Moving DAY!!

Hard to believe we are moving out ALREADY!! Time flies. We have loved it here and I am trying to savor moments with the neighbors, the view, the grassy hill, the hikes, et al amidst all the chaos and stress of packing. And the kids have had the stomach bug and are home under our feet - which amps up the "I'm going to LOSE MY MIND" stress level. The "KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON" sticker in the kitchen was such a good purchase that I went back to the Dollar Store and got another one for the bus!!! Luckily, a good walk in the sun and the spring air usually soothes the savage beast(s). AND the kids are learning a TON about how much stuff they have and how much space they have to work with and how to make the two meet.

It is QUITE a bit easier to move when you are going from small apartment to even smaller bus...which is also just parked in the driveway!!!

Georgia is also on our minds. We love you guys and are sad not to see you so soon :( Unless you wanna see Yellowstone with us ;P

They aren't sisters at all :) Too many injuries, maladies, surgeries, etc have been dogging our progress as well. We had hoped to do some rebuilding in the bus BEFORE moving all our stuff into it, but only got a few minor things worked out. However, there is still time before the trip (planned leave date sometime mid-June right now) and what we don't manage will either get left off the list or done on the road!

I am blessed to have an actual Care Bear and Jedi Warrior helping me - one with positive thinking and the other with mind control. How could it not all work out?!?!? Well, I'll try to post another update soon. Thanks for following our inspired craziness and we promise more exciting things to come!! Be well and do well. S.

Consumers!

I promised a blog on CONSUMERISM!!! Well, now seems fitting since we are returning to the bus after six months in this apartment. What a lesson! Going from a house to a bus was a HUGE change...for a long time the whole front of the bus was stuffed with STUFF as we adjusted to what we needed and what we didn't need. To some degree this never ended. There was always this exchange of what came in the door and what went out the door. Once in the apartment, though it is truthfully not much larger than the bus, we expanded to fit our surroundings. It is amazing how much stuff you collect in just six months! I can see how useful moving frequently can be - it really forces you to purge again and again. Maybe it was the stairs here that helped me notice this, but it was hard to come into this house without dragging bags and bags of STUFF in all the time. Groceries, library books, things from storage, projects from school, un-ending bags of whatever from mom's house, etc. Again, this exchange of stuff in and out that was CONSTANT and proportionate to the size of where we are living. It is so amazing to witness your own consumerism first hand. I think of all the packaging involved in all of these things, the transportation and gas of it all, the shear stress of manipulating and managing it all. But this is the process we have committed to - viewing our excess first hand and trying to learn how to thin out. To use and need less. And, at the same time, not to participate alternately in a disposable economy where we can just throw it away and buy another when we need it. This really takes quite a bit of thought and planning. One thing we are struggling with is our storage space. Now that we are revisiting what we jammed into storage in the fall, much of it is getting given away or sold off. It takes some time for you to realize what you can and cannot live without. Slowly we come to a place that is a teetering balance of what we are holding onto in storage so we don't need to buy more of it later, versus the cost of maintaining storage space. We are not fierce coupon people like I have seen on those shows with 45 bottles of shaving cream they got for free, so luckily we aren't trying to use that stuff up. But there is the burden of useful furniture and clothes handed down so as not to require entire new wardrobes with every growth spurt.

We have also had the luxury of water and heat included in our rent for the past several months. After counting every drop that came out of our small water tank and using an electric heater sparingly on the bus, we were certainly less miserly and bigger consumers in this apartment than we probably would have been still on the bus. We just filled out a water usage chart for the last week for Girl Scouts and I am excited to revisit it once back on the bus to see the startling difference. I justify all of this by noting that this endeavor is, first off, an experiment in awareness and at least we are trying to bring awareness to our CONSUMERISM. And, secondly, we are living on so much less for part of the year that, for now, it off-sets some of our overages.

As for the bus, we are gearing up to get back in her by May 1st. We had a small hitch with the brakes on one side freezing up after such a long crazy winter. But, with the determined ingenuity of my husband (the un-ending patience of his wife:) and the help of several dial-a-friend/lifelines with mechanical questions she is on the road once again!!!

We still welcome any and all painters who would like to add to the bus mural. This photo is where the famous surf image is destined to appear :) Bus cross-country tour should begin sometime in late June so don't delay! We welcome everything from ocean life, garden activity, roof painting, sun re-coloring (too yellow - looks like a school bus!), to fun song lyrics and sayings all around the bus in sharpie! As for the name, we are currently writing a poem as a family to help us flesh it out a bit better! I will post the poem when we have finished it. Thanks for staying tuned. Check back for more pics, thoughts, and even a podcast or two :) We shall update you soon. Keep on rollin'!

Small Apartment Living

We finally have Internet in the apt so I can actually blog again!! This was the view from our apartment window in the fall. Small apartment living is definitely its own experience - and I'm sure our perspective on it is quite dependent upon three things: the young ages of our children, the fact that we moved from something EVEN smaller, and that we are holed up during a particularly snowy winter. Having said all this, this is not actually a value judgement one way or another on our current living situation - simply factors that make a big difference. So what is this life like right now. Well, while the place is a bit roomier than our bus, it is NOT custom built to suit our needs or our furniture sizes. This makes the arrangement of daily life somewhat more cumbersome and awkward. But we simply are not going to run to Target or Lowes for that perfect fitting dresser or bookshelf only to leave here in six months! Also, the kids all share the big bedroom here. This causes many an issue since they were so happily given their own small spaces in the bus. I find many more squabbles here when privacy is not respected - which is more difficult to do with a curtain. Perhaps I was also better at reinforcing the importance of personal space in the bus - or maybe it just became extremely obvious to them - but they seemed to encroach upon each others' space less in the bus.

So why did we choose this space? Well, primarily there was a good feeling about it when talking to the landlord on the phone. Honest. Secondly, when I stepped out of the car to see it, it smelled exactly like the dairy farm I lived on in Germany...like cow manure. Also honest. When I showed it to the kids at a later date they said in excited voices,"This place smells like Germany!" Winner, winner, chicken dinner!!! :) Also obviously big on the list of pros were the price and the inclusion of heat, hot water and snow plowing with the prospect of a long, heavy winter. But MOST OF ALL for the space to run and the view.

It is amazing how important aesthetic is...as I am coming to learn. Until now I have been trying hard to incorporate the perspective of "live where you are" and find gratitude in whatever it is. But now that gratitude includes, not only seeking out aesthetic where you choose to live - in whatever ways you can afford it - but also creating that aesthetic for yourselves. When I am finding the walls cave in on me from the noise level or chaos, looking out the window and seeing that horizon adds just a moment of breath, space and calm.

This I hoped would sustain us through the long days of winter.

And so far it has proved quite the right temporary space for us!

There is certainly all kinds of sledding and snow play to be had right out the kitchen window. There is a pond for skating a cornfield away.

We live right on a main thoroughfare. While in the beginning the semis in the middle of the night blazed by so fast I sat straight up in bed thinking we were re-enacting Metallica's "Enter Sandman" music video, we are all quite used to it now and I think this will prove useful for our summer sojourn on the road. Also, I can lay in bed in the wee morning hours listening for how fast the cars are going by and the number of plows and make an accurate guess of whether there is a snow day to be had or not - a skill I am quite proud of!

Even the man who does not love the cold and the wee fairy girl have gotten in on the fun. She now sleds all by her self and has demanded I buy her real ice skates, not the double-bladed ones that strap to your boots. Yep, two years old ladies and gents!

Is the snow getting old? Not gonna lie, when combined with the zero and negative temps that have occurred this week, it does make it difficult to love it as much.

So what happens when we cannot go out? Well, the best thing we have found is that we can go to ANY library in this area and take out and return books and they will return them to the appropriate library for us!! This means: a) we take out a zillion books every two or three days and they gorge themselves on literature and b) we can swing into any library we are near and drop off/pu books. It is an AWESOME arrangement that more people should be aware of.

Other things currently occupying our time (the short list):

chin videos, learning the "sid shuffle" and other group dances, science experiments, DIY videos on YouTube involving how to flip a fedora onto your head (et al), whittling,

stuffed animal plays, baking, owl crafts, song writing,

dot to dots, Harry Potter book discussions (always), hernias, editing movie trailers,

gymnastics/aerial tricks with Daddy, learning the keyboard,

beat-boxing, Phoenix chasing and, of course, the ever-popular Legos.

The distance to this apartment from all the other places we need/like to be, however, is...well, not precisely a total negative as I can see the benefits, but a major adjustment. It has been good to have some distance to focus, and to appreciate where we were previous to here, but MUCH of my time is spent driving in circles. While I can see now how this has trained the baby to be perfectly happy on extended car rides - something that will come in handy this summer in the bus - I am NOT excited about all the money we spend on gas or the fuel that gets used. I will not get into all this now, though, as it is part of a consumer rant for another blog (the consumers being us ourselves!).

So, the plan is still remain here until the spring, fix up and move back into the bus and, when school ends in June, HIT THE ROAD!!! PREPARE YO-SELVES!!! HERE WE COME!!!! We have much fun in store for you all so STAY TUNED!!! PEACE, THE RODEO

Phase II - Living the BUS!!!

Wow! What a world wind that was! The down was that I couldn't really take the time to work out the Internet situation; thus, I haven't been updating you all. However, living in a campground was a great experience for all of us. For the kids they had a playground (two actually) right outside the bus doors. I enjoyed kicking them out to play while I got things done and could see them from every window in the bus ;P We got a really good routine going with school on weekdays like anyplace else and shifting gears on weekends to unwind a bit and clean BUS!!

Every weekend the bus got stripped of all linens and rugs, etc, and was totally cleaned and reorganized to prepare us for the week. While things could get backed up and sloppy pretty quick in such a small space, it also really forced me (and them) to reorganize and keep things neat. Laundry had to be done every two days to keep it from tripping us up, trash had to go out almost daily (which I routinely forgot about on the roof of the car to take to the dumpster and luckily found it still there when we arrived at school).

The size also required us to figure out personal space in a very real way that I found beneficial. When we were on each others toes it was very quickly time to change the scene - kick someone outside or find a new game/activity. Even for the adults! We frequently found ourselves on different wavelengths and space was always the answer. And trying not to take it personally. I think maybe things become so much more evident quicker in a small space.

Much like our previous life at what we call "THE COMPOUND", the campground was always active. Life in a campground definitely has a culture to it that I never realized - the people that come for the season, that live there year round, that come just on weekends to party and those just passing through on their way someplace. It was fun watching people come and go and always new and exciting. There were always kids around to play with - especially our new homeschooled friends from Missouri living there temporarily. We were definitely sad to leave them and hope to connect up with them again soon.

Another benefit that we anticipated and paid off was our proximity to nature. I saw the stars more often in the bus than I ever did in the house. It is not the fault of the house - on the contrary, it provided me with such a comfortable place to be that I didn't leave my comfort zone. In the bus, the outdoors becomes another room - we ate outside on the picnic table, the fire pit became our fireplace and our TV, we were constantly on walks and hikes in the woods and trails they had there and we even trekked to a bathroom for showers every night or two while our bus bathroom is still in transition. I love hearing the rain on the roof, seeing the sunrise through the windows all around the bed and even feeling the crisp air in the mornings.

We were even blessed with a beautiful day to visit Cherry Plain State Park with Grandma and Nonno.

So it seems like I am painting too fantastical a picture of it all. What were/are the downs of all of this? Well, we are still who we are and, as a family, we are loud and each have our issues. These don't go away because you move into a bus. In fact, they get a bit magnified :) However, the situation really forces you to face the reality of things and let go what you cannot change. We do miss being so close to the rest of our family and neighborhood/compound - they were sooooo much a part of our everyday lives, but a little distance gives you a great sense of appreciation and perspective. Cold - it is getting colder. Rapidly. It got down to around 35 degrees F or so in the campground at night and 31 degrees F here at Mom's house. While we have a heater, we tried not running it all the time. So the kids certainly jumped out of bed in the morning and in front of the heater! While I have not loved my hands waking up slowly in the mornings due to the cold and I am looking forward to moving into our apt for the winter that has HEAT, I am impressed that the kids (and my husband and I!) have accepted the chilly mornings without much whining. I'm shocked, really. I have actually enjoyed having to use the public bathroom for showers, coin laundry, a small fridge and boiling water to do dishes. All of these things have given me a good sense of gratitude for conveniences I have had in my life and very clearly outline our water and energy usage for us. We are truly sad to be leaving the bus so soon - it feels like we are just really getting into a groove with it - but we need to go indoors for the winter and do some work on repairs/changes/updates to prepare "The Natterjack bus" for any spring/summer travel/living we may end up doing in her. We shall report to you from our new apt in a farmhouse near the VT border!!! Thanks for all of your support, love and attention. May your lives be filled with living! We look forward to updating you more soon. BE WELL, S.

FINALLY......the TOUR!

OK, so we have been offline for some time. But here is a quick link to the TOUR - CLICK HERE that you all have been waiting for!!! MUCH to tell you about PHASE II - BUS LIFE IN A CAMPGROUND. Sadly, though, now is not the time for these meanderings as I am in a public place stealing Internet while a little tiny beast tears the place up :) Please feel free to post any questions about the tour and we will get back to you soon with a TON more PICS and STORIES about CRAZY BUS LIFE!!!! TTFN :)

Stillllllllllll cleaning out!!!!

OK, no real walk through yet. I know, I know...we promised and everyone is clamoring for it, but we have to nail down some loose ends before we give you the full on tour. We are learning soooooo much. And even though there is a TON still in storage we feel soooooo much lighter!!! It is amazing that it takes ten minutes to pick-up the entire bus. And my husband and I have had some AMAZING time at night sipping tea, eating cookies (don't tell the kids) and reading poetry to each other. WHAT!?!?!?! How crazy great. Here are some pics to tide you over:

These two are ready to GO!!!! But not quite packed up here yet.

Loading up the jockey boxes. Totally handy.

Hook-ups installed by JR. Nothing like cutting into the side of a bus to make you think about what you are doing!

Installed Bamboo bench built by JR for Japanese style eating area. Table still to come.

Installing the stick faux-wood floor. Easy to put in EXCEPT for all the crazy cuts we have to make to get it to fit!!!!

DONE!!! And exhausted burning the candle at both ends. No wonder my arm went numb for days. But it looked totally beautiful...until P got at it with a permanent marker the next day. DOH!!!!

Working on locks for the roof hatches. Who put him up here?!?!

Chalkboard paint on the bunk beds and the cupboards.

Tree bunk rails installed - probably my favorite thing that I made on the entire bus. Though they still need latches.

The bee going to board the bee bus.

Nonno and P prepare for blast off! Here is a quick look More to come...especially now that we are in phase II of our adventure. Thanks for all the love and we will see you all soon maybe!!! I will leave you with this: