Friday -- New Florida Residents

 

 

Last night we walked north on the Pinellas Trail from Stirling Park to the pedestrian bridge over Alt. 19 at the north end of Dunedin just before sunset. We passed this beautiful roseate spoonbill wading in Curlew Creek. The light wasn't good on the bird, but the reflection in the water is nice. Our evening walks on the trail used to be for Dee Dee because she liked the scents with the creek running alongside the trail. Now, we like it to remember her and to appreciate the views.

 

We made it to the pedestrian bridge in time to catch the falling sun, with St. Joseph Sound before us in the distance and the Dunedin Youth Guild Park underneath us.

 

The pedestrian bridge, all caged in to keep everyone safe.

 

It was nice to see the sun return today on our morning causeway walk. 

 

We are now official Florida residents.

We made it to our 3:00 p.m. appointment at the DMV office. We got our new gold star Florida licenses, car registration, tags, title transfer, and we were able to register to vote to help turn Florida blue this November. We had a few glitches. First, they didn't have a record of my appointment, but they did have John's. Interesting, because I made them both! The DMV folks were really nice about it though; they let me go in with him on his ticket (No walk-ins were allowed; appointment only). The second drama came when they would not accept John's copy of his birth certificate. We got bumped out of the cue and sent to a different person to retrieve an official birth certificate for him. Luckily, he was born in Florida. Once we got that, the person helping us decided to process the rest of the things for us both (probably because of John's personality--people just want to help him!), but then she couldn't issue both his birth certificate and new license, so she got the woman next to her to work on John's while she completed my license and tags/title/registration. An hour and a half later, we had what we needed. She showed us the property appraiser's office across the parking lot while she was verifying our odometer. 

 

We entered the appraiser's office to register for the Homestead Exemption for next year. We thought we didn't qualify for the exemption this year because you have to file by March to qualify. Well, because of the pandemic, the deadline was extended until today, September 18 at 5:00 p.m. We told the appraiser of our situation and she gave us an extension application. She said that John qualified, but I didn't. I asked what that meant, and she said, "Nothing, really." The bottom line is that he gets the exemption this year and we both get it next year automatically, meaning we will save about $800 on our property taxes every year compared to not having it. 

 

The Save our Homes program we also automatically qualified for, which restricts any future property appraisal increases to 3% or less, meaning if values go up higher than that, we will be capped at a 3% increase instead of the true market value. We walked out of the office at 4:56. 

 

The point of that state law is to help people stay in their homes if the values skyrocket; otherwise, many people would be forced to sell and move away because they would not be able to afford the higher property taxes. The end result is that it keeps a diverse community: older people on a fixed income, poor people, and rich newcomers who can pay higher rates. Rates on an individual piece of property only re-set to market value when the property sells. 

So, this was a momentous day for us. 

The next landmark day comes later this month when my first retirement check is mailed. Once I endorse it and deposit it, my retirement is official and all subsequent checks will be automatically deposited in our bank electronically.

I started a "Retirement To-Do List" last October 3rd. That list grew to 6 1/2 pages of single-spaced items. We are down to the final items: find a primary care physician and dentist.

Miles biked: 0
Miles walked: 9.6