Turning Point

Today Terry (the hubby) is headed out to New Mexico in his car with the bird. I hope he takes the time to rest on the way because he has plenty of time to get there. Its just under 1700 miles and he is supposed to only do about 600 miles a day max so that he can arrive in three days. We have his temporary quarters set up for him and I will join him in about three weeks or so.
I have the job of packing the POD and finishing up the goodbyes before I can leave. Fortunately when I get there I will have so much to do I should get plenty of exercise. I will need to begin right away home hunting. We might buy but most likely will rent for a year first. It depends on what is available. I prefer to rent and get to know the area first then after a year buy something knowing better where we would want to live. At our age I envision a retirement community of active seniors for us. But who knows what is out there. I understand Santa Fe is actually close enough for the job and a real nice area. But I bet there are plenty of other nice areas as well. The adventure of discovering them will soon begin.....Stay tuned.

Plans and Reality

Now that I am aware of how this move from North Carolina to New Mexico is going to go I at least can breathe a little easier and get on with it. It’s not perfect how we have to do it, but it will work. Seems I am to stay behind a month (approximately two pay periods) to take care of the moving details. Terry will go ahead and report for work on his scheduled day of June 13. He will have to make the drive alone but he will have ample time to get there leaving June 8^th or 9^th.  He will have to tough it out in temporary housing.

I will be renting a PODS unit and loading it up on this end myself. The PODS people will pick the POD up, transport it to NM, and store it until we have picked out and acquired housing. I will have a garage sale on June 4^th and hope to rid myself of a lot of clutter not needed. Then after that I will give anything I did not want to keep to Goodwill or Salvation Army. I am excited about having an opportunity (excuse) to purge. Even though the unit is a pretty good size (16’ by 8’ by 8’) It would not hold everything and I do not want to double the cost. In the past we have made moves where the company has arranged for and paid the movers for us. This was not a great thing to do because we dragged way too much stuff around the country. Now we have to budget and many things are just no longer needed. Of course I want to keep things like photos that are not yet scanned into digital format (a project that is worth taking on but will have to wait for after I get there). Now that we get to officially consider ourselves empty nesters (again) we do not need two thirds of what we have for our kitchen. We don’t need extra beds and furniture and I do hope to move into a smaller and easier to take care of place. More importantly I want a place that comfortably on fits two. Our children are all adults and though I adore each and every one of them I don’t really want to live with them anymore. Plus, they don’t need to live with parents and have parents disturbing there lifestyles. It isn’t right.

I am excited about the changes in our life. I get to explore a whole new part of the country and in doing so I will have much more to write about. I can’t complain about having income again either.

Anticipation

Anticipation is a feeling that can be fun to have or it can be dreadful to experience. Sometimes it can be a little bit of both. Knowing of our impending move across country fills me with anticipation.

First, there is the fact that I have less than two weeks to get everything ready for the move. I am still waiting for the relocation specialists to give us appointments. I expect that to happen today but one never knows what new delay can happen. I had expected to have that schedule two days ago.

Next, there is money of course. We do have the luxury of the company paying the moving bills so there is that at least. We still have to cover gas and at least one overnight but most likely two overnight stays in hotels to remain sane. I think it is wise to feed the vehicle we drive as well. Have you noticed gas prices lately? We have to feed ourselves and the pets traveling with us and adhere to a healthy diet. That will be fun. We are however, down to the wire in our bank account. We have enough to get there and to survive on but we will be very tight for about two months. It has been a long financial drought for us and all of our resources are tapped out. This job could not have come at a better time.

We have too much stuff. I want to rid myself of most of it. I feel it ties me down. To help address the money issue I will be taking advantage of a storage facility yard sale where we have much of our extraneous stuff stored. Granted much of this is stored because we have not lived in our own place for nearly two years now. Right after my husband was laid off from his job we moved in with our adult daughter. She had just purchased a house and made room for us in it. We stored about 70% of our things thinking it would just be a few months before finding another job. This turned into two years. Now I get to go through it all. Much of it we can sell and if I end the day with a few more dollars for the trip and a lot less stuff to ship I will be a happy woman. I just am not looking forward to being in the heat all day selling but it may be worth it.

Then, there is the eating healthy thing on the road. Can it be done? I am beginning to realize I have very odd eating habits. I may even have a borderline eating disorder. I would rather just have a protein drink that I have measured out and know exactly how many grams of protein and how many calories are in it, than to eat something at a restaurant.  I am picky about that protein drink too. It may be difficult to do this on the road. For three days I have agreed to try to eat real food. This scares the crap out of me. I will be stuck in a car all day long with 15 minute breaks every two hours to walk the Chihuahuas. Will this give me enough exercise to prevent gaining ten pounds? Yikes. I won’t have access to my scale either. Oh well I do know it will not kill me but again YIKES!!!!!!

I know this is going to happen; I just am not sure how it is going to happen. I can plan furiously but nothing ever quite sticks to the plan. I have books to listen to on the road. I even downloaded a couple of audiobooks my husband will enjoy. So we should be able to enjoy the trip even when we run out of things to discuss or are out of radio range. I will be relieved to get to the other side of this anticipation experience. Who wouldn't?

To Keep or not to Keep….That’s the Real Question

By the end of today I will have a move schedule for packing  and loading and then leaving. I get to think about prep right now and I have already taken a few small steps to prepare. I began of all places in the bathroom. It is time to toss all of those less than half full bottles of this and that. I am trying to use stuff up before the packers get here so I can toss the empties. I sorted through all of the hair stuff and am surprised at how much I have in the way of bands, elastics, brushes, and combs. I think most of that has to go. I experiment a lot with combs and brushes and end up with many I never use more than once or twice.

Next stop is the kitchen. The things I use the most in the kitchen are keepers of course.  I have a ton of things I haven’t nor has my husband used the whole time we have been in this home. Part of that is that this is our daughter’s house and we have been more or less extended stay guests for just shy of two years. She bought this house two years ago and we moved in using our things because our daughter is a single professional and has no kitchen items of her own at all. I will be spending this afternoon listening to an audio book and sorting through all of this stuff. There is more in storage too. Sigh!

We have living room furniture that has to go to the dump. I refuse to haul it nearly all the way across country in the state it is in. The couch and love seat has broken springs and could not support a feather much less this hardy body of mine much longer. It is definitely time to replace them and the city collectors are hauling them away on Friday. Yay!  Again, there is more unneeded furniture in storage to be addressed as well. I just don’t want to haul it over land from NC to NM. I will rid these things later this week when the DH and I go start sorting through the storage space. The things located in the rented storage space have not seen the light of day in the two years since we put them there. I barely remember what is actually there. I suspect we can divest of most of it with little pain. At least I can. There are some pictures and things I know I want to keep and some kitchen stuff I stored to keep out of harm’s way (my adult children are hard on my things). I am hoping this will be the lightest load we have ever had to move.

So wish me luck as I try to pare down what is a long life of accumulation. I hope I can let it go or be allowed to let it go since it is not all mine. The hubby is rather attached to a lot of things and we have always hauled it around. Don’t ask what these things are but there is a lot of it. LOL!

New Mexico Here We Come!

After a long two years of sending out hundreds and maybe even thousands of résumés my dear hubby finally landed a really good job. This recession we have all been experiencing has been difficult but we persevered and now we have finally gotten through it. Now our adventure begins. Health insurance comes with this adventure too. Oh boy!

We are moving to New Mexico and in less than four weeks. We have to have him there by the 13^th. Fortunately, there will be movers involved and paid for by the company. Yeah!…..Yikes! I can deal. We have done this before. So, for the next week I will be organizing things to get them ready for packing. I will be going through our storage space and pitching like a mad woman. I even have the good fortune of our storage facility’s annual ‘yard’ sale happening on the 4^th of June, so I might be able to sell some things and lighten the mover’s burden.

It will be so neat to go to a new place where no one will have known me as a fat woman. I will get involved with support there but outside of that I will meet people and they will all just see a somewhat normal looking person. Okay, once they get to know me they will certainly ascertain that I am far from normal but at least they won’t see me as fat. When I set up with dentists, doctors and other health care people I won’t get the dreaded eye rolling and lectures. For the first time in 30 years I will  not dread having to go get a physical, at least, not as much.

Next thing to deal with in this is a delay in finishing school. It is not that bad. I have to wait a year to get residency status to attend the college at the residency rate. I am allowed to take 6 or fewer credits hours a semester at the in-state rate so I can just take one or two classes for fall, spring and then summer and then be able to jump in full bore and take a full load beginning Fall 2012. I may be able to go right on in to the university after that year is done. There is a good degree program similar to what I was looking to complete here in NC. During that waiting period, I think I will work on learning Spanish. I have a start from taking it here in college so I might as well try to get better at it.

It is so nice to not be in limbo any longer. Now I feel I can begin to breathe again and start taking real action. I am looking forward to having new things to ponder and write about. Stay tuned.

I Do Not Miss TV, What's With That?

A little over a month ago, my husband and I gave up television. We actually had even basic cable turned off except for our internet. I was sure it would be painful and found that it was not at all! I did want to catch up on episodes of Glee from the internet though so I went to the Fox website and sure enough the episodes I have missed were just sitting there for me to watch. The experience was not what I expected.

I used to just sit here on the couch in front of the TV and watch a show all the way through and I probably did not move other than to flip channels with the remote or to fast forward through the commercials. I found it very hard to sit through one show now. I did enjoy the episode of Glee I watched but I so wanted to get up and move around. Since it is a music show, I had on a headset so I would get the benefit of the stereo sound. I actually felt trapped. This was not nearly as much fun as I remembered TV watching to be.

Have I morphed into some kind of hyperactive creature that cannot sit still? I think I have. Normally I only sit still to read but I can put the book down when I get restless and move around to do other things and then pick it right back up anytime. Not so with a TV show it seems. It seems strange to have changed such an ingrained habit I have had all of my life in just a few short weeks. I guess now I enjoy other things so much better. Now I have more time to do other things I used to think I did not have time for. Who knew?

The Waiting Game or AKA Limbo

I dislike waiting for anything. I am not a very patient person. To make matters worse I find myself waiting for several things and even though the end result will most likely be satisfactory, I just don’t like the edge of my seat feeling I am getting from this waiting.

First, I am waiting for my grades to be officially posted. I have a pretty good idea of what they are but until I see it in the actual can’t take it back transcript report in about two days from now I will absolutely drive myself crazy. I feel stuck in mud and cannot move forward. My family thinks I am a bit crazy because of this but it is my neurosis and dammit, I claim it as my own.

Second part of all this that is driving me a little crazy is, I do not know where I am going to school in the fall. I will not know for at least another week or so. My hubby has been out of work for the last two years and has had nearly zero interviews during most of that time.  Seems his industry has gotten a bit more productive and now his phone has not stopped ringing. He has interviews by phone set up with now several companies this week and two of them today alone. The locations include Utah. Oregon, New Mexico, here in NC, and Texas. Any one of these jobs would get us back on track and that is a good thing. It can take a month or more for the hiring process to complete so I feel I am limbo, not knowing where I will be living in two months and/or where to sign up for my classes. On top of that I have a great class schedule all lined up for fall right here so I do not want to drop those classes until I know what is next. I did drop my only two summer classes I had lined up though. No matter what happens, I am certain this summer will be way too crazy for school even if it is just an English and PE class. Still it breaks my heart a little to take this hiatus from classes for the summer. No matter what though, I will be back to it in the fall even if I have to pay out of state tuition.  Fortunately, for my dear hubby, he is a baby boomer and will be able to retire in just a few more years. I just want to complete my degree before he does so I can pay the bills with my degree.