July 20, 2009. Chevy Chase, Md. Decisions.

We have discussed the questions for a long time but never quite felt able to come up with the answer that seemed acceptable to both of us. Of course, there was no urgency for the issue to be resolved but the topic was always on my mind. I like to plan ahead and what I was worrying about was the question of where we were going to live after I cease working. If I have no economic base here in Bethesda, we have no reason to stay here in our apartment, where the place is lovely in it's own right, but where the air in the area is foul and the traffic horrible. Nothing seemed quite right. Should we move to Texas and move into the Lake House of the Ranch or should we buy a little place in a smaller town in Texas? Or perhaps we should sell all our belongings here and move into our new little condo in Mississippi? It was not pleasing to me to make any options permanent, so we made no decisions.

This weekend at the farm we made the correct decision to move to the Farm. We will turn the basement at the hill house into a combined TV room and study/office and spread around other furniture and clothing. Between both houses we surely can fit in a lot of our nicer pieces and get rid of the old stuff we scratched together from auctions and used furniture stores. It is a perfect solution. Now we are both happy with the decision and will begin to sort through our stuff and take some things to Mississippi the next time down. Now this will not happen anytime soon, but now that we have a plan, we can begin the process of sorting through all the stuff. In retrospect, this decision seems to be obvious, but it wasn't until a friend at work asked me if we vacation at the farm to think about the question of why we only go to the farm for the weekend. We have never done anything else. I began to wonder why we never stay there for longer periods of time, which led us both to wonder about moving there, when I stopped working. It is a perfect solution.