Long View

The anticipation can be hard to bear. 

At least someone's already home on the bus, even if it's not us.

We are a ways out from moving into our skoolie home and striking out to parts unfamiliar. Like, probably two years out. And that's tough to bear some days.

We've got good friends here. Good family. We're becoming more and more a part of a community where we are now, and the thought of leaving that behind is bittersweet. So why can't I wait to go?

Because the future looks bright. Because we're moving forward on a dream we've had since we got engaged and had our eyes opened to the wide world of homesteading, one step at a time. Because there are so many things I want to start doing, and I want to do them now.

Exercise Your Patience, Please.

How many times do I say this to my daughters? Because it is just as hard for them to do as it is for me, apparently. Now, their wants are a little more attainable (...Sometimes. Sorry girls, Disney World is nowhere in our near future.), but the premise is the same. We sometimes just need to wait, and have patience, for the things we want to come to be.

I have so much to do to fill my time, even beyond the normal day-to-day chores, like keeping us fed and reasonably clean. I have a house full of things that need new homes, even if that home is the garbage dump. I have a small wealth of bottles and jars, just waiting to be turned into crafts that I can sell to raise money to finance this venture. I can go on Mechanical Turk to do a few jobs to raise a couple extra dollars to ease the burden on Nathaniel's shoulders. I can begin to practice gardening, or canning, or any other chore that we will ostensibly take on for ourselves in the not-too-distant future. I can work on my little soap business, even if that just means sitting at the computer and updating my website. I can blog about the work we've done on the bus, even if it's only for my own benefit, to remind me that Nate's made so much progress already.

But I have a nasty habit of looking at all that needs to be done, and simply throwing up my hands, saying, "Oh, I just can't wait until we're past all this and onto the next phase of our lives!"

Yes, Colleen, but not without some hard work to get there.

Even if that hard work is just another form of being patient. By doing those things that need to be done. By accepting the help offered from some of the most awesome ladies on the planet. By practicing self-sufficiency now, even a little bit at a time, because it will be hard to go from zero to sixty once we're out of here and living in the bus.

So while it may seem silly to write this, because I'm sitting still and not "doing anything," I have to remind myself that this blog is a part of the plan. To share where our heads are as we transition, and to hopefully inspire other people to make the changes they've desired for their families*. Maybe even to motivate myself, and to remember that I am just as important a cog in this family machine as my husband, even though there's not much I can do to help on the bus at the moment (For what it's worth, he's always gone out of his way to tell me how important I am to our family. The problem lies inside my own skull, not his). I can do the little things here at home that add up to one big effort to move us past this sometimes unsatisfying season in our lives.

Someday, this will all be a memory, and we'll be out in the world, making our own living by the sweat of our own brows, actively providing for ourselves. Our kids will be living the life we've always hoped to provide for them; a life on a small farm, out in nature, living in a home we built with our own hands. We will be in a new place, living a very different life from the life we're living now.

But for today, I need to be grateful. Grateful for my husband, who works so very hard to do the best he can for me and our girls. Grateful for our children, who delight me every day and inspire me to be a better person, to provide a good example of how to live intentionally and lovingly. Grateful for our extended families, who love our little family unit and desire the best for us, even if they will be sad to see us move away. Grateful for our community of friends, who have become such an integral part of our lives. And above all, grateful for a God who loves us and meets us where we are, who has provided for us so amazingly every single day, and who encourages us to write our own story even as he walks alongside of us.

Patience is a virtue. I need to remember this every day, even as I look forward with eager anticipation for the future.

* Whoops. This originally said "for our family." Sorry!

Baby Steps and Great Leaps Forward

I was working on a post last week that I've ultimately decided not to finish. I was having a bad week, and got a little off-track in trying to focus on a theme for the post. The theme was a good one - kind of about moving forward even when you don't feel like it, and kind of about having grace for myself when I'm overwhelmed by life's little peccadilloes - but it was a downer. Not only that, it was only tangentially related to the whole Skoolie project, so I've shelved it. I will say this, though: if you are near a parent in line, and they look like they're having a hard time keeping it all together, a kind word from you may be just what that person needs to get them looking on the brighter side again. Shout out to the lady with an awesome haircut at Target!

So, "How's the bus coming along?"

I love this question. I love it even more when there's news to report. And progress has definitely been made! It hasn't worked out to have any more outside help lately, but with the month of May and all the craziness therein firmly behind us, it's been easier to find the time to put into the demolition phase. I should say, it's been easier for Nathaniel to find the time. I just find time to come out and throw in more ideas into the mix.

The heating unit for the bus ran along the entire driver's side of the bus, and it had to go. After several puncture wounds and a good dousing of anti-freeze, Nathaniel managed to remove the entire thing. The ceiling panels are down, the insulation is scraped off, and fully half of the windows have been taken out in anticipation of raising the roof.

I know I've made a big deal of raising the roof when we're talking to people face to face, but I don't think I've elaborated on our plans on this blog. Y'know, beyond stating that we're turning a bus into a home. But about 3/4 of the roof will be chopped off and then raised 18" for more head room. My 6' 3" husband couldn't really handle living in a 6' 2" home. Can't say I blame him.

We've been keeping our eye out for free wooden pallets. These are fantastic for framing, wall coverings, furniture, whatever. Obviously they need to be deconstructed before they can be turned into something useful, but free lumber is free lumber.

For more fantastic news, we have kitchen cabinets! A family friend was going to discard a whole set of cherry-stained cabinets. We could have them as long as we were willing to remove them from the guy's house within a short time frame - so essentially, they were ours for the price of gas. Done!

Shaker-style cherry cabinets. Be still my heart.

And the downsizing continues.

...little by little. It's hard to be patient about this part. I've taken load after load of things to Goodwill, but when my kids tear up the house with astonishing regularity, it's difficult to see any progress. There's still a long way to go. The good news is that once I tidy up, it definitely is less cluttered here. Not UNcluttered, but LESS. I'll take my little victories where I can get them.

I have discovered a way to let go of things that hold sentimental value - and for a sentimental fool like myself, this is huge. I wish I'd thought of this a long time ago.

Pictures.

Yup! That's all. If I take a picture of, say, the wooden sai blade that my brother made when we were kids, then I can still recall it fondly without it taking up space needed for essentials. It has been a lot easier to pass baby clothes along, too. I can't keep everything of theirs that I loved, so I'm keeping the most precious pieces, and the rest are out of here once I capture them on my camera.

So long til next time; I know you can't wait to hear more minutiae about my life.

Copyright the Amazing Bill Watterson

Operation Big House, Tiny Kitchen

I'd been kicking around the idea of downsizing our dishes and utensils for a few weeks, when finally, a few Saturdays back, I up and did just that.

It happened rather unexpectedly. I didn't have a plan to purge our kitchen of its extra dishes before I found myself doing it. I had just gone to tackle a portion of the mountain of dishes that had piled up over the week when I hit a breaking point.

"I don't even need most of this stuff!"

And that thought did it. I was sick and tired of washing All. These. Dishes. It all suddenly made sense with a terrible clarity that eluded me before. I was caught in a vicious cycle of dirty plates, cups, bowls, etc. The more dishes I had, the more dishes we used before we finally ran out and I was forced to wash something so we could eat. And by the time there were no more clean dishes to be used, the amount of dirty ones was staggering, and required nearly a day to complete. That was if I tackled them all, which I rarely did in their entirety. 

(It's not easy to admit this about myself publicly, but it's true: I really, really stink at keeping up with dirty dishes...or laundry...but that's for another post.)

So I did what was necessary and began to go through all the cupboards to get rid of extra or unused items. Doing things like this used to make me feel mildly anxious, and as a result I ended up keeping [much] more than was necessary other times I'd purged. But this time around, it only took me a moment or two to decide for most things. I just began asking myself the same questions about every utensil or dish I pulled from its shelf or drawer.

1) Do I use this?

• If Yes, proceed to the next question
• If No, recycle, donate, or sell

2) Do I need this?

• If Yes, proceed to next question
• If No, recycle, donate or sell

3) Do I have multiples of this?

• If Yes, choose best one(s); recycle, donate or sell extra(s)
• If No, keep for time being

This method of going through cupboards meant realizing that I had dishes I never used, such as the orange plastic Philadelphia Flyers cup Nathaniel brought home for me after seeing Roger Waters perform The Wall in concert. I'd previously held onto it because it was a souvenir, it was the Flyers, it was blah blah blah. The conclusion I came to was that I was keeping this cup for reasons that had nothing to do with utility, so it got put into the recycle pile. 

There were things I used, but didn't need, like the eight hundred (give or take) clear plastic containers I'd saved to store leftovers in. No, it really wasn't that many, but when I'd exhausted that supply and had to wash them all, it sure felt like eight hundred. I resolved to only use the ceramic containers I had on hand when I needed to store something, and to eventually invest in a good set of stackable, sealable, reusable containers. I'm using the benefit of hindsight in writing this: I wish I'd kept some. We aren't spending bus fund money on stuff like this yet, what with bigger projects to finance first, so I'm definitely wishing I had saved a few small ones. It's not totally practical to have only a few large covered dishes for meals, and no smaller ones for opened cheese or half an onion, that sort of thing. Lesson learned.

Most of the multiples that needed to be decided upon were things like plates, bowls, cups and flatware. It's hard to write about what I did here without deteriorating into a simple list of "Six saucers, six salad plates, and so on...". So in a nutshell, I kept enough for all of us, with extras in case of guests or breakage, and little else. Other multiples, like two 13" x 9" glass baking dishes, were simpler decisions: we really only need one. Goodbye, duplicate.

So when it was all said and done, I'd gotten rid of approximately half of what was crowding up our cupboards and - more frequently - our counter top. Of the half that I decided had to go, approximately 50% will be donated, 25% will be recycled or trashed, and the last 25% are things I think I could possibly sell at the flea market.

So does this mean that I'm finally keeping up with the dirty dishes?

Does this answer that question?

Unfortunately, no. It was definitely part of my idea that I'd be washing dishes every day so we wouldn't run out, but I haven't been diligent on this. The Good News is that it takes much less time to wash the things I need when we run out. I've begun to do smaller loads more frequently, and it's easier to find the time to do it, too. I find that I can get a significant amount done just in the time I have dinner in the oven or on the stove.

As we get closer to moving onto the bus, I know we'll have to pare down what we have even more, and some things will need to be replaced. For instance, we're planning to switch most of our metal pots and pans over to cast iron, for the ease of use and cleaning. All of our ceramic plates and dishes will eventually be enameled metal, and likely our glasses will eventually be metal as well (mostly because since this bus will be mobile, we want as few breakable things as possible).

But I'm still glad I did it.

Even baby steps towards downsizing are helpful. There's still a long (long, long, long...) way to go, but I often remind myself that every little bit helps. Now if I could just keep caught up with the dishes...

Tiny Thoughts About A Large House

Since we came to the unlikely decision to move into a tiny house (and I'm just beginning to feel comfortable referring to the bus in this way. It's a bus...that we're turning into a house...that's just over 200 square feet. I guess it's a "Tiny House"), I've begun to recognize the feelings of dissatisfaction I'm harboring with the amount of stuff we have.

It's not that I want more.

It's that I want so much less.

Some stuff....

Don't get me wrong; we have some very nice things. And it's not that I want No Things. And it's certainly not going to be easy for me to give away or sell many of these things. Like I've said before, I attach sentimental value to just about everything. You can see from these pictures that my decorating style could be described as "Three Dimensional Collage".

But I've come to realize just how much all this stuff consumes my time. So much of my week is structured around the care and keeping of this stuff. These photos show a whimsical side of too many possessions; I'm purposely not showing the mountains of laundry (dirty and clean...but mostly dirty), stacks of used dishes in need of a wash, ever-expanding toy corners, and the fine dust that settles over everything the day after I clean.

...And more stuff...

I've started to wonder what our lives will look like without it all. How much more free time will we have when we reduce our possessions to the essentials and only those things that hold real meaning for us? What will the kids and I get to do when it's not necessary to stay inside nearly every day so Mama can catch up on laundry?

Yet when I look around, I know this is going to be hard for me.

Hard, not just because of the amount of work that's going to go into downsizing, but because I'm going to have to let go of things that I treasure for one [silly] reason or another. Hard, because I happen to like many of my Three Dimensional Collages. Hard, because the sooner I do this, the longer I'm going to live in a house that feels empty by comparison.

I'm aware it sounds more than a little contradictory to say in one breath, "I can't wait to have less stuff!" and, "What will my house feel like with less stuff?" But there you have it. It's hard.

...And still more STUFF!

Moving will be hard, too, because I love where we live now. 

It's huge for an apartment: 2,501 square feet, to be precise. There is more than enough room for both of us adults, our three small kids, and our black Labrador retriever. There's ample closet space. We have cathedral ceilings in our living room. I've got a studio, Nate's got a studio; we have a balcony that's as big as a studio apartment. We live above the place where Nathaniel, my mom, and stepdad all work, so we can get by with only one vehicle; I can ask my mom to run up and visit or watch the kids for short periods during the days she works. We even have a yard (with trees!). Not only all of this, but the rent is totally amazing. Like, "we can support our family on one income while living here" kind of amazing. No doubt, God totally blessed us when he brought us here.

I have told people - and myself - over and over that this is the place we're staying until we can finally afford to buy land. In this line of thinking, I reasoned that our family would be just fine in this house (apartment, whatever) for another decade or more. Actually, as I write this it occurs to me that we've just hit our fifth anniversary in this place; we moved here when I was super pregnant with our first daughter. Time flies. Anyway. We've got a lot of memories here; it's the first place I've lived since moving out of my parents' place at age nineteen that has honestly felt like Home with a capital H. And for all the quirks (drafts, mice, fake wood paneling, ugly carpeting, general disrepair that comes with an aging home), it's still a warm and inviting place.

It's funny how things change.

Like my aversion to tiny houses. I used to look at them and think, "I like the aesthetics. I like the storage. I like how people can build one themselves. I hate the lack of space."

And that's still kinda true, I guess. But since we'd begun talking about downsizing (tinysizing?), I began to realize how this enormous space impacted our daily lives. One, it's a lot to clean, so much of my week revolves around simply keeping all this space tidy (to varying degrees of success). Two, with all this space, it's simply too easy to justify bringing in more stuff without taking out a corresponding amount. Even after getting rid of a lot this past summer, there's still a shocking amount of stuff to go through. Three, all the shouting.

Parents of young kids can relate, I'm sure. It's not that I'm shouting at them, it's that they're shouting at me. If we happen to be in different rooms, my girls see nothing wrong with shouting across the house to talk to me. No matter how many times I stress that they should come close when they want to say something, it rarely occurs to them to do so. And how silly is it to shout back, "Quit yelling! Come here when you want to talk to me!"

Now, when contemplating living in less than a tenth of the space we currently occupy, I think, "How great; a place for everything and everything in its place."

"How lovely, to simply go outside when the space feels just too small."

"How manageable, to only keep what we truly want."

There's nothing inherently better about a tiny house. It's just a different way to live. A way that I think would suit Nathaniel, myself, and the girls. So we can take the focus off of our space, our stuff, and all that goes into both, and begin focusing more on the things that truly matter to us. Our faith, our family, our friends, our goals, and the world around us.

Sounds good to me.