Florida Trip, part 1

We had so much fun on our trip to Florida. We went in mid-February and the weather was pretty good, just a bit chilly. You'd think that being from Utah,  a trip to Florida in February would be a welcome change from our usually harsh winters but this last winter was unseasonably warm. The temps were in the 60-70's in Utah and Florida. We flew in to Orlando for the graduation and rented a car. After the graduation we drove east to Titusville so that we could visit the Kennedy Space Center. That afternoon we visited Canaveral National Seashore and Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge.

Canaveral National Seashore

Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge at sunset

We saw our first little gator and got so excited. little did we know that by the end of the trip we'd be all gatored out. The next morning we went straight to the Kennedy Space Center. It was a bit pricey but totally worth it in my opinion. We took an extended tour where we got to see the launch pads for the Apollo Missions and the rocket assembly building. We also attempted to view a launch but it was scrapped 2 minutes before is was supposed to launch. It took them 3 or 4 more attempts to successfully launch the rocket. 

Hello Mr or Ms Astronaut

Space Shuttle Atlantis

We also saw the real space shuttle Atlantis complete with scorch marks from re-entry. The most interesting thing to me was the outside wasn't metal, it was like a quilt of carbon fiber pads so it looked very soft and fluffy.

Original Mission Control, moved from Houston

The Saturn V rocket was huge, that is all.

After we saw the Space Center we headed south towards Miami, or more specifically towards Biscayne National Park. Since I have a goal to visit all national parks we stopped by this one, even though we weren't really able to fully appreciate this mostly water park, because we didn't have a boat or snorkels. This is a good reason to come back. We did do a short hike and what we did see was beautiful. 

Biscayne Bay, gotta love the iPhone pano feature.

Update

A lot has happened in the last 7 months. The biggest thing is that I finished my masters degree. We attended my graduation in Florida in February, with an amazing side trip to Everglades NP and the Keys, but I didn't actually finish my research project until mid-March. I also was selected to present my project at an international nursing research conference in November which is great opportunity. I have been relishing all my free time. Time to get back to the plan.

How things stand currently:

Job: Still at my current job, I have only been there for about a year but they are paying me so well it hasn't been worth it to look for a job that I actually need my degree for. The final plan is to work for an online nursing school but the pay is far below what I currently make so it didn't make sense to accept a lower paying job while we are in the save-up/pay off phase. I plan on keeping up on my contacts there, however, so I have options when the time comes to make our move.

The Plan: Things got a little muddled and fuzzy after our trip to Florida. After many years of not really being able to travel due to husbands work I had sort of forgotten how much I love it. I traveled a bit in my 20's. I realized that travel needs to have a priority too. Once we get our land we won't likely get to travel so there are some bucket list places we'd like to check off first. That means budget restructuring to make this happen. I still want the farm, I just want some adventure too.

Finances: We spent a bit more in Florida then we should have and also had a tax related set back so April was the first month we began to work on repaying student loans. This is phase one, but we will accelerate after our trip to Hawaii this fall. Yes that's right, we are headed to Hawaii. Pearl Harbor is bucket list for the husband, Volcanoes NP is bucket list for me. Due to upcoming family issues we need to take this trip while we can. Luckily I just got a hefty raise at work so we can swing this.

Garden: We ripped out the hops after finding out that they are poisonous to dogs. That has freed up a lot of space in our tiny yard. I plan on some green beans cucumbers, tomatoes and potatoes for our yard. At work more tomatoes, kale, chard and possibly some fall peas.

Skills: This year I want to start cheese making, get better at food preservation, start composting again, prep for next year when we plan on a bee hive, get better at fishing, possible delve into hydroponic gardening, resume my previous levels of baking. I'm sure there is more...

Gardening update

School has been consuming all my free time lately so I haven't been doing much with my garden this year. In times past fall would have been a busy time of harvest and food preservation but since I moved to the Town House my gardening endeavors have greatly contracted.  My postage stamp yard is planted in hops (for beer making) and raspberries. These take up the majority of growing space I have. Normally my raspberries give off a pint per day during August and September but this year they were rather neglected and my yield was down. I may also need to freshen my stock next year and add some new plants.  

I also need to do something with my hops. When they were planted several years ago I wrote a list of varieties and where they were planted on my phone which died shortly after. I could only remember the location of one variety. Since different hop varieties have different bittering strengths different recipes call for specific varieties. If I don't know which is which we cant use them. So currently we can only use the one variety I can identify. I hate to dig up the others and start all over so I've been holding out for a way to some how identify the others but the plants look identical for all intents and purposes. I really have no choice but to dig them out.

I got a new job this spring and they had a small garden in the back of the clinic, so this year I was able to plant some zucchini, cucumbers  and cherry tomatoes which has been great.  I am drowning in zucchini and purple and orange cherry tomatoes right now, Normally I would dry the tomatoes and freeze the zucchini but since I am so busy with school my husband is cooking like a mad man. We have tomatoes and zucchini every night for dinner and then some. 

I do have much grander plans next year to get back into the gardening scene next year since I will finally be done with school. I need to find community garden space besides my clinic so I will be looking into that this winter.

The Student Loan

The student loan is the only piece of debt we have besides the mortgage on the Town House. When I was going to school I was lucky to have a combination of an academic scholarship, frugal living skills, and help from my grandmother which enabled me to get through college debt free. That's not to say things were a cake walk for me, I had to keep my grades up, live in a shitty apartment with 5 roommates, eat oatmeal and peanut butter for 3 meals per day, go to school year round, work part time jobs and walk everywhere but I did it. BV was not so lucky, he was the first person in his family to earn a degree, had no help from his family and couldn't give up his full time job. That lead him to seek his degree from a for-profit college and his work schedule meant it took him a lot longer to get the degree. Hindsight is 20/20 and now we can think ways he could have done things better but the past is the past and we are where we are. Where we are is holding a sizable student loan debt. Paying it off hasn't been the top priority until now. We have been spending our extra cash on other things such as renovations on 2 houses, school tuition and a big expensive fruitless project that came to nothing. Now that the end is in sight for my masters degree and we are making our final tuition payments, Paying off the debt makes a lot of sense, especially since it is a higher interest rate than our mortgage.  I have come up with a plan that will enable us to pay for the renovations and pay down the student loan at the same time. Hopefully this begins January 2015.

The Remodel

The Town House is a fixer-upper. Again when BV bought the place all he truly cared about was the garage. Since moving in we renovated the basement, living room and hall areas which was a major undertaking since we had to strip the place down to the studs. We did all the work ourselves and BV added to his building skill set. The kitchen and bathroom will likely be pretty intensive as well. We get 2 advantages out of this, it will make Town House more marketable when the time comes to sell and BV gets to refine his building skills. A third advantage is no longer having and ugly bathroom and kitchen.  

We have been accumulating(hoarding) the building supplies for the remodel for over the last year so that we have less out of pocket costs when the time comes. This also allows us to buy materials when they come on sale or before they are discontinued even if we aren't in the position to use them. This is tricky habit to have sometimes, right now an entire bedroom of our house is filled with building supplies for several future remodels. We had the flooring for the living room for almost 2 years before we finally uses it, yikes!

The Masters Degree

The masters degree will hopefully allow me to not only increase my earning potential but is needed to land a very desirable telecommuting job which will be ideal for when we move into the middle of nowhere. Right now my profession is a fairly hands on one but with this masters degree I will qualify for jobs that can be conducted remotely. If I can stay gainfully employed with a organization that provides benefits such as health insurance* and retirement, bringing in dependable earnings while working from home on the Future Homestead it will be a huge advantage. True self sufficiency will take a long time to achieve and is truly difficult in this day and age so this will keep us going until we are truly ready. 

*As a health care professional I know how important it is to carry health insurance. Every one of us (unless we belong to the one percent) are one heath crisis away from financial ruin unless we are well insured. While we are young and healthy it is easy to put this thought from our head but I have seen time and time again people being financially ruined by illness and not being able to pay for the care that they need. In addition to a job that provides healthcare BV and I are also contributing to a health savings account that will help us pay for health care down the road as well as cover premiums for personal health insurance if we find ourselves in the position for me to quit my day job one day. 

The Plan: Phase One

The eventual goal is to move to the Pacific Northwest (where I am originally from) and buy some acres. Currently I am stuck in a Town House in the middle of a desert (Utah). In order to get from here to there a few things must happen.

• Sell Town House
• Find and buy Future Homestead
• Get finances in order
• Be economically viable
• Bring skill set to a whole new level

We are going to spend the time we are stuck here getting our finances in order, building our skills, getting the Town House ready to sell, researching the topic of land buying and coming up with an economic viability plan for when we buy our homestead. On the horizon we have a few major projects that will get us closer to that goal: Finishing my masters degree, renovating our bathroom and kitchen and paying off my husbands student loan.