Life after Savannah

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.  

Savannah for Sale

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.