Fibermania

If I don't know where I am going, how will I know when I get there?

=

I may not be making any art...OK, I am definitely not making any art, but it is only because I am preoccupied with trying to find a new place to live.

We liked Tennessee, but then Dave felt it may not be far south enough, since he really wants to get away from winter, so I got back online and started looking farther south, in Georgia. I had to be careful not to get too close to any big city so we can avoid traffic, and congestion and the feeling of not being out in the country. On the other hand, we need the usual amenities: culture, shopping, medical support and airports, so I searched for a small town that can supply just the right balance.

A friend suggested Rome Georgia, as Forbes Magazine specifically pointed it out as a fine place to live and work. And you know Forbes and I are tight, so I did a Google search and found a great real estate site where I could see what homes were like. Oooohh. I liked what I found.

Specifically, the town is on the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains, and has lots of woods and water and the world's largest college campus, Berry College. It has milder summers, because of the altitude and is only 1.5 hours from both Chattanooga and Atlanta, and not that far from Birmingham, Alabama.

I found a glob of wonderful homes at great prices with low taxes and showed them all to Dave. I was a little heavy on houses with in the ground pools, but still, it is Georgia so I figured, a daily dip couldn't hurt.

We are of course waiting til our house sells before buying another, but it felt good to have found a destination.

Uh...or so I thought.

I came home from a trip to the store and found that Dave was ready to have a talk with me. Eeek.

OK, he was being honest and really wanted to have "the house with the canal that you can walk out the back door and get on the boat and putt putt putt away down to the ocean". Meaning Florida. Hmmm.

We had already spent a whole day researching Florida, and what we like, we can't afford and what we can afford, we don't like. The places we can afford are stuffed to the gills with small homes, row after row after row, all pretty much the same. One side of the street has the canal and the other has canal envy.

I like Florida, very much, but the Florida where I have the big house with a pool and huge boatdock with the big boat and Antonio Banderas as my pool boy. And I am very thin. And young. With no cellulite.

So back to the laptop to find him a place that has the water that leads to the Gulf or something deep out back...that we can afford, because I WANT TO RETIRE SOMETIME before I die.

This search leads me to Mobile, Alabama. Wonderful spacious homes, with pools and canals that are still standing after all the hurricanes, that have splendiferous kitchens, mega laundry rooms, established gardens to die for, with KOI PONDS and magnolias and palm trees, and real dirt. I am in heaven. Affordable and begging to be sold to us, at reduced prices. What's the catch?

There must be a catch. If it seems to good to be true, it usually is.

We know there is a good chance that hurricanes are a factor. We know that many of the homes farther west along the Gulf are gone or nearly gone. Does that give me pause? Only if you whack me with the facts.

Thud.

I stand here whacked.

We have another talk. Honestly, I am starting to get a little crispy around the edges. I am short with Dave. I hate it when I have to crawl back to reality.

This time it is he that is realizing that maybe it is all a pipe dream and he may not be able to handle a boat, as there are always oodles of things that come up with boat maintenance and going off like he will have just missed everything ( missing the boat came to mind, but wasn't that a little too literal?) if we don't get a canal out back. So the boat/canal/Florida house concept goes into the crapper.

And Mobile goes in with it. Or mobile, as he calls it.

So where does that leave me in my search? I have the nesting instinct up the wing-wang at the moment and like a crack addict I gotta have my daily real estate fix. I still like Rome GA. I haven't been there, but it has my woods, my magnolias, my peaches and my IKEA nearby in Atlanta.

I think I know what Dave wants better than he does. Peace. Quiet. Green warmth and a nice place to nap.