The Plan

My perfect husband, our two amazing daughters, my belly and I are going to move into a 22′ MotorHome named Benny.  We are trading in all our savings for Benny because, well, we’d rather be traveling than staying at home with savings.  David is going to quit his day job and be a musician.  I am going to take my wrap business with us on the road.  And the soon-to-be-five-of-us will spend our days together on a journey of adventure, discovery, and living our passions.  I can think of nothing more educational for me or my kids.

Problems to solve (and here “problem” is not a dirty word, but part of the fun, challenging nature of the beast):

• Rent our house out for enough money to cover our mortgage payments.
• Find a home for our cat, who was our first baby and is more than just our cat.
• Earn money to pay for six months of RV insurance, cell phone and internet service, and an emergency fund.

One of my favorite things to do is simplify.  This doesn’t mean lack of ambition, by the way.  It means that everything you do is part of your dream and aiming at your goal, and the other things . . . have been simplified away.

Ways that the new lifestyle will simplify our lives:

• no more lugging gabillions of things from my house to my car and back everyday, while carrying a one year old, and no more tremendously messy, disorganized car because I can only carry so many of them back to the house again when we get home.  Instead, everything we need will come with us . . . . neatly put away in it’s drawer at home.
• no more dragging worn out kids on another errand.  They can stay home with one of us in the parking lot of the errand that the other one of us runs in to do.
• no more having to walk away from my six year old while she’s talking to me and she has to chase after me to finish.  In our tiny home, all of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, diapers, and babycare will happen in one place and I can keep up with things while staying in her line of sight.
• no wondering if my one year old is climbing a bookshelf in the other room while I’m nursing the baby in the living room.  The living room IS the other room, and whatever she falls off of, I’ll only have to extend my arm to catch her!
• no more scheduling meals and lives around my husband’s 9-5.  We’ll sleep, cook, eat, and play when convenient.
• no more waiting for daddy to come home and missing him all day.
• no trying to figure out how to take care of a newborn and a one year old all by myself.
• no more wondering how to go turn off the burner in the kitchen with a sleeping child on my lap.  Two parents will make everything easier.
• no more endless hours of cleaning just to get it up to the point of “messy.”  With so few things, and such small space, cleaning will take 5 minutes.
• no more of our life taken up paying the mortgage.  Instead we’ll spend our money on festivals, concerts, events, and attractions that we can’t resist.
• no worrying about my husband being able to work the next day if we have a rough night.  We can take turns sleeping in, or nap during the day as needed.

Things that I can’t tell you yet how they will work, but I look forward to finding out:

• Nighttime parenting of a newborn and a one year old who still wakes several times a night in a single room domicile.
• Nighttime parenting when our RV is parked near neighboring RVs that expect “quiet hours” to be respected.
• Driving for hours a day with 3 children aged new, one, and six.
• Running two businesses and storing inventory in a 22 foot home that only has two dresser drawers for the five of us to share.
• Fitting our clothing, a few toys, musical equipment, CD inventory, wrap inventory, a laptop, 3 books, kitchenware, towels, diapers for two, coats and jackets, barbecue, box of important files, first aid kit, games, arts & crafts, printer, car seats, tools, camera and video camera, bedding, and my wraps in the rig.
• Finding a post office in every town to ship out products to customers.
• Rainy days or sick days spent at home.
• Finding hours each day for David to work on his music.