Action Steps

21 March 2021

I took a couple of weeks away from writing about my retirement planning. Some was for work, some was for fun...and it was time away from writing about it, because heaven knows, I still spend plenty!! of time thinking about it. Today, I'm sitting down to write some action steps for each of my goals in each of my buckets. 

And what I'm finding is that it's not time yet for Action Steps. I already have plans in place, or things in motion to make things happen -- and there are definitely actions that I can take to move those things along (buy gear for the SUP trip; make a decision about building a new passive solar house at Pond Place, set up calendar reminders for Important Adulting Tasks). There are also many things it's simply not time for yet, like learning to surf (just BBBRRRRRR right now!), finding meaningful projects to work on, or take classes. Maybe this is where I can make determinations about "now" and "later" on particular goals. Because some days, when I get too far into thinking about how much there is that I want to do, I get overwhelmed, and don't do what I could be doing now. 

One of my Home Goals is to "adapt my forever home to my needs and wants." And I just get stuck on that -- there is just so much to do with the property. Bite sized bits, C...bite sized bits. After talking to a couple contractors, and realizing that it may not be worth it to try to save the old house (as much as my heart aches to), we've been looking at Deltec Homes, the Ridgeline F particularly. There are so many reasons I like it: passive solar, ready to be net-zero with the installation of solar panels, the company is a B Corp based in North Carolina, the pond is on the south side of the property so all the big windows will face the pond, we can customize the design. There are also so many reasons I'm terrified of it: it'll probably cost $350k+ to build (which seems like a lot of money for some reason even though I've spent more on that on other houses that weren't custom designed), there's a lot that goes into building a house that I am completely clueless about (it's interesting to me that my reaction to doing something I've never done before is so timid), what if we can't find a good builder or a good builder that can work on our timeline. 

And so my very first action step for this Home Goal is, "Acknowledge I want to build a Deltec Home." Because that's where I feel like it all starts. Right now I'm in that pre-decisional space that I find so uncomfortable, and my mental hamster is sprinting along on her wheel getting nowhere but exhausted...where all the what ifs grow to be unclimbable mountains and spawn monsters with glowing eyes and poison-dripping teeth. I definitely get overloaded with too many choices, so being able to narrow down to choosing a particular home design helps...and I have to refer back to the "bite-sized bits" reminder when I start thinking about all the choices that will come up when I do decide to go with Deltec. 

Back to deciding "now" or "later" for my goals...