The big leap!

Eric, Cory, and The Wonder Dog, Jamie

When I was three years old, my parents, my brother, our dog, and I moved from El Paso, Texas where we were wearing shorts and t-shirts to Vermont... in January... during the coldest and snowiest winter Vermont had seen in 77 years - literally.  We moved back to Texas on my fourth birthday, six short months later, after my dad determined that maybe this Texas family did not need to live through another northeastern winter.  I sort of remember a moving truck and have the faintest memories of new things to come because we were moving again.

As Rob, the cats, and I drove to Florida this past week, 4'x8' trailer in-tow, I was overwhelmed by this memory (or, due to lack-of-concrete-memory, "knowledge" may be more fitting): at 26- and 25-years-old, my parents were moving their six- and almost-four-year-old (oh, and The Wonder Dog) from one end of the country back to the end they had just left in search of income and a comfortable, stable life.  The first morning we woke up on the boat was Rob's 36th birthday, my 35th will be in seven months - we are literally a decade older than my parents were and we just moved with a spouse for the first time in either of our lives, no kids yet, running away from an unstable economy and lack of jobs, looking forward to adventure and an unknown future.  And, yet, the part I kept getting caught up on was that I am a wife moving with my family (the cats help round us out as a true family) across the (bottom part of the) country.  That part was blowing my mind!

Boat Shopping - Take One

Reading over my last entry, I am taken back to almost two months ago when Rob and I thought that boat shopping would be as easy as 1-2-3: one week, two sailors, maybe three thousand miles from Texas to Florida and back with some driving while there.  That was a simpler time, a time of knowing that everything was going to be on our timeline and just as we planned...  That was before Rob and I took the longest "week" trip ever!

We did go to Houston, where we spent one night with my aunt and uncle catching up and talking into the wee hours of the morning.  That part was well worth the trip as my aunt has always been one of my biggest cheerleaders, rallying me to follow my dreams and excited to hear the stories that come from dreams-turned-reality.  It had been too long since I had a 2:00 in the morning story-telling session with her and I had a blast catching up!

Trying - promise...

I - unfortunately - have not been posting, leading to my writing of a much-too-long post... I'm working on getting something together for the public, PROMISE!

While I Was Busy Making Other Plans...

I have tried a couple of times over the last week to get this written but always got sidetracked or just found something blocking my flow to write. It's harder to get words out that you are choking over than to talk about the happy stuff. But, in the end, it's all happy stuff, right?!

At the beginning of this month, Rob and I moved into my mom's house for our Transitional Phase in this Great Adventure of ours as a way to: spend time with her before we leave, save some money, and become mobile/compact as this will be our lifestyle for quite a while. Now, no one can ever get this wrong: I love my momma with all my heart as one of my closest friends and respect her dearly. BUT, I am so ready to have the smell of salt water in my nose, the feel of sand under my feet, and the endless possibility of whatever the ocean and future holds before us that my soul is about to climb out of my skin and take flight! This, of course, means that I am going crazy no matter where I live! (Not to mention we are married 30-something-year-olds - as a general rule, all of us in that category crave our own space.)