2 months without Snowy

Well, it's been 2 months today since Snowy left us. Time has helped a lot. There are times however, where her lack of presense is deafening. Last night, Jan said that it hadn't gotten any easier for her. I think it was a particularly bad moment for her.

I have put a separate blog entry about Snowy's life with us up. The link to it will remain on the right side of the blog - under the "Links" heading.

We miss her a lot.

1 year home

Today marks the 1 year mark since I returned from living in California CIty for 3 years one winter.

For those not familiar: here it is in a nutshell:

In September of 2005, I moved (without Jan) to the Mojave Desert to build a house with a group of friends - who were also building houses. These were spec. houses to help fill the need for new housing in So. California. I hated living there. I hated being without Jan, but the decision to go there may have saved my life due to a depression I was in at the time I went there.

I worked hard - very hard - building and finishing my house and actually sold it before I finished it. I made good friends while there in Dale, Kent, Mark, Dan and Charlie and I was able to spend more time with one of my best and most loyal friends in life - JB. The group of us all built the same house (in multiples) all paying for our own and creating a 'shared tool' chest of the most expensive - yet least used tools that it would not be feasible to own independent of the group. Things like 'poly forms' for the cement work - which made the job of forming and 'de-forming' go amazingly well. Things like an incredible lazer level which made doing the underground plumbing and leveling the forms go well. Many other tools as well.

Like almost everything I ever do in life - I don't regret doing it. This is one of the things however, that I would not want to do again - in the context that I did it in. California City is a horrible place to live if you've ever been places other than California City and if quality of life (based on where you live) is important to you. There is absolutely nothing to do in this town - especially in the winter (which is when I was there). I was without Jan, so not only did I have no life - I had no life in a place where there's nothing to do. So, I did what made sense - I worked on the house. Nearing the end of my project - I wanted to go home very badly so I worked every waking moments - and even created extra waking moments so I could work.

Anyway, I have fond memories of learning new things - with many (most) of them taught by JB. I also felt like I was a part of something that mattered. I helped design the house - a house that JB, Charlie and Mark are all still there building and selling today. I don't miss it a bit. I would like to see JB again though. I have him to thank for the opportunity.

You can see the whole process here: gwbuilds.blogspot.com

What? Your grocery store doesn't have Motorcycles?

Yep, those are real bikes in the grocery store - and some pretty nice ones at that. Front one is a custom jobby, the black one is a Ducati (Italian for fast bike) and the back one is a blue version of mine.

The nuttyness of Bike week is almost upon us. I've seen people unloading trailers full of motorcycles all over the place. There's a 'famous' t-shirt from the event that says " I rode my Bike to trailer week". I suppose there's some macho thing against bringing your bike here on a trailer. I'd say it's not affecting about 50,000 people or more. You can get $200 a week for letting someone park their bike trailer (and I mean just one of thoses open "landscaping" trailers) in your yard.

My blog posts over the next 10 days or so should get interesting.

2nd week of great weather

I'm going to randomly post some photos throughout this blog post. They don't necessarily fit into the blog content.

I don't have anything specific to post about. The weather here is the epitome of why people live in Florida in the winter. Light jacket at night and morning - shorts and t shirt during the day. This is the 'normal' weather for us in the winter. Of course we have extremes on each side. During the week leading up to the Daytona 500, we had to cover our tropical plants 2 nights (with temps getting in the mid 30's). This week we actually have highs in the low 80's.

I'm putting in a 'little' effort to make our house look it's best. We're putting it on the market in the next 2 weeks and I'm putting mulch in all the flower/plant beds. I'll also touch up a few spots in the house with a paint brush. If the news that we're putting the house on the market is new to you, then I guess I'll give a few lines of explanation.


The cat at the marina sleeping in a tree

My philosophy on life is one that is a balance between work and play (or leisure - or 'non-work' - or 'life outside of work'). I'm just not sold on the whole ' go-to-work-all-the-time-for-someone-else' life. Jan and I have been very fortunate in that we've made some good decisions at the righ times and has put us in a resonable place finanacially.

We sold our house on the Outer Banks at exactly the right time to sell and when we moved here - we thought we had more of this figured out than we did. We got a tax estimate from the county tax assessor's office of $4400 a year property tax which was almost 4 times what it was in NC, but we have no income tax for FL, so I figured it would almost equal out. It turns out that our property tax is now $8400 a year due to some bad planning by politicians. Notice that $8400 a year is $700 a month - JUST FOR PROPERTY TAXES!!. What we also didn't plan on was all the other costs of living in a $400K house in FL. Our home insurance is more than double the price of NC. Our car insurance is more than double the insurance in NC and our electric bill is more than double the NC house. Gas prices here are noticably higher than the national average (yesterday's price at our normal filling spot is $2.47 for regular).

What all of this means is that our disposable income has shrunk. Less disposable income means a few things. Either we have to work more to have more money to do things with - or we have to do less fun things. I'm not liking either of those options. Working more - means less time to do the things we're working to do. Doing less fun things means - well, doing less fun things.


Mom and Dad with a new Boss Hoss motorcycle

So, for the time being our immediate plan is to sell "the house with it's own economy" and rent a condo or apartment semi short-term while we figure out what we want to do. We can rent a nice 2br condo for less than $1000 a month - which is about what we're paying in taxes and insurance on the house. OR, we can live on the boat while keeping our stuff in a storage unit.

Our long term plan varies a lot. We are considering moving back to the outer banks with a strict agreement to leave in the winters. I absolutely HATE the outer banks in the winter. We could buy or build a nice house there and pay for it right out, then Jan can work in a lot of different businesses during the spring/summer/fall (including the restaurant business - where she belongs) and we can take off on our boat from November - April and head to the little lattitudes. This is one consideration, but there are more.

The main thing that we both know is that even though we live in a really nice house - if we're not getting out of life what we want - then we're doing something wrong. We have the ability to change things - so - no different than anyone else out there - we can and will change things to try to make them the way we want them to be. The key is to not be afraid of making a mistake.

Probably our biggest disappointment about or decision to move to FL is how difficult it has been to create a 'family' of friends like we had on the outer banks. You can't 'force' quality friendships - they have to just happen and unfortunately, they're just not happening here. Jan and I both have HIGH quality friends on the outer banks and we're starting to miss them more and more.

Well, when I started this post, I wasn't going to write about anything in particular - but it turns out - I did. Anyway, maybe more later. I'm going to go hop on my motorcycle now and take a ride in the nice FL weather.