Wishes And Pixie Dust

Follow the journey of a Wisconsin family of 4 who relocated to the Walt Disney World area in July 2011


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Interesting.

We love getting comments and feedback from our readers on the blog; most are very informative, supportive and help us to make choices that impact our move.  Today, however, we received our first negative comment that suggested we are in copyright violation of a similar blog, The Relocated Tourist.  I quote: “your blog, the format, the widgets, the posts are almost exactly like <it>”.

We will not be posting the comment on our blog, nor identifying the person who left the comment, as we refuse to participate in the drama he or she is attempting to pull us into. It is natural that two families from Wisconsin, moving to the Walt Disney World area would have similar posts in nature, and being that both blogs are hosted by WordPress, the blogs may appear alike in design.

If you are a regular follower of both The Relocated Tourist and Wishes And Pixie Dust, you will recognize that there is no truth to this claim.  We are very cognizant of the fact that our blog is similar, and from the start we have made a concerted effort to keep our content and design original.  We consider Amy and Craig Petermann our friends, and have, in fact, consulted Craig on different aspects of the blog development, and he was more than happy to help out.

This reader has threatened to file complaints with WordPress regarding this matter.  Our response is to do what you feel you must, but first do your research.  The Relocated Tourist documents a family who moved from Wisconsin to Kissimmee, Florida and the blog has a decidedly Disney slant to it, with a focus on the emotional aspects of moving.  Our blog documents our family moving from Wisconsin to Clermont, FL and we intend to keep it focused on pre-move, actual move and post-move experiences we go through, and more informational in nature.  Yes, there are and will be Disney experiences posted about, but it will not focus primarily on this.

Kudos to all our readers who acknowledge this and support us in our blog and with our move.  We know who our true friends are and we love you all.  ♥


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To Dream Is To Believe

A common theme in our blog posts have referred to how brutal Wisconsin winters can be; we won’t revisit that topic, but reference it in the fact many Wisconsinites dream of moving to Florida, especially in the months November through March.  To us Florida is an exotic location, with sunny skies and palm trees, while we sit with piles of snow and sub-zero temperatures.  As we finalize our move, a recurrent comment we hear from people is: “I’m jealous”, mainly made in reference to not having to survive another winter.

It’s easy enough to observe us and feel like we have it made; to feel jealousy over the fact our winters in Florida will be spring weather in Wisconsin, and that we’ll never have to shovel again.  The truth is, we consciously made the decision to make this our reality, and we have worked hard to make it happen.  It has not been an easy road for any of us, but we feel the effort is well worth any sacrifices we have to make in the meantime.

One thousand, two hundred and eighty seven days ago we first dreamed the dream, of relocating to Florida close to Walt Disney World.  We write out that number in words because it really seems surreal right now that we are only ten days away from realizing our dream.  There were many moments of doubt that we experienced.  The first twelve to twenty months it was merely a dream that we talked about; something that would occur in the future but we had no idea when, and we did nothing towards making it a reality.  It seemed so far away in the future that it seemed pointless to expend energy at that point in time.  The basement boxes and just the accumulation of possessions that we owned really overwhelmed us as where to start, so we did nothing.  After our Disney trip in 2009, we were more enthusiastic than ever about moving to Florida and this is when we let the kids in on our dream, that someday we would move to Florida.

The dream first became real to us last summer, in June 2010, when we first set a date of September 2012 and started the blog.  Even though we now had a date, it still seemed like it would never happen; and we didn’t really believe it would happen.   How much difference a year makes!  Since that time we backed the date to September 2013, and then in January of this year, we decided to take the plunge and move this summer.  “Do you really think we can do it this summer?” is the question that propelled us forward.

We can’t say how many times we doubted ourselves, but it was a lot.  Over the past six months since we made the final decision, we haven’t doubted our choice, but there have been moments of fear:  fear of the unknown, fear that what we are doing is not in the best interests of our children, and fear that we will fail.

We are now ten days away from leaving Wisconsin.  We can honestly say that this is the best decision we could have made for our family; our kids are uber-excited about moving to Florida, and while we won’t be traveling with as much money as we’d like (thanks to car repairs); we are very thankful we were able to take care of the repairs now and not have them happen along the way.  We won’t be able to purchase as much furniture right away as we had previously planned, but we’ll make it work.  An empty, unfurnished apartment in Florida is way better than our current home in Wisconsin, and because it is an apartment our expenses will be less than if we rented a house: we won’t need to do lawn care, maintain a pool, or spray for bugs; and we will have access to a business lanai  (with wireless internet and printers) and fitness center, should be choose to utilize these amenities.

Thanks for following along~ we appreciate your comments and feedback!


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Pack Only What You Love

One interesting aspect of moving is the realization that your possessions are simply that: possessions.  We made the decision early on not to move most of our furniture, simply due to the condition the items are in.  If you can sell your couch for $50 but it costs $100 to move, it simply doesn’t make financial sense to do it.  There are a few pieces that we are moving, mainly due to sentimental reasons:  a hand-painted stool given as an anniversary present, the kitchen table that has been in the family for decades, and of course our computers that are too expensive to replace.

Today we had our Freecycle “garage cleaning out” event, and we were able to dispose of about 60% of what was out there. It’s not a bad result, and only required an hour of our time.  Our goal is to get rid of all unwanted items, so that Nick doesn’t need to deal with it on his moving day. We have the items up under the “free” section of Craigslist, and we’ve already had a couple of bites on our TV armoire, so we’re hopeful that we will be able to give it away.   Our city does not have a bulky pick-up, so any unwanted items needs to be brought to the drop-off site.  Nick is renting a U-Haul truck for July 21st to clear out his bedroom and take our mattress set to his apartment, and the back-up plan is that he will remove any of our unwanted furniture for us, by bringing it to the disposal site.

We needed to buy more packing tape, so we went to Wal-Mart afterwards, where we made an interesting discovery:  they sell boxes, and at about half the price U-Haul charges.  We picked up a few, but I anticipate we’ll be needing to go back and get some more.  We’re nearing the end of our packing, and we don’t mind paying for a few to get the job done.   A word to the wise:  you will need way more boxes than you anticipate; start collecting them early.  We have needed to pack our boxes more securely than if we were just moving across town; which requires the use of more boxes, tape, and paper than we have utilized in the past.  Currently we have 206 boxes packed; which seems like a lot but realize some of these boxes are smaller boxes that Nick was able to bring home from the restaurant: free is free after all!  We don’t even want to consider how many boxes we would have needed if we had kept all our belongings:  we estimate that we have disposed of approximately sixty percent of our possessions.  Only pack what you truly treasure, as it will save you time and money in the long run. ♥


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It’s Not Just About Packing Boxes

One of the biggest challenges we are facing right now is not packing up the boxes, but finding the best way to dispose of our unwanted furniture and other assorted items.  As you know, we opted not to go the garage sale route, but are using Freecycle and Craigslist, which have their limitations.

Our furniture is not in the best shape, which is why are opting not to sell it (or move it). The difficulty we are encountering with Freecycle is that people initially show an interest, but then fail to respond to the email or fail to show up.  This weekend we are opening our garage up and letting people come and just take what they want, and we’re hoping they will take it all!

 

Our Craigslist sales have been slow but steady, and we’re very curious as to how much we’ve been able to save using this method.  We think we will break open the piggy on July 20th, as he (the piggy) will get packed.  If you are choosing to sell your items in this way, we recommend starting at least three to four months in advance of your move.  We’ve been able to sell pretty much everything we’ve put on there, but it involves having the right person see it at the right time, which means you’ll need to repost the ad regularly. Craigslist recently did an update, which allows you to renew your posting, instead of deleting it and relisting it; this is definitely a time saver.

Please follow us on Twitter @FondyMark and @jvitek, as we continue to tweet about our progress!  Thanks for following us along; like Tiana sings:  “We’re almost there!”


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Go With The Flow

A part of any successful dream involves looking ahead and anticipating possible obstacles that may impede you from attaining your goal.  If you’ve followed our personal accounts on Facebook today, you know that our car repairs will be $400; due in part to the age of our car, it requires a part that has to be ordered directly from the manufacturer.  To say we’re a little frustrated is an understatement.  However, we are extremely thankful this didn’t happen two weeks from now, or while en route to Florida.  It could have been much worse.

Due to this happening, we thought back to the past twelve months and how our move has really unfolded.  If you have told us last year at this time, that we would be moving to Florida in July 2011, we would have laughed at you.  2010 was not a good year for us, to say the least; we still had the dream with a date set for 2012, but due to circumstances occurring around us, we weren’t too hopeful we could achieve this move in two years.  The thing is, the events that happened in 2010 needed to happen before we could make the move to Florida.  If you are in a position now where you can’t possibly believe that you can ever achieve your dream, take heart.  Go with the flow, keep dreaming the dream, and know that you can do it.  We at Wishes And Pixie Dust believe in you, and we will cheer you on.