Things That Are Very Weird

There are aspects of being unemployed and homeless that are not straight forward. A biggie is your address. We are currently living with Dave's brother and his wife (who are both amazingly wonderful people). Our permanent address is my mom's (who is also an amazingly wonderful person) because it makes sense to be Nevadans while we are exploring the wider world. So we have two addresses, the "right now" address and the "until we figure something else out that is more long term" address.

Where you live determines your health insurance, and that is another weird thing. We have health insurance through the ACA - based in Nevada since that is where we lived most of last year. Both unemployed and homeless will impact health insurance for next year. Since we don't have jobs, our income will be from our investments (including the sale of our house). In a couple of days, when we enroll for next year, we will get to figure out how this all works. I hope it isn't too complicated because I don't do complicated. The second part of this is the homeless part. We have gone back and forth about residency. It doesn't make sense to switch everything from Nevada to DC when we are not going to be in DC long term. Since we can't predict the future, we will stick with the past and keep ourselves as Nevadan's. We need to figure travel to Nevada for health care into our plans. If we had some kind of national health care, it would be so much easier for us nomadic people.

Two other seriously weird things are all related: time and routine. It took me awhile to be comfortable with taking each day as it came rather than living via a plan and a "to do" list. Initially, I felt like I was wasting time by not having a list of things to accomplish each day. Maybe it is a control thing. I have gotten better with being in the moment and not needing A PLAN. I have established a bit of a routine: the dog MUST be walked every morning and coffee must follow dog walking. Living on a military base means we are a bit isolated. The dog and I have walked everywhere we can on base. We have been to all four corners, all the housing neighborhoods, all the little pathways. One end of the base is right next to a bridge that crosses the Anacostia river and leads right in to Capital Hill. We are three miles from the US Capitol - easy walk! But, we can't get to the bridge (and therefore the Capitol) without driving out of the base :-( Can you imagine how many awesome walks Sofie The Brown Walking Dog would have been on by now if we could walk across the bridge?

We have seen quite a bit of the area, been to most of the "must see" sights. We have done a White House Tour, hit most of the Smithsonians, been to the monuments. We still have a few "must do" visits like Arlington National Cemetery.

We did our road trip to Maine. I must say, I LOVE New England and the coast (actually, any coast). I really like being near the ocean. I always thought I was more a mountain than an ocean person, but I'm thinking maybe in this life chapter, I'm an ocean person. The trip north was spectacular. The small towns were just as charming as I'd imagined they would be. Although I thought I could live in DC because of all the things to do, I feel much more at home in small towns.

As for the sailing adventure - things are coming along. We passed our first two sailing classes and are taking the third in Grenada (!) in December. We went to the Annapolis Boat Show and saw some really cool boats. We have been to a see a few more boats since the boat show. We are getting closer to figuring out what we want and need in a boat.

Yesterday, we went to an idyllic little Maryland town, Rock Hall (settled in 1706), to look at what may be the perfect boat for us. It was one of those "you can't make this up" kind of experiences so it fits into the Things That Are Very Weird theme of this blog post. The boat owner was spraying off the deck, getting the boat ready to be hauled for the winter. The boat broker was running late. So, the owners showed us the boat instead of the broker. They have had the boat for ten years and it has been in integral part of their family life. The boat is immaculate and has excellent vibes.

The boat was docked in a slip in front of a small condo community. The docks and slips are part of the community - each condo has a boat slip. The boat owners took us on a tour of their condo and then we gathered outside again to watch the sunset. As we were sitting on the boat dock, a few more neighbors came out to watch the sunset. It was lovely. Then, the next amazing thing happened, one of the condo owners told us their condo is for sale. The crazy thing is... we could possibly do this...

Now we have a lot to think about... the perfect boat docked in front of the perfect condo in a quintessential little waterfront town.