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)...

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

And this is her interior:

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...