She’s Back!

It’s been a long time since I wrote last, I know.  Did you notice?!

I didn’t mean to stay away so long but I was really waiting out potential buyers for the house and potential buyers for the last two alpacas all at the same time!  I was hoping to be able to post with great news quite a while ago but as things go, I had to just keep waiting and waiting and waiting for things to fall into place and be finalized before I mentioned it.  I didn’t want to broadcast it across the internet before I  knew for sure that things were going to go through.  Once they did, time just flew by.

The same day that I got a call from the gal that bought the two alpacas & the horse saying she wanted them, we got an offer from another couple on the house!  What a crazy day THAT was!  And…it’s been crazy ever since!

Things have been moving forward steadily & quickly.  The alpacas and horse have been delivered to their new home and are settling in there nicely & have sold the farm!  Since the farm was never listed for sale, yes, you read that right…in THIS economy, we have sold our farm without ever putting it on the market with a Realtor!  We just happened to go to an alpaca show at the end of March just to see a couple of alpacas that we sold and see them show.  We were introduced to a couple that also have alpacas but were boarding them.  They were in the process of looking for their own farm.  The rest is history.  We’ve now rented an apartment in the town where I work and are settling in somewhat.

I know I whined and complained that things were moving too slow for me at times throughout this process but the last few weeks have flown by and pieces fell perfectly and painlessly into place.  Now, we’ve moved to an apartment and are waiting for an opportunity for Jon to work in Florida so we can move down there!  Pretty scary but exciting too.  I have a feeling it won’t be long before we’re on the move again.

So many things have fallen into place so seamlessly in this process that we can’t help but believe it’s the right thing to do.  We made the decision to move to Florida and started this process way back on July 3rd, 2009 and here we are.

Memories From His Father

Image via CrunchBase

My husband’s dad was an avid photographer while he was growing up, therefore, we have a lot of photos of my husband Jon as a kid.  Several years ago we were visiting Jon’s folks in Florida and his dad expressed the desire to have several boxes of slides made into photographs that he could get copies of and give to all the kids.  We brought the boxes of slides home to Missouri after our visit thinking it would be a simple process to have them converted to prints.  Au contraire.

It’s been several years since we’ve had his slides and we’ve had good intentions all along.  I’ve looked high and low for an affordable solution to this problem to no avail.  I finally found a place that was more reasonably priced here lately, but still pretty expensive.  Over 1200 35 mm slides have been sorted by date, shipped and converted to digital photos onto a CD.  Technology at its best!  When we received our CD, we immediately made copies for each of Jon’s siblings & packaged them up to ship to each of them.  Then, we uploaded the entire CD to Shutterfly, an online photo storage hub that allows you to create all sorts of gifts from your photos.  We made two photo books for Dad.  His birthday was February 8th and we wanted to have the books created & shipped to him as a gift on his birthday but it took us longer to sort the slides by the year they were taken than we thought.   Anyway, we got it done and the books are shipping to dad tomorrow!!  Several hundred dollars later, I’m just happy we were able to preserve all of those family photos that were in the process of deterioration from years of storage in their boxes.  Where family memories are concerned…money doesn’t matter.

I can’t wait to hear what he thinks about our little project.  I know he will cry.  Then he’ll call us and cry some more.  I just love that man!

As I Was Saying…

As I was saying in my last post before I realized I had rambled on and on for so long, there’s more to life than just living day-to-day.

Jon and I have made it our goal in life to chase our dreams, no matter how big or small, or crazy they may seem.  When we were not just struggling to make ends meet but literally living on credit cards in Maine back in the fall of 1991, a job opportunity presented itself to Jon here in Missouri.  After a bit of contemplation and weighing options, (there weren’t any), we announced to our families that we were packing up and moving to Missouri.  Everyone thought we were crazy and made no bones about it.

Let me give you a bit of history. (*Yawn*)  When I was a kid growing up, we moved around a bit…more than what is “normal” for most people.  In fact, I was in a new school every year until I reached the 8th grade.  My mom was trying to raise 10 kids by herself (the majority of the time) and was always looking for the perfect place to raise her kids.  That’s what she told us anyway.  So, moving around and changing scenery isn’t a foreign concept for me at all.  In fact, I have to rearrange our furniture about once a year just to change the scenery in the house.  :o)  Jon always jokes that it’s a good thing he isn’t blind.

 

Jon lived in two different towns in New Hampshire before he moved to Florida and joined the military at age 17.  Yes, his mother had to sign him in.  He served ten years active duty in the U.S. Air Force so moving around for him isn’t a problem either.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way, I can move on.  Living in Missouri for the last 19+ years has been a milestone for us.  We’ve lived here longer than we’ve lived anywhere both as a couple and as individuals.  With the history we both have, it was important to me that our son grew up and attended school in the same school district with his friends.  We lived in 2 different houses but were able to keep him in the same school district until he finished school.  Our first home was on a little 1/2 acre and we felt like we were out in the sticks.  We could only see one other house from ours.  When Justin started 10th grade, we built a big house in a large subdivision with hopes that he and his friends would hang out close to home & stay out of trouble.  Well, that didn’t happen but we stuck it out & started looking forward to the day that the school district wasn’t an issue.  Jon and I enjoyed our little 1/2 acre so much compared to the subdivision that we started looking for acreage out of town.  We wanted a place in the country where we could have horses and raise some kind of livestock.  We finally found and purchased 20 acres of land about 40 minutes north of where Justin grew up and our dream was in motion.

When we announced to our friends and families that we were moving to the country to build a farm everyone thought we were crazy and made no bones about it.  We’ve been here for over 7 years now and have raised chickens, guinea hens, & turkeys and have enjoyed fresh eggs & meat, we have owned 5 horses and have enjoyed seeing countryside that we never would have had a chance to see if not from the back of a horse, we’ve raised approximately ten cats, 4 litters of kittens, 5 dogs and somewhere between 25-30 alpacas.  Call us crazy but we have enjoyed every backbreaking minute of this life in the country and on the farm.  Ok, maybe not every single minute but most of them!  There have been a lot of blood, sweat and tears shed here on the farm but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I promised in my last post that I would disclose a relatively new dream of ours that we have only shared with a small handful of people so far.  Once again though, my post length has me concerned that if I continue here, I will lose most of my readers that didn’t cringe when they saw this lengthy post and went on reading.  But, a promise is a promise so what I’ve decided to do is to go ahead and post this entry for today and in addition, I will also move the very first post from our other blog which will tell all & satisfy your curiosity.

I’m not sure how it will come across…whether as a new post from today or whether it will settle itself in the timeline chronologically as I’m hoping it does.  The title, if you want to find it is “A Dream is Born” and it was written on July 3, 2009.  You should be able to find it in the Archives on the right hand side of this page.

Until next time…

Alpacas for Christmas!

A Country Christmas

Wow, it’s been two months since we’ve had any activity on the alpacas or any of the farm equipment.  Another email blast will go out today to nearly 4000 AOBA (Alpaca Owners & Breeders Association) members.  The couple that I spoke of in my last entry did in fact, buy the stock trailer, Summer and Taylor with her cria, Cooper.  They got one hell of a deal too.  It makes me sick to my stomach to see these alpacas sell at such a low price.  BUT, we are now down to 5 adult females and Heather’s cria “Cowboy.”  Soon, I’ll list him separately from her since he’s old enough to be weaned and sold.  I’ll wait to see what kind of response we get from this email blast though.  This one is focused on giving an alpaca as a Christmas gift to mama & letting Uncle Sam help pay for it (Section 179 deduction).

We’ve told Amy, a Real Estate Agent and our next door neighbor, that we want to list the house for sale in early March, no matter what’s happening with the alpacas.  Our thoughts are that if the house sells, the possibility exists that the new owners will want the alpacas or at least a couple of them.  Any that aren’t sold by then, we’ll have to board them somewhere until they’re sold.  It’s not what we want to do but we’re hoping they’re gone by then.  We’re taking one day at a time and knowing that timing is everything and everything will happen when it’s supposed to, for whatever reason.

We spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Florida visiting Jon’s folks and several other family members.  We flew in on Wednesday afternoon and went to Frances & Judy’s home, and spent the night there in order to surprise Dad & Tiny Thanksgiving day.  Ginger & Geordie (niece & nephew) were there from New Hampshire.  What a treat it was for us to get re-acquainted with them!  We had a blast together.  Thursday morning, we all got up and went to a place called Mulligans to have coffee on the beach.  We were right there…on the beach.  On Thanksgiving.  I couldn’t quite comprehend it.  The weather was incredible and we had a fantastic time.  Morning coffee turned to Bloody Mary’s and we got home around noon to start whipping up a festive Thanksgiving dinner.  Gale & George were bunking up at Dad & Tiny’s place & since we were already settled in at Fran & Judy’s, we stayed there for the rest of our time in Florida.  While we were visiting and dinner was being prepared, Tiny had one of her “spells” where she became very dizzy.  This episode lasted for several minutes.  We still don’t know why this is happening other than what Frances & Judy said, and that was that her blood pressure plummets for some reason but then goes back to normal.  All in all, it was a fantastic time away from the cold in Missouri and enough sunshine and warm weather to feed our desire further to get moving with the sale of the house and animals.

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Remaining hopeful that this email blast is successful in bringing us buyers for the rest of our herd.

Until next time…

Another Step Ahead

Our quest to pack up and go is still moving in the right direction.  Sometimes it seems like things are at a stand still but then other times, when I’m in the right frame of mind, I see progress around every corner.

The boat show last weekend in Annapolis, Maryland was incredible!  Not only were we able to meet up with my niece, Jaycie and her family for the afternoon on Thursday but on Friday, we were able to take a quick sail on two different Catamarans after a brief lecture in the morning and quickly eliminated one of them from our list of boats to look at as a possible home someday.  It was way too small to even consider living on day after day.  It was fun though.  The rest of the time, 2 more days were spent walking around the docks climbing in and out of various boats of various sizes, shapes, brands and price ranges.  We looked at everything there was to look at.  Even the ones we could only dream of affording.  By the time we left, we had one particular boat at the top of our list, the Leopard 39, a brand new model this year and a beautiful Cat.  By the time we’re ready to make a purchase though, this will be an old model and something even better will take it’s place so this is where we’ll start.  As an added bonus, we were able to meet, in person, the infamous Bob Bitchin.  An author in many of the sailing magazines we’ve subscribed to and a sailor as well.  He and his wife did just what we are wanting to do…sell everything and live aboard a sailboat.  It was a treat to get the chance to meet him.

Jon & Bob Bitchin

I’d really like to go to a strictly “Multihull” boat show now, or even just a Catamaran show.  I’m sure the opportunity will present itself in due time.  Until then, we press forward in Missouri.

On a more serious note, we got a call the other day from Jon’s dad.  Tiny is back in the hospital.  This time, she got dizzy, passed out and fell straight backwards, hitting her head.  He couldn’t get her to her feet so-called for an ambulance.  Come to find out, she had been in the hospital last week for 4 days for the same thing, the dizziness.  We had no idea.  The most frustrating thing for me though is not that they didn’t call and tell us then, but #1, the fact that they are going through all of this, basically on their own and #2, when we ask dad questions about what the doctors are doing with her, tests etc. and what they might be finding out, he doesn’t know or remember what they’re telling him.  He will always say that they can’t find anything wrong or the cause.  Then, they’ll let her go home for the same thing to happen days later.  Now, why would they let her go home if they don’t know what the problem is?  Is he just not telling us everything or do they really not know?  In addition to all of this, dad is having some problems with one of his eyes swelling up and full of fluid so he’s dealing with that as well.  He told Jon on the phone the other day that it took him an hour to get home from the hospital when they live only about 15 minutes away.  I’m sure he got lost again.

This process of selling the animals and the farm can not happen fast enough for me.  I want so badly to be down there now and be able to help them out.  They need someone, and advocate of sorts to sort out all the medical mess for them and get it relayed to the rest of the family as well.  Just another set of ears, eyes & hands would be a huge help.

Since I wrote last, we have had another couple come to see the alpacas we are selling and after some phone calls and emails back and forth, they want to buy our trailer and two of the girls.  Taylor & Summer.  Taylor has a male cria (baby) Cooper, that will go with her.  The last email I got from them started out with the words, “SOLD!”  We didn’t have enough time to get signed contracts or a deposit from them before they left for 10 days to Italy, so, we’re waiting for them to return next week to finalize everything.  I’m reluctant to say we’ve sold the girls & trailer until I have a signed contract and/or deposit but I’m inclined to do so.

Until next time…

Feeling Guilty

I sometimes feel like I’m leading a double life.  Keeping the goal of this new adventure from our family and friends right now is hard on me.  I wish I could share my excitement with all of them but it just doesn’t make sense yet.  Getting Dad & Tiny’s hopes up right now wouldn’t be right.  The liquidation of the farm could take a while yet but I hope it doesn’t.  I’m able to discuss the fact that we’re hoping to move to Florida to take care of them initially with our alpaca friends and other alpaca owners, as we try to sell alpacas but family and friends are the ones that I’m really anxious to share this with!  This is killing me!