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October 18, 2009

We started a journal on this site just about a year ago, and at the time had every intention of hitting the trail in April of 2009. A lot has changed since then. There were layoffs at Hilary's hospital, Cooley Dickinson, last November, the economy had crashed, and our financial picture began to look a lot different. Erik had a good job as a contractor, and Hilary's job was safe. Other hospitals were reducing staff, and we started to think that waiting a year for the economy to stabilize might be a wiser course than quitting our jobs and finding ourselves unemployed this fall. We guessed that being unemployed in the fall of 2010 might be less risky, or at least that we'd be able to save more money if we waited a year. Erik's med school plans have been suspended so the timing of his application process became a minor factor.

So we're back! It was a little scary postponing this major dream of ours, knowing how dreams can languish on the backburner for too many years as countless other challenges present themselves, but we've never wavered in our intention since our depressing decision to wait another year. The upside of waiting has been that it made a lot of sense to get married in the meantime! That made the wait a lot more fun and we're full of joy to be planning our epic six month honeymoon.

The wedding was in October, and we're just now recovering from all the work and planning (it's amazing how much even a smallish rustic wedding can entail). We are now poised to focus on food planning. I'm writing this journal entry while Erik slaves over a 5 gallon vat of chili for our dehydrator. After six months of Lipton Sides, we have promised ourselves hearty nutritious meals, even if it means enslaving ourselves to maildrops. It will be utterly worth it.

Hilary

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