The trials and tribulations of modern-day nomads!

 

Renee and I hit the road, right on time, 28 December, after an epic 2-week-long push to get the house cleared out and ready for rental. We had been working diligently all summer, since I’d retired in May. My job(s) was to attend to the major work of sorting and selling tools, excess house goods, and transporting furniture out of the house and into to the ConEx. The grounds, all five acres, were a monumental challenge, given I’d been collecting cars, various hunks of steel and aluminum, and odd-sized bits of wood, because…you’ll NEVER know when yer gunna need it!

Since Renee was the sole breadwinner, her time was limited and it fell to me to get the property issues attended to, which was perfect for me, being the retired old fart..:) She worked right up to the week before Xmas, and as such, she had a lot of pressure on her, which I tried, not always successfully, to lessen.

The time of reckoning had come, and part of the journey was what we called ‘the Maria Kondo-ing” of all our possessions, few of which could be taken on the road, in a 300-square-foot RV.

The what??

Maria Kondo was big a few years back, about her decluttering movement, and frankly, though it became kind of a joke, she had a point: Does this __________ (fill in the blank) give you joy? Does it serve an immediate purpose in your life? If not, take it in your hands, thanks it for the gifts it gave you, and bid it farewell.

Boy, did we say a lot of farewells!!

We took over 20 pickup loads of donations to ARC! We really got up close and personal with what was important, materially, and let us say…it was eye-opening how much stuff we had accumulated in a relatively short amount of time.

We all, to a greater or lesser degree, get attached to things, some for sentimental reasons, and some for…well, no reason at all, except, “It’s a cool/useful/precious thing!” This process, if for no other reason, really made us look at our attachment to things and the relative worth of keeping them. We got up close to our ideas of what was ‘needed,’ and what was ‘wanted.’

I got a bit hindered in one major job, and that was erecting the windmill that came from Renee’s family farm, in western Oklahoma. More on that, later.

Alas, it wasn’t completely successful…. but not a failure!

In our blind rush to get out of the house and on the road, we had so many major challenges, but our hard leave date kept us focused.

Did we get everything done? No. We got as much done as we could, and off we went.

 

Next…first days on the road.