That damned house (xposted from FB)

Sometimes I really miss our house. I'm trying to figure out my feelings about it all - do I miss the house? Do I miss the town? Do I miss my friends there?

Well, the answer is: yes. I miss it all, in varying degrees depending on the day. It's hard to start on the path of a Dream (no matter how much I might now philosophically believe that the Dream is a load of BS they sell us to keep the economy going) and to start making a house into a home and then have it all just go away.

That home is where Chris began his first business. That is where some of the amazing wood working he did was completed. There were nights when he would stay up working until midnight, sleep two hours, then go back out to the shop to get it all done in time. Sometimes I'd go out to the shop when there was putzy work I could help him with - sanding, or holding the other end of something to make it easier for him to glue things up.

And that home is where I was when I had my miscarriage. I sat on the old couch we had for a few days just crying and crying. And I can still remember where everything was in the room, where the videos were kept that I watched to help distract my mind from all of those lost dreams.

That town is where we lived when I found out I was pregnant with Morgan. We walked down to the Dairy Queen (we tried really hard to make that a rule - no driving! We had to walk there and back!) and shared a Peanut Buster Parfait and I told Chris we were expecting again.

And the bathroom - I remodeled the bathroom after my miscarriage as a project I could do to feel like I had created something. Granted, I did it on a $50 budget using left over paint that subsequently stained the linoleum and bath tub, but I still was proud of the fact that I did it myself.

And I can still remember how the bathroom smelled in the heat of the summer when I was sooo incredibly wracked with morning sickness, and how the mineral smells in the water made it even worse. Nothing like pregnancy nose, right?

The hardwood floors in the living room that we were so excited to find beneath the carpeting. After living there a year we finally pulled up the carpet and refinished the main level floor. It wasn't perfect, but it was still beautiful and added a richness to the room.

Oh, and the fireplace! We'd light a fire, put on a record (yes, we have a large record collection, and we love to play them as often as we can), and sit back in our armchairs, dreaming about the future. The dogs would curl up by our feet and life was blissful in those moments.

On the topic of records: Cat Stevens' Tea for the Tillerman and Queen's Night at the Opera. Those were the two most played records at that house. Listening to them I can almost hear the fire crackle, feel the cool hardwood beneath my feet, and smell sweet cherry wood burning (benefit of being married to a wood worker - exotic kindling!).

The garden we had the summer after Morgan came. I would go out back and place her on a blanket and spend an hour or so weeding the garden. Once she figured out crawling it took considerably longer to get through a row of plants, with having to go after her ever few minutes! I made a lot of zucchini bread that fall.

My neighbors - I miss them! Cecil and Terri left before Morgan was born, and they were so excited to have a "granddaughter" (they have only sons and grandsons). They used to decorate their yard with a flood of lights every Halloween and Christmas, and I would sometimes just sit on the radiator by the window and watch the lights sparkle. They are kinds souls and immediately took us in as if we were family.

Our other neighbors, Patti and Dean and the kids - I spent a lot of time at Patti's with her daycare, and sometimes just so I could speak to another adult during the day! She was and has been a kind, supportive and welcome shoulder to lean on. Very few people know as much about the harder parts of our lives the past few years than she does.

And, for a while, I FINALLY had the chance to live in the same zip code as Ashlee. That was the first time ever! We had our Thursday get-togethers where I'd go to her house and we'd "work" - before we had kids, we'd sometimes get some office work done between chatting and gossiping, and once the children arrived we'd just run interference for each other while we chatted and gossiped. Well, mostly I'd run interference while she made food that I'd later get to eat. I'm pretty cheap - a pan of pumpkin bread and I'm yours!

In the midst of all the darkness we went through this year, I didn't give myself the chance to celebrate the wonderful times we had in that home we'd made. And we had plans... boy did we ever have plans! Our kitchen was in a state of planning the whole time we lived there :P It would have been amazing if we'd been able to finish it all. But we did what we could with the resources we had, and while we lived there, we had a pretty good time.

We're moving on. We're doing well. We're in a new place, but it's not yet home. It may be, but then again, it may always remain another resting place on the road to a new home. We'll see. I know in my heart that we have the biggest home anyone could ask for - friends and family from coast to coast who have showed us love and generosity when we were down. That much I am grateful for, and I cherish it more than I can say. But I do long for finding that sense of home again. I have my family, but I sometimes still feel lost in the world. I confided in a friend recently that it's difficult to be looking for an object and only be able to recall that it used to reside on the top of a dresser that we no longer own in a home that is no longer ours. It's hard to rest your head when you don't know where home is.

We've set up camp

We did it. We signed a lease on an apartment. For the next year, we'll be living in one place. This is a concept that has not yet fully sunk in. The apartment is nice - for apartments in our budget, we can have two dogs, the manager is friendly, and the location is convenient to needs and friends (who are, in essence, a need).

I think I'm ready to put my head down in one place for a while. The camper was a home of sorts, but not really - it wasn't terribly baby-friendly, the plumbing only worked some of the time, and it was so very tiny that things got tight fast. It was wonderful to stay with friends for a while, but even then we were in and out in other people's territory, in a house that was also under construction.

Now all of our needs (save laundry) are on a single level. We have an oasis that is just ours. We have doors on our rooms, and a bathroom that is all our own. A kitchen with a working sink. No more need to haul water or dishes. These little conveniences really mean a lot after you've lived without.

I'm off to bed soon. I'm going to snuggle in next to my husband and enjoy the feel of being home.

Off the road

Last night we slept indoors.

While our RV was parked in the drive, we slept inside a warm house. Munchie and Wilderheart slept in the guest room on a twin bed, and I slept on the couch in the living room amidst a pride of kitties. And I slept very, very well.

Almost seven months after getting "on the road" we are going to be off for the winter. And five of those months were spent in one location anyway, so there was very little road seen through our front window. In fact, I'd be surprised if we put more than 300 miles on the RV in all that time.

Am I disappointed that our Free & Easy Life didn't turn out as we planned back in March? Of course not. We have had so many plans change and so many unexpected things happen in the past year that I tend to keep my mind and soul open to other possibilities.

We are blessed to have the friends and family that we do. I still ache for the connections I have back in our old home town, and I am sad that it isn't a quick drive to see my parents.

As for our new home? We are very, very blessed to have friends who have lent us a helping hand through this time. We have rebuilt old connections here, and strengthened our relationships with our performing family. It has been an incredible summer - one in which not only Wilderheart and I have grown, but our loved ones around us have grown as well. I am humbled by the kindness and generosity we've encountered.

And our Munchkin - the light of our lives - has grown a great deal, too. She is simply amazing. Motherhood is a tough job, but I can't imagine a more rewarding experience.

I'd write more but my laptop is about to run out of power. I just wanted to get in a quick update on where we are. We are safe. The snow fell on an empty camper last night. Our family is warm, our bellies remain full, and our hearts are overflowing.

Blues

So we have given up on the free camper, I got a chance to go and really look at it. The roof structure is all rotten, it's full of black mold and mice. It needs to be striped to the frame and rebuilt. That is way beyond where we are willing to go.

PLANS:

We had been planning to get another trailer and head south for the winter, sadly money has not been forth coming. I recently hurt my hand, and can barely use it at the moment, so future work is a problem. Dracomama is looking for a writing job so we ca get back on our feet again, that means we will probably be getting an apartment for the winter. The RV just isn't warm enough, or big enough to be snowbound with a toddler and two large dogs. We will probably have a place by Nov, and hopefuly be settling in close to some friends so we can stay social and avoid the winter blues.

THOUGHTS:

So we recently met a road family traveling on the Renaissace festival circuit. We took to them right away, as they were living on the road and had been doing it for years. They were sadly all crammed into a not very large tent, as they had lost the yurt they had been living in. Mom, dad and three kids, pretty cramped, but happy. As we have had time to get to know them and learn their story, our similarities diverged. They are running from problems in their lives, living on cash jobs so that their problems don't catchup with them. None of those are the reasons we want to be on the road, we want to travel and see what's over that hill, experience different climates. Find the piece of land that says "HOME" so we can settle down and build our lives on it! Our lives have tried to change drastically in the last couple months, we went from struggeling to maintain the "American Dream" to trying to free ourselves from it. Now free, we wanted to explore and run free, experience life differently, we found that we are still bound by our need to keep our family safe, have backup plans, money for emergencies. We don't want to find ourselves traveling in a broken down vehicle, living in a crappy tent be cause we have no recourse. We want to be able to buy that land that screams "HOME" when we find it. That means we have to live differently in the system. Work for a couple years, save a nest egg, travel when we can, eventually we will get what we want. I want my familly safe and healthy first and foremost, adventures and travel will come when it can.

Trials and tribulations

So the plumbing in the borrowed RV is fixed, and we are once again self contained!!! We do not however have the title for the new Trailer, and no money to fix it if we did. I think all the people with money went on vacation this month. Work dropped off to nil and we had to use up our savings, back to square one. At this point, we are going to save up the required fix it money, and if the title is not available, we'll buy something ourselves. We appreciate our friends giving us the trailer, but I'm not touching it unless we own it. Needless to say we are frustrated. On the other hand, the borrowed RV is for sale, the owner apparently liked having his yard back. We still want a trailer, as this is a little on the small side for a growing family. Worst case scenario, we can buy this really cheap and resell when we have what we want. We basically have this thing on permanent loan, so I doubt we'll have to goto those lengths.

Patch work

Have we mentioned that our current RV has been without indoor plumbing since late May? No? Well, it has. Whee!

There was a crack in the septic (apparently a previous patch that unpatched itself) and in anticipation of getting the new camper up and running, we just haven't bothered to fix it.

However, after two months of no indoor plumbing - which means walking into our Dear Friends' house e-v-e-r-y time we want to wash a spoon, get water to boil noodles, or use the bathroom - we have given in and decided to patch the septic.

I can almost hear the sound of running water just anticipating this change!

Doing dishes! Washing my hand! Peeing! OH, the simple things in life bring the most joy!!

A note on the safety of our family

We do have a plan. We always have a plan. As much as Wilderheart and I love spontaneity, when it comes to our family's well-being, we thrive on planning.

Unfortunately, in the world of self-employment, paychecks tend to be more... spontaneous. And plans must constantly be rewritten as circumstances change.

We have weathered a great many changes in the past year. Last year this time, Munchkin and I spent a lot of our time weeding our garden, harvesting vegetables and watching traffic pass by out in front of the house. We took family trips to the lake, visited family and friends for summer cook outs, and had a relatively low-stress existence. We could see the dust cloud of uncertainty on the horizon, but I don't think that either of us truly knew how far things would spiral or what tough choices we would be faced with making.

Having just written that, however, I do have to laugh at the concept of "tough choices." Wilderheart and I have never had to chose who would go without dinner so our child could eat. We have never had to chose who will move a thousand miles away for work while the other tries to eek out an existence alone. We have been blessed over and over, and know little of true suffering.

When it comes to the adventure we are currently enjoying, we do have a plan. We have benchmarks and limits and structure to this plan. We will not abandon everything and go willy-nilly off the deep end. Through our great deal of experience having plans go awry, we have B-Z in back-up plans. We put Munchie's welfare first above all and our family's safety second. Our sense of adventure and free-spirited prancing across the countryside is somewhere down on the list, but it would certainly never trump #1 and #2. Ever.

And quite frankly, I would and do take great offense to anyone who would even bring that into question. I am Munchie's Mother. I AM Dracomama. You don't want to see the Dragon come out. It is my privilege to provide her with safety and comfort and entertainment and knowledge. I am blessed to have her in my care.

No decision about our existence will be made without taking Munchie's well-being into account. ABOVE ALL.