Spring

I haven't been posting a lot lately; it's springtime, we've been loving exploring the Nevada desert, and I have been trying to get us ready to go back to the NW this weekend. We haven't been back in almost a year, and we are so excited to see our friends and family!

I did want to post a quick poem that I wrote this week. I was challenged to write one poem a week during the month of April. For inspiration, I thought about spring, and the equinox, and life growing and sprouting. Just then, Robo-Kid thrust himself into my arms, and my first poem popped into my brain. It's far from perfect, but perfection isn't the point of creativity!

I write a lot of poems, but I don't often post them because for some reason, it makes me feel very vulnerable. But you know what? I don't care! Bring on the vulnerability! Bring on the people brutally tearing apart my work and screaming about my lack of talent! As my friend Tina said yesterday,

"All art is beautiful!" Make some of your own today!

Spring

I find it in your freckles.

In the scent of soil and sweat on your cheeks

The salty, gamy whiff as you lean in to me

Eager to share your fresh discoveries

New adventures

The world as dewy and unrestrained as it has ever been

Wild and fertile and lush with pink sunshine.

I find it in your grin.

Gap toothed and hilarious

Ready to split open and howl at the slightest amusement

Primitive and sweet and riotous as the birds above

Bellowing in their singular voices

With no attempt at harmony

Rejoicing in the sound that belongs only to you.

Normalize Laundry

I need your help, my friends. I need you to start hanging your laundry outside. There are lots and lots and lots of reasons you should do this, and I'm going to give them to you, right now.

1: Hanging laundry outside is much better for the environment. The average American household dries 24 loads of laundry per month. The average dryer uses about 4000 watts per hour. On contrast, your refrigerator only uses about 1000 watts per hour. And I think we can all agree that food is more important than dried clothes, yes?

2: Hanging your clothes to dry will save you a nice chunk on your electric bill. When we were in Texas, our electricity was 11 cents per kilowatt hour, so drying a load of laundry would have cost us approximately 44 cents. With a family of six and a minimalist wardrobe, we still do about six loads a week, which means that we would have spent about $12 a month on electricity, just for our dryer. Here in Nevada, the price per kilowatt hour is higher.

3: Your clothes will never smell as fresh or be as nicely pressed as when you dry them on a clothesline or drying rack. Give it a try! Yes, the slight crunchiness of them takes a little getting used to. But you will, and eventually it won't bother you anymore, and you will love the fresh sunshiney-ness of them.

4: Drying clothes on a line or rack will lengthen their lives, too. You know that sweater that you loved to pieces and eventually wore out? Or those pants that were sooooo comfy and made your bum look spectacular, but had to throw out because they got all pilly? Drying them on the line will help prevent stuff like that. Pills on your clothes come from friction, which happens when your favorite pants are tossed up against your sweaters, towels, and underwear IN THE DRYER. It won't happen on the clothesline!

 5: But the most important reason to dry your clothes on the line is to normalize it. I'm dead serious. I read just the other day about a homeowners' association that put "no clotheslines" in their bylaws. I was in the laundry room with a woman last summer in Ohio, and when I mentioned that I was planning to wash my clothes and then hang them out to dry, she said,

"My husband won't let me do that. He says he doesn't want to live like gypsies." I absolutely guarantee that the racism of that statement is far more hideous and appalling than the sight of a family's laundry wafting in the breeze.

We've had RV parks say specifically in their rules "No clotheslines; no drying racks." Apparently clothes hanging outside are horribly ugly? When did that become a thing?

Keep in mind that I am not talking about showing your underoos to the world. Any experienced clotheslineologist (that's a new word I made up; tell your friends) can show you ten different ways to camouflage or hide your unmentionables. Yesterday I simply made a little shield out of my gorgeous, colorful Turkish towels and put underwear on the inside of my drying rack. You can even buy little hanger things with clips on them, and hang bras and underwear in the shower.

FYI: never ever ever put a bra in the dryer, friends. Just don't do it, especially not if it has an underwire. That's not me being preachy. It's science.

Clothes blowing in the breeze are BEAUTIFUL. They are downright wholesome! Want to please your grandmother, who probably grew up during the Great Depression and couldn't fathom paying for something that the sun and air will do for free? Hang up your clothes.

If our climate is changing, and it certainly appears to be, one of the best things we can all do is reduce the amount of energy that we use. Hanging your laundry on a line is SO easy, so cheap, and so much better for your clothes! And if everyone does it, more RV parks will start allowing it. Help me out, friends!

1300 Miles, Three Days

Oh my goodness, you guys. You may have noticed that I haven't posted in a few days. You may not have, too, and that's okay. But here is what we have been up to:

Last Thursday, we left Texas after three glorious months. We loved our RV park, we loved the Austin area, we loved the friends that we made and the wonderful people we met. Sometimes I am in awe of how lucky we are, to be able to travel and explore new places. I loved San Marcos, and we will definitely be back!

On Thursday we drove into a tiny town in West Texas called Van Horn, about 100 miles east of El Paso, to stay overnight. Van Horn is basically a town full of RV parks, which makes me think that it must be a place where a lot of people stop overnight. It's kind of worn down, but when we got out of the car, all six of us turned our faces toward the sun and said, 

"Aaaaah."

San Marcos was damp and cool all winter, although certainly not cold. But we had been struggling with keeping the humidity down in our RV for a while. As soon as we left the hill country area of Texas, the air dried out, the sky turned super blue, and the temperature went up about seven degrees. It felt GOOD.

Friday, we got an early start and drove from Van Horn, across the lower corner of New Mexico. New Mexico is a fascinating state, and a part of me wishes that we had stayed for longer. It's hard to wrap my brain around the idea that if we want to stay and explore, we can. But we did have a reservation to keep.

We made it through NM, to a Costco in Tucson. Tucson is a gorgeous city, but nearly all of the RV parks are exclusive to the 55 and over set, and the ones that aren't are pretty expensive. So on Thursday, Jesse called the Costco and asked them if they would allow us to camp there overnight. The manager was awesome and said that while they don't normally let people do that, they'd make an exception for us. Maybe they looked at our spending record. Either way, we did some grocery shopping, had a delicious dinner of pizza, chicken bakes, and yogurt sundaes, and moved on before they opened the next morning.

Saturday was our longest drive, although only by about 20 miles. We drove northwest, over the Nevada border, through Las Vegas, and into the small town of Pahrump. The drive was stunningly beautiful. We saw saguaros and Joshua trees and the Hoover Dam and more blooming cacti than I can count. I could study the desert plant life for a decade and not be able to identify all the different species. The birds were fascinating too: weird vulture-y things that were obviously eating roadkill, but didn't have ugly vulture faces, tiny songbirds in every shade of brown, that disappeared into the brush as soon as you saw them, and other birds that looked suspiciously like parrots.

We chose to stay in Pahrump because seventeen years ago, Jesse and I drove through it on our way to Las Vegas to get married and thought it was an interesting town. It hasn't changed much; it's still on the dinky side, but the nature is fantastic. It rained yesterday, so everything smells like flowers today. Our RV park has a great view of the mountains, too, and unlike the "mountains" in Ohio or Tennessee, they are big and craggy and covered in snow. Beautiful!

Sometimes I cannot believe how lucky we are.

Believe Them the First Time

Maya Angelou said,

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

I love this. And it's true. I've spent years of my life making excuses for people who are cruel, or unkind, or selfish. Frankly, I've spent years of my life making excuses for myself.

"I was having a bad day."

"I had PMS."

"I had low blood sugar."

The thing is, I really do believe that your patterns of behavior define you. Everyone gets angry. But if you have a habit of rage, you might be an angry person, and you might need help. Everyone gets sad. But if you find yourself sad all the time, you might have depression and you might need help.

It's okay. Patterns and habits can be changed. Not easily, but they can. If you find, somehow, that you've developed into a jerk, that's fixable. I've had to do it. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that everyone who has survived their teenage years has had to do it, with a handful of exceptions. I'm pretty sure my best friend Jacque never went through a jerk phase. (Last night I called Jacque "the most likable person on the planet" to her face. Sorry, not sorry.) 

I think about social media a lot, probably because I'm on social media a lot. My family travels and social media is a good way for us to keep in touch with our people and document our journey. But lately, I've noticed that for some, social media has become a digital Westworld; a way to fulfill cruel fantasies by commenting viciously, harshly, and without consequence. What is that about, I wonder? Is it just a way to pretend that we are top dogs who "don't take any crap from anyone?" Is it genuine heartlessness and inhumanity? Is it the thrill of being right?

For a couple of years, now, some people that I used to go to church with have been posting really mean stuff on Facebook. I thought I knew these men, but the other day, one of them posted that "People on the left really are a different species, and we might need to think about putting them down." This man was a leader in our church. He was, if you believe in that sort of thing, spiritually responsible for other human beings. And now he is advocating for...what, exactly? The euthanasia of people who don't share his political beliefs? That's obviously crazy, and not what anyone calling themselves a Christian should be saying.

But I keep making excuses. I keep telling myself that if we could meet up in person and have a discussion, that if we could just look at each other face to face, we could find common ground. After all, these are good people, right? These are husbands and fathers (sorry, menfolk, I have yet to see any of this from women) and pillars of their churches and communities.

Are they, though? Can you really call yourself a decent human being if the person you are on Facebook and Twitter borders on psychopathic? If you are in the habit of tearing people down, calling people names, screaming for the euthanasia of folks who don't share your politics, and generally being a boor, but it's only on social media, does it count?

I don't really know the answer to these questions, but I'm inclined to agree with Dr. Angelou. When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People's social media selves are versions of themselves. My social media self is a version of my self. It's not the whole version, because I don't show you the incredible mess left over after my kid uses my shower. (Although I will sometime, because it's an epic mess worth seeing.) Your social media self is a version of your self too.

I don't believe that any of these guys would use the language that they use on Facebook to my face. I don't believe they would call me "moron," or "libtard," or "snowflake" in person. But I'm not sure that matters. They are willing to call someone those names online, and online bullying is just as bad, just as damaging, and just as painful as in person bullying.

I joined Twitter today, to help Jenny promote her book. I used to post on Twitter, years ago, to post about our family's farm. Twitter was new and not nearly as crazy as it is now; theoretically, you could read your entire Twitter feed back then. But that's not the only difference between Twitter in its infancy and Twitter now. Now, Twitter is much more political and it is much more cruel. All you have to do to get someone to call you names and threaten you is disagree with them. I'm honestly a little bit scared to tweet, and I'm a nice person, with no plans to make anyone mad. At least not on purpose.

I think it's time for us to do better. I believe that we can. And actually, I believe that Christians, who are called to be the light of the world, must. There's been a lot of talk about "tough love" and "speaking truth" lately. But without love, we're a whole bunch of resounding gongs. It's time to be kind. Even online.

Oh, and PS: if calling someone a "libtard" or a "snowflake" is in ANY way loving or Christ-like, I'm a bowl of soup.

Sit With Them

I can't remember if I've mentioned this already, but I am currently editing my best friend's book. It's called Carry On Castle, it's beautiful and brilliant, and it's all about grief.

Grief is something that, on one level or another, we are all familiar with. Jenny's book is about the  earth shattering Grief that showed up, along with her hideous friends Rage and Anxiety, after the death of her husband. You might not have ever experienced something that wretched and horrible. I hope you haven't. I haven't. But we have all experienced something.

When Jesse and I were in the let's-make-babies stage of life, we had some trouble. It was unexpected; I got pregnant the first month we decided to start trying, and Brofessor was born ten months later. After that, though, there were some issues. First I had a miscarriage. Then I had another miscarriage. Then I had a third miscarriage, and just as we were about to go and talk to a fertility specialist, our insurance changed and infertility services were no longer covered.

So we kept trying. Eventually we found out that I was expecting Creato-Girl, and that was wonderful and miraculous. But pregnancy after loss is scary and exhausting and scary some more. And people say stupid things like,

"Be grateful for what you already have!" and "At least you know you can get pregnant!"

When Creato-Girl was a year old, we decided to try again. Miscarriage. Then another miscarriage, at Christmas-time, just at the end of the first trimester when we thought it was safe to tell people. Then another, and another. Four miscarriages in a row. I had never even heard of anyone having that many miscarriages, although now I have.

Eventually I saw an amazing naturopath (our insurance, like a LOT of insurance, did not cover fertility services) and she figured it out and fixed it, which is why we have a Robo-Kid and a Honeybee. But pregnancy and birth, for our family, was forever tainted by grief. We will always wonder who those babies might have been.

I know you understand grief too. Maybe you've lost a parent or a grandparent; most of us have by the time we are in our thirties. Maybe you've been divorced, or lost a pregnancy. Maybe you've lost a beloved pet, or had a friend that you loved ghost you. Grief is a part of life and it is a part of love, and if you have known love, you know what it feels like when that love is taken away.

So because I know that you know, and we all know, this is not going to be another "what not to do when trying to help a grieving person" post.

This is going to be a what TO do when you are trying to help a grieving person post.

Because what NOT to do isn't helpful. You know grief. We all know grief. And we already know that the worst thing to do is nothing, but when you're on the outside, you're so paralyzed with the not wanting to do or say the wrong thing that you often DO do nothing. I've been guilty of it. I don't want to say the wrong thing so I don't say anything at all. I don't want to do the wrong thing so I don't do anything. We have all done this, and we've all had it done to us.

But the best thing to do is also the simplest, and it is something that every single one of us can do for our grieving person. Ready? Three words: sit. with. them.

That's it. Your person's person died? Your person got a divorce? Your person lost their job? Go sit with them. You don't have to say anything. Sometimes it's better if you don't. Go sit. Hold their hand or hug them if they want to be touched. Just sit, if they don't. If they want to rage and scream, sit there. If they want to throw things, sit there. If they want to talk, sit and listen. If they want to be silent, just sit.

You don't even have to bring anything, although I like to cook so I usually bring food. Soup is nice. One of my friends brought me plants after one of my miscarriages, which was good because I wanted to go outside and pour my sadness into gardening. But also? She sat with me.

Sitting with your person tells them that you value them, and that you are not afraid of their grief. It tells them that they shouldn't be either, because even though it feels like it, their grief doesn't mean they've lost everything. They've lost something important, but they haven't lost you. And that means a lot.

You don't even have to be a super close friend to go and sit with a grieving person. You can sit just as easily with a co-worker as you can with your best friend. Just go. Sit. Bring food, or don't. Bring gifts, or don't. But bring yourself. Yourself is the most important thing to bring.

Some grief requires more sitting than others, obviously. Someone who is ruthlessly downsized at work might only need a day or two of sitting. Someone whose husband dies needs a lot. That's okay. Sit when you can, and don't feel guilty about not being able to. Nobody wants that. Guilt doesn't benefit anyone.

Occasionally (and this is very rare) you might come across a grieving person who does NOT want to be sat with. They might want to be alone. Or they might want only a few people to sit with them. This is, of course, completely fine. But it is far more common to have a grieving person not want to bother anyone. If this is the case, go sit anyway. If you aren't sure, ask. Ask the grieving person, or ask their family and friends. Personally, I would probably just go anyway. It's like that scene in The Fellowship of the Ring when Frodo tells Samwise that he's going on alone, and Sam says,

"Of course you are! And I'm going with you!" You can be alone and still have someone sitting with you. Be the person that someone can be alone with. Be Samwise.

We all grieve. We all love. And sometimes the most loving thing you can do is to just sit.

Keep Calm

This morning I read an article about how women in their 40s are experiencing midlife crises, such as the world has never seen. It was aimed toward Gen X women, the "forgotten middle child," according to the article, between Baby Boomers and Millennials.

Side note: can we just all agree that the labels on generations are REALLY confusing? I was born in 1980 and, according to different things I've read, I am either the youngest Gen Xer or the oldest Millennial. I played Oregon Trail in school (Gen X) but I was too young to go to Nirvana concerts. So. I don't know. I sort of relate to things written about both. Or neither. Whatever. It doesn't really matter, because the reality is this:

Millennials are now referring to themselves as "The Burnout Generation." Gen X is in the midst of a midlife crisis. Everything is stressful. Everyone is scared and worried and frankly, when you are a woman in our shallow, looks-obsessed culture, it is completely normal to freak out a little bit about those little lines that start to appear around your eyes. And for me, apparently, alongside my nose in the mornings. I'm a side sleeper. This is the fun of your 30s. The way you sleep gives you wrinkles now. My point is, it's normal.

We would, in my opinion, be weird if we weren't a little panicked right now. The world is a scary place at the moment. None of us have as much money as our parents did at our age. I'll try to stay away from politics, but can we all agree that our president might actually be insane? The freaking Doomsday Clock moved another minute closer to midnight, when apparently we all die? By the way, thank you to whoever invented that useless piece of crap that actually tells us nothing real. It's all terrifying and it just keeps coming. The news app on my iPhone updates, like, fifty times a day. And it's never anything good.

I keep going back to what the pastor told Jesse and I when we did our premarital counseling, all those years ago. 9/11 had JUST happened. The whole world was on edge. I was worried about bringing children into such a scary world. And Pastor Dwight (I don't remember his last name) said,

"Misery sells." Wait, what? "Misery. It sells. It sells papers and magazines. It gets clicks." (Online news was new-ish, but Pastor Dwight was a wise man and he could tell which way the wind was blowing.) It was an eye-opening moment for me. No one would read a newspaper (Gen X!) or a Buzzfeed article (Millennial!) with the headline,

"Billions of People Have Nice Normal Day, Pet Their Dog, and Go to Bed." I mean, I wouldn't. I'm more of a cat person anyway. But lots of people love dogs and I'll bet they STILL wouldn't read that article. It would be boring. Who wants to read what happened to me yesterday? NO ONE. I fed my kids, nagged them to do their schoolwork, made dinner, went for a swim, watched an episode of Top Chef on Hulu, and went to sleep. Ha. I just made YOU read what happened to me yesterday. I'm sorry; I know that wasn't very interesting.

Listen, I get that things are bad right now. And I do not know what's going to happen. Maybe the Doomsday Clock people are right and, in the words of the immortal and amazing Whoopi, we are all "in danger, girl." Maybe. But things have been bad before. People have been scared before. We have gotten through it before.

Please note that I'm not urging complacency. I love activism and I believe it changes the world. But there is a difference between being active and refreshing your phone a hundred times to find new things to worry about. Trust me; I've done both.

I guess what I'm suggesting is...connection. Be scared. But at some point, don't forget to turn off notifications and just be. Laugh with your friends. Tease your kids (in a nice way). Make love to your partner. Listen to music that moves you. Take cookies to a neighbor. Read an actual book, preferably fiction. Go sit outside, even if it's raining or snowing. Do something that you truly enjoy, without thinking about the "shoulds" or the "shouldn'ts," because shoulds and shouldn'ts  will ruin your life and happiness. They're known for it.

Think about the world you want to live in, and how you can take small steps to make it happen. Have a conversation with someone who doesn't share your political or religious beliefs. Pray. Meditate. Remember what it feels like to have hope, and remember that even when we don't feel it, we always have hope. Always.

LuLaRoe

I read an article the other day about how MLM (multi level marketing) companies are ruining women's friendships. The gist of it was this:

Our 30s and 40s are a difficult time to make friends. Our kids are a little older, so we don't get the benefit of Mommy and Me or playgroups. We have largely outgrown or lost contact with friends from high school or college. Many of us are headed back to work, as our youngest children go to school. It can be a very lonely time.

To take advantage of that vulnerability, in swoops the "MLM Hun." The Hun (so called due to her frequent usage of the endearment, "hun;" it's an easy way to not have to remember your name) might be a lady whose dress you complimented at church last week. She might be a fellow mom from your kid's soccer team. She might be a woman you went to high school with, and haven't spoken to in ages. One way or another, she will exploit your loneliness, pretend to want to be your friend, and BAM! Before you know it, the sales pitch has begun and you are left reeling. Did she actually want to be friends, or just to sell something?

Well, have a seat, friendly people, and let me tell you the story of how my best friend and I briefly became Huns (although we never used that word,) got sucked up into the world of MLMs, came to our senses, and got out.

Four years ago, my bestie, Jenny, lost her husband. Dan was 36 and perfectly healthy, except for a very minor seizure disorder. When I say "minor," what I mean is that he had had maybe a dozen brief seizures in his entire life, they were easily controlled with medication, and there was no indication that they would ever cause anything more than a slight inconvenience to his family and life. Then, one awful night in January, Dan had a seizure and was gone, leaving a huge void and a heartbroken family.

A few months after Dan died, I discovered a tiny clothing company called LuLaRoe. They made maxi skirts, leggings, and dresses; the kinds of things I liked to wear, in bright colors and soft, stretchy fabrics. My youngest had just turned one, and I was feeling insecure about my body, but the LuLaRoe clothes made me feel better.

I thought they might make Jenny feel better too. I mean, nothing makes you feel better for very long, when your entire world has ended and you don't recognize your life. But sometimes a bright, pretty outfit can help. Just for a minute or two. I gave Jenny a tunic and a few pairs of leggings, and she was (like many people at that time) hooked.

We liked to shop together, we had favorite LuLaRoe retailers that we enjoyed buying from, and one day, after talking to Jesse, I asked Jenny if she would like to go into business together. It seemed like a good idea at the time; she needed an income, I wanted to get out of the house, and we were spending all this money on clothes anyway. She immediately said yes, and we met with a retailer that lived close to us, to get set up.

Okay, so, before we go any further, let me explain something about LuLaRoe, at least back then:

They hide the MLMness of it very very very well. Jenny and I asked about recruiting. We had no desire to supervise or work with anyone else, and we were wary of "businesses" where it is next to impossible to make money selling the products, because the real money is in recruiting OTHER people to sell the products. Our sponsor told us that 90% of LuLaRoe retailers didn't even HAVE anyone under them, and were making money simply by buying the clothes at wholesale and selling them at retail. In hindsight, this was a huge lie, but our sponsor didn't have anyone underneath HER and she was making money hand over fist, so we figure she thought she was telling the truth.

We started selling in February, two years after Dan had died. During our first few months, we did very well. We reinvested our profits into new inventory, expanded our offerings, and by June, we started paying ourselves. Our plan was simple and (not to toot our horns or anything,) not unintelligent: we would order new inventory once a month, to keep things fresh and keep sales flowing. Anything above that, we would use to write our paychecks.

Our commitment to paying ourselves is probably what kept us above water. By the time we'd been in business for a year, sales had dried WAY up, new inventory was proving nearly impossible to get, and the quality of clothing we were receiving, when we could even get it, was going downhill fast. Here are some examples of what I mean:

LuLaRoe would release new products at a specified time, online. They called these "launches." The way it worked was that you would log in to your back office and be assigned a spot in the digital "queue." Once your place in line was up, you could fill your cart, pay, and be done.

The launch that broke our spirits was called "Noir." It was a collection of solid black dresses, leggings, skirts, and tunics that got all kinds of hype on Facebook and Instagram. People were serious about this collection. LuLaRoe's fit was so nice and forgiving and comfy, and everyone wanted solid black in every piece. Jenny was busy that night, so I logged in on our computer, my tablet, and my phone, with strict instructions to order everything I possibly could, in as many sizes as possible. I didn't usually do the ordering for our shop; that was Jenny's job, and she was fantastic at it, so I was nervous about this anyway.

We got nothing. The launch was pure chaos. Thousands of people logged in on thousands of devices, and by the time I got in to shop, every solid black dress, top, and pair of leggings was gone. We were incredibly frustrated, and as it turns out, we were not the only ones. A handful of large shops got Noir, but the vast majority of smaller retailers did not. That was the beginning of the end for us.

One day, we ordered a huge shipment of dresses and when they arrived, half of them were see-through. When we brought this up to corporate, they cheerfully told us to "have people size up!" You can't ask a woman who is a size 10 to wear a 2XL, just so her bra won't show. That's not how dresses work.

We received leggings that split across the bum after one wear. We got tunics that leached dye all over everything they touched. One memorable cardigan smelled like something dead. We had to hang it outside for days before we could even bring it into the shop, and suddenly it became excessively complicated to send damaged items back to corporate.

The recycled fiber program, which one one of the major appeals of the brand for us, was phased out. Fair trade was, too. Sizing was inconsistent, and it was not uncommon for us to get back-order slips in nearly every shipment. Of course, these were never refunded. We received warehouse credits, rather than refunds, which were hard to use because nothing was ever in stock.

The final nail in the coffin was the moment when we realized that LuLaRoe had not produced any new inventory in six months. This was clearly not a sign of a healthy company. Jenny and I were on the phone with each other. I was in Ohio and she was in Oregon, and we decided we were done. We got all of our money off of LuLaRoe's internal invoicing system, had an epic sale (using Square, not LLR's app) and donated the rest to charity.

Then, because we don't believe in rules and rarely do as we are told, Jenny and I started reading the so-called "LLR hater" pages on social media. During our stint with the company, we had been told repeatedly to STAY AWAY from these groups. They were evil. Haters. Ruiners of Christmas and families' dreams.

Except they were not. They were supportive, kind, funny, and very very very smart. They saw LuLaRoe for what it was: a scam. A way to prey on the most vulnerable: the poor, the scared, the mom lacking confidence, who needed a little boost. Our 30s and 40s can be a lonely, weird time. Add to that the economic uncertainty that we've all been dealing with, and you have a victim so ideal that the MLM vampires couldn't invent her.

We were lucky. We never went into debt, and we made our money back. So many women did NOT. They were promised extra money for their families, for their retirement, for their children to go to college. They were promised friends and financial freedom. Neither LuLaRoe, nor any other MLM, has ever delivered on the promises it has made. I know that's a bold statement, and I know some people will read this and say,

"No, no! My MLM is different!" If this is you, listen. I love you and I get it. I get the desire to make a little money, not to work for someone else, and I get that sometimes you genuinely do love the products. But the MLM business model is BAD. And you know what else? You could start your own business, using the skills you've picked up in the MLM world, and really make it work. Anyone can wholesale products. Anyone. You want to sell makeup? Get a wholesale account with a makeup manufacturer. I guarantee that you will pay less than you're paying now. You want to sell clothes? Start shopping, baby. You can do this! It's cheaper than LuLaRoe and easier to start small!

And if you are being targeted by a "Hun," be kind. MLMs are what they are because they are professional con artists. They are experts in getting people to believe their hype and buy in to their promises. Human beings are all naive, all fallible, all easily sold. Offer a little grace, if you can, to that woman who invited you out for coffee and then smacked you with a sales pitch. She's a victim of the MLM machine, too. Who knows? Your weird experience might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Eulogy for an Un-Killable Spider

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to pay tribute to our brave, eight legged friend, Scary Green Spider. SGS hitched a ride with us way back in Ohio, and held on through five states, forty degree temperature swings, one bored house-cat, and six different vacuum attachments. 

We cleaned up your strange, fluffy web a grand total of eighty seven times, and each time, it would be back the following morning, creeping us out and turning us into ninjas in the two steps between the bathroom and the bedroom. We admire your tenacity.

Don't get me wrong, SGS. Your iridescent hues would be attractive, or even beautiful, if they belonged to a bird or fish. And I do appreciate your masterful trapping of the tiny gnats that flew in every time we opened the door in Tennessee. I'm sure you protected us from many a mosquito as well, and I do appreciate your place in the food chain. You were an important predator friend to have, if we could only get past the recurring nightmare of finding you in our bed.

Your eyes were big and there were lots of them, SGS. We are pretty sure you watched us from your little spot in the corner of our sliding door frame, just out of reach of the vacuum cleaner. I'm glad you stayed safe up there, while managing to make us feel weirdly spied upon. Your observational skills were to be commended.

Today, when I found your spidery corpse, I'm not going to lie: I thought it might be some sort of trick. Maybe you weren't really dead and were attempting to take over the trailer by sending me, shrieking, to a new home. I poked your body a few times with a piece of toilet paper. When you didn't move, I picked you up (with a bigger piece of toilet paper) and flushed you. Now I'm a little bit scared to use the toilet.

But alas, you are dead, SGS, unless you are hiding in our black tank, waiting for your moment to return and conquer the place you made your home for the last four months. 

I wonder what happened to you. Did you starve? There are very few insects to eat in February, even in Texas. Old age? You did look fairly prehistoric. I could picture you wrapping up and munching on pterodactyls in your massive web. Did Stripey Cat finally manage to catch you, and deny you the satisfaction of being eaten? 

Regardless of what happened, I will clean up your web one last time today, and remember all the memories we shared.

Oh, and if you do come back as some sort of undead vampire spider, (otherwise known as "a spider,") please stay out of my bed.

How Not to Be a Jerk at an RV Park

Yesterday I saw a woman and a man screaming at each other in the parking lot near the laundry room. I wasn't trying to listen, but when two people are yelling that loudly, it's hard not to. Apparently the woman had her laundry in every single one of the washing machines, and the man was writing down her license plate number, in order to report her to the office.

Okay, so, I realize that the following may make me seem a little priggish. I am a mom too; there are six of us and we make an OBSCENE amount of laundry, so I understand the temptation to get it all done at once. And I do, generally, try to work things out with neighbors by talking them out, rather than reporting to "the authorities."

But I am 100% Team Laundry Man here. Selfish Washer Lady, in this scenario and in my opinion, was completely wrong. There are basic rules of etiquette when you're RVing, and using up every washing machine is a big time no-no.

I am far from an expert, but here are a few other simple guidelines to help your neighbors not hate you.

1: Don't walk your dog through other people's campsites. If a campground allows pets, it will have areas in which to walk them. One place we stayed in Wisconsin was a concrete parking lot, and nothing more. There were still grassy spots for dogs to do their business. Cats answer to nobody; not man nor any other entity, so no one will be mad at you if your cat ends up in their campsite. They might shoo him away, though. Don't get offended. Some people don't like cats. Crazy people. But still.

2: It really should go without saying, but pick up your dog's poo. Most places have this posted as an official rule, but I am continually amazed at how many ignore it. Hate plastic bags? Me too! But you can get brown paper lunch sacks at the Dollar Tree. Or buy 500 of them at a time at Costco! Wrap your doggo's doo up in one of those, toss it in the trash can, and voila! The whole thing will compost in a few months, or even less if the weather is warm. Plus they're more durable for larger messes and don't feel as icky in your hand as plastic. Please. Pick up after your pupper.

3: Respect the elderly, and teach your children to do the same. There are a LOT of older folks at RV parks. It is changing slowly, but for a long time, RVing has been the exclusive domain of retired people. My grandparents did it, and had a whole crew of fellow snowbird/traveler friends that they would meet up with on the road. Most retirees love children and families, but some are unaccustomed to (and maybe a tad resentful of) children and young people doing what they worked hard for their entire lives to do.

The simple solution is to be friendly. Wave, say hello, keep an eye on your children, and don't get into a turf war with a snowbird. It's rude and you will lose. Besides, these guys are RVing wizards, and you would be stupid to overlook their expertise. One of the best tips we have ever gotten came from an old timer who saw Jesse working on our black tank. He told us that, right before we leave a campsite, we should dump a five pound bag of ice down the toilet. It sloshes around while you drive, loosening anything gross that happens to be stuck in the corners of the tank, and prevents the dreaded "Pyramide du Poo." Make friends with the snowbirds. They know everything.

4: Don't use all the washing machines. On one of our first RV trips (we were not full timers yet) three of us had a stomach bug. It was miserable and gross and there were only two washing machines in the laundry room. Using both would have made a long day of laundry MUCH shorter. But we didn't, because that would be boorish and uncivil. We were not the only family with laundry that day. Don't be selfish.

I reached out to two of my best friends, who are also full time RVers, to get their thoughts on this post. Shirley is a camp host, and her tip was excellent:

5: Don't leave your super bright outdoor light on all night. I hadn't thought of this, but I know I've done it, because I know I've woken up at midnight, nudged Jesse, and said,

"Will you go turn off the porch light?" We are lucky, because we don't have any neighbors on that side, so we didn't ruin anyone's sleep. But we certainly COULD have! Check your porch light before bed, especially if it's one of those really bright LEDs.

Jacque came up with this one:

6: Don't let your kids be loud, early or late. I don't know why this one didn't occur to me, but DUH! RV parks get quiet pretty early, unless it's a holiday, or a weekend in the summer. It might be the above mentioned retired folks, or it could just be that camping is tiring and people who do it a lot tend to go to bed early. So keep your kids quiet.

I also happen to know that at least once, Jacque has had to grab her firstborn (who rises with the dawn, awake and chipper as an early bird) by the scruff of the neck and yank him backward to prevent his going outside and flying his drone at 6AM. Be like Jacque. Your neighbors will thank you.

As I said, I am far from an expert, and I feel like after seven months, we are still noobs! But we do make an effort to be good guests and good stewards, wherever we end up. I'd love to hear your best RV etiquette tips, in the comments!

You Can Bake in an RV!

You know, it's a common misconception that you can't bake in an RV. I mean, sure, the oven is miniature and the elements are weird and it's hard to find cookie sheets and muffin tins that fit. But with a few simple hacks, baking in the RV can be fun and just as productive as baking in a sticks and bricks house.

I started baking on our travels because I am weird and socially awkward when it comes to neighbors. I like people, generally, and one of the reasons we wanted to do this whole adventure was to get to know people in different parts of the country, who had different lives and experiences than we did. Getting to know people who aren't like you is valuable and, in my opinion, crucial to the survival of our culture. We must meet people, instead of just yelling at each other on social media! It's important!

However, it is hard for me to just...introduce myself. My friend Jacque is brilliant at it. She can talk to anyone at any time, about anything, just by asking them questions. We were in Amish country in Ohio last summer, and Jacque gave a pair of young ladies a ride home, peppering them with questions the whole time:

"So I see you're Amish. What's that like? Can you go on dates? Do you have a boyfriend? Is he Amish too? Are there different types of Amish people? Can you use the computers at the library?"

People love talking about themselves, it's genius, and Jacque has made friends all over the country by doing this.

I am not so good at this. I'm more like Chris Farley in that old episode of Saturday Night Live, when he meets Paul McCartney:

"Remember when you were in the Beatles? And that record said that Paul was dead? That was a hoax, right?"

Ugh. So awkward. So stomach sinking-ly uncomfortable.

But baking makes it less weird. Well, actually, it doesn't. But if/when it's weird, at least people have tasty snacks in their mouths and that tends to smooth things over a bit.

With crippling social anxiety in mind, here are my favorite baking hacks for the RV:

1: A baking stone. This is non-negotiable. An RV oven is, essentially, a poorly-insulated metal box, with a propane heating element only at the bottom of it. This isn't shocking to your grandma, but for me, it was an adjustment, because modern ovens have heating elements on top and on bottom, and are better insulated than old ones.

The solution to the uneven heat and single element is a baking stone. You can get these at any restaurant supply store, or places like Bed, Bath, and Beyond, but they are expensive. Terra cotta plant trays, however, are dirt cheap and work just as well! I use a large tray, upside down, between the metal plate and the rack. Don't cover the holes in the metal plate. Also, for explosion-proof baking, be sure to use unglazed terra cotta. You can also use a cast iron pan, flipped upside down, but I think a stone that can just live in your oven is more convenient.

2: Parchment paper will also ensure good color and even temperatures on your bakes. It seems like such a small thing, but it makes a huge difference in how things turn out. It's so valuable to me that now I buy the double giant mega pack of parchment from Costco. As a bonus, it also makes cleanup a ton easier, which is nice because if you're living in a trailer, you probably don't have a dishwasher.

3: You'll also want an oven thermometer, unless you're like me and want to do a LOT of experimenting with temperature. My tiny oven runs cold, so if a recipe calls for 350, I have to crank it up to 375. Furthermore, I know it's tempting to save propane and do a short pre-heat. But this is a mistake. Remember, you have to heat the baking stone, and you will have prettier, tastier results if you let your oven heat for half an hour or more.

There you have it: my easy tricks for baking delicious treats in your RV. There is no better way to bribe the neighbors into becoming friends with me than a yummy plate of cookies or a hot sourdough baguette. If you're at a park one day and smell something baking, come and find me! I'm happy to feed you...I just don't want to have to introduce myself.

What I Am Reading Right Now

A week ago, I asked for book recommendations on my Facebook page, and, well, THAT exploded. I have a lot of friends who love to read as much as I do, apparently!

I'm going to be honest: I don't have the budget to buy every book that I want to on Amazon, and even if I did, I don't have the space! As we have traveled across the country, we have made abundant use of thrift stores, used book shops, and little free libraries, which are our personal favorites.

*Side note* You are basically an angel in human form if you create a little free library. It's really a perfect system: we drop off the books we are done with and get more. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who maintains one of these, particularly in an area where there are campgrounds and RV parks. We love and appreciate you more than you can possibly know.

All this being said, sometimes we don't have a lot of choice in what we get to read. We do buy books on Amazon and other used book sites, but we try to save those for books that we are really excited about. The rest of the time, we buy whatever looks interesting. Some of my favorites are books that I bought because they were cheap and available.

It's been kind of chilly in Texas over the past few weeks, so I've had some good reading time. Here are a few I've enjoyed lately:

Swamplandia by Karen Russell. I know it's a cliche, but I could not put this one down. I bought it for the cover (a big alligator, and I like alligators) and the fact that it was nominated for a Pulitzer prize. It was fascinating. Ava Bigtree and her family run Swamplandia, an amusement park in the Everglades. Ava's mother dies of cancer, and how her family falls apart and rebuilds is beautiful and heartbreaking and suspenseful all at the same time.

Becoming, by Michelle Obama. Put y'er politics away. Whatever you think about President Obama or his policies, if you are a wife or a mother, you will love Mrs. Obama's stories. What is it like to be married to a man who decides to run for POTUS? Or to have a job that you didn't choose, weren't elected for, and has no clear boundaries or expectations? Becoming is personal, vulnerable, and funny, whether you agree with Michelle or not.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I've kind of been on a Gaiman kick lately, and this one started it. It's bizarre and hilarious and, like every Gaiman story, takes you to a world that doesn't exist...but could. I won't spoil it by describing the plot, but it asks the question, "What would it be like if everyone brought their myths to America, and they all came to life?"

The Night Journal by Elizabeth Crook was lovely. I chose this one because it takes place in the Southwest, and that's where we are headed next. This is a story about generations. How do your choices affect your children, your grandchildren, and your great grandchildren? It's exactly the book I wanted to read before traveling to an area, too: rich, atmospheric, and steeped in the culture of New Mexico.

I'm currently helping to edit my best friend Jenny's first book, Carry On Castle, about her husband's sudden death and the chaos of grief that followed. What do you do when your entire world falls apart? You write a book! Jenny's voice is strong and honest and heartbreaking, and it's a privilege to help her.

Editing is heavy work, though, so I'm lightening things up with Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, which is about an angel and a demon who team up to stop the apocalypse. It's goofy and hilarious and witty; all the things you'd expect from Gaiman and Pratchett.

What are you reading right now? Leave your list in the comments!

Camping and Your Marriage

I keep seeing these tee shirts and tote bags that say,

"I'm sorry for what I said while we were parking the camper."

Every time I see one I think I should buy them for both Jesse and me. They're funny and we could be twinsies, which would be fun. But there is some truth to them; they wouldn't be as amusing if they didn't have an element of familiarity. Parking the RV is, and I'm not exaggerating here, one of the most challenging things we have ever done in our 17 years of marriage, not because of the difficulty of maneuvering 60 feet of rig into tight spaces, but because of what doing so brings UP.

The first time I realized that we had some issues to work through was the night we got to Ohio. We had driven almost 600 miles that day, from Wisconsin, through Illinois and Indiana, to Cleveland. It was a stressful day. We had been crawling toward Cleveland for weeks at that point, so we planned the shortest route, but did not realize that we would end up paying an insane amount of money for tolls and super expensive diesel.

We were making excellent time until just over the Ohio border, when we got a flat tire in a very inconvenient spot. Not that there is ever a convenient place to get a flat, but we couldn't open the trailer door, which meant we had no access to a bathroom or kitchen while stopped. We stayed calm and kept the kids happy, but still had to wait several hours for roadside assistance.

Once we were on the road again, we were feeling optimistic, and looking forward to our campsite, but it was a lot farther to our campground than we had anticipated. By the time we got there we were out another $20 in tolls, it was nearly midnight, and it was pitch dark.

As anyone who has ever done it can tell you, parking an RV in the dark is rough. But parking an RV in the dark,

--after 18 hours in the car with four children,
--after spending $200 on tolls,
--after skipping dinner out because you spent all your travel day funds on toll roads,
--in the mud,
--with a huge tree in the way,
--on a spare tire,
--on a bloody hill

is AWFUL.

In short, it was the perfect storm. Jesse was asking me to guide him, and I was trying, but we were not communicating well. I didn't want to raise my voice because it was midnight and he was frustrated because he couldn't hear me. I thought I was being very clear with the flashlight and he disagreed. Blessedly, a neighbor came out of his tent and helped Jesse back into our spot.

As fights go, it was very mild. We said, "I'm mad at you, and this is why!" grabbed some dinner out of the fridge, watched an episode of The Office, and went to bed.

But it did spotlight some problems in our marriage that had been there for a long time. Namely,  that I felt like Jesse didn't listen to me when we were trying to do something hard. It seemed to me that he did what he thought was best, and I was annoyed that he continued to ask for my help when he wasn't listening to what I had to say. Jesse thought that I wasn't doing my most effective work, which turned out to be true because I thought it wasn't really needed.

It was a small argument and a small issue, but it was important for us to work it out, because we learned more about each other and how we think. We also were reassured, through this conflict, that we have the same goals and intentions. We both wanted to get the trailer parked safely. We both wanted our extremely cranky children to go to sleep. We both wanted to eat and go to bed. It is good to have a partner that shares your objective, and it was beneficial to us both to see that we did.

A fight is not a bad thing if it's constructive and useful. We have come back, several times since, to the lessons we learned that day. Jesse listens to me more closely now, and if he asks for my help, I assume he really wants it and give him my best.

We both still hate parking the trailer, though. I don't think that's going to change.

Turkish Towels

My family loves to swim. Here is how much:

We got to this park, which has a heated, indoor pool, on December 1, 58 days ago. The pool heater was broken for our first week, so we didn't swim for 7 days. But during the last 51 days, we have swum approximately 62 times, for over an hour each. In the last 1,224 hours, we have spent 93 of them swimming.

We love to swim.

What we do NOT love, in our 450 square foot living space, is a bunch of damp towels draped over everything, making the air musty and the windows foggy.

Enter the Turkish towels.

I first took note of these magical, miraculous pieces of fabric way back in August, when we spent a week in Green Bay, Wisconsin. There was a French family there, all long limbs and effortless Continental beauteousness, and they were constantly wrapped in these light, airy, gorgeous cotton rectangles. They used them at the pool as towels. They tied them around their heads as turbans. They wore them as bright, colorful sarongs while walking around the park.

Now, I am 38 years old and I have LONG since given up on the idea that I will ever project that kind of effortless cool and glamor, and I am anything but long limbed and graceful. But my Hobbit eyes still appreciate lovely things, and my Hobbit practicality REALLY appreciates multi-use items that dry quickly. So I asked the family where they got their wraps, and the mother (Sister? Elves are ageless,) told me,

"We got them in Turkey. I don't think you have anything like them in this country."

Oookay. I let it go. I figured that my oafish American family was doomed to damp terrycloth forever, and that we just had to figure out a way to deal.

Fast forward to five months later, when I was (again) complaining to Jesse about wet towels, and he was (again) fretting about dampness inside the RV, I said to him,

"I'm just going to Google those Turkish things. Maybe if they're not too expensive, we can order them from Turkey."

Guess what, you guys?

They have them on Amazon. Six of them, for $45 and free shipping with Prime.

 I wasted FIVE MONTHS being annoyed and frustrated and trying to dry myself with something that was still soggy from the last time I went to the pool, just because some leggy French goddess told me that they didn't have the pretty towels here. Lesson learned. I will check for myself from now on.

And let me tell you, my friends: these are the best towels in the world. They are exactly as bright and attractive as I remember, they are useful for EVERYTHING, and the best part is that they dry in about half an hour. If we go swimming at 1:00, and again at 6:00, they are dry!

Turkish towels are also huge, but because they are so thin, they take up far less room in the RV cupboards than regular towels. Space is always at a premium for us, so this is a major benefit. Plus, even at parks, like this one, where they have a "no clotheslines" rule, no one is going to complain about a bunch of colorful sarong-like pieces of fabric on a drying rack outside, because it looks decorative and pretty!

The bad part: they're not as immediately absorbent as terrycloth, and they are not "scrubby." You can rub yourself with them and not get dry. But if you wrap them around you, they will absorb all the water from your suit or body, and suddenly, without even noticing what is happening, you'll be dry.

However, I will say that when you wrap up your hair in one of these and wear it for a bit, while you do other things, you will get the flowing, beachy waves of your dreams. Secrets unlocked, beautiful French people.

Turkish towels are amazing and wonderful, but unfortunately, they have not yet turned me into Cate Blanchett. Maybe soon, though? I'm still hoping.

A Patch of Weeds

Please feel free to share; just give me credit when you do!

Patches of weeds

Are where honeybees grow

Where grasshoppers live

Where field mice make their communities

And the fragrance is more wild

Less stable and consistent

Now you smell it, now you don’t

Flower and musk and herb and dew

But here there is mercy

A grace beyond the regal and cultivated

Generosity of life, benevolent stamina

The endurance of that which has not allowed itself to be tamed.

Can you save us, patch of weeds

Untamed tangle of chaos and life?

We are desperate for your blessing

For your motley masses of flora and fauna

Bring us back to communion with the wild

To life overbearing and uncontrollable

To earthy vitality and uncivilized grace

Save me, patch of weeds.

A Poem for My Daughter

I don't tell a lot of people this (although this blog is public) but I really like to write poetry. I took a long break from it, because raising children is hard and, for me, requires a lot of the same creative energy that I need to write poems. However, blogging seems to have sparked it a little, and I've written several in the last few days. Here is one that I wrote yesterday. I hope you enjoy it and if you do, you are welcome to share it. Please give me credit if you do.

My daughter

You are transitioning the world

Like a seed, just before sprouting

All splitting and dying

All feathery roots and fear of frost

Breaking through into something

Pale and green and sensitive.

But the delicacy is a lie

Or not a lie, but not reality either

Because inside the fragile

The vulnerable

The fear of frost

Is something sharp

Tough and safe and wild and divine

Unbreakable by outside influence

It’s your heart and it is yours

Your spiritual DNA

Given by no man and completely fireproof.

Sprout, daughter.

Fly skyward and transform

Roots to rhizomes

Covering the earth

Adapting to where you are but refusing

To alter yourself

Except how it suits you.

Redefining the landscape

Changing the flow and the conversation

Creating the world you need

For yourself

And your children

Because you, my daughter

Are not a flower

Sedate and orderly and cultivated by man

For man’s purposes

Your fragrance is not suitable for perfumes

Too luxuriant and savage

Too unspoiled and feral

You, daughter

Like your mother before you

Are a weed.

Perfectionism Is Insidious

One of my besties and I were chatting this morning (as we do every morning) and the subject of perfectionism came up. She has two year old twins and is in the thick of potty training, and it's both fascinating and heartbreaking (in that "Aaaaah, yes, I remember those days" way) to listen to her stories.

One of the babies has taken to potty training very quickly. He realized that he got a raisin every time he uses the toilet, so now he pees on command, whenever he wants a treat. 

Girl baby, however, has not had such an easy time. She had a perfect first day, but an accident on Day 2, and in my friend's words, 

"Now refuses to consider trying again, ever." 

UGH. Heartbreak. Because I have been there. I remember, not just as a mom trying to get my children over that hump of perfectionism, but as a woman trying to get MYSELF over it. How many words have I not written, how many pictures have I not drawn, how many songs have I not sung, just because I was afraid I wouldn't do it perfectly?

My children struggle with perfectionism as well. Brofessor is really struggling with math right now. Not because he's not good at math; he's good at math, and he understands the concepts. But he looks at big numbers and PANICS. He is so afraid that he will make a mistake that he doesn't want to try. Creato-Girl will throw away pages of gorgeous drawings because of a tiny perceived flaw. Robo-Kid won't build when the scary green nitpicking monster rears its head. Honeybee will sigh, stomp her feet, and refuse to sing if she gets a lyric wrong. And frankly, it's stupid, because who would know? It's her song. She made it up. But perfectionism is mean and doesn't care if our screw ups are visible to the rest of the universe. It's about US, and how we see ourselves.

The thing is, most mistakes are not life altering. If I accidentally post a blog with terrible grammar or that just isn't coherent, who cares? If my kid makes a mistake and gets an answer wrong in math, who cares? None of these things change our lives. And, (irony!) fixating on the tiny mess ups is a great way to pull our focus away from the things that matter in our lives: our relationship with our Creator, our relationships with our fellow humans, and our ultimate goals.

We have all been given good gifts. We have all had those times (even just for a second) where we jumped in, rapturous and free, to something new. We have all experienced the pure, unspoiled pleasure of creating something just for the sake of creating it. I want us to get back there again, even if it means messing up. The perfectionism is insidious. But it does not have to steal our joy.

Souvenirs

I'm not big on souvenirs. I don't like clutter or knick knacks. Actually, I think I DO like those things, it's just that I can either have a bunch of stuff, OR remain organized and tidy. Not both, unlike my best friend, who has more stuff than anyone I have ever known, but everything has its place and stays clean. She is a world champion duster.

So I do not have a lot of stuff. We buy perishable things, of course. In Montana we stayed for one night at a winery and ended up buying three bottles.

Side note: the winemaker told me that they only make wine from grapes that are hardy enough to withstand a Montana winter. I didn't know there were ANY grapes that hardy. When I asked him how low the temperatures got, he told me,

"Oh, negative 20 or so." My jaw dropped and my eyes widened. As a Northwest girl, I have a hard time wrapping my brain around temperatures that low.

It was sad when we finished the Montana wine. Just as it was sad today when I used up the last of the black beans we bought in Louisiana. We got them at this awesome fruit and vegetable stand in Lafayette, called Fresh Pickin's, where the people were delightful and the produce was epic. Their shop is full of locally grown tastiness (local oranges, OMG) and Cajun treats.

We arrived in Louisiana late on a Saturday evening, and on Sunday we went out exploring and looking for groceries. We were a little tired and disoriented, as we always are after a long travel day, and the folks at Fresh Pickin's were fabulous. They welcomed us in, helped us find the fruit and veggies we needed, and were shocked when they found out we'd never had boudin before. Boudin is a spicy, meat and rice filled sausage that people in Southern Louisiana are, justifiably, very proud of, because it's delicious and filling and unique and just writing about it makes me want some.

After that first trip, we shopped at Fresh Pickin's at every opportunity. One of the opportunities we grabbed was for a full pantry and dry goods restock, which for our family includes things like rice, beans, popcorn, oats, and grits. At Fresh Pickin's, every one of those items was local and organic. Because we used to BE a small farm, we love to support small farms across the country, so shopping there gave us a chance to do that, and also to connect with people who became friends.

That, ultimately, is why I have this blog. Because I don't do souvenirs. But these stories, while they are simple and small and not particularly exciting, are important. I used the last of my Louisiana black beans today. The Montana wine was gone a couple of months ago. But my memories and stories of the people who provided them for us will never be used up.

Why I Love to Travel

I've been a reader for as long as I can remember. I started reading early (my mom says I was four) and have never really stopped. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on, as a kid, and I read very quickly.

When I was ten, I caught a movie version of Great Expectations on PBS one night, and was enraptured. I immediately checked out the book from the library. It was not an easy read, and I missed a lot of the deeper themes, but I loved the story. Dickens led to Shakespeare, which led to theatre, which is another post entirely.

My favorite types of books are the kind where the atmosphere is as important as plot or characters. Great Expectations is like that. You can feel the marshes and the mists of England when you're reading it. Pip's senses become yours, and you are transported. The same can be said for Swamplandia, Karen Russell's gorgeous story of courage and grief in Western Florida. I smell sage and roasting chilies when I read Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees. Years ago, I directed a community theatre production of Steel Magnolias, in a barely insulated hall with insufficient heating, during one of the coldest winters Oregon had ever seen. But through Robert Harling's script, the room was filled with the sultriness and dense humidity of a Louisiana summer.

I love books where there is a sense that THIS story can only happen in THIS place. The characters could stay the same. The plot could stay the same. But there is an essential belonging of the story to a specific place. Would Christy be Christy if it took place anywhere other than Tennessee? Twilight is a terrible book, but as a lifelong Pacific Northwest resident, I can tell you that it captures the fragrant green drizzle of my home perfectly.

All of these stories, with their differing flavors and moods, make me hungry for more. It's not enough to read about dripping Spanish moss and ghostly shadows in the gothic South. I need to experience it for myself. I read about frozen waves in New England and have to stop myself from loading up the RV and heading to Maine. Reading creates a longing in me for places that are unfamiliar, and (almost always) once we get there, the places are even better than they were in my imagination. Traveling fills in the blank spots and gives me a fuller, richer, more beautiful picture of the soil that grows stories.

So if your child is a reader, be careful. You might be raising a traveler as well.

Whooooooo Are You?

Who who, who who?

I used to really like CSI. Is that show still on? It was one of those pre-streaming shows that we would get from Netflix, back when they still sent you DVDs. We would watch the three or four episodes on the disk, stick them back in the mail, and wait two days to watch the next ones. Or, if I'm being honest, we would run to the Blockbuster in town, rent the next disk, and then our entire Netflix schedule would be messed up.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right. Who we are. From oldest to youngest:

Jesse. Main man. Dad. I call him Sweetle, but you're not allowed to. We have been married for almost seventeen years. We have lived in six homes, including Harmony. We have owned upwards of twenty goats, ten cows, five dogs, fifteen pigs, and about a million chickens, turkeys, ducks, and one ill fated flock of baby Guinea fowl who disappeared less than 24 hours after we brought them home. When we met, Jesse had four cats. The man loves animals and has some Dr. Dolittle level communication skills with them. He is good at fixing anything from your computer to your truck, and he has worked remotely in software support for eleven years. I basically worship the ground he walks upon. He is the reason we get to travel.

Stacie. That's me. I am Mama. Jesse calls me Sweetle. You're allowed to, but I might look at you funny. I love to read, swim, and bake. I make spectacular sourdough bread and feta cheese, I like red wine and growing things in the dirt, and am a good singer. I am a recovering perfectionist.

The Brofessor is our oldest. He's thirteen and awesome. He's a currently suffering perfectionist, which we are working on. He loves Star Wars and Marvel and is becoming a fabulous cook.

Creato-Girl is eleven, and our artist. She is so witty and funny and wry that sometimes I forget that she's only eleven. She loves puns, paint, making ANYTHING, and once she told me that she wanted to go to the dump and collect trash to make into art. I'm amazed by her.

Robo-Kid is seven, and you can read about him in the post "Robo-Kid and the Bike." He's quirky and clever and loves robots and technology of any kind.

Honeybee is five. She's what you get when you assume that your semi-infertility is the same as birth control. She is EXACTLY the person we needed to complete our family: funny, wild, sweet, and fierce.

These are my people. I'm ridiculously lucky!

Robo Kid and the Bike

This is Robo-Kid. He's seven.

Robo-Kid was born on a gorgeous fall day back in 2011. My Midwest Bestie, who is a very talented doula, was in town for one week, and we were starting to get anxious that he was going to wait until she left to decide to come out. He didn't, but she didn't get to be at the birth either.

That morning, I woke up early. Jesse had gone into the office for work, which was about an hour away, and that meant that he left around 5. I got up an hour later and started to feel like maybe things might be moving along, but didn't want to jinx it by announcing it to the world. When MWB got up at 7, I told her (because she was my doula) that things were happening. She said,

"What do you need?" and proceeded to make eggs for my other kids, who were starting to stir. I took a shower and had more contractions. She asked me how things were going, and I said,

"Okay, but I think it's going to be a while, so I'm just going to go down to my room and hang for a bit!"

At that point I texted Jesse and asked him to come home, but I still didn't think things were moving very quickly.

I spent the next hour in my room, refusing to talk to anyone (because apparently I am a giant bitch while in labor) and denying that things were progressing.

When Jesse got home, he called our midwife, who told us to come in immediately. Jesse relayed her orders to me and I refused. (See above RE: giant stubborn bitch.)

Finally, I saw the sense in going to the birth center. We got in the car, and ten minutes down the road, Jesse pulled over, and I pushed out Robo-Kid, on the side of an Oregon country road.

Basically, that's Robo-Kid. He does what he wants, on his own time, in his own Robo-Kid way, including being born.

For years, Jesse and I have been trying to get Robo-Kid to ride a bike. He figured out tricycles very quickly and has excellent hand/eye coordination, so we figured that a bike would be a piece of cake.

It was not a piece of cake. It was a mess. He struggled for two years. He would ride the bike with training wheels, but wouldn't countenance the idea of riding without them, and the bike was getting too small. We took the training wheels off in Montana, thinking that perhaps a little tough love was necessary. He simply refused to touch the bike at all after that.

But one day, while we were in Mississippi at a tiny RV park with almost no amenities, he decided to ride. He took the bike out of storage, watched his older brother for a few minutes, got on, and rode quietly around the track. Then he did it again. And again. And over and over again, until he could go fast, slow, one handed, and standing up.

There are challenges that come with a kid this stubborn, but he's nonetheless a joy.

Things I Miss About Sticks and Bricks Life

1: Bathtubs. It's hard to shave your legs in a teeny RV shower, although I will admit it's great for flexibility and a good workout.

2: My Oregon besties. One of my besties is the mom of a lovely fellow RV family, and we've gotten to see each other quite a bit, both last summer and this fall and winter. We even got to have Thanksgiving together, which was GLORIOUS and probably the best Thanksgiving ever. But I miss our other two besties terribly.

3: Bathtubs. I'm mentioning this again because there is nothing like sinking in to a hot bath at the end of a very long day. And even on the road, which, let's face it, is basically a permanent vacation, you still sometimes have very long days.

4: Grandparents. My parents retired a couple of years ago and I had gotten spoiled, having other adults to talk to whenever I felt like it. I also miss my awesome mother-in-law, who used to come visit and just hang out for an afternoon.

5: Bathtubs. You know, there are RVs that have bathtubs. Our first one did. It was tiny, you couldn't really fill it up because it held 16 gallons of water and the hot water heater only held 7, but it was a tub, nonetheless. Harmony is far superior to our first trailer, but she lacks this amenity.

6: Also, bathtubs.

Too Fast Travel and the Do Nothing Day.

When we first started our RVing journey* we tried to do a LOT of things.

First, we traveled way too much and too quickly: we would drive 300 miles, stop for the night, get up early, pack up, and do it all again. In our defense, we were trying to get to Cleveland, to visit my Midwest Bestie, as fast as we could. But it was exhausting and we were spending a fortune on diesel, so for us, traveling that way was not sustainable.

Second, we tried to do ALL the touristy things in an area, for the short amount of time that we were there. In Idaho we swam in Lake Coeur D'Alene. In Montana we visited a state park and a prairie dog sanctuary. We explored Theodore Roosevelt State Park in North Dakota twice, and we only stayed in the state for a week. It made for a great adventure, but it was too much, too quickly, and too expensive.

Here's the thing: we are going to be doing this for a while. At this point we are looking at two years, minimum, but we may continue on for as long as it stays fun. But we stay a month in places now, and we've been in San Marcos, a college town outside of Austin, for two months and are thinking about staying for a third. This place has a heated indoor pool.

We do not have to rush. We don't have to hurry through and make sure we see stuff, with the exception of the Gulf Coast, which will probably disappear, eventually. (Oh, sad and depressing thought!) We thought Kentucky was exquisitely beautiful, but only spent about eighteen hours there. It's okay. We can go back.

With all of that in mind, allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite type of days: The Do Nothing Day, or the DND, for short.

We did not have DNDs back at the farm. The nature of farming is that there is NEVER nothing to do. Even in January and February, when the garden is sleeping and goat babies haven't been born yet, there is still lots to do. Chickens, for example, don't care what day it is or how cold it is outside. They still need to be fed and there are always projects to work on to get ready for the next season.

Do Nothing Days are exactly what they sound like: days with no clear plans or direction, and we usually don't leave the RV park. Today was a DND and while the little kids took naps, I introduced the big kids to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo+Juliet.

Do Nothing Days sometimes happen after we've made a trip to a used book store and everyone has a lovely stack of new things to read. Sometimes they occur because we are sick or had a bad sleep; when you live in 450 square feet, if one person wakes up, you all wake up. But mostly DNDs are about freedom and NO PLANS.

Here are some things that have spontaneously occurred on Do Nothing Days:

-We discovered that Brofessor (oldest child) loves Shakespeare almost as much as his mama does.
-We found that we can grow celery in our RV, in little cups of water. Now they're everywhere and adorable.
-Robo-Kid (third child) taught himself to swim.
-Much sourdough bread has been created, including focaccia and beignets.
-Creato-Girl (second child) found an Art History class on Khan Academy and discovered a new passion.
-Much screen time. No shame and no regrets. Video games are both valuable and healthy, if used appropriately.

Do Nothing Days are essential for my family's creativity and well-being, even if they only involve popcorn and movies. They restore our spirits and refresh our minds, give us quality together time (or alone time, with everyone on headsets,) and help calm what can be an overwhelming lifestyle. Everyone needs Do Nothing Days! Go forth and don't make plans!



*Note: I love to say things like "When we first started," but honestly, we've been doing this for seven months and we are FAR from experts. Just so you know.

Welcome to the Family!

Once upon a time, there was a family. They were a happy family, whose lovely home-schooled children never misbehaved and always completed their schoolwork without argument. Their dogs were perfect too. They never barked, or peed on the floor, or ran around like demons on meth until someone screamed at them to STOP IT BEFORE I TURN YOU INTO FISH BAIT! We were that delightful family.

LOL. Just kidding. We are far from perfect. We are messy, and sometimes we yell at each other, the two youngest try to murder each other fairly often, and someone threatens to turn the dogs into fish bait at least once a day. But we are, actually, pretty happy.

For the last seven months, we have been living in our 40' fifth wheel trailer, exploring America and getting REALLY close to each other, both emotionally and physically, because while a 40' fifth wheel seems humongous on the dealer's lot, it's actually only about 450 square feet of living space.

There are six of us, not including the puppers: two parents, four children, two dogs, and a cat who does not love to travel, but really loves her people and would be miserable without us. For the last ten years, we have lived with my parents on the family farm in Oregon. Sometimes I think we are crazy for leaving, because besides my parents (the best babysitters on the planet) the family farm also has chickens, barn kittens, and room for dairy goats, which are my favorite animal.

Still, we left. And mostly it has been a spectacular adventure. We have stayed in thirteen states (and driven as fast as we could through two more,) we have been swimming in the Yellowstone River, seen herds of wild mustangs in North Dakota, and met Amish people in Ohio. We stayed at a distillery in Kentucky, and rode roller coasters at Dollywood. We listened to "Coal Miner's Daughter," at Loretta Lynn's Ranch. We explored a Cajun plantation in Louisiana, and now we are in Texas, eating way too much barbecue. We have met some amazing people and really have become closer as a family.

At first we planned to travel for a year and come back to Oregon. We love it so much now, though, that we might never stop! We would love for you to share our adventure with us! Thanks for reading!