Pine Tree!

Jeff and I love taking walks...not as much as Jackson and Mahone....they are tied for first in the who loves to take walks the most contest.  Seriously there is something about a good walk, especially in the spring time when the weather starts to get nice.  Our neighborhood is an okay place to walk...we have sidewalks and stuff, but it is FAR from an ideal stroll through nature.

We live on a fairly busy road.  The speed limit is a loose 25 (I say loose because nobody seems to know that), but it is busy enough that we have double lines.  Walking either north or south we hit even busier roads.  Nice for a long walk....not nice if clean air or peace and quiet are things you are seeking on your walk.

I took Jackson on a walk the other day...literally a walk...that is to say he walked (toddled or stumbled are probably better words for it) while I held his hand.  The walk was slow and we stayed just on our street.  While we were walk/toddle/stumbl-ing we walked beneath this pine tree:

which I've done a hundred times before and never noticed.  Maybe because I was in a hurry all the other times.  For some reason it just didn't stick out before.  This time it stuck out.  I smelled the sweet pine, and because I was trying to help Jackson walk, I saw the ground around it all covered in pine needles and my heart jumped a little.

Orem is by no means a "big city"...you might be able to call it a big "town" or just a "city", but it is certainly not the remote, country town I grew up in or the mountains my parents took us camping in every summer....far away from people and cars and traffic.

I am SO excited to get away from that, and to be able to take peaceful, quiet walks with sweet smells of fresh fields and pine trees and good things all around!  I can't wait!!

Bravery

In the last year or so the word "brave" has taken on new meanings for me.  I used to think that in order to be brave, you had to be a warrior or go up against some huge and well-known adversary.  I certainly didn't think that housewives could ever be able to call themselves brave or that they would ever have to.  My mind has changed now.

A quote comes to mind:

"I've been terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do."
-Georgia O'Keeffe

It's exactly how I feel.  And if I REALLY really think about it, there's nothing to be afraid of.  There's no such thing as monsters, no one is going to come in the night and take my family away, I have everything I could ever need and want.  But still, I feel a little afraid of this new adventure.  I feel lots of things all at once - excited, anxious, afraid, unsure, completely sure, free, and on and on.  And I guess this is where the brave part comes in.  Brave means doing what you're afraid to do...not NOT being afraid, but doing it anyway.  Putting 'one foot' in front of the other, which I'm proud to say we're doing...buying a trailer, selling our stuff.  Those were big steps...fun and scary steps, but we took them.  We are on our way...ready or not.

The funny part is really...there is nothing to be afraid of.  I KNOW that...I just don't FEEL it yet.  I know I will soon.  The more we get things arranged and settled the better I'll feel.  Change always takes a little getting used to, right?  I'm going to say yes...because I'm going to need a little time.  Just a little.

Wanna know the MOST ridiculous part?  The most ridiculous part is that the biggest problem I can't solve in my mind is where we are going to put our dirty clothes in this trailer.  And really?  If that's the biggest thing I have to worry about, I should be counting my blessings.

The Road Less Traveled...

I've been feeling.....weird...lately. 

{Remember on "What About Bob" - my favorite movie - when Bob goes in for his first appointment with Dr. Marvin?  "As long as I'm in my apartment I'm okay, but when I leave I get....weird."  "Talk about weird."  "Talk about weird....okay...."}

That's what I plan to do, and I kind of feel like Bob with a blogging world of psychiatrists listening. :)  I am having a hard time telling people about our plans and I think it's because I'm not sure what they'll think.  Some of the people we've told have kind of looked at us with super sympathetic eyes, like we're in the middle of the most horrible time of our lives.  One of those people found out we are selling all our things and said, "oh, I'm sorry you guys."  Another person said, "Well....life is upside-down for you guys right now, but..."

It's comments like that that keep my mouth closed about our plans.  Not that anyone is trying to make us feel...weird. :)  But we don't FEEL like we're in the most horrible time of life.  Yes we're making some changes...some BIG changes, but we don't feel sad at all.  We don't FEEL like life is upside-down.  Maybe we should, but we don't.  In fact, I feel more free and happy than I have in a long time.  Free from so many things.  I feel free from our home, which we love, but has been holding us down for almost a year now.  I feel free from our STUFF.  We both LOVE the idea of not having to lug a bunch of crap around anymore.  We are hanging on to the bare necessities and that feels so good!  Life is soooo not about things. 

One of our good friends - you might call him "older and wiser" - is a financial planner.  We sat down with him a couple of years ago and he taught us lots of good things...common sense things like the longer we could live as college students, the better off we'd be.  The thing he taught us that keeps coming to mind the most these days is that wealth isn't about having things.  (Speaking of financial wealth alone with the understanding that there are other pieces to the 'wealth puzzle'.)  Wealth is about cash flow.  I got what he meant in theory the day he said it to us, but now I get it with every part of me.  In this home, we are surrounded by beautiful things.  We have lots of things, but no wealth.  To experience wealth, we ALL have to live FAR below what we bring in which creates...cash flow.  

And I know that Jeff and I aren't there all the way yet, but I FEEL close to it, and I honestly FEEL wealthier than I did before we made this decision a few weeks ago.  I mean honestly.  My heart feels lighter, my mind is completely unburdened, my whole soul feels free. In a few weeks, we'll close on the sale of our home and go to live in a home that's much smaller, BUT that requires $0 in rent or mortgage payments.  Sometime after that, we'll sell our financed car and buy a truck for cash...again $0 in payments!  Don't YOU feel free just reading that?? :)  It's like a breath of fresh air to me...like spring fever times 1,000!!

I don't know why that's so hard for me to communicate to other people.  I guess I kind of feel like no matter what I say, maybe they won't believe me.  Who would believe that we are choosing to live in an RV and that we're excited about it and that it's exactly what we feel like we should be doing with our lives right now??  (haha....it just doesn't make sense on paper...even typing it it's hard to 'get') :)

There are a few people who get it and are just as excited as we are for our new adventure.  It probably shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks anyway.  I was reminded of that when I read this blog post by my sweet Aunt Melody.  She felt trapped by a full-time job...she longed to be free of it, so she made the decision to be...she left her 'cage'.  Her blog post talks about how even though she KNEW KNEW KNEW she had made the right decision, she still sometimes yearned for the safety of her cage.  And how she sometimes felt stupid for making the choice she'd made to be free.  I'm sure she sometimes felt crazy and judged and misunderstood.  BUT she knew what she'd done was the right thing for her and her family, and even if no one else in the world understood HOW or WHY it made sense for them, the truth is that it did.

I suppose the "road less traveled" is just that....less traveled.  The nature of a 'road less traveled' is that fellow travelers are few and far between....most people are on a different road.  And I guess sometimes people not only don't want to go down a different road themselves, but they honestly don't understand how anyone else would choose that road...And that's okay.  We don't expect everyone to see how this is the best thing for our family and how we are actually excited about it - heck sometimes I don't even see that! :)  And if people can't see and feel what's in our hearts, we can't expect them to see and understand either. 

Chaos

Something I've always known about myself is that I don't do very well with chaos.  I don't know where it came from...it's probably partly something I was born with and something my mom nurtured by keeping a clean and orderly home.  My dad is also organized and likes for things to be orderly.  My parents are tidy people.  They are small town people who avoid crowds at all costs.  I am like them in a lot of ways.

I like for things to be in order.  I like my home to feel peaceful and put-together.  I like it that way because I don't feel peaceful in disarray and disorder.  My husband can attest to that.  I can't remember how it came up, but about a year into our marriage, he told me (in the nicest way...I can't seem to remember how he said it either) that it bothers him that I clean at weird times sometimes - like late at night or as we're heading out the door for church.  It's a joke between us now, and I try not to annoy him too bad...I can always tell when I've chosen the wrong time to clean.  I really don't do it to be annoying or for any reason other than to make me feel better and more peaceful.

Moving is hard for me because of that.  It is really hard for me to relax with boxes and STUFF everywhere.  It's hard for me to feel peaceful when the house looks so taken apart and cluttery and messy.

We decided that this week we would REALLY start sorting our things and selling what we could, so we advertised for an estate sale for today and tomorrow.  We were up late last night getting things ready...bringing things up from the basement that have been tucked pleasantly out of sight in the basement for months.  Things are just how I hate them (strong word I know...).  Pictures are gone from my picture frames, and all my favorite decorations are in the basement...safe out of the reach of yard-salers.  There is stuff for sale all over the counter in the kitchen, in every corner of the living room, and even covering most of the floor there.  It IS progress, I know it is, but it's tough for me to deal with.  And maybe it would be better if it I knew we'd only have to live like this for a day or two, but we will most likely be in this house for another month or so.  That's probably the part I have to get over and then I'll be okay.  It's this chaos...I have to get over it.

{this place was FULL of stuff yesterday...now all the stuff is in my living room}

Ugh.

Yesterday I got an email from the Brave Girls Club...I am on their mailing list and get emails from them every day.  Yesterday's message said something like, "true joy has nothing to do with circumstances".  (I can't find it or I'd include the whole thing.)  That's been on my mind today as I have wondered....could I teach myself to be happy no matter what kind of chaos is going on around me?  Do I even want to?  I mean, do I want to learn to be happy in clutter and mess?  Big questions....no answers yet, but I'll work on it.  I could at least learn to live happily with the way things are until I can start arranging things the way I want them in our new little place.

On the bright side, this morning Jeff took Jackson to get some change for our yard sale.  While he was gone, he got Jackson one of those suckers that looks like a bottle.  When they got home this is what Jackson's sucker had done to him....

...his mouth is still blue. :)

Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home for SO many reasons. :)  We got the trailer back to my mom and dad's house last night (story to follow), and tonight are finally home in Utah.  I am very glad not to have any long road trips to go on in the next days (or hours) like we have had for the past 3 days.  I feel like I have been in the car for 72 hours straight!

Towing our trailer home was more than a little surreal.  I will admit that as we were leaving the little town of Jerome - 5th wheel in tow - I had a weird, out-of-body, 'am I dreaming?' moment.  I was looking at the trailer and it was like I suddenly woke up from a dream and thought, "did we seriously just buy a 5th wheel to live in?" ... "did we seriously just do exactly what we said we were going to do?" ...And for a minute all my second thoughts and doubts and feelings like that came rushing back.  Luckily though I didn't feel well at all, so I didn't have time to dwell on that, I was too busy trying to figure out how to make my tissues last the entire trip home (at this point I had Jackson's full-on cold), and I was focused on getting comfortable in that tiny seat in the 2nd row seat of grandpa's truck.  Mahone was comfortable....lucky.

I am on the mend now, and I still don't know if I quite believe that we are really going to do this! :)

So the drive home was pretty interesting.  Grandpa thought it would be a good idea to take the old highway instead of taking the freeway, which he was probably right about.  It seemed like semi's were climbing all over us for the short time we were on the freeway.  It was windy the whole way, and seemed to get stronger the further we went.  It's easy to tell when a big gust of wind hits the side of a giant 5th wheel behind the truck you're in...the whole thing would rattle and shake and fishtail.  Grandpa looked like he was concentrating really hard, and I could tell he was worried.  But I wasn't worried.  I don't think there's anyone in the world a girl feels more safe with than her husband, her dad and her grandpa.  We found out later that we had driven through one of the worst wind-storms they'd had in a while...it was all over the news even.  yipes.

Once again the drive took WAY longer than it normally would have, but the scenery was breath-taking.  You know....they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but looking around out there, you'd have to be crazy for it not to just make your heart sing.  I don't think there are many things in the world as pretty as the snake river valley....all farm land....during a spring rain storm.

We made it back, and got 'the king' all parked in its new home.  I went inside and took a hot hot shower, took some medicine and went to bed while Jeff went with grandpa to pick up our car and little Jackson.

We are pleased with our purchase.  There are things we want to improve cosmetically AND it rained like crazy last night, which was lucky because the leak that Mark said he didn't think had leaked for a while leaked a LOT right through the roof.  We were glad we were there for that, and that we hadn't left for Utah for a couple weeks, then come back to find the damage much worse than it could have been.  Jeff didn't waste any time, and got the leaky part covered up with a tarp, then got to work tearing out the ceiling in our bedroom to stop the damage from getting any worse.  We thought we would probably fix the ceiling anyway, just didn't think we'd have to get started on it so soon. :)

{yikes...I hadn't looked at this picture until now...it looks much worse in the picture than it is in real life.}

Jeff went to the RV repair store (first trip of many over the next little while, I'm sure), but it turns out we need to wait until it's sunny and warm to fix it, and sunny/warm was not in the forecast.  So Jeff did what he could and we came home.  SO good to be here and SO good to know that we have a place to live in Idaho now.

Aerosmith

As you can see, one of my 'tags' and one that I plan to use often, being a woman and full of them is "emotions". Something you should know though, is that every time I type that word it comes into my mind in song....the way Aerosmith sings it in "Sweet Emotion". I am fairly confident that knowing that alone will boost your blog reading satisfaction greatly. But I didn't come here to talk about Aerosmith (while we're still on the subject I will say that Jeff and I are both BIG classic rock fans...we dig that Steven Tyler).


What I did come to talk about are the things that have been going through my mind and heart as I've thought about what we are about to do. I still feel like we're doing the right thing, and I'm still SUPER excited for our adventure, and I guess that's all that matters. But since I've already pumped you up to hear about the rest, I won't let you down.

In my life, I've done lots of things that FELT right, even though they didn't make sense at all in my mind...in doing those things I have found the greatest treasures of my life. Four years ago, I found my husband that way...


Most of those decisions required going out on a limb, stepping into the unknown, and turning heads...heads with faces that read loud and clear things like: "YOU'RE CRAZY!" and "WHAT are you thinking?" Guess I should be used to it, but then again everything sounds easier on paper.

Last night, Jeff and I were driving in our neighborhood and saw one of our neighbors (weird, huh?) :). We stopped to chat and he said (jokingly of course), "I don't want to talk to either one of you...just when I get the street how I like it...." :) Good to be loved. We will miss the people here - we have made lots of incredible friends and will miss them dearly.

Later that night, I was talking to a few of my friends at a church thing and they were asking all the questions friends would be expected to ask, "Where will you move?" "What kind of house are you going to look for?" "Are you going to buy or rent?" "How many rooms do you want?" "What made you decide to move?" and on and on.




I avoided answering any of them honestly and was as vague as possible. Not once did I say or even allude to, "we are moving into an rv" I guess because I didn't want to have to follow it up with, "yes with a baby" "yes with a dog" "yes with a baby on the way" "yes we're excited" "yes we've thought it through" "yes we're selling everything we own" "yes, even our Christmas decorations" and all of that. I felt much more comfortable leaving it at, "we are moving to Idaho to be a little closer to my family". Which is true...we'll just be traveling a little more than anyone else we know between visits. :)

From the people we have told we have gotten nothing but support...no crazy looks...then again we've only told family. :) I have heard a couple of, "I could never do thats" and "Wow.....s". Which has made me almost wonder (I say almost because I don't feel worried...I am honestly just wondering) if I am being overly optimistic in how this is going to play out. Are we really going to be able to handle living in an rv....4 of us soon to be 5? And that 5th is a new baby. Can I really do this? The answer is irrelevant...we're doing it...but these questions have been on my mind. Funny thing is that even with these questions and feelings, I still feel optimistic and excited. Surely I will look back someday and laugh at my naivete. At least I won't be alone:


I am feeling better (and less freaked out) than I was last night. We will be getting all the paperwork signed today and we'll let things happen from there. I have a lot to do today...sorting and getting things ready to sell/posted on craigslist.

Lots to do...I'm off!!

Happyness

You know on that movie - The Pursuit of Happyness - when he says, "this it the part of my life I call 'paying taxes'." Well, this is the part of my life that I call FREAKING OUT! ....

Yesterday we listed our house for sale. YESTERDAY. And as I kept getting emails from our realtor about paperwork and where we'd missed initials and all of that, I thought, "I should clean up around here in case we get anyone who wants to look at the house." With the market the way it is, I wasn't really expecting to get any traffic right away. I mean a house down the street was on the market for like 2 years before it finally sold. Needless to say, I was surprised when I got a text this morning asking if we'd be okay with a showing at 6. I was even MORE surprised when our realtor was here today putting a sign in the yard and got another call for a showing...they wanted to come at 6:30. And I knew it was serious...so I got serious.

I spent all day cleaning and de-cluttering. And when I say all day, I mean it.I even started sorting our stuff into piles...to keep/sort and to sell. That I got that far was purely out of necessity...there wasn't even a pathway to get through the basement before I stared. How embarrassing. :) Lucky for me I didn't take 'before' pictures of the basement!

By 5:50, we were ready to leave - every cupboard was ready to be opened in case of inspection, laundry done, baby's room organized (first time in....well...too long), dinner ready to take out the door. We used all the tricks...opened all the blinds and the doors to each room, turned on every light and sprayed air freshener as we walked out the door. We put the baby and the dog in the car and headed to the park for a little picnic as we wondered what the strangers in our house would think of our place...

(Our little picnic of lasagna - who knows HOW I remembered to throw that in the oven in the midst of my cleaning frenzy - salad that we picked up at the grocery store on the way to the park and water...please forgive my looks or lack thereof....that's the hair and makeup I woke up with and by the time this picture was taken it was like 6:30pm :) )

We didn't have to wonder if they liked it for long. I got an email a couple hours later with an OFFER. Who gets an offer on the 2nd day in this kind of market. And this is why I am FREAKING OUT!


I know I just need to give it a couple of days to sink in and I'll be okay again. This just got REALLY real REALLY fast. We have looked at some RV's, but haven't come close to even going to look at them not to mention buying one! We have so much to sell...so much to do before we will be ready to get out of here. And now that I'm writing it out, I guess there's nothing to really be freaked out about...it will work out, I know that. And I know we are doing the right thing for our family and that we both have great parents who would take us in if we didn't have a place to go, but sometimes it seems that emotions don't listen much to logic and hearts feel whatever they want to feel no matter how much sense it does or doesn't make.

And so tonight I am still freaked. out.