Last spring while talking to my retired neighbor. I mentioned to him that when I retired I wanted to live closer to a lake. Most of my life I've lived on the east side of Cincy. The thought of driving an hour every time I wanted to go fishing can sometimes be a mood killer. Since I was going to 62 in the fall I thought want the heck am I waiting for.
I tried to talk my wife into just quitting our jobs and moving to Ky Lake. I figured I could make a few little cardboard signs "Will work for tube jigs" or "Disabled Viet Nam vet out of work, needs money/gas for boat." She liked the idea but didn't want to leave the kids, grandkids or her tennis buddies. I needed another plan.

So we started to look a little closer in SW Ohio. I didn't care which direction we moved (N, W, or E) My needs were simple. I wanted a ranch, my boat had to fit in the garage and I had to be within 5 miles of a Krogers.
She had some goofy concerns about 1st floor laundry, size and number of rooms or something and what the kitchen looked like so I let her do the looking while I fixed up the old place.

She decided she wanted to move east to Clermont County and at the end of the summer we found a place that met our needs and we bought it and closed and took possession in mid-Oct. We still had a few things to finish on the old house plus do a few things to the new house so we didn't get to move until mid November.
Now that we were in our new place, we could finally put the old place on the market. Since it was so late in the year we weren't planning on listing the house until after Jan 1st but our agent suggested that we list it right away since inventory levels (of houses) were so low and there were lots of buyers. So it went on the market the weekend before Thanksgiving and we had a contract in 8 days and closed on 12/30. It was perfect.

After 26 years of living in the old house, I really never thought I'd leave.
Here's the nice thing now from my driveway to the launch ramp it's 10 minutes. Now if (or when) this crazy weather would lighten up...I'm ready. I also cut my drive to my hunting spot in half too.