Wildcraftingzen

Home is...

2012-02-02T20:26:00.000-08:00

...where the heart is.

This has a whole new meaning for me right now. It is oh-so-clear to me that home is the abode my heart is invested in being in. I have learned a lot about "home" recently. "Home" has changed so much. In the last couple years, we have lived in a huge house of our own, a medium house of our own, an RV of our own, a van of our own, and now staying with a friend in her home.

I used to struggle with feeling at home in our home. I had so many issues about it being clean enough, and then about it being too clean and feeling sterile. I was uncomfortable, and so I think people sensed my discomfort and felt uncomfortable, too. People didn't come over and stay all day every day, and we didn't have a lot of friends who we did that with, either.

I always longed for it. And I love love LOVE being here with my friends. Finally, I feel like I am living tribally, communally. This is such an amazing exercise in togetherness.

I love staying with my friend in her home, but I am ready to have our own home, to be in our own home.

I got into the RV knowing that afterward I was going to live in a house on some land and grow roots, family depth, and everlasting community. I am ready to invest in some land, on some land, into some land. Our family is bursting with an abundance of ideas for our land, like a labrynth, a tree house, a garden, a huge sandbox, lots and lots of outdoor area for play and exploration. A swing for me and my beloved to sit in on a warm night or a beautiful day. A fort. A playhouse with a kitchen. All of this homemade, of course. Oh, yes. Yummy to my soul.

A lease-locked box attached to the earth didn't sound appealing to me in the very recent past, even. But now, it feels like a breath of fresh air. I have so many ideas for the inside, too -- little bits that make a house feel like a warm and inviting home, a place to grow a family and a love relationship and community of unschoolers and red-tenters.

Now to convince myself that this can be manifested as quickly as I manifested this RV lol

I'm ready. We all are <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Amazon Warrior Monk Rockstar

2012-02-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

I shaved my head to release my attachment to my hair and my attachment to my idea of beauty. I thought it was going to be a lesson in embracing the ugly. I knew it would humble and "right" me in ways I could not even know yet.

I shaved my head as a symbolic piece to a cleansing formula of my life. I released who I was to find out who I am. I let go of the old and opened up to the new. I could feel my head opening up to the universe, pouring in enlightenment and Oneness.

I felt strong, like an Amazon Warrior, and I quickly took to resonating with the title Amazon warrior monk.

I wasn't expecting to feel more radiant and sexy than I remembered ever feeling before. I felt so fresh, so alive, so free. Just wow.

And now a new chapter of this shaved head experience is emerging... I went out to a club with a few GORGEOUS friends a couple weeks ago. I kept feeling the pull to go to a club and experience some place that is so "superficial" while aligned deeply with my unattachment to my hair and my old beauty ideal. The most surprising thing happened! I haven't had so much attention and guys buying my drinks and so much FUN since I was 60 pounds lighter with blond curls down to my butt. I was a show-stopper! Wowsers!!! Suddenly, my shaved head was the "new emerging hair style that few could pull off but I did so well". Whoodathunk! So now I feel kinda like a rockstar, and I have taken to accentuating my eyes, since they POP with a shaved head :)

Everywhere I go, people rave about my shaved head. I didn't think I was going into this as "my new hairstyle" -- it was just an experience, and I was ready to get quick about growing my curls back out before I'd even shaved my head. But now, I am really feeling ROCKING this shaved head.

I feel bold and powerful. I know this was "supposed" to be the year of aligning with my "right" in preparation of stepping into my power. But "rightness" was so short-lived, and boldness seems to be my pathway to powerful. Rightness, as it turns out, didn't need to be done (like cleaning the house), but something I live, like stretching for a long walk. And I am suddenly feeling READY to be powerful.

I am learning more and more that my fears are usually just not being ready, they are sort of excuses for my gut feeling of not being ready for something. I love sinking into that readiness (or not-readiness, as the case may be) and living life a bit and seeing how it automatically corrects itself over a bazillion little moments between my acknowledgement that I am not ready and that moment when I realize "oh yeah, baby, here we go!"

Maybe without my hair, I move free-er and so am ready sooner? LOL I don't know. But I am so ready. I am ready to manifest this power and channel some AMAZINGNESS in this upcoming year. I am bold. I am powerful. I am not a watered down version of me. I am not shy. I am an Amazon warrior monk rockstar... women-circling tribe-creating goddess guru. Oh yes, this is me :) Trailblazer. Firestarter.

p.s. - my wardrobe has become more bright and brilliant, too. Pics to come :))

p.s.s. - I wrote this for Tara's blog:

It was perfect, a part of the deep cleansing I was doing, a way to take what was inside and wear it outside, a symbol of new transformation in my life. I thought it was going to be a lesson in embracing my ugly – I wasn’t expecting to feel so radiant and sexy! I have bounds of clarity, especially in what is “other people’s stuff” and what’s mine (like how some people can see my beauty, some feel shaving my head is weird, and some people were way more attached to my curls than even I was). Sometimes I feel like a monk ripe with readiness for enlightenment, and sometimes I feel like a gypsy goddess extraordinaire. One thing is for sure, this is the mark of a new beginning for me. I feel reborn. I have been making some serious space in my life over the past few months, and I look forward to growing with my hair and appreciating it all in new ways. My curls are not what make me beautiful – I am.

What's in a name...

2012-01-23T09:56:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make. For all my loving not fitting in boxes, I really love words that define something. As you can tell, I really love to write. I love playing with words, using them to create a feeling in another, using them to bring something that is inside me out of me, through some medium, and into you. Words are powerful things! They are like arrows pointing people to amazing places.

I have a dear friend who said once that we will have 9 names in our life. The first is chosen for us, and the remaining we chose for ourselves. The name my mother gave me upon my birth was Vanessa. In Hebrew it means "star" and in Greek it means "butterfly". This was the PERFECT name for me. I resonate with the butterfly in the way that I transcend areas of my life, like names. My biggest name change was to Radical Mama. I am STILL Radical Mama (especially to some of my dearest friends). I always will be. And then wild zen - love it! Thank you for giving me that space to dwell and grow.

Both of those names have been me naming myself something that I was aspiring toward and then feeling ready for change once I felt I had achieved it.

I knew this winter that it was time to shed my name (like my hair) and redfine myself. But I am done looking at names like a house I may outgrow. I decided to pick a name that encompassed the very essence of my soul. I looked at myself in the mirror and called myself it to see if it fit. I wrote it several times to make sure I enjoyed the asthetics of it. I delved the depths of my insides, and I sat with names to see how they fit over time.

I had a WILD synchronis moment. A couple years ago, whilst pondering the fact that if I went on to be a midwife that I might put myself out of business because of my fierce trust of unassisted birth, I started having some conversations with a few of my amazing friends (I'm so blessed to have so many of those!). We started talking about outlaw midwivery (a midwife who defies the medical path and medical rules, to aid women in birth the way it has been done since life began), and I got this vision to create a comic called Outlaw Midwife, where the main character would be this kickass woman-empowering mountaintribe-dwelling afterbirth-supporting team-mama-rallying goddess guru, and I loved the "Om"-ness of the whole thing. Well, the outlaw midwife became Ooma. And I knew that she is me in the years after my children have grown to be adults. There is so much more to this vision, but the main point is Ooma. So..... A month ago-ish while I was searching for my name, I decided I needed a birth goddess in my name. I found a website and checked each name to see if it resonated with me, and the last name on the list was Uma "goddess of all things feminine, especially birth". ABOUT KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF!

But I don't feel like my face is ready to be called Uma or Ooma just yet. There is another name is that perfect for now.

I am Soul. Wild Soul. Wild Soul Free.

And are you ready for this? I am going to change my name legally. I am ready to sever the ties to the name my mother gave me, to the person I once was and am not longer, ready to let go of my past and embrace my present and my future. Ready to let go of who I was to become who I am.

No, I am not going to legally change my name to Wild Soul LOL

Soul Uma Rose Free

OMGosh, my initials will spell SURF! SUPER cool :D Just noticed that....

Wild is going to be more like my title than a name ;) And I will finally have the same last name as my baby :D

Soul is so kickass, the Amazon Worrior monk, guru goddess, the embodiment of all things female (strong and hard, soft and flexible), radiant and reverant, reeking of wildcat sexiness and earthy sensuality ;)

Have I mentioned already that I have been practicing stepping into my power? It is quite exquisite and satisfying. More on that later. But Soul is powerful.

I am Soul. It's nice to meet you <3

And in other name-changing news. How do you like the new blog feel?

Wildcraftingzen: the radical act of embracing life and simply being. That is what wildcraftingzen is: taking wild life and processing it inwardly to find peace. Oh yeah, baby! So, this blog is going to be a couple different things: my outward expression of an inward journey, and my jumping off point in businesshood. I am SO ready to do some work. Stepping into my power over here, and so ready to do this. READY to do this. Here I go!

I have more changes to make on the blog, as you will see as time unfolds. I read this quote recently that keeps coming back up inside me, and I can't remember it word for word, but it goes something like, Self growth is like building a new ship from the ship you are already on while out to sea. The balance between stepping into the future and taking care of the present... What a fun dance it is :D

Rightness

2011-12-31T12:41:00.000-08:00

Liberation, Stretch, Comfort, De-attach

When I look back on list of the themes of my last few years, I see how it looks like a fluid evolving of life and spirit. It didn't feel like it though. More like a deep and heavy submersion into growth of the unknown and just when I am about to drown or break, I scramble to the top to gulp the fresh crisp air of clarity and then dive down in a totally different direction for a new phase of experience. In the great walk of life, now I see the seamless evolution.

Liberation was when I cleared a huge space in my life, called "a relationship that I had gotten my fill from and was no longer working for us". When we walked in seperate directions, I did not feel like a woman scorned, I felt like a woman liberated! A big giant space in my life was cleared and healthy (because that beautiful relationship healed me and taught me in ways I never could have done alone <3 ), and now I could go wild in my new-found freedom :)

And I did -- hence the stretch. The slow unfolding of understanding learning in a new paradigm. The stretch of self-trust through preparing for and experiencing my freebirth. The ferrel re-growth and awesome stretch of radical unschooling and consensual living and respectful connected parenting.
Then, in exhaustion from all the stretching and growing (OMG! Did I stretch and grow), I settled into comfort, like sinking into my favorite old worn couch, for a long winter's night with a mug of hot chocolate and my favorite music playing in the background.

And in that comfort, I realized there was no real comfort in drowing in stuff and over-responsibility, and that I had my fill of newly acquired agoraphobia. I released my attachment to a house (or a "lease-locked box on land that wasn't MINE"), a lifetime-acquired house full of stuff I loved and hated and often both simultaneously. Then I stepped into adventure and wound up releasing my attachment to control. Not done yet -- thick in the deconstruction and healing, I followed my calling to wear my deep inner cleansing outside by releasing my attachment to my hair and my long-constructed notion of my beauty. And now, I feel like a radiant monk ripe with readiness for the next powerful step in my life-healing journey: rightness.

Armed with the tools to enable myself to feel liberation, to stretch wildly, to find deep dark healing comfort, and dettach from what's no longer working, I am preparing for a journey to reflect, explore, and right the breadth and depths of things in my life that feel amiss. I have my work cut out for me. I'm going to be the chiropractor of my life and get myself aligned. And through this, I am going to grow (with my hair) in intention, so that when I step into my power (no doubt, my next step), I will not fear what will be magnified, what will explode from me, and where it will reach and take me. Thhis is the step I right the wrongs, seal the deal on peace with my past, and let go of the things that don't feel right to me in every area of me and my life. I am so grateful for this foundation I stand upon to do this -- I feel like I have the advantage and the warrior skills to defeat my foes... Wait, that's not right ;) I am a chiropractor, not a seasoned Amazon warrior LOL I've been reading too many historical romance novels these days :))

I am ready to step into rightness with my body, in parenting, in relationships, with money, with my future career goals, and so much I can't even see yet from my view of the valley outside my window. Yes, this is going to be an easy walk -- not those mountains I have beared through climbing in my past. This is just an adjustment into rightness.

This Amazon warrior monk gypsy goddess earthmama extraordinaire has bit more prep to do before I am ready to start this newest journey, including (are you ready for this?) a new name -- I know, you are so surprised ;) More on that later :)) I need to sit on it a bit more, feel it's rightness first :)

Another shocker -- my blog is getting a new name, too. This one is already determined. I'm just waiting to purchase the domain name before I share it with the world.

2012, I am SO effing ready for you!

Epic Success

2011-12-27T17:51:00.000-08:00

(Written early December)

No matter how much I want to embrace the fact that this nomadic-dream-in-action was a classic "epic fail", I can't deny the success of my adventure. We may have logged few miles on our journey, but the living and learning was immence. I could provide you with a grocery list of experiences (and I still may), but the biggest success (I am learning as I read my journals from the 2 years before we set sail) is just the fact that I did it. Even now, in our broken down state, I am so happy we are here than the heavy mess of a life we had before. I was drowning in stuff -- I remember (as if every journal entry for 2 years crying about that very fact wasn't vivid enough to recall the hopelessness I felt). I am so immensely freakin happy about how much STUFF we have right now. You can only begin to imagine the implications of what I just said... unless you were pressent for the prcoessing of said stuff out of my life, or if you have done a similar journey of selling 98% of everything you own to live so incredibly simply -- radical minimalists got nothin on me :)

I know, I know, I hear those folks talking, too, about how the external doesn't matter -- it's all the internal. Bah! Maybe that is true for them, but it wasn't true for me. I was drowning in responsibility and attachment, and releasing all that stuff from my life opened up space to spend my time and energy in ways that I wanted to. Changing the external absolutely healed the internal.

My other greatest success in this experience? Laughing at my epic fail. This truly was a fail of the most epic proportions for me. It has all the ingredients of "epic" and "fail" -- I hyped this up so huge in my life, knew it was to be my crowning achievement in life and fell flat on my face. Hahahaha. That is hilarious! I'm glad I am laughing at myself before I hear the more pessimistic loved ones in my life do it first LOL

So, I failed at making a lifestyle out of free roaming the country... I succeeded at so much more.
I met the most amazing people from all walks of life. People who moved us and loved us and supported us, people who I didn't want the conversation to come to end, people who I admired from a distance, people who are like my family, and people who filled me with hope and then flew away <3

I got out of the house in ways I haven't done for as long as I can remember! Coming from a woman who was borderline agoraphobic, THAT IS SERIOUS SUCCESS! I experienced things I have only dreamed of (like taking my family to ren faire) and things I never expected (meeting pirates and wanting to be one of them!). I walked a jetti that changed my life, and spent some down time reconnecting with the beach and the ocean. I practically lived at the library and stepped outside of my old ways to coax a librarian into liking my wild bunch (rather than just hiding from her or avoiding the library entirely). I parked in a hotel parking lot where I was NOT a guest and comsumed a heavenly deluxe continental breakfast and lounged by their pool for hours afterward (eek! I still can't believe I had the balls to do that!!!). I even kept my cool and found out it wasn't as scary or uncomfortable as I thought when they approached me about my room number LOL I woke up to the ocean out my window, fell asleep to the sound of waves crashing, got a fireworks show out my bedside window. I became familiar with people I never would have approached. I loaned something important to a stranger with the understanding that I may never get it back. I opened up. I healed. I got balanced. I got more in touch with nature than I have ever before. I worshipped the sun (without forgetting the moon). I lost things I thought I would crumble without... and barely blinked. I came face-to-face with my weakenesses. I let shyt flow. I lived. I was alive.

I dreamed new dreams. Dreams of a Goddess Guild at the local ren faire. Dreams of pirate days with unschooling groups, and belly dancing classes for all ages and body types. Dreams of a winter cabin in the mountains as a cave with a little community of gardeners and animal-lovers we call home. Dreams of living the uber-light life of van & tent set-up -- the best of both worlds: light & easy and spacious & ours.

That list is short because the "experience" list was so so long, and still not complete :)
I broke down more times than I can count, literally and *just* emotionally, and I got back up and started dancing.

I stepped into the flow and didn't get burned alive.

I'm okay right now. I got through the hardest part. I'm on the other side, feeling a lot of the same things I did after my unassisted birth: the dichotemy of "I can't believe I did that" and "Of course, I did!", the dichotemy of "I f*cking ROCK!" and "That was just life, nothing special", the dichotemy between "That was NOTHING like I expected" and "That was exactly what I knew it would be", the dichotemy of "That was an epic fail" and "That was an epic success" :)) The truth, as is often true in life, is both extremes and anywhere in between, depending on the moment and the context :)

I guess this is an epic success because I am happier and more content today than I was a year ago, because I am still joyfully living regardless, because I feel stronger than ever before, and mostly because this isn't the end -- I still have a giant empty canvas waiting for me to paint my new dreams upon.

Epic Fail

2011-12-27T17:02:00.000-08:00

(written in early December)

I love the story of the time I gave up my free townhouse and sold everything I own, to free roam.... north San Diego county?

Mwahahahahaha.

I have decided to get real with the fact that this mission, since I chose to accept it, was an epic fail. I hear that term a lot, like when my daughter draws 2 eyes too close together and ruins her whole picture, or when her friend sings an misses a note. But none of that is a great of magnitude as this giant leap I took that lost it's air as soon as my toes touched the ground.

Before anyone feels the need to remind me that there is no failure, or this is just the beginning of something new, let me assure you that I'm there, I get it. That's an easy story for me. I have resisted "failure" and being wrong for so long, that it feels so refreshing right now to turn and face this shadow and open my arms wide to embrace it. I'm not afraid of it. It's not chasing me anymore. I can laugh - there's no fear involved in it.

My mission, as I chose to accept it, was to free roam the country, to see great landscapes out my windshield, to meet my Tribe scattered everywhere, to experience a bucket list. I took a HUGE leap of faith, I experienced SO much to prepare myself for this, and I flopped. I couldn't manifest it. I raced out of my house to play homeless in my own neighborhood. I got scared. I choked. I ended up with a broken down RV and a put-put-put actualization of adventure. I got reaquainted with the ocean and met some pirates and didn't want to leave. I wanted to cry when I thought of leaving my loving friends and my brother <3

Our nomadic lifestyle became a year trip, which became a 6-month trip, which became 3 months, which became the option to take the trip without my oldest or stay local. I can't travel without my roaddog. Not even an option. So here we are.

It got cold fast once we were out of the house. I'm hoping that Spring brings new birth to this dream, in some incarnate or another :) Right now, I want to climb into my cave and hybernate.

This has been infinitely harder than I thought it would be. It has almost broke me down more than once. I have had to try real hard to gleam the positive from it -- I'm so proud of myself for my ability to. I have experienced things I never would have chosen for myself and my children, like the time we ran out of gas in a parking lot, broke, and got stuck there all day without our groceries which were in the RV, so I went to the surrounding food places and begged for free food for my kids. Subway was more generous than Wendy's and more kind. Or the time I drove to 8 different stores to beg for free diapers for Najaia and got turned away 8 times, sometimes not so warm-heartedly. Or the fact that we spent Thanksgiving in a restaurant with people who lived on the streets. This adventure HAS broken me - it's broken me down more times than I can count. Before this last weekend, I took about a half a dozen showers in 2 months.

This adventure hasn't been pretty -- it's been hard work that doesn't seem to matter (the RV), difficult emotionally and mentally. It has been me controlling my kids more than ever and losing my temper from the stress. I have had CPS called on me by my own family member, and the police called to check on the welfare of my kids twice by complete strangers.

I've been more uncomfortable than I have ever been in my life.

Is it too late to take back welcoming the unexpected in our adventure? Is it too late to take back welcoming opportunities to get real with the issues that are barriers in my life: namely, finances, friendships, and class.

I have gone to places that cater to homeless people to ask for help with things and realized I felt like I had to feel badly about our situation to ask for help from them, like I was afraid they wouldn't want to help us unless we felt downtrodden and desperate. It gives me some SERIOUS food for thought about my feelings surrounding asking for help and support and such.

I have felt tired of doing everything alone. I'm about sick of being a single parent right now. Wish me luck finding someone who will understand our greatness and excitedly dive in :D

I remember a friend of mine explaining how she loved reading fulltime family blogs, because it seemed folks who lived on the road were so honest, so raw. That is SO true. I guess that when you find yourself talking about poop hoses on a regular basis and cherishing water like it's gold and living life in the raw, you get real really fast.

What I love most about this blog post is that there is no judgment, no tears (anymore) over these situations or the giant epic fail in general. I am laughing as I write. I know that what is most important is that I am still dancing. Even whilst singing to the tune of my epic fail (the biggest anticlimax of my life, which is saying a lot, considering the fact that whilst shooting for a Ph.D., I am sitting on my BA and almost 50 grand in student loans), I'm dancing a jig as if I just scored a touch down! LOL I'm so weird hahaha.

I am sharing this post, regardless of the fact that I want to delete about half of it before publishing, because I want to give this giant failure of a dream manifested a big hug and a pat on the back and say, "You are SO awesome! You dived for your dreams, and when you fell to the ground, you got up laughing and didn't regret or decide to go back."

No, I may have failed at manifesting my "free roam the country as a lifestyle" dream, but I'm not getting back into a house! I almost thought that was what I needed to do, like "well, since that plan failed, I guess I need to..." No way.

I was feeling more lost than usual this past weekend (which is saying a lot, because I have felt lost a lot recently). I had no CLUE which direction I wanted to head. I thought I was going to need to pull myself up by my bootstraps, put my kids in daycare, get a j.o.b., start paying my creditors, and lay down some roots in a lease-locked box attached to the earth. I was so desperate for some advice that I called my mother... luckily, I got her voicemail. I ended up talking with my son's dad. I just KNEW he was going to provide the fresh insight I needed, that he was going to be able to regurgitate the dreamspiration I have been filling him with since we met so many years ago. Since I'm pretty sure he doesn't read my blog, it should be safe to say that I spent the first 95% of the phone call wondering why I had felt compelled to talk to HIM, scared I was more lost than I even imagined, and realizing REALLY quickly that although I didn't know what I DID want, I was pretty clear on what I didn't. Then he said it... He told me about when he was almost ready to cave in to pressure from his family to cut his dreads off so he could find a j.o.b. easier, and he had talked with another Dread, who told him something along the lines of, "When something is wrong, they always want you to cut yourself, as if that will make it all better. Then you can be like them. Don't cut your dreads, Man." And then the other 2% of the conversation he shared a quote by KRS-1. The part that stood out to me went something like, "Repeat your winning formula for success." What has made me feel successful in the past? Certainly not conforming, working a j.o.b. to pay creditors. Haha, then I found this quote:
"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it." - Ellen Goodman

Yeah, I'm not getting a j.o.b. I'm not cutting my dreads (what makes me me). My winning formula for success has been chasing dreams, and I'm gonna was, rinse, and repeat ;)

Last night I read this quote: "If at first you don't succeed, redefine your purpose."

Falling, Opening, and Trusting

2011-11-30T12:16:00.001-08:00

Things fall apart so new things can come together.

What a last few weeks life has been... Now that I am on this side of it, I look back and am grateful for so many things falling apart, so that new things can be built. I trust that these things will be even better, because that is how my life seems to roll :))

Firstly, I am done struggling financially. Whatever that may look like. I love living nomadically, and I am looking forward to making it look less like a financial struggle and more like the dream I see just a step away. I have SO MANY BLOCKS to money, in ways you can only begin to imagine. I don't know why I push money away, but I am going to figure it out, and fast. I am ready to bring money into my life in big refreshing ways waves -- waves that allow freedom and joy and self-fulfillment to echo through our days.

Having said that, I am not going to be working for Tara. I love her -- oh, do I love her, and I look forward to a lifetime friendship :)) I wanted very badly to make it work, because I love Tara (even before I started working with her) and her message and wanted to support it and be a part of watching it grow :))))) But the external has been a reflection of the internal, and my crazy recent life has made me realize that I really need to walk my own path to success -- just because I am the trailblazer type and reigning all of me in and funnelling me into something that is not bursting from my heart on my own path doesn't seem to work so well for me LOL That is my current understanding ;)

So, I have a big giant world that just opened before me. Entrepreneur. Businesshood. I am even more excited than ever :))))) I am dreaming again, and REALLY excited about all that I am gearing up for. This is big. Like huge big. Giant baby steps ROFL So much is still taking root, so it will be a bit before I see the seedlings and then can share, but you know it is all growing in the behind-the-scenes. Send me earthy-compost, sunshine-radiant, deep-dark-reflective energy, while I slowly and gently water this over the winter of my heart and see what spring brings :))

Even after all that I have just said, the biggest falling apart has been my big wild dream of free roaming around the country. Kassidy got offered her dream opportunity that requires staying local (details below). At very first, I thought "I will put my dreams on hold for my child's dreams", but then I remembered that I can still live my dream (just differently than originally planned -- whatever "original plan" was LOL It has changed so much already, over and over again). So, I quickly decided to open myself up to whatever the babies' and my destiny are in the midst of Kassidy's dream. I knew I could trust that it would be fulfilling regardless :))

It still tickles me to say "I just gave up my free 3-bedroom townhouse, sold everything I owned, and raced out into the world, just to travel and settle no further than 45 minutes from where I started." The truth is, even though we have not logged a lot of miles, the journey has been immence! Stuffed to the brim with learning and living and moments that have all made it worth it, regardless. And the best part is that it's not done, it's not over. There is no "finish" flag in sight -- it's just gonna be different. I'm not ready or interested in rooting myself into a house (or a lease!), so we are going to continue to live nomadically, just locally. We will be travelling out of state when Kassidy does. We will take short trips when we can. We will have a deliriously happy Kassidy in our presence when she is with us. Maybe this is better than the original plan? :))

So, Kass' opportunity is to show prize horses from the ranch my mom lives on :))) She will stay in their giant beautiful house where my mom cooks the gourmet meals 4 days a week. She LOVES all the animals and people there, and will probably have her own gigantic room. She will be riding horses and working on the ranch with horses, donkeys, dogs, and cats that (I have on authority) are some of the coolest to walk this earth. She will get to let her superstar SHINE!!!!!!! She was so made for this :)) I am BURSTING with excitement over this :) Not to mention, all the delicious natural life lessons she will learn, through the beauty of unschooling (like waking at early hours, bathing regularly, curbing her temper... you know, all those things I trusted she would learn somehow when necessity dictated without needing to "train" her early). This is awesome.

I am more interested in rolling with the punches than thinking anything is any reason to throw in the proverbial towel. I invited the unexpected when I undertook this mission, and it sure has been! This new turn is no exception. Who knows what next month will bring! I am sure glad we have the nomad mindset, though -- going with the flow, open to change and imperminence, available to follow callings, especially in creative ways.

The sunset from our perch on the beach <3

This is Our Life

2011-11-11T07:13:00.001-08:00

The novelty is wearing off. And we are still in love :))) Sorry to annihilate a suspenseful post -- I'm just so excited to share LOL

I feel like we are going through the throes of life, and I keep checking in to see if we need to make some big changes (like give up our big dreams of a roadventure and settle back into a house), and I keep coming up with "This is still perfect".

A house isn't going to save us from the funk :) And even if it would be nice to sit or lay somewhere for a whole day or more, a house isn't the "big picture cure", so we find a place to sit or lay for as long as possible (which has been the library for us for the last 2 days -- from open to close). I have gone inside on retreat. I opened up Netflix on my laptop for Noble, and he watched for 2 days straight (minus sleeping and hardcore park play the mornings before the library opened up). And I read. I finished 3 partially-read books the first day (I haven't finished 3 books over the last 3 YEARS, so that was quite an accomplishment), and the next day I read a couple magazines put out for counselors, which helped me get through my block to being a guru.

I feel rejuvinated and ready for my next step in life. I have so many ideas that revolve around travel. Eek! I am thinking about putting on free workshops in various community centers across the country about living big dreams. Oooh, Living Big Dreams -- I LOVE that name!

I really want to live my calling. I have been thinking so much about that recently. I have been wondering what my Message is, how it is similar and how it is different from other messages that are close to me. I have been in creative mode -- thinking of a million ways to create in various areas of my life.

If I were a goddess (and I am, ask Goddess Leonie), what would I be the goddess of? Ooooooh, how do I narrow it down to just one thing? LOL Self Truth? Self Design? Enthusiastic Living? Actualizing Big Dreams? Ooooh, so much deliciousness :)) Still need to find the most core-est (LMAO) connection between the 2, because THAT is it, I think :)) Every venture in my life has come from that place, and what an adventure it has been! LOL

According to Heather Madder, our whole life is created and meant to hone, challenge, and experience our life message. What has my whole life revolved around? Self, definitely.... Being true to myself. Grasping for big dreams and making them happen. Learning to Trust my Truth and mywholeself. Taking off my blinders and following the callings inside me for new direction. Shaking off old bits and growing up to the sky. Letting go and allowing in the seasons life experiences. Living more NATUREly. Ditching my shackles and dancing a life of free.

I'm seeing that theme again...

I know this can't just be my message. I know I am not the only naturally-carefree-spirited child who grew up to be reserved and afraid. I know connecting with fellow Sunshine People will help us all BURST out of the thick heavy clouds that we carry around us to keep our sun rays inside, safe.

I think there is a reason that my enthusiasm is contageous for people -- it is my calling, and a part of my message.

I think I just found that connection between Self and Truth and Dreams.... My Dreams and my Self are One, and this is Truth. Hmmmm, gonna sit with that for a while today and see if it is the core-est Truth of my message.

Free self and dreams. Ooooh, I like it :)) Gonna take it and run :))

This is like a view of our life...

Togetherness

2011-10-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

Years ago, I left my son's dad and revelled in my singleness. I knew I had some serious "self" to figure out. Although, I never would have admitted it then, the only thing really wrong with our relationship was that I was not at peace within and so could never be at peace with him, nor provide the peace he might be able to reflect in his own healing. We both needed some "self" time. Even though I have been on a Quest of Self for as long as I can remember, that path-splitting was a very important imparting into a serious journey of self. I knew it then, and every step since has been on that path. Self... Knowing myself, loving myself (real true love, pure, unconditional, waves of it washing over to heal me and nourish me), getting my fill of myself until I was so full that I was ready to step outward and be with the world.

Oh, the exquisite path I took.... chocked full of deep reflection time in large bulk quantities, exploration into myself and outside of myself, spoken words to things that were once held deeply inside and needed to be set free, realignment of my Life (the big picture) and my life (the dailyness) to manifest my most treasured values and interests, heaps of experiences to remind me what self-trust was and what the meaning of my life was to me. Big gulping radical steps. Often painful (kinda like pulling out stakes that have made me stuck for too long), usually joyful (realizing and partaking in my new-found freedom), and more often than not exquisite-although-initially-unsure (like going to a chiropractor and getting an adjustment and not quite being sure how you feel about getting your bones all cracked until you walk out feeling high on life and wellness).

Most recently was possibly my biggest radicalest transition, from a life of "acquired stuff" to "serious minimalism", from "licking old wounds" to "letting go and moving on", from "healing" to "wellness", from "reading about" to "experiencing", from "old cycles" to "new life", from "a million prioreties in breadth" to "a few prioreties in depth", from "doing what I thought was normal and what everyone else was doing and not understanding why it wasn't working for me" to "self-designing my life from the ground up and finally learning that I am not broken - fish are not made to be measured by how well they can climb walls". I'm just a fish - a nomadic, free-living, water-loving, kid-friendly fish. I am a Life bender - watch how I move [that was for fellow Avatar: The Last Airbender fans]. And my own personal measure of success: I can meet someone who I think will be able to "see into me", and I am not afraid, and I am 99% not afraid of what they will find!

I have officially gotten my fill of "Self" (in the context of walking and healing alone), at least up to this point in my life. Dawning within me and stretching out into my life is now The Age of Togetherness. I finally feel ready for relationships in my life. You can only begin to imagine how huge that is for my life. I felt like typing it deserved a dramatic music introduction and that it should then be blinking bright vibrant colors with confetti strewn all about it. Let me say it again:

I finally feel ready for relationships in my life.

For a girl who has longed for relationships her whole life, but had much to sort out first, this is amazing. And just in time, don'tcha think? :)) I feel like I have a very solid foundation of self, a clear understanding of where I end and another begins, and can finally feel Safe being unsafe, Comfortable being uncomfortable, and Sure being vulnerable. These are key ingredients for building relationships, me thinks currently :)) I have many natural relationship-friendly qualities, but my biggest asset is applying my own relationship with myself to others <3

So, to kick off this journey, Life threw a few big-timers. I guess Life felt that if I could handle such huge situations with family of origin, the rest would be a piece of cake :)) It certainly stretched me in new ways and helped me see some new and very self-affirming things (part of the transition from "self" to "togetherness", I am sure).

Life is always playing with relativity, isn't it? The whole story of the boy whose horse runs off and everyone says it is bad, and then it comes back with a mare and everyone says it is good, and then the wild mare breaks the boys arm (or something) and on and on. What is REALLY realllllllly -- I mean, REALLLLLLLLLLY objectively "bad"? It's all good ;) Or maybe it's not "good" either, it just is? And maybe how someone interprets these things says more about the person than the situation? Yes, I think so. Oh, but it is delicious to ride the ride, isn't it? Sometimes? Because I have a deep-seeded trust and faith that it's all Good, I enjoy surfing the waves of "the good, the bad, and the ugly". I am a Pisces, and we are very emotional beings, and I embrace that in myself and my life. I love to cry and to rejoice and to sink down low and to rise again. I am fine with all of it, because I am not scared of any of it, because I believe it is the fun of living, because I have felt the cleanse that comes from allowing the flow. I trust it, especially if I feel drawn to it.

I love how all of this has nothing and everything to do with togetherness :)) I love how life is all interconnected, like an afghan whose rainbow colors may not seem to be connected, but they all started from the same thread and the whole knitted quilt would be affected and effected by what happens to one.

I am realizing that there is only so much healing, so far I can go alone. I feel like I have gone as far as I can. I have been a die hard do-it-yourself-er, and now I am ready to do it all with someone else, or hopefully, many more "else"s ;) No more being stopped by social anxieties - instead leaning into them and see where they take me. I am excited about this whole new adventure before me. I am excited about the reflection I will be seeing of myself in others, so that I can get more real with myself and understand myself better. I am excited about all that this will mean for my Life, for my living experiences, for my future Path in relationships, for the relationships I have with my children (and the role model I am for them), for the people in my life who are blessed to have me as I am now and will be transformed by the upcoming experiences. It is just thrilling all over the place :))

Now that I truly love myself, am really really learning how to accept myself unconditionally, trust myself wholly, and am so madly in love with my Life and our living, I feel like I can finally extend that to others.

Alright, Beloveds, I am ready for you. Are you ready for me? :)

Laid to Rest

2011-10-16T07:21:00.000-07:00

I wish a picture could capture and words describe what this feels like for me: plush green grass to stretch out on and my grandma's handmade quilt liberated from a box to live in nature and participate in memory-making again ♥

I posted this picture and caption on Facebook 4 days before. This quilt, the fact that my grandmother made it with her hands, and I was giving it a new life... It has all been very profound to me on this journey. Almost every day I spread it in the grass and lay on it, and the bright colors in contrast to the grass, and the comfort it provides -- they have been one of the highlights of the journey so far.

I posted this picture on Facebook 4 days before my grandmother passed away. I did not know my grandmother very well. I heard she was a firecracker all her life, and I know she had a lot of healing to do, which made her absent most of my life (until I was an adult). I spent very little time with her, and most recently, it was very difficult, as her beginning stages of dementia made what I thought would be an amazing intergenerational experience a sad and frustrating visit. She died thinking I didn't like her. Now it is too late to tell her that she just stirred me in uncomfortable personal ways, places that I wasn't ready to grow yet.

Because I didn't have a lot of memories with her, my first initial reaction was that I have now lost the last of a whole generation in my life. What a big open space that just created.

Because I didn't have a lot of memories with her, I am saddest for the stories that have been silenced and never told. Her stories. Her family's stories, that I will never know now. I am sad for the memories that could have been made.

This has all been laid to rest.

And today, on this quilt, I lay to rest, during the most alive and thriving time of my life. And this quilt, made by the hands of my grandmother, is an integral part of this experience and adventure.

I honor her by living with this quilt.

I honor her by taking the time to stretch and grow in the ways I wasn't ready to before.

Maybe I will do it while laying on her quilt, wrapped in her love, knowing she is still around, if not in the physical. And she is with me to still process all this stuff.

Be in peace, Grandma Sylvia <3

This Self-Guided Journey

2011-10-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, another pic of the road from the driver's seat :)

I am a radical unschooler to the depths of me. I am proud to be realizing how deeply I have internalized this philosophy that feels so right in my head and in my heart. Maybe that is why I am so easily integrating it? I feel like it and I are the same.

So far, the last few months have been an experience of opening myself up to the raw, to the authentic, to searching for alignment during all of this. I often feel lost and overwhelmed by what I have done. Sometimes, I wonder what the heck I just did. Once or twice I have even asked myself if this was the right thing to do.

Parts of me wants to climb back under the covers and bury myself in familiar comfort. But a bigger part of me has undertaken an adventure, and the deepest depths of my soul reply with a resounding yesssssssssss, when I ask if this was right. (Plus, I can crawl up on a blanket in a park and get the same comfort -- oh, yeah, baby!)

It can be scary, but it is right. Even if I regret that I gave up my free housing to return to someday, even if I am already ready to ditch the RV. I never would be where I am right now if I hadn't experienced what I have so far. I never would have been ready for a house again if I hadn't ditched the house I had and given my all to this path. I always would have wondered about this RV if I hadn't followed the inside of me that said it was right -- it didn't have to be right for forever, but it was right when it was right.

This is a self-guided journey, and I am thankful that I am very attuned with my self. I know what I want, even if I am not always sure how it is going to happen. Sometimes, I get scared when I feel something calling me -- I am not always trusting of myself or my journey, and that is shifting more and more.

I get questioned a lot (who doesn't when they exit the throes of traditional living?). Now that I am internalizing "I am a self-trust master", I feel less inclined to justify myself or even answer questions. Is it my job to calm other's fears about my life (especially when every answer has been covered in depth in my blog LOL)? I think there are no better answers than to just live it and let people see. And people often seem uncomfortable when someone isn't sure about things, so it is just easier to keep living my truth on my path, than express to people that I don't know something but that it is okay. I am flying by the seat of my pants, and this is AMAZING right now! It is meant to be, and it is healing, and it will all be okay.

It is okay. I can comfort people in their anxiety about my path, the way I wish I had been comforted as a child with anxiety... It's okay, and I will be present with you until you feel okay (even if it is just holding a space of "okay" in our relationship).

I am feeling very strongly aligned with my truths these days. Moreso than ever before. I guess when I cleared away all the gunk piled on top of my Truth, my Truth is clearer and more demanding. It's been quite a treat coming out of denial (and I don't mean the river in Egypt) about things. Getting real. And I mean real real. Like "f*ck it if they don't get it" real -- I'm tired of all the busywork. Tara calls this "nailing it". At least, I hope this is it... I'm still in the early learning stages.

This self-guided journey means that it is guided BY me, OF me, FROM me, FOR me. And that may mean that folks see me driving in circles, crying and feeling lost, and appearing to backstep, but it is all forward, and it is all coming from within -- a self-guided journey.

It is Fall, and I am LIVING deconstruction right now, watching things die away from my life, celebrating old leaves drying up and becoming compost for new growth. I am looking forward to hybernating for a while this Winter in retreat, and then rebirthing like a pheonix this Spring. By Summer, I should be rejuvinated and bursting with life! Haha, as if I am not already... hahahahahah

Today has been a chocolate-covered macadamia nut day, with my journal close. I started the day in sweats and boots and a hoodie -- oh yeah, THAT kind of day. Yummy for the insides :))

I am ready to undertake probably one of the biggest parts of this journey: social anxieties. I am ready to heal through relationships, ready to meet my peeps in person and be vulnerable and authentic and invite rejection and acceptance. How F-ing scary! These people I have been loving and sharing with for years, who know the depths of my soul but not how I am actualizing them or not -- will they see me and "catch me" being an imposter? Will they see through me and see that I am just a wanna be, a poser? Will they see inside me, and will they unconditionally accept what they find? Can I?

Even bigger than that, can I be comfortable leaning on them for help? Found a landmine -- I will be back about that later.

Alright, enough babbling about my view of my journey from this spot.

Please, PLEASE share with me about how you exercise being assured of your own self-guided journey.

p.s. - I forgot to mention my whole point, which was that I trust my path, and I am just following it for what it is. I know all the answers I have been searching for are on the journey when I stop resisting.

I Feel It Coming

2011-10-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

I am starting to itch. The open road is calling me.

It was a whisper buried beneath this wild ride of a transition. With nothing left to drown it out, it is getting louder and more demanding.

It sounds like the wind, full of promises, whispering sweet everythings into my ear like the swishing in a seashell.

It comes in snapshots before my eyes of open highways with picturesque landscapes, whenever I get into the van and look out my giant front window.

It's a restlessness in the depths of my muscles and my very soul, like it is pulling me toward new horizons by the seat of my pants.

Sometimes, I get wrapped up in my fears and try to quiet the voice -- please wait, I beg. I'm not ready.

Not good enough, I am hearing is it's new reply. It promises healing to all the things that are "keeping me here" -- my oldest child's emotional nourishment, my own "unstuckness", my social anxieties resolved, our financial sustainablity.

Promises of healing. Experiences to stretch. Opportunities to grow.

A long overdue vacation of the spiritual and soulful sort.

........

If I left November 2nd, eastbound, we would be in Florida for the coldest months of the year. When it started to warm up, we could head north. Then we could head west and spend the late summer in Oregon. And then back down here in time for next winter.

A year trip (depth). In the van (simplicity). Connecting with my tribe. Having experiences. Retreating in nature. Growing as a family and as individuals.

This feels right <3

Look out, World, here we come!

p.s. - yesterday I felt lost and cried a lot. I love the clarity that grows from that <3

Reclaiming My Childhood

2011-10-06T05:15:00.000-07:00

My view whilst swinging

People who know me face-to-face may be surprised to know what I have been up to recently. For all my radicalness, I am quite conservative in person -- not because I value it, but because I am still scared to burst out of my shell in front of people. I have been called weird more than once, and I have internalized that there is something wrong with that. Well, that internalization is being evicted :)) Weird, here I come :)))

I used to LOVE being active when I was a child. I did all sorts of physical activities. As I became an adult, I let those things go. Recently, I have become very NOT active. So, I am reclaiming that part of my childhood. I have been up to all manner of my childhood favorites: the glee of swinging every chance I get, racing down slides after my little ones, learning how to ride a Razor scooter, buying myself a pair of rollerblades (!!!!) (from Goodwill, my size, sparkly dark purple -- SO meant for me), running around a grassy park kicking a ball with my kids, trapsing up and down the beach as many times as we just do rather than trying to limit the trips, exploring places where I could fall (like the jetty), going for hikes, racing down to the beach at night to play tirelessly in the glowing water...

I think that wanting to travel with the van as homebase is a sort of revisiting travelling with my mom and brother in our minivan when I was a teenager and life was so simple in the van, and life was more about experiences and less about stuff, when I delighted living from a suitcase, when I stretched and grew in ways I never would have imagined, when I saw landscapes that strummed the heartstrings of my spirit and my soul, when I met people from so many different walks of life and learned to embrace the beauty of diversity.

This time around, I get to appreciate it in ways I couldn't imagine last time.

Last time, I was like a big open cup, just pouring these experiences in without really processing them and digging deeper into the ways that they were impacting me. I love that (the sifting) about being an adult, as much as I love the open rawness of being a kid.

Maybe this is a common part of life? It kind of reminds me of how being a parent is almost like closing a loop about having been parented. It feels like it completes a circle, as I can only imagine watching my child become a parent seals that loop! But I am not a crone, yet, so I am still in mother mode :))

Maybe this adventure is another chapter of finding peace with my past? Btw, even if this is true, the adventure alone is about way more than just that! But while we are on the topic of healing pasts, I can see this filling some empty spots.

Shortly after we settled back down and started growing roots (after moving often and travelling), I never wanted to move/travel like that again. I felt like I had missed out on so much by not staying in one place for a long time. I grew roots -- boy, did I grow roots. I stayed in the same town for 17 years. I was careful to provide the stability I thought was best, for Kassidy -- she went to the same daycare as far back as she remembered, the same school, we lived in the same apartment complex for 6 years.... And then when she was in 3rd grade, a shift happened. She wanted to shake things up a bit, wanted some change, wanted new friends and different experiences. We had to move, and she was THRILLED about it! Then, change just kept happening, and it felt so wonderful.

Finding unschooling was a sort of healing, because it helped explain the form of learning through living we had done while travelling (not formal homeschooling). It probably paved the way to me finding peace with all the unconventionalness and movement of my childhood. I also probably got my fill of growing roots and was ready for something new. Even though I ultimately trust that my kids will figure out their own journey and find peace with whatever decisions I make that may "mess them up" as they get older, I feel more confident that I can avoid those giant pitfalls altogether. Afterall, I can draw off of personal experience, and our parenting/family interaction style is healing along the way, as well.

Closing loops. Reliving my childhood. Reprocessing my childhood.

Good stuff.

It's All Downhill to the Beach

2011-10-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

This is so symbolic of our journey

I was born in a town by the ocean, and lived in this giant county for 10 years of my life, until we moved to New Mexico and then Colorado and travelled all over the US. Then we moved back to this town by the ocean that I was born in (that is now a city). We have been here for 17 years.

Once I got over missing the Rocky Mountains, I really loved living so close to the ocean. I can feel it inside me, the pull. I have always loved the idea of the beach, although all that sand that gets in nooks and crannies and is hard to walk on has actually been a barrier to enjoying the beach.

I am a Pisces -- I am water. I am soooooo water. One of the biggest parts about living nomadically is being able to be as changeable as water needs to be.

Once I started selling everything we own, it all just flowed. The whole experience just flowed. We spent a lot of time working on the RV and postponing the adventures that come from living in the RV. But once we got to a point where the RV was done enough, we went to the harbor and stayed there for 4 days. That was when I fell in love with the beach, sand and all. In fact, the sand in nooks and crannies suddenly was a reminder that we were living on the beach, and it was wonderful.

We found peace in the sand, and the walk on the jetty still lingers in my awareness.

I feel so connected to the ocean and to the beach life right now, I can only begin to explain. Where the RV is parked right now is a block away from the beach, and we wake up to the sight of the ocean from our bedroom window. It feels so right to be so close to the beach. We have been staying pretty close to it in our adventures.

The picture above was taken on one of those adventures by the beach. The hill just led right down to the beach, and it seemed somehow symbolic of our life right now, in a way that I wasn't ready to explore just yet... Now I am.

Our life has been downhill to the beach over the last few months -- downhill (the flow of the simplification process) to the beach (I seem to be have been led to the beach and can't leave). The beach, the ocean is so symbolic to me. The ocean has always called me, being the water woman I am, and now I can be with it; the beach has been a barrier that is now "not easy" but brings it's own "life symbolism" that I have been enjoying soaking in.

Living in the RV really is much easier than living in a house. I feel like it is downhill. SO easy. I mean, other than the whole "stuff keeps breaking" bit. I think staying in the van will be even easier. The less distractions from what's important, the better :))

It's all downhill to the beach...

Picking Up the Pieces

2011-09-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

I have had a nice little adventure in "deconstruction land", where I realized some deep and powerful barriers in my life. I can't wait to share them with you. I have felt like a mess for a couple days, and now I am picking up the pieces, a bit more mindful than before, a bit more aligned than before, a bit more able to design my life than before.

Tara describes it best... These barriers are like a wall that you keep bumping into. Oh, was I bumping. In fact, they were so deeply a part of my foundation that I couldn't even see them. I am very blessed to be doing some digging deep and Organic Life Coaching with Tara (from The Organic Sister). She was able to catch stuff that I couldn't see. It has been amazing -- not all happy, wonderful stuff. Just A.MAZ.ING. Revelation after revelation. She is so intuitive, and she picks stuff up before I even know it is there, and she really nails it when I am doing something I am not even aware of. She is awesome -- shameless plug for her :))

So, what is this stuff I have been realizing that has been shaking my world, you may ask?

I justify. So so so sososososososososo badly. In fact, once she mentioned it and I started digging, I realized that almost everything I do (outside of just DOING something) is justifying, be it to myself or to others. It is really shaping my awareness in relationships -- some relationships are heavy with me feeling like I need to justify myself, and some I feel so free knowing they believe the best and there is no need. It is helping me pave my path in friendships.

The reason I justify myself is because I am still practicing being a self-trust master. When I look back on how far I have come in self-trust, I see how awesomely far I have come. What I can see that is left is not justifying my crazy ventrues, my callings in life, my wildness. Does a master justify themselves to people who are in doubt? Especially in a "please understand and accept my path because I need your support" kind of way? Heck no! They just go about their life being true to their Truth. Being a self trust master is a form of ninja -- stay deeply centered, avoid attacks, maintain daily. I am working on embodying the affirmation that I am a self-trust master. I can feel it growing from my heart out into my limbs. It feels AMAZING.

I get this serious anxiety around cleanliness and clutter and many more things. I have been trying to unpack it for a couple years. I haven't been able to find the root of it, and then, as I was already below the surface for some other stuff, I tapped into the "anxiety plant" and think I located the root: "when things are dirty, bad things happen". I was punished as a child for dirtiness (mostly by my well-intentioned stepmom), and me being the "pleaser" that I have always been really internalized the lesson. Realizing this made punishment *click* for me. It's not always an intentional punishment, like being grounded... it can be as simple as a look or an exhale of just the right length. I internalized a lot of punishment (anxiety-causing stuff), and I think this accounts for the bulk of my anxiety in life. WHEW! That was helpful!!!

Another is that I realized that I can stop digging deep. This has been an AMAZING realization. It may seem obvious to others, but not for me. I mean, I was digging like a maniac. I just kept digging, not trusting that I was far enough, that this was enough, that I am good now. I didn't trust that I could assess when I am done digging on something -- I thought I was not digging deep enough. Becoming a self-trusting master and realizing the bulk of my anxiety stems more from conditioning than some unbeknowst (sounds like a word to me!) thing I was missing has helped with this.

And lastly, I am getting real with myself and letting go of the denial I am in on stuff. If I am resistant to something, it's because I am in denial about something concerning it. I'm trying to get real with as many of those things as possible. Usually, I am in denial because I try hard to intentionally be different or feel differently. I am going to get real before I try to build on that thing with intention.

........ so.

That crash course update was about as fast as it came to me, too. This has been over the last, like 2 weeks! That is a LOT for 2 weeks.

That is what I love about living on the road (okay, so I haven't left the county yet -- I'm still "on the road"!). Once I got rid of the rug, I had to deal with all the crud I had been hiding under it! That was totally intentional. I am arranging life in such a way that my experiences will facilitate the learning I am wanting in my life, for my life. The road is ruthless -- it doesn't allow you a rug to sweep crap under or space to run and hide from it. The road is more like a magnet, drawing in experiences to help you deal with the crud. Deal with it, or keep having problems.

One last bit to what I have been dealing with is bigger than I have explored yet, and that is my "issues" in social situations. I have had serious social anxieties that are all being thrown up in my face as I am having more and more interactions with people and leaning on friends more than I ever would have wanted to. Feelings of unworthiness, fear of loss, frustration over differences... oh, yeh, baby -- it's all surfacing and demanding processing before I drown.

The other thing that has happened in this adventure so far, that has been way more than I expected, is the wonderfulness of experiences with my children. We are on the move daily. I have been needing this in my life, in my unschool journey. Facebook has become my homeschool portfolio, chocked full of pictures and snippets of what fills our days :)

This adventure has already been way more than I even dreamed of, all over the place.

Vanpacking

2011-09-22T02:52:00.000-07:00

- it's like backpacking, only the van does all the work.

Can you believe that after living in the RV for a month and half, I am still feeling like we are living with so much excess, like I haven't whittled away enough, like *stuff* is still getting in the way of experiences, and an RV is too big and too much?

Simpler. Smaller. Easier.

Pluses about the RV

it has a bathroom
it is indoors and house-like for rainy days and family/input days
it has a fridge and kitchen in general
it's gorgeous on the inside

Pluses about traveling in the van

gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
go places 3 times as fast or only spend a third of the gas money
smaller (easier to maneuver and park)
only the very most important *stuff* present (allowing for the most experiences)
more space above the bed (in the RV above the cab is about 2 feet, in the back of the van would be like 3 or 4 feet!)
we would be invisible -- no one notices a silver minivan
the van is MUCH more reliable (newer, better condition engine, etc.)

The RV is feeling heavy to me -- it's so high maintenance. And it's an eye sore on the outside until I can paint it, which feels like it will never get done! I am all about beauty, AND I don't want to get treated worse (classism and all).

I am looking to have a very specific journey. I don't know the details, but I know it requires dumping the excess shit in my life and getting real. I'm so tired of so much!!!!!!! I am realizing that I used to be agoraphobic and a slight hoarder, and I am realizing just how stopped my life was for so many years. I buried my self under layers of anxiety and stuff, and I am trying to uncover me and get to know me. I need some retreat, some time to have lots of experiences (especially with my children), to find something that is lost.

This is a spiritual quest, a soulful journey. I am looking for something, and I don't know what it is or where exactly it is, but I know it is on this path and I will know when I have it.

I am thinking about taking the van for a trip up the west coast -- just strapping some surfboards and a solar panel to the roof of my van, building a bed frame in the back of it for an uber-comfy bed, piling our stuff under the bed, and hitting the open road. I think I need the simple mobility, the retreat, the ocean, my books and writing supplies, and plenty of space to deconstruct and regrow, the family solitude, the Tribe experiences (meeting some of my Tribe along the way), and room for the unexpected.

Somehow, we will head back down here, especially in time for Thanksgiving in a super cool RV campsite for 2 weeks (blessings from a dear new friend) and decide what we want to do at that point. Do we want to sell the van, sell the RV, travel in the van a bit longer and return to the RV after making our national tour we had planned before, or something else entirely.

I think I really need this trip. I think I really need to do this in the van. I feel absolutely crazy, but not crazy enough. I really want to embrace my crazy and be real.

Buena Vista Park Hike

2011-09-22T01:36:00.000-07:00

Today was another day of adventure :)) I love taking off to explore somewhere, not knowing what may be ahead, and with all the time in the world to go as slow as we want to allow for the depth and the unexpected, called learning :)

We started off with some duck feeding and lake poking :)

Then the group pictures...

And a few individual pics that are too perfect to not share :))

Okay, this one is from yesterday, but it was too good to not share right now :))

This was from yesterday, too LOL

My darling baby today!

After the picture taking session had ended and my cell phone battery was dead, we grabbed the digital camera and started our adventure :))

We found...

this amazing giant tree!

The kids practiced beginning science...

... and I swelled in awe of the sacred feminine in nature <3

Then...

we found a tree with loooooow branches :))

for Jaja to practice crawling on

And then we found...

a log bridge :))

where Jaja did a happy dance the first time she crossed it alone :))

and then felt courageous enough to race across it!

(so cute while she balances)

and Noble walked across it like the crabs we saw at the beach the other day

Then Jaja decided to plop down in the dirt on the trail and draw some spirals in the sand (she is SO my baby)

Noble had to get in on that :D

Practicing his "b"s for Noble :))

Oh, and THEN...

we found the most awesome natural climbing structure EVER (so far in this outdoor adventure)

and it reinforced a feeling of ability and self-confidence for Noble

He is just so proud of himself <3

and the baby just chugs right along after him :)))

Then we saw

a quaint little bridge overlooking some water with sticks -- I mean SNAKES in it (well, Noble swore they were snakes LOL)

Jaja needed a better look :))

And then she needed to be carried, so I didn't get any more pics. Another thing I didn't get pics of was when we strayed from the big trail down into a path through the trees. I couldn't help it, my curiosity got the best of me, and I am so glad we did. Even though I ended up walking through a spiderweb and ending up with a spider crawling down my back, it was really an adventure! Off the beaten path, being trailblazers! It brought me immediately back to my youth of playing in canyons and places just like this (maybe the smell of the same kinds of trees played a part in that, too!). It was wonderful to see some beautiful sites and explore some options (for a day when I wasn't in flip-flops) for more adventure.

The wide range of learning really amazed me. Just on that hike, the babies learned math (counting sticks they found, growing in awareness of how time), social studies (having a sense of where we were on a "u" shaped path), science (differentiating between the kinds of birds we saw -- ducks, geese, and another --, picking at plants, talking about different reasons why things were how they were or how they may have gotten that way, observing living things in their natural habitat), motor skills (dancing, running, climbing, writing/drawing, walking), social skills (interacting with fellow hikers and each other, taking turns, helping each other), literacy (we read the signs together that we saw, drew letters in the dirt, and noticed branches that looked like letters), art (drawing in the dirt, recognizing contrasting colors in the plants), and we played the "senses game" where we close our eyes and talk about what we hear, what we smell, what we feel, etc. They got to exercise their imagination muscles with stories about wild animals in the area, and make plans for the future (a couple good picnic areas for future hikes).

Oh yes, this was a fulfilling day, as an unschooling family, as mama in love with her babies, and as a nomad living for experiences that nourish the soul and sweep away the gunk :))

The Path of the Jetty

2011-09-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

The kids and I had an adventure yesterday. I have heard people talk about walking labrynths, about how they are symbolic of life. That is how this was for me. It was certainly an opportunity to work through some stuff.

I love that we did it barefoot.

I love that the babies did what they were comfortable with. And I love that that meant Noble did the whole thing himself (leaping from rock to rock saying he was sticking like Spiderman) and that Najaia about 98% of it herself or holding my hand (with her free hand -- the other hand held her treasure, a feather :)), until she got too tired and wanted to be held.

I love that I got to explore my fear of falling -- it's roots possibly from my mom's fear of heights/falling and her fears scaring me, the reality of me actually falling, when/how different spots felt, and how being a big mama confirms my fears (like an added fear that equipment will fail because of my size).

I love that when I was working on overcoming my fear of falling, I had a giant 2-year-old on my side or back to further test/challenge/push my sense of balance.

I loved going so far (almost to the end) and knowing we had done it.

I loved stopping when I knew it was time, not pushing myself to finish or feeling any less accomplished for not going all the way to the end :))

Our view of the beach from our spot on the jetty :))

I loved sitting at the end with my baby (who calls herself Jaja, and so now so do I :)) while she sorted out her frustrations about me not holding her (Kassidy's friend held her) while I was trying to get the perfect picture of Noble leaping from one rock to the other.

That was awesome.

I loved finding my way :))

When I see this picture, may I always remember how empowered I felt that day...

I loved the close-up focus on the path, constantly scanning the rocks to see where my next step would be, and then sometimes stepping back and looking at the bigger picture to find the best path -- such life symbolism!

I love that the waves sometimes landed hard on the rocks and threw a spray up into the air or onto us, and it would distract me, so I would have to stop, enjoy the spray, and then refocus on my internal balance and path.

I love that I was getting better and better at it, and will be even better in the future.

Living and learning in layers on the jetty.

Peace in the Sand

2011-09-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

I am still soaking in the soul nourishment from our overnight camping at the beach. It started upon arrival. We found the perfect spot, overlooking the playground, next to the new bathrooms, and within eyeshot of a firepit we wanted to nab that night. An amazing soul sister and her family came to join us for a bit of fun at the playground, then blessed us with the means to spend the night there.

This mama was in Pisces heaven!

I took a gazillion pictures and spent SO.MUCH.TIME just reflecting and standing in awe of how our time was perfectly unfolding.

After our friends/family left, we ran down to the water, where the kids played and I explained some stuff about the ocean to my Pisces son (like how the tides work and how sea creatures once lived in the shells we were finding).

I am home

We found peace in the sand

The kids got wet and sandy, and we headed back up to rinse off in the showers, as some new friends of ours showed up to bar-b-que with us.

The sun starting to set

The food and the company was delicious -- complete with the s'mores :)) We quickly realized that the firewood we (overpricedly) purchased was not going to be enough to get us through the bar-b-que even, so Kass went on a hunt for more firewood and blessed us with some HUGE heavy pieces that I knew would last us all night :))

The firepit was magic, toasty, incredibly healing.

After our friends left, me and the kids just sat there with the fire -- the kids did a bit of dancing around to their favorite tunes, and Kass serenaded us to her favorite YouTube videos until her phone died. And we just sat. Noble fell asleep in my arms. I sat there for a long time thinking, "This is it. This is what this is all about."

After I went and laid him inside the RV (and Kass stayed inside to read), Najaia and I grabbed my drum and headed back out to the firepit. It was a full moon. Let me back up a bit.... When I was pregnant with Najaia, I developed a burning desire to drum, so for my birthday right after she was born, I bought a djembe drum off Craigslist with background and energy I could vibe with :) I had plans to visit drum circles and hula hoop jams :) Well, we haven't left the house with it, but the kids have enjed showing me what natural drummers they are inside :)) I, personally, seem to not be made for drumming, as I cannot keep a rhythm to save my life.

So, I bring the drum down to the firepit. And Najaia and I get comfy and start drumming together. I close my eyes and think of the full moon, and let the full moon channel through me. I can't say the sound was necessarily something I would proudly display, but it flowed through me and was a first step on my drum-playing-learning journey <3 What was most amazing was the magic that Najaia and I shared. As you can imagine, her and I don't get a lot of alone time together. This was extra-special :))

That night, I got to fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing at the shore... *melt*

The next morning, Najaia awoke with me, and we headed out to the playground to play, where I met an amazing hippy mama with kids spaced almost exactly like mine! I kept thinking, gosh, now that I have gotten out of the house in the last month and a half, I am meeting the most AWESOME people! Noble awoke while we were at the playground, and after our friends left, I grabbed my drum, and me and the babies headed down to the water.

The beach was almost empty (early morning, school in session), and that was where the drumming magic happened. It started with the kids drumming (and Najaia dancing, too)

and then it was my turn to drum. I channeled the ocean and listened to the drum, and it seemed my arms knew what to do, and my hands, too. It sounded AMAZING! Suddenly, the drum was a wonderland of sounds and feels and movements.

What rose up out of me was definitely drum-circle worthy. I was REALLY jamming. It was so awesome.

Noble asked if we could go up to the playground and I explained that I was playing for the waves. Suddenly, a wave starts climbing up the sand toward us - probably 10 feet of recently-wet sand, and at least 15 feet of dry sand... and stops about 4 feet from us. I was in awe and almost leapt up and cheered. I silently thanked the ocean for the greeting, the acknowledgement that I was playing for her. I look down the beach as far as I can see and see that it only came up that high in about 3 spots.

Noble's jaw has practically dropped. He takes the drum and starts drumming.

still drumming almost 20 minutes later

He drums the tide in <3

Finally, he gets the sand-climbing wave he was waiting for :)) We decide to join Najaia in water play :))

digging for sand crabs

running away from the wave

Off on an adventure :)

Cutest baby feet pic I have ever seen :)) You can see her little pink-with-black-spots toenails :)

Then we head back up to the RV with plans to walk out on the jedi (sp? -- the rock entrance/exit to the harbor). After we get changed, the sound of seals "ar-ar-AR"ing draws the babies to the boat docks part of the harbor :))

The CUTEST cloth diaper EVER, special made for Najaia from her Auntie MB -- it's a purple tiedyed star!

Kass joins us :))

Sisters <3

Doing what boys do <3 (or what my kids do LOL)

Making her sister feel better <3

As it turns out, there were 4 seals sunbathing in the water :)) (and one playing and "ar-ar-AR"ing :))

I really wanted to get out on the jedi, and we had a birthday party to attend, so the time was a bit crunched. So, I talked the kids into going back to the RV with me to get ready for our hike out into the ocean :)) We ended up eating lunch (bread, bree, and apples -- YUM!), and when we headed out of the RV, we ran into a dear friend who happened to be at the playground with her daughter! So, we stuck around with them for a little while.

Wow, she touched my heart by expressing how encouraging my journey (via facebook) has been for her recently. We hugged for a long time. It was just what I needed to seal up the beach visit. I showed her the inside of the RV (hahaha, in all it's messiness!), and we said good bye. As I drove away, I felt the peace lingering. We stopped to dump our tanks and made new friends (full-timers of 10 years currently renting some horse-land property in Vista).

I love this life.

i. love. this. life.

Peace

2011-09-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

During all the chaos, I had a few moments when we were driving by a gentleman sitting at the entrance of a shopping center collecting change, and we would make eye contact and he would throw up the peace sign, and everything inside me would rise up and resound, "Yeeeeessssssssss!!!!!!!"

Peace. Oneness. That is what this is all about.

I saw this same gentleman a handful of times - each one reminding me of the beautiful humanity of people. This man touched my soul and my journey in ways he never could have imagined. It was like an amazing photograph -- in a pocket in this crazy world is the eye of the storm: the gentleman with the peace sign.

He reminded me of this graphic that I have loved so much for so many years:

So, Monday was the day I wrapped up our storage situation. My friend's garage no longer holds anything that belongs to me, and the van (that we are still trying to sell) only has in it a folding table and chairs and 2 large hula hoops that we will probably strap to top of an economy car that we will buy when we sell the van :)) Yesterday, as I situated our stuff in a more permanent manner, I realized that we can comfortably live with what we own right now. Wow. That is amazing. It only took 1 1/2 months longer than I had anticipated LOL

Peace. Stuff peace. If the whole world went quiet and you sat down in the middle and meditated without interruption - THAT is the calm I feel from having stuff peace.

Ahhh, peace.

On, Tuesday, we were driving down to the beach, and I spotted a woman in a crowd waiting to cross the street with dreads that stuck up in all directions on her head. I couldn't help but smile big to her, and she smiled back -- an enthusiastic "That's right" kind of smile :) And as she passed by us to cross the street, she held up 2 fingers to share a moment of global peace and oneness with me.

I almost died!!!!!!! The peace sign again. I haven't seen so many peace signs (and from a delicious rainbow of folks) since the 60s -- okay, I was in the womb in the 60s, but I can imagine :)

The beach was A.MAZ.ING. It was just what this wild zen tribe needed, just what this peace-seeking bohemian Pisces mama needed. And there, we found peace in the sand...

This trip to the beach rivaled the overnight campsite for soul nourishment. This is exactly why we gave up everything we owned and moved into an RV. Boondocking and staying in our old neighborhood were great for my tiny wallet, but staying in these spots made me remember why I want to flourish in self-sustainability! I want this to be my life. The inner peace that I find when we are parked somewhere where we can get out and explore overnight fills me up in ways I can only begin to explain. I want this to be my life.

Peace to you, Dearest Tribe <3

BEing in Nomads Land

2011-09-07T22:59:00.000-07:00

In another life I was a stressed out mama of 3 children, a rapidly growing puppy, and 2 cats, with a big house to clean and care for and unlimited water, electricity, and internet. I had all the time in the world to sit on said internet, because I didn't leave that big house very often. I am certainly a creature of comfort, and everything I wanted and loved and collected over time to enjoy was there. I often went months without being face-to-face with someone other than my children (or my brother who usually lived with us). I had social anxieties that were buried beneath a life inside my house and deep important friendships via the internet.

Then, I got this wild hair (maybe it was one of those sacred gray ones on my head that I wanted to proudly display to the world?), and I decided to sell everything I own and fix up an old RV (and I had 2 months to do it). Crazy, right? Yeahhhhhhh, that sounds like me :)

4 days after living in this RV, I didn't remember the old life. The transition was often loud and sometimes painful and always flowing. I just went with it. I just kept the flow going. Out with the old, in with the new. I stayed mindful of the waves of processing that were happening as I let go of everything I had accumulated in my adulthood, everything that measured my adult success, everything that made me feel grounded and safe and secure in this world: 30-odd years of furniture, do-dads, and keepsakes (not to mention paperwork and crafting supplies!). It all just flowed out of my life, either through garage sales, Craigslist, free piles of stuff, theft, or whoever was around that liked something. It all went... Well, it is still leaving, actually. Until I will be whittled down to a mama with many warm bodies and stuffed nooks and crannies in a 24 ft (bumper to bumper) home on wheels.

Ahhhhh... Nomads land. I was made for this. The comforts of home with a changing view :) Radical minimalism. Life so simple you can't hide from your issues and there is more than enough room for growth. Oh, was I made for this. So many moments where I was just in awe of the perfection of this life for us, where I have resonated with the alignment of this life for us. The transition was wild, and the moment we were in, it was zen. Not that it has been easy - none of it has been (even the stuff I thought would be easy), not that it has been crazy-free, but it has all been worth it. I love a bit of hard labor. I don't mind working hard at the things I love.

I think I know why this radical revolution feels so different than some changes I have made in my life. This change was all about subtracting. Subtracting the excess, subtracting the stuff that doesn't really really really matter. And now that I have subtracted SO.VERY.MUCH, I have infinite room to grow new things. I have some pretty big things I am growing, actually :)) More on that soon.

So, today, I am a less stressed out mama. I am also a mama with a cleaner home, who goes outside several times a day and knows almost everyone in my old neighborhood, a mama who has space to sort out and sit with those anxiety issues that used to get swept under the rug, a mama who is riding the waves of this experience and appreciating every dip, loop, and climb. This has been and continues to be a wild experience, and I am really loving living so much in the present that my plans only extend out a week or so :)))

I have missed blogging so very much, and I already think my blog is due another make-over (hahaha). This blog is like my internet lifering. And I love Facebook. But this is my space to dig deep and share broad...

If you have any questions, please ask in the comments section below. So much has changed, I wouldn't even know where to begin describing all of it :)))

I love you!

A break from your regularly scheduled program

2011-06-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

I read this list on my friend, Starcat's blog and knew I had to come share, too :)) It was called something like "One Word"

Yourself: mama
Your partner: planning
Your hair: wild
Your mother: carefull
Your father: fun
Your favorite item: laptop
Your dream last night: processed
Your favorite drink: water
Your dream car: beachcruiser
Your dream home: teeny
The room you are in: bedroom
Your ex: thoughtful
Your fear: mess
Where you want to be in ten years: world-travelling
Who you hung out with last night: kids
What you're not: conventional
Muffins: blueberry
One of your wish list items: wood
Time: present
The last thing you did: read
What you are wearing: comfy
Your favorite weather: moderate
Your favorite book: informational
Last thing you ate: donuts
Your life: inspired
Your mood: relaxed
Your Best Friends: irreplaceable
What are you thinking about right now: non-stress
Your car: RV!!!!!
What are you doing at the moment: smiling
Your summer: adventure
Relationship status: family
What is on your tv: animation
What is the weather like: perfect
When is the last time you laughed: minutes

A Blog Facelift

2011-06-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to give the blog a facelift, since the focus has shifted to reflect our new adventures in this wildcrafted life of our's :)) Well, this morning I woke up with the words "big gypsy dreams" in my head. After promptly posting it as my Facebook status (and not being able to find my ipod), I decided to use my laptop and head over to my blog. I knew it had to be part of the title.

So, if you are viewing this via e-mail, come check out our new digs :))

p.s. - this makeover was WAY easier than the Gypsy Goddess' make over :)))

The Amazing RV Renovation

2011-06-07T09:38:00.000-07:00

I love the app I took this pic with, especially since it made this pic look old,
so it could be my mom and her brand new RV! lol

Note: pics below, when I start talking about what I a doing and plan to do -- but be forewarned, I did not get great "before" pics. The RV is small, and there isn't a lot of room to scoot back and get a pic of a whole area, much less all the different walls, but there are some pics, nonetheless :))

Note again: I started writing this post the night before last, added more and edited yesterday, and am wrapping up this morning, so please excuse the possible less-than-seamlessness of it :)

Alright, here we go!

I have been having the most amazing time fixing up this RV for the last few days (yesterday ended up a day of park fun instead of work for the most part) :)) Words really cannot describe, but I would sure love to try!

So, first off, the easiest: I own it! I am allowed to do this! I can explore and experiment and pick and prod and PERSONALIZE to my living pleasure :))) I have this amazing vision in my head of it finished, and I love getting there!! Even better, I love the little detours that provide opportunities I hadn't imagined, to personalize it :)) This is feeling more and more like home every minute! I am so in love with this RV! I was in love with it before, like a blank canvas to an artist, but I am painting now (literally!), and I am LOVING what is flowing through me! WOWSERS!

I am learning SO much about every detail of her as I paint and tinker around. I have watched videos of people who renovated their RVs or converted buses or whatever, and it is really awesome getting in here and doing my own! I really cannot believe how easy this is. I am definitely on ameteur status with tools, and I am amazed with my resourcefulness with a hammer, a screwgun, and a few screwdrivers :))) I was inspired by the guy who built an amazing hobbit-style house, with just a saw and a hammer. I can do this RV renovation with the limited tools I already own (except I will need a saw of some sort, and I will be very thankful that Lowes cuts wood I will need, with their powersaws, as long as I go in with the measurements :)))) I am learning about every inch of her as I paint and look around and notice things that aren't working (or are) and want to know more about them. It's kinda the epitome of unschooling going on over here :)))

And this is like climbing through a rabbit hole. I go to fix one thing that leads to another thing and then I find I can do this with that thing. Wow. I did a lot of reading and preparing, and now those things are starting to grow in my visions of spaces (like the kitchen, for example -- thinking I might make a flow/living kitchen now since I am probably going to have to gut it anyway, because the storage is horrendous for living in!). I remember in one person's videos about their RV renovation that they said there is always 1 surprise when renovating a used RV. I think I found mine :)) The night before last, I had a detailed list of what "needed" to be done, and today the list grew a bit unexpectedly, and I am THRILLED about that!!!! In fact, as things come up, I see more and more clearly how those things happened to allow me to even better suit this space for us. I can't wait to show you all this gorgeous space that I see so clearly in my head and am seeing slowly manifesting into reality before my eyes. Renovating this RV is definitely an organic process. I am keeping lists, more for ideas of things to check later to see if I still want to do (and so I can share with you all what I have done and want to do, etc, and because it is fun! I love making lists), but I am renovating based on flowing through every inch of the RV and knowing my needs :))

I am trying really hard to make sure my kids feel like this is their home, too, that they get to help with what they want to help with :) It has been AWESOME to see Noble just jump in with some tools and start messing around with stuff, and Najaia, too :) And Kass has helped a bit and talked with me about ideas for spots :))) I have to be careful to keep their experience intact while quickly manifesting my own visions, too :)))

I've realized a comfy bed is priority number 1 right now.

The loft space ("before")

I LOVE sleeping in the RV. I love spending every moment in there :))) The first 3 nights, we slept in the RV, but the last 2 nights we have had to sleep in the house, because that unexpected surprise (mentioned earlier) involves the bed area up top, and I have to gut most of the space up there. Well, I have found that the house doesn't feel like home anymore. It feels weird being in there. I just want to stay out here with my love!!!!!

This RV LOVES us <3 She is so happy to have us in here fixing her up <3 I truly feel like her name is Gypsy Goddess. She is quite the goddess, and I feel the goddess coming out of her as I peel away the outdated layers and lavish her with love and beauty -- okay, maybe I'm projecting my own self-love! :)))

Everyone LOVES her! The neighbor kids can't hang out enough (especially when they got to climb up into the loft), and the babies love climbing all over her and playing in her! The first thing Noble did when the Leapleys left after signing the paperwork was strip down naked :))))) He knew he was home <3 He tells everyone we see that we live in an RV, and he calls it "home" :))) He thinks of people in his life and asks me if we are going to drive to see them in our RV, and he says it is bigger or faster than every car he sees on the road :))) Even the cat loves it!! Sabastian has been in here all day and all night with us every day <3

Where we usually find him sleeping :)) (the loft)

Posing for a picture -- no, he just needed some attention when I was trying to shoot the cabinets :D

He loves being in here so much,
he even tolerates the baby playing with him while he sleeps <3

I am especially excited about the neighborhood kids coming over and hanging out and seeing me work on her, because they think it is so cool, and since we live in a poorer neighborhood, I feel like it makes it more of a reality for them to have one someday, too, if they wanted to :))

I wish I could take video of my progress, but the mic on my iPod is really bad (sounds really muffled), so you wouldn't be able to hear me :(( I wish more people could have seen her "before". I wish I had been able to take better "before" pictures so you could really see what all I have done :))) I'm BURSTING with pride with myself for what I have found myself to be capable of. Wow, me. So far, it's been mostly construction type stuff, with a teensy touch of electrical.

I've so got this.

And let me just say that if you are local and want to come see what's going on in here, please feel free to come check it out! It is so wonderful having company to come share this awesome journey with :))) That goes double if you own a shop vac or any other tools that may make this easier (like a saw LOL), and especially if you have any expertise you can share with me! :))) LOL

This RV was already so awesome when we got it. Like I keep telling the Leapley's, I am so grateful for an RV in such great condition, so I can focus on all the fun stuff :)) Even though we have come across a couple little things that are more than just topical, how blessed are we that it is so minor! This RV came to us in a condition we could have vacationed in comfortably, and the reason I am renovating it (other than I just love the opportunity to) is because we are hoping to live in it for several years. I decided, instead of just "painting over" some issues, that I was going to get down to the root (or the wood or the aluminum siding, as the case may be) and build it back up, since this will be our home for a long time, and because I don't want to have to do it later (and find the paint colors again and what not -- I have my prioreties on straight! lol). I want to get it all in tip-top shape immediately, especially while we have a house and room to do all this now :)) It's also a good opportunity to learn what we will need from the tools and bits of stuff that I have held onto (screws, wheels, etc), since I am doing everything now, so we don't have to carry that stuff around if I won't ever need it (or can get it later when we actually do need it). I am so grateful for the chance to learn and do, and more learning :)))

Alright, so here is my list of stuff that I have done.

Spackled, taped, primered, and painted most of the interior (including places you don't see much of, like under the dinette cushions);

you can see the contrast between the dark wood that was in the whole RV and the white paint I did

painting also included removing the edges of the carpet, so I could paint down to the wood in prep for wood floors

New knobs on the cubbard doors above the windows (haven't done the kitchen, bathroom, and closets yet)
All blinds out, and new curtain rods up (hoping the blinds fit my house ones that the dog completely annihilated in his anger at me about not being seperated right now)
In the process of removing all red leather ( including the cab); I tried painting it white but realized it was paneling wrapped in foam and leather, so I took the foam and leather off and attached the paneling, waiting to be painted :)

Removed paneling and (if needed) wood in upper bed area because of serious water/rot -- removed 1 window because the wood was so rotted around it, it crumbled away

My big helper :)))))

Started to remove the carpet in the upper bed area before I realized that the wood under it by the window was black and water/rot damaged, so I have to take that whole thing out and rebuild a new one anyway
Removed broken visor in driver's spot and screws from paneling in the cab
Shorted out the electrical (long story) and learned how to change a fuse :))))

All that in 3 days amongst keeping my children alive, fed, relatively clean, and recently prioritizing activities and nap time ;))

My next step is to check the other side of the bed area for water/rot because there seems to be *something* based on the exterior. Then, once the bed area around the windows is checked and properly gutted, I am going to work on taking the flooring out of the loft area (2x4s sandwiched between plywood as a heavy duty frame).

Right now, the bed pulls out to be a queen, but it had this cool sliding floor thing to make the bed smaller and the cab space below bigger, but we won't need that or be able to use it, so I am building a whole new bed floor from scratch (and salvaged pieces that are in good condition). We are going to have a queen mattress on top and a foam mattress topper. We won't be able to sit up in bed (because the bedding will be so high), but an uber comfy bed is worth it :)) There are plenty of other places to sit :)

After I get the bed all finished, I am going to install my beautiful brown leather couch and take out this one:

And then my next priority will be either reupholstering the drivers cab (seats, doors, floor carpet) and possibly putting in a new stereo (just need a radio and an iPod dock)

or gutting the kitchen.

In the kitchen, the cabinets above the the sink will remain (but it needs a cabinet door where the microwave was and additional shelving, which I will have to figure out how to add), and the stove and oven will remain (gonna make a "counter top" to go over it so I have some counter space to work on when the burners aren't in use), and the fridge will remain (but I'm taking the leather fronts off and replace with chalkboard painted wood). I would like to put in a slightly bigger sink if possible (with another counter top cover thing), and I am going to gut the bottom (horrible use of space down there, and the kitchen is teeny, so I need every square inch I can get!). I am going to add some kind of beautiful splash sides just above the countertops, and I am gonna paint the kitchen plum. It will inspire me to cook and prepare food more when it is beautiful, and it will be a constant reminder of the goddessy earth-mama-y art of nourishing my family (purple does that for me :)) It's going to be fun figuring out how to make a compost bin and other "living kitchen" or "flow kitchen" things I shared in a previous post :))))

The next step will probably be the bathroom.

Another big project. Probably needs all new walls (don't have pics of the cabinets above the window, because the lighting from the window made the rest of the picture just look like black space), and there is possibly water/rot around the back window. The cabinets and storage areas in there are, again, not ideal for space-maximizing (I know, they didn't intend people to live in them, just visit), so that will be remedied. The tub is AWESOME, but it will need a new shower head, for sure. I anticipate some major beautifying, because I am quite particular about my bathroom looking like the temple it is, complete with a plant near the toilet. We shall see on the details, but that room is going to be LOTS of fun :))

The next thing to do will be the floors. I want to put in something that will be easy to clean (and the tool to do it requires very little space), so hardwood floors would be ideal. But I also want something child/dog friendly (fairly scratch-proof), and not a fortune or too heavy. There are some great options out there, and I will decide when we get closer to that step. I was thinking it would be awesome to find some kind of way to do something like this:

Mural made of pebbles

At that point, I would LOVE to hit the road for a week or so (a trial run, so to speak, to assess our needs better while we still have the house and our stuff to draw from) and then come back and finish the kitchen, renovate the closet space (it's just a big giant open space)

and reupholster the cushions for the dinette (might actually do that on our trial run)

leather on one side and fabric on the other -- which I will do, too :)

Somewhere in there, I need to make a few more curtains and detail/paint the exterior (including a gorgeous mural my sister is going to do on the back!). Hopefully, I will have money for solar panels, and I will need to learn electrical basics and figure out my current electrical system and adjust it to be solar. I may need a new water pump and a bigger freshwater tank (currently 20 gallons -- it should be a crime to put such a tiny tank in an RV that sleeps so many people!). I'm going to get new tires. I think I'm going to get a crash-course on the other appliances I'm not so sure about, so I can understand them better and take care of them better. I would like to learn how to change my own oil and other basics that I can do to pamper my beauty while she pampers us :)))

This is the feel I am going for in the whole RV :))))) I'm so excited about creating it :))

Ready

2011-06-01T21:47:00.000-07:00

Wild horses couldn't drag me from this life right now. I am water, and I am in my flow, and I cannot be stopped. Rocks may stand in my way, but slide right by without breaking my stride.

On Facebook I recently wrote, "I JUST WANT TO BURST OUT OF THIS F*CKING LIFE!!!!!!! I am so tired of the sandbags holding me down and holding me back from the greatness within me that wants to explode into my reality! I feel like cobwebs are sticking to me, and I'm about to go ninja on their butts! Gawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwd!!!! Just get me the f*ck out of here already."

Forgive the F-bombs -- they seem to spill out of me in times of explosions :))

I want to talk about the bolded part, though.

I feel like this lifestyle is going to lighten my load in life. I am so super-simple, and having this house and all the responsibilities and limits that come with them stops me from putting that energy into living and experiencing.

Everyone prioritizes what they value. Some value having a house and lots of beautiful and useful things. When you don't have those things to take up energy, what do you have? Well, I will be telling you in about a month :))

It seems that I will have a teeny little comfortable space that requires my energy, a space that is do-able and perfect for me, with lots of left-over energy for other things in my life. What I need lots of is closeness with my family and reflection time.

I am also anticipating having the energy to get more involved with community and events, since we can carry our home over and have it close-by when needed. Living to the extreme northwest of our county has meant lots of driving, if we want to do anything. Also, driving our home means that I don't have to have the kids all ready to go and everything packed up before we head out the door to go somewhere -- I am really looking forward to being punctual! LOL

Since our expenses will be so much less, it seems we will finally have the kind of income where we can enjoy places we previously couldn't afford. I am very much looking forward to taking my kids to some wonderful and exciting places, as well as some peaceful and beautiful places. I want to give my kids the most of what I feel is important -- family closeness, simple living, and an abundance of experiences :))

I have been reading blogs, talking with people, researching places to go, and making my own plans for about a year. I feel like I have been engaged for a year and tomorrow (when our RV is being delivered) is when I marry the road-life. I'm ready, and there is no turning back now.

It will be a month-long hand-fasting, where we will exchange vows of commitment in the form of financial, emotional, and time investment as I renovate the RV and learn about myself during the process of having free-reign over owning my own home. I am so excited about this upcoming experience. Tomorrow, we sign the papers <3

I'm so ready. I've only been waiting a couple weeks for this RV, but I've been waiting my whole life for this road life. Enough preparation, I'm ready to touch this life, ready to deal with the tangible stuff, ready to feel my dreams materializing.

And the best part is that this is just the first step in the whole journey ahead of us in life. Who KNOWS where this step may take us :) Who KNOWS where we may be in a year, in 3 years, in 10 years. OH, the universe is full of limitless possibilities!!!

I'm ready!

Radical Gardening

2011-05-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

I have been doing some research the past few days on what I am calling radical gardening, which (for me) is a combination of permaculture (which is the only way I will roll), small space gardening, and all things gardening alternative.

After all this research my brain was kinda tied up in a knot with how to make this happen when we move into our RV in a few days. I have decided to take this one step at a time and adjust to living in the RV (and what kind of space we are looking at) before building a garden, but all this delicious information is going to percolate in my brain and grow in our lives :)) I'm very excited to share some of the cool information that I found! Enjoy the following delicious radical gardening buffet :)))

In January of this year, my friend, Kimra, first got me to thinking about alternative gardening spaces when she posted this blog post.

This is another fellow self-identified radical gardener, and so is she.

I am going to post a few links/pics to the stuff I want to combine somehow for us :))

I have GOT to find a way to make this happen in the RV.

using shoe holders! (my friend, Kimra, adds her own suggestion for this in her blog post above)

This really has me thinking, too!

gardening in reclaimed gutters

And another cool vertical option

I can see this one on almost any wall

Talk about alternative spaces!!!! Site and video

This has me thinking about towing a trailer garden

This Living Kitchen has me drooling

Okay, on the original site, they call it a flow kitchen -- I <3 both terms!

So those are radical gardening porn (heehee, I love that analogy LOL).

Here are a few links (brain pron?) that REALLY feed my soul:

Creating the Permaculture Balcony Garden

Gardening as a Site of Liberation

Proof that gardening can be cool: Anarchy in the Garden: keeping it punk by growing your own

Garden Girl: Home & Garden: Organic living tips, ideas, & inspiration

I feel very blessed to have personal access to fellow gardeners, like my mom (who has been gardening my entire life) and my friend, MB, who is my biggest source of permaculture inspiration <3 She has taught me that permaculture is much bigger than just growing plants -- it's a lifestyle. Her blog is a testament to permaculture gardening and permaculture lifestyle <3 Like her life, her blog is embedded with gardening, but I managed to find a good "Permaculture 101, as told in the context of MB" blog post, called earth as schooner ~ a permaculture analogy.

**EEK! Jumping on to edit to add a few links I totally forgot about other alternative gardening ways:

Container Gardening: this is uber-helpful (what and when to plant), practically a one-shop-stop for planning to container garden, another AMAZING container garden link

Square-foot Gardening

Carrying the Torch

2011-05-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

I come from a long line of wild women on my mom's side of the family. For those who understand the significance of this, Kassidy is the 7th generation first-born daughter. Women roll powerfully in our maternal legacy. Let me tell you a bit about this legacy, as I was told...

My great great grandmother defied the traditional woman's role of homemaker and did something outside the home that she was passionate about (politics? business? I can't remember, but it was definitely viewed as a man's world). She didn't, however, pass on the baby-maker aspect, and had 8 children, who my great grandmother (who was the oldest) raised and cared for until they were old enough to care for themselves.

My great grandmother took the love of her life and her life on the road. She traveled for years with a man called Red (red hair), and they painted the sides of trucks for their next meals and their next destinations. It was said the family never knew when she was in town because she valued her freedom so fiercely. She, however, left her daughter (not from Red) at home to be raised by her siblings who she had dedicated her earlier life to raising.

My grandmother, it was told, would take off into the land behind their home with the dog (who was very protective of her), even as young as 2 years old. She grew up a wild child on wild land in Texas. Tragically she drowned in a river when she was only 18 years old (my mom was 6 months old, on the embankment when it happened). (I believe Najaia may be her reincarnation -- Najaia is as free as I imagine my grandmother having been, even at such a young age)

***Edit -- I found out that my grandmother travelled with my great grandmother for many years, until the family felt it was a problem that she wasn't getting consistency, and so she went to live with the siblings when she was older.**

My mother is the only generation I actually got to experience first-hand. She was a wild woman through and through. She was a total hippie, a definite gypsy (even before we lived on the road in my teens for 3 years, we moved at least once a year across 3 different states), an empowered and empowering woman, an attached mama only following her heart with little-to-no support from family. I was raised Pagan by a single mom before it was cool or common :)) Still, my mom reminds me daily that there is nothing to fear with growing older -- she has her own Harley (sometimes riding topless LOL), she goes on travels and adventures with her newest love by land and by sea, has a zen garden and an impressive vegetable garden, and she is not afraid to question traditional styles of thinking or living. My mom just ROCKS!

Insert me. I feel like I pale in comparison LOL Granted, I have a few years and at least a couple crazy decisions to live through before it would be fair to compare :))) I am not really creating a legacy. I'm just carrying the torch.

I am proud to live so authentically for my children, to pass the torch on to them :)) I already, definitely, see my kids continuing this legacy. We are definitely a wild tribe :)

I feel like I am cutting this post short, but my oldest has been waiting patiently for my computer, and, really, this blog is kinda the testament to the newest chapters of this family legacy. Living on the road is going to be just amazing, on so many levels. My friend, Cindy Leapley (who is passing their RV on to us), keeps telling me that I was made for this life. I really really was.

The Art of Falling on One's Face Gracefully

2011-05-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

I wrote this earlier in the week but Blogger is not letting me upload pics right now so I was going to wait until that was fixed -- however, it still isn't fixed, so here it is :) Just to clarify, I am not talking about the actual philosophy of this guy, of which I know nothing about.

I have had just as much fun playing with this rapture prediction over the past week as some. I've laughed at funny Facebook statuses and some YouTube videos, and celebrated vicariously through the "end of the world" gatherings that have resulted.

Now that the dust has cleared, I am hearing some more perspectives. Some were amused at the craziness of the prediction, and some are very angry that the guy "wanted" rapture to happen and that believers gave up so much for the cause he started. Some think he owes those folks compensation since his prediction that they believed and invested in didn't come to fruition.

I seem to have a minority opinion on the matter (no surprise to me in life anymore).

I want to applaud this man for believing in something so radical, for trusting his insides, and standing up for it regardless of public ridicule. And I want to hug him in the aftermath and assure him that it is okay to believe in things, to invest completely in something, even if you end up looking like you fell on your face.

In this society, we are really big on being safe -- even if you take a risk, make sure it's a safe one! And in this society, we are really big on "right"ness. We are so deeply invested in the importance of being right that we cut adventure and exploration and thinking short if it's "inaccurate".

How many parents will allow their child to believe something they don't see as true? How many people can sit in a car and allow the driver to accdently go the opposite direction of the intended destination? How many people think falling on one's face is a horrible tragedy?

This is all very common in our society (and maybe even bigger than just the US).

I'm the mom who just pauses when my son sings the A,B,C's in some crazy order that often leaves out entire chunks of the alphabet :) I'm the mom who is learning to sit back and enjoy the journey my kids' learning takes, instead of focusing on the destination. I'm the person who is loving taking risks, knowing that I have NO clue how some things may turn out, but the only real "end" is death, so I have my whole life to keep going. I'm the person who is learning to be gentle with my own learning and living, so as not to avoid falling on my face, but to leap up and laugh "I'm okay!" as I skip off to find another adventure.

The problem isn't falling on one's face (to me, that's a noble quality and proof that one is trying to live life to it's fullest -- maybe even that they are leaping toward things even further than they think they are). The problem may be in laying there stuck, or jumping up in shame and embarrassment and deciding to not chance something like that again. The art of falling on one's face gracefully entails expecting that it could happen when we are walking (or dancing or skipping, as the case may be), light-heartedly getting back up to one's feet, and relishing in the possible scrapes and bruises that are battle wounds of the fun of living.

I have literally fallen on my face (about a year ago). I was walking my friend's dog, and I felt inspired to run. It was a glorious feeling -- a rush of excitement and lightness and freedom. So, as I had done in my childhood, I took off down a hill. Well, my spirit seemed to be a bit faster than my physical body, and I tumbled down the hill face first (to the horror of 2 girls from our parkday group LOL). I leapt up laughing, feeling the aches and precarious numbness in areas of my body. And for the week or so that it took my bruises and scrapes to heal, I was reminded of that feeling of lightness and hilarity of how I must have looked. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat, even if I fell flat on my face again :)) Falling wasn't "proof" that I shouldn't have tried sprinting down that hill. Just because I fell doesn't mean I did anything "wrong" or that I need to get better before doing it again. Sure, I learned from the experience, but the goal wasn't to learn how to do it "right" next time.

I feel more light and forgiving about the whole experience.

This is flavoring my plans for this new road-living chapter of my life, too, or any plans I make for my life. I am learning to not only take the steps that ensure I will not fall on my face. It's okay to take the steps that may leave me face down and scratched up. It's okay to take risks, and the ability to jump up afterward is more important to me than the ability to plan everything to a "t" and ensure that every step is sure-footed.

Another part of the "rapture theory" analogy is the folks who believed his message and invested in it. Some people are really upset that they sold their homes and now have "nothing" to show for it. It seems that people feel these folks were forced or duped or deceived. I think they, too, fell on their face. They had faith, they took risks, and it didn't come to fruition (thankfully, for some of us). Is it really the guy's fault that they did what they did? Is he really to be held accountable for their choices?

It seems that he is kinda like an investment banker who invested in something that didn't work out afterall (assuming the folks who invested feel disappointment that the rapture didn't come -- in one of my psychology classes, we learned how folks who believe strongly in something like this can actually feel stronger afterward, even if the rapture didn't happen). As long as he spent the money the way it was intended to be spent, I don't think it is fair to hold him accountable in the end. He seems pretty genuine and authentic.

I will sit with these folks in their disappointment and validate them. I just don't see it as the tragedy that some are seeing it as. No one drank cyanid. They gave up stuff -- something folks all over the world/historically (my current self included) do for something they believe in. Even if they feel disapppinted right now, I feel they are better off for having had faith in something, took risks, and invested in something, even if it didn't pan out the way they originally planned. Life kinda works like that often, doesn't it? Who KNOWS what life journey those folks are on, what their life lessons are destined to be?
I'm assuming positive intent. I'm vicariously practicing the art of falling on one's face gracefully.

Nourishment

2011-05-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

People talk a lot about nutrition. Nutrition, to me, is like the spirit, the head, meditation, yoga, tranquility, zen. Important in its own right.

Nourishment, to me, is more like stuff of the soul, living from the stomach, following one's internal compass without judgment, living one's truth. It follows whims and doesn't have to be quiet or reverant.

Nutrition counts the calories and the vitamins on a food label. Nourishment checks internally to see if it is hitting the spot.

Nutrition can listen to experts on what is healthy and best, but nourishment knows no one "outside" can begin to know what what "inside" me needs better than I do.

Nourishment is a kind of fulfillment and a feeling of substance.

Nourishment, for me, can be a green smoothie, or it can be a pint of ice-cream, whatever my soul needs.

Nourishment goes beyond food, though, too. Nourishment is physical, and it's also emotional and mental and soulful. Nourishment can come through spending some sisterhood time with a beloved. Nourishment can come from laughing through a board game with the family. Nourishment can come from a long (uninterrupted) candle-lit bath.

Nourishment is kinda like healing, without the assumption that there is some ailment to heal. Nourishment is like healing something that isn't wounded. It's like giving something a blessing.

The concept of nourishment fills some gaps in my life and in my family. I didn't want to see some things as "broken" or "hurt" or "needing fixing/healing". I can provide nourishment to someone who is not lacking in some way and I prefer to see people as whole and complete. The concept of nourishment helps me flow through the space I want to hold for people who I sense just need a bit "more". It doesn't have to mean there is anything wrong with what is.

My family is due some nourishment :)) In some ways it has already begun. Kassidy's computer broke a couple days ago, and she has been adjusting to an unplugged life, where the option for mental stimulation has been to connect with me and her siblings. I hadn't realized how absent she had really been until I realized how delicious it has been to spend more time with her. Without the option to spend every waking moment in her room with the door closed, she has been venturing out to compromise with Noble about what they can watch together on my computer. I really loved getting her and Noble their own things last year, so they didn't have to share -- it was perfect for the time (she was too angry and needed some space, and he was too young and had totally different interests), and now it feels perfect to have her interacting with us again on things. Having her interacting with us more feels like it is nourishing our family <3

Speaking of nourishment, with this mostly-empty house, we have been able to really shift our energy to the basics (one of my biggest reasons for wanting to live so simply) like preparing food. I have been cooking/preparing up a storm in the kitchen :))) I look forward to Kass cooking with me in the future. She is an awesome chef, and we can have lots of fun working together to create ways of continuing to nourish our family :)) We were talking yesterday about her giving me 3 weeks of feeding her whole and nourishing foods. I very much believe that we are what we eat, and so Kassidy is currently Top-Roman and Arizona iced tea. I can think of more nourishing things I would love for her to be :))) I know what we eat impacts our moods and mental activity, etc. I look forward to seeing what path this diet may take her down, even if she chooses to return to her current diet after the experiment :))

A child who said she was too old to sleep with me a few weeks ago and couldn't sleep at night is curled up asleep at 10pm with her head on my leg <3

I am already loving this life.

Let the nourishment begin <3

The Rig

2011-05-16T18:26:00.000-07:00

Alright, so some of you have been following this blog long enough to hear me say that I want the RV we get to have the same floorplan as the RV of our friends, the Leapley's. Cindy and Steve have been wondering since they bought it last year if it was going to be big enough for their family of 7, and we have talked on more than one occasion about me buying it from them. It just hasn't worked out that way, which has been perfect for both of us at the times :))

My friends left May 1st for their adventure. They planned for a vacation, not a permanent home, a soul journey of sorts to do some healing and living before coming home to plant some roots. They planned to be back in August for a wedding and were ready to pass their RV off to us at that point, because they wouldn't need it anymore, especially since they have learned that it REALLY is too small for their easy comfort. Since I want to be out of here before August (my lease is up August 1st), I kept this as my back-up plan, still searching and being open to how we were going to get some destined RV much sooner.

For the past few weeks, I have been feeling like I need to be in an RV immediately. Not the average, "I am ready", but "I was ready long ago, and now this is unbearable." I want the RV in front of my house already, so I can move in the stuff I want to keep and see very clearly what is left, so I know what to do with it. Right now, it all feels overwhelming, like the time between now and August 1st feels so far that it is hopeless to start too early, mixed with knowing I can't ever start too soon, because I don't want to be rushing around at the last minute. That push-and-pull is what made me sick, and the anxiety is what caused all the tension headache I had for 3 days.

So, this morning, my friends, the Leapleys, called to tell me that something completely unexpected and important (a different sister's wedding set here in July) has come up to interrupt their plans, and they are actually bringing the RV back next week and picking up their van for the rest of the trip (so they can move faster and cheaper and be back sooner). So, we are getting their RV next week.

Lemme just say that again. We are getting our RV next week. EEEEEEK!

This RV is perfect on so many levels!!!

It is called a Travelcraft -- have you SEEN the name of my blog? Our Wildcrafted Life
It has the floor plan that I was determined to have (with the extra seats already removed!).
It has half the miles of the Jamboree that I wanted from a dealership.
My friends have worked out most of the kinks over the last few months (and especially living in for a couple weeks now).
It is already filled with the wonderful and loving energy of this AMAZING family <3
It is like a quarter of the price of the Jamboree I was wanting!!!!!!
But the best part, again: it will be here next week!!!!!!!!

Lemme show you a pic of a DIFFERENT Travelcraft. I don't have a pic of our's, but it looks kinda like this one (different colors, maybe a different year):

I know, it's older than the Jamboree and has aluminum siding, but I can't beat the price and the rest of the perfectness, so there ya go :))

I am SO glad that getting an RV finally caught up with me being ready to be in one already :)) I love when the universe unfolds to remind me that my pace is right and that it is okay to trust that it will all end up working out how I want it to, because it always does <3

Okay, Dreads; Trade-offs; & a Soul Journey

2011-05-15T21:40:00.000-07:00

I loooooooove dreads. Ja's dreads were, I am shameless to admit, one of the biggest reasons I initially gave him the time of day (or night, as it were). Noble's dreads are one of my top 10 favorite things in the whole world. I've considered dreads for myself, but keep finding that I love my wild curls even better.

I always imagined having my dread-head son and my curly girly, and it seemed meant to be, as her curls are bigger and silky soft. One problem: she hates getting her hair brushed. She yells "No!" and runs down the hall and out of the house if I even try. It's a bit easier in the shower, when I can soak her hair in conditioner while I comb/brush, easy distract her, move slowly and mindfully, and do a lot of "emotional damage control" in a small confined space.

Well, it's been over a week since we brushed her hair, with everyone being sick. And today I realized that I understood why my stepmom just chopped all of our (her own, my older sister who is half Black, and myself) curls off to about an inch or 2 long. This is so much work, and it's losing it's meaning for all of us. As I brushed and imagined life in an RV, I released my attachments and submitted to "Okay, dreads." WHOOSH! Sudden alignment.

This is going to be a win-win all over the place! She won't have to get her hair brushed, the upkeep is minimal and requires a lot less stuff in the RV, less water it will need (which is a big deal in an RV that plans to live unplugged), and an added bonus -- it will be fun to see it grow long instead of out :))) Not that I don't love me an afro (have you seen my hair?).

Speaking of, I have decided now is the time to start using baking soda and apple cider vinegar for my hair instead of shampoo and conditioner. If I start now, it will give me about 2 1/2 months for my hair to adjust and transition, so it will be easy when we are on the road :)) Also, I am open to a dread/curls combo for my hair. We shall see with time :)))

A trade off..... I've enjoyed looking at ways to trade-off stuff/space with experiences. I mean, that's kind of the main goal of this adventure in the first place. I was thinking of leaving my foot care stuff and getting a pedicure with Kass once a month-ish! I'm hoping it will be some great me & Kass time. It will mean less stuff in the RV, which is always nice. And mostly, we and our feet deserve the pampering - the scrubbing, the detail work, the massage. Oh, the massage *melt* That got me to thinking what a wonderful benefit regular massage and chiropractic alignment would be for Kass and I as we realign our bodies and lives with healthiness and slow intentional living. Another way to align our life :)))

Speaking of healing, soul journey..... I kept thinking this was going to be a spiritual journey, but I am realizing this is going to be much more of a soul journey, tempered with a bit of spiritualness :)) I have known all along that this was going to be a journey of self and that it would require solitude, maybe in large doses. I thought I could find that "self" in snippets during days and in between visits. I thought I could eek by for the first couple visits and nab it in a larger quantity later in the journey, so we could hurry and get on the road and get out of familiar territory and not miss anyone during our far-shot trajectory.

At this point in my preparation for finding a deeper level of self and connecting with beloveds, it is becoming more and more clear to me that we need to take some serious time to ourselves before we descend upon anyone :))

We need time to detox from this "junk food" life, we need to adjust to being unplugged, and we need to do some healing and connection with ourselves and each other before we can really do a visit with you justice. Right now, I'm a little insecure about visits. I'm insecure about some bits of myself that are out of alignment or underdeveloped, and I'm insecure about my wild bunch. Not to say that you wouldn't love us in our imperfections or be fine with our wildness, but I don't want to compound those insecurities with the anxiety I would feel if I was insecure. I want to feel confident and comfortable, and I want to feel like we are healthy and well-adjusted. We all have some healing and adjusting to do before we start connecting with our tribe <3

This is what I currently think the first couple steps of our journey will look like:

I think our first stop will be a reasonably-priced campground with gorgeous, natural, and quiet grounds to do the initial detox and adjustment, to work out the kinks close to familiarity. The plan is to have no Internet, extreme minimal technology, maybe no phone even, to spend about a month or two indulging in nature, immersing ourselves in the simplest family living, and some serious alignment. I am saying a month or two, but I really have no idea how long it will take to feel ready -- could be much less, could be even longer?

Once we are all ready to move on and get out on the road, our road freedom will begin. I have clue where we will start heading, because it will depend on the season, our budget, our priorities, and our newfound internal compass' direction.

There is a certain internal nourishment that comes with making all these plans. It's as if realizing what we need most kinda heals that part inside us, so we are open to the next priority in our journey. It started with wanting to take life one step at a time, then wanting to race around and see everyone, then it was about spending depth with each person, and now it is finding our inner alignment first. It's exciting to see what may come up next! I hope you don't mind being strung along on this internal journey <3 What I do know is that when we pull up to your house, we will all be better for it :)))

Why We Need Our Own Comfy Space

2011-05-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

Some of you have been so kind to offer your homes to us when we pull through. Aww, such kindness, such innocence. You wouldn't believe what you were getting yourself into, and I prefer to keep friends loved ones and some sort of happiness with my kids that is not based on expecting or forcing them to be less "all of them" than they are.

I've been thinking a lot recently about how convenient it would be if we really could have just travelled in our van towing a pop-up trailer -- oh, the gas-saving fantasies I have! And then I open my eyes in my reality and realize why we need something bigger.

Lemme share a few fun reasons why, no, really, we need our own comfy space:

my babies live naked
you have yet to see my hair or my attire in the morning before I have groomed
we have a large dog who sleeps in bed with us at night
we are a family of 4 radical unschoolers -- have you any clue what that looks like on any given day?
I am known to sleep topless at night

And some more serious reasons (no, those were not serious reasons LOL)

we are going to be doing this for a long time, and having a HOME on wheels that we can safely crawl back into is part of the "this IS a healthy and responsible way of raising children" bit for me right now :)
our home will be set up for comfort, so your guest bed won't necessarily be more comfy than our bed -- in fact, I am determined to have the comfiest bed possible!

Now, having said that, there are a few things I look forward to at your house:

a long hot shower
maybe washing a couple loads of laundry
mostly, just being with you during peek hours and retreating to our den when it feels right :))

I am very excited to learn as I go, about visiting people. We will be like temporary neighbors :))) That's the best part about living a nomadic lifestyle: everyone is our neighbor, especially at one point or another :)

Now, having just written that, I am realizing, you all are prepared for my kids and I, but my fur-son, Kai, is kinda glued to the hip (and when he isn't, he is digging holes and chewing things up, so he really needs to be glued to our hip). I have already learned about the necessary camping and site-seeing adjustments/alternatives that is going to require (especially since he is a big dog). How do YOU think that is going to impact our visit? Feel free to think on it and get back to me ;)

Current Plans

2011-05-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

Hello, beloved one <3

So, the path of life keeps shifting before us -- it's so exciting!!!! But it sure makes it hard to pin things down for other's :)) The only guarantee that I can give you is "I will be there when you see the whites of my eyes, but I will be there."

A couple things seem to have changed in the plans I shared before, and I wanted to share what those will be. Firstly, we most likely will not be keeping the house. We will probably be travelling by RV. We will probably be leaving in July (no later than August 1st -- the last day of my lease). We will probably be doing the 4 corners the opposite direction I had originally planned. We will be moving slower (gas prices and RV gas mileage -- yikes!).

I may take a quick trip in the van up to San Fransisco and Oregon, and swing down through Colorado for 4th of July (fireworks are illegal in California) to party with some loved ones, before coming home to sell the van, buy the RV, and get out of this house.

I will be stopping along the way everywhere we know someone. I don't want to miss anyone.

So, now the dates are a little wierd. I am thinking, if we are going through Texas in September, we may have to go to the Rethinking Everything Conference. I need to really sit with that and decide if this is do-able, so I can let other's know, in case they want to join us.

We have a month or 2 to poke around Texas and Louisiana.

We hope to be in Florida when winter comes, so we can play snowbirds this year :))

Once it starts warming up, we will head north toward Maine, visiting family and friends along the way.

Then head west (down into the Ohio area), where we can spend far more than a week with each loved one, if we want to :))

Then across to Kansas and into Colorado, and either to Washington and then down, or straight back into California -- our next trip will probably be up to Alaska, and we can head back up through the San Fran and Oregon areas then. The end of the trip is always the hardest to plan, because it is so far from where we are now, and it is so close to our next trip, that we never know the last few stops. But, I think you get the point of the current plan.

I won't know what we are travelling in, until we have purchased it and are living in it. I won't know when we will be somewhere until we are leaving the stop before. But I do know that each of you mean so much to me, and I look forward to being able to visit you unhurried. I will get there, I promise <3

I have one other bombshell to drop on you all. I probably will not get a cell phone for the trip (other than an emergency prepaid phone). I think I am just going to get internet (especially since I can text from my ipod with it). I will see -- it's another thing I really have to think about :))

I look forward to some uninterrupted solitude, to sort out some inside reflection stuff. Just me, one book at a time, my journal, and an array of marker/pens to get creative. Some comfy spots with a beautiful view. Some whole foods. A heart and a mind full of infinite creativity and brilliance :)

I look forward to the weightlessness of living nomadically. I look forward to letting go of obligations and meaninglessness. I don't know how impressed my little ones are going to be with traveling, except to play with new friends and see cool new spots in nature to explore. I'm looking forward to living that simply :)) I want to type a blog post under a tree with a view, or explore a riverbank for hours on end, slide down sanddunes on a snow disk, have a picnic by a waterfall. I want my world to revolve around who to visit and what to see and explore in the next moment (I just had a Freudian slip -- I typed oment: OMent) :))

I look forward to being free of these walls and all this stuff :)) I can say that now without feeling a weight in my gut -- I decided I'm not tied to it, so I can find contentment in the dis-ease I was feeling about all of it before. I may be looking at a painted wall, but this is what my spirit sees:

I've Gotte Be Me

2011-05-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

Me serenading all of us with a song that has been the soundtrack of my heart for the last couple days :)) In all my wonderful imperfections :))))) A gift of vulnerable perfection for you :))

I just love how I got stagefright and forgot the lyrics in the beginning LOL And how my voice sounded like crap because I am still sick! I love especially that I didn't care about any of that and made the video anyway :)))) And that I still shared it even after watching it LOL Here is to putting oneself out there :)))

by Sammy Davis, Jr.

Whether I'm right or whether I'm wrong

Whether I find a place in this world or never belong

I gotta be me, I've gotta be me

What else can I be but what I am

I want to live, not merely survive

And I won't give up this dream

Of life that keeps me alive

I gotta be me, I gotta be me

The dream that I see makes me what I am

That far-away prize, a world of success

Is waiting for me if I heed the call

I won't settle down, won't settle for less

As long as there's a chance that I can have it all

I'll go it alone, that's how it must be

I can't be right for somebody else

If I'm not right for me

I gotta be free, I've gotta be free

Daring to try, to do it or die

I've gotta be me

I'll go it alone, that's how it must be

I can't be right for somebody else

If I'm not right for me

I gotta be free, I just gotta be free

Daring to try, to do it or die

I gotta be me

Overthinking

2011-05-10T18:04:00.000-07:00

I am infamous for overthinking. This from the mom who took 6 months of heavy researching before feeling comfortable pulling my oldest out of public school to homeschool her. This from the student who did avid research (complete with color-coded highlighting and post-it notes) on every possible major I could be interested in before committing to one in my first semester of school LOL

Overthinking is literally making me sick, though. Today, it gave me a migraine. So, tonight, I am deciding to be dedicated to clearing my head out. I went to sleep last night making plans about an RV that I saw yesterday, and spend my entire night of "sleep" in some nightmare pergatory of plans and stress and worry.

Enough is enough.

The good news is that I am getting more and more comfortable with being flakey LOL I keep wanting to be committed to something that I say I am interested in, but I am still swimming in a sea of options where one looks more appetizing than another at any point in time. So, I feel flakey when I post on Facebook that I can see us in that RV and that I want it, and today I have to tell everyone nevermind, it's not as perfect as I had hoped for it to be. And that wouldn't be so bad, except I kinda posted (and emailed everyone who I thought would care) last week about how I wanted to travel in my van with a pop-up trailer, which also fell through.

What I am realizing with each of these experiences is that there are so many different ways to travel, and that we are testing the depths of each one for our commitment comfort level. I should be proud of myself for backing out once I realize my lack of commitment afterall, instead of sticking with some plan just because I showed a lot of initial interest :) In addition to learning about travel and about travelling, I am learning about the process inside myself. And I am learning that although driving a veggie-powered radmobile is a dream of mine, it doesn't have to be this first step in my journey -- it can be a dream for another day.

The truth is, each of these modes of transport hold a different idealness about it, a piece to the puzzle of the ideal nomadic home. And any one of those specialities may feel more important at different times. Let me try to make a list of these qualities I have so far found to be important to us, and maybe you can help me send rockets of desire out into the universe to bring us what is perfect for our family :))

the better gas milage the better
pretty good ability to moderate the inside temperature
spacious-feeling inside (including entry into vehicle)
relatively short from bumper to bumper
room inside to rip out some accessive seating for a kids table and a cat climber
a loft-type bed above the driver's coach for Kass
fairly modern appliances, lighting, and switches
a dinette (2 benches with a table in the middle)
bathroom at the back, spacious enough for this big mama to not feel crammed in
a full-size bed tucked into a corner in the back for me and the babies, ideally (but I would sacrifice it for better gas milage if it made a big enough difference)
upholstery on chairs that I can live with (leather is best, because it is easiest to clean -- sorry, vegan friends <3)

Okay, so I started this post a couple days ago, and I stopped writing it because I had a raging headache that has persisted for days. I didn't want to post it unfinished, but I can't put too much more effort into it right now, because my tension headache is threatening to start pounding again if I don't listen to it's plea for me to stop thinking about this stuff. Just gonna share some pics of the RV I *think* (today) I really want. The only thing I don't like about it is the typical RV gas mileage, which I wish I could somehow get around and still have everything I love about this RV inside and out. Meet Jam:

Letting Go

2011-05-08T07:07:00.000-07:00

Another long video (sorry!) about my current processing, changes of plans.

More belly stuff

2011-05-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

I started this a week or so ago, and am deciding to post it now, unfinished, since it goes along with my theme of living from my belly. Enjoy <3

Some cultures believe that we do not feel with our hearts but with our stomachs. Makes sense, right? I mean, when I am feeling nervous, I get butterflies in my stomach, and when some guy breaks up with me, I eat a pint of ice-cream.

So, I have been thinking about my over-eating, and how it is rooted in anxiety, and how my anxiety is being afraid, and about how my fears are hardly ever really fears of something as they are just fear in and of itself, and about how I am always trying to dig deep to get to the bottom of stuff.

Maybe I have been exploring all of this underlying stuff as just another journey for the sake of knowing myself better, but trying to figure out what I am afraid of may be slightly pointless? Maybe instead of digging into my past for the answers, I can just soothe the present one experience at a time?

Living from the belly

2011-05-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

In one of my last writings, I wrote about how I knew I wasn't lazy, but couldn't quite find the word, and then Law of Attraction jumped in to answer my request in the form of Tara writing an amazing blog post about how It’s Not Laziness You Need To Overcome (6 Things You Are Instead of Lazy). And it really fit with a quote I remember reading from Abraham Hicks last year about how you are not "procrastinating", it's just that whatever it is that needs to get done is not in alignment with where you are at in your life right now. I wanted to share that little synchrony with you <3

So, I have been thinking a lot about anxiety. I have had a few things shift around and inside me that feel both liberating and insightful that I wanted to share. Firstly, I need to share this video with you, because it's all grounded in that.

I just watched that video again a couple minutes ago, and it made me cry. I want to speak from my belly. I want to LIVE from my belly. I want to know that divine feminine. I want to BE that divine feminine. I've been thinking so much recently about how badly I need a retreat. I started to have one, you know... Until I realized that what I need is much bigger than to avoid facebook and blogging. I need to exit this house and insert myself in some deep and serious mother nature. So, now I am in Operation Get-the-hell-out-of-this-house Mode. I am really contemplating not keeping this house. Who knows....

Anyway, so back to anxiety. When I think of living and BEING from my belly, and anxiety, and my over-eating, and my history with food and depression and self-searching.... I realize that my eating is not a borometer of what state my life is. My stomach is the foundation of what my life is. It's the path I want to walk, and it is my inner guide, my compass. And anxiety, anxiety is exiting my belly and entering my head.

I've talked about grounding myself in my truth when feeling and talking and connecting. I have been connecting with my belly! Grounding myself has really been coming from my belly. And I ask myself, what would life be like if I lived it from my belly? And my answer to myself is Wow. Just wow.

I would know that anxiety was a fear of the path my stomach would take me down.

Anxiety is the draw away from my belly. Anxiety is being afraid of honesty, being afraid of the truth.

Can I just say that again? That floating restlessness that makes me want to climb out of my fingertips from my brain is me trying to escape what is true.

Wow. I am crying again.

So, what is true?

What true is that little bits of stuff come up during the day, during my interactions with people, and I rush off in the other direction to avoid those bits. Social anxiety.

What's true is that I'm afraid to be all of me.

All of me. Embracing every bit of me that I resist and judge and fear and adore and am afraid to let out of the closet.

And I will tell you something about my fears. I have been educated so well on so many "shoulds" that I am afraid of letting them go. I feel like a small child who wants to run and play in an open meadow carefree, but my parent is telling me about all of the things that I must do instead. And I cannot BEGIN to tell you how strong the urge is to just walk away from it all. What are they going to do -- take away my birthday?

So, this is the deal. I am going to start working on this house (more than just shifting stuff around and taking pics to post on Craigslist). I am going to start taking loads of stuff out to the garage for a garage sale, and loads to stuff to the dumpster -- sorry Mother Earth, I wish I had the energy to sift through everything and find it all homes, but part of the problem in the first place is that I horde so much stuff for possible future craft projects to avoid filling the dumpsters in the first place! I rescue stuff from the dumpsters, so I am going to use that to justify this chance to just call it all quits.

I have to walk away. I need to go on this retreat like LAST WEEK, so I need to get my butt moving.

I have been feeling the need to just BE THERE already. I am tired of the sage advice about the journey and shyt. You don't understand. I've been on this freakin journey, and it has been great, but I am bursting out of here and I need to do it where I need to do it (over THERE).

Next month (if not sooner, goodness!) we will be on the road. I am ready to be out of here. Over ready.

I can't wait to go find my belly life. I can't wait to get back in touch with my belly, to ground myself in it until I am unshakable and unappologetic. Until it is so my truth that no "obligations" or "shoulds" can weigh me down or penetrate into my space.

Currently, I am like a 3 Muskateers candy bar -- soft chocolate shell with a super-soft nougetty center. I want to be more like an M&M -- a hard candy shell with hard chocolate inside that melts in your mouth, not in your hands :))

There is so much in my current life that I am uncomfortable with, that is out of alignment with what I know to be the truth I want to embrace and live. I cannot WAIT (literally), to drop all of this and move the heck on to greener cobblestone paths :))))))))

Alright, enough talk! I'm off to start working :D

Getting to know you..

2011-05-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

I am so excited to share my newest most amazing blogging/national tribe building/connective way of expressing myself to you :))))) I hope you enjoy! It's long, but I'm worth it :))

p.s. -- Blogger must have gotten word that I was about to hit the road, because there is a new feature on my blog posting options, as of today: adding a location to each post :))))))))))))

I Think This is It

2011-05-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

***note, I only included names of people whose blogs I can link to, so don't feel left out if I didn't include your name <3

So, this is our travel plan -- disregard anything from the past that might be confusing, and take this account as the new whole deal :)))

In mid-to-late June, we will have an appointment that may dictate what day we actually get out the door, so I can't set up a launch date at this time. What we have decided to do is leave the house and plants and cats with my brother until November and tow a pop-up trailer with our minivan. This enables lots of things.

Firstly, I know my van is good, and I just will never know with a used RV (and the ones in our price range are like 20 years old!). Also, our van gets 3 times better gas mileage than an RV would, and for a family who wants to hurry around the entire country to see people, this matters very much right now.

A pop-up trailer is perfect for us, because it will be light enough for my minivan to tow and provide the basic necessities (a kitchen with fridge, a dinette, and 2 big beds with the option to convert the dinette into another bed), which will make a perfect little need-meeting home-base when we are in transit or transition so often for an extended period of time.

And leaving the house allows us storage for the stuff we want to bring into an RV but not into a van/pop-up trailer set-up. It allows me time to take care of some bigger projects that I'd rather not force to get done with everything else I need to do by June. My cats get to stay in the comfort of the home they have known for the last year-ish with my brother who has lived with us most of their lives and love very much. We get to have a mailing address and someone I trust to check my mail for me. And this allows us to have my brother fix the house up for probable-move-out (without my kids and dog thrashing it along the way) upon our return, while my brother gets to stay somewhere for very little rent and responsibility while he saves up to do his thing.

So, we head out in mid- or late-June and will drive California Highway 1, which goes right along the ocean coast, so we can soak in one of the most gorgeous drives in all of America. We are going to stop in the San Fransisco area the first night and stay for a couple days visiting loved ones in the area and seeing some sites.

Then we will head up into Oregon along the 1 and 101 to visit my dear MB and the Oregon green mountainy coast sites <3 On June 30th, we will head out, to Washington for our first Rainbow Gathering, which goes from July 1st-7th. A tent and airbed will have to do while we are more focused on connecting with a family/community that I feel like I have been searching my whole life for <3

Once the Rainbow Gathering is over, we plan to spend another weekish in Washington with loved ones in the area and checking out sites :)) Then, we are going to spend the rest of July tracing the northernmost states east. I will be spending some much-needed solitude time to reflect on the Gathering and life and what all of this travel and connection means. And the kids will be exploring nature and our family ties.

We have about 3 weeks to slowly head east, with the "plan" being that we will spend August in the Ohio area. I say "area" because Ohio is actually only one of the states we will be setting up home (including Illinois and maybe another state or so that I am not certain of). I am hoping to spend about a week (give-or-take based on driving time) at a time in 4 different places in the "Ohio area", visiting dearly-missed family in Chicago and friends like Kristin and Abby and Laura and other non-bloggers like my longest-friend, Amy :))

When September comes, we hope to be off toward Maine, to see my dear Nikki/Starcat, other dear loved ones along the way, and some soul-healing sites (like, hopefully, a hike up the tallest peak on the east coast, to be the first ones in the U.S. to see the sun rise that day). Then we will follow the entire east coast south and see many loved ones (mostly family on the kids' dad's side, sprinkled with dear friends like Jen), until we find ourselves in Florida for the rest of September and maybe part of October. The kids' dad lives in Florida, as well as some other loved ones that we want to spend lots of time with (Kim and Grace!!!!) <3 We may drive down the Florida Keys (or at least some of them), and I would like to follow the sun across the sky one day (watch it rise on one coast and set on the other coast).

The last leg of the journey is all up in the air. Partly depending on whether certain events are going to take place. Partly depending on our budget. Partly depending on the dates and how long we spent in Florida. Partly depending on if we want to relax more, race home fast, stop a million more places, or any other variation of these things.

These are some of our options:

loved ones in Texas
family reuinion in Oklahoma in early October
family/friends in Kansas
loved ones and sites to see in Colorado (we used to live there, so I anticipate this taking a lot of time)
sites to see in New Mexico
family in Arizona
family and friends in east California, like Kimra

If we rush back to our house from Florida, in the least, we will stop to see folks in Texas and maybe in Arizona (but that is close enough that we can visit them again in the near future, if we don't have time or energy to stop and make camp again before racing home). If we rush through this time, our next trip will start off spending a lot more time in these places we will miss. Yes, I already have a second trip (more for sight-seeing and such) percolating and formulating.

For those of you who are more visually-inclined, our trip will look roughly like this:

That is about 6 months, all 4 corners of the continental U.S., a multitude of diverse landscapes, and lots of connection. It will be a food experience-extravaganza, an adventure of the senses. I am aiming for a formula that looks something like this:

70% time with beloveds
25% time solitude/me-and-the-kids time (some of this will be during driving, some during transitional camping days, and some during searching out sites that heal the soul)
5% of our time purely for site-seeing (that means more for the sites than for the inner healing the sites might do)

This trip is more for the people than the places, but needs a good flavor of places, too :)) We are going through the north first when there is less chance of weather that will be too cold to enjoy sleeping in our pop-up trailer. We will be driving through the north east during September when we should have some of the most spectacular views of fall that I have ever seen (my favorite season). We plan to drive back along the south during the colder months, in hopes that it will be the warmest areas of the US during that season (and the coolest times of year for those desserts!).

The trip will determine what sight-seeing we will actually have time for, and a lot of our trip will be learn-as-we-go -- like how well the babies will do for the driving part of the whole journey, as well as the constant transitioning part. I will follow their needs. I want to move slowly and make sure we all feel like our trailer is homebase, just with different views :)) Google Maps calculates that we could make the trip in 6 days, 5 hours. Stretching that out over 6 months feels slow and relaxing (the point), so we shall see how that actually translates.

When we get home, we will decide what we want to do at that point. We may want to stay in our house (for who-knows how long), or we may want to ditch the house and get an RV-as-home, or we may want to continue in our van/pop-up trailer set up (maybe with some improvements, like a solar panel system and an outdoor shower and an awning and a storage container on the roof of the van), or we may find a whole different idea at that point :)) I love options :D

The main goal for this trip: see the people we love. Because as soon as I realized we could buy an RV and go see all of you, and then calculated the cost of gas and maintenance, I realized that it would take way too long to see some of you further-away-beloveds. So, this trip is about meeting/seeing everyone and getting a feel for long-term traveling.

Real full-timing, for me, will be when we have no house (crazy octopus leg squiggling outside of my tightly contained jar of responsibility). That will be true freedom for me. Of course, if we get rid of the house, we will have to find a solution for the cats. I don't think they will be comfortable in a pop-up trailer or a minivan LOL If we had an RV, I would preserve a special spot for them <3 But an RV takes me back to my original delima of gas mileage and maintenance. So, we shall see. The beauty of living a nomadic life, is that change and creativity are embedded in the foundation of thinking, and this leavess infinite possibilities :)))

Ready for Retreat

2011-04-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

I have been moved a couple times in the last week toward retreat. This happens often when I have been spending far too much time socializing on the Internet (I feel the need to draw back in, process it all, and then grow it outward). No surprise that my feeling drawn toward transformation comes in the midst of this new life I am setting out to live. I have big plans for this transformation, and I need to do some retreating to figure out the details of my innards <3

In case anyone was interested, this blog post first got me to thinking (thank you, MB, for sharing), and this gathering has moved me beyond words. I feel like that last one is what my soul has been searching for my whole life. Anyone who has visited the spaces I create will know how perfectly aligned this is for me. And I want to healing-sob from the deep depths of me over the perfectness of timing and location...

My current life feels so out of line. I need to get aligned. I don't know how long my retreat will be, but I look forward to me re-emergence <3

Home is Where the Heart Is

2011-04-29T16:59:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a lot of stuff recently on "home". Maybe it is the nomad blogs I follow, maybe it is the Law of Attraction... But it has been a delicious guide to helping me define home for myself, and I wanted to share it with you.

For me, home is literally where my heart is, so wherever my children are together, I am home.

Once that is established, home is inside me.

It is being content with who I am and where I am and what I am and why I am. When I am content, I can be "at home" anywhere.

Home is an opportunity to connect with nature in a "we are one" way, and so I am home at the beach just watching the waves. I am at home sitting in some grass staring at flowers, or up late at night looking up into a blanket of sparkling stars. When I am in nature, I always have the opportunity to be home.

Home, for me, usually revolves around a familiar experience or the memory of a wonderful experience. It might be recognizing a state license plate or stepping into my personalized RV or my child doing his or her usual funny thing in a situation. It's inside jokes and the familiarity of easing into meeting a new interesting person. It's the smell of our clothes in our closet. It's the songs I listen to for different occasions. It's driving into a new city and seeing the sunrise through new building tops. It's catching a glimpse of someone you have met in someone new :))

The logistics of home for me usually require inside comfort, Like feeling secure about the place we are living, like our own family bed, some privacy to hibernate undisturbed when retreat is necessary or to nurse without discretion while we sleep, the freedom to live by our rules and decorate our way, an ease about our daily schedule. These are the things that make places feel like home to me.

Maybe it is because I moved so much growing up, or because I travelled with my mom for those years, but home for me, really can be created almost anywhere I set up camp.

The funny thing about our anticipated adventures is that I am very much a homebody. Living in an RV may be the only way I will get out and see anything! As usual, I am an odd combination of 2 extremes: homebody and nomad, so I am combining the 2 :))

A house is not right for me right now, and an RV feels uch ore inviting and home-like right now.

Living in an RV will suit a part of me that refuses to identify as lazy. Lazy implies a certain "wrongness" or bad choice, doesn't it? I am still searching for a word that adequately aligns with the feeling inside me of having very little demands upon me. I want everything to be within about an arm's reach from me. I want to not have to lose sight of the project that is close to my heart and feels the need to be close in proximity, as I lovingly assist my baby in the bathroom. I want my kids right up on me while they are playing. I love the proximity, the closeness, the comfort of each of us having our own tiny bubble cuddled up with someone else's. I don't have the draw toward seperation that some have -- I am the opposite. I have a draw toward closeness. BUT the best part, and the balance, is that we will have more space outside our bedroom door than most. We will have vast space to breathe in and exhale out, vast space to see and run and explore. I hope to spend lots of time outside when I need it and plenty of time indoors when I need it. And we can each self-regulate this for ourselves.

I think we have a different relationship with space than many cultures do around the world. People ask me how me and my kids and pets are going to live comfortably in such a teeny space, when bigger families than mine live in smaller spaces very happily elsewhere. It isn't really about the actual size of the space -- ask someone from New York, as opposed to someone from the midwest. Ask someone in Hong Kong as opposed to someone in a tribal village in Africa. Space is cultural, and space is relative, and space is more complicated than just physical proximity, and space is something we all get to define for ourselves.
The funny part is that now that I have begun to define where I want to go and explore what it will feel like, so we can plan what would be best for us, now this house feels like a mansion. It feels like big empty hallways and too many rooms full of too much stuff. I am a radical minimalist. I could easily do one of those "own 100 things" challenges, and when we have the world to explore (rather than stuff to explore), it will be easy and healing to shed all that weight and remain as light and fluid as we need to be, to do what we are going to do.

Having space and lots of stuff does not make somewhere home for us. Living on the road will be just as much opportunity for that home feeling, and maybe even more, since we have always rented and had the details of the space we were living in dictated by a landlord. This RV will be our's! I will own it. I will own our home. There is something special about that feeling :)))

I am not expecting this new home to be the final answer for our lives, but it is the next answer for our lives, and someday we will find this RV living to be out of alignment, and we will adjust life as needed. Home is living life in the now and for the now. Home is not being afraid to make changes as we need to make them :))

Home is coming back for holidays whenever possible and LOVING the familiarity :))

Wherever our heart is, we are home <3

The Disease

2011-04-29T15:22:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned a few times the "healing" and the "dis-ease" that I am hoping a road-life will remedy. So, I thought I would come share a bit about all of that.

My dis-ease is commonly referred to as depression. I don't suffer from depression. Firstly, I don't suffer (unless I have the nagging feeling that someone feels I should be doing something other than hybernating, in which case the guilt inside me sometimes feels like suffering). And secondly, what I am experiencing is not something to clinicize and medicate or whatnot. Yes, there is a remedy for it, and that has always been to follow what my insides are calling for, be that deep dark quiet inner work, or climbing under the blankets and not coming out for a week, or searching for joy through connections with fellow soulful kindreds. I have found more relief from following where my "depression" is taking me than from resisting it. And I have learned more about myself from those times than from any other in my life. Usually it stems from a kind of learned helplessness in my life. Often creative movement (inside or outside) of some sort remedies that hopelessness when I am ready for the shift. Like most things in my life, I have not sought "expert" help in my journey -- I had no interest in a label that would be my crutch when I was younger, and by the time I realized I was strong enough to handle this, I also realized what blessing this time spent was.

I think we live in a society that values extroversion over introversion, so we aren't socialized to value people drawing into holes and finding healing and growth. And I think that this society is often the reason we need healing in the first place -- be it how we teach the parents to treat their children, or disconnect completely from what is earthy and feminine, or impose "bigger" and "better" and "more" upon the embodiment of all that is reverent in our hearts <3 This has been my experience anyway, and I know that what makes each of us feel helpless is different. SO...

Having said all of that, taking my life on the road will provide remedy to a few things. I crave movement. I used to think it was that I was runniing from something, and I tried to dig up what it was that I was running from. Now, I feel I have laid the details of my past to rest -- I am at peace with it, and I just need to flow like the water I am. A nomadic lifestyle will provide this ~~to perfection~~ very adequately with room for discontent.

The other part of my life that will find healing is the close proximity. The funny part is that people's first question is usually something to the effect of "Won't that be uncomfortable to have so many people in such a small space?" They must not know me :)) But I can't be mad -- it took me some reflection to realize this about myself, too, and in this "bigger = better" society, of course that would be the first question! :))

I love small intimate spaces. I am SUCH a radical minimalist, you can only begin to imagine. In fact, I am specifically chosing a smaller RV than some bigger spaces. I am looking forward to cleaning the entire place in the time it currently takes me to sweep and mop the floor. I am looking forward to my "dirtiness limit" getting hit (because we are in such a small space) before I have a 2-day project ahead of me. I am looking forward to having so little stuff to clean and organize, looking forward to the bulk of our "mess-desiring" to happen outside in nature. It will feel so healing to me to have such a small space to be responsible for. Having said that, most of the space in the RV will be for the kids, because I want them to be able to keep the things they are not ready to get rid of right now.

I am excited about living aligned with my super simple self :))
So, I guess to put it simply: I feel like the weight of this stagnant unauthentic life is what is ailing me, and the remedy will be to follow my minimalist gypsy heart.

I've Gone Too Far...

2011-04-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

...to turn back now.

With a big gigantic world out there and all this research I have been doing, these walls around me feel really ridiculous.

This location now feels so small to me, and things that used to feel like barriers now feel like pebbles.

Sometimes people say that if you aren't happy where you are, that you will never be happy elsewhere, but I have to disagree for myself. If I am unhappy, it is a signal that something needs to change, and sometimes that change is inside and sometimes that change is outside.

Sometimes people want to pad my possible disappointment and so tell me not to count on this big change to be the cure to what is ailing me. I say, following my heart wherever it will lead me is always the cure to what is ailing me. I have been afraid to count on this movement to be the healing, in case this stuff follows me, but I have decided that I am going to count on it. Mostly because I believe that the Law of Attraction will manifest whatever I believe into my life. And partly because "why the heck NOT believe it?" I chose to believe in unicorns. Who says they don't exist? Maybe it isn't finding the unicorn that actually heals, but the believing?

I am excited about designing my life in all new ways. Last night, I wrote in my journal, "One of my favorites about nomadic living is the repeated opportunities to practice reinventing myself :) Or re-embracing myself <3 I want to be unapologetic <3" (yes, I write hearts and smiley faces in my journal :)))))

A fresh slate sound so delicious to me right now. So does a deep soulful retreat. I need some deep cleaning and some new growth. It is time.

In fact, I am constantly cycling through this need for deep cleaning and new growth, so instead I am going to say "It is time for what is now coming."

As I make big big BIG room in my life for this new lifestyle, what am I going to let go of? What am I going to lay to rest or leave behind? As I let go of this current world where I and it have mutually defined me, who will I be when I have a clean canvas to paint on and limitless colors to chose from? Who will I someday come back here as, to visit someday? Who will I find myself to be out on the open road, in the contexts of a million different cultures and experiences and connections and jaw-dropping views? What bits of me will find validation, truth, death?

What about this amazing experience for my children? How will this impact them? Who will they find themselves to be on the open road, and how will they grow that person into a life someday?

I am excited to be open to how these answers will find us on this journey, both on the road and in life. I have some peeks, but I know that I have no idea. It is going to be way grander than I could ever imagine from this limited vantage point. But from the opening around the corner from this cave, where I can see the big gigantic world that is beckoning me, it sure looks full of magnificent promises. I am walking toward the opening, and I look forward to being out of here and into the big open world <3

I am excited about leaving all this stuff behind, picking my favorites, and bringing them into our new world. I am excited about all the abundance our life is going to envelop and exude. I am excited about the impermanence before us and my feelings toward perfection.

I have been entertaining the idea that I am okay with leaving things behind that will make me sad, even though ideally, I would have wanted this to be perfectly easy to move on from. And I am okay with knowing that I can't do everything. How liberating! I can't do everything.

I am okay with things not being perfect (more on that in a later post). Things aren't perfect now, so why should "perfect" stop me from living imperfection against a different backdrop of my life?

I am okay with beloveds not understanding, and even with them being concerned and maybe a tad worried. That is their journey. Hopefully they find peace <3 Honestly, my journey is my concern, and right now, I'm concerned and a tad worried about the state of my current life, and I need to follow my bliss. It would be lovely if they could support that <3 And it will still be lovely if they don't <3

This is just so right for us.

You know what I find funny sometimes? When a child scratched their knee doing something, and someone says something to the effect of, "Aww, you shouldn't have been doing that, huh?" or "You won't do that again, huh?" ............ Hmmm..... Not my style. Getting hurt is often the result of risk -- does that mean we should life minimizing risk? Does that mean that we shouldn't jump back out there and possibly get a skinned knee again? Or worse? Does getting hurt inherently mean that we should not do something? And does staying "here" mean no hurt will come to us?

Well, I am okay with going out there and getting hurt. It's no different than staying here and getting hurt, except we will have a better view. And we will have, at least, tried to fix the dis-ease that engulfs us sometimes.

Oh, yes, there is no turning back :)))

Things to do on the Road

2011-04-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

This is a compiled list that I am very excited about!!!!!!! This is what we have thought of so far....

Foremost, just BE.
Even if we do absolutely nothing, if we are happy, it's all good :))
In addition, we can:

Attend Gatherings

unschooling conferences, like Rethinking Everything
anime conventions
hoop camp retreat
fellow nomad gatherings
"local" Pagan groups' holiday celebrations

Visit Communes and Intentional Communities
Spend time really getting a feel for their lifestyles and see how they run things. I want to live communally someday, even if it is location independent :))))) In the very least, I know this will help me be the best family member I can be <3

Walks or Hikes in Nature
Self explanatory! We can play in parks of all kinds and spend days or weeks or however long it takes for us to get our fill :))

Explore Towns

local hangouts or town info booths
experience cultures
listen to histories
learn what they are famous for
drive/bike down neighborhoods and look at houses/property

Meet People

my online tribe (both from the wild zen tribe and other venues :))
local unschoolers or homeschoolers (a local park day?)
RV park
farmers markets

Leave a Trail of Random Acts

HILA is a Facebook group that stands for Hope, Inspiration, Love, Art -- they make artful little things and randomly leave them to brighten someone's day!!
Yarn bombing -- wow, beautiful. Plug it in to google images for some heart-melting fibre love! And see below for some of my favs :D
Operation Beautiful -- makes me cry <3
and any other ways we can make people smile <3

Bucket Lists
oh, the fun we will have creating these lists and also checking them off!! Oh, talk about boundless opportunities!!!!

Okay, I can't stand it! I must share some yarn bombing love!!!!!!!! (gathered from Google)

...Now it's your turn! What other things are there to do while living on the road :D

Dream Big

2011-04-25T14:27:00.000-07:00

If I'm gonna do it, do it right, right?

I am so ready to do this. I know that I don't need a trial run, but I am hoping to be able to do it for Kass, so she will know we can come back if we don't love it.

Timeline:
I am hoping to buy the RV in a month or 2, and be on the road a month or 2 after that (renovation time). My lease here is up in August, and I may even be on the road before that (hoping!).

My first 2 or 3 month voyage will be destination Oregon, to visit my soul sister, MB <3 And I plan to make the trip via visiting my other beloved tribesisters on the coast of California :))))) Then we will probably head back down here (visitng the sisters more inland California) to spend Yule/Christmas with family and let Kass decide at that point if she wants to stay on the road or not. We will say our goodbyes at that point (assuming Kass loves it as much as I know she will!) and head off for the grand adventure :)))))))))))))

I started a(nother) "Home on Wheels" journal. This one is permanent -- I used one of my favorite journals that I had been saving for the right purpose. It is colorful (thank you, rainbow of highlighters) and organized (thank you, Office Depot, for satiating my craving for office supplies) and full of limitless potential for recording dreams of adventure :))))))))) It is already full of lists that are just jumping off the page, excited to become blog posts in the very near future :))

If you read this blog via e-mail, you might want to come check out the actual blog soon -- I am going to make some fun changes to the links at the top of the page, including an "about us", a tab about our rig (our RV), a library (for links to things), and a better preview of the Tribe :)) I'm so excited!!!!!

~~okay, so I totally cheated and took a break (a couple hours!) from finishing this blog post to go do that, and I am LOVEing the tabs :D Go check them out! -- well, after you finish reading this post LOL Now, back to your regularly scheduled program...

I am excited about putting together a planner/organizer, including:

a "to do" list (long term and short term stuff)
a budget
a simple map/atlas
an address book (with some system of pinning tribesisters' addresses in the map)
and a calendar with events happening different places, birthdays of beloved ones, and a travel log of where we were and what we did

One of the first things I am going to do is start selling 99% of everything we own on Craigslist. I will probably not be selling most of Kassidy's stuff, so she knows she really can return, if she wants to <3

I will also be finding ways to have fundraisers (garage sales, car washes, a going away party, wrapping up unfinished craft projects to sell, and whatever else I can come up with). I need to start saving up money for that rig!

I have a nice long list of things that need to be done before we can head out, so I will be ticking things off as fast as I can :))

This is so exciting! And I feel so optimistic and trusting again! I know we've got this!!!!! I know we can do this, and I know this is it :)))) And I know the universe will open up doors for us because I am saying "Yes! Yes! Yes!" to everything :))))))))))

Now, go explore those tabs :D

Happy Celebrating Rebirth Day

2011-04-24T20:47:00.000-07:00

Although, we do not identify as Christians, we do love excuses to celebrate :)))) And the celebration of rebirth seems to be univeral around this time of year (Spring), so I can get down with that :)) Here are some pics of our day:

In her Sunday best :))

Saying "cheeeeese"

He is going to melt hearts someday...

Can I take a moment to express just how much I love them? Wow, words can't begin to describe!

Searching for the Ostara bunny

Trying to find that bunny

Basket time :))

Kassidy being a bunny :)))

Speaking of bunnies.... A chocolate one curled up in the grass with some eggs made of fabric scraps :)

Bash had to get in on the love action :))))

He tolerated this for about 10 seconds LOL

One says "celebrate" and the other says "rebirth" (hollow eggs that I was going to make tacky earrings out of LOL)

Gay pride rabbit egg :))))

"stained glass" or "tie-dyed" eggs :)))

We always write their names on one egg each every year :))

My favorite eggs -- no surprise LOL purple stars and spirals :))))))))))))))

Some Spring-themed cupcakes that I made -- delicious :)

He knew how to look for eggs this year :))

Najaia's first time egg hunting :)

She got the hang of it real fast :D

Rethinking Everything (not the conference)

2011-04-24T11:34:00.000-07:00

So, I have been thinking about this whole living-on-the-road thing... hahaha, what an understatement :)) And no surprise, I am sure. I woke up the next morning looking into my closet (where my bed faces) and thinking, "By many people's standards, this is a wonderful life.... but it's not for me." I am not meant to have all this stuff. It's a weight I cannot bear, was not made to bear. I have lived out of a dufflebag with glee. THAT is the life for me.

So, I went and reread my last blog post and pulled out a few things that really stood out for me:

a prettier cage -- that is kinda what ANY stick house would be for me
in the NOW, everything is fine -- if I project this into the future, taking life moment by moment, I KNOW everything will be fine, regardless
manifestational muscle -- I need to work this muscle out, so that I can make my life what I truly dream it to be... I think I have been working my fear and negativity muscle out -- I need my old habits back

So, I started thinking, my biggest fear is that living on the road is not going to be what I think it is, and I will have given all of this up for it. So, I decided I will consider a trial run. I won't give up my free rent and such for 3 months, and I will live on the road and see if it is, indeed, what I think it will be. I like the option of that plan :)))

Then I started thinking about something else that I wrote in my last post: "why do I want to disconnect from this day-in-day-out?" And I realized that there is too much responsibility, too much weight. I was not made for this, regardless of what other people's standards are. I am a minimalist to the core of me. I have not been living sustainably for me -- I have been living too big, even though it could be described by others as simply. It's not simple enough for me.

So, I started making a list of what I really need:

a bed
a bathroom
a place to store and prep food

And then it crept in, while I was making that list: my fear of moving into the bus, my fear that I won't be able to handle it was more from the primitive set up, than the simple one. I loooooooove simplicity, but partially because I am picky about the simple things I use. I can't say I would be thrilled to empty a compost toilet after the novelty wears off (once or twice). I will probably miss cooking on a stove when my option is removed from my life. And I will surely need an electrical outlet where there isn't one on a converted bus.

Then I thought, the Leapley's RV really would be perfect for me.... It has a BIG bed (plenty big for the babies and me), a couch that converts to another bed (perfect for Kass -- although, we might switch that arrangement out), a space for Noble's play table, a dinette (table with 2 benches on either side), a kitchen with stove and oven and fridge and all, a bathroom with a shower, a large closet, and upper shelving. That is perfectly what we need (not too much or too little). The best oart about their RV is that I love the layout! It feels very open and spacious inside. Something like that with a diesel engine that I could convert to run on waste veggie oil would be ideal for us.

I really want something small, and I think a bus would be too big for us. I don't want a house on wheels, I want a studio with a small loft on wheels. Not to mention, an RV the size of the Leapley's (20+ feet), I could be very comfortable driving everywhere -- I was a bit worried about how I would find parking in a parking lot in a gigantic bus. I drove a wheelchair bus for a living for 7 years, so I know I could get really cozy driving an RV, but a long long LONG bus would take too much work to do every little detail of life (like go get groceries or go to a laundry mat).

So, that was as far as I got to thinking yesterday. Well, except I searched RVs on Craigslist and got an idea of what I was looking at. I even found an RV like the one the Leapley's have, for $2,700. I would have paid much more than that for the bus and getting it cozy inside, when all was said and done (you know, a toilet, a stove and fridge, etc). And this way, I can sell more of my stuff (instead of using it for the inside of the bus).

I am really excited about all of this thinking. And then my dear friend, Cindy Leapley, sent me the name of a page to "like" on Facebook, which brought me to the blog Gypsy Dreaming, where she talked about the stress of having to sell their house before hitting the road, and it made me realize how lucky I am to be renting before I go. And then it made me realize how lucky I am to be having free rent for now, so we are not spending money on rent that we could be spending on the RV. And how great it is to have time to get this all together without feeling like I am wasting money on rent that could be put into an RV. I like this angle :)))

So, here I am. I am prepared to give up the wonderful things that I love about living in a stick house here, the community I am just learning and loving, and our dear friends and family.... Everyone who hits the road has things to give up, and I am okay with not being happy about leaving some stuff behind. My life doesn't have to be a total ease to give up for me to be available to do it.

Also, I was thinking, as I read a few road-living family blogs in the last couple days, that we can stay as long as we want to. I know most people take off from places after a few days or maybe a week or 2, but who says we can't spend an entire month with a family that we love? Who says we can't stay for 2 months, or however long it takes for the road to becon us again? We can have the best of both of those worlds, too! We can go whenever we want to and stay as long as we want to :)))))

If I was going to put a diesel engine in the bus, I can do that for an RV, too :)) It's all good :)))

It really is all good :))))))))))))))

Maybe it is Mercury coming out of retrograde? But I feel free and prepared again :)))))

Speaking of "timing" -- happy rebirth celebration day!!!! I am off to do the egg dying and egg hiding and basket filling thing :)

It All Comes Down to Connection

2011-04-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

**fun blog moment: my last post was my 200th post since I started this blog on April 24th of last year! Now, back to our regularly scheduled program...

There are 3 main reasons I want to live on the road: adventure (the kind you wake up immersed in already), sustainability, and connection.

My oldest daughter and I have had a rocky road over the past few years, and we are better than ever :)) I see a few places in her life where our disconnect is impacting her, so I really want to work on connection with her, connection inside herself and connection with me and with her siblings. The biggest thing I can do to help her find healing is to hold that space for her in my heart and in my head. I know that she already has everything inside of her, all the answers, all the wisdom, all the ability. I hope that I can find that pathway to her heart, so she can find it for herself <3

Back to the bus... I am petrified of mechanical stuff. I know absolutely nothing about engines and vehicle functions and parts. This fear seduces and lures me away from putting all my eggs in that basket -- I am trying to be safe by holding onto that basket but not putting anything in it that I wouldn't already hold onto anyway.

Can I have the connection I want without hitting the road? What would that take? What would that look like?

Can I have sustainablity? Can I have adventure?

Can I give myself more time before I try to hit the road? Instead of aiming for August, could I wait until maybe March of next year?

The reasonable side of me lures me into that way of thinking with promises like "that will be long enough to learn about vehicles and prepare for the plumbing and electrical that will need to be done and to find solar panels on Craigslist and whatever other supplies possible on Diggers List." It's so easy to talk me out of stepping outside my comfort zone....

I am not trusting the insides of me that want to leave. I wonder if I am running from something or trying to run to something. And it wouldn't matter if this wasn't such a big deal. Giving up my free rent is a big deal (I was on the waiting list for 8 years). Braving the open road in an old bus when I know nothing about vehicles (and they usually don't end well in my care, as well) is a big deal. I can't tell if I am chickening out or if I am flowing through barriers...

In moments of clarity, I see us on the bus. I have never felt more alive inside than imagining our life on the road. Is this fear going to sideswipe my dreams? Is this fear valid? It's like a tug-o-war with my heart.

It requires a leap of faith. It's like when I decided I wanted to homeschool Kass, and it took me 6 months of ~~consuming~~ researching information to feel comfortable to pull her out of school. Why do I take soooooooo incredibly long to do something? Why can't I just leap?

I'm so afraid. I HATE being afraid. I hate when my fears dictate the path I take! Thank you, fears, for wanting to keep me safe, but I don't want to live my life so far from the edge -- I need to feel the breeze ruffle my feathers so I can test these wings! I want to fly!!!!

But what if my wings are broken? I haven't used them in so long........ Can I fly alone? Carrying 3 babies? And a dog... and 2 felines?

Is hitting the road best for them? Noble LOVES having the same friends to play with over and over, and he is so shy with new people and new situations -- would his life be a perpetual "slow-to-warm-up"? Kass has her own little tribe of friends here. How can I take her from it?

What if this life I am dreaming about is not as great as I think it will be? What if the grass isn't actually greener? Then where will we go? What will we do?

.... I know the answer to this (whatever we will do), and I know we will be fine regardless.

It's not the actual fears, it is fear itself that is paralyzing me. It is distrust (which will lead to more problems down the road than any actual course we are set for). I am manifesting my own destiny here -- stay on track!

~~~~~~~~~~
...So, this post kinda took me by the seat of my pants. I considered deleting the whole thing, but I am keeping it. Someday, when I look back to those preliminary steps before our lift-off, this blog is going to be important, and maybe it will help someone else who will come looking to see if the tug-o-war inside them is normal before taking off?

I'm going to get back to my original idea for this post :))

It all comes down to connection. I want more connection with my family in my life. I want to be unplugged from the things that distract us from each other, and from the stuff that we use to ease the anxiety that swells up inside of us. The internet is such a 2-sided coin: it connects me to my internet tribe and feeds my brain with information, and it pulls me away from my face life with my kids and pulls my kids away from their face life with us. The problem isn't the internet; we have lost interest in connecting with each other. I am a single mom; I have depended on technology-as-a-babysitter so much that now I am afraid to lose it and desperate to lose it at the same time. Parts of me want to fall off the face of the internet earth and hard-survive face life with people. If I didn't have the internet, how would I get to know people? Would I -- could I survive without Facebook, without connecting with dear friends spread far and wide? Without blogging my heart out? What would my life look like?

Do I need to live on a bus to reconnect with my kids and my own face life? No, probably not. But why do I want to disconnect from this day-in-day-out? I think it's not for me.

A few minutes ago, my attention span (add?) took me to facebook, where a dear friend shared this blog post, called Surrendering to the LIFE the Universe has Planned. I love synchrony as much as I love some of the things she talked aboutthat spoke to my soul. First of all, though... Why do I choke up and start crying at the title? Surrendering? Surrendering my fears? That word has been coming up for me a lot, recently. And smack-dab in my processing thus far was my soul sister, MB's post on surrender, which reminded me that surrender is not the same as succumbing. I will not succumb to my fears on all of this, but I will surrender them and surrender to them, like the healing that happens when we relax for a chiropractic adjustment, like the rush that happens when we release and just let it all go... Maybe once I have stopped resisting, those fears can flow freely and go about their business outside of me? I'm tired of carrying their burden.

So, that "Surrendering to the LIFE the Universe has Planned" post had some great points that totally applied to this post... How about this little gem: "How do I unpack this BIG spiritual/emotional/mental/physical experience I’ve been having into something so small as words?" (oh, but I do try, don't I?)

What about this one:

"I am friends with a lot of entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs and personal development folks. Goal talk is BIG in these circles. I see it all over my Facebook feed! And I went there for a little bit at first. To the Goal Camp. But what I had to realize over this past year is slightly embarrassing (only for those circles): I just don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care about goals. I don’t care about tracking. I don’t care about having a plan and having it come to fruition the way I planned it after a lot of hard work. That became BORING to me quite quickly."

I love to make goals -- they are fun to play with. But maybe this is why I never really follow through with them? ROFL

And this:

In the moments when I wake in the morning with THE DREAD, this is what my reptilian brain thinks I need: A Tried and True Plan, tested by Experts!

But, here’s the secret…

Shhhh…

What I’ve found is SO MUCH MORE. It really is. And I’m not saying this as pie-in-the-sky trying to convince myself or you. Truly, at my core, I’ve had to realize my own freedom. See, when I traded in the 9-5 world for the entrepreneur world, what I essentially found was that I’d just gotten myself in a prettier cage. Not interested. And when I let it go, when I didn’t hire the business coach to tell me to what to do to “foolproofly” make all the money I need, I felt oddly free. I don’t HAVE TO follow anyone else’s rules. I live in the NOW. In the NOW, everything is fine. I am following my own rule, guided from within. I am following the Universe’s plan for me, step by step. Sometimes it’s hella scary because I DON’T KNOW HOW IT ENDS!!!!! But you know what? I also LOOOOOOOOVE that I don’t know how it ends. Life becomes an adventure to be LIVED, not a plan to be carried out.

Life becomes an adventure to be LIVED, not a plan to be carried out.

Me <~ crying again.

Can I let go? Can I not try to be "foolproofly"? Can I just live in the NOW, uncertain, following instead of leading, not knowing what may come next, not knowing how it will end? Can I do that? Let me rephrase that... Can I do that without eating myself into oblivion from the anxiety? Can I do it without the assurance of a caravan, without a partner to feel anchored and safe in and with?

Am I going to be pep talking myself indefinitely about how I can do this? Am I going to wake up with that morning dread?

Have I shared with you that every homeless person I see fills me with fear, recently -- fear because I am giving up a home and belongings and "security" and may end up homeless on the street at some point? Fear that I might be that worn and sun-leathered person with deeply heavy eyes and a heavier walk. Could I become that person? Will that be me someday? What other horrors or hardships might await us?

Is a stick house REALLY that much security, though, really? One of my reasons for wanting out of this one is the lack of security I feel -- the landlord could uproot us at any time (happened before), or something could happen with my rental assistance, and we could lose it unexpectedly. Who knows...

If I were to die in a year, would I be happier that we stayed "safely" in this house, or that we got out on the road and lived our dream? Oh, I am tired of planning, of being told I "have to" plan. I'll show them!

...... So, this post has been written over the course of a few hours (lol), and I just thought of what I think is holding me back even more than my fears about what destiny may have in store for us... It's my own fears concerning my own ineptitude. I trip HARD on pebbles. I get deeply "depressed" and basically nonfunctional. At least, here in this stick house, we have running water and electricity even when I am nonfunctional. Life is kind of on autopilot here. What happens when we are out-and-about in life and I need to hide in my hole and recharge my batteries for days or months at a time (I hybernate during winter)? What happens when some situation makes me want to crawl inside instead of get something done?

Alright, I am beyond tired and pretty convinced that I will regret posting this come tomorrow, but I'm doing it anyway! This post is my invitation to the universe for the answers that I will come to find (probably via Facebook) in the next few weeks. On that note, I leave you, Dear Patient Readers, with this lat bit from that blog post: (eat it up -- it's delicious!)

To be truly, truly free. I guess I have done it. But it seems to be something I need to continually do. It seems to be like a manifestational muscle. But wow, cool stuff happens. Can I believe I am worthy of this life? Can I believe it can “work”? Can I live this way and still thrive? Some part of me knows I can’t live any other way and thrive. I know I am thriving.

The Unlikely Monkey Wrench

2011-04-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

Ding dang darn.

Yesterday, I had a wild surge of cleaning energy that I decided to direct at my garage (I have been shoving everything I don't want from the house in there, and a garage sale was way overdue!). I had stuff pulled out into the back street into 2 piles: the stuff I was selling (which looked very appealing, I must say) and the stuff I was keeping (which looked like the garbage pile LOL Oh, the joy of unfinished projects!!). People were stopping by and asking if I was selling anything and peeking in at stuff. One nice neighbor bought all the clothes (bags and bags full for $5 haha) and baby stuff (she takes it to family in Mexico -- I love it!!) and some odds and ends in the kitchen and house decor...

Another lady likes a shelf and wants me to hold it for her until she moves in next month. Her and I got to talking. I really liked her right off the bat. I'm so partial to loud and bold women, women who hug people just because that is what they do, women who talk about the things that pop up in their mind as they live life... So, this awesome Italian woman is moving in right across from my garage! And she has an 11-year-old self-identified free spirited daughter who is SO COOL and LOOOOOOOVEs anime.

And I am sitting here thinking, why is this tribe coming together in my backyard when I am ready to leave?

And I am thinking, was there a waiver in my energy that manifested this?

And I am thinking, what do I do with this unlikely monkey wrench?

And as I am hanging out with this awesome woman, a couple of the boys down the street stop by and explain to this woman that Kassidy is their stepsister because their mom adopted her as part of their family. I really love their mom, too. I felt an instant connection to her, too, that hasn't waned <3

And I am still waiting to find out about this lump sum of money I was going to buy the bus with -- it was supposed to take days for me to find out, and now I have learned it will be 6-9 weeks.

I guess I have some time to think and feel and experience and see....

Unplug

2011-04-18T19:56:00.000-07:00

When I was writing my last post about knowing it was time to do this roadliving thing, I wanted to explain more about why I knew this would be good for our family, why we need this, what is so important for us.

I feel so disconnected right now. I feel like the internet and other technology in our lives consume our attention, and we are so spread out that we hardly see each other. I can't just turn off the internet -- it is embedded into this life, and limiting it is a bandaid, really.

It's more than the internet, though. The internet and other technology are not the cause -- they are what we are trying to use as a remedy. Other "remedies" include Kass's investment in playing outside with kids who often make her feel awful about who she is and what she likes. We are all trying to find ways to cure this anxiety inside us, this restlessness in our gut that says something is off and how can I "get back on".

I was an attachment parent when I didn't even know the term. I couldn't get enough of my baby. She and I were thick as thieves. But events happened in our lives that left us disconnected and angry and taking it out on each other. I want to cry when I think of how alone and unsafe my daughter has felt in her life, and probably emotionally abandoned by me because of my own issues during it all.

I see the repercussions of it everyday. Today, we are closer than ever. We enjoy each other more than ever. I'm ready to take the plunge into the most connected we can be :) Before my baby (my oldest) leaves the roost, I want her to feel connected, a part of this whole <3 I want us to be so close that we have no other choice <3

I just want a family connected, a family unplugged from the "junk food of life" and plugged in to the things I value. I want a good shot at it. I want to make it our life. We have been living off of the processed life which is why we want more and more and more -- because it is not fulfilling... and I want a whole life for us. I want the depths and richness of family, adventure, outdoors, simplicity, tribeness, and wildly self-designing our own lives free of social conformity. If my kids chose the traditional route for their futures, at least it won't be because they didn't know any different.

I cannot get what I want from living rooted into the ground right now, unless those roots were in the company of this tribe I need so desperately in my life. I literally and figuratively fill myself to the brim and overflowing with junk, because I really just need some whole foods for my life -- literally and figuratively. Maybe the reason I am feeling the draw toward the road is because that is where I found it before in my life? I want to do what I know. Maybe someday I will try something different, but I really need this. I really want to give my family this. It's a gift, my service to them. And this is my gift...

I want to awake to them, spend the whole day with them, and fall asleep with them in the context of a simple, whole, and connected life, with a backdrop of adventure and enriched learning.

I wrote something for my friends, the Leapleys, as they prepare for their departure by RV in the next couple weeks:

Plant simplicity
in the rich soil of love.
Water with adventure.
Grow abundance!

One of my favorite things about the Leapleys is how similar they are to us LOL This quote applies to us both. We are both simple people who garden in black earthy love soil. When we water that simple living with amazing experiences and sights to see, we grow abundance -- abundant connection, abundant richness, abundant wholeness, abundant opportunities, abundant freedom, abundant possibilities....

This is more important to me, as a mother to my children, than any lessons to "prepare them for life" (like how to get a job or balance a bank account). I want to give them the gift of a whole and rich childhood to both grow their adulthood from and to bounce their future lives off of to test for joy and importance. If they have a solid sense of the substance that comes from living a rich and whole life, then they can use it as barometer for their future when deciding what to do with their own lives. Hopefully, it won't take them until they are 30 to figure it out for themselves :))) Or, better yet, maybe they won't be afraid at 30, with kids in tow, to leave it "all" behind and hit the road of happiness? ...and I say "all" on purpose, because "all" we need and want is coming with us -- it's in our hearts, and it is the fact that we are all together, and it is because our favorite belongings are a humble amount and will fit in our new home. We have it all :))

Kassidy's Sagitarius moon makes her more of a natural adventurer than I am -- I either learned it or it's in the blood I inherited from my mother, but it's been in Kassidy's stars since her birth. I always thought she would join the Peace Corps because of how much she loves justice, helping people, and travel. She always said she wanted to get a VW bus and travel when she turned 18 (instead of go straight into college), and she said just a few weeks ago (when Kai was sick) that she imagined him riding shotgun in her road adventures later in life :)) No matter how much "stability" I tried to give Kassidy (by living in the same place from her age 3 to 9, by her having the same daycare provider all her years, and going to the same school from kindergarten until she came home to homeschool), she wanted adventure. I know this will be so perfect for Kassidy :)))

I want to hit the road before Noble and Najaia have a preference otherwise. It's already hard to balance the timing between Kass and I -- the last thing we need are more people with big opinions on the matter :)) I would love for this to be all that Najaia remembers (and maybe even Noble).

We are a nomad family. I can't wait to hit the road :)))

It's Time

2011-04-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

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...

I Get It

2011-04-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

My fears about living in a home-on-wheels are not the typical ones that people have to process to be comfortable with something. I have already lived on the road, and my fears are tangled up with the stuff my mom carried around about our experience of it. We lived like a cat always lands on their feet -- my mom attributed it to luck. It was a heavy weight for my mom to carry alone (single mama), and she finally broke under the strain of it.

I am afraid of breaking down somewhere I don't want to be -- not because of some random concern, but because this happened to us. My mom and my brother and I would get stranded at a relative's house who didn't approve of how my mom was living or parenting us, or at one of her boss' houses, while we waited for money or work to come in.

My fears about what will happen after we don't want to live in a bus anymore are rooted pretty deeply in what happened with us after transitions (stuff in storage in another state more than once, a crummy place to live)...

But I am not my mother, and our situation is so different from the ones I experienced as a kid, and the world is a very different place!

I was already on the path to trusting and having faith, but exploring these differences helped me really get it. I have no fears. ...When I was pregnant with Najaia, I was petrified of what was ahead of us. I was 100% excited and I was 100% scared. I was afraid to bring her into the world, because once she was here, all the changes would begin. I was afraid those changes would move too fast for me. I didn't have faith that it was going to happen at a comfortable rate and that the universe was conspiring in my favor.

I am trying to find my faith :))

Well, this was an adventure in finding my faith, but now faith has nothing to do with it -- I have reasoned it out! Here it goes....

I am not my mother.

Let's just keep it short and sweet and say that I am starting this journey from a place of confidence and intactness, and that I have peace and joy of presence in things like not knowing and impermanence. I have complete faith to surrender entirely to the adventure, and I am okay with investing every bit of everything into it and knowing that it will be successful. I don't need a man or a partner to feel secure, and I don't need the security my mom did. I surrender that security to the whims of the universe who conspires in my favor, to my tribe sisters and families who will always support and assist me, and to my inner self who will only be soaringly successful when I let go of fear and manifest and liberate the phoenix inside me.

Our situation will be so different than the one from my childhood.

Firstly, and most importantly, we will be travelling in our home, not in a van with a home filled with stuff and bills somewhere that we are responsible for. Everything will be in one nice neat space: our home, our vehicle, our responsibility. No rent elsewhere or stuff elsewhere. If we were to break down, everything our life revolves around is still right there. If we broke down somewhere we didn't want to be (like those family members who weren't our first pick for a stop), we are in our home, just with a different view than may be our favorite. If we are waiting for money to come in, we are still in our home. Everything we own and love is with us at all times, so whatever happens, we are at home.

Another huge difference between my mom's travelling and our's is that my mom had a handful of relatives in Oklahoma and Texas who didn't approve of her to visit along the way, but I have an internet tribe who love and support us scattered all over the U.S.! And I am soooooooo good at tribes <3

The world is a very different place.

We have the internet! Need I say more? Okay, I'll add some more :))

We have internet-connecting forums and information for people who live on the road (and those numbers seem to be more than ever), and those forum members help each other out -- be it a fellow roadschooling family, or a single roadliving person who can recommend a campsite or diagnose an engine problem, provide a washer/dryer or point us in the direction of a trust-worthy mechanic. Internet forums for both "full-timers" and unschoolers are a tribe of themselves.

Speaking of a tribe of unschoolers. Unschoolers are like a secret society, and you are automatically in if you share the title and especially if you share the language :)) And wherever we go, there are bound to be unschoolers, or hippies (who are another secret society -- or not so secret LOL). We can connect with tribe-members along the way, and they can direct us in their expertises of the area. Maybe we can set up a little gypsy camp and sell our wares? Who knows, but I DO know that unschoolers are sympathetic to our unconventional lifestyle and to our means to make ends meet in a variety of creative ways, and will do what they can :))

And I have an already established, already connected tribe sprinkled all over the U.S. (and beyond) who we can visit. Did I mention that already? Well, I can't mention it enough. Those mamas are kinda my reason for hitting the road. My itenerary will be based on their locations <3 Our map will look like a series of beelines :)))

Lastly, the world is different because this is more common than ever, and businesses are supportive -- so many businesses allow people to "boondock" in their parking lots. And the internet allows the opportunity to more easily purchase memberships to state parks and camp for free or cheap.

This is going to be MY exprience, not my mom's <3 And I am so excited about that fact :)))

I Need My Approval

2011-04-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

I just wrote this "note" on Facebook, titled "Dearest Facebook Friends and Family,"

I have flip-flopped back and forth, to and fro about my relationship with Facebook, about my interactions with all of you, but mostly over how much "me" I want to be with all of you. I have considered shutting down my Facebook account because it doesn't feel whole to me, since I often censor myself to not offend more conservative loved ones. But then I think of how this is often the easiest way to connect with loved ones, and it is full of so much potential!

I live life intentionally, but I promise, I'm not here to intentionally offend anyone -- I am here to be the best me I can be. Not only do I have the inherent right to do so, but if you are on my list, you love me, right? I hope you really love ME. If what I am saying does not resonate with you, I will certainly not be offended if you ignore me :))) I am not afraid of my ignore button :))

I plan to network here, and to shine the brightest me I can be. I am a star, afterall (Vanessa means "star" in Hebrew) -- if I don't shine, I die out, and I am tired of feeling faded and uncharacteristically depressed. I'm ready to burst out of this shell, so be prepared :))) I am loud and bold and eccentric and certainly not conservative. I am wild and outrageous. I LOVE ME! I love being me. I am like the most interesting person I know -- I am so in love with me, and I will make no appologies <3 So, love me, too, or not. Jump in and dance with me, or stand on the sidelines. My life is a dance of wild abandon.

I know it's not for everyone, and I am letting go of negative opinions about it all. I am going to embrace what rocks my world, and I am going to let go of opinions I have been carrying around, opinions that aren't mine and don't align with my values. I am going to release the shackles that are not benefitting me. Bursting through this glass ceiling is going to be the catalyst to my self-actualization, manifestation, and wild soaring success.

Oh, this ride is going to be quite an exciting adventure <3 I look forward to the tribe caravan :))

And then I started to flow through the release, and I wrote this:

I have been living a censored version of myself, wanting approval of others, but it has been causing me to not accept myself, which is more important to me. How can I even know whose approval matters, when I don't have my own? I am prepared... for ridecule. I am prepared to not be understood or supported. I am prepared to look crazy and outlandish. And, once again, I am reminded that through the problem is my liberation! I am searching for what I need in the wrong places, and once I align with my insides and start living true to it, I will find everything that I need: support, approval, etc.

And synchrony released this little capsul of delight, which talks about how (and why) creative people are more eccentric and often "depressed", and all over I just keep remembering that it is normal to not be accepted by people, to not be approved of, to not be "for everyone" and that is okay. It is common for people to disappoint their parents, and I know of more than one person who has been deemed crazy by society for being true to themselves.

I keep seeking approval and acceptance from others because I don't have it for myself. Then, I think in terms of some analogies... My messy home, which I may not have shared my liberation concerning, yet, so the analogy is missing the other piece. I was questing to make my home clean and inviting for people, and I rearranged my living/dining area the other day during a revelation that my living/dining area were so sterile. I wanted to avoid mess and avoid opportunities for mess, so it was stripped of everything that might make it less inviting. Once I decided to make my home look more like a home, with touches of humanness and warmth, the whole thing just "rushed" into flow-mode. I just birthed an inviting home, after at least a year of pregnancy on the whole thing. I guess a warm and inviting home were incubating :)) Anyway, so now I don't care if my house is messy or dirty or clean or what -- it is inviting all over the place :) As it turns out, it wasn't the objective "messiness" or not of my home -- it was an inner acceptance that I couldn't find or manifest.

Now, me. I have been being a watered down and censored version of myself, a sterile me, with hopes of being inviting. Living with this wild hair for a week (think white person afro/Einstein), shamelessly untamed and exquisitely vulnerable-leaving for me... well, it has been a daring test of acceptance in the world, as I have ventured out to run various errands. And I was constantly reminded that people were much more comfortable with me if I was okay with myself. If my head was high and I bore the stride and smile of someone warm and confident, people were at ease. And the ones who didn't get it would never get it, and I didn't need them to. Because if I am good, then I am good. That's as good as it gets!

So, I have realized that this sterile version of me who is nice and appropriate and genteel and ordinary and not-drawing-attention-to-myself is... the cause of my own dis-ease. Fuggetaboutit. If I am going to REALLY be warm and inviting of people, I need to be accented with humannness and warmth, and the rest will rush and flow!!!!

Of course I have not been able to accept myself. I haven't been BEing myself. I have been trying to be what others want me to be. I have been trying to be peaceful and likeable and subtle. I am loud and vibrant and bold and brilliant.

As I am writing this, I am remembering why I tempered all of that... I didn't know how to be warm and kind and connective during it. YAY for being able to shake off outdated fears about offending people in a bad way.YAY for knowing that if I am living aligned with my truth that if I do offend anyone, that's only because of their own journey, not because of mine. I am finally confident in what I stand for (mostly that I am okay with being bold and making "mistakes"), and I am finally ready to plant and grow the seeds of substance that I have been collecting throughout my life. I'm ready to grow and live in this garden of self and life. Indeed, I am bursting with liberation and freedom and exploration and adventure. What a limitless opportunity to create!

I am just shaking with excitement about the self-acceptance I will feel from living boldly by my self-formulated truths, from creating and crafting and growing and changing and bursting over and over! I am thrilled to be ready to leave begging-for-your-acceptance-relationships where they are so I can spend my energy barefoot dancing... and knowing deep down that this is actually the key to getting their acceptance, because they love me and when I am loving myself, they won't be able to resist me! I am going to start doing so many things. I am finally ready to marry myself, to commit to honor and love myself forever through everything, regardless. Honor myself? Wow. That's a biggy, right? What would honoring myself look like? Maybe this blog post is more about honoring myself than accepting myself (which was rooted in The Work)? It is easy for me to honor others, but I have yet to shine that mirror onto myself <3 I'll let you know how that goes :)))

I am finally ready to throw caution into the wind and live wildly and beautifully and unsafely. Who wants to live in ideal condition forever? Oh, not me.

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body,but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming -- WOW-- What a Ride!"

Yeh, that sounds like current me. I am a wild woman.

And I have been thinking about changing my name legally to "wild artful tribal zen" hahahaha Who knows if that will come to be, but it seems to suite me so perfectly. And then my name would be wild zen. Okay, well, it is going to be on facebook. Gonna go change that asap. Who cares about long-lost friends being able to find me? LOL

Alright, enough of this train of thought here :)) I will probably be back with some more refined version at a later date :)))

Wildly, artfully, tribally, zen

That Itch

2011-04-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

You know that spot where you can scratch a dog's belly and their leg starts thumping? No matter how long you scratch there, no matter how often. That's road living for me right now.

It keeps coming up for me. It swells in waves, between my contentment with life as it is currently. I love my home, I do. I love my little yard, and I love the perfect amount of space we have for our stuff and ourselves and our cats and our dog. I love the stuff we own and how it fits so perfectly in our medium-sized house and looks so beautiful <3

And then another friend in my delicious circle informs me that her family is hitting the road, and I jerk into "how can I make this happen" mode. I have planned, I have dreamed, I have twisted and turned the whole thing around in my head and on paper. I could make a home out of any space on the road now LOL I can make the most out of an RV, but I would love to build a home atop a trailer frame, or even convert a bus. I might even be willing to go by van. Ideally, I would want to do it, powered by waste veggie oil and solar panels. I would love to boondock indefinitely, so we would need to be self-sustaining. Oh yeh, that's what gets my juices flowing!

I think we are so simple. We feel so simple, but who knows what we would really need for the long term, you know? What would we need as the seasons turn? How many days a week could exploring the outdoors feed our soul before we needed lots of time and space indoors to rejuvinate (and would we have that)?

Living on the road isn't something I can imagine loving -- it's something I have loved. For 3 years when I was a teen, my mom and my brother and I travelled the US in our minivan. Maybe that is why the itch is so insatiable... When I read the blogs of roadschoolers or walk around a friend's RV (they will be heading out May 1st), I feel the freedom, the adventure, the slow simple living. I feel the memories I shared with my family of origin, and I feel inspired to create ones with my own children.

Oh, how delicious to spend less time cleaning and more time slowly exploring. Don't get me wrong, I really love cleaning, especially now that I feel I have found the secret to zen cleaning. I love cleaning my house and my belongings. I don't feel like it is a waste, anymore. Wanting to clean less doesn't come from thinking anything is a waste (the meaning is in me, and I find meaning in lovingly caring for our beloved things) -- it just comes from the innate lack of maintaining stuff while we are maintaining adventure and our selves. If everyone has 100% of a 24/7 week, what percentage do we spend doing what? If you live on the road, can you imagine what the time and days look like? I can. I have. I can't stop thinking about it.

I live in San Diego, and I have free rent. This isn't about vacation scenery or cheap living -- it is about adventure for me, and it is about owning what I live in (I'm so tired of renting). It's about spending a day in the dry desert and then the night in a humid forest. It is about spending an entire day walking around a national park and knowing that we could stay there endlessly if we wanted, or we could move on in an hour if we choose to find something else. It's about ensuring my kids see fireflies in their lifetime, and the red plateaus of New Mexico, and the magnificent Rocky Mountains from the valleys of Colorado, and the humid pebbley shores of Florida, and as many historical and geographical sites as our interests can and want to pursue.

I want to go slow. I want to see everything. Maybe a city or so at a time. I want to visit the amazing mamas who I have met in online forums and carried in my heart (and my cell phone/email). I want to give my children what I had, and even better :))) I'm so excited about what this would mean for my kids, what it means for their lives and for their memories and for their sense of selves and life lessons. I'm excited to watch my babies fall asleep at night after a good hard day of living. I'm excited to see the road in the front window of our home-on-wheels. I'm excited to hear the kids yell, "Here!" as they peer out the window at a potential destination, somewhere we have never been and will explore together. I'm excited to design our lives, over and over, with every new journey and every new stop. I am excited about the impermanence of it all and the lasting bits of it, too. I'm excited about the photos we will take :)))) I am excited about the people we will meet and see. I'm excited about the foods and the cultures.

I am noticing a pattern in me when it comes to some big life choices. I draw them in through Law of Attraction, and my fears push them away -- so I get this weird, exhausting experience that has not put me in a home-on-wheels yet.

You want to hear the coolest thing I thought of? A Tribe Caravan. If I had a tribe (basically, a commune or intentional community on wheels), I would do it in a heartbeat. My fears revolve around being a single mom with 3 kids alone on the road. I just feel like I need at least one other adult to share the load, you know? If we break down, I need someone else to help fix the home or watch the kids. If we boondock in the wrong place and I am exhausted from a day of exploring and caring for kids (alone), I might need someone else to drive or something, you know? That is just the bare minimum of why I would *need* a tribe on wheels, but all the reasons I would *want* a tribe on wheels is a much more important and extensive list.

Can you imagine? The benefits of a tribe AND the benefits of roadliving? I gush-and-then-melt at the prospect. And then we could figure out how to live even more sustainably together, like maybe a garden on wheels? Can you say permculture on the road? If there were enough of us, we could set up our own little market/fair and sell our handmade crafts and perform hula hooping and sacred mama dance circles -- we could be like a travelling Rethinking Everything Conference, a travelling gypsy band, a travelling farmers market/craft fair, a travelling everything-our-favorites-all-in-one! The list is never-ending and full of limitless potential.

Maybe this is my calling? I am drawn to the road and drawn to a tribe. I don't know of other roadliving families doing this (and if there are, PLEASE tell me about them). True gypsies. Powered by wanderlust and other sustainable sources.

How do I make this dream real?

Natural Energy Conservation

2011-04-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot on this topic, especially since I have been turning and twisting the details of roadliving around in my head and on paper these days. The following list is actually from about a year ago, and it is interesting to see what we have embedded in our lives and what room there still is for internalization and new habits.

Although, I want to find alternative forms of energy or harness natural energy, I also want to use less energy. I want to pay less, AND I want to consume less in general. What it comes down to is, I want to feel more free from needing so much, and I want to be more kind to the earth. Here are some ideas I had:

unplug our fridge and use a cooler and bike up to the grocery store a couple times a week so we have less food to worry about
hang a clothesline instead of using the drier
handwash some stuff in the sink, so we can use our washing machine less
go to bed early and wake up early, maximizing sunshine and minimizing light usage
light rooms with candles
share space so less lights on around the house
tv on less
turn my laptop off when not using it (didn't realize how much power it required while in sleep-mode)
unplug stuff that's not on
find stuff to do in the dark or without lights (like with candles or do shadow puppets)
charge some things elsewhere (library for laptop, etc)
unscrew some light bulbs (rather than 3 bulbs on in the bathroom, maybe only 1 or 2)
buy/use energy-efficient light bulbs
eat more raw foods and/or foods that don't need to be heated or cooled to eat

I also thought about a generator and solar panels, but would need to do more research on that and pay out of pocket. Whatever we do, it has to be not permanent, because we rent, and we want to take it when we move, especially if our next home is on wheels :))

Over There

2011-04-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

I have this raging fear of success, of investment, of commitment. I am petrified of permanence, scared I will change and be stuck. I feel so helpless in ways that are so completely outdated. Who I am today is NOT whoever I might have been before that was helpless... Who I am today is powerful and fluid and safe. So, why do I have these barriers in me, still? Why do I feel like I am bumping my head on a glass ceiling?

Where I am today is NOT where I want to be -- I want to be over there. I want to be rockin this goddess-lovin woman-circling life every minute. I want to drown in a community of women like me. I want to hear the song in my heart flow from a circle of women's mouths.

I remember feeling this way about unschooling, about consensual living -- I just wanted to BE OVER THERE. I'm tired of long hard journeys.

Oh, but isn't this one worth it?

Stop that, Voice of Wisdom. I'm trying to sink into the crud, so I can pull it out by the root, strangle it for holding me back for so long, and walk it promptly out to the garbage -- never to live in my garden again....

I'm so afraid to do what I feel I was meant to do, what I feel in my heart and in my soul that I was meant to do. I'm so afraid of the vulnerability involved. I'm afraid of disappointment, I'm afraid of failure, I'm afraid of success. My head knows all those things are no big deal, but somewhere deep in my heart, there is a wound that is scared of being poked again, a wound that is still bruised from so many things.... It wants to sink down deep into the rich soil of safety and convince me that the way to make money in this life is to work a j.o.b. or go back to school or get a career with the degree that I already have. But I want to yell, "NO!!!! I want to do what my heart sings about!" I want to be wild, and I want to be artful, and I want to empower women, and I want to savor circles that make me feel so good about myself and about life and about the earth. I want to live it. I want be OVER THERE. I don't want to make the journey by foot. I want to take an airplane. I deserve it! I've walked everywhere, and I've enjoyed it, but this once, can't I please just be transported magically OVER THERE? Please -- pretty, pretty, pretty please?

Because, I guess the truth is, I don't think I can get over there. I think I need someone to hold my hand and go with me. I am tired of going it alone. I'm tired of being so strong. I'm tired of feeling pushed when I am vulnerable. I want kindness and understanding and mentorship. Fine, I will take an instruction manual for this part of my journey. I don't care if it makes me less "self designed". Maybe I need a wee break from the heaviness of a journey of solitude.

Maybe I am ready for the stuff that partnerships are made of? Maybe I will lovingly sacrifice having everything my way, for a warm hug whenever I need one?

Nevermind my fears of getting into a crummy relationship (again), or my untrodden journey of sexuality that has been on the back-burner most of my life (bisexual? lesbian? straight? Oh, who knows... certainly not me). Another long hard path ahead of me. Can I just BE OVER THERE for that, too?

Journeys are overrated.

...I just want to be there. I want to already be comfortable with being successful at what I love, and I want to live in a veggie-oil-and-solar-powered home-on-wheels with a ravishingly attractive lover who is AMAZING with my children and with me, and a gypsy tribe to caravan through life with.... I want a partner who will hold me when I am upset and I will know it will all be okay because 2 is more powerful than 1, and we can move mountains together. I want a partner who reminds me of the amazing person I am, who inspires me every day to be who I want to be, who grows and changes with me, who loves my children like they are their own.

Loving and accepting myself wholey and completely is too hard. I want someone else to do it for me. I'm better at it than I ever was, but I need a gawdam cheerleader -- full time. I just need someone to hold that space for me. I can get there, if someone is there and I can find them. I don't need to hear the chants -- just do the dance. I see it. I get it.

I don't believe that shit about independence. Maybe it works for others. Maybe I thought it worked for me. Maybe it works for parts of me, but not every.gawdam.single.thing... I can't DO EVERYthing -- nor do I want to. I am only whole when I am a part of a whole. I am a social creature by deep dark loving nature. I am tribal. I need my peeps! I need them in my backyard. I need them at my door when they haven't seen me for a few days, to make sure all is well. I need them to show up unannounced at dinner with a movie for the kids and a bottle of wine and some cheesy bread for us adults.

I want to give, and I want to receive. I am ready.

Can I just be there already? This is taking forever.

Oh, the slow and beautiful journey. I appreciate you again <3

Do you hear that? It's the sound of exquisite release, and now I am ready for this delicious journey, wherever and however it unfolds :))

wild zen tribe: a soulful and inspiring grassroots community

2011-04-03T15:59:00.000-07:00

My big surprise that I have been working on in the background (and foreground, honestly) of my life? Yeh, it's my newest birth, a community, a tribe, a place to pour all of my best into and watch it take root and grow -- but even better, a place for my tribesisters to do the same. The possibilities are limitless!

I have started and successfully ran groups like this before (in limited venues), and this time I am taking the best of all that I have learned and all my motivation and all my heart and all my confidence to a public venue, and I am going to plant, grow, harvest, plant, grow, harvest, indefinitely.

It's like a community garden of beauty, music, knowledge, inspiration, creativity, resources, connection, sisterhood, and so much more.

I am bursting! Can you feel it?

So, enough trying to sell you on a free community!! LOL Come check it out and see if it is for you :)))

click the pic :))

Livin' in March

2011-04-03T14:05:00.000-07:00

It's been about a month since I posted some snapshots of our life, so I guess I am due for a post on that :)))

A day of balloons, right after Noble's birthday -- Noble wanted to show off his tricks

Najaia had to get in on the fun :))

While Kai was sick, the cats allowed him close, and they kinda bonded

He bonded even more deeply with us, too <3

Kass made this to hang in our big window, and it looks like stained glass against the sun :) So beautiful :))

My friend, Karina's birthday :)))

I am so proud of this cake, so had to take another pic. It was SO delicious, too!

Noble and Najaia clipped clip-on-earrings in my hair :))

I cut my hair (too short) and made the most of it :))

Started getting creative with things I could put in my hair -- this was made from scraps from my curtains :))

This is also a scrap from my curtains :))))))

So cute -- another angle :)

I look so dyke here :)) I love it ;)

Najaia helping nurse Kai back to health (hand-feeding him)

They got really close during this ordeal <3

Went to visit my stepkids. Here is Kass with Izayah (12 yrs old)

Jakqel couldn't get enough of Najaia :))

Noble loved him some Jakqel :))

Most of the crew :))

These 2 were partners in crime :))

Speaking of partners in crime :))))

March 2011

March 2007

Just bein cute -- he loves to sleep with his head on our pillows :)))

The newest fun in our house -- the water table! Every day or so we find something new to put in it and play with, but even nothing but water works!!! :))

Even Kai likes to play :)))

So, that was a bit of March. I am not so good at taking pics of so many things we do. Partly because my camera doubles as my ipod, so if we are listening to music, I usually don't get a pic, and also because usually I am involved in most of the things, so I don't get a lot of pics. I think I have a remedy for that... We shall see <3