Home Shopping

At one point in our lives (before retirement) we were seriously considering a full time move to Florida. We have some land and we had met with a contractor and come up with a design plan, even made a down payment. We applied for the appropriate permits but then our plans were pretty much sank in the swamp of bureaucracy. For reasons we do not comprehend, the woman at the Army Corps of Engineers decided to make our lives a living nightmare. A process we thought would take about six weeks took well over a year. Since this was in the midst of a boom time the estimated cost of construction kept going up until a house we could afford with the money from selling the house we already have became way out of our range. Finally, in complete frustration, we pulled the plug on the project, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I would be seriously grand children deprived if we had moved down here year round. Now we get to come down for the winter, but can enjoy what we like about Vermont--family and friends nearby, camping, fall weather, a house we love, a familiar community. Also the real estate boom crashed a couple of years ago and we would have been stuck with a house worth considerably less than it cost us. So sometimes really annoying people serve their purpose.
The down side is having to look for a place to rent. We'd hoped that we could rent our current place for several years. It's in a great location and it's roomy and well equipped. But now the owners have retired and want to use it themselves. We really cannot afford to own two homes and, more importantly, we really are not inclined to have to maintain two houses. So we will have to start looking around for another rental for next year and I will entertain myself on Sunday afternoons by going to open houses in the area and thinking about "someday."