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The F Word
I am a sailor reincarnated. I have been known to use the four letter F word creatively, liberally, and at times superfluously. Some of it is genetics – my mother is also a feisty cursing wordsmith. This post, however, is about a different F word. One of the primary reasons we decided to retire several…
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2022: An Approximate Timeline
One of the most common questions people are asking right now is “when?!”, so, without further ado I present our estimated timeline for the rest of the year. All events are subject to change based on fate, whimsy, and the cascading effects of other changes. 5/5: We finally chose an international shipping company, signed our…
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Andrew’s Daily Puzzles
Michelle and I both have really gotten into puzzling during the last year. In July we even ordered a 40 pack of variety puzzle books from Penny Dell Puzzles and have been chipping away at the first few books. But now I’ve found myself working through some online puzzles on a semi daily basis. Daily…
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April Retirement Status
Car: One of the first things we did in April was sell our 2015 VW Convertible. It had pretty low mileage, about 45,000, and was in great condition. We used Carvana and the process was super easy. The only downside was that we had to drive it to Salem, which is a 3.5 hour drive…
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Why Portugal?
“How did you choose Portugal?” is one of the most common questions people ask about our upcoming move. When we started looking at early retirement options some of the major factors were: cost of living, location, cultural transition, weather, healthcare, and safety. Let’s go through those bits! Cost of Living For a variety of historical…
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Andrew’s Last Pre-Move Projects
My craft project of choice for quite awhile has been melty beads (I use Perler brand beads but there are other options available). I’m about to pack up my big pink bead bins for shipping and, unfortunately, my craft doesn’t travel easily so I’ll be without until we get our shipping container with all our…
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Date Night(s): MÄS & NAMA + Avery
Last week we had two fabulous nights out at our favorite restaurant(s). When we talked about local places we wanted to enjoy as much as possible before moving to Portugal, MÄS and its sister restaurant NAMA overshadowed everything else. MÄS offers innovative food which Chef Josh Dorcak describes as Cascadian Cuisine and we describe as scrumptious…
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One Of My Favorite Things
My prized possession is an upright Nickelodeon piano. We bought it from a neighbor in 2006 about a year after moving into our house on Sarah Way. We hired movers to roll it down the sidewalk from their house to ours. It was a hilarious sight to behold. I love that it is old and…
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Furry Friends Will Travel More Than 5,500 Miles
We have been crazy pet people for pretty much always. We don’t have human children, and our furry kids are very important to us. At the largest, our brood was up to ten pets. We have owned cats, dogs, a hedgehog, bunnies, and a guinea pig. When we started planning for early retirement and an…
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Stress Busting One Stitch At A Time
Post retirement, I have been spending time catching up on cross stitching projects that had fallen by the wayside while I was working as a 911 dispatcher. Between twelve hour shifts and overall exhaustion I was not able to dedicate as much time as I would have liked to one of my favorite hobbies. I…