Countdown to BLAST OFF!

We are getting rather close to our DESIRED departure date (JUNE 11th!!!) and trying not to totally STRESS OUT! If the JOURNEY is the DESTINATION, then I know that these days are as important as the ones to come. Today was an excellent reminder of this. It poured BUCKETS of rain on the roof and as we ran in circles getting things done and mopping up the water streaming in through the roof hatch (I think there are maple tree helicopters jammed in the vents - gotta check that!) I caught myself and my tone with the kids. I went into mom and dad's house to take a break and interact with everyone and it was a moment I will carry with me always. The kids were laughing and engaging with my parents and my parents were equally enjoying themselves in ways that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't parked in their driveway. I may inadvertently paint our lives as being rosy and sunshiny trying to focus on the positive and the inspiration, but there are definite swings as with every family. This, however, was a moment that made it all seem important and worthwhile. Confirmation that we are on the right track - which is not something you get all the time. At least not if you (me) are too caught up in everything else.

These two, of course, share a brain. Equally enjoyable to spending time with my parents has been spending time with the various community around them. Their friends and neighbors, most of whom I've known all my life. Being here on a daily basis means visiting with the same people they visit with - something I wouldn't do unless at a family wedding, funeral, etc. How could I not consider these people my friends? They know me often better than I know myself. And spending time with them is like wearing familiar gloves or breathing in the scents of a childhood blanket. I am so blessed to know them now as an adult.

And there is always the ever-precious cousin time. (Ask me sometime about my outfit here. It is an AWESOME story!!!)

We have decided to sneak this one onto the bus with us :)

There is also the occasional visit from the animal world. Luckily so far it has only been a dog, a sparrow, some ants/bees/spiders, and a few chickens and roosters. We have even gotten an egg laid in the back window by our bed...twice! Talk about breakfast in bed!

The roof of the bus got hosed off and scrubbed.

Some muddy children got hosed off.

My husband got hosed off.

And then there was paint.

And a little man far too eager to assist.

Right now we are just trying to streamline things and get ourselves in a good position for the end of the school year and the shove off. Adding some shelving and storage, thinning out non-essentials, fixing a leaky toilet, paperless billing, adding an occasional paint splotch. Should you wish to see the bus we may not have time to entertain, but would love to see you just the same if you don't take offense to us working while you're here. Any adults interested in adding paint to our work-in-progress bus canvas, feel free. The paint is on a wagon in the barn and there are some roof sun rays that need painting, a Ganesh trunk on the front, some faeries, bugs, flowers, fish, etc. Children also welcome who don't require my supervision or direction (I already have too many of those and cannot divert my attention!).

Thanks for walking through our crazy woods with us! I'll keep you posted. See you on the trip side!!!

Roxaboxanatterbuswhat?!?!

Apartment is empty of everything and we are back on the bus full-time! Even the sleeping baby, though she doesn't quite have the hang of it and, while she LOVES being in Gramma and Nonno's driveway for a bit, she has been asking when we are going to go home. :(

I know for a fact it is these fabulous neighbors that she misses cause she asks for them. Thanks ladies for all your care and companionship!

Being back in the bus feels like slipping on an old pair of cowboys boots. It just fits so well. The kids definitely need constant change to keep them challenged, involved and out of each other's hair!

There was quite a bit, and still is, organizing that has to happen to fold us back into compact living. Much trial and error of what we need now for school still, for cold weather, for being parked at Gramma's with no water/sewer, and then for being on the road STARTING JUNE 11TH!!!! It approaches so rapidly that stress is not even a word I can speak without a sick feeling in my belly...mostly because it is compounded by some ugly dentist and doctors appt. before we leave. But that is a story for another day. The next week or so I will be painting the roof...all are welcome!!! :)

So the kids, JR and I have been working on an official name for the bus. We started writing this crazy poem in an effort to find our way to it. The poem involves references to various favorite children's stories that involve oddball homes, creative living situations or just fun bus uses. I will scatter the poem among the pics, though it won't space or format it the way I want it. Feel free to write with additional verses or to guess which stories are referenced in these verses: Roxaboxanatterbusblack Devoid of flavor and built by Jack Roxaboxanatterbusblue A boy with some sheep and a mom in a shoe Roxaboxanatterbusred Wolves are all in and the pig out instead Roxaboxanatterbusgrey One home rebuilt and one blows away Roxaboxanatterbusgreen The friendliest earthship that you've never seen Roxaboxanatterbuspink A squash and a squeeze to make you rethink Roxaboxanatterbusbrown She and her farmhouse spin right out of town

Roxaboxanatterbusyellow Life in a factory with this sweet fellow. Roxaboxanatterbusgo A Magical ride and the Friz runs the show Roxaboxanatterbusfree A house in a wagon or out on the prairie Roxaboxanatterbussleep On granny's belly we snore nice and deep Roxaboxanatterbuscuddle A knit place for mole, rabbit, hedgehog to huddle. Roxaboxanatterbusdream Of faraway places where the wildest beasts scream

Roxaboxanatterbusswim Window agape for a fish to fly in Roxaboxanatterbusspin I wish we could go there and they’re off again Roxaboxanatterbussand She builds up a castle, they set sail for land Roxaboxanatterbusfloat Each Tuesday is different, Frog, pig, maybe goat

Roxaboxanatterbuswee The adventure begins and we live where we be! See you soon on the open road! S.

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