We’ve officially been on land almost six weeks now (Andy only
3) and I have to say it’s been a whirlwind. Things that were supposed to be hard have turned out to be
easy and things that were supposed to be easy have turned out to be more
difficult than I expected. Let me
explain…
One of the things I looked forward to most was having
whatever I wanted at my fingertips.
Would you like to have some blueberries this morning? Why of course, no problem. Would you like ice in your tea? Duh… no problem. Oh, you need to run to the store real
quick? Sure hop in my car.
Laundry? Just push a
button. What I did not anticipate
is the anxiety I would get with all of these things so readily available. Mom sent me to the store to get
her some olive oil and some Tide pods.
There were no less than 10 brands of olive oil and 5 different types of
Tide pods. Now I knew there would
be variety, but I didn’t know I wouldn’t be able to make a decision. These situations happened several times
a day…literally. One time, I just
walked out of the store empty handed…couldn’t pull it off. Catching up with friends and family has
been harder than I expected as well.
Everyone is so darn busy….slow down people!
Now the big stuff…buying a car, getting a job, finding a
home….piece of cake. We applied
for a loan online, picked up a big honkin’ check at the bank two hours later, stopped at a dealership, test drove the
first car we looked at, and another two hours later we drove off with it. And I’m still happy with that decision.
I don’t want to make light of the
big decisions and appear like I haven’t done any work here, but getting a job
was even a bit too easy. I have a
great friend who was looking out for me and as soon as I checked my email after
landing from our 36 hour marathon trip home, I had a job lead. Three weeks later, I had a job. And a good one! I like to think I earned that one, but
boy did I throw some big “thank you’s” upstairs! With a car and a job, the only thing left to do was find a
place to live. In true Andy and
Monica style (don’t think too hard about anything or you might get
stuck…remember the olive oil?), we hopped in the car, drove to Jacksonville and
rented a house. And that’s how we
find ourselves, six weeks after landing back on American soil, sitting in Saint
Augustine, Florida staring at each other with big eyes saying “what the….? How did we get here?”
For all of those cruisers out there who worry about your
exit plan, drop the worry…it’ll all work out. The only thing we did that I am truly thankful for is we
made the decision to come home BEFORE we were actually completely out of
money. That allowed us some
freedom in buying the things we needed to get re-started (furniture, plates,
towels, can openers…whatever) without being a burden on anyone else.
How are we adjusting mentally? Pretty good, I think.
The quickness of it all has kept us from having time to dwell on
everything too much. We’ve been in
Florida 3 days and Jake has already played kickball in the street with the
neighborhood kids, caught his first freshwater fish in the pond behind our
house and had a playdate across the street with some random kids he introduced
himself to. Andy has discovered
that ice comes right out of the refrigerator door on demand and doesn’t really
need to think about anything else.
I have re-discovered malls and all that goes with them. We’re adjusting just fine.
As for Savannah…she’s in good hands with our broker in
Langkawi and is officially on the market.
For anyone interested, here is the link to Yachtworld with all the
information and details.
We did get a chance to have some fun in Atlanta the short
time we were there and I have some great pictures on my fancy dancy new iPhone
(another really stressful purchase) but I can’t get them off…so I’ll keep
trying and post them later.
