Living the Life You've Imagined

In two days, I get to cross a big ticket item off my bucket list. Wow.

Since I was a kid, I've yearned, longed, like way-deep-down-in-my-soul, to live in New England. I was born and grew up on the West Coast, but something about the aged brick and ivy of New England has always appealed to my aesthetic sensibilities. Not sure why, exactly. Maybe it's the way it's always portrayed in the movies. The architecture. The history. The foliage. All of it. It calls to me in a big way.

So tomorrow we leave Chicagoland (once again) and drive off toward our 3-month stint living on Cape Cod. The daydreaming child version of Annie is giddily jumping up and down with joy. This is literally a dream come true for me.

I've been thinking a bit about how this came to be.

When I tell people about our family's unique current situation (living as nomads traveling the U.S. for a year), I get a lot of comments about how lucky we are. And that's true. We are lucky. 

We're also intentional.

Most people are too polite to ask us how we're doing it, but I imagine that many must assume we have a large disposable income (we don't), a large savings account (nope), no debt (pretty sure I'll be paying off my college education til I die), or some other financial means that they don't have. 

We aren't wealthy, at least not by American standards. We're solid middle-classers who shop at thrift stores, worry about the cost of groceries, and pray for money to miraculously fall from the sky to pay for our kids' college. No rolling in the Benjamins around here. 

So we've had to be creative to live the life we've imagined. Like billions of others, I'd love to be independently wealthy and travel the world. But that's not our circumstance. 

Selling many of our belongings, putting the rest into storage, and using our monthly rent/mortgage money to travel was a bold move. Finding vacation rentals that fit our budget and make sense logistically hasn't been easy. But it's been possible. If we had larger financial means, this year of nomadic living would have been a piece of cake. But the challenge is part of the adventure of it. (At least that's what I keep telling myself.) 

What we do have - in plenty - is freedom. And that's something we've been fortunate enough to be able to choose. Both Havarti's and my jobs allow us to work from home, which is really cool, but not entirely unique in the digital age. We've homeschooled the kids from the beginning, with freedom being one of our big reasons to do so. We chose not to buy a home again because we weren't planning on living in the Chicago area forever, and we wanted to be free from selling a house in a volatile market. 

Freedom is big for us. We take freedom into account any time a big decision is to be made. 

So we are lucky, yes. We were fortunate enough to be born into the American middle class and we recognize that that automatically gives us opportunity that much of the world doesn't have. 

But we've also capitalized on our circumstances. We've made this life possible partially through small choices we made over the years, partially through large choices we made over the years, partially through patience and planning, and partially by seizing the opportunity when it presented itself.

So in addition to being lucky, we've also made it happen. I'm guessing that's true of most dreams come true.

Of course, living on Cape Cod for 3 1/2 months isn't 100% "living" there. But that's okay. I've long known that my dream of living in New England isn't realistic long-term. Our life is in the West. Our families are there. Our history is there. Other than my personal aesthetic sensibilities, there's no reason for us to move to New England. So this trip is a perfect way to realize my dream for a short while. 

There's nothing wrong with adjusting your dreams to fit your reality.

While we may not always be able to live exactly the life we imagine, I'm convinced that with some creativity and rigorous planning - and yes, a bit of luck - many of us can live some version of it, in the right season, at least for a while. 

And that's really something. 

This is my photo. I like it. If you like it, I'm pretty nice and might just let you use it. Just ask.
Stealing isn't nice. It's mean and stupid.

How We're Doing With the Traveling

A quick catch-up for those of you who are new here:

We moved out of our house in the suburbs of Chicago in April, put the contents of our life (other than what fits in our car) into storage, and set off for a year living as nomads around the U.S. We left at the end of April for southern California, and spent May, June, and July living in CA, OR, and WA. You can read more about the trip and where we've been so far here.

We just spent the last three weeks in August back "home" in Chicagoland (staying at Havarti's parents' house, which is the closest thing to a home that we have right now), and tomorrow we leave for Michigan.

The big burning question people have at this point is "How are you all doing?" I think people picture how fun but exhausting a two-week-long family vacation can be, and wonder how we're all staying sane traveling for months. People also wonder how we're handling not having our own home, the frequent major changes in living situations, and the constant togetherness.

All totally legit questions. I'll try to take each one individually:

How are you all doing?
Generally speaking, we're doing great. Like all families, we have our better and worse moments, but overall, everyone is happy about the trip. Even the girls, who were more reticent in the beginning, have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and say they're really glad we're doing it.

Are you exhausted?
Surprisingly, not really. The hardest days are the packing days. Those are exhausting. I'm a little wiped out right now, since we leave tomorrow.

As far as travel weariness, the roughest patch I personally had was in Seattle. That had nothing to do with Seattle itself, which was awesome and gorgeous. It was because our schedule thus far had looked like this:

Driving to CA - 3 days
Dana Point, CA - 4 weeks
Bakersfield, CA - 2 days
San Francisco, CA - 5 days
Oregon Coast - 3 weeks
Baha'i Camp - 1 week

Then Seattle. By that point, I was just done with the packing and unpacking and repacking and reorganizing. Packing to go stay someplace for a month is pretty easy. The short trips in between the longer stays were what got to me. By the time we got to Seattle, I had no motivation left to set up a "home." Our routine went to pot, everyone seemed crankier than usual (not helped by the fact that two kids got sick during that time), and I was just in a not-great head space.

All things considered, it wasn't that bad. I'm generally a very even-keel person, so my not-great is probably not that big of a deal to everyone else. It was more internal than anything. But the kids tend to reflect where I am emotionally, and the fact that I let any semblance of routine we'd had fall by the wayside resulted in a whole lot of whining (and way too much screen time).

For the rest of the family, the roughest patch was probably the Oregon Coast. We'd been visiting a lot of family in CA, and Oregon was the first place where we didn't know anyone. Not only that, but there really wasn't anyone around to even get to know. It was pretty lonely, and the girls started getting homesick. I was surprised it actually took that long (about six weeks after we left). They got past it pretty quickly, though.

BoyWonder's rough patch was Seattle. Holy whiny four-year-old, Batman. He's been ALL ABOUT this trip, and has handled the changing landscape beautifully, but Seattle was rough. I was trying to figure out if he was just out of sorts or growing or what, but then I remembered our kids' pattern. Our kids don't have the terrible twos. And the threes are generally delightful as well. All of our kids' fit-throwing, mega-whining, etc. hits at four years old. They're all so different, but that they have all had in common. Four is rough for us.

Thankfully, these three weeks back at Grandma and Grandpa's seems to have helped quell some of that. I'm hoping we're leaving the phase. It ain't pretty.

How are you handling not having a home?
Surprisingly well, actually. Our kitchen in the Seattle condo was missing a lot of basics, so I had some daydreams about our own kitchen while we were there, but otherwise, it's been alright. And the kids have transitioned beautifully from place to place. Much better than I anticipated.

I know a lot of people have said they'd like to do a trip like this, but they'd want to have a home base. I think there are some advantages to doing that, but for us, knowing we don't have a home to go home to has made it easier to make a home on the road. I don't know if that makes sense.

Think of it this way: If we still had our house in Grayslake, the girls would have been missing their room, their bed, their stuff, etc. But since all that stuff is in storage, and they don't have a room, they don't miss it. I mean, they might miss it in a past-tense kind of way, as always happens when you move, but they don't miss it in the present. I feel the same way.

It's also very freeing to not have a house to think about. We go into these vacation condos that are already clean and organized, and all we have to do is insert ourselves there with our limited amount of "stuff." It's quite liberating, actually. I mean, I'll love having a house again when the time comes, but it's nice to have a break from that responsibility.

How about the frequent changes?
I'm personally a big fan of change, so for the most part it's been fine for me. It's a little harder for Havarti, who is not as much of a fan of change. He does fine once we arrive someplace, but the packing up days really bug him. The kids have done well. The younger two in particular seem to not mind the frequent changes. Our eldest goes back and forth between liking the changes and not liking it. She's got a little of both of her parents in her, I think. :)

I thought there would actually be more issues with this aspect of the trip, but it's turned out to be kind of an exciting element for the most part. We're all looking forward to our eastern places, so that's a good sign.

And the constant togetherness?
Yeah, that's been tough sometimes. Especially for the kids, when we were places without other kids to play with. Luckily, we had family and friends in most of the areas we went, but the Oregon Coast was hard. That's also why Seattle was hard.

Thankfully, the places we're renting for the next few months are much larger than where we stayed on the west coast, so being able to get some physical space from one another when needed will be helpful. We're also staying for longer stretches, so we can get in touch with the local homeschooling communities to meet some other kids. We won't know as many people on the eastern stretch, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

How about the long drives?
The long drives aren't much fun. Especially with a whiny four-year-old. But who likes to drive for ten hours with three children, anyway? It's like a slow and evil torture, no matter how many tricks you have to keep everyone happy. That's part of the price we pay for these amazing experiences. :)

Really, one of the hardest things for me on the long drives is passing by all the cool things I want to do. We've come within an hour or two's driving distance of at least a dozen major historical and natural wonders (Zion National Park! Bryce Canyon! Yosemite! Little Bighorn!) that we just couldn't squeeze into the itinerary. That's one disadvantage to the working-while-traveling thing. We have to coordinate the timing of the actual travel itself such that we can keep up our work schedules, which means we can't do everything.

But it's also so clear to me now that you can't do everything anyway. Just California alone would take months and months to explore and do all the amazing things it offers. So we're happy with what we've gotten to see and do. The other stuff will have to wait.

What's cool is that our drive to Michigan tomorrow is only two hours. We're not even going to know what to do with ourselves with that short of a drive!

So that's how we're doing. If you have any other questions about our travels thus far or forthcoming (or about anything at all, really), I'll be happy to answer them in the comments. And thanks for being here, truly. It's fun for me to think of you all traveling along with us.

9 Family Road Trip "Must Haves"

I'm here. My brain, much like our life, is scattered all over the place. So rather than fight the tide and try to formulate a coherent post, I'm just going to just let my thoughts fly where they may. Maybe it'll help to get some of them out of the way.

1) How come in the movies, when parents are putting kids to bed, the kids lay there peacefully and have some sort of heartfelt conversation with their parents, followed by a sweet parental "Okay, time for sleep now, Sport," after which the kids smile sweetly, roll over, and close their eyes? How come the kids aren't whining, begging, crying, pouting, stalling, dawdling, negotiating, bickering, freaking out, or bouncing off the walls?

2) The Midwest is very green.

3) Chicago traffic sucks. I'd gotten quite used to it, to the point where it had become normal to me, but coming back here I realize how much it sucks.

4) I need a secretary to organize all of our kids' social engagements during the three weeks we're back here. So much for the idea of the unsocialized homeschooler. Sheesh.

5) I get to go on a writing retreat with my friend, P-Diddles, this weekend. We've been wanting to do it since we met eight years ago. So excited.

6) I've been reading a lot about race lately, partially because of this post I wrote recently, and partially because of a piece I'm working on for Brilliant Star. Man, race is a tricky subject.

7) Speaking of which, want to hear something interesting? Which three states would you guess have the highest numbers of interracial marriages between blacks and whites?

8) You'll never guess.

9) Virginia, North Carolina, and Kansas. Told you you'd never guess. Interesting, no?

10) Speaking of states, we may end up skipping Florida and spend March and April in South Carolina instead. Long story, but the gist is that if we end up moving long distance after our trip, we're going to need the money we'd spend at Disney World for the rental truck. Rental trucks to move cross-country cost the equivalent of a family of five going to Disney World for a week. I'm not sure which side of that is more shocking.

11) I've not taken a single photo since we got to Chicagoland. I must need a break.

12) I forgot how much I love "Family Fun" magazine. I got one in the mail and was so excited. I already found a couple of ideas I want to implement when we actually have a home.

Seriously, about #1. Bedtime has been extra special here lately. I think we need to try something new. What are your bedtime secrets?

(By the way, we had long stretch when bedtime was a breeze, when the girls were about 3 and 7. Like, crazy easy. People were amazed. I was even amazed. My "secrets" then weren't that different than what we do now, except they went to bed at 7:00. Oh, how I wish they could still go to bed at 7:00! Just looking for some new ideas, so hit me with what you've got.)