Fill (Five-Minute Friday)

Fill (Five-Minute Friday)

I guess I used to think it was important to fill things up.

I had a big house and it was full.

I had the biggest kitchen in the county with huge cabinets and I tended to fill them up.

I used to fill my calendar - partly because I seemed to judge my importance by my busyness.

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I don't think I do that so much anymore. Since beginning the downsizing process, I have learned much about the value of less. The value of empty space - whether on my calendar or in my pantry.

Because we have been living in a tiny house on wheels we have had to live with less. Fewer pans, fewer dishes, fewer and smaller utensils. Fewer clothes. Fewer books.

When we get back home next week where there is more room to spread out, I wonder if I will be tempted to fill things up again. Will I want to fill the shelves? Will I tend to fill my calendar again?

I hope not. I think I've had my fill of living with excess. I really really hope that I will be able to continue pitching so that we can live with less and less.

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To participate in Five Minute Friday write for five minutes on the topic of the week and post it on your own blog or post your five minutes of writing in the comments here each week, or on the Five Minute Friday Facebook page.

This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation.

Just write.

Thankful Thursday - real hugs

We're back. Not at home yet, but back with family. Back at our daughter's home. Back to where we can touch the grandbabies rather than the pretend hugs on FaceTime. Back to what I've missed the most. I'm thankful.

And back to a place we can rest. Even though we hadn't thought to plan it that way, it is so cool that it worked out to have a few days to recuperate a bit before actually arriving back at the next phase of life with its responsibility and decisions. I'm thankful.

We have at least one more place to go on our itinerary, one more stop to make before we are really at home, but that's okay. I'm okay now. I'm better than okay. And I'm thankful.

It's Thursday and I'm thankful.

Heading home

Well, we have turned another corner and once again headed east.

Heading home.

I remember many journeys and many times of heading home.

I remember giddy excitement of looking forward to being home.

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It's different this time and I find myself pondering why.

What was it about home that called out to us after a journey? Were there things that we had missed?

If we had been camping, we were probably looking forward to a hot shower - or other comforts of home. Or maybe modern conveniences.

Depending who we had been with, we might be missing people - friends or family - and be anxious to see them.

If we had been gone a long time, maybe we were looking forward to just getting back to a normal schedule. Or maybe we needed to get back to our own doctor or dentist and other services available in our home community.

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But this time, things are different.

As for the comforts of home...

Well, THIS is home. It has been our home for over seven months now and it really does feel like home. This rig. This tiny house on wheels. It is fairly comfortable - and in some ways more modern than the old log cabin that is waiting for us. In fact, we have a bigger shower in here than in the cabin - so I'm not too excited about that down-grade.

As for family and friends...

Yes, I am terribly excited to see the littles (AND their mommy) and to bask in hugs and songs and laughing all around for days and days. And yes, we are looking forward to seeing our extended families and our good friends and enjoying more hugs and great conversation. But here's the deal. We have been wonderfully blessed to have time with dear ones while out here on the road, too. Time that we wouldn't have had at home. There were great times with two of our daughters and other loved ones. Plus we met new friends along the way as well.

Then there's the matter of our weird schedule upon arrival back in Michigan. We will arrive "back home" in progressive steps - stopping here and there along the way to visit kids and grandkids and siblings and to celebrate a momentous birthday - probably all before we even get "home." I'm actually kind of wondering when I'll feel like we're home. Will it be when we hit the Michigan state line? Or will it be when we get to our daughter's house where the little sweeties live? That's where my aching arms get to finally embrace the little ones that I've been so homesick for and where I can get down on the floor and laugh and sing and play and be silly. In a very real sense, I'm guessing that I will feel like I made it back home at that point.

It's certainly not that I don't want to go home to the log cabin. I bet I'll be pretty excited to get there. It will be fun to have more space and to find stuff that has been packed away in storage. It will be fun for both of us to have our own desk again. And I know that I'm going to thoroughly enjoy my comfy old beat-up couch.

But maybe it's that I don't have to be there in that particular location in order to feel at home any more. I have now felt at home in other places as well as we have been practicing the art of building a life on the road - and a home on wheels.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty thankful. It has been an amazing journey. And yes, there will be wonderful things about getting home - wherever that turns out to be. And then I need to make those phone calls to set up those appointment for dental and medical check-ups! Oh, yes, we also need to pick up our box of mail from the post office and sort through it all.

I guess we'll know that we are home once we begin jumping into all of that "normal" work.

Oh, and when I can get back to my own hair stylist... Oh, yes, THEN I'll feel at home.

Walking thirty miles in August

I'm not sure where she heard about it or if she came up with the idea herself, but my daughter signed up for the 100-mile July challenge this year - and SHE DID IT! She walked one hundred miles during the month - many of them on steep mountain trails.

Watching her do it (sometimes in person and sometimes just through Facebook reports) inspired me deeply. I found myelf wanting to do it, but afraid it was too big. Too much. Too many miles. Too daunting. But I really like the idea of a one-month challenge so I decided to set my own goal.

A month is a good amount of time. It seems to work well for me to commit for a month. I've done it successfully with my writing during NaNoWriMo and have enjoyed the excitement and momentum that can build during that amount of time.

I have used different goals in my walking regimen - most often ranging from one mile to three miles per day. However, recently our goofy schedule has offered me some great excuses - to the point where I just "try" to get out there and walk maybe a mile each day, but I am not really measuring the distance. I realize that I need to be more specific or more accurate and accountable about the actual distance I walk rather than such vagueness. I used to keep good track of the miles I walked and I remember how encouraging it is to watch the tally grow. So... I want to do that again.

One thing that appeals to me about this kind of monthly challenge is the hype and excitement of reporting in each day. What a cheering section can come out of Facebook! I think it is worth the effort of shameless self-promotion to get that kind of encouragement.

...

Here's my simple plan:

1. Come up with a way to track my miles. Check. I figured out how to get the Endomondo app installed on my phone and I even figured out how to use it. I have set up a little chart in my journal to keep track of the cumulative tally.
2. My goal is 30 miles in August. That seems a little wimpy, but my main purpose is to get back into the habit, so I choose to stay with an achievable goal - especially considering that we will still be on the road for a good portion of the month. So, yep, the goal is one mile a day which I know that I can do IF I am consistent.
3. If/when I hit 30 miles, I shall be happy to set a second goal for even more - maybe 50. Bonus!
4. I will count only the "intentional" miles - as in the times when I put on my walking shoes and get out there specifically to walk. For example, we often park at the edges of parking lots to get more exercise so I was tempted to count those as well, but decided not to.
5. I will undoubtedly brag on Facebook and elsewhere about every single mile I complete.

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So here I go...

Wanna' join me?
How far will you go?
What's YOUR goal?

Let's go for a walk!

Begin (Five-Minute Friday)

It’s Five Minute Friday – the day hundreds of people write for just five minutes on the same prompt and then share their words with each other on Lisa-Jo Baker’s site. No editing, back-tracking, or revising. Just writing for the joy of writing. Won’t you join us?
Today’s prompt: begin.

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Where shall I begin?

Beginning has not been in the foreground of my mind because I've been more in the finishing or wrapping-up or winding-down mode. But there is some saying about every ending means a new beginning - or something. Or maybe it is that new beginnings often require endings first. I don't know.

But even as we BEGIN to wind down our trip, I am BEGINNING to think about the next part of the journey - and wonder what all that will hold.

Certainly I would think there will be some sense of a new beginning. Certainly. A new adventure. We don't know what the new journey will look like nor where it will take us. We don't know whether we will sell the farm this fall or how long we will be there in the cabin.

There are definitely some things that I can begin when we arrive back in Michigan. I must begin. Like the next phase of sorting and pitching. I sometimes wonder if people get tired of hearing me talking about sorting and pitching. Sometimes I can imagine them thinking "Are you STILL doing that? Aren't you finished YET?!?"

Nope, not finished. Maybe we have only begun. Nevertheless, we shall begin again - and get rid of more stuff.