Departure Planning

Our new life of peaceful independence and simplicity will begin around the end of March when we 'pull up stakes' here in South Carolina and move up to the Adirondack mountains. It's fitting that it coincides with the beginning of spring.

There's much to do, but we've accomplished a lot already. We've downsized - we bring a load of stuff to Goodwill every few days, and we mail packages to the kids every week. We've packed many boxes, I've lost count, but we typically pack up a box or two every day.

And we've designed our garden. It's a work in progress, this is V2.0, courtesy of My Smart Garden:

We have three cars and I need to sell one of them. I've been delaying that because I like the one we must sell, a Subaru. We can't aspire to a simple life with three cars - even two seems like one too many.

I like the philosophy of dividing the day into three parts - four hours for me, four hours for chores, four hours for community. I hope to incorporate that into my daily routine.

S has decided to drive up with me, around Mar 21. She had planned to go to Florida first and ensure the horses are prepared for the journey north. But she's willing to entrust that to the people who have been caring for them for the past 3 years.

Our first order of business will be to unload our stuff and consolidate nearly all of it into a storage facility. We are moving from a 1200 sq ft townhouse with a single car garage into a 600 sq ft cabin - and it's not empty! So there's very little space for anything we bring with us. Eventually we'll move what we don't continue to downsize into the attic of our new barn.