finding homes for pets

Finding homes for our animals has been one of the hardest things about this transition. When we first discussed going on the road, the huge question was, "but what about the animals?" We had a home full of animals, a veritable zoo. Tarantulas, snakes, lizards, 2 dogs and 3 cats. Of course, the creepy-crawlys wouldn't care about being re-homed but I knew the shepherd would. The bottom line for us was--we are overwhelmed...we need to simplify. We made bad choices to take on so many pets. We can't let those choices dictate the rest of our lives though. And really--yes, it is hard initially to change homes, but if we find good homes those animals lives may even be better than what we are providing now.

The How

First, we told everyone and their friends we were moving and had to find homes. That effort netted us one of the most important (to me!) placements--a home for my German shepherd baby--a 2 year old shepherd. He went to an ex-coworker that was familiar with dogs, has a huge yard, stable relationship, and loved him. He went to her back in March and is so incredibly happy. She sends pictures and we talk all the time and I'm so glad we found her.

The rest were harder--word of mouth just wasn't working. I finally put adds in the paper and was astounded how quickly we found homes for all the rest of the pets. I know its a bit scary to do the add thing, but actually, it was easier than I thought. I fielded at least 25 calls for Birdie, our other dog. Screening the people was easier than I thought--you can tell from a short conversation a lot about a person. I was able to go see the homes of the folks that took the animals and call a couple days and week later to see how they were doing.

The only sad story was my cat Albert. A close friend took him and kept him indoors for 4 days. He had been adjusting really well and seemed to be bonding with everyone. Her husband let Albert out and he took off and they weren't able to find him. I visited the local animal shelters and kept looking online (they have those fancy photo systems that let you see the shelter animals online..), but no luck. Albert was such a personable cat, I hope he found a new family that loves him. I'm sure there are those out there that will think me an awful person, but I just can't mourn too much--we did the best we could for him and honestly--there were no guarantees he would have been totally fine with us either--he was an outside cat with us too.

the count down

I admit it--I grew so worried that selling our house would never happen, I put all my planning on hold. But what happened--we sold our house! We are in escrow. So now, I have 3 weeks to finish putting everything in place to be fulltimers!

It isn't as hectic as it sounds. I'm staying at my job until the end of the year, so I'll still have health insurance. These are some of the last minute planning items though:

* get post office box (I was going to sign up for Escapees mail service right away, but decided to just wait. It requires notarized signatures and all that jazz)
* send out all the change of address forms--I may have to actually do this this time ;)
* find a home for our last kitty :(
* convert our RV insurance to fulltimers insurance


This list is short compared to all we have to do next month getting ready for "really" being on the road:

* new truck tires
* 2nd generator
* get inverter installed
* get new health insurance set up
* make a will (yes, I know, I should have this already, but I don't. ok?)
* buy laptop
* get digital connection set up
* decide if we are switching state residency


My mind is blank on all the other things that need to happen. I know I have lists around here somewhere...

;)

Waste

How often do you consider how much of your life you spend working just to buy things that are hardly used and then thrown away? Here is a telling exercise: go through any room in your house and find 5 things to throw away. Unless you are a very unusual and neat person, this should be no problem. Americans seldom use things until they are worn out. I can only think of a couple things that I've worn out in the last couple of years--a pair of jeans and a pair of shoes. And I'm probably an anomaly as an American women--most of my friends wouldn't think of wearing "worn-out" looking shoes.

We spent the last week on a rampage of cleaning and sorting, trying to prepare for showing our house. Greg went on a trip to the dump yesterday and it almost made me ill looking at all the crap that we had to just throw away. A major portion of the load yesterday was particle board bookcase and tables--remnants of our college days when a need for book storage drove us to Walmart/Kmart for cheap storage. But what a waste! A solid wood case would easily sell at a garage sale, or be given to a neighbor, but those cheapo things hardly stand the use of one or two people before they become trash. How much better if we had been thrift store/garage sale shoppers then.

Waste lies not in the number of possesions but in the failure to enjoy them. Your success at being frugal is measured not by your penny-pinching but by your degree of enjoyment of the material world. --Joy Dominguez and Vicki Robin