Not sure I want this promotion

hate having a reason to look forward to someone passing, but that is definitely the sort of thing that keeps people planted. For us it was the fact that we each have a sibling who is a single/divorced parent who depends on our parents for help with their kids and neither of our sets of parents would move away and leave them high and dry.

I get it. Blood is thicker than water soil...
 
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man I've got some of these issues brewing too, retirement looming in the reasonably not too distant future, Costanza-like aging parents 5 minutes away, son & fiance (with probable grand kids to follow) 10 minutes away, daughter & son-in-law (with probable grand kids to follow) on the other end of the state at 250 miles away, girlfriend, to become live-in girlfriend as soon as she's done the motherly launching duties of her 3 offspring, & we have no idea where they'll land but they're all on or very near the launch pad...

lots of moving parts but for now I'm hunkered down in the house I raised the family in, enjoying life, the solitude, & the pause in having to make any big decisions about all this - I'm guesstimating it'll all shake itself out over the next 5+/- years-ish

until then

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Just mixed a batch of 00 pizza dough, going to spend the day tomorrow in the outdoor pizza-drinka-relaxa-torium listening to music, sipping a brew or two, & tossing a few Neapolitan pies in the old pizza furnace for the woman and I, & I got a pile of Reece's Big Cups too for dessert, saw them for the first time at the store the other day & tossed'm in the cart, why not right.

Lord, please let the world last at least another day 🙏
 
man I've got some of these issues brewing too, retirement looming in the reasonably not too distant future, Costanza-like aging parents 5 minutes away, son & fiance (with probable grand kids to follow) 10 minutes away, daughter & son-in-law (with probable grand kids to follow) on the other end of the state at 250 miles away, girlfriend, to become live-in girlfriend as soon as she's done the motherly launching duties of her 3 offspring, & we have no idea where they'll land but they're all on or very near the launch pad...

lots of moving parts but for now I'm hunkered down in the house I raised the family in, enjoying life, the solitude, & the pause in having to make any big decisions about all this - I'm guesstimating it'll all shake itself out over the next 5+/- years-ish

until then

View attachment 461611

Just mixed a batch of 00 pizza dough, going to spend the day tomorrow in the outdoor pizza-drinka-relaxa-torium listening to music, sipping a brew or two, & tossing a few Neapolitan pies in the old pizza furnace for the woman and I, & I got a pile of Reece's Big Cups too for dessert, saw them for the first time at the store the other day & tossed'm in the cart, why not right.

Lord, please let the world last at least another day 🙏

Yup. Kids and grandkids. It's a thing. Something that I just realized a couple of weeks ago is that if I were to stay in this house for four more years, that'd mean I've lived in this place for half of my life. That's both cool and sad, all at the same time. I love the house. It's a very humble home. I just hate what the neighborhood is becoming. :(
 
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Yup. Kids and grandkids. It's a thing. Something that I just realized a couple of weeks ago is that if I were to stay in this house for four more years, that'd mean I've lived in place for half of my life. That's both cool and sad, all at the same time. I love the house. It's a very humble home. I just hate what the neighborhood is becoming. :(

next month I'll be in my crib for 25 years, not quite half my life but close, and the longest I've ever lived anywhere. Fortunately, I love the place as much now if not more when I first laid eyes on it. I managed to design a pretty sweet man-cave out of nearly the entire place so it has multiple areas to enjoy life properly. Bonus, the neighborhood is tight, we're far enough away from zombie-land that it's actually on an upward trajectory.

The only downside is that it's too much for me alone, even with the girlfriend. It's not a big place at all by modern standards, very 60s era to Brady Bunch-esque, but definitely a family sized house that sits on a great piece of ground and is just well laid out. I'm a pretty minimalist type so the overabundance of space does irk me when I think about it, not enough to move prematurely before all these other things become more clear, but I'd like to downsize & pass this one on to a family that can really take advantage of all it has going for it.

The other factor is that the market is just lousy right now, for buying anyway, there's just nothing available & when things do pop up it's a shit-show of buyers gunning for it. I'm glad to not be in the market because I have no desire to engage in that fuckery; hopefully all this bullshit will be worked out by the time it makes sense for me to bust a move on my own timeline.
 
next month I'll be in my crib for 25 years, not quite half my life but close, and the longest I've ever lived anywhere. Fortunately, I love the place as much now if not more when I first laid eyes on it. I managed to design a pretty sweet man-cave out of nearly the entire place so it has multiple areas to enjoy life properly. Bonus, the neighborhood is tight, we're far enough away from zombie-land that it's actually on an upward trajectory.

The only downside is that it's too much for me alone, even with the girlfriend. It's not a big place at all by modern standards, very 60s era to Brady Bunch-esque, but definitely a family sized house that sits on a great piece of ground and is just well laid out. I'm a pretty minimalist type so the overabundance of space does irk me when I think about it, not enough to move prematurely before all these other things become more clear, but I'd like to downsize & pass this one on to a family that can really take advantage of all it has going for it.

The other factor is that the market is just lousy right now, for buying anyway, there's just nothing available & when things do pop up it's a shit-show of buyers gunning for it. I'm glad to not be in the market because I have no desire to engage in that fuckery; hopefully all this bullshit will be worked out by the time it makes sense for me to bust a move on my own timeline.

The market is always going to be like that, sell high, buy high, unless a total change of geography. Your property looks awesome from what you have posted...not sure I would want to leave.

I can't wait to leave NY but daughter still in college in NC so we have to she where she lands. Son is teaching in NH, so not coming back. Not sure I want to retire in our PA house in PA (Pike CTY) due to nearest hospital at least 45 minutes away.
 
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Coming up on 9yrs of retirement. I still do not know how I got all the stuff done when I worked full time. The difference is that this is MY TIME. The majority of the time I get to control what I do. After 39 yrs the wife knows it will get done when it gets done. Just add it to the list Honey. I went to Home Depot and the majority of workers were my age. Every time I think of getting a part time job I start to think like a 20 something, “what you want me to show up when you want me to. But I have fun things to do.” Give it time you have to get your grove on. I like having a long list of projects and tend to not know what I’ll get to today. I’m fortunate to have several rentals that keep me busy with projects. My typical day if I’m not traveling is get up and out the door at 7 and head to my shop. I work on things until 12 or 1 go home for lunch and a nap and head back to the shop until 9. I’m not much on sports or TV but I do cruise around Youtube every night. Oh and some days I don’t do Shit.
 
Coming up on 9yrs of retirement. I still do not know how I got all the stuff done when I worked full time. The difference is that this is MY TIME. The majority of the time I get to control what I do. After 39 yrs the wife knows it will get done when it gets done. Just add it to the list Honey. I went to Home Depot and the majority of workers were my age. Every time I think of getting a part time job I start to think like a 20 something, “what you want me to show up when you want me to. But I have fun things to do.” Give it time you have to get your grove on. I like having a long list of projects and tend to not know what I’ll get to today. I’m fortunate to have several rentals that keep me busy with projects. My typical day if I’m not traveling is get up and out the door at 7 and head to my shop. I work on things until 12 or 1 go home for lunch and a nap and head back to the shop until 9. I’m not much on sports or TV but I do cruise around Youtube every night. Oh and some days I don’t do Shit.

Sounds like you've got it figured out! I'm at the stage where if I don't do anything all day (a "down day"), then I feel either guilty as hell, or useless. Sometimes I gauge my day by the number of accomplishments, no matter how small. Changed out some blown bulbs in my driver? I'll count it as a good day. I take my victories where I can. But the really great days are where I've accomplished something seriously worthy of acknowledgement. New struts all the way around on the wife's CR-V sure felt good at the end of the day, for example. I like knowing I can do things like that, and save us some serious "shop time" coin.
 
It takes time to transition from a life of having to work for someone else to filling that void. You are not used to the new freedom that you have What are your strengths, passions and financial/physical abilities? Like to work on TJs? Buy a fixer up and flip it. There many small side gigs to be found Ritchie Bros need extra people for auction day, we have an outdoor concert venue that hires ushers and our police department has a citizen patrol. I was a national park volunteer for several years. All these have the benefit of interacting with other people. I started to prepare for retirement at the age of 22. I set my goal at 55 and missed it by 1 year. When I was 22 I rented a house from a man called Martin Munz. He acquired a string of rentals through the years and when he retired he filled his days with projects on his rentals and as a bonus they made him cash. He lived into his nineties. He was my inspiration for my retirement plans. My wife finally retired in Aug 22 and still has not worked it out. She was planning on working for 5 more years until her job was moved to an outside company and things went to shit. We have no grandkids so that does not help things. We do a lot of traveling. We go on a
1 or 2 week trip every month. Weekday trips to the beach or just hop in the TJ and head up to the mountains for lunch. I qualify for Medicare in Nov so that cuts out a chunk of money. Fortunately the wife got it when she retired.
 
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The market is always going to be like that, sell high, buy high, unless a total change of geography. Your property looks awesome from what you have posted...not sure I would want to leave.

I can't wait to leave NY but daughter still in college in NC so we have to she where she lands. Son is teaching in NH, so not coming back. Not sure I want to retire in our PA house in PA (Pike CTY) due to nearest hospital at least 45 minutes away.

yea the selling/buying price is what it is, it'll be a wash when it's time whether it's high/high or low/low. The issue I'm looking at is inventory, of which there is none. I'm hoping that will be worked out when it's my time to roll. Back when I bought this place I was looking for a 4 bedroom 2.5 bath house on an acre, & at that time they were a dime a dozen, we were bombarded with new listings from our realtor every week so you could not only pick your town but your neighborhood & sometimes down to the street. These days instead of 100 listings there may be 3. My next move will be my last (not including the one where they pull my demented old ass involuntarily out the door screaming incoherently about the government), & my parameters will be trickier so it's gonna be tough to find what I want even when overall inventory is back to normal.

We're strongly considering Lancaster County, Amish Country, it's close to where I am now but less congested with a noticeably lower cost of living. Penn Medicine has spread all the way there so there's great healthcare, the scenery is stunning, Lancaster City itself is awesome, & I'm still really close to my son & probably at least one or two of the girlfriend's kids that'll probably remain in the area. If you like Pennsylvania culture you'd love Lancaster.
 
yea the selling/buying price is what it is, it'll be a wash when it's time whether it's high/high or low/low. The issue I'm looking at is inventory, of which there is none. I'm hoping that will be worked out when it's my time to roll. Back when I bought this place I was looking for a 4 bedroom 2.5 bath house on an acre, & at that time they were a dime a dozen, we were bombarded with new listings from our realtor every week so you could not only pick your town but your neighborhood & sometimes down to the street. These days instead of 100 listings there may be 3. My next move will be my last (not including the one where they pull my demented old ass involuntarily out the door screaming incoherently about the government), & my parameters will be trickier so it's gonna be tough to find what I want even when overall inventory is back to normal.

We're strongly considering Lancaster County, Amish Country, it's close to where I am now but less congested with a noticeably lower cost of living. Penn Medicine has spread all the way there so there's great healthcare, the scenery is stunning, Lancaster City itself is awesome, & I'm still really close to my son & probably at least one or two of the girlfriend's kids that'll probably remain in the area. If you like Pennsylvania culture you'd love Lancaster.

Wasn’t this Lancaster County?

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I love to visit the hardware stores in the area. I never knew there were so many types of gas lights available. Many interesting finds but I’ll always flown and was unable to bring things home with me.
 
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Wasn’t this Lancaster County?

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I've never seen that but just googlinated it & yea, it was Lancaster County, PA; no surprise as it's the biggest Amish enclave in the United States. I'm about 25 minutes from the eastern most edge of Amish farmland, it makes for some interesting driving with all the horse drawn carriages on the roads.

For those that haven't experienced Amish country/culture it really is something to see, there's so much of it here you really can't miss it so it blends in as part of the southeastern Pennsylvania thing but in most parts of the country it would really stick out like a sore thumb. The Amish have outposts in most surrounding counties, mostly in farmers markets & related food vendor establishments, you'll even in find them in Philly's Reading Terminal.

My daughter was married in a barn out there a few years ago, & my son booked his upcoming wedding in another barn out there, pretty standard operating procedure here. If you haven't had shoofly pie I'd highly recommend it, it's a Pennsylvania Dutch thing, & I just eyeballed this on the Pennsylvania Microbrewery Facebook page, need to try this in the worst way

Shoo-fly 1.jpg


Shoo-fly.jpg


I have yet to have a bad brew from Lancaster Brewing Company so I'd bet this stuff is good
 
I've never seen that but just googlinated it & yea, it was Lancaster County, PA; no surprise as it's the biggest Amish enclave in the United States. I'm about 25 minutes from the eastern most edge of Amish farmland, it makes for some interesting driving with all the horse drawn carriages on the roads.

For those that haven't experienced Amish country/culture it really is something to see, there's so much of it here you really can't miss it so it blends in as part of the southeastern Pennsylvania thing but in most parts of the country it would really stick out like a sore thumb. The Amish have outposts in most surrounding counties, mostly in farmers markets & related food vendor establishments, you'll even in find them in Philly's Reading Terminal.

My daughter was married in a barn out there a few years ago, & my son booked his upcoming wedding in another barn out there, pretty standard operating procedure here. If you haven't had shoofly pie I'd highly recommend it, it's a Pennsylvania Dutch thing, & I just eyeballed this on the Pennsylvania Microbrewery Facebook page, need to try this in the worst way

View attachment 462053

View attachment 462054

I have yet to have a bad brew from Lancaster Brewing Company so I'd bet this stuff is good

Quite a few Amish communities in the Midwest. Went to one property to go to a their gift shop and immediately realized they didn’t have a very deep gene pool.