Yesterday marked the six week anniversary of our arrival in Florida, and we thought we would share with you our thoughts about the adjustment process.  Prior to our move we had heard from others who completed long distance moves and were informed that it could take up to a year (or more) for this to feel like home.  We are happy to say that we don’t anticipate it will take that long.  It goes without saying that we miss our family and friends in Wisconsin, and at times it’s hard being away from them, but we have made new relationships that would not have been possible without the move, and we are happy to know these individuals better and call them our friends.  It does seem a little weird, though, not to have anyone to list as an emergency contact on the school forms.

For those of you in the process of preparing for a long distance move, we recommend donating or selling as much as possible.  Seriously, get rid of it now.  We have been saying on this blog since early on that unless you love it or it has meaning to you, don’t keep it. We have discovered that the boxes you do move with you have to be unpacked, and then furniture needs to be purchased to put the items into (assuming you don’t move the furniture with you).  As we were packing boxes and preparing for the move, there was one conversation that kept resurfacing, and that was the question of which articles of furniture we should consider moving.  We find it interesting that in the end, the furniture we chose to move with us fits perfectly in the apartment, and had we elected to move an end table we were considering, there would have been no place for it.

We feel at home in Clermont, and have absolutely no regrets about our decision to move here.  Yes, we are further than we’d like to be from Walt Disney World, and we find that our trips in are less spontaneous and more planned around our family’s responsibilities. However, we love that we do not live in an area where tourists frequent; it makes it feel more like home.  We are becoming more familiar with the area, and have discovered which side streets we can take to avoid travelling on Highway 50.  We had our first pizza night last night since moving to Clermont, and it was awesome to get back into familiar routines. Which Disney movie did we watch?  The Princess and the Frog, of course! 🙂

We love that we are able to refurnish our house piece by piece.  Catie’s room is completely done, Ben needs a dresser yet, and we need a dresser and some bookcases.  We’ve gone with a beech wood theme in our living room when buying furniture, and love the lighter color of the wood.  We tend to decorate in brighter colors here, to match the sunny climate. We have yet to purchase a sofa; we haven’t found one we like that will match our color scheme, and we refuse to settle on a cheap substitute just to “have a sofa”.  We have found plenty of sofas in tan/darker neutral colors, but we want something with a lighter edge to it.  One of the furniture stores we go to often is Clermont Furniture by Winn Dixie.  We really like the selection and prices, the owner/manager is not an aggressive “in-your-face” type salesman, and they offer same day delivery with really reasonable delivery rates. One of the things we’ve discovered is that in general furniture stores will offer low prices on furniture, but then over-inflate delivery costs.  We really like that Clermont Furniture does not do that.

We recommend researching the area you intend to relocate into, to discover which stores and amenities are available prior to your move.   This will help you to get a feel for your area, and make it feel more familiar to you once you do arrive.  There are still times when we can hardly believe that we live in Florida; sort of a “don’t pinch  me, I might wake up” moment.  🙂  It seems weird to be living in a totally different part of the United States, but we all seem to be adjusting well.  Clermont is home 🙂