The Home Tour :)))
Okay, so, yes. It took this many months to get things straightened out enough that I feel ready to share pics! I still have work to do (like in the bed area, hence the not-so-many pics LOL).
**edit: Here is an old post with “before” pics :)
Anyone who has ever tried to take pics of such a tight space knows that these barely do it justice LOL I also realized I missed a few pics entirely that I hope to come back soon and add :) The feel I was going for was cozy, beautiful, kid-friendly, self-crafted, vibrantly colored, where everyone has their own little spot to call their own, with plenty of togetherness :)) I love this simple, blissful life :D
From my home to your’s <3
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| Looking toward the front of the RV |
Some of the rennovations I did that you can see from this pic are painted the walls white, ripped out the bent-frame couch and put in my own couch from the house (which fit to the inch!!), put in the cat climber for the cats (that doubles as a ladder to get up to the bed), took out the blinds and installed homemade curtains (the colorful one you see is my sun curtain — made 2 winters ago to welcome the sun back and bring warmth and sunshine to our home), and put dry erase board on the fridge front :))
In the loft, I found dry rotted wood that I could poke my finger through (!!) and tons of mold! So, I had to rip out all the wood down to the aluminum siding, and frame and rebuild the walls. HUGE HUGE project that almost did me in! It is still very unfinished, but safe, at least :D We put a queen size mattress up there, and we all sleep sideways with our feet hanging off the end LOL
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| The living room area :) |
A better view :)) It is incredibly spacious! People are always amazed. I love this floorplan!
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| LOVE our hardwood floors! |
We ripped out the red shag carpet (gag!) and put in hardwood flooring that I found for free on Craigslist, from a guy who was renovating his house and wanted this stuff gone. Still need to sand, stain, and lacquer, but I love it so so much :))) It makes cleaning SO much easier, and no bulky vaccuum to store, either!
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| The couch, complete with homemade pillows :))) |
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| Where we usually have our TV and game systems set up :)) |
This table was bought as a garage sale by one of my dearest friends. It was so perfect that I bought it from her and Kass used it in her room (we have the carvings of K+K with a heart around it to prove it!). In the RV, my fabulous neighbor built and painted drawers to fit the slots, and it started out as the kids’ play table with all their toys. Currently, it holds various home stuff (electronics, gaming stuff, board games, candles, ipod dock, etc). Next to it, you can see we have one of those clothing type hooks that go over a door, hooked onto the back of the dinette and holding our backpacks and hats and such.
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| The dinette area that doubles as a twin bed for company :) |
The dinette cushions still need to be recovered, but they have fabric covering them for now :)) This is such a useful and cozy nook :) The star hanging down from the cubbards above holds a tea light candle :))
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| Kitchen shot #1 |
In the kitchen, I tore out the teeeeeensy original sink and put in a full sized sink that someone ditched by the dumpsters behind my old house (YAY!), gutted under the sink and made some cubbard doors to keep all my carefully arranged kitchen stuff inside, painted the back wall plum with raised spirals to take the focus off the horendous condition of the wood, and shifted some cubbard fronts around since the cubbard above the sink used to hold a microwave.
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| From the side |
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| And the other side :))) |
Those were the only magnets I saved out of gobs of ones Kassidy used to make at daycare <3 They are my favorites :D
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| The bathroom |
Don’t even know where to start in explaining to bathroom! Okay, I took a jigsaw to the door frame to widen it a bit (we are using a curtain as a door for now, until I build and install some saloon doors out of the same wood as my flooring and cubbard doors — yeah!), ripped off the black moldy wood walls and installed water-friendly walls (expensive!!) after taking the back wall down to the aluminum siding again and rebuilding due to more dry rot, tore out the bulk of the water-damaged sink tops and built a shelf on the back wall for holding stuff, (not pictured above the window) is a repurposed wood shelf/cubby for holding toothbrushes, etc., and painted like crazy in there!! We currently have our shoe basket in there, after finding spiders hiding under it when it was outside… We use the tub as a laundry hamper, since we can’t really use it until we stay somewhere with full hookups :))
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| Dreamy spots we can create :))) |
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| The kids’ playroom :) |
The add-a-room!!!! OMGosh, what a LIFESAVER!! It not only quadrooples our square footage, but it is so cool and peaceful in there. All the kids’ toys are in that giant wicker trunk, and the kids have lots of outdoor stuff. All of this stacks neatly on that table inside when we are between campsites :))
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| A shady spot under a tree with a great view :) |
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| Kass’ favorite spot in the house :) |
This is Kass’ little nook :D Sometimes she sleeps in it with an electric heater to stay warm :)) It stores in the van when we are between campsites, or up on the bed if the van is indisposed :))
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| Home sweet home :)) |
Ahhhhh, Bliss.
So, we opted for a different setup than mentioned in my last post. That site was not beautiful, and I really needed some wild green open space in my life. So, we picked a different campground. Here are a few snapshots of our month. Just what this soul needed <3
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| Camp is set up :) |
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| The view from our first site… |
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| How I set up the add-a-room :) |
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| The lake with ducks, and magic baby connection <3 |
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| Horses on the trails :) |
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| Undisturbed teen time :)) |
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| Miles of nature trails = LOTS of adventures :) |
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| A playground :) |
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| Wild animals |
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| Fun with fellow campers |
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| Company with some of our favorite people :) |
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| More of our favorite people :) |
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| Mamas who mother the way I do <3 |
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| Magic baby connection and plenty to explore together :) |
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| Peace |
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| Zen |
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| Joy |
Ready, Set…
Next week we stay at our first monthly campsite. I am bursting with excitement for personal and professional reasons!!!
Firstly, we are hoping to get into a site that is in our favorite town, so we will have easy access to all our favorite places to go and things to do :)) The only hang-up is that they don’t usually take RVs as old as our’s, so I have to bring pics and cross my fingers that we pass the “attractive enough” test… I think we can do that :)) If they are fine, we are IN! If not, we will go to a campground that is much farther away — either way, I AM going to stay in one place for a whole month (hopefully more than just 1! lol).
Secondly, I am itching to dive back into the unschooling community here and possibly start a co-op, to free up some time for me and other parents to do what needs to be done without sacrificing that unschool flavor for our kids’ days and lifestyles. More on this later, as I start building a tribe locally.
And thirdly, this will finally give me the security and groundedness to dig down into my businesshood and get things growing. I have so many ideas and support :)) I am going to be re-vamping my site here to promote and support this new direction. I’m really excited about what that means :)
I took some time to ask what my expertise was, what I had to offer the world. I thought about the bazillion hours I have spend in the last 5 years of transforming my own life, and realized that what I have to offer is helping families concerning gentle parenting, unschooling, unpacking birth fears, and catapulting into personal free living. I can also toss in my credentials: a BA in psychology topped off with some formal child development certificates, and then there is 4 years of unschooling my children as well as having been unschooled myself during high school years, SO FREAKIN MANY hours of heavy research and deep reflection on the before-mentioned topics, an unassisted birth with my youngest, and 13 years of amazing relationships with my children through thick and thin, only child and multiples, consensual parenting and single parenting :)) Wow, I have done a lot!
So, I plan to be jumping right in and getting stuff going as soon as I am settled down in our new home-spot. I want to provide phone consultations/coaching for families who need specialized help in one area or another, parenting classes online and locally in person, e-books, videos, and whatever other mediums I can think of to share everything that is bursting forth! My prices will start off SUPER reasonable, as I practice and learn and get all organized and such. So, if you have been interested in looking into some coaching but couldn’t afford it (I know, unschoolers are usually 1-income families), this might be a great opportunity for you (or a gift for a friend).
April is the month!!! Growing good stuff this Spring :D

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| Photo found here |

The Prodigal Woman
I know it has been a while since I have posted on here. I will be honest, I haven’t been feeling very insightful recently. The weird part is that I have been proud of myself for living more aligned with my values of love and peace through adversity than ever. But stress and some other things that feel “unaligned” seem to monopolize that place where insight used to grow and want to be shared from.
We have been just BEing recently. It has been free-ing, but I feel kinda unproductive. I had such big dreams for this RV-journey that we were going to embark upon. Now I feel like I am spinning my wheels (very slowly, even) in mud. I am trying to dream, to stay focused on my dreams. I think I used up all my motivation and inspiration LOL Now, I am replenishing? Who knows…
So, our plans at this point are to comandeer some land (LOL) and start building and growing a life. I need some stillness. I miss the comfort that comes with being in the same space over and over and over and over. I want to lay in one spot in the sun on the grass for about a month, I think LOL
I am ready for a small beautiful home nestled on big green faery land not too far from the beach, to build things and grow things, to live sustainably, to richly unschool my children, to create a face Tribe, to run my own business, to have the freedom to spontaneously travel, to love a partner and build together a wildly blissful life and family, with lots and lots and lots of stolen romance.
A place for building big dreams, treehouses, a big swing, animal habitats, playhouses, pillow forts, fairy gardens, labrynths, coy ponds, and anything else I can find on the internet to inspire me :)
I have sure come full circle. I wanted to get out of my house because I was feeling restless about just laying around browsing the internet at my will, feeling over-full on inspiration and needing experiences to live them. Now, I am reallllllly looking forward to just laying around browsing the internet at my will, feeling over-full on inspiration LOL
I am grateful for the journeys I have taken, even if they all end up leading right back to home. I guess that makes me a bit of an adventurer LOL I feel like the prodigal woman :)) And I have a whole new appreciation for it all. I love the life I have lived, the many adventures (often contrasting) that I have undertaken, and what meaning it all brings to my present. I love how thinking about it reminds me of the powerful manifestor that I am. I have really done a lot of things! I have felt so passionately about so much in my life — what a blessed life to have lived. Not that it is over. No, not at all :)))
I think I am learning to not take it all so seriously. I used to be such an extremist, like something I was going to do or was into was radically completely amazingly transforming everything in my life from the bottom up. Okay, so maybe it did. Maybe it’s just more normalized for me to radically change everything from the ground up now? Well, whatever it is, I feel less attached to the permanence I once felt about the whole thing.
I was afraid to grow on land, the way I want to now. I was afraid to invest in something that would ultimately be impermanent. But I have learned that I can beautify the world, even if I don’t stay with that spot forever. And I have learned that I will find another amazing wild chapter to pursue once this land chapter has died off in my heart. I don’t have to be afraid of something being amazing, or of something ending or being gone. I will keep on trekin’.
Home is…
…where the heart is.
This has a whole new meaning for me right now. It is oh-so-clear to me that home is the abode my heart is invested in being in. I have learned a lot about “home” recently. “Home” has changed so much. In the last couple years, we have lived in a huge house of our own, a medium house of our own, an RV of our own, a van of our own, and now staying with a friend in her home.
I used to struggle with feeling at home in our home. I had so many issues about it being clean enough, and then about it being too clean and feeling sterile. I was uncomfortable, and so I think people sensed my discomfort and felt uncomfortable, too. People didn’t come over and stay all day every day, and we didn’t have a lot of friends who we did that with, either.
I always longed for it. And I love love LOVE being here with my friends. Finally, I feel like I am living tribally, communally. This is such an amazing exercise in togetherness.
I love staying with my friend in her home, but I am ready to have our own home, to be in our own home.
I got into the RV knowing that afterward I was going to live in a house on some land and grow roots, family depth, and everlasting community. I am ready to invest in some land, on some land, into some land. Our family is bursting with an abundance of ideas for our land, like a labrynth, a tree house, a garden, a huge sandbox, lots and lots of outdoor area for play and exploration. A swing for me and my beloved to sit in on a warm night or a beautiful day. A fort. A playhouse with a kitchen. All of this homemade, of course. Oh, yes. Yummy to my soul.
A lease-locked box attached to the earth didn’t sound appealing to me in the very recent past, even. But now, it feels like a breath of fresh air. I have so many ideas for the inside, too — little bits that make a house feel like a warm and inviting home, a place to grow a family and a love relationship and community of unschoolers and red-tenters.
Now to convince myself that this can be manifested as quickly as I manifested this RV lol
I’m ready. We all are <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Rightness
Liberation, Stretch, Comfort, De-attach
When I look back on list of the themes of my last few years, I see how it looks like a fluid evolving of life and spirit. It didn’t feel like it though. More like a deep and heavy submersion into growth of the unknown and just when I am about to drown or break, I scramble to the top to gulp the fresh crisp air of clarity and then dive down in a totally different direction for a new phase of experience. In the great walk of life, now I see the seamless evolution.
Liberation was when I cleared a huge space in my life, called “a relationship that I had gotten my fill from and was no longer working for us”. When we walked in seperate directions, I did not feel like a woman scorned, I felt like a woman liberated! A big giant space in my life was cleared and healthy (because that beautiful relationship healed me and taught me in ways I never could have done alone <3 ), and now I could go wild in my new-found freedom :)
And I did — hence the stretch. The slow unfolding of understanding learning in a new paradigm. The stretch of self-trust through preparing for and experiencing my freebirth. The ferrel re-growth and awesome stretch of radical unschooling and consensual living and respectful connected parenting.
Then, in exhaustion from all the stretching and growing (OMG! Did I stretch and grow), I settled into comfort, like sinking into my favorite old worn couch, for a long winter’s night with a mug of hot chocolate and my favorite music playing in the background.
And in that comfort, I realized there was no real comfort in drowing in stuff and over-responsibility, and that I had my fill of newly acquired agoraphobia. I released my attachment to a house (or a “lease-locked box on land that wasn’t MINE”), a lifetime-acquired house full of stuff I loved and hated and often both simultaneously. Then I stepped into adventure and wound up releasing my attachment to control. Not done yet — thick in the deconstruction and healing, I followed my calling to wear my deep inner cleansing outside by releasing my attachment to my hair and my long-constructed notion of my beauty. And now, I feel like a radiant monk ripe with readiness for the next powerful step in my life-healing journey: rightness.
Armed with the tools to enable myself to feel liberation, to stretch wildly, to find deep dark healing comfort, and dettach from what’s no longer working, I am preparing for a journey to reflect, explore, and right the breadth and depths of things in my life that feel amiss. I have my work cut out for me. I’m going to be the chiropractor of my life and get myself aligned. And through this, I am going to grow (with my hair) in intention, so that when I step into my power (no doubt, my next step), I will not fear what will be magnified, what will explode from me, and where it will reach and take me. Thhis is the step I right the wrongs, seal the deal on peace with my past, and let go of the things that don’t feel right to me in every area of me and my life. I am so grateful for this foundation I stand upon to do this — I feel like I have the advantage and the warrior skills to defeat my foes… Wait, that’s not right ;) I am a chiropractor, not a seasoned Amazon warrior LOL I’ve been reading too many historical romance novels these days :))
I am ready to step into rightness with my body, in parenting, in relationships, with money, with my future career goals, and so much I can’t even see yet from my view of the valley outside my window. Yes, this is going to be an easy walk — not those mountains I have beared through climbing in my past. This is just an adjustment into rightness.
This Amazon warrior monk gypsy goddess earthmama extraordinaire has bit more prep to do before I am ready to start this newest journey, including (are you ready for this?) a new name — I know, you are so surprised ;) More on that later :)) I need to sit on it a bit more, feel it’s rightness first :)
Another shocker — my blog is getting a new name, too. This one is already determined. I’m just waiting to purchase the domain name before I share it with the world.
2012, I am SO effing ready for you!
Vanpacking
– it’s like backpacking, only the van does all the work.
Can you believe that after living in the RV for a month and half, I am still feeling like we are living with so much excess, like I haven’t whittled away enough, like *stuff* is still getting in the way of experiences, and an RV is too big and too much?
Simpler. Smaller. Easier.
Pluses about the RV
- it has a bathroom
- it is indoors and house-like for rainy days and family/input days
- it has a fridge and kitchen in general
- it’s gorgeous on the inside
Pluses about traveling in the van
- gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- go places 3 times as fast or only spend a third of the gas money
- smaller (easier to maneuver and park)
- only the very most important *stuff* present (allowing for the most experiences)
- more space above the bed (in the RV above the cab is about 2 feet, in the back of the van would be like 3 or 4 feet!)
- we would be invisible — no one notices a silver minivan
- the van is MUCH more reliable (newer, better condition engine, etc.)
The RV is feeling heavy to me — it’s so high maintenance. And it’s an eye sore on the outside until I can paint it, which feels like it will never get done! I am all about beauty, AND I don’t want to get treated worse (classism and all).
I am looking to have a very specific journey. I don’t know the details, but I know it requires dumping the excess shit in my life and getting real. I’m so tired of so much!!!!!!! I am realizing that I used to be agoraphobic and a slight hoarder, and I am realizing just how stopped my life was for so many years. I buried my self under layers of anxiety and stuff, and I am trying to uncover me and get to know me. I need some retreat, some time to have lots of experiences (especially with my children), to find something that is lost.
This is a spiritual quest, a soulful journey. I am looking for something, and I don’t know what it is or where exactly it is, but I know it is on this path and I will know when I have it.
I am thinking about taking the van for a trip up the west coast — just strapping some surfboards and a solar panel to the roof of my van, building a bed frame in the back of it for an uber-comfy bed, piling our stuff under the bed, and hitting the open road. I think I need the simple mobility, the retreat, the ocean, my books and writing supplies, and plenty of space to deconstruct and regrow, the family solitude, the Tribe experiences (meeting some of my Tribe along the way), and room for the unexpected.
Somehow, we will head back down here, especially in time for Thanksgiving in a super cool RV campsite for 2 weeks (blessings from a dear new friend) and decide what we want to do at that point. Do we want to sell the van, sell the RV, travel in the van a bit longer and return to the RV after making our national tour we had planned before, or something else entirely.
I think I really need this trip. I think I really need to do this in the van. I feel absolutely crazy, but not crazy enough. I really want to embrace my crazy and be real.
Peace
During all the chaos, I had a few moments when we were driving by a gentleman sitting at the entrance of a shopping center collecting change, and we would make eye contact and he would throw up the peace sign, and everything inside me would rise up and resound, “Yeeeeessssssssss!!!!!!!”
Peace. Oneness. That is what this is all about.
I saw this same gentleman a handful of times – each one reminding me of the beautiful humanity of people. This man touched my soul and my journey in ways he never could have imagined. It was like an amazing photograph — in a pocket in this crazy world is the eye of the storm: the gentleman with the peace sign.
He reminded me of this graphic that I have loved so much for so many years:
So, Monday was the day I wrapped up our storage situation. My friend’s garage no longer holds anything that belongs to me, and the van (that we are still trying to sell) only has in it a folding table and chairs and 2 large hula hoops that we will probably strap to top of an economy car that we will buy when we sell the van :)) Yesterday, as I situated our stuff in a more permanent manner, I realized that we can comfortably live with what we own right now. Wow. That is amazing. It only took 1 1/2 months longer than I had anticipated LOL
Peace. Stuff peace. If the whole world went quiet and you sat down in the middle and meditated without interruption – THAT is the calm I feel from having stuff peace.
Ahhh, peace.
On, Tuesday, we were driving down to the beach, and I spotted a woman in a crowd waiting to cross the street with dreads that stuck up in all directions on her head. I couldn’t help but smile big to her, and she smiled back — an enthusiastic “That’s right” kind of smile :) And as she passed by us to cross the street, she held up 2 fingers to share a moment of global peace and oneness with me.
I almost died!!!!!!! The peace sign again. I haven’t seen so many peace signs (and from a delicious rainbow of folks) since the 60s — okay, I was in the womb in the 60s, but I can imagine :)
The beach was A.MAZ.ING. It was just what this wild zen tribe needed, just what this peace-seeking bohemian Pisces mama needed. And there, we found peace in the sand…
This trip to the beach rivaled the overnight campsite for soul nourishment. This is exactly why we gave up everything we owned and moved into an RV. Boondocking and staying in our old neighborhood were great for my tiny wallet, but staying in these spots made me remember why I want to flourish in self-sustainability! I want this to be my life. The inner peace that I find when we are parked somewhere where we can get out and explore overnight fills me up in ways I can only begin to explain. I want this to be my life.
Peace to you, Dearest Tribe <3
The Amazing RV Renovation
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| I love the app I took this pic with, especially since it made this pic look old, so it could be my mom and her brand new RV! lol |
I have been having the most amazing time fixing up this RV for the last few days (yesterday ended up a day of park fun instead of work for the most part) :)) Words really cannot describe, but I would sure love to try!
So, first off, the easiest: I own it! I am allowed to do this! I can explore and experiment and pick and prod and PERSONALIZE to my living pleasure :))) I have this amazing vision in my head of it finished, and I love getting there!! Even better, I love the little detours that provide opportunities I hadn’t imagined, to personalize it :)) This is feeling more and more like home every minute! I am so in love with this RV! I was in love with it before, like a blank canvas to an artist, but I am painting now (literally!), and I am LOVING what is flowing through me! WOWSERS!
I am learning SO much about every detail of her as I paint and tinker around. I have watched videos of people who renovated their RVs or converted buses or whatever, and it is really awesome getting in here and doing my own! I really cannot believe how easy this is. I am definitely on ameteur status with tools, and I am amazed with my resourcefulness with a hammer, a screwgun, and a few screwdrivers :))) I was inspired by the guy who built an amazing hobbit-style house, with just a saw and a hammer. I can do this RV renovation with the limited tools I already own (except I will need a saw of some sort, and I will be very thankful that Lowes cuts wood I will need, with their powersaws, as long as I go in with the measurements :)))) I am learning about every inch of her as I paint and look around and notice things that aren’t working (or are) and want to know more about them. It’s kinda the epitome of unschooling going on over here :)))
And this is like climbing through a rabbit hole. I go to fix one thing that leads to another thing and then I find I can do this with that thing. Wow. I did a lot of reading and preparing, and now those things are starting to grow in my visions of spaces (like the kitchen, for example — thinking I might make a flow/living kitchen now since I am probably going to have to gut it anyway, because the storage is horrendous for living in!). I remember in one person’s videos about their RV renovation that they said there is always 1 surprise when renovating a used RV. I think I found mine :)) The night before last, I had a detailed list of what “needed” to be done, and today the list grew a bit unexpectedly, and I am THRILLED about that!!!! In fact, as things come up, I see more and more clearly how those things happened to allow me to even better suit this space for us. I can’t wait to show you all this gorgeous space that I see so clearly in my head and am seeing slowly manifesting into reality before my eyes. Renovating this RV is definitely an organic process. I am keeping lists, more for ideas of things to check later to see if I still want to do (and so I can share with you all what I have done and want to do, etc, and because it is fun! I love making lists), but I am renovating based on flowing through every inch of the RV and knowing my needs :))
I am trying really hard to make sure my kids feel like this is their home, too, that they get to help with what they want to help with :) It has been AWESOME to see Noble just jump in with some tools and start messing around with stuff, and Najaia, too :) And Kass has helped a bit and talked with me about ideas for spots :))) I have to be careful to keep their experience intact while quickly manifesting my own visions, too :)))
I’ve realized a comfy bed is priority number 1 right now.
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| The loft space (“before”) |
I LOVE sleeping in the RV. I love spending every moment in there :))) The first 3 nights, we slept in the RV, but the last 2 nights we have had to sleep in the house, because that unexpected surprise (mentioned earlier) involves the bed area up top, and I have to gut most of the space up there. Well, I have found that the house doesn’t feel like home anymore. It feels weird being in there. I just want to stay out here with my love!!!!!
This RV LOVES us <3 She is so happy to have us in here fixing her up <3 I truly feel like her name is Gypsy Goddess. She is quite the goddess, and I feel the goddess coming out of her as I peel away the outdated layers and lavish her with love and beauty — okay, maybe I’m projecting my own self-love! :)))
Everyone LOVES her! The neighbor kids can’t hang out enough (especially when they got to climb up into the loft), and the babies love climbing all over her and playing in her! The first thing Noble did when the Leapleys left after signing the paperwork was strip down naked :))))) He knew he was home <3 He tells everyone we see that we live in an RV, and he calls it “home” :))) He thinks of people in his life and asks me if we are going to drive to see them in our RV, and he says it is bigger or faster than every car he sees on the road :))) Even the cat loves it!! Sabastian has been in here all day and all night with us every day <3
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| Where we usually find him sleeping :)) (the loft) |
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| Posing for a picture — no, he just needed some attention when I was trying to shoot the cabinets :D |
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| He loves being in here so much, he even tolerates the baby playing with him while he sleeps <3 |
I am especially excited about the neighborhood kids coming over and hanging out and seeing me work on her, because they think it is so cool, and since we live in a poorer neighborhood, I feel like it makes it more of a reality for them to have one someday, too, if they wanted to :))
I wish I could take video of my progress, but the mic on my iPod is really bad (sounds really muffled), so you wouldn’t be able to hear me :(( I wish more people could have seen her “before”. I wish I had been able to take better “before” pictures so you could really see what all I have done :))) I’m BURSTING with pride with myself for what I have found myself to be capable of. Wow, me. So far, it’s been mostly construction type stuff, with a teensy touch of electrical.
I’ve so got this.
And let me just say that if you are local and want to come see what’s going on in here, please feel free to come check it out! It is so wonderful having company to come share this awesome journey with :))) That goes double if you own a shop vac or any other tools that may make this easier (like a saw LOL), and especially if you have any expertise you can share with me! :))) LOL
This RV was already so awesome when we got it. Like I keep telling the Leapley’s, I am so grateful for an RV in such great condition, so I can focus on all the fun stuff :)) Even though we have come across a couple little things that are more than just topical, how blessed are we that it is so minor! This RV came to us in a condition we could have vacationed in comfortably, and the reason I am renovating it (other than I just love the opportunity to) is because we are hoping to live in it for several years. I decided, instead of just “painting over” some issues, that I was going to get down to the root (or the wood or the aluminum siding, as the case may be) and build it back up, since this will be our home for a long time, and because I don’t want to have to do it later (and find the paint colors again and what not — I have my prioreties on straight! lol). I want to get it all in tip-top shape immediately, especially while we have a house and room to do all this now :)) It’s also a good opportunity to learn what we will need from the tools and bits of stuff that I have held onto (screws, wheels, etc), since I am doing everything now, so we don’t have to carry that stuff around if I won’t ever need it (or can get it later when we actually do need it). I am so grateful for the chance to learn and do, and more learning :)))
Alright, so here is my list of stuff that I have done.
- Spackled, taped, primered, and painted most of the interior (including places you don’t see much of, like under the dinette cushions);
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- painting also included removing the edges of the carpet, so I could paint down to the wood in prep for wood floors
- New knobs on the cubbard doors above the windows (haven’t done the kitchen, bathroom, and closets yet)
- All blinds out, and new curtain rods up (hoping the blinds fit my house ones that the dog completely annihilated in his anger at me about not being seperated right now)
- In the process of removing all red leather ( including the cab); I tried painting it white but realized it was paneling wrapped in foam and leather, so I took the foam and leather off and attached the paneling, waiting to be painted :)
- Removed paneling and (if needed) wood in upper bed area because of serious water/rot — removed 1 window because the wood was so rotted around it, it crumbled away
- Started to remove the carpet in the upper bed area before I realized that the wood under it by the window was black and water/rot damaged, so I have to take that whole thing out and rebuild a new one anyway
- Removed broken visor in driver’s spot and screws from paneling in the cab
- Shorted out the electrical (long story) and learned how to change a fuse :))))
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| you can see the contrast between the dark wood that was in the whole RV and the white paint I did |
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| My big helper :))))) |
All that in 3 days amongst keeping my children alive, fed, relatively clean, and recently prioritizing activities and nap time ;))
My next step is to check the other side of the bed area for water/rot because there seems to be *something* based on the exterior. Then, once the bed area around the windows is checked and properly gutted, I am going to work on taking the flooring out of the loft area (2x4s sandwiched between plywood as a heavy duty frame).
Right now, the bed pulls out to be a queen, but it had this cool sliding floor thing to make the bed smaller and the cab space below bigger, but we won’t need that or be able to use it, so I am building a whole new bed floor from scratch (and salvaged pieces that are in good condition). We are going to have a queen mattress on top and a foam mattress topper. We won’t be able to sit up in bed (because the bedding will be so high), but an uber comfy bed is worth it :)) There are plenty of other places to sit :)
After I get the bed all finished, I am going to install my beautiful brown leather couch and take out this one:
And then my next priority will be either reupholstering the drivers cab (seats, doors, floor carpet) and possibly putting in a new stereo (just need a radio and an iPod dock)
or gutting the kitchen.
The next step will probably be the bathroom.
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| Mural made of pebbles |
At that point, I would LOVE to hit the road for a week or so (a trial run, so to speak, to assess our needs better while we still have the house and our stuff to draw from) and then come back and finish the kitchen, renovate the closet space (it’s just a big giant open space)
and reupholster the cushions for the dinette (might actually do that on our trial run)
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| leather on one side and fabric on the other — which I will do, too :) |
Somewhere in there, I need to make a few more curtains and detail/paint the exterior (including a gorgeous mural my sister is going to do on the back!). Hopefully, I will have money for solar panels, and I will need to learn electrical basics and figure out my current electrical system and adjust it to be solar. I may need a new water pump and a bigger freshwater tank (currently 20 gallons — it should be a crime to put such a tiny tank in an RV that sleeps so many people!). I’m going to get new tires. I think I’m going to get a crash-course on the other appliances I’m not so sure about, so I can understand them better and take care of them better. I would like to learn how to change my own oil and other basics that I can do to pamper my beauty while she pampers us :)))
This is the feel I am going for in the whole RV :))))) I’m so excited about creating it :))
Nourishment
People talk a lot about nutrition. Nutrition, to me, is like the spirit, the head, meditation, yoga, tranquility, zen. Important in its own right.
Nourishment, to me, is more like stuff of the soul, living from the stomach, following one’s internal compass without judgment, living one’s truth. It follows whims and doesn’t have to be quiet or reverant.
Nutrition counts the calories and the vitamins on a food label. Nourishment checks internally to see if it is hitting the spot.
Nutrition can listen to experts on what is healthy and best, but nourishment knows no one “outside” can begin to know what what “inside” me needs better than I do.
Nourishment is a kind of fulfillment and a feeling of substance.
Nourishment, for me, can be a green smoothie, or it can be a pint of ice-cream, whatever my soul needs.
Nourishment goes beyond food, though, too. Nourishment is physical, and it’s also emotional and mental and soulful. Nourishment can come through spending some sisterhood time with a beloved. Nourishment can come from laughing through a board game with the family. Nourishment can come from a long (uninterrupted) candle-lit bath.
Nourishment is kinda like healing, without the assumption that there is some ailment to heal. Nourishment is like healing something that isn’t wounded. It’s like giving something a blessing.
The concept of nourishment fills some gaps in my life and in my family. I didn’t want to see some things as “broken” or “hurt” or “needing fixing/healing”. I can provide nourishment to someone who is not lacking in some way and I prefer to see people as whole and complete. The concept of nourishment helps me flow through the space I want to hold for people who I sense just need a bit “more”. It doesn’t have to mean there is anything wrong with what is.
My family is due some nourishment :)) In some ways it has already begun. Kassidy’s computer broke a couple days ago, and she has been adjusting to an unplugged life, where the option for mental stimulation has been to connect with me and her siblings. I hadn’t realized how absent she had really been until I realized how delicious it has been to spend more time with her. Without the option to spend every waking moment in her room with the door closed, she has been venturing out to compromise with Noble about what they can watch together on my computer. I really loved getting her and Noble their own things last year, so they didn’t have to share — it was perfect for the time (she was too angry and needed some space, and he was too young and had totally different interests), and now it feels perfect to have her interacting with us again on things. Having her interacting with us more feels like it is nourishing our family <3
Speaking of nourishment, with this mostly-empty house, we have been able to really shift our energy to the basics (one of my biggest reasons for wanting to live so simply) like preparing food. I have been cooking/preparing up a storm in the kitchen :))) I look forward to Kass cooking with me in the future. She is an awesome chef, and we can have lots of fun working together to create ways of continuing to nourish our family :)) We were talking yesterday about her giving me 3 weeks of feeding her whole and nourishing foods. I very much believe that we are what we eat, and so Kassidy is currently Top-Roman and Arizona iced tea. I can think of more nourishing things I would love for her to be :))) I know what we eat impacts our moods and mental activity, etc. I look forward to seeing what path this diet may take her down, even if she chooses to return to her current diet after the experiment :))
A child who said she was too old to sleep with me a few weeks ago and couldn’t sleep at night is curled up asleep at 10pm with her head on my leg <3
I am already loving this life.
Let the nourishment begin <3
Okay, Dreads; Trade-offs; & a Soul Journey
I loooooooove dreads. Ja’s dreads were, I am shameless to admit, one of the biggest reasons I initially gave him the time of day (or night, as it were). Noble’s dreads are one of my top 10 favorite things in the whole world. I’ve considered dreads for myself, but keep finding that I love my wild curls even better.
I always imagined having my dread-head son and my curly girly, and it seemed meant to be, as her curls are bigger and silky soft. One problem: she hates getting her hair brushed. She yells “No!” and runs down the hall and out of the house if I even try. It’s a bit easier in the shower, when I can soak her hair in conditioner while I comb/brush, easy distract her, move slowly and mindfully, and do a lot of “emotional damage control” in a small confined space.
Well, it’s been over a week since we brushed her hair, with everyone being sick. And today I realized that I understood why my stepmom just chopped all of our (her own, my older sister who is half Black, and myself) curls off to about an inch or 2 long. This is so much work, and it’s losing it’s meaning for all of us. As I brushed and imagined life in an RV, I released my attachments and submitted to “Okay, dreads.” WHOOSH! Sudden alignment.
This is going to be a win-win all over the place! She won’t have to get her hair brushed, the upkeep is minimal and requires a lot less stuff in the RV, less water it will need (which is a big deal in an RV that plans to live unplugged), and an added bonus — it will be fun to see it grow long instead of out :))) Not that I don’t love me an afro (have you seen my hair?).
Speaking of, I have decided now is the time to start using baking soda and apple cider vinegar for my hair instead of shampoo and conditioner. If I start now, it will give me about 2 1/2 months for my hair to adjust and transition, so it will be easy when we are on the road :)) Also, I am open to a dread/curls combo for my hair. We shall see with time :)))
A trade off….. I’ve enjoyed looking at ways to trade-off stuff/space with experiences. I mean, that’s kind of the main goal of this adventure in the first place. I was thinking of leaving my foot care stuff and getting a pedicure with Kass once a month-ish! I’m hoping it will be some great me & Kass time. It will mean less stuff in the RV, which is always nice. And mostly, we and our feet deserve the pampering – the scrubbing, the detail work, the massage. Oh, the massage *melt* That got me to thinking what a wonderful benefit regular massage and chiropractic alignment would be for Kass and I as we realign our bodies and lives with healthiness and slow intentional living. Another way to align our life :)))
Speaking of healing, soul journey….. I kept thinking this was going to be a spiritual journey, but I am realizing this is going to be much more of a soul journey, tempered with a bit of spiritualness :)) I have known all along that this was going to be a journey of self and that it would require solitude, maybe in large doses. I thought I could find that “self” in snippets during days and in between visits. I thought I could eek by for the first couple visits and nab it in a larger quantity later in the journey, so we could hurry and get on the road and get out of familiar territory and not miss anyone during our far-shot trajectory.
At this point in my preparation for finding a deeper level of self and connecting with beloveds, it is becoming more and more clear to me that we need to take some serious time to ourselves before we descend upon anyone :))
We need time to detox from this “junk food” life, we need to adjust to being unplugged, and we need to do some healing and connection with ourselves and each other before we can really do a visit with you justice. Right now, I’m a little insecure about visits. I’m insecure about some bits of myself that are out of alignment or underdeveloped, and I’m insecure about my wild bunch. Not to say that you wouldn’t love us in our imperfections or be fine with our wildness, but I don’t want to compound those insecurities with the anxiety I would feel if I was insecure. I want to feel confident and comfortable, and I want to feel like we are healthy and well-adjusted. We all have some healing and adjusting to do before we start connecting with our tribe <3
This is what I currently think the first couple steps of our journey will look like:
I think our first stop will be a reasonably-priced campground with gorgeous, natural, and quiet grounds to do the initial detox and adjustment, to work out the kinks close to familiarity. The plan is to have no Internet, extreme minimal technology, maybe no phone even, to spend about a month or two indulging in nature, immersing ourselves in the simplest family living, and some serious alignment. I am saying a month or two, but I really have no idea how long it will take to feel ready — could be much less, could be even longer?
Once we are all ready to move on and get out on the road, our road freedom will begin. I have clue where we will start heading, because it will depend on the season, our budget, our priorities, and our newfound internal compass’ direction.
There is a certain internal nourishment that comes with making all these plans. It’s as if realizing what we need most kinda heals that part inside us, so we are open to the next priority in our journey. It started with wanting to take life one step at a time, then wanting to race around and see everyone, then it was about spending depth with each person, and now it is finding our inner alignment first. It’s exciting to see what may come up next! I hope you don’t mind being strung along on this internal journey <3 What I do know is that when we pull up to your house, we will all be better for it :)))
Current Plans
Hello, beloved one <3
So, the path of life keeps shifting before us — it’s so exciting!!!! But it sure makes it hard to pin things down for other’s :)) The only guarantee that I can give you is “I will be there when you see the whites of my eyes, but I will be there.”
A couple things seem to have changed in the plans I shared before, and I wanted to share what those will be. Firstly, we most likely will not be keeping the house. We will probably be travelling by RV. We will probably be leaving in July (no later than August 1st — the last day of my lease). We will probably be doing the 4 corners the opposite direction I had originally planned. We will be moving slower (gas prices and RV gas mileage — yikes!).
I may take a quick trip in the van up to San Fransisco and Oregon, and swing down through Colorado for 4th of July (fireworks are illegal in California) to party with some loved ones, before coming home to sell the van, buy the RV, and get out of this house.
I will be stopping along the way everywhere we know someone. I don’t want to miss anyone.
So, now the dates are a little wierd. I am thinking, if we are going through Texas in September, we may have to go to the Rethinking Everything Conference. I need to really sit with that and decide if this is do-able, so I can let other’s know, in case they want to join us.
We have a month or 2 to poke around Texas and Louisiana.
We hope to be in Florida when winter comes, so we can play snowbirds this year :))
Once it starts warming up, we will head north toward Maine, visiting family and friends along the way.
Then head west (down into the Ohio area), where we can spend far more than a week with each loved one, if we want to :))
Then across to Kansas and into Colorado, and either to Washington and then down, or straight back into California — our next trip will probably be up to Alaska, and we can head back up through the San Fran and Oregon areas then. The end of the trip is always the hardest to plan, because it is so far from where we are now, and it is so close to our next trip, that we never know the last few stops. But, I think you get the point of the current plan.
I won’t know what we are travelling in, until we have purchased it and are living in it. I won’t know when we will be somewhere until we are leaving the stop before. But I do know that each of you mean so much to me, and I look forward to being able to visit you unhurried. I will get there, I promise <3
I have one other bombshell to drop on you all. I probably will not get a cell phone for the trip (other than an emergency prepaid phone). I think I am just going to get internet (especially since I can text from my ipod with it). I will see — it’s another thing I really have to think about :))
I look forward to some uninterrupted solitude, to sort out some inside reflection stuff. Just me, one book at a time, my journal, and an array of marker/pens to get creative. Some comfy spots with a beautiful view. Some whole foods. A heart and a mind full of infinite creativity and brilliance :)
I look forward to the weightlessness of living nomadically. I look forward to letting go of obligations and meaninglessness. I don’t know how impressed my little ones are going to be with traveling, except to play with new friends and see cool new spots in nature to explore. I’m looking forward to living that simply :)) I want to type a blog post under a tree with a view, or explore a riverbank for hours on end, slide down sanddunes on a snow disk, have a picnic by a waterfall. I want my world to revolve around who to visit and what to see and explore in the next moment (I just had a Freudian slip — I typed oment: OMent) :))
I look forward to being free of these walls and all this stuff :)) I can say that now without feeling a weight in my gut — I decided I’m not tied to it, so I can find contentment in the dis-ease I was feeling about all of it before. I may be looking at a painted wall, but this is what my spirit sees:
Overthinking
I am infamous for overthinking. This from the mom who took 6 months of heavy researching before feeling comfortable pulling my oldest out of public school to homeschool her. This from the student who did avid research (complete with color-coded highlighting and post-it notes) on every possible major I could be interested in before committing to one in my first semester of school LOL
Overthinking is literally making me sick, though. Today, it gave me a migraine. So, tonight, I am deciding to be dedicated to clearing my head out. I went to sleep last night making plans about an RV that I saw yesterday, and spend my entire night of “sleep” in some nightmare pergatory of plans and stress and worry.
Enough is enough.
The good news is that I am getting more and more comfortable with being flakey LOL I keep wanting to be committed to something that I say I am interested in, but I am still swimming in a sea of options where one looks more appetizing than another at any point in time. So, I feel flakey when I post on Facebook that I can see us in that RV and that I want it, and today I have to tell everyone nevermind, it’s not as perfect as I had hoped for it to be. And that wouldn’t be so bad, except I kinda posted (and emailed everyone who I thought would care) last week about how I wanted to travel in my van with a pop-up trailer, which also fell through.
What I am realizing with each of these experiences is that there are so many different ways to travel, and that we are testing the depths of each one for our commitment comfort level. I should be proud of myself for backing out once I realize my lack of commitment afterall, instead of sticking with some plan just because I showed a lot of initial interest :) In addition to learning about travel and about travelling, I am learning about the process inside myself. And I am learning that although driving a veggie-powered radmobile is a dream of mine, it doesn’t have to be this first step in my journey — it can be a dream for another day.
The truth is, each of these modes of transport hold a different idealness about it, a piece to the puzzle of the ideal nomadic home. And any one of those specialities may feel more important at different times. Let me try to make a list of these qualities I have so far found to be important to us, and maybe you can help me send rockets of desire out into the universe to bring us what is perfect for our family :))
- the better gas milage the better
- pretty good ability to moderate the inside temperature
- spacious-feeling inside (including entry into vehicle)
- relatively short from bumper to bumper
- room inside to rip out some accessive seating for a kids table and a cat climber
- a loft-type bed above the driver’s coach for Kass
- fairly modern appliances, lighting, and switches
- a dinette (2 benches with a table in the middle)
- bathroom at the back, spacious enough for this big mama to not feel crammed in
- a full-size bed tucked into a corner in the back for me and the babies, ideally (but I would sacrifice it for better gas milage if it made a big enough difference)
- upholstery on chairs that I can live with (leather is best, because it is easiest to clean — sorry, vegan friends <3)
Okay, so I started this post a couple days ago, and I stopped writing it because I had a raging headache that has persisted for days. I didn’t want to post it unfinished, but I can’t put too much more effort into it right now, because my tension headache is threatening to start pounding again if I don’t listen to it’s plea for me to stop thinking about this stuff. Just gonna share some pics of the RV I *think* (today) I really want. The only thing I don’t like about it is the typical RV gas mileage, which I wish I could somehow get around and still have everything I love about this RV inside and out. Meet Jam:
Living from the belly
In one of my last writings, I wrote about how I knew I wasn’t lazy, but couldn’t quite find the word, and then Law of Attraction jumped in to answer my request in the form of Tara writing an amazing blog post about how It’s Not Laziness You Need To Overcome (6 Things You Are Instead of Lazy). And it really fit with a quote I remember reading from Abraham Hicks last year about how you are not “procrastinating”, it’s just that whatever it is that needs to get done is not in alignment with where you are at in your life right now. I wanted to share that little synchrony with you <3
So, I have been thinking a lot about anxiety. I have had a few things shift around and inside me that feel both liberating and insightful that I wanted to share. Firstly, I need to share this video with you, because it’s all grounded in that.
I just watched that video again a couple minutes ago, and it made me cry. I want to speak from my belly. I want to LIVE from my belly. I want to know that divine feminine. I want to BE that divine feminine. I’ve been thinking so much recently about how badly I need a retreat. I started to have one, you know… Until I realized that what I need is much bigger than to avoid facebook and blogging. I need to exit this house and insert myself in some deep and serious mother nature. So, now I am in Operation Get-the-hell-out-of-this-house Mode. I am really contemplating not keeping this house. Who knows….
Anyway, so back to anxiety. When I think of living and BEING from my belly, and anxiety, and my over-eating, and my history with food and depression and self-searching…. I realize that my eating is not a borometer of what state my life is. My stomach is the foundation of what my life is. It’s the path I want to walk, and it is my inner guide, my compass. And anxiety, anxiety is exiting my belly and entering my head.
I’ve talked about grounding myself in my truth when feeling and talking and connecting. I have been connecting with my belly! Grounding myself has really been coming from my belly. And I ask myself, what would life be like if I lived it from my belly? And my answer to myself is Wow. Just wow.
I would know that anxiety was a fear of the path my stomach would take me down.
Anxiety is the draw away from my belly. Anxiety is being afraid of honesty, being afraid of the truth.
Can I just say that again? That floating restlessness that makes me want to climb out of my fingertips from my brain is me trying to escape what is true.
Wow. I am crying again.
So, what is true?
What true is that little bits of stuff come up during the day, during my interactions with people, and I rush off in the other direction to avoid those bits. Social anxiety.
What’s true is that I’m afraid to be all of me.
All of me. Embracing every bit of me that I resist and judge and fear and adore and am afraid to let out of the closet.
And I will tell you something about my fears. I have been educated so well on so many “shoulds” that I am afraid of letting them go. I feel like a small child who wants to run and play in an open meadow carefree, but my parent is telling me about all of the things that I must do instead. And I cannot BEGIN to tell you how strong the urge is to just walk away from it all. What are they going to do — take away my birthday?
So, this is the deal. I am going to start working on this house (more than just shifting stuff around and taking pics to post on Craigslist). I am going to start taking loads of stuff out to the garage for a garage sale, and loads to stuff to the dumpster — sorry Mother Earth, I wish I had the energy to sift through everything and find it all homes, but part of the problem in the first place is that I horde so much stuff for possible future craft projects to avoid filling the dumpsters in the first place! I rescue stuff from the dumpsters, so I am going to use that to justify this chance to just call it all quits.
I have to walk away. I need to go on this retreat like LAST WEEK, so I need to get my butt moving.
I have been feeling the need to just BE THERE already. I am tired of the sage advice about the journey and shyt. You don’t understand. I’ve been on this freakin journey, and it has been great, but I am bursting out of here and I need to do it where I need to do it (over THERE).
Next month (if not sooner, goodness!) we will be on the road. I am ready to be out of here. Over ready.
I can’t wait to go find my belly life. I can’t wait to get back in touch with my belly, to ground myself in it until I am unshakable and unappologetic. Until it is so my truth that no “obligations” or “shoulds” can weigh me down or penetrate into my space.
Currently, I am like a 3 Muskateers candy bar — soft chocolate shell with a super-soft nougetty center. I want to be more like an M&M — a hard candy shell with hard chocolate inside that melts in your mouth, not in your hands :))
There is so much in my current life that I am uncomfortable with, that is out of alignment with what I know to be the truth I want to embrace and live. I cannot WAIT (literally), to drop all of this and move the heck on to greener cobblestone paths :))))))))
Alright, enough talk! I’m off to start working :D
Home is Where the Heart Is
I have been reading a lot of stuff recently on “home”. Maybe it is the nomad blogs I follow, maybe it is the Law of Attraction… But it has been a delicious guide to helping me define home for myself, and I wanted to share it with you.
For me, home is literally where my heart is, so wherever my children are together, I am home.
Once that is established, home is inside me.
It is being content with who I am and where I am and what I am and why I am. When I am content, I can be “at home” anywhere.
Home is an opportunity to connect with nature in a “we are one” way, and so I am home at the beach just watching the waves. I am at home sitting in some grass staring at flowers, or up late at night looking up into a blanket of sparkling stars. When I am in nature, I always have the opportunity to be home.
Home, for me, usually revolves around a familiar experience or the memory of a wonderful experience. It might be recognizing a state license plate or stepping into my personalized RV or my child doing his or her usual funny thing in a situation. It’s inside jokes and the familiarity of easing into meeting a new interesting person. It’s the smell of our clothes in our closet. It’s the songs I listen to for different occasions. It’s driving into a new city and seeing the sunrise through new building tops. It’s catching a glimpse of someone you have met in someone new :))
The logistics of home for me usually require inside comfort, Like feeling secure about the place we are living, like our own family bed, some privacy to hibernate undisturbed when retreat is necessary or to nurse without discretion while we sleep, the freedom to live by our rules and decorate our way, an ease about our daily schedule. These are the things that make places feel like home to me.
Maybe it is because I moved so much growing up, or because I travelled with my mom for those years, but home for me, really can be created almost anywhere I set up camp.
The funny thing about our anticipated adventures is that I am very much a homebody. Living in an RV may be the only way I will get out and see anything! As usual, I am an odd combination of 2 extremes: homebody and nomad, so I am combining the 2 :))
A house is not right for me right now, and an RV feels uch ore inviting and home-like right now.
Living in an RV will suit a part of me that refuses to identify as lazy. Lazy implies a certain “wrongness” or bad choice, doesn’t it? I am still searching for a word that adequately aligns with the feeling inside me of having very little demands upon me. I want everything to be within about an arm’s reach from me. I want to not have to lose sight of the project that is close to my heart and feels the need to be close in proximity, as I lovingly assist my baby in the bathroom. I want my kids right up on me while they are playing. I love the proximity, the closeness, the comfort of each of us having our own tiny bubble cuddled up with someone else’s. I don’t have the draw toward seperation that some have — I am the opposite. I have a draw toward closeness. BUT the best part, and the balance, is that we will have more space outside our bedroom door than most. We will have vast space to breathe in and exhale out, vast space to see and run and explore. I hope to spend lots of time outside when I need it and plenty of time indoors when I need it. And we can each self-regulate this for ourselves.
I think we have a different relationship with space than many cultures do around the world. People ask me how me and my kids and pets are going to live comfortably in such a teeny space, when bigger families than mine live in smaller spaces very happily elsewhere. It isn’t really about the actual size of the space — ask someone from New York, as opposed to someone from the midwest. Ask someone in Hong Kong as opposed to someone in a tribal village in Africa. Space is cultural, and space is relative, and space is more complicated than just physical proximity, and space is something we all get to define for ourselves.
The funny part is that now that I have begun to define where I want to go and explore what it will feel like, so we can plan what would be best for us, now this house feels like a mansion. It feels like big empty hallways and too many rooms full of too much stuff. I am a radical minimalist. I could easily do one of those “own 100 things” challenges, and when we have the world to explore (rather than stuff to explore), it will be easy and healing to shed all that weight and remain as light and fluid as we need to be, to do what we are going to do.
Having space and lots of stuff does not make somewhere home for us. Living on the road will be just as much opportunity for that home feeling, and maybe even more, since we have always rented and had the details of the space we were living in dictated by a landlord. This RV will be our’s! I will own it. I will own our home. There is something special about that feeling :)))
I am not expecting this new home to be the final answer for our lives, but it is the next answer for our lives, and someday we will find this RV living to be out of alignment, and we will adjust life as needed. Home is living life in the now and for the now. Home is not being afraid to make changes as we need to make them :))
Home is coming back for holidays whenever possible and LOVING the familiarity :))
Wherever our heart is, we are home <3
The Disease
I have mentioned a few times the “healing” and the “dis-ease” that I am hoping a road-life will remedy. So, I thought I would come share a bit about all of that.
My dis-ease is commonly referred to as depression. I don’t suffer from depression. Firstly, I don’t suffer (unless I have the nagging feeling that someone feels I should be doing something other than hybernating, in which case the guilt inside me sometimes feels like suffering). And secondly, what I am experiencing is not something to clinicize and medicate or whatnot. Yes, there is a remedy for it, and that has always been to follow what my insides are calling for, be that deep dark quiet inner work, or climbing under the blankets and not coming out for a week, or searching for joy through connections with fellow soulful kindreds. I have found more relief from following where my “depression” is taking me than from resisting it. And I have learned more about myself from those times than from any other in my life. Usually it stems from a kind of learned helplessness in my life. Often creative movement (inside or outside) of some sort remedies that hopelessness when I am ready for the shift. Like most things in my life, I have not sought “expert” help in my journey — I had no interest in a label that would be my crutch when I was younger, and by the time I realized I was strong enough to handle this, I also realized what blessing this time spent was.
I think we live in a society that values extroversion over introversion, so we aren’t socialized to value people drawing into holes and finding healing and growth. And I think that this society is often the reason we need healing in the first place — be it how we teach the parents to treat their children, or disconnect completely from what is earthy and feminine, or impose “bigger” and “better” and “more” upon the embodiment of all that is reverent in our hearts <3 This has been my experience anyway, and I know that what makes each of us feel helpless is different. SO…
Having said all of that, taking my life on the road will provide remedy to a few things. I crave movement. I used to think it was that I was runniing from something, and I tried to dig up what it was that I was running from. Now, I feel I have laid the details of my past to rest — I am at peace with it, and I just need to flow like the water I am. A nomadic lifestyle will provide this to perfection very adequately with room for discontent.
The other part of my life that will find healing is the close proximity. The funny part is that people’s first question is usually something to the effect of “Won’t that be uncomfortable to have so many people in such a small space?” They must not know me :)) But I can’t be mad — it took me some reflection to realize this about myself, too, and in this “bigger = better” society, of course that would be the first question! :))
I love small intimate spaces. I am SUCH a radical minimalist, you can only begin to imagine. In fact, I am specifically chosing a smaller RV than some bigger spaces. I am looking forward to cleaning the entire place in the time it currently takes me to sweep and mop the floor. I am looking forward to my “dirtiness limit” getting hit (because we are in such a small space) before I have a 2-day project ahead of me. I am looking forward to having so little stuff to clean and organize, looking forward to the bulk of our “mess-desiring” to happen outside in nature. It will feel so healing to me to have such a small space to be responsible for. Having said that, most of the space in the RV will be for the kids, because I want them to be able to keep the things they are not ready to get rid of right now.
I am excited about living aligned with my super simple self :))
So, I guess to put it simply: I feel like the weight of this stagnant unauthentic life is what is ailing me, and the remedy will be to follow my minimalist gypsy heart.
Things to do on the Road
This is a compiled list that I am very excited about!!!!!!! This is what we have thought of so far….
Foremost, just BE.
Even if we do absolutely nothing, if we are happy, it’s all good :))
In addition, we can:
Attend Gatherings
- unschooling conferences, like Rethinking Everything
- anime conventions
- hoop camp retreat
- fellow nomad gatherings
- “local” Pagan groups’ holiday celebrations
Visit Communes and Intentional Communities
Spend time really getting a feel for their lifestyles and see how they run things. I want to live communally someday, even if it is location independent :))))) In the very least, I know this will help me be the best family member I can be <3
Walks or Hikes in Nature
Self explanatory! We can play in parks of all kinds and spend days or weeks or however long it takes for us to get our fill :))
Explore Towns
- local hangouts or town info booths
- experience cultures
- listen to histories
- learn what they are famous for
- drive/bike down neighborhoods and look at houses/property
Meet People
- my online tribe (both from the wild zen tribe and other venues :))
- local unschoolers or homeschoolers (a local park day?)
- RV park
- farmers markets
Leave a Trail of Random Acts
- HILA is a Facebook group that stands for Hope, Inspiration, Love, Art — they make artful little things and randomly leave them to brighten someone’s day!!
- Yarn bombing — wow, beautiful. Plug it in to google images for some heart-melting fibre love! And see below for some of my favs :D
- Operation Beautiful — makes me cry <3
- and any other ways we can make people smile <3
Bucket Lists
oh, the fun we will have creating these lists and also checking them off!! Oh, talk about boundless opportunities!!!!
Okay, I can’t stand it! I must share some yarn bombing love!!!!!!!! (gathered from Google)
…Now it’s your turn! What other things are there to do while living on the road :D
Dream Big
If I’m gonna do it, do it right, right?
I am so ready to do this. I know that I don’t need a trial run, but I am hoping to be able to do it for Kass, so she will know we can come back if we don’t love it.
Timeline:
I am hoping to buy the RV in a month or 2, and be on the road a month or 2 after that (renovation time). My lease here is up in August, and I may even be on the road before that (hoping!).
My first 2 or 3 month voyage will be destination Oregon, to visit my soul sister, MB <3 And I plan to make the trip via visiting my other beloved tribesisters on the coast of California :))))) Then we will probably head back down here (visitng the sisters more inland California) to spend Yule/Christmas with family and let Kass decide at that point if she wants to stay on the road or not. We will say our goodbyes at that point (assuming Kass loves it as much as I know she will!) and head off for the grand adventure :)))))))))))))
I started a(nother) “Home on Wheels” journal. This one is permanent — I used one of my favorite journals that I had been saving for the right purpose. It is colorful (thank you, rainbow of highlighters) and organized (thank you, Office Depot, for satiating my craving for office supplies) and full of limitless potential for recording dreams of adventure :))))))))) It is already full of lists that are just jumping off the page, excited to become blog posts in the very near future :))
If you read this blog via e-mail, you might want to come check out the actual blog soon — I am going to make some fun changes to the links at the top of the page, including an “about us”, a tab about our rig (our RV), a library (for links to things), and a better preview of the Tribe :)) I’m so excited!!!!!
~~okay, so I totally cheated and took a break (a couple hours!) from finishing this blog post to go do that, and I am LOVEing the tabs :D Go check them out! — well, after you finish reading this post LOL Now, back to your regularly scheduled program…
I am excited about putting together a planner/organizer, including:
- a “to do” list (long term and short term stuff)
- a budget
- a simple map/atlas
- an address book (with some system of pinning tribesisters’ addresses in the map)
- and a calendar with events happening different places, birthdays of beloved ones, and a travel log of where we were and what we did
One of the first things I am going to do is start selling 99% of everything we own on Craigslist. I will probably not be selling most of Kassidy’s stuff, so she knows she really can return, if she wants to <3
I will also be finding ways to have fundraisers (garage sales, car washes, a going away party, wrapping up unfinished craft projects to sell, and whatever else I can come up with). I need to start saving up money for that rig!
I have a nice long list of things that need to be done before we can head out, so I will be ticking things off as fast as I can :))
This is so exciting! And I feel so optimistic and trusting again! I know we’ve got this!!!!! I know we can do this, and I know this is it :)))) And I know the universe will open up doors for us because I am saying “Yes! Yes! Yes!” to everything :))))))))))
Now, go explore those tabs :D
Rethinking Everything (not the conference)
So, I have been thinking about this whole living-on-the-road thing… hahaha, what an understatement :)) And no surprise, I am sure. I woke up the next morning looking into my closet (where my bed faces) and thinking, “By many people’s standards, this is a wonderful life…. but it’s not for me.” I am not meant to have all this stuff. It’s a weight I cannot bear, was not made to bear. I have lived out of a dufflebag with glee. THAT is the life for me.
So, I went and reread my last blog post and pulled out a few things that really stood out for me:
- a prettier cage — that is kinda what ANY stick house would be for me
- in the NOW, everything is fine — if I project this into the future, taking life moment by moment, I KNOW everything will be fine, regardless
- manifestational muscle — I need to work this muscle out, so that I can make my life what I truly dream it to be… I think I have been working my fear and negativity muscle out — I need my old habits back
So, I started thinking, my biggest fear is that living on the road is not going to be what I think it is, and I will have given all of this up for it. So, I decided I will consider a trial run. I won’t give up my free rent and such for 3 months, and I will live on the road and see if it is, indeed, what I think it will be. I like the option of that plan :)))
Then I started thinking about something else that I wrote in my last post: “why do I want to disconnect from this day-in-day-out?” And I realized that there is too much responsibility, too much weight. I was not made for this, regardless of what other people’s standards are. I am a minimalist to the core of me. I have not been living sustainably for me — I have been living too big, even though it could be described by others as simply. It’s not simple enough for me.
So, I started making a list of what I really need:
- a bed
- a bathroom
- a place to store and prep food
And then it crept in, while I was making that list: my fear of moving into the bus, my fear that I won’t be able to handle it was more from the primitive set up, than the simple one. I loooooooove simplicity, but partially because I am picky about the simple things I use. I can’t say I would be thrilled to empty a compost toilet after the novelty wears off (once or twice). I will probably miss cooking on a stove when my option is removed from my life. And I will surely need an electrical outlet where there isn’t one on a converted bus.
Then I thought, the Leapley’s RV really would be perfect for me…. It has a BIG bed (plenty big for the babies and me), a couch that converts to another bed (perfect for Kass — although, we might switch that arrangement out), a space for Noble’s play table, a dinette (table with 2 benches on either side), a kitchen with stove and oven and fridge and all, a bathroom with a shower, a large closet, and upper shelving. That is perfectly what we need (not too much or too little). The best oart about their RV is that I love the layout! It feels very open and spacious inside. Something like that with a diesel engine that I could convert to run on waste veggie oil would be ideal for us.
I really want something small, and I think a bus would be too big for us. I don’t want a house on wheels, I want a studio with a small loft on wheels. Not to mention, an RV the size of the Leapley’s (20+ feet), I could be very comfortable driving everywhere — I was a bit worried about how I would find parking in a parking lot in a gigantic bus. I drove a wheelchair bus for a living for 7 years, so I know I could get really cozy driving an RV, but a long long LONG bus would take too much work to do every little detail of life (like go get groceries or go to a laundry mat).
So, that was as far as I got to thinking yesterday. Well, except I searched RVs on Craigslist and got an idea of what I was looking at. I even found an RV like the one the Leapley’s have, for $2,700. I would have paid much more than that for the bus and getting it cozy inside, when all was said and done (you know, a toilet, a stove and fridge, etc). And this way, I can sell more of my stuff (instead of using it for the inside of the bus).
I am really excited about all of this thinking. And then my dear friend, Cindy Leapley, sent me the name of a page to “like” on Facebook, which brought me to the blog Gypsy Dreaming, where she talked about the stress of having to sell their house before hitting the road, and it made me realize how lucky I am to be renting before I go. And then it made me realize how lucky I am to be having free rent for now, so we are not spending money on rent that we could be spending on the RV. And how great it is to have time to get this all together without feeling like I am wasting money on rent that could be put into an RV. I like this angle :)))
So, here I am. I am prepared to give up the wonderful things that I love about living in a stick house here, the community I am just learning and loving, and our dear friends and family…. Everyone who hits the road has things to give up, and I am okay with not being happy about leaving some stuff behind. My life doesn’t have to be a total ease to give up for me to be available to do it.
Also, I was thinking, as I read a few road-living family blogs in the last couple days, that we can stay as long as we want to. I know most people take off from places after a few days or maybe a week or 2, but who says we can’t spend an entire month with a family that we love? Who says we can’t stay for 2 months, or however long it takes for the road to becon us again? We can have the best of both of those worlds, too! We can go whenever we want to and stay as long as we want to :)))))
If I was going to put a diesel engine in the bus, I can do that for an RV, too :)) It’s all good :)))
It really is all good :))))))))))))))
Maybe it is Mercury coming out of retrograde? But I feel free and prepared again :)))))
Speaking of “timing” — happy rebirth celebration day!!!! I am off to do the egg dying and egg hiding and basket filling thing :)
The Unlikely Monkey Wrench
Ding dang darn.
Yesterday, I had a wild surge of cleaning energy that I decided to direct at my garage (I have been shoving everything I don’t want from the house in there, and a garage sale was way overdue!). I had stuff pulled out into the back street into 2 piles: the stuff I was selling (which looked very appealing, I must say) and the stuff I was keeping (which looked like the garbage pile LOL Oh, the joy of unfinished projects!!). People were stopping by and asking if I was selling anything and peeking in at stuff. One nice neighbor bought all the clothes (bags and bags full for $5 haha) and baby stuff (she takes it to family in Mexico — I love it!!) and some odds and ends in the kitchen and house decor…
Another lady likes a shelf and wants me to hold it for her until she moves in next month. Her and I got to talking. I really liked her right off the bat. I’m so partial to loud and bold women, women who hug people just because that is what they do, women who talk about the things that pop up in their mind as they live life… So, this awesome Italian woman is moving in right across from my garage! And she has an 11-year-old self-identified free spirited daughter who is SO COOL and LOOOOOOOVEs anime.
And I am sitting here thinking, why is this tribe coming together in my backyard when I am ready to leave?
And I am thinking, was there a waiver in my energy that manifested this?
And I am thinking, what do I do with this unlikely monkey wrench?
And as I am hanging out with this awesome woman, a couple of the boys down the street stop by and explain to this woman that Kassidy is their stepsister because their mom adopted her as part of their family. I really love their mom, too. I felt an instant connection to her, too, that hasn’t waned <3
And I am still waiting to find out about this lump sum of money I was going to buy the bus with — it was supposed to take days for me to find out, and now I have learned it will be 6-9 weeks.
I guess I have some time to think and feel and experience and see….
It’s Time
My oldest daughter and I do this flip-flopped postition on road living. The last time I was so excited and ready to drop everything to live on an RV, my daughter realized we would not be able to take her entire collection of stuffed animals into the RV with us (3 big trashbags full) and so decided she wasn’t ready to do it. So, I supported her and tucked my dreams away. But I felt resentful when the house was a mess, knowing that if we were living in an RV, I wouldn’t be spending half my day cleaning. Stuff like that.
So, I decided to be happy where I am, and if that meant I wasn’t in an RV, it didn’t mean we couldn’t live simply as if we were in an RV. So, I simplified the house and have found myself SUPER happy in this home for the last couple months. My daughter, during the simplification process, made a few comments about being fine with living in an RV again, but by then, I was invested in completing this chapter of our lives (finishing out the lease here, at least).
Then I meet Tara and a couple amazing familes a month ago, and I reconnected with a dear family, the Leapleys, who I adored and missed during the months revolving around the birth of their 7th family member <3 Now, as I write this, the Leapleys AND one of the families from the gathering with Tara are prepping their RVs for move-in within the next few weeks. So, my embers were stoked, and I started researching again.
I have decided I want to go the bus conversion route (which would allow my daughter to bring all of her stuffed animals LOL). It is AWESOME what can be personalized inside of those beasts! I have it all planned out, like you can only imagine. Now, my daughter is talking about wanting to stay here again…. Of course.
So, I was thinking about it last night, and I have decided that I want to make this as consensual as possible, but I’m still moving forward. I am going to be as gentle and loving and involving as possible, but it’s time to get on this journey. I know it will be so amazing for our whole family that it will be worth the nudges. Hopefully, by the time it’s time to go, Kass will naturally be back on board with wanting to come again :))) She is going to love this adventure, and it’s going to be so good for her (and the rest of us). I’m not going to drag her kicking and screaming (if she felt adament about NOT going, we wouldn’t), but I just can’t base my decisions for my life and our family on her (geez it is hard to find a word that both validates her changing feelings and expresses the lack of investment in either decision…) “whims”? That’s not it, but I think you get the point.
So, I feel good about this choice. Making a decision, regardless of where she stands at this moment, felt very right to me. I am so glad that I finally feel so ready, so unwaveringly prepared. I feel like my bursting-out-of-my-shell-life is hanging on this thread. I have tried to figure out how to work it from the ground, but I am meant to fly.
So, without further adue… Let me introduce you to the big, purple bus we plan to liberate from her confinement (the owner hasn’t been able to travel in her for well over a year. She has just been parked)…

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| That is 11 windows!!!!!! The longest bus I know of on one body :))) Perfect for our motley crew :)) |

I have short-term plans and long-term plans. My first priorety is getting the engine converted to run on waste veggie oil (which will require switching out the gasoline engine in it currently, with a diesel engine and THEN converting to veg), so the inside will not undergo major construction until after that, except for the parts of the interior that make living in it necessary and enjoyable. I am planning minimal plumbing and minimal electrical, until the engine is done — every drop of gasoline feels like a waste of money when there is a free way, you know?
So, our bed is going to go in the back (probably have to take out the back third of the shelving, which will be recycled back into the interior), and we are going to bring a couch, a coffee table, a wicker trunk for the kids’ toys, and devote an area to holding “outdoor stuff” (a folding wooden picnic table and chairs, some bikes, hula hoops, etc). The shelving will be full of baskets holding our belongings, and I am going to make some upper shelving that holds the rods for curtains for all the windows, like this:
We will use a makeshift kitchen and bathroom, as long as I can stand it :)) I am going to find the cheapest way to have a floor that is comfortable and easy to clean like linoleum, and I am going to put up a curtain divider to make our bedroom more private, like this:
It’s going to be full of plants, like this:
It’s going to be so beautiful and simplistic <3 But the best part… It will be all mine to do whatever I want with. I’m not renting. I’m owning. …. Oh, the sound of that: I am owning! Oh yeh!!
She needs a name. Eventually, she is going to get a mural-of-a-paint job (curtesy of the kids’ dad, most likely), like this (but waaaaaaaay more purples and spirals and stars :)):
Eventually, she will have solar panels and tanks underneath so we can live off the grid. Someday, she will have wood floors, and a respectable bathroom and kitchen (maybe like this):
I want it to have a colorful gypsy kind of feel to it, like these:
Someday, you may see me and my kids set up like this:
But our bus would be MUCH cooler (and so would the stuff we were selling), and we would be gathered with our gypsy tribe caravan with all their wares, and the kids would be out front hula hooping or sword fighting (or both!), while the adults talked and danced and ate and dreaded each other’s hair and gathered wood for the night’s bonfire party….
Oh yeh…
I Get It
My fears about living in a home-on-wheels are not the typical ones that people have to process to be comfortable with something. I have already lived on the road, and my fears are tangled up with the stuff my mom carried around about our experience of it. We lived like a cat always lands on their feet — my mom attributed it to luck. It was a heavy weight for my mom to carry alone (single mama), and she finally broke under the strain of it.
I am afraid of breaking down somewhere I don’t want to be — not because of some random concern, but because this happened to us. My mom and my brother and I would get stranded at a relative’s house who didn’t approve of how my mom was living or parenting us, or at one of her boss’ houses, while we waited for money or work to come in.
My fears about what will happen after we don’t want to live in a bus anymore are rooted pretty deeply in what happened with us after transitions (stuff in storage in another state more than once, a crummy place to live)…
But I am not my mother, and our situation is so different from the ones I experienced as a kid, and the world is a very different place!
I was already on the path to trusting and having faith, but exploring these differences helped me really get it. I have no fears. …When I was pregnant with Najaia, I was petrified of what was ahead of us. I was 100% excited and I was 100% scared. I was afraid to bring her into the world, because once she was here, all the changes would begin. I was afraid those changes would move too fast for me. I didn’t have faith that it was going to happen at a comfortable rate and that the universe was conspiring in my favor.
I am trying to find my faith :))
Well, this was an adventure in finding my faith, but now faith has nothing to do with it — I have reasoned it out! Here it goes….
I am not my mother.
Let’s just keep it short and sweet and say that I am starting this journey from a place of confidence and intactness, and that I have peace and joy of presence in things like not knowing and impermanence. I have complete faith to surrender entirely to the adventure, and I am okay with investing every bit of everything into it and knowing that it will be successful. I don’t need a man or a partner to feel secure, and I don’t need the security my mom did. I surrender that security to the whims of the universe who conspires in my favor, to my tribe sisters and families who will always support and assist me, and to my inner self who will only be soaringly successful when I let go of fear and manifest and liberate the phoenix inside me.
Our situation will be so different than the one from my childhood.
Firstly, and most importantly, we will be travelling in our home, not in a van with a home filled with stuff and bills somewhere that we are responsible for. Everything will be in one nice neat space: our home, our vehicle, our responsibility. No rent elsewhere or stuff elsewhere. If we were to break down, everything our life revolves around is still right there. If we broke down somewhere we didn’t want to be (like those family members who weren’t our first pick for a stop), we are in our home, just with a different view than may be our favorite. If we are waiting for money to come in, we are still in our home. Everything we own and love is with us at all times, so whatever happens, we are at home.
Another huge difference between my mom’s travelling and our’s is that my mom had a handful of relatives in Oklahoma and Texas who didn’t approve of her to visit along the way, but I have an internet tribe who love and support us scattered all over the U.S.! And I am soooooooo good at tribes <3
The world is a very different place.
We have the internet! Need I say more? Okay, I’ll add some more :))
We have internet-connecting forums and information for people who live on the road (and those numbers seem to be more than ever), and those forum members help each other out — be it a fellow roadschooling family, or a single roadliving person who can recommend a campsite or diagnose an engine problem, provide a washer/dryer or point us in the direction of a trust-worthy mechanic. Internet forums for both “full-timers” and unschoolers are a tribe of themselves.
Speaking of a tribe of unschoolers. Unschoolers are like a secret society, and you are automatically in if you share the title and especially if you share the language :)) And wherever we go, there are bound to be unschoolers, or hippies (who are another secret society — or not so secret LOL). We can connect with tribe-members along the way, and they can direct us in their expertises of the area. Maybe we can set up a little gypsy camp and sell our wares? Who knows, but I DO know that unschoolers are sympathetic to our unconventional lifestyle and to our means to make ends meet in a variety of creative ways, and will do what they can :))
And I have an already established, already connected tribe sprinkled all over the U.S. (and beyond) who we can visit. Did I mention that already? Well, I can’t mention it enough. Those mamas are kinda my reason for hitting the road. My itenerary will be based on their locations <3 Our map will look like a series of beelines :)))
Lastly, the world is different because this is more common than ever, and businesses are supportive — so many businesses allow people to “boondock” in their parking lots. And the internet allows the opportunity to more easily purchase memberships to state parks and camp for free or cheap.
This is going to be MY exprience, not my mom’s <3 And I am so excited about that fact :)))
I Need My Approval
I just wrote this “note” on Facebook, titled “Dearest Facebook Friends and Family,”
I have flip-flopped back and forth, to and fro about my relationship with Facebook, about my interactions with all of you, but mostly over how much “me” I want to be with all of you. I have considered shutting down my Facebook account because it doesn’t feel whole to me, since I often censor myself to not offend more conservative loved ones. But then I think of how this is often the easiest way to connect with loved ones, and it is full of so much potential!
I live life intentionally, but I promise, I’m not here to intentionally offend anyone — I am here to be the best me I can be. Not only do I have the inherent right to do so, but if you are on my list, you love me, right? I hope you really love ME. If what I am saying does not resonate with you, I will certainly not be offended if you ignore me :))) I am not afraid of my ignore button :))
I plan to network here, and to shine the brightest me I can be. I am a star, afterall (Vanessa means “star” in Hebrew) — if I don’t shine, I die out, and I am tired of feeling faded and uncharacteristically depressed. I’m ready to burst out of this shell, so be prepared :))) I am loud and bold and eccentric and certainly not conservative. I am wild and outrageous. I LOVE ME! I love being me. I am like the most interesting person I know — I am so in love with me, and I will make no appologies <3 So, love me, too, or not. Jump in and dance with me, or stand on the sidelines. My life is a dance of wild abandon.
I know it’s not for everyone, and I am letting go of negative opinions about it all. I am going to embrace what rocks my world, and I am going to let go of opinions I have been carrying around, opinions that aren’t mine and don’t align with my values. I am going to release the shackles that are not benefitting me. Bursting through this glass ceiling is going to be the catalyst to my self-actualization, manifestation, and wild soaring success.
Oh, this ride is going to be quite an exciting adventure <3 I look forward to the tribe caravan :))
And then I started to flow through the release, and I wrote this:
I have been living a censored version of myself, wanting approval of others, but it has been causing me to not accept myself, which is more important to me. How can I even know whose approval matters, when I don’t have my own? I am prepared… for ridecule. I am prepared to not be understood or supported. I am prepared to look crazy and outlandish. And, once again, I am reminded that through the problem is my liberation! I am searching for what I need in the wrong places, and once I align with my insides and start living true to it, I will find everything that I need: support, approval, etc.
“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body,but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming — WOW– What a Ride!”
That Itch
You know that spot where you can scratch a dog’s belly and their leg starts thumping? No matter how long you scratch there, no matter how often. That’s road living for me right now.
It keeps coming up for me. It swells in waves, between my contentment with life as it is currently. I love my home, I do. I love my little yard, and I love the perfect amount of space we have for our stuff and ourselves and our cats and our dog. I love the stuff we own and how it fits so perfectly in our medium-sized house and looks so beautiful <3
And then another friend in my delicious circle informs me that her family is hitting the road, and I jerk into “how can I make this happen” mode. I have planned, I have dreamed, I have twisted and turned the whole thing around in my head and on paper. I could make a home out of any space on the road now LOL I can make the most out of an RV, but I would love to build a home atop a trailer frame, or even convert a bus. I might even be willing to go by van. Ideally, I would want to do it, powered by waste veggie oil and solar panels. I would love to boondock indefinitely, so we would need to be self-sustaining. Oh yeh, that’s what gets my juices flowing!
I think we are so simple. We feel so simple, but who knows what we would really need for the long term, you know? What would we need as the seasons turn? How many days a week could exploring the outdoors feed our soul before we needed lots of time and space indoors to rejuvinate (and would we have that)?
Living on the road isn’t something I can imagine loving — it’s something I have loved. For 3 years when I was a teen, my mom and my brother and I travelled the US in our minivan. Maybe that is why the itch is so insatiable… When I read the blogs of roadschoolers or walk around a friend’s RV (they will be heading out May 1st), I feel the freedom, the adventure, the slow simple living. I feel the memories I shared with my family of origin, and I feel inspired to create ones with my own children.
Oh, how delicious to spend less time cleaning and more time slowly exploring. Don’t get me wrong, I really love cleaning, especially now that I feel I have found the secret to zen cleaning. I love cleaning my house and my belongings. I don’t feel like it is a waste, anymore. Wanting to clean less doesn’t come from thinking anything is a waste (the meaning is in me, and I find meaning in lovingly caring for our beloved things) — it just comes from the innate lack of maintaining stuff while we are maintaining adventure and our selves. If everyone has 100% of a 24/7 week, what percentage do we spend doing what? If you live on the road, can you imagine what the time and days look like? I can. I have. I can’t stop thinking about it.
I live in San Diego, and I have free rent. This isn’t about vacation scenery or cheap living — it is about adventure for me, and it is about owning what I live in (I’m so tired of renting). It’s about spending a day in the dry desert and then the night in a humid forest. It is about spending an entire day walking around a national park and knowing that we could stay there endlessly if we wanted, or we could move on in an hour if we choose to find something else. It’s about ensuring my kids see fireflies in their lifetime, and the red plateaus of New Mexico, and the magnificent Rocky Mountains from the valleys of Colorado, and the humid pebbley shores of Florida, and as many historical and geographical sites as our interests can and want to pursue.
I want to go slow. I want to see everything. Maybe a city or so at a time. I want to visit the amazing mamas who I have met in online forums and carried in my heart (and my cell phone/email). I want to give my children what I had, and even better :))) I’m so excited about what this would mean for my kids, what it means for their lives and for their memories and for their sense of selves and life lessons. I’m excited to watch my babies fall asleep at night after a good hard day of living. I’m excited to see the road in the front window of our home-on-wheels. I’m excited to hear the kids yell, “Here!” as they peer out the window at a potential destination, somewhere we have never been and will explore together. I’m excited to design our lives, over and over, with every new journey and every new stop. I am excited about the impermanence of it all and the lasting bits of it, too. I’m excited about the photos we will take :)))) I am excited about the people we will meet and see. I’m excited about the foods and the cultures.
I am noticing a pattern in me when it comes to some big life choices. I draw them in through Law of Attraction, and my fears push them away — so I get this weird, exhausting experience that has not put me in a home-on-wheels yet.
You want to hear the coolest thing I thought of? A Tribe Caravan. If I had a tribe (basically, a commune or intentional community on wheels), I would do it in a heartbeat. My fears revolve around being a single mom with 3 kids alone on the road. I just feel like I need at least one other adult to share the load, you know? If we break down, I need someone else to help fix the home or watch the kids. If we boondock in the wrong place and I am exhausted from a day of exploring and caring for kids (alone), I might need someone else to drive or something, you know? That is just the bare minimum of why I would *need* a tribe on wheels, but all the reasons I would *want* a tribe on wheels is a much more important and extensive list.
Can you imagine? The benefits of a tribe AND the benefits of roadliving? I gush-and-then-melt at the prospect. And then we could figure out how to live even more sustainably together, like maybe a garden on wheels? Can you say permculture on the road? If there were enough of us, we could set up our own little market/fair and sell our handmade crafts and perform hula hooping and sacred mama dance circles — we could be like a travelling Rethinking Everything Conference, a travelling gypsy band, a travelling farmers market/craft fair, a travelling everything-our-favorites-all-in-one! The list is never-ending and full of limitless potential.
Maybe this is my calling? I am drawn to the road and drawn to a tribe. I don’t know of other roadliving families doing this (and if there are, PLEASE tell me about them). True gypsies. Powered by wanderlust and other sustainable sources.
How do I make this dream real?
Wild Sacred Soul 