Sooner than we thought.....

You just never know when things are going to go in a different direction! I've been writing for some time now that our target date for beginning our fulltime life was the fall of 2011.....not that far away....for Elaine retirement happens in September of 2011, and October for me....yes I did marry an older woman...haha!

For the past few months I have been examining our budget and how to pay down our remaining short term debt. It became obvious to me a few months ago that with the number of months left until we hit the road, our current income level (which for me has declined due to the economy since 2008) that we would have to eliminate a big chunk of our monthly overhead to get those debts zeroed out by October. One of our children has agreed to rent our home beginning February 1st, so that means we will move into the Newell permanently February 1st. Elaine and I will continue our respective jobs as planned until the fall, but eliminating the mortgage payment, and household utilities will free up a significant amount of money monthly so that we can finish paying off those nagging balances.

Wow, the future is NOW! We've got less than 6 weeks to clear our home out, and reorganize our STUFF that currently fills around 2,000 square feet, to fit in less than three hundred square feet. Fortunately we started the process last January when we cleaned out the garage attic, and storage areas, so I feel a lot better about the prospects of finishing in the next few weeks.

There are a lot of emotions coming at me like waves on the ocean. I thought I was past this part, but apparently the idea of moving out was still far enough away in my mind that I hadn't focused on the reality of actually moving out of our home of 26 years........for good. I have processed this intellectually, but it is obvious that the emotional part is yet to be processed.

Nevertheless, Elaine and I are both very excited about the change coming sooner than later, and spent a couple of hours this morning talking about what needs to be done. She is a great organizer, and seems to have all the steps laid out in her mind, so I will just line up, receive my daily instructions, and proceed with style.

Stay tuned for more frequent updates now that our move in date has accelerated!

Thanks for reading....