Packing, weather

Packing Up

We have a contract on our Autumn View Drive home, a plane ticket snow houseto Boise, ID, to pick up our new home-on-wheels,  and a dwindling list of reasons not to make the trip happen.  Did I mention I will really miss the ice and snow a lot? I have titled the scene here The Ice Pic.

Where the season started with a full bag of rock salt, looks like that  is one of the items we won’t have to find a home for.

The plan now is for the five of us to leave on March 14, 2014. Deciding what to ship to our new Florida home, knowing we won’t see the item until August (didn’t January seem like six months?) hasn’t troubled us.  Taking perfectly useable items to the Carroll County landfill has been the painful part, and one we’ve worked hard to avoid.

God bless Goodwill. They take a lot of our gently used stuff. As if anything leaving a house of three boys can be considered gently used.

Once, in desperation, I went out on Facebook to plead for someone to come get our stand-up Lester piano.  You will be pleased to know that in addition to informing friends and strangers that I just picked up my mail from the mailbox, I could also have given away seven more pianos! Yay Facebook!

Speaking of downsizing, in our next post, we are a looking for a home for members of our living, breathing family.  After much discussion, we decided to take all three children. The fish are frozen at the bottom of the pond, so they of necessity will convey.  But …well stayed tuned!

 

adventure

The Start of An Adventure

On Mother’s Day, 2013, Jen said, “Why do we have to go straight to Florida? Why don’t we take six months to get there? (Many times since then, she has said, with some exasperation, “I come up with a lot of ideas! They are just ideas! Why did you have to pick that one to run with?”) As a loving and supportive husband, my role is to nurture and uplift my wife in her goals and dreams, and so reluctantly I agreed to consider the prospect of a six-month trip to our new home.

Of course, if all this turns out to be a cosmic blunder, I will blame Jen. In a very loving and supportive manner. If you ever consider selling your home, quitting your job, and uprooting your family for an extended road trip, you may find, as we did, that there are a lot of moving parts, only a few of which can be glimpsed at the outset.

What makes all this bittersweet is that we—my wife and three guys and I—have found a wonderful, caring, close-knit, supportive community here in Eldersburg, MD. We run in a variety of circles, based on our individual and shared interests. We are surrounded by smiling, energetic friends who know our names and greet us seemingly everywhere we go here in town.  We have had great moments,  and sad moments.

We found a house that we could lovingly make over into something that now bears our untalented but earnest mark on every surface. We added to our family here, and have seen our kids off in first the kindergarten and then the middle school buses.

Eldersburg is our home.  We are sad to leave. But we are excited too, through our tears and fears. And we would like nothing more in all the world than to take you with us.

Welcome to our new adventure.

adventure, sale

Up for Sale

It is a cold, miserable and biting day here in Carroll County. We listed our home for sale on Friday, January 17. We had targeted February 1 to be on the road. Then, in December, Jen’s First Lego Robotics Team—including my two oldest kids—qualified (unbelievably, in the opinion of all the affected parents) for the Maryland State finals, to be held March 1, 2014.

This actually furnished a little breathing room in our miracle-driven schedule. We settled in to enjoy the holidays, and continued to ready the house for a sale in early 2014.

We have for some inexplicable reason had a stream of unseen clients banishing us from our home since the listing started, so they could inspect the grounds and the mansion. Kick the tires.

This morning we received an offer on our house. Sounds like a good offer. An offer that makes the sacrifices and fights and missed sleeping-in weekends nearly worthwhile.  If we accept it, we will go to closing as early as March 7. A Friday.

It is a little sad to begin putting things on our family schedule not just with an eye toward, “is there a conflict?” but with an eye toward, “Will we be here?”

And why write all this stuff down? I can’t speak for the rest of the crew. I hope fervently that they’ll be speaking for themselves periodically as things progress. They are a lot more interesting than me.  But as for my own motives, I like to blog in part because of an experience I had many years ago, listening to Ruth Carter Stapleton, sister of then-president Jimmie Carter. She said at the time, “we have this habit, when we have a life crisis, of withdrawing into our safe place, our cave, where nothing can touch us, while we are so vulnerable. Later, when the problem has sorted itself out, we emerge, to share our insights about our changed selves.

But isn’t it more risky to describe life in the midst of change? To tell a story when the end, or even the next chapter, is up in the air? Looking at my old journal, I came across a post from September 15, 1976: “Tomorrow’s gonna be interesting. For probably the first time in my life, I’ll be alone and having no idea where I’ll spend the night.“

While I won’t be hitchhiking this time, I am sure we are in for an interesting time!

adventure

An Itch to Travel

Jen and I have talked for years about relocating. Almost as soon as we moved to Eldersburg, we traveled to St. John, USVI, one summer with my sister and her family, and my parents, and fell in love with island time and space. For a few months, we lived in the conversation of a relocation, perhaps even a bi-location. The possibilities were enticing.

We thought about positioning ourselves to work remotely.   I thought perhaps it was time to get serious about online teaching and writing, and we looked at property and read books and stoked the dream.

But we had two young guys, and were considering a third. Even though the days crawled, it seemed the years flew, and even after a second trip to St. John, and numerous trips to Florida (and a couple to the Bahamas), we still were here. A couple very mild winters followed the last really severe one.  The kids were up to the eyeballs in sports and First Lego and scouts, I was writing up a storm, and Jen was coaching and teaching and time flew.

For several years, we had said “summer 2012.”  The magic year.  Our focus shifted to Florida’s Space Coast. We had the house appraised. Ouch. Maybe another few months.  But we stayed committed to the goal.

Amusement Parks, featured, Pennsylvania

Hershey Park in April

Saturday we headed to Hershey Park for the day.   It was a typical, cool, wet, day in April.  I was glad we had our sweatshirts with us.  On the plus side, the park was pretty empty…lines no more than 10 minutes, except in the middle of the day on the big roller coasters.

The boys all had fun.  Number 3 son went on his first rides…and the oldest loved the biggest coasters.  It’s a great park when you have different age kids.  The little toddler rides are scattered everywhere in between the older kid rides, so you and your significant other don’t have to split up for the day.  Although, I did hear one mother complaining of just that, since she only had the little one.

Overall we had a great time…spent time at the Hershey zoo, Chocolate world and the chocolate tour, and of course, chocolate purchases at the Hershey store!

caribbean, virgin islands

St. John!

So, two months and counting to St. John.  Why is St. John so special?

Mountains rising up from the ocean, white sand beaches, snorkeling with barracuda staring you in the eye, hikes on national park trails, warm breezes…I can go on and on.

Our next big trip is to the Maho Bay campground, where I have been assured by numerous posts on tripadvisor, that the kids are going to have the time of their lives!  Camping in the tent camps on the side of the hill, lizards crawling up our walls…exhausted after a day spent snorkeling with sea turtles, octopus, barracuda, squid, and parrotfish…what can be better than that?

Add to that the classes that one can take on while at Maho bay…art classes for the kids…glass blowing, meeting new friends, learning about nature.  Needless to say we can’t wait!

a roadschooling adventure