Back from the Abyss!

For those of you who missed my writing, I have finally returned. Where have I been? What have I been doing? Well, in summary, I have been swamped.

I have been learning new skills, including how to remodel a house. I did everything (drywall, tiling, wiring) but plumbing, I think; and I think I could even do that now with a bit of basic instructions.

I have been working 40 hours per week to earn money.

And, after all that, I have been putting in at least another 20 hours per week on remodeling the van.

After working over 60 hours per week for nearly 3 years, we are just about at our wits’ end. I feel like we aren’t functioning correctly anymore.


However, as of this week, we are considering ourselves officially retired again! Our last day at work was 9/2. Our last day at our rental house was this beginning of last week, after which we rushed off to deliver our cat to family and my plants to a friend. Now we can officially do what we want when we want! It feels really good to be able to do that again.


I can tell when my life gets less complicated again. My weekly alarms (watering plants, setting out trash, etc.) start getting turned off. My to-do list gets minimal again with many days having nothing on it. I can start doing things that I have wanted to do but neglected to do so for other more important tasks. Life is good.

So what is next? Well, as much as I wanted to get immediately to Australia after leaving work and house, I have realized that it is more important to just enjoy ourselves. We will still get the 2 years not working, it may just not all be in Australia and other exotic places. We still have to:

1. Pack the van – This is more complicated than you might think. We have a lot of stuff to cram into a relatively small space and still have to make it easy to get to for the frequency of use. I expect that to take at least 2 weeks, but more likely it will take longer. Besides organizing, we still need to buy/make containers to stuff things so it easier to store. We might even do another test run to see if we like how we have packed it.
2. Ship the van – Right now we are looking for shippers, trying to understand the process and fees, etc. A lot of work and not sure how long it will take to find the right shipper, nor exactly how long it will take to ship. Depending on whether we do Roll-On-Roll-Off (RORO) or container shipping, we are seeing transit times anywhere from 14 days to 6 weeks.
3. Fly to Australia – Once the van arrives at port in Australia, we will finally fly down to meet it and get it through customs.

As you can see, we will be doing good to get there before Christmas. In the meantime, we are staying with family, saturating ourselves with them enough to last 2 years in case they don’t come visit us in our travels.