Day one, again?

I started to write this on my phone on Sunday, but we had some sick Autumn issues and I didn't have the chance to finish it.  So, here we go again.  Sunday was day one, again (so today is techincally day 4).  We are officially fulltiming in our RV.  We moved in after church on Sunday.  Then yesterday we went to the beach house, cleaned it out and left the keys.  I think that  makes it feel a little more official. 

We are staying at Famcamp on base.  Today the kids and I are at the clubhouse because Zach worked from 7 pm to 7 am last night and is trying to sleep.   Plus there is internet access here.  The kids are playing pool, well Gavin is trying to play and Autumn is getting in his way.  :)

We've had some learning experiences already.  We keep popping our breakers by overloading them too much.  It's taking some getting used to, but we are figuring it out.  We are also learning how to take fast showers so we don't fill our grey water tank up too fast.  We are not at a full hook up site, so we have to either borrow a portable tank to drain our galley and grey tanks or move the whole thing to the dump station.  I think we're going to borrow the portable tanks. 

But that's that for now.  Now that we are here and have easy internet access I'm hoping to get back into the habit of being able to update several times a week.

Until we meet again...

Good afternoon. I hope things are well with you. Autumn and I went to Tennessee this weekend to get Gavin for Christmas break. My mom and sister brought him down and we spent the weekend with them there. It was a nice visit, but I was happy to come home. 

We told Gavin about moving into the rv and he is pretty excited about it.  We will be staying in it tomorrow and hopefully the next day too. We haven't stayed in it yet, so it will be our maiden voyage. Everyone is really excited.

I am listening to the kids playing in here right now and I am starting to second guess living here. ;)  There will be no where to hide from them at.

I think we have everything we need to start our lives in here. It's kinda hard to believe we are so close to living in here.  I will update after our first voyage and let you know how it went.  

Until then.....

18 Days To Go

So I am still typing this on my phone.  It's such a crazy life right now. I have been working on Christmas cards all morning.  Autumn and I are headed to Tennessee on Friday to pick Gavin up for Christmas. :) We are meeting my mom and sister there for the weekend.  I am so excited. Zach has to work, so he can't come with us. :(
We spent some time working in the RV yesterday. It was so much fun to be out there in it. Autumn loves it. She plays in her "room". We are telling Gavin when he gets here for Christmas. I want him to see it before we drop the news on him. It's a lot to take in and I want it to go as smoothly as possible. He will be here when we move into it. I hope that will help the transition too.

Until next time. :)

Moving in Three Weeks

So apparently I can't figure out how to type anymore at the end of my post.  Maybe someday I will figure out how to be smarter than my phone.  But it doesn't look as though today will be that day.

Hey there. I hope everyone is doing great. We are still in the beach house with no internet access so posting is still sporadic.  I am actually typing this post on my new phone.  It's interesting to say the least.

We were planning on moving into the rv at the end of January, but we've moved the date up to the end of December.  We are going to start the new year off in it.  I am so excited. It's only 3 weeks away.  :)

There has been some other changes too.  We now have a doggy in our family.  Her name is Meesha.  She is a 5 year old pug.  She may very well be the best dog on earth.  She is sitting and cuddling with me as I type this. I love her.

So Much Going On

Wow.  I'm so sorry I haven't updated in a while.  So much has been going on I just haven't had the time.  Where to start???  Well first thing, we closed on our house!!!!!!  We closed on Tuesday the 3rd.  Everything went smooth.  Well almost everything.  Apparently the washer and dryer were supposed to be included with the house and we had already sold them.  But it was to a girl in Zach's shop and we were able to buy them back from her and take them back to the house.  :)   So that disaster was averted.

Let's see......We have moved into a beach house here.  A couple at the church we've been attending has a beach house (it's a vacation rental home that is already furnished) that they aren't using and have offered to let us stay there rent free for the next three months.  So that's where we are living now.  We hadn't even met these people but they heard our story of what we are doing from the pastor and were so impressed that they wanted to help us.  So this is their way to help us.  :)  What a blessing.  God is so good.

So we bought the RV last night.  We paid for it and are heading over today to do our walk through and learn how everything works.  We thought about not buying it because we are staying in the beach house, but decided that we would rather have it ready to go so when they need us to leave the beach house we can just up and go. They won't have to wait on us to find someplace first.  So we get to pick it up today and now we can take our time getting everything just right in it.  :)

We drove to Clermont this past weekend to take my aunt the tv (she bought it).  We rented a van and drove down on Thursday night.  Friday morning we got up and drove to Tampa to go to Busch Gardens...that was so much fun.  Perfect weather an NO LINES!!!!!!  We rode the roller coasters so many times without even having to get off.  It was great.  Then we went to Jungala and rode one of the rides there that brings you up and just drops you down.  Autumn was just tall enough to ride it and since there was practically no one there we got to ride over and over without getting off.  She loved it.

Well we left there Friday night and headed back to Clermont then Saturday morning we got up and headed home.  It was a busy busy couple of days.  Clermont is about 6 hours from us and Tampa is about 2 hours from Clermont.  Lots of driving (it was a rental so it didn't matter too much.  :)  ) 

So that's a little of what's been going on.  Hopefully soon I'll be able to tell a little more in depth about the beach house and what we're going to be starting to work on to help others.  But for now I need to go and eat my lunch.  MMMMMM

Until next time.......

Tragedy

This post really has nothing to do with our adventure.  It's a prayer request. 

We have some friends at the church we go to in Panama City that are going through a tragic time right now.  Their two oldest children were walking to the bus stop with the mom and they ran out in front of a car and were hit.  The six year old little girl, Julie, was killed and the nine year old boy, Micheal,  is in critical condition.  Their mom had to witness her babies going through this.  All of the children already at the bus stop had to watch this too.  Please pray for God to send His peace to everyone this has touched. 

Rain

Rain rain go away come again another day.  It's raining today.  But my plants have been terribly neglected by me lately so they are probably pretty happy at the moment. 

We are moving our stuff into a storage unit on Saturday (I hope it's not raining then).  We're going to be sleeping here Satuday night and moving into the hotel on Sunday.  We figured that's one less night we have to pay for.  :)   After church on Sunday we'll come back here and clean, that way it's nice a pretty for the girl who's buying it. 

Today I'm staying home and working on laundry.  We are delivering our washer and dryer to the girl who is buying them, so I'm trying to make sure all of it's done before then.  The problem is I HATE DOING LAUNDRY!!!!!!!  I'm ok at the washing and drying.  It's the folding and puting away that I have issues with.  At least now the puting away consists of leaving them in the laundry baskets (because we have no dressers).  I think going to the laundry mat will be good for me.  It will force me to do it all at once, and living in the rv I'll have to put it all away because there will be no room to leave it laying around.

About 90% of the house is packed up.  I packed most of the kitchen today.  I can't pack the pots and pans because we still need to eat the rest of the week, but the dishes are packed and we'll just use paper plates until we settle down again.  As close as we are to moving it doesn't seem as though we'll get it all done.  But I know we will, some of it just has to wait until Friday to get done.  It's that stuff that is causing me stress now.

So now I need to go and do some more packing and cleaning. 

Day 87

You know what is really irritating??? When you buy something and it's already broken or messed up. That has happened to us twice this week.

First I ordered our new dishes (we sold our old stoneware ones and got lighter more durable Corelle), they arrived two days before they were scheduled to.

Day 85

We move one week from tomorrow!!!!! I don't know whether I'm :) or :( about it. Part of me is so excited, but the other part of me is so terrified.

The closing is on a Tuesday. I volunteer at our church on Tuesday mornings. Zach has that whole day off, so he is going to come with me that morning and we have the closing that afternoon.

Day 80

My mother-in-law asked us for a family picture to use for the Christmas card this year. We never had one taken this summer when Gavin was here, so I made this for her. ^^^^^^^^^^^^ I hope it works. I like it, I think my kids look pretty darn cute. :)

Do you know what happens when you complain that you want fall??? You skip fall and go straight to winter. Last week we were in the high 90's and the past three days it's been so cold. This morning it was 39 degrees. That my friends is cold.

Other than the weather things are going good. We are on day 80 and on day 78 we put a reserve on an rv. :) This is the first one we looked at and it's the one we kept coming back too. Plus the dealership is adding a hitch and a brake assist to the deal. So we are moving right along with it. Now we just have to wait until closing to do the financing. It's so exciting.

We were going to have another garage sale this past weekend, but chickend out because it was cold. So now we have to have one this weekend. It's our last weekend living here. :O It's hard to believe that.

A Phone Call

Sitting here minding my own business when my phone rings. Who could that be, I don't recognize the number. HMMM??? I answer it and am surprised to learn that it's the closing agent wanting the information to get the pay off on our mortgage. AHHHHH!!!!!! I'm not ready for this stuff. It's happening too quick.

Two days ago I opened my mailbox to see what kinds of presents the mail lady brought us. Apparently we aren't the only ones receiving mail here now. There was a piece addressed to the girl who's buying our house. Boy was I not ready to see that either. I about had a heart attack. That's just crazy. Talk about pushing someone out the door.

What on earth are we doing??? This is the house we wanted. Blood, sweat and tears went into getting this house built. Living in a run down, leaky, buggy house while we built this one. And now we are just up and leaving. CRAZINESS must have set in. That or listening when we were told to do it. I'll go with the listening one.

We are learning that when you listen and then follow through on what you were told to do, things fall into place. Is it easy?? Not a chance. It seems to get harder and harder. Is it exciting??? Sure is. We are so excited, it's an adventure. I'm tired of being sedentary, it's time to live.

Time

Good Morning. :)

There seems to be too much and not enough time all at once. We have so much left to do that it doesn't seem as if we'll get it done before we close. But at the same time the closing feels forever away still.

We still have a few things to sell, the TV and stand, stools, a chair and our beds. All of our other big things are gone. That's good, but I'm getting concerned we won't be able to get rid of the last few big items. We have a couple of boxes of small junk left. This weekend is supposed to be cooler, so I'm thinking it might be a good time to have one last garage sale and whatever we have left at the end of it will get donated somewhere.

We haven't even started packing. I think I'll start next week. Two weeks should be enough time to do it all. We don't have that much left anyway. :) I could probably get it done in one week, but I want a few days to really clean everything.

But at the same time, we can't get the rv until we close on the house and everyday we wait there is the chance someone else will swoop in and get it. The salesman we are working with sent us a message this weekend saying it made it through this week. :) It was cute. But if this rv is the one God wants us to have it will still be there.

Waiting has never been a strong point in me. But I am getting much better at it. Now you can too. You have to wait until I get another blog wrote to hear more.

Doing What Is Right

The reality of what we're doing is starting to set in. I'm getting so emotional about everything now it's ridiculous. It's like a deep dark cloud has come over me and I can't get any light through it. I know that it's the right thing to do, because it isn't easy. The right things never are.

I've been reading my favorite full time rv forum all morning. I read some of these stories about why people are full timing. Most chose to so that they could travel and see the country. But a few are doing it because they don't really have any other option. Illness, job loss or other circumstances beyond their control have pushed them to the point that they can no longer afford to live in their homes, so they move into their rv's, or sell off all their posessions so they can afford to buy one because they know they are going to lose their house soon.

It's their stories that remind me of why we're doing this. The ones that even though they did all the things right, they watched helplessly as their lives fell apart. Or the ones who never got to see their lives come together because they just couldn't catch a break.

God put us here to help each other. The world tells us that we need to help ourselves first. But if we take care of each other, God will take care of us. I know that if God had done things the way we wanted him to, we never would have learned this lesson. Not to the point that we have.

I think it's something we all say and think, but when it comes down to it we expect someone else to do it. Not us, God doesn't expect us to buy groceries for the family who's dad just lost his job, or that single mom who is working two jobs just to make ends meet. That's what the government or church is for. There are special groups that do those kinds of things. We don't have to do that. We'll just pray that those groups stay around, yeah those are nice groups.

Don't get me wrong, those groups are really good, but what's so difficult about picking up an extra bag of groceries and dropping it off at someone's house??? Or if you know of someone who could use some help fixing up their house or fixing their car why not volunteer to come help them??

These are the things we should be doing for each other. Don't expect someone else to take care of it, if we all think like that, then no one will stand up and do what's right.

Not Yet

Yesterday I dropped Autumn off at therapy and headed to Target. As I was walking in the door I got a text from Autumn's teacher saying that today was going to be picture day. One days notice??? So since I was already at Target I ran to the little girls section and found her a new shirt. Then I found some pretty flower barrettes to go with it. This morning I spent extra time doing her hair and used all kinds of products on it to make it look nice. Her hair is notoriously messy, even 10 minutes after I do her hair it looks terrible again. But her teachers said that her pictures are super cute.

Zach called the bank yesterday to find out if we could get the RV before we closed on the house. They decided that we can't. :( But as soon as we close on the house they said to fax them the closing papers and they'll accept those and approve the loan. So we are planning on moving into one of those extended stay hotels for a week until we get the loan approved and pick out an RV.

We could have tried another bank, but decided that God had the power to make them say yes and chose not to, so for some reason we were meant to wait. We hope that the RV we have picked out now is still there when we go back next month, but if not then it isn't the one we are meant to have. So we will pick a different one out then. God knows which one we are supposed to have. We are just making sure not to make any decisions without praying about it first.

So now we need to keep going through our junk and are having another garage sale this weekend. My desk is sold and there has been some interest in our stools, chair, tv and washer and dryer. Someone Zach works with is buying our futon and a dresser and someone else he works with is taking the other dresser. It's coming together nicely so far.

Until next time.....

It's a Beautiful Day

Hello all, today is a beautiful day. It's about 78 degrees out and just gorgeous. It's one of those days that makes you want to be outside even if you really have stuff inside to do. I had to work on my basil plant a little earlier, so that was my excuse to enjoy some of the beautiful weather.

So we accepted the offer on the house. Closing is set at November 3, we didn't change that. But now we have to get the rest of this stuff gone. We had someone lined up to buy our dressers, but they have since backed out, so that's one more thing to do. Oh well, Craigslist here we come!!!!!

When we started going through our stuff earlier I planned on getting rid of my stand mixer. I didn't want to bring it into the RV because it's heavy and big (well not huge, but bigger than a hand mixer). But it hasn't sold and I got it out about a week ago. I've since decided that I can not part with it right now. I've wanted one since I was 10 years old, and now that I have it I don't think I need to get rid of it. I'll make it fit. :)

My biggest project I need to do is to start going through Autumn's stuff. It's the one thing I have been really really puting off. She loves all of her toys so much that it's going to be hard to get rid of most of them. I am going to buy her a pink (or purple) rubbermaid container this weekend to put the toys in that we are keeping.

I still haven't decided what to do with her Precious Moments figures. I don't think I can sell them, but I don't know where they will fit in the RV. Maybe that's one thing that will have to be packed up and put in storage at someone's house. I don't want to keep a lot of stuff in storage, hopefully just one box (and my wedding dress) of little figures like that and my pictures that aren't on the computer. That's my goal anyway.

We looked at a couple RV's last night. We really (really really) liked one we looked at. It was a 41' toy hauler. It was so roomy that it had an island in the kitchen!!!! It was HUGE! We really considered buying it, but alas it was more than we want to spend and amazingly Zach was the one who grounded us on it. That's usually me, but he came through first and said he didn't think we should do it.

So we are going to check on financing the one we originally went to see last night. It's a 30' fifth wheel. Not nearly as big, but it's more like what we want to spend. I can't see spending $40,000 on one when we are supposed to be humbling ourselves and simplifying our lives to be able to give more money to those who are less fortunate than us. It's kind of backwards if we go out and buy the biggest and best one we can find.

That's where we are now. It's hard to believe that it's actually happening. We've been waiting so long that there were some times I didn't think this would ever happen. But here it is, and we are so excited to do it. It's so great that we both have the same dreams. I love my life. :)

An Offer

The offer is here!!!!!!!!

I just got the offer on the house in my e-mail. It's a good offer too. So now we get together with our realtor tomorrow and sign and get this whole process underway!!! Tomorrow night we are headed in to town to look at a couple of RV's. We found one we really like. Well, we've had a couple picked out but this one is a 2004 and I have some big plans for it. :)

God truly is amazing. We've been waiting so long for this to happen. Seeing his timing is beautiful. If he had allowed it to sell sooner we wouldn't have met our new friends who want to help in the ministry Zach wants to start. We wouldn't have lowered our wants in the RV and would have spent way too much on it.

The girl wants to close on it November 3. That is just over a month away!!!!! We need to get really busy selling off some stuff. :) I am in such a daze right now. I am going to be making our last mortgage payment tomorrow. We've waited so long for this, now I am terrified. :) There is so much to do.

We will keep praying that everything goes smoothly for the rest of the process. I'm sure there will be some more nail biting moments, but I'm grateful for this breath of relief we have now.

BIG STEPS!!!!!!!

It's been about a month since I posted anything. Sorry.

Let me see....we bought the truck to pull the fifth wheel with. It's a 1995 Dodge 3500 Duely. It is HUGE!!!!! It's an old work truck, but Zach has been working on the interior and a little on the exterior. It is looking so much better than when we first bought it. He seems to like it (it's no Mustang though).

I'm sitting here typing this as I wait for our realtor to call with an offer on our house. :) A girl (she has to be around my age, so she is a girl still) came and looked at it on Friday and she liked it. Then she came back on Saturday and looked at it again. She was going to put an offer on our house or a town house in on Saturday, but she wanted to talk to her bank one more time before she did. Her realtor called ours on Saturday though and told her that we would be getting an offer on our house today!!!!! :) It's so exciting. It's been on the market for 14 months. We are just praying that everything goes smoothly with the rest of the sale.

So now we need to get rid of more stuff. So much more to get rid of. As soon as we get a timeline of when she wants to take possession of the house, we can start selling the big stuff, like the TV and stand, washer and dryer, beds, couch, chair, dressers, stools and my desk. That's about all the big stuff we have left.

We started a new church in PSJ and love it. We miss our old church and friends there, but the new church is so much closer to our house that I don't dread heading to church.

God is so amazing. We've been to this new church 4 times. Yesterday there was a new man there. He and his wife are moving here from Texas to work in ministry. The church asked for volunteers to help him unload his moving truck, so Zach and I went to help (he only lives about 3 minutes away), afterwards we were talking with him and the pastor and Zach mentioned a ministry he wanted to do which is car maintenance for the elderly and people who don't have the money to do it themselves. After we were done moving, I invited the new guy to come eat dinner with us (his wife is still in Texas). While we were eating dinner he asked Zach more about the car ministry (that is one of the ministries God had laid on his to do when he got here, he just didn't know how get it going) and offered to pay for the supplies to do this ministry. What a blessing!!!!!!!

He also told us he owns some more property that has a carport on it made to park an RV under. It has electrical hookups, but he's not sure if it has water and sewer hookups on it. He said that if it does we can park our RV there. It's so beautiful to sit back and see how God is working this. He's the conductor to a beautiful orchestra that is our lives serving him.

Until next time.......

Ideas

Quick question. Do you know what happens when you sell your shower curtain before your house??? You have to go and buy a new one. Yep, we are selling everything and a lady asked about our downstairs bathroom stuff, then she bought it all. Well now we have a very serious lead coming to look at the house this weekend and we had to go and buy a new shower curtain for downstairs. Not one of my better ideas.

Zach had yesterday off and we moved the desk from the living room down to Gavin's room. It's now considered the office for the time being. So I am sitting with my laptop on the floor of my living room connected to all the stupid wires I need to use the internet. Yes I know that we could make it wireless, but that involves spending money on a piece of equipment that we would only use for another couple of months. I don't see how that's a good idea. So I will just sit on the floor for the next few months. That's not really a good idea either, but it's free.

I'm lost when it comes to spending my days now that Autumn is back in school. Friday I know that I am cleaning like a crazy lady again. The lady who's coming to look at the house really likes it. She has waited a whole month to and is driving two hours to see it. I want the house to look it's best so when she sees it she will want it even more. Our microwave is still at the repair shop, but we will just explain that when it gets fixed it will be back in it's position.

We are pretty sure we found a truck. It's a crappy looking work truck, but it runs great and is really cheap. I think we're going to get it this week and then Zach is heading to the junk yard to get seats and a headliner for it. It is cosmetically in rough shape, but with some love I think it will be great for us.

Still moving forward on the adventure, just a lot slower than I want to be. It's discouraging sometimes, but I know we will get there.

Day 24

Good morning friends. Today is day 24 of our adventure. It's not been very adventerous thus far. Actually it's been rather boring. But we are supposed to have someone come look at the house this week/weekend. AND she is extremely interested in it. So we will keep praying that this is the one we have been waiting for. :)

Zach has had a few bites on the Mustang, but none that want to pay for it. They all want it for $1000 or more under what we are asking, and we are even asking under blue book to start with. Helpful hint: if someone is selling a car and it's already priced low, DO NOT be surprised if you offer $1000 or more under what they are asking and they tell you not a chance. There is a lady coming to look at it Tuesday. And we have an offer of trading with a guy for his truck. Zach is going to pursue the latter of the two today.

We went to the church garage sale on Saturday. That went really well. We got rid of 75% of the junk we took. I wasn't there for most of it, I spent my Saturday sitting in the walk-in clinic for a medical issue. But Zach and Autumn had a great time selling all kinds of stuff. Our Christmas tree and ornaments, our dishes, a bunch of random things. It was good. We made decent money too. I don't know if we'll be able to have on this Saturday, depends on when the lady wants to see the house.

We have people lined up that want to buy our dressers and our futon. That is awesome. As soon as we have an accepted offer on the house we are putting our tv, the tv stand, counter stools, our beds, Autumn's dresser and her toy box all up for sale too. Right now I am more than willing to part with the desk, chair and hampers.

So 24 days in and even though it seems like we haven't accomplished a lot, I know we have done as much as we can do until the house sells. I just wish this stuff could happen sooooo much faster, but all in God's time.

Nothing New

It's been a little over a week since I posted anything. There is a very good reason for that. Nothing has happened. Absolutely nothing.

Well, that's not entirely true. We did have a realtor call and tell us she wanted to show our house. She called on a Sunday night and wanted to show it Monday afternoon. This wasn't just any realtor, it was the first realtor we listed the house with. She knew everything about our house and lot. She knows how big it is and everything. So I spent all day last Monday cleaning and cleaning and cleaning some more. 8 hours of cleaning. Cleaning everything that you don't normally pay attention to, but since someone was looking at the house I wanted to make sure it was perfect.

So I finally get done and they show up. Autumn and I are leaving so that they can look at the house without us here and as we walk outside the realtor tells me not to leave because our house isn't going to work for them anyway. They need to park an RV on the lot, and ours isn't wide enough for that. SO WHY DID YOU EVEN SUGGEST MY HOUSE!?!?!?!?! I was just slightly irritated with her. They looked at it anyway and then left.

That's what has happened in the last week. In a whole week that is it. Sad huh??? We did go to Tallahassee Saturday. We couldn't have a garage sale because it rained so we headed up to the co-op. It's about 2 1/2 hours away, but it's the closest place for me to get raw nuts. It was a nice trip and while we were there we stopped by Camping World and looked at their RV's. We found one we really like, it's used though so I'm not sure it's going to be there when the house sells. But the lady that showed us the RV's was really nice and it was fun to look at some more.

We still have another lady really interested in the house. She is supposed to come look at it about the 29. There is another lady that likes it too. She's moving in the fall, so that's soon. We are just holding on and letting God give us the right person.

Zach has been looking for a truck to pull the RV with. He has his car up for sale and is willing to trade for a truck. We are looking for a diesel 2500 or 3500. A guy called last night and wanted to trade for his Ram 2500, but it's worth about $3000 less than the Mustang and that's not gonna happen, it's not even a diesel.

So we are doing a few things, there just isn't much to do until the house actually sells. We are going to the church garage sale Saturday and hopefully selling a lot of what we have left. It's so weird to want to be rid of things. I even stop and think before I buy something now. I ask myself if I really need it and will it fit in the RV or is it just something else I'm going to have to get rid of. I can honestly say that since we started this I have only bought food and vitamins.

So hopefully some new stuff will happen and I will have some more interesting to write about. Just keep praying that God sends us the right person to buy the house (and if you could mention that we have learned patience and that we will consult with him before we make our decisions from now on that would be awesome too). Until next time......

Recipes and Pictures

Goodmor (trip, ouch....stupid thing). Let's try that again, I forgot to put my soapbox away after my last post and stubbed my toe on it. Goodmorning. I hope you are all doing well today. Yesterday was Sunday. We didn't do anything to get ready for our adventure.

We did go to church and had a wonderful guest speaker. Then we went and had some lunch and Zach got a haircut. Then it was home for a nap. That was soooo wonderful. Then before we knew it it was time to go back to town for church last night, we didn't make it. We ended up staying home and hanging out as a family. Zach went back to work today and that was our last time to just be us before today. It was nice.

At our sale on Saturday we had a very nice lady interested in one of our twin beds. She called this morning and wants to pick it up tomorrow. That's good because it means that we will be able to move my desk down to Gavin's room and turn it into an office. Right now our living room is really crowded having my overly large desk in here.

She also said that she is bringing a friend and maybe her mom with her and they want to look and see whatever else we have for sale and might buy some more stuff. Let's hope that they want to buy a house too. ;)

Today I'm going to work on copying recipes onto the computer into the right format. I want all of my recipes to match, then I'm going to print them and put them into plastic sleeves and orgainze them according to what kind of recipe it is (raw, gfcf, low-carb, etc....).

I also need to get pictures organized. Autumn has therapy today, so I'm not going to have all day to work on this stuff. Hopefully I can get a good amount done before we leave. Wish me luck. :)

The First Garage Sale

Today was our first garage sale for our adventure. We made a little over $200. That is just great because we didn't have anything important out there. It was all junk. So a great big thank you to all the people who decided that they needed some of our JUNK!!!!!!! Maybe next week we will have some more important items out there.

Totally off subject here, but am I the last person in the world that has serious issues with what is aired on TV???? Yesterday we were watching Spongebob and a commercial with Joan Rivers came on during it and she had a very potty mouth and was talking about things that are not child appropriate. Then, just now we were watching i-carly and a preview for Glenn Martin DDS came on and it had a clown smoking, a knife in a guys eye with blood spurting out. That was just what we saw before we got the channel changed. We've only had cable three weeks, but I'm about to get rid of it altogether already. This is just absolutely ridiculous.

Ok, off my soapbox now. Now I'm going to go and hang out on the floor with my Autumn Bottom. She is playing with ponies and it looks really fun. :)

Helping Others

Today is the end of our first week. We have made awesome progress on our house. All the stuff that we have gotten through and priced for our first garage sale tomorrow!!!! Well, only half of the stuff is priced. The rest we are going to sit down tonight and price. We still haven't gone through everything, and we already have Gavin's closet and floor filled with stuff to sell. So if you want more stuff PLEASE come to our sales and take all of our junk and put it in your house. ;)

I'm still working on typing out the recipes that I want to keep. (I say that I'm working on it but really I haven't done any since yesterday afternoon.) There are sooooo many of them though. The stack of books is sitting beside me at this very moment, but am I doing it??? Noooo. That would be the responsible thing to do and well at the moment I want to be a little irresponsible. :)

We hadn't talked about what kind of helping others we wanted to do when we get our bills paid off. We know we will have extra money and we don't want to spend it on ourselves, so we needed to figure out where we would focus on helping. I knew what I wanted to do, but since we hadn't talked about it I had no idea what Zach was thinking. So I asked him today and he said that he thinks we should check into the homeless shelters by our next base and see what they need. That is exactly what God had laid on my heart too. So I think God showed us our focus. What I'm thinking I want to do is to make quilts and donate them. I have no idea how to make quilts, so maybe I should learn that first.

So now I need to go and be somewhat responsible and add a few more recipes to my computer. Zach is working on dinner and Autumn is watching Spongebob. She loves Spongebob.

A Buyer and Junk

Yesterday was a great day. We were at home when a realtor stopped by. Our contract with our realtor was up on Monday, but this realtor wanted to show our house the day before that (Sunday). Our realtor refused to take her call and would not show our house!!!! Since we are no longer under contract with our realtor, this realtor offered to do a one time showing where she only takes 3 points.

The lady that wanted to look at our house really really wants it. They saw the pics online and she looked at four other houses, but none of them fit what she needs. She has a VA loan and only our house and one other fit in her budget and are VA approved. The other one is in a bad spot and not new like ours. She told her realtor, that ours is the one she wants. The only downside is that she lives in Tallahassee and won't be able to come back to see it until the 29. But that does give us time to get all this work done in it and have several garage sales so that it's more cleared out. So please pray that this is what God has been having us wait for.

Other than that, we have just been busy going through all of our stuff. Zach and I got through all of our clothes. That was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I also went through all the beauty products that we women love to buy, but rarely get around to using more than once or twice. So now my bathroom looks really really empty. :)

I'm also going through all my cookbooks and typing the recipes out that I want. Then I'm going to sell the books themselves. This is turning out to be the hardest one of all. Recipes are my thing. Everyone has a thing, and recipes are mine. I LOVE RECIPES!!!!!!

I'm loving this getting rid of "stuff". It's very liberating knowing that we won't be responsible for all of this junk. JUNK JUNK JUNK!!!!!! Honestly does anybody really need three sets of kitchen utensils???? Or five sets of tools??? The scary part is that we've only been married about five years and when we first got married we only had a 13" tv, two surround sound systems, a blow up air mattress, two frying pans and our clothes. We had absolutely nothing, and somehow we've managed to accumulate a house full and then some in less than five years. Imagine how much we would have in five more years!!!! It's crazy all of the stuff that we think we "need".

We are still researching our new home. Everytime we think we have it picked out, we find another one that we love too. Luckily Autumn thinks that looking at RV's is the coolest thing ever. She is always so excited when are. That gives me hope that she will see this as one big adventure too.

Now I'm going to type out some recipes and maybe shower. It's kinda late, but I'm still in my jammies. :)

Clean, Clean and Clean Some More

So we didn't end up going to NC afterall. We have a lot to get done here and this is Zach's last week off before he goes back to work. We have to get our microwave fixed and we have to take it in this week. We also have some chores that we've been putting off for a long time, but now we are getting super serious about getting rid of the house, so it's time to get them done. Zach just got done pressure washing the house. It looks really really good.

Earlier we removed the original caulk around our kitchen sink and counters and re-caulked them (the builders did a horrible job). We still need to paint a few areas that we messed up a little when we took the old caulk off though. Then the kitchen is done. Well we still need to get the microwave fixed, but then the kitchen is done. It never seems to end sometimes.

I finished cleaning and waxing my kitchen sink. Yes, I waxed my kitchen sink. It looks really good and the water just beads on it now. Then I cleaned the bottom of our shower. It's textured and I've tried and tried to get the dirty look off of it. Nothing has worked, and for the past year our showers have been clean, but looked dirty. Well today I tried something I should have tried at the beginning, Softscrub with bleach. Now the bottom of our shower looks awesome. :) I'm considering waxing it, but I'm afraid it will be too slippery. Tomorrow I'm going to tackle the kids bathtub.

As far as making progress on getting the RV, we have to call the owner of the company on Thursday. He is gone until then. But he really likes the area our house is at (most people do, including us). So we're just going to sit back and let God take care of things, doing what he asks us to do as we go.

I think later tonight I'm going to go through more of my stuff. We are hoping to have a garage sale this Saturday and we need more stuff to sell at it. So off to do more work on this fine day.

Weed Whacking

Good evening. Today would be considered day two of our new adventure. Zach took a weed whacker to our front yard. That was interesting. We've lived in this house for almost a year and we don't have any "yard" to speak of. We do have many many weedies though. So we went and got a weed whacker and whacked/mowed our yard. (Please notice that we JUST bought the weed whacker and we've lived here for almost a year.) Now when the guy comes to appraise it for us at least he won't mistake it for a jungle.

I did go through my desk and purged soooo much junk. I also went through our two orange file cabinet thingies. We got them from World Market and they hold a bunch of stuff, but now they are empty. Too bad half of what was in them is now sitting on my floor as I decide what to do with it now that they are being sold.

That's about all the getting ready we did. We have decided to head to North Carolina tomorrow. We have a few errands to take care of with our adventure tomorrow morning, and Autumn has school, but after that we are heading up to see my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. Plus our two adorable nieces. We haven't met the newest one yet. She was born in Feb. I can't wait to see her and my other niece who is four now.

So tomorrow after I take Autumn to school, we get to come home and make the appointment for the house to get appraised, pack the car for the trip, pick up Autumn from school, head in to the RV dealership and price out the exact one we want and find out exactly how much it's going to be. We know about how much it's going to be, but I would feel 1000 times better knowing the exact amount.

I think I will try and start going through my clothes tonight. It's not going to be an easy process. My poor poor closet. It's not going to know what happened. It's going to think it did something wrong. "WHY, why are you taking all of my friends away???" it's going to cry. "It's so lonely in here now." And don't even let me get started on what my cast away clothes are going to think.

I have no idea if I'll be able to update this tomorrow. We will be driving about 12 hours. So if I don't get to before I head out I will talk to you all on Tuesday.

Until then......

It's On

Today is day one of our new journey. Well, you could consider it day two if you take the fact we made our decision yesterday, but for simplicity we'll call it day one. :)

Let me introduce us. I'm Tonya and my hubby is Zach. Our kiddies are Gavin and Autumn. The hubby is in the US Air Force and currently we are stationed in Florida. Gavin is our oldest. He is eight and lives with his father in Indiana most of the time, but is with us often too. (That's a long story that I don't feel the need to delve into right now. Maybe I'll bless you with the tale someday, but rest assured we would love nothing more than to have him with us all the time too. Our family just isn't complete when he's not here.) Anyway, he's going into third grade this school year. Autumn is our next (and last) little one. She is three and probably the girliest thing you could ever meet. She is autistic, but that's not who she is, it's just one piece to the puzzle we call Autumn. She goes to Pre-K ESE now, but when our next set of orders comes through to move she will be homeschooled. I stay home with the kid(s) and research everything you can imagine on autism and special diets for her.

Back to the adventure I mentioned earlier. Right now we are a typical American family. We own a three bedroom two bathroom house. (Luckily for us we are less than a 1/4 mile to the Gulf of Mexico though. :) ) Well, we are also Christians. We are trying to instill in our kids that "stuff" isn't important. We want them to learn that there are much much more important things in this world than having "stuff". So, we are selling all of our "stuff" and trading our house for an RV. We are going to be living in it permanently for an undecided amount of time, at least until we pay off the few bills we have accumulated, and we also want to just have the extra money to help others with.

We realize that some people will think we are off our rockers, and yet others may just applaude us for this. But we know that right now this is the right thing for our family. It will help us show our kids that we can "practice what we preach". Now don't get me wrong, the RV is really nice, LCD tv's, A/C, DVD players, stereo system, the whole nine yards. But there is no extra space for all the "stuff" we all think we "NEED".

Today is day one because we have officially started going through our things to get ready to sell what we don't need. We are keeping special things, like our pictures and yearbooks from school. I plan to ask my mother-in-law to let me keep my wedding dress at her house. (Some things can't be parted with and that is one of them.) But we have come to realize that we have closets upon closets full of JUNK!!!!!! I'm hoping to make a decent amount from the people who come to our garage sales to add more stuff to their own houses. :)

So now to go through more of our stuff and get ready for our first of many many garage sales. The hardest thing for me to part with is my clothes. We all have wayyyyy to many clothes. I know I have to part with the ones that I don't really wear, but I love them. I think it's going to be hard to get rid of most of the kids toys too. Even though we know this is the best thing we were raised like typical kids from our generation and it's a mental hurdle to get through that "stuff" doesn't equal your worth. We know that, but it is engrained in us so we are pushing through that. I think the kiddies will be better off without all those useless toys, but we will keep the educational ones.

Off to more sorting.......