4100 to 550????

As an addict of the tiny house craze, I watched every show I could possibly watch and loved seeing how they fit so much (which really isn't a lot) into a small space.  I love having garage sales and getting rid of things we no longer need/use. I love doing children's consignment sales for the same reasons.

But when it came time to downsize our life from a 4100 square foot house to a travel trailer plus a 10 x 12 shed that Jeff built, that's a different story!  So, in a nutshell, here's how it all got "done":

• We sold a few household items that we no longer wanted/needed: bar items, toys, nightstands, TV trays I've had since college, etc---garage sale things.
• We donated a lot of stuff to a church that holds a garage sale to help with its youth missions trips.
• Jeff's parents bought a house and are letting us put our "life" in one of the bedrooms.  Since they've been travel-trailering for about 6 years, they didn't have some needed things--that we just so happened to need a spot for (refrigerator, guest bed, couch, end tables)--so it's a win-win for all of us!
• We shoved the rest into our UHaul and brought with us! Our UHaul would have been a LOT lighter without our washer/dryer, golf cart, and pouf we lounge on to read with the boys, but those were 3 large, necessary items that neither one of us would budge on! Needless to say, we looked like the Clampetts came to town!

Same stuff...slim versus wide shot! Yes...the golf cart's top had to be taken off in order to fit in the UHaul. Yes, I brought my own washer/dryer...SO NEEDED!

This is MOST of what came out of the UHaul. The rest was already shoved into the Shed/Rec Room/Game Room, etc--the grey building.

Don't forget...we'd just walked off a cruise and into the car to travel halfway across the country. We still had all of our cruise suitcases packed---but I did manage to do the laundry before we packed the washer/dryer, so at least the only dirty clothes we had were the ones from driving from TX to CA! 

The hardest part for me personally was two areas:  the boy's toys/games and my clothing!  We've been here a week and I finally got their area more organized today. It took so long because every time I'd go in the "Rec Room", they'd follow and dump something out...'nuff said.

Here's my closet--and the mound that I shoved into it.  Gotta admit it--I'm pretty proud of myself!

What I started with....which was already a very pared down version of my normal closet!

Update:  here's what my closet looks like now (after we've been here two months). Ignore the pillows above--I make the bed, but 8 pillows is too much for our little trailer so they stay up there unless they're needed!

We've also bought a small storage shed b/c we moved with more stuff than we had room for. We are slowly either finding a place for it or getting rid of it, but we'll probably always have it simply for space here in the trailer.

Go West Young Ones

Goodbye Texas. California here we come!

As soon as we got off our cruise in Galveston, we flew up the highway to pick up our UHaul and get to packin'!  We didn't even have time to say goodbye to neighbors, but since we'll be back in 3 weeks for a family wedding, we were okay with it!  (Sorry neighbors....we'll see you soon!)

Day 1--Head to Cuero to see my family for Christmas, drive through Christmas in the Park, which is a favorite, and have a little family time!

Day 2--Cuero to Fort Stockton, TX.  Yes, boys---we're STILL in Texas!  We heard that question, as well as the typical "When will we get there?" about a million times that day and the days after!  It is nice to drive out of the city, so as much as we may have been dreading the 3 day drive, it was also our time as a family to just enjoy our time together.

Day 3--Fort Stockton, TX to Tucson, AZ--a cold front blew in the night before so every stop we made on this day was a quick in-and-out---for both people and dogs!
Side Note: Arizona state line rest stop is perfect for both humans and dogs!  They have a great dog exercise area--where we exercised our kids instead, but whatever!)

We're not in Houston anymore!!

Beautiful after the rain!

Benson, AZ--dinos at a McDonald's!!!

Day 4--Tucson, AZ to El Centro, CA--this was a short 4 hour day (THANK GOODNESS) so we made sure to take a few pit stops to welcome ourselves into our new world, but not take too much time doing so since we had to turn in the UHaul that day.

Gila Bend, AZ--more reptiles!

Gila Bend, AZ--dino attack!!!

Solar Panel Farms--not our normal farm, but okay!

Sand dunes between Yuma, AZ and El Centro, CA--we'll be trying this...on a Stephanie level though!

Home Sweet RV!

The New Dickens' Adventure

To really start the blog again, I have to go back a few months to the beginning of our new adventure.

May 2016

Jeff lost his job with the company he was with. We took it in stride, as he had come up with a good business idea and he decided this was the time to focus on it. His plan was to look for a job and work on this business plan at the same time.

June 2016

Jeff found out about a position with a company he’d worked for before, but it was located in Mexico on the California/Mexico border. I put my foot down because no way was I going to uproot our family, my job, the boys’ school, etc.

July 2016

Things were going slow with his business idea because although many found it to be a great plan, he was having a difficult time pitching it to the right people. We were in the middle of a master bath remodel that we needed to do in order to sell our house (ironically, I’d decided in March that I wanted a smaller home…this job loss just spurred us on).  Jeff and I decided that maybe he should apply for the position in Mexico and we would use this time with the boys as an adventure in travel, living somewhere besides the great state of Texas, etc.

August/September/October/November 2016

Jeff found out he was going to be brought on to the company in late August and that's when our world flipped upside down!  He drove out to CA after Labor Day to start working and has been coming home to visit us every 2 weeks. As much fun as it’s been to be the “Three Musketeers” we have definitely missed our daddy!  The first few weeks without him were actually easy (and my house was the cleanest ever…), but ever since then the boys’ attitudes have changed and it’s getting more difficult to be a single parent. Of course, it doesn’t help that literally at this same time is the stage of independence that Riley has gotten. It’s a welcome change, but it’s rocked Bennett’s world because now he has opinions, favorite games to play, favorite shows to watch, etc.---and B doesn’t like it one bit!

Due to the expensive market in CA, we decided we would rent. However, that went out the window when I saw that places here did not meet my standards in regards to looks, accommodations, price, size, etc.  In fact, just a 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment and/or house was almost as much as our mortgage on a 4,000 square foot house---for about a third of the size!!

So what do we do next? We buy a travel trailer! To live in! Oh. Dear. Goodness!😨😨😨 How we (I) are going to downsize to about 10% of what we currently live in, I have no idea, but I guess we'll figure it out!  I've been addicted to the "tiny house" craze, so now we're jumping in with both feet (and a small percentage of our belongings!!) We were eventually going to purchase a travel trailer for traveling with the boys in the next year or so, so this was not a huge leap for us---with the exception of actually living in it!

Am I seriously agreeing to this?????

Proud new owners!

Our new home--on wheels!

Stay tuned for more updates to our crazy life!