Who would have thought that when we made the firm decision to dive into this crazy dream we have of selling everything we own to travel the world full time, that we would be here fifteen months later still holding out hope that this house that we have now named the anchor, would sell.
When we first came up with this dream it was my idea to travel full time. And when we first discussed it, we thought maybe take a year and go travel, however with covid and all the lock downs around the world, that idea was quickly put to rest as we waited to see what would come of the pandemic.
Unlike many states that were beginning to re-open, Washington state stayed in lock down for a very long time, and in this time, we had sold our house, put everything in storage and were waiting to get started on our adventure. However, when things did not open, we decided to go with our later plan and that was to retire and move to the sunshine.
We really considered Idaho as it was closer to our children and grandchildren, but after a lot of talks and stressing about would we be happy there, we decided to go to our number one destination and that was Florida. The truth of the matter was, we had always wanted to live in Florida, but it was so far from our kids/grandkids that we really didn’t think we could go through with it. But decision made, we flew to Florida and began the search for a house, well, during the pandemic that was not an easy task. Everyone and their brother were moving to free and open Florida, so every time we would find a house, it would go under contract before we even had a chance to look at it. And that is when we decided to build. We were living in an apartment in Tacoma and began the building process across the country. Fun times, NOT!
After living here in Florida for two and a half years the talks began again about our dream of full-time travel. However when we really started looking at it, we realized to see the world the way we wanted to, it was going to take a lot longer than a year, and that is when we started talking about selling everything we own to travel full time, to not put a number on how many years we would do this and to just go and live our dream. Our first step was to talk to our daughters about it, and after we had the discussions with them, we began the process, the first six months we began selling small things, garage items, kitchen aid mixer, carpet shampooer, etc.. and then we made the announcement to everyone, all of our friends and family. Some thought we were crazy, others did not understand, they kept asking why we didn’t just keep the house and just travel on occasion, and we get it, this isn’t for everyone, however that is not the dream. The dream is to live overseas, to experience as much of the world as possible, growing and being part of different communities around the world, learning about new cultures and to live our lives free from any responsibilities.
We got married young, 19 years old, we had a child with severe disabilities, we bought our first house when we were 21 years old and have always had these huge responsibilities, by 25 we had three kids, home, etc… and with a child with severe disabilities we had zero freedom, we never went out to dinner, the movies, etc.. never had date nights, we lived like this for sixteen years, we can count on two hands the time family would watch our kids to give us a break. Those were not easy days. So, to say, in our golden years we want freedom from responsibility is an understatement. And we have given zero thoughts as to what others may think about our crazy idea. And yes, we have heard some rumblings from a few family members, but we aren’t the type of people who care about what others think or say, we just live our lives in a way that is best for us and our family.
So, fifteen months ago we listed this beautiful house for sale, and here we are today still trying to sell our house. And to say we are frustrated is an understatement. This house is gorgeous, and we built it with the intention to retire here, so we added just about every bell and whistle you could add and yet here it sits. We have taken some very nice vacations in the last year, we did a five-week trip through Japan and that was wonderful, we traveled up the Georgia/Carolina coast, that too was wonderful and made several trips out to Washington to see our kids, grandkids and parents. But we are past ready at this point for this house to sell.
We have had to drop our price numerous times, we are now giving away every upgrade we put in and are actually going to take a loss on this house, but at this point we just don’t care. This house is holding us back from our dream and so we accept that we will take a hit to gain life experiences. And if that’s what it takes, so be it!
We’ve sold two cars, our golf cart, Genes workbench, table saws, storage shed, and all of our furniture, dishes, pots, pans, linens and everything else that was in our house, we sold our grill and patio furniture, and we now only have the things we are giving our girls and a few keeper items. We have given away a ton of our clothes, books and games. We hired a stager for the house and have one car here in Florida and an older car our parents gave us in Washington. We are ready to go. We had one offer several weeks ago that fell through and we had one person wanting to make a contingent offer we turned down.
We are getting all of our doctor appointments, dentist etc… complete before we sell and with as low as we have gone on the price of the house, we are hoping it will entice someone to come make an offer so we can get going before the snow comes as we have several mountain passes we will have to drive over. Also, my mother had a stroke so we would like to be in Washington right now to be closer to help out.
Our life here in Florida has been wonderful, we have gotten to spend time with friends and family that live here and have made many new friends, and we treasure them all. We wouldn’t trade this last four years for anything, we found a wonderful church family here and for two people that were not big into card games we have learned several new games and have found we really enjoy playing. We have learned how to play pickleball, Gene has played golf, he fishes right in our back yard from our pond, and we have done volunteer work which is rewarding.
But now it’s time to say goodbye to this chapter and move onto the next, so we hope, and pray and hope some more that this house sells soon. It would be a wonderful early Christmas gift to get that offer we have been waiting for. So, here’s to hoping the next blog I post is of us traveling back to Washington with our small moving truck and dream. To be continued….
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