Numero Uno

I’m still blogging

No really- Hello World, here we come!

A quick intro to this- I’m sitting on a nice patio that I don’t own and my kids are doing screens in the middle of the day in a camper that I also don’t own. Thanks to our friends Caleb and Katie, we have a quick place to be squatters while we span the gap of renting our house out to strangers and leaving on a 3+ month tour of Europe. Ten days of local suitcase living and the current takeaway is that I’ve never properly taught my kids how to do dishes by hand.

I spy with my little eye 2 small heads crushing any sort of screen time record.

As we pass the apex of 2022 and start the slide towards fall, we can all share in the collective tumult and adjustment of riding through this pandemic. (I think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel but historically the light keeps turning out to be a new variant to contend with, which pushes the tunnel and my patience just a bit further). Everybody’s experience has been as unique as they are- financially, emotionally, geographically, even physically. As a family we took more walks, howled at the neighbors every night at 8pm, tried baking (overrated) and watched every Marvel movie in chronological order. If you’re wondering, the first one is Captain America.  We are now watching the Simpsons from the very beginning – season 7 and only like 560 episodes to go… When school was moved online, I thought the world was crumbling in on my kids (and mostly me). What I did not anticipate was that the introduction to online school was not world-crushing, but in actuality, world opening.  I watched them lounge in their PJs and work their way through the required tasks. We would pack up the computers and bike to the coffee shop and all work together. I deep down enjoyed it and for the first time I thought- We could do this anywhere.

Fast forward a bit and ‘doing this anywhere’ is now our plan.  I acknowledge the privilege of having typical learners. They need very little from me academically- and even today my 12 year old asked me what a ‘clause’ is, and I couldn’t give a definition (a part of a sentence? Which part? The uh…middle part?). We sit in the perfect window of having 2 kids who are old enough to read and manage a computer but who are young enough to not be ruled by high school sports and college entrance requirements. Conclusion- let’s get outta here.

You will work very hard preparing for a garage sale and then people will haggle the boots from $2 down to $1

This moment on the nice patio listening to Joni Mitchell is the result of 1000 choices we made over the last year- figuring out the school leave of absence, purging toys and games, redoing bathroom tile, donating enough from all our closets to clothe a little village and even having a garage sale (this last one should fall on your ‘don’t do it’ list. Work a couple extra hours at your job and just give it all away). So no beautiful photos yet, just the few I snapped in this in between time.

So as you get to the end of this (Hi mom and dad) I apologize for tricking you into reading a travel blog about a family who has only gone a mile from home. Conclusion- Every epic tale needs a backstory and I guess it can only get better from here…