The Nitty Gritty Details

Dear Family and Friends,

Many of you have asked us such questions as, "How are you two pulling off six months of being away?" and "Who is watching Willow?" Well, here are the answers to the most recently, most frequently asked questions in Marthaland:

Q. Did you win the lotto?
A. Unfortunately, no. From what I understand people actually have to PLAY the lotto to win it. So, I'm pretty sure that we did not. However, both Dani and I have been saving for something big for some time now, and this adventure has turned into that rainy day when extra monies come in handy. So, no, we're not intending to go bankrupt and lose our home. We've done this crazy thing called "saving" that so few in our generation pay enough attention to in their daily acts. Plus, we have excellent credit and other savings that will get us through this seven months-plus of gainful unemployment.

Q. Seriously, will Willow be okay?
A. Of course, the Wee Doggie is of primary concern to me, but she will be residing at her Vacation Home in lovely Hazlet, where we hope she will not eat so many treats as to cause her to have to be rolled back to her original homestead. Plus, when my parents have their own travel needs, she has been invited to my former work offices, where someone (or several) of my now-former colleagues will wrestle to determine who gets to keep her for the night or weekend. Our friends from church have also offered their home should Willow need somewhere to go. Heck, the truth is that just about everyone we know said, "Well, if Willow needs somewhere to be ..." It is handy to have a little furry friend who is so easy to get along with and such a joy. Leaving her is probably the hardest part of this process. (Uh, I mean ... leaving my family and friends is the hardest. Yeah ... darn fingers typing the wrong thoughts.)

Q. What about Timi the Turtle?
A. Timi will go to live in my former office in Englishtown where he will swim and gurgle and be happy. I have a feeling he will barely notice we are gone. Reptiles have pretty small brains, after all. Swim, Timi, swim. "Gurgle," he responds. He loves me.

Q. How are you handling paying your bills while you're gone?
A. An incredible invention, I believe attributed to our former VP "Weird Al" Gore, called "the Internet" has this amazing system where you can pay bills remotely. It's very cool. You should check it out. I also have the "Daddy System" where I will supply a series of pre-addressed, pre-staged envelopes with checks to pay the monthly COBRA fees, our sewage bill in November, etc, and he will mail them out each month for me. Although, we're looking into Travel Insurance options and may forego the COBRA in favor of event-only coverage since Dani and I are pretty healthy and have few conditions that would qualify as pre-existing conditions. Otherwise, we are looking into suspending our phone and Internet service at home, have called our credit card companies to let them know that we'll have some crazy overseas expenses so that they don't cut off our credit line from us, and are generally praying that we're covering it all appropriately.

Those are just a few of the important queries going on. Feel free to submit more questions to be answered in future blogs!!

Love,

Martha