Finally! On our way!

We got on our way in good time.  Our first stop was lunch in Portland with our traveling companions, John and Peggy.  Somewhere along the way, I started to feel yucky. Luckily, an urgent care was 10 minutes away from the restaurant AND it is in my healthcare system (which I have until the end of Sept.). So after lunch I went to Mercy Hospital’s urgent care, was tested, examined, and prescribed medication for a UTI.  Seven minutes away I picked up the prescription.  In total, only a 1 1/2-hour delay and we were back on the road.  Amazing.  This was an awesome experience…everyone was very professional and caring.

It was dusk when we reached Harold Parker State Forest in Andover, Mass. where we’ll have a sibling get-together before heading away from New England. The lots are spacious and quiet with water at each site.

Bill and I haven’t quite gotten used to the idea that we are no longer employed! But we’ll adjust, I promise!

The Countdown

We are down to our last 10 days at Shady Oaks! Preparations for the trip have been progressing smoothly.

Bill has been busy finishing the cabinets where the old TVs used to live.  It’s great to have 2 more spots for indoor storage. One for laptops and the printer.  We added a fun map of the US that is a scratch off version.  You scratch off each state as you visit it.  Just like a scratch off ticket!

 

The back cabinet sports a framed picture of my favorite flowers: lupines. Inside is a massive amount of room, so I moved my crafting materials up there, along with extra bedding and other bulky items. It’s so much neater in the bedroom now, with everything stowed away.  In a small space, any amount of clutter makes the whole area seem trashed.

In February, I listed my top 5 challenges.  Here are the solutions we have in place.

1. I’m not retirement age (yet). So I will have to buy health insurance until I find work out west.
   I decided to buy the COBRA insurance my employer offers by law.  Obamacare wasn’t any cheaper for our family.  I can use COBRA for 18 months if I need to.
2. We plan to move our belongings from a 3 bedroom house and garage into a Class A RV. Downsizing and purging is required.
   Although somewhat painful, the downsizing and purging went fine.
3. We will want to tow a vehicle and neither of the vehicles we own is towable. We need to sell our cars and buy a “toad.”
   We decided not to buy a “toad.”  We had chosen to just rent a car if we felt the need to have one. But later John and Peggy asked us if we wanted travelling companions to caravan with us.  Yes! AND, they are pulling a toad!  We have successfully sold both of our cars and are driving borrowed vehicles until we leave Sept. 2.
4. Our house is in a town where the largest employer (a paper mill) closed its doors a year ago. The housing market may be soft.
   Amazingly, we sold our house 6 weeks ago after a relatively short time on the market.
5. Leaving my family here on the east coast is going to be very difficult.
   Still working on this.  I’m going to miss my kids and grandkids a lot.  We’ve been trying to get together as much as possible this summer.  The plan is to video chat and telephone, utilizing the technology that is available these days.  I have an idea for postcards to the grandkids I’ll elaborate on later. I keep telling myself that there are many grandparents whose kids have moved away with the grandkids.  We’re just doing it backwards!

 

Can't believe we're almost ready to blast off!

Thirty days out

Who knew we would get to the 30-day mark?

We have closed on the house and our youngest daughter has moved to California to finally live under the same roof as her Marine husband.  The newlyweds are doing fine and recently got a puppy.
Life in the RV park is interesting and we're grateful to have a place to live until we go on the road. But we can't help but wonder about the attraction to staying in park all summer in a vehicle with wheels...and not put them in motion until fall comes.  At least we have taken 2 trips this summer.  one to Cobscook Bay State Park and one to Naples, Maine for a family get-together.

 

We're obviously anxiously waiting for our trip to begin, but we really need to still be employed by our company on Sept. 1. Why?

1. The company will pay our health insurance until the end of the month in which you leave. That means "free" health insurance for the month of September.
2. We are heading to the southwest, among other places. August in the desert is HOT.  So September it is.

 

Ok, yes.  Bill is still putting the finishing touches on the interior of “The Cabin.”  The removal of 2 giant CRT televisions in the front and back of the RV left 2 large storage cabinets.  Our flat screen TV is mounted to the right of the front door.

The front cabinet is now outfitted to accommodate the printer and our 2 laptops. 

The faux kindling on the outside of the door is contact paper… easier than trying to match the elusive cherry stain.  The back cabinet is under construction, but I hope to store craft items and extra blankets in the huge space left by the removal of the TV.

Although we got rid of a massive amount of our "stuff", there are still some major pieces to be sold.

Bill had a utility trailer he used to take garbage to the dump, etc.  As luck would have it, a guy who came to our yard sale asked if he could buy it, but we had to say, "No, but maybe later," as we were still using it to haul trash.  The guy left his name and number and actually drove from Farmington pick it up a few days ago.

And there are the 2 cars.  My 2012 Hyundai Sonata is on the market and I plan to drive my daughter's car until we go on the road.  Once it sells, Bill will put the older Chevy Malibu on the market.  If it sells before we leave, I hope my co-workers will give me rides to work so Bill can use the "spare" car.

Hoping!

Go where you wanna go....

This afternoon, Bill and I drove over to the "sticks and bricks" house to make sure we had everything cleared out.  We’ve been living in “The Cabin” (RV) at a nearby campground since April 24.   This allowed us to let potential buyers have access to view the property at any time.  No dog barking, no cat box worries, no chance of clutter.

On Wed. we’ll close on the house, turning the keys over to the new owners.  Our walk through was a little bittersweet, since it is where our life together began 16 years ago. The spaced seemed empty and without life. On the other hand, it felt as though it were waiting to be filled with new life.

Our younger daughter graduated from college, got married 2 days later, and recently moved to California to be with her Marine husband.  Life is very fluid right now.

Our departure date is common knowledge now that we have told our bosses we are leaving on a long trip Sept. 2.  Our plan is to slowly travel across the country, living in our RV, and carrying a limited amount of belongings, having sold, donated, or discarded anything that doesn’t spark joy in us.  The overwhelming majority of people have been very excited for us and expressed that they wish they could do that or know someone who did that or just “I’m so happy for you!”  A very few people have looked at us like we had rocks in our heads.

The exhilaration is breathtaking sometimes.  The unknown path is both exciting and scary. Leaving my older children and 2 grandchildren is saddening.  But the world is a much smaller place than it used to be.  We have video chat, email, texting, blogging, and airplanes that are safer than road travel.  We’ll still be a family and can be close in other than geographical ways.

We have visitors this week in the lot next to ours.  Peggy and John, Bill’s sister and her husband, are here so we can plan a little, but not too much.  We are caravanning with them on our trip.  The only concrete plan we have is Albuquerque on Sept. 29.  A country concert for them and a mass ascension of hot air balloons on Oct. 1.

I have a list of must sees and would-like-to-sees and I’ll elaborated later.  But none of us wants to lock ourselves into a set schedule or itinerary.  This is about letting life take us where it will.

Make it your own

When we bought our 2008 Challenger, one thing I read (I read a lot about RVs) was that you shouldn't change the interior of an RV too much.  Somehow this would make it more difficult to sell in the future. But what if the interior was too ugly to live with?
Our rolling cabin had, in my humble opinion, a very dated interior.  The curtains were a heavy maroon fabric with gold embellishments in the shape of crazy flowers.  Something I would imagine seeing in a French bordello parlor. The theme was carried through the "great room", to the bathroom, and into the bedroom.
The first thought I had was, "Those just have to go."  When I started inspecting the window treatments, I realized this could be a huge project, because each wooden valance was covered with padding and cloth.  Added to that, the window blinds were mounted inside each valance. It would require removing each valance, stripping off the cloth, and stapling new cloth smoothly over each valance.
Maybe I'm lazy, but I decided to simply cover each existing window treatment with curtain material we actually liked.  I tackled the bedroom first.  I covered the existing valences with a cheerful blue spriggy pattern.  I also created a kind of slipcover for the headboard in blue.
In the "great room," I scoured the internet for a cheerful, but earthy material.  This really brightened up the window treatments. 

However, the dinette cushions had a stripe of the ugly maroon/gold fabric in them.  I tried a few different things, but ended up making slipcovers for the cushions out of a neutral colored cloth.
Both the great room and the bathroom had wallpaper borders to complement the old décor.  For the bathroom I found a border with little cabins on it.  When I tried to strip off the old border, it was stuck on there so well, I doubted I could get it off without making a big mess of it.  So I put the new border right over the old one!  (Don't tell anyone!)

It was harder to find a border for the great room that actually blended in with my new colors.  I ended up buying a roll of contact paper (!) that looks for all the world like old farmhouse bricks.  I just love it.... looks like it's always been there.

We have other modifications to do.  I'll keep you posted!

Does This Spark Joy?

Well, we have a long way to go, but the downsizing and purging has begun.  We're moving into our RV in 2 weeks.  Our mantra is, "If it doesn't fit in the RV, it ain't going."
The biggest kick in the pants I had was the purchase of a book in January 2015.  It's called "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing"  by Marie Kondo.
I originally bought it to get my clutter under control... a New Years resolution.  But as I followed the simple instructions, I quickly realized it was not like any other decluttering book or article I'd read.  This was a life-changing way of looking at my "stuff."
The very basic premise is that you hold each of your belongings in your hands and ask yourself, "Does this spark joy in me?"  If it doesn't, it is discarded, donated, or sold.
The first wave for me was clothing.  I was instructed to take everything article of clothing out of my closets, drawers, storage bins, etc. and dump it all on the floor.  I sorted the clothing into piles.  Coats, tops, pants, underwear, shoes, socks, etc.  I picked up each article individually and asked, "Does this spark joy?"  It may have sparked joy when I bought it.... but if it doesn't, right now, in the present....I thanked it for the joy it brought me, the utility, the kindness of the person who gifted it to me and placed it in one of the "to go" piles.  Now I have only the clothing that brings me joy.
There are many other layers to this and I recommend you read the book to learn about them. 
I can tell you that a LOT of "stuff" has exited our house.  Even Bill (quite the packrat) is onboard with this.  One week we rented a DUMPSTER and got rid of the larger things that no longer bring us joy.  Lumber from old projects, furniture/electronics that never got refinished/repaired, right down to pens and pencils in the back of drawers.
The most unexpected result of this project is, the more you get rid of, the better you feel.  Lighter. Happier. Freer.
We have a section of the basement that is reserved for "The Big Yard Sale" on Memorial Day weekend.  Once that is over, I think a smallish dumpster will take care of what is left of our "sticks and bricks" life and we'll be on our way to our new life on the road.

Look out! Here we come!

 

We had a wonderful first summer with our RV. We took several trips to campgrounds and state parks. We went to 2 weddings, using the RV as our “motel.” We learned a lot, especially about the electrical system, including the batteries and generator.

 

By the end of the fall, when it was time to store the RV for the winter, we knew that we wanted to make the RV our semi-permanent home. Our PBI (partially baked idea) was now a firm plan. We will take a slow trip in a westerly direction, eventually settling somewhere warmer than here. Hopefully close enough to family in California, so we can visit and celebrate holidays with them. We decided to put the house on the market and move into the RV in May (when campgrounds around here open). This serves 2 purposes.

 

1. We will leave the house available to show to prospective buyers at the drop of a hat.
2. Our dog Snow will not be in the house barking during a house showing. She’ll be in the RV!

  

There are a number of challenges involved in a cross country move such as this.

 

1. I’m not retirement age (yet). So I will have to buy health insurance until I find work out west.
2. We plan to move our belongings from a 3 bedroom house and garage into a Class A RV. Downsizing and purging is required.
3. We will want to tow a vehicle and neither of the vehicles we own is towable. We need to sell our cars and buy a “toad.”
4. Our house is in a town where the largest employer (a paper mill) closed its doors a year ago. The housing market may be soft.
5. Leaving my family here on the east coast is going to be very difficult.

My goal is to take each of these challenges and let you know our plan/solution. Stay tuned to the next blog entry!