Florida | Wishes And Pixie Dust

March 2, 2011
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Top 5 Reasons Why We Are Moving To Florida

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

As I write this we are in the beginnings of a blizzard. So it’s really not hard for you to guess what our #1 reason is:

#1. It’s Warm.

Some folks enjoy the snow, and winter sports. Sledding, ice skating, snowmobiling, ice fishing, … the list goes on. However, to enjoy the weather, you need to dress for it. Hats, gloves, scarves, snow pants, winter coats, boots, and don’t forget the layers of clothing. Then of course, there are the negative degree temperatures, and the snow falling every day (or so it seems). You can spend an hour shoveling the snow only to have it snow two hours later and have to do it all over again.

We don’t want to play the winter game anymore. 🙂 We realize Florida does have it cold spells, but as northerners we’ll be able to handle it just fine. We are looking forward to not moving the winter gear, and we are looking forward to being able to wear a hoodie in December while Wisconsites are in the middle of a blizzard. 🙂

#2. Disney

We love everything Disney. We absolutely love the idea of being able to go to the parks whenever we choose. We have not been able to participate in either Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party or Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, and we are so looking forward to being able to do that. One of the reasons we chose the Clermont area is because of it’s close vicinity to Walt Disney World. We plan to go on a Disney Cruise as soon as it is feasible for us to do so.

#3 Non-Disney Fun

We are looking forward to exploring Florida. While we admittedly have not done everything there is to do in Wisconsin, we feel like we are at a stalemate, doing the same things year after year. We are looking forward to the beaches. For those of you not familiar with Wisconsin, we have lakes, and we have what we call beaches, but in terms of coastal beaches, they’re really kind of sad. 🙂 My children have never been to the ocean, and we are really looking forward to the expressions on their faces when they experience it for the first time. We are planning to do Universal, Sea World, GatorLand, etc and just look forward to the abundance of choices that are there.

#4 Meeting New Friends

We are so excited to be able to meet our Disney and non-Disney friends who already live in Florida. We have found the Disney community to be a wonderfully supportive and accepting group of people. We will also be able to meet our Disney friends who come on vacation to Florida more easily, as we won’t have to coordinate trips- we will always be there!

#5 A Variety of Choices

This is a minor reason, but we are looking forward to experiencing the variety of retail stores that are completely new to us, such as Costco, Winn Dixie, Publix, CVS, etc. The stores that exist in Wisconsin tend to be midwest-specific for the most part, so we will need to discover our new favorites through trial and error. On our Disney trip in 2009, we were able to tour parts of Kissimmee, walk through Winn Dixie, and experience a very slow ATM machine (it took 15 min to withdraw money from an ATM!)

———-

We are looking at our move as an adventure, and part of the joys of an adventure is discovering new things and keeping an open mind about all the new things we can experience. It’s very hard to leave everything familiar behind, we are very sensitive to our children’s feelings with this, but we also feel the end rewards are well worth the temporary inconveniences.

Thanks for following us! We appreciate all the support!

March 2, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 1 Comment

Clermont Middle School

Sunday, January 23, 2011

We had some questions regarding the middle school situation, and tonight found a website for Clermont Middle School: http://lake.k12.fl.us/clm/site/default.asp. It looks fairly similar to what the middle school consists of here, which is reassuring. This is only one of three middle schools in Clermont, so our children may not end up at this particular school, but it kind of gives us a feeling for what to expect.

March 2, 2011
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The Plastic Shoebox

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

One of my passions is to collect recipes. Ok, not really a passion but a hobby. If I see a recipe I like, I will cut it out of the magazine or paper and place it in a plastic shoebox. When Naveen and I were first married, I did this a lot. There never seemed to be time during the day to sort through the recipe clippings and organize them, so the shoebox moved with us from our home in Chicago to Wisconsin. This was twelve years ago, and believe it or not, last night I finally sorted through that shoebox. I recycled most of what was in there, and the chore took me one hour. Twelve years to store one shoebox. One hour to sort through the shoebox. Yikes.

What does this have to do with moving, you ask?

It makes me wonder, as I look at all our belongings, do we really need all this stuff? Have we held on to it because we really received enjoyment from it, or do we keep it because that’s what people do. They keep their stuff. The pressing question for us right now is: Do we want this badly enough to move it, or can we replace it when we arrive in Florida? We have already made a mental list of what we are selling, and what we are moving. If it has sentimental value or is not easily replaced, it will move with us. Thankfully, the ‘selling’ pile is larger than the ‘keeping’ pile.

The next question at hand is: Do we have a rummage sale to try to sell our possessions, or do we simply Freecycle/Craigslist/Goodwill it? Traditionally we have not done that well at previous sales, but we also were not motivated by a move to Florida, either. We do not live on a busy street, and we would not be able to team up with other families, which I know are two of the big rummage sale “no-no’s”. I’m just not sure it’s worth our time and effort to hold a sale. But then again, it is money that could be put towards moving expenses. Thoughts?

We are excited to be moving forward with our plans; we have updated our website and are so ready to become residents of Florida. Our goal date is September 15, 2012, but we are not opposed to moving earlier if the opportunity arises. We’re so glad that you are following us on our journey and hope to be posting more regularly.

Jen

March 2, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 1 Comment

When You Wish Upon A Star

Monday, June 7, 2010

When you wish upon a star

Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do

Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing

Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true

–Disney©

This blog will follow our family as we prepare to move from Wisconsin to Florida, and we’re excited that you’ve chosen to join us! We decided to name our website Wishes and Pixie Dust, (and included the Disney song above), because it is our love of Disney that has precipitated this move, and with a little luck and pixie dust, our dreams will come true.

Our dream first began in 2006, after our first family trip to Walt Disney World. It grew to a distant wish, to a real possibility by 2008, after our December 2007 visit, and confirmed after our August 2009 visit to the World. We live in a state where the weather is totally unpredictable six months out of the year, and instead of asking ourselves, “Why do we live here?” we’ve made the leap to do something about it.

We have set a move date of September 15, 2010. We are a family of five, but only four of us will be moving to Florida. Our oldest son will be a junior in college, and will relocate to Madison. Our daughter will be a freshman in high school, and our youngest son will be in eighth grade. We will be moving after school starts, but feel it’s important not to leave before we get our oldest son settled.

Like Carl and Ellie of The Relocated Tourist, we will be selling all our possessions except those that have sentimental value or are not practical to replace, and plan on having professional movers do the bulk of the work. We drove down to Disney last August, really enjoyed the drive, and look forward to being able to do it again. We just don’t want the stress of U-Haul for this move. We plan to host a huge yard sale this summer, not so much to earn money but to pare down our possessions.

We welcome all comments and suggestions! Right now we are very much still in the planning stages, but have decided on Clermont as the city we’d like to relocate to. We will update our blog and hope you’ll follow us along on our journey!

Posted by Wishes And Pixie Dust at 9:19 PM