I promised…

At the end of the last post I said that I would tell the story of our nicknames. Mango and June.

First up, June.

When Michelle left the Arctic Circle and moved down to beautiful sunny central Florida she decided to take a short sabbatical before starting work again. That’s when I met her. I couldn’t resist a little jab at her life of leisure. I simply mentioned that since she wasn’t working she could meet me at the front door in the evenings when I got home from work with my pipe and slippers wearing high heels and pearls (a La June Cleaver). Her response was something like ‘Not a chance mister’. Actually, the reply was a bit spicier than that. So of course from then on it had to be June.

Now Mango

June’s mom every so often has afternoons out with some of her friends and they call the group the ‘Church Ladies’.  So right as June and I are first dating, June’s mom tells this group about me. Problem was that she couldn’t remember my last name so she said something along the lines of, “Russ, the guy who grows mangoes” (The back yard at 2780 had a couple of rather large Mango trees and I had given her a few of them). Now I’m Mango.

So there it is, Mango & June.

When you come by the Beach House (snobbery there), we have two large carved tikis right by the front door. They also are June & Mango. We got them from the guy who carves them right outside the bar area at Squid Lips restaurant. They sort of add that special tropical touch that we like.

Goings on

So what’s new and exciting in our loony bin? Well, let us catch everybody up!

House (2780)

The house at 2780 is now officially somebody else’s headache. That’s right! The sale of it closed on the 14^th! No more mortgage, no more mowing the lawn, no more pool chemicals, no more, no more, no more. I feel like breaking into the ‘Free At Last’ speech.

Yeah, well, while all of that was very exciting it also was a little bit painful on the emotional side. I lived in that house for right around 30 years and there sure were a whole lot of memories there. It was my first and only house. It was the house that Jess was brought home to. Additions were adding the porch, the pool, several different landscapes, Jess’s playhouse/swing-set, numerous vegetable gardens, building the boat, more birthdays than I can even remember, dozens of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc. dinners, and Jess’s high school graduation party was there.

I will admit that on the very last day that I was there packing the last few things and checking cabinets one last time, that it all sort of caught up with me and it took me a few minutes. Damn glasses must have gotten some smudges on them.

Here are a few pics of what it looked like on the very last day before the closing.

House (245)

The big piece of news here is that we are officially residing at the ‘Beach House’. That’s kind of what we’re calling it as it sounds very pretentious and snobby. It would probably be more accurate to call it the Beach Bungalow, or the Beach Phone Booth. It really is pretty small. I’ve seen clothes closets that are bigger than my garage. We’re calling that the ‘Man Closet’, it’s too small to be considered a Man Cave. But that’s ok, we plan to be there only about three or four months out of the year. The rest of the time it will sit empty and closed up.

We’ll get some pictures up when it gets a little further along. We are still living out of boxes a little bit and the place is still a train wreck with renovations still going on. We’re hopeful that we can get to a point where it’s relatively cleaned up in a couple of weeks. Once the tile guy is done, boxes get unpacked, I finish the floors, get the baseboards installed, build a closet, install crown molding,…..the list goes on forever.

Edna (Every Day New Adventure)

We did hear from the sales guy about two weeks ago (right around the first of November) and he said that Edna was to start the build process in a few days. He also said that we could expect to get the phone call to head to Jacksonville (where we will pick it up from) to do the walk-through and paperwork by about the second or third week of December.

Yes, we are EXTREMELY excited to make that milestone! To be honest I am far more excited about Edna than I am about 245. I cannot wait until we can take off and go camping for a long weekend. I also can’t wait to be able to drive it back from Jacksonville. I would absolutely LOVE to make a Saturday night reservation somewhere between Jacksonville and here, and spend the first night in her.

Us

First off, we really wished that we could have made it to the Sylvester get-together lunch. We tried every possible way to come up with a way to make that happen, but there was just simply too much to do.

Everything else seems to be rolling along pretty much as usual. We’re still talking about exactly when we want to retire and jump off. It will very definitely be in 2018, that much is for sure. We just can’t seem to nail down a good date.

I think that pretty much catches most things up a little. I just haven’t had time to keep the blog up as I would have liked. Hopefully as things start to calm down a little and we get caught up I can be a bit more regular with the updates.

In the next entry I’ll explain where our nicknames June & Mango came from. Some of you already know the story but I’ll tell it for everybody else.

It’s a bouncing baby ... house?

Before I get started, some of you will notice that I am really behind in posting. This post was supposed to be put up back in the beginning of November. The blog will normally run about a week or two behind, not an entire month. So anyway, on to the post...

I must be some sort of masochist or something. I just barely got the current house (2780) almost finished with a multi-year renovation that included new bathrooms, painted ceilings, all new interior doors, baseboards, flooring, fencing, etc, etc. So what do we go and do?? We go out and buy a new (to us) place (245) that needs a flipping shit-ton of work!! I get to start all over again and this time instead of years to do it, I get weeks! I need my head examined.

Let’s back up a little bit and I’ll tell the whole story.

We sort of knew for quite a while that 2780 was not going to work very well as a winter-only type place. We would have to pay a lawn service, a pool service, and have mail picked up or stopped for long periods of time. Not to mention that if anything happened to the place we wouldn’t know about it for weeks or months at a time. Plus, houses in Florida just don’t ‘close up’ very well. So what to do?

Before I answer that I must tell everyone that as a Florida-Boy I swore I would never live in a mobile home. I swore I would never live beach-side. I swore I would never live in a 55+ community. I swore I would never live in another neighborhood that has an HOA. Guess the joke’s on me as I agreed to every one of them!! I seriously need my head examined.

Well, that’s not completely accurate as the place instead of being a typical tin-can mobile home is what is referred to as a park model mobile home. That means that instead of super thin exterior walls, it has 2x6 stud walls and is far sturdier than a regular mobile home and insulates far better. But still. We found it in the same neighborhood that Michelle’s parents (+aunts, uncles, cousin) and sister live in.

The thought process was/is that it’s a neighborhood that is set up very well for snowbirds. For any that don’t know what that is, a snowbird is someone who spends the warm months up north somewhere and comes south to Florida when it gets cold. So we figured that we’re now going to essentially be snowbirds too! Perfect fit! We can close it up, shut off the water and electricity and make the place go completely dead. The HOA mows all the lawns, takes care of the pool and all utilities except electric are in the HOA dues. Perfect! That was the upside.

The downside is that the place we picked out was owned previously by a single guy who is a very heavy smoker. Yep, I can hear everyone groaning. We thought that we could cover up the smell with ripping out the flooring, getting rid of the popcorn ceilings, and a liberal coating of Kilz and paint.

Wrong!! It just permeated everything. So it was all new drywall along with the new ceilings and flooring. Not to mention the leaks in the windows, the bathrooms needed some real help, the kitchen was close to a disaster, and on and on it went. Oh well, time and money cures all issues right?

Normally yes, but there was a slight snag. The house at 2780 sold in about three days when we were expecting a month or more. So much for time. Now instead of weeks of time we now have days.

So that’s a macro view of what we’re doing right now. It’s a simple matter of getting everything done as fast as humanly possible before 2780 closes on the 13^th. We need to get 245 at least minimally operational and that’s going to be a very tall order. 

I need my head examined. 

Hello World

New blog, new life, new (most) everything!! Follow along with us as we step off and go explore this thing we call life.

First off, who are we and what in the world are we talking about? Ok, fair questions. I’m Russ and that’s Michelle (wave hello Michelle) Hi Everybody! We are a couple who are right on the edge of retiring and jumping into our brand new RV and go exploring the great out there, wherever ‘out there’ is. Right now it is the continental United States. That will likely expand a little later on but for right now the definition is the lower 48 and possibly Alaska.

So what’s our story? Again, a fair question and I’ll address it. I (Russ) am a 55+ electrical engineer (I’m not quite that old) for an aerospace company that I’ve worked at for almost 35 years. I was born in Florida and lived about 99.9% of my life in Melbourne, Florida (or Mel-Boring as it were). Needless to say I am READY to get out of here ASAP. I have one daughter (Monster!!) who lives in Orlando that I don’t get to see nearly enough.

Hi, I’m Michelle.

I’m Michigan born and raised but have also lived in New Hampshire and Wisconsin. I’ve spent my working life in the newspaper biz. In December ’15, I took a buyout, sold my house and moved to sunny Florida.

We met at a meetup group for 50+ singles and hit it off immediately and it’s been a crazy ride ever since. We share almost the exact same dreams and desires for our lives. I thought for sure she was feeding me a line when she told me she wanted to full time RV on our first date, but turns out she wasn’t. What are the odds? Yes, he knew from the start I was a keeper.

We’ll be embarking on this journey in our shiny 80’ motorhome that has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, game room, full kitchen, swimming pool, gets 500 mpg,…..oh wait, that was in my dreams. And besides, I couldn’t drive it anyway. No, actually Edna (Every Day, New Adventure!), is a Forest River 3051S 32’ class C motorhome that we bought at a show up in Hershey Pennsylvania. We ordered it specifically from the factory with the options that we felt were what we wanted. Time will tell if we were right or not. In a later entry, we’ll tell you about those must-have options but for now know that I have excellent counterspace around the bathroom sink.

We will be towing the jeep wrangler behind it to use as our dinghy and sightseeing/grocery-getter/whatever craft. It doesn’t have a name, it’s just jeep. Now I just need to re-learn how to drive a stick. Yup, no pressure there.

Unfortunately we aren’t quite ready yet to throw off the fetters and set sail. We have a few items to take care of (wedding, retiring, setting up the new house, etc.) that need addressing and we’ll keep everyone up to date as we move along.

I guess I’ll be the one who mainly keeps up on the blog. She’s gonna proofread them (and to make sure I’m not telling any fibs) and add anything she likes. We’ll try to include as many pictures as we can so hopefully things will be in perspective. I’m in normal font, she’s in italics (she’s special).

That should be enough to get the ball rolling. Hang on. It’s going to be a blast!