6 Months in Review

Reflecting today.
In July, we sold our home in Texas. We packed things into storage. We packed up our car. And we decided to be nomads. We traveled to California and bounced around, visiting family.

Now it's December and we have decided to bring this nomadic phase to an end. In January we will move into an apartment in Texas.

The past few months have been an adventure for our family, but not in the way that I expected. We planned to travel more than we did. Instead of seeing the country, we found a couple of places where we were comfortable, and bounced back and forth between them every few weeks. We did a lot of day trips where we visited sights and tourist-like things without going far. We enjoyed lots of time on a beach. We went tent camping once for a week and it was entirely memorable and wonderful.

Things we learned about ourselves:

• Our children became increasingly comfortable with packing their things, saying goodbye, and moving along. Their level of distress over leaving one place and going to another was extreme at first, but became increasingly easy.
• We miss having a "home base". Rather than visiting the places where we grew up and spending time with family there, we truly feel the need to make our own home.
• We want to rent. We do not enjoy maintaining a home. We do not enjoy fixing a place up as we live in it. We want to come into an unfurnished place, make it our own, live in it however long we want, and move along. We do not want to be tied down to a place that isn't quite right for years.
• We appreciate connecting with people. Wherever we went, we made an effort to speak to people and to get to know them, to invite them into our lives. We made great friends. We have confidence that when we settle someplace we will make friends, no matter where it is.

By stripping away everything, we learned a few fundamental things that we want in our lives that make us happy and keep us going:

• Family.
• Friends nearby. Connections with people who I get to see often. Friendly neighbors.
• Employment. Something to keep us interacting with people and making a difference somehow. For me for now, that's teaching online. For my husband, that's devising easier ways to connect customers with their needs when selling o-rings.

That's it. Not much, huh?

But we did come across some physical items that make our life infinitely easier:

• Internet. We require internet to work, but also it's great to be able to look things up whenever we want.
• Indoor plumbing. It is time consuming and inconvenient to run across the way to get water all the time. We can do without it for a week or two, but anything more would not be pleasant.
• Flush toilets. My 5 year old screams forever at the prospect of using a pit toilet. She would rather dig a hole in the woods to go.
• Washer/Dryer. Our family is too big with children too young for us to hand wash everything. We really prefer having access to a washer/dryer in our home. Our children can participate more with the laundry chores, and we have time for other things. Laundry doesn't take us all day when we can throw in a load before bed. So, that explains the washer... but what about the dryer? Well, we want to live someplace humid with lots of weather. We don't want our clothing to mold as it tries to dry on the line.
• Stove. We can cook just about anything if we have a stove. We could get by with just a griddle, but it's hard to boil water for tea that way. We like having an oven, but it is less essential. We also miss our smoker, but again it's a novelty not an essential. We won't have a waffle iron, we probably won't have a blender or food processor. We really miss our Kitchenaid mixer.
• Mattresses and beds. We do not like floor-sleeping. We want at least an air mattress to sleep on wherever we go, even camping. We just sleep better and are less grumpy.

There were a lot of things that we gave up when we moved with no specific destination in mind. And there are a lot of things that we feel a sense of relief about having gone. We laugh as we think back at the piles of silliness that wait for us to unpack in our closet-sized storage space. Why were we so attached to those things? But some of those things were worth keeping, and we are looking forward to seeing again. Our children especially miss certain things. It will be a very special day when our 3 year old is reunited with her wooden play kitchen. Working from home with an internet connection has been great. Taking away our commute and having breaks together as a family has been so very rewarding. We want to continue working remotely as much as possible. Homeschooling our 5 year old has been great. Our girl is very social, and she misses seeing friends all day. We have chosen our next place based on the school that our girl will go to, and the proximity to friends. We also learned that her attachment to gymnastics isn't going away, and we look forward to getting her back into a gym for regular practice. Our 3 year old has had the hardest time with all of the change. I thought she would have the easiest time. We have learned that she cares a lot about interior design. She prefers high end finishes and can tell the difference. She also really loves baking and cooking. Taking a little time for this every day puts her in the best mood. We have learned so much about each other and our children in this process. I am glad that we made this move, and had this time of uncertainty when our children are so young. With all of this new knowledge about each other, we look forward to starting our new chapter in January.

Has this gotten you thinking? 

Here are a couple of questions for you to think about:

What do you find most rewarding? Do you have room for it in your life right now? What steps can you take to make more room for these things?