Cleaning up the past

Well, the last thing we do when we finish something is clean up.  In the case of my wife and I we have over twenty five years and two children's worth of stuff to decide what to do with.  My idea of a small manageable cabin with both attached and separate guest quarters may not be my bride's shared vision of our future.  She told me recently that she wanted to keep the formal dining furniture and some of our other antiques.  Perhaps the simple cabin may not be the best answer after all.

Stuff happens, stuff collects, stuff must go!  This is the conundrum facing us now, what to keep, what to pass along to the kids, what to sell and what to toss.  My idea was a small two story less than 1200 square foot cabin consisting of mostly kitchen.  Two rooms for sleeping in the main cabin, one an attached externally and internally accessible guest's sleeping quarters and an additional, separate tiny detached bedroom/ bathroom for guests.  I also planned to have one large common room for sitting and dining (informal dining).  Bedrooms on second floor, kitchen and sitting rooms on first floor.  Something I had not wanted to do was haul all the furniture to the mountains.

Composting toilets.  Yes, composting toilets, where we will be living, water is captured and stored, bought and stored in bulk or drilled for if you can afford drilling fees and the risk of it being safe to drink or good quality.  As water is a premium in the desert our favored option is to catch and store.  Add in filtration, and purification and you have good potable water.  You don't want to flush your waste away with good potable water so you install composting toilets.  Therefore the bathroom becomes a huge investment on it's own as composting toilets are not cheaply acquired.  We will need two, one for the main cabin, one for the guest cabin.

Sleeping quarters, one medium sized master bedroom, one medium sized guest bedroom.  King size bed and small walk in closet with shelves and clothes hanging rods in each bedroom.  Bed side tables and chairs in each room as the only furniture.  Small stand alone cabin (think tiny houses) for guests, 12 X 16 or close to that in size, small 1/2 bathroom.  No need for kitchen, shower or advanced storage, while we'd like to have visitors, we don't want roomers.


The kitchen I have in mind would be large enough to use for cooking, canning and storage.  Large as in generous counter space, six inches wider than normal.  Large center island for prepping, large five burner commercial gas stove for cooking.  Add in ventilation, in kitchen storage of pots, pans, dry goods and canned goods, cooling/ freezing and you end up with a huge kitchen.  Since I don't know exactly where we will end up I cannot plan on having a basement too.  Without knowing the answer to this riddle, the thought that we may end up with an even larger cabin becomes the thought that we may end up with a house.  Yikes!!  I hope scaling down and not scaling up is where we are headed.

In any case, the future is much closer than what it was and cleaning up the past is more of a priority now than ever.  As I look at the nearing move, I feel intimidated by the task of deciding what to do with all the accumulated stuff from the past...  As always however, I like a challenge and this is one I have prepared to meet for a very long time.  Bring it on!

Today is a blur...  I hoped to be able to look for land in Texas this week and next.  Too much going on in SC to accomplish that.  Cancer sucks...

Sometimes I don't understand things, sometimes I don't understand anything at all...  I can say with certainty that the harder I try, the farther away the dream becomes.  I have tried hard to avoid repeating past mistakes, yet it seems new mistakes are always waiting for me to make them.

I have a plan, a great plan.  Perhaps it's not such a good plan as my family does not think it's as good a plan as what I think it is.  Maybe in a year, if plans work out this post will be meaningless.  Perhaps in a year my skin cancer will have consumed me.  I'd rather spend all my remaining days in Texas.  If that means 30 days or 30 thousand days I'd rather be in Texas...  What time is it?  Time to be on the move.  Time is of the essence!  The lawyers have it right.  Time!  Yes, it is finite.  It is not a commodity to waste.  Time is quite limited.  Time is short, regardless of how young you think you are, time is short.  In the grand scheme of things our lives are but a flash, a flicker in the big picture.  I'd like to finish learning German, I'd like to finish learning Spanish.   Heck, I'd like to revisit some of my high school math.  Will I have time?  Only God knows for sure.  Time has become a quantity I cannot waste.

Thanks for reading, thanks for understanding (or not).  My ramblings may only help me to heal, if they help someone else, then glory be to God for the benefit to others...

Under 365 days

Well, the one year mark to being able to make the big change and move on with life came and went with little fanfare.  I even worked on my 54th birthday (from 07:45 until midnight) with no love spared for me except from my family.  Not too big a deal since I don't really think of birthdays as anything special.

I had hoped to travel west to my favorite spot in the US to look around this July, however an unexpected obligation arose and quelled that plan.  I will be out of PTO (vacation time) the end of July and will have to wait until January until the PTO clock resets again.  Then I have 32 days of PTO to decide how to use.  My entire work group has available close to 620 days of PTO in a calendar year, we can take off two people at a time and with just over 200 work days to potentially take with PTO, the math does not work.  Someone loses out.  As in several people lose out to the tune of 220 days.  Not me as I always request my PTO a year or more in advance as I am able to plan well ahead.  I don't worry much about the holidays as most of my group are young folks with small children or single people far from home.  I think it best I don't take many holidays and let them fight over them among themselves.  I can take PTO any time of the year and since there are no disrupted school days or summer breaks to work around, planning for us is much easier.  This is one bonus of having adult children (grand children are a bonus too).

We hope to head to west Texas (the area, not the town) or if you prefer, the "upper Rio Grand" area in early 2014.  We need to get a better feel for the area and see just how remote we can stand to live.  My wife and I both grew up in very rural areas of Florida and we actively garden, hunt and camp so we look at our retirement out there as just an extension of our current  lifestyle.  I never like to rush my life away though at this point retirement is becoming much more attractive.  I do look forward to having only my own self to blame if my time is wasted...

I have in moments of quiet reflection been thinking of the things I will both miss and things I will gladly leave behind.  In category one I will miss:  Spanish Moss-draped Live Oak trees, Pileated Woodpeckers calls and their drumming, endless running water.

In category two, I will *not* miss:  Humidity, myriad flying insects, lots of people everywhere away from our little enclave.

Things I look forward to:  Clear skies, low humidity, very few people, mountains, desert life...