You have questions? Well, we have a FAQ for that!

     Perhaps you know of our plans to move to to Cambodia, perhaps you're just catching up to that news; perhaps you have questions. (Welcome to those who may have arrived here after following the link on my old TravelBlog site.)


     We've left our jobs. We've sold our cars. We've rented our house to my brother. We arrive in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on August 27 with a plan to stay indefinitely. We wonder how many people think we're nuts; we may be, but we're certainly enjoying ourselves. 


     The questions and answers are here: Jess & Steve's FAQ. Feel free to ask your own questions.

Lists. We're checking things off. It makes me deliriously happy.

     There are lists everywhere. There are daily lists, lists of things to do when we go out to do errands, lists of things that must be done at the last minute, lists of social events in the coming weeks. I sometimes wonder whether we will have as many lists in the early days of our new life as we settle into Siem Reap. I love lists.

     Here's an example of a daily list:

• Mail packages [I've been selling lots of books on Amazon.com.]
• Pay property taxes
• Install new smoke detectors
• Mow lawn
• Pick up absentee ballots
• Drop off bags at Goodwill
• Finish emptying bathroom closet
• Vacuum out car
• Dig up flowers for Dylan & Alanna
• Call Vt Electric re: changing account name
• Fill prescriptions

     Mundane tasks, to be sure, but more satisfying than usual. Each item checked off brings us that much closer to leaving. And there are things I try to do every day that don't even get mentioned on the list: Sit outside on the Adirondack chair and read. Have a glass of wine. Write just for the hell of it.

     The further I get from work, the more nooks and crannies of my own brain I wander into. This realization, along with some other others, allowed me to finally draw the line in the sand this week and announce that I wouldn't stay on per diem past Friday of this week. It had been my boss's very generous intention to keep me on per diem so I could earn a little extra money - perhaps even do some work remotely from Cambodia to make a few bucks - but it suddenly became clear to me that I was done. The weeks following my last full-time day on June 30 had allowed me to make a gloriously easy transition out of my job, and that the process was complete. It's time to let go of that chapter and turn my full attention to what lies ahead. 

     What lies ahead....I love the sound of that. I am in one of the most interesting and satisfying phases of my entire life, right this minute. I've gotten rid of things I don't want - belongings, jobs, responsibilities - and chosen to keep only what I enjoy - the best of my stuff, the promise of new beginnings, potential adventure. How could I not be deliriously happy?

     (And when will Steve start blogging so we can hear how he's feeling?) 

We can check "garage sale" off the list of things to do.

     Yesterday morning, we had a lot of stuff we didn't want. By 3:00 in the afternoon, we had a lot less stuff and over $600 in our pockets. Lots of people carted away lots of things they wanted and in some cases, were thrilled to have. In fact, most of the action happened in the first two hours or so - by midmorning, most of what was going to sell was already gone. It was amazing.

     It's interesting what people will buy, what they will pay for it, and what we will charge them. As long as I didn't let my mind wander into thinking about what we had originally spent accumulating all this stuff, I could be thrilled at the cash it was bringing in. I suspect our prices were generally low, because there was very little haggling - when asked, we'd name a price and with extraordinarily rare exceptions, people paid what we ask. One woman spent close to an hour poring over everything and assembling a pile of items on my mother's front steps. She literally clapped her hands with glee and gushed, "You have the most interesting things! This is the best garage sale!" Several people commented that we must travel quite a bit. I suppose that laying out the detritus of our lives on folding tables paints some kind of picture of who we might be. I think I can say I'm satisfied with the impression we seemed to make.

     And we are not a sentimental bunch. One woman held up a needlepoint daffodil still-life, matted and framed. "How much?" she asked. I directed her to ask my mother, who announced with delight, "Oh, that was made by my daughter! The one right there!" She pointed at me and the woman looked horrified. "And you're going to sell it?" she asked my mother, aghast. "How about a dollar?" my mother answered. I had to assure the woman that I was not offended.

     The money we made will go toward immunizing a group of orphans in Cambodia. I made that commitment on last fall's trip, hoping I would figure out how to do some kind of fund-raising, but it turns out that I hate asking for money. So now we've got a bit more than half of what we need to make it happen.

     On today's list of things to do: Paint Jaz's room. Goodbye, four years' worth of graffiti...

Why blog?

     I read a lot of blogs on a lot of different topics, and it seems that a lot of them are about self-promotion.I prefer to think this one is more about exploration or reflection.

     I write because I enjoy it and it helps me process things going on in my life. I could write in a journal, as I've done in the past, but there's something about a potential audience that raises the bar a little. And sometimes it's nice to raise the bar. On the other hand, fretting about the quality of the writing might prevent me from posting as often. What do I want this to be, a real-time spontaneous account of an interesting time in our lives, or an opportunity to polish my written communication skills? I don't know the answer; it may change from day to day. What the hell - I'm not even obligated to answer the question!

     I also write in this format because it gets me off the hook for communicating with friends and family who want to keep in touch. In an ideal world, those who read this will comment occasionally, giving the impression that this is two-way communication. (Hint, hint.)

     So welcome to my random observations, to the thoughts flitting through my head, to my efforts to organize and integrate my own experiences. It ought to get more interesting to read soon, when we actually leave town. In the meantime, I find this period quite fascinating, but you can skip right over it until we get there.

    But if you're reading, let me know. It's kind of nice to know if there is an audience.

    And it won't be much longer! We leave Vermont on August 19 and arrive in Cambodia on August 27. (It doesn't take that long to get there - we're stopping off in Portland for a few days in between.) But for me, the journey began a long time ago, and I'm enjoying it all along the way.

What will I miss?

Besides family and friends, I will miss:

• birdsong
• a good pastrami sandwich
• cheese
• my paycheck

Hmmm, 50% of that list is food.

Of course, I'll miss plenty more than that, but those came to mind at this moment. I think about how I will miss the symphony of birds outside our house every time I hear them. I sit on the deck, and listen, and think about how I will miss them.

Time flies...

Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.

This is such an interesting and odd time in my life. I am winding down at my job and trying to purge our house of anything lacking practical or sentimental value. And while we're at it, let's re-define "value."

I go through our belongings - clothes, toys, books, photos, journals, mementos - and have to judge each item by a handful of criteria:

• Is it useful? (Meaning does it fit/does it work/does it perform a useful task?)
• Do we actually use it or would it be better off with someone who would? (We have many lovely books, but why hoard them when they could be shared?)
• Does it have too much sentimental value to be able to part with it? (The importance of notes from old girlfriends has evaporated by now. Some of our kids' artwork from elementary school can be scanned and saved digitally.)

Everything ends up in one of three piles: 

• Things To Take With Us
• Things To Save For Our Return
• Things To Get Rid Of. 

The basement has one corner devoted to Things To Take and another corner devoted to Things To Save. 

Things To Get Rid Of has several sub-piles, including:

1. Things That Might Have Value On Amazon Or eBay
2. Things To Go To Goodwill
3. Things We Might Put in A Garage Sale Before We Just Bring Them To Recycle North
4. Things We Need To Let The Kids Sort Through 
5. Things To Recycle Or Take To The Dump (which is where most of the things in pile #4 end up!)

Sometimes things are plucked from one of those sub-piles to be rerouted to someone on Freecycle who has made a specific request that we can accommodate. Sub-pile #3 is by far the largest, taking up a good portion of our garage. I guess we've got the "garage" part covered; now we need to get to the "sale." It is the largest, in part, because we keep adding to it, while the other piles are routinely being emptied to some degree.

Too bad I can't sort through the parts of myself that I'd like to bring along or leave behind. I've managed to rid myself of my thyroid before leaving town; too bad I couldn't also exorcise my tendency to criticize or my extra-loud voice. I'm leaving behind my paycheck and my car, but I'd rather abandon 20 pounds and my weakness for chocolate. It's just not as easy as boxing up shoes for Goodwill, feeding all your old bank statements into the shredder, or burning your high school yearbook.

There will be change, no doubt. I just don't know what exactly it will be. And that's part of what makes it all so interesting to think about...

House Hunting

One of my favorite ways to pass the time these days is to look at houses for rent in Siem Reap. There's a website with descriptions, prices, and some photos, and I pore over it like I used to pore over the Lillian Vernon catalog when I was a kid. (Interestingly, I googled Lillian Vernon and the top two results were LillianVernon.com and MilesKimball.com. Miles Kimball was the other catalog I spent many happy hours perusing and fantasizing about when I was young. Now having found both those sites, I must go and kill a half hour or so browsing their webpages...)

I've never had to look at apartments or houses for sale. My parents did all the work when I was a kid, then I turned 18 and hightailed it out of there to live with the man who would become my husband for a few years. I lucked into every living situation after that, from an apartment owned by my aunt and uncle to this very house where we live now. I heard about the house from a friend, whose sister lived on the same road. I called the owner, looked at it, and applied for a subsidized mortgage with FmHA. That was 21 years ago.

Now that I'm finally having the opportunity to choose where to live among many available options, I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It's not even time to choose yet, and I'm already enjoying the anticipation of it. Of course, I suppose most people are never in this situation: upon arriving in Siem Reap, we can rent a house for what seems like a pittance to us. And if one's sense of how well one is living is relative to that which surrounds you, we will be living larger than we could have ever imagined. It won't be "luxurious" by Western standards, but it will be luxuriously cheap.

And then there's the other interesting exercise - getting rid of most things (either temporarily or permanently) and figuring out what is so important that we need to bring it with us? With two suitcases apiece, what exactly is worth schlepping halfway around the world? Clothes, of course; but how many of which item? Electronics - that's easy: laptops, iPods, cameras, associated chargers and cords, etc. Do we bring our Christmas stockings so we can have a little taste of an old familiar holiday in December? Do we bring books? How about my travel mug? (I'm bringing it.) Steve's cast iron skillet is too heavy, but what about his favorite chef's knife and his risotto spoon?

Medical supplies are on my list, based on the expectation that I might be volunteering as a nurse at New Hope Cambodia. Stethoscope, Otoscope, BP cuff, oximeter, chewable vitamins, dressing materials, Bandaids, reference materials. The weight and bulk add up quickly.

Is it frivolous to bring two dozen of my favorite fine-point pens? They make me so happy...