexico, our expired passports probably won't cut it.
  14. Stock up at Trader Joes. Did you know not every state has them? At least there are Fred Meyers and Krogers nationwide.
  15. Acclimate the cats to life in the RV or find them new homes. I don't want to give up Abby or Z, Jenny wants to keep Buddy. So I guess we have to take them all.
  16. Organize the RV. Lately, we've just been dropping things inside it for later organization. We really need to get back to living in it so we can also get organized.
  17. Make sure we have reservations for the places we know will need them. (We do have reservations for two weeks in Palm Springs, starting April 15th. Take note, cousin.)
  18. Return things to people who have either loaned them or given them to me. Much as I love some of this stuff, we can't take it all with us.
  19. Dye the white alpaca my daughter gave me to make her an afghan. She wants a purple tweed. Right now I have a big utility sink so I have to get all the dying out of the way before we go.
  20. Get rid of the house. The bank keeps scheduling sheriff's sales and cancelling them. The bank has yet to finish the foreclosure (we quit paying on the mortgage a couple years ago on the advice of our attorney once we figured out Chase had no intention of every modifying our construction loan).  Now we just want to get it over with so our credit scores can start creeping back up to the once stellar status they had before this whole mess started.
  21. List some of the antiques on E-Bay. 
  22. Put the rest of the stuff on Craigslist.
  23. Have an estate sale. 
  24. Move stuff back into the trailer. For the past several months, we've been living in two places. Not easy.
  25. Make more lists when I remember them.

1 comment:

  1. Hmm - is any china going in to that estate sale? Got any of your awesome handspun that needs a home?

    Be sure to let us know which Grimm episode has Megan in it.

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