LP kids

Finding the beginning

One would think that a journey of travel begins once you have reached your travel destination. I’m here to say that is absolutely false. While planning my first Camino I discovered that the journey actually began when I decided to go, then started researching all the plans and travel to get to the Camino de Santiago. There was so much that needed to go into it! Deciding where to start walking, deciding what city to fly into, figuring out which plane, train or bus to catch to get to the starting city, finding where I was going to stay and what places along the way took reservations and which didn’t. I could go on and on! It felt like there was so much to figure out and do!

Life is crazy!

Deciding to switch from homeschooling to worldschooling has been the same. We talked about it a lot, just here and there, as an idea we tossed around for many years. It seemed more like a dream rather than something that could become a reality. When we finally decided to make it a reality it was time to start working on our house, updating it and getting it ready to sell. That was a journey within it’s self! We started to do updates to the house, but our schedules were so busy that it was a couple of years before we actually had time to seriously start working on it. I hired out the hardest work so that it would get finished as quickly as possible, but did the rest myself. Lets just say I have done enough house painting to last me the rest of my life! As it got close to being ready I brought in the realtor. This actually made the deadline I had given us a hard reality. It also brought more stress to the table! There were contractors, paint, repair, daily visits to the hardware store, dealing with teens, dealing with a toddler, the husbands busy schedule that didn’t allow him to help, softball practice, softball games, what’s for lunch?, what’s for dinner?, selling off some stuff, but not too much, storing other things, stagers, photographers and so much more! Working my butt off every single day, I ended up still needing to push the deadline back, but finally it was finished and was ready to go on the market! It felt like the victorious end of something great! In reality, it was just the beginning of the next leg of the journey.

So many emotions

This is the first experience we’ve ever had with selling a house. We bought our home 15 years ago and that’s where we have lived ever since. I felt as though it was just a house and selling it would be the beginning to the next chapter of our lives. That is until we received the first offer. It came only a week after we had the house on the market. I was amazed at how fast it was! They came in at full asking price and weren’t asking anything more than what I was willing to give them. It seemed perfect! We all signed the contract that day! I was so excited! Until my excitement turned to something else, not sure what to call it, maybe fear. Realizing we would be leaving the only home my children have ever known and it would be in 30 days! Would they love the house as we have? There have been so many happy memories here. Would the home enjoy even more great memories? They included a letter with their offer that told us how this was the house of their dreams. They had laid under the stars and talked about all they wanted in a home and THIS was it. They looked forward to raising their little family here and all the wonderful things they would do with it. For me, this was perfect! The letter brought me to tears. I sat with my husband, after a long day of softball, tearing up and talking about how perfect this all was and how it seemed meant to be.  At least until 10:00 pm that night when I received the call that the deal was “going sour”. It was their perfect home until they researched the internet options and didn’t like them…..seriously.

Learn some patience

It’s been another week now and I’ve decided I won’t be reading any letters that come with the offers. We have had an inquiry from someone who wanted to do some “upgrades” and wanted to know if we are “motivated sellers”. Since the house has only been on the market for 13 days and priced really well for our area, I can’t say I’m motivated enough to pay for their upgrades. It was probably the best choice for them not to put an offer in. So this journey continues. The one of emotions on a rollercoaster. I get anxious every day for the house to get sold, then remind myself that it will and I just need to be patient. Rather than the planning or the repairs it’s now, when will it get sold, how much will it sell for, is it priced right, will we need to drop the price, getting out of the house on a moments notice so it can be viewed, cleaning it daily and on and on.

The good stuff

If anything is learned from all this, it’s that every experience in your life is a journey. Enjoy the great things about it and learn from the not so great things. I’m just waiting to get to the good stuff now. The planning of the travel and the getting there!

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Where do you even begin to decide to change your whole life? Leave everything behind and head off into the wild blue yonder? Well first you have to get past the feeling that you are totally crazy to even consider something that is sooo out of normal society. That’s probably the hardest part since I feel like I will be doubting myself throughout this whole journey when it comes to what is “normal”.

The American Dream?

I know most people would see what we have achieved and wonder if we have lost our minds. Isn’t the dream supposed to be to work for that big house in the ‘burbs with the great schools and the super awesome, high paying corporate job? Well we got there and it just didn’t feel like it was all that and a bag of chips. We put all of our time into work for the corporation, raising our kids and crazy amounts of time contributing to our community. It is a fantastic feeling to be a part of this, until it’s not. What were supposed to be the great schools felt like they were just letting our kids down, day after day, rather than educating them. The corporation just seemed to be cutting the benefits over time. The cozy community started exploding with populating and the heart that was once there was lost. Everything that once was just seemed to be fading away, all around the same time. When someone like me, that has been thinking thoughts of world travel for so long see’s all of this coming to a head, it’s only natural to think the time is NOW. Then it’s only a matter of getting the hubby on board!

One Dream, One Couple

My husband, Shawn, is one of the best people I have ever met in my life, other than my mother. He has always been the level headed, logical one. Not to say I’m not level headed or logical, but I have always been more of the dreamer than he is. I have had to desire to move and travel since before I can remember. He has always been the stay in one place forever kind of person. In the 24 years that we have been together we have had one apartment and two houses. The last one we have been in for the last 15 years. So we have defiantly done is staying in one place thing. Over the years I have harassed him so much about moving and traveling. I finally started traveling myself. I started with traveling to Spain and walking the Camino de Santiago by myself. It was the first time I had ever done anything like that on my own! It was scary and awesome all in one, and I was hooked. I then went back to walk again, this time taking my oldest and youngest daughters. It was a totally different experience, but still amazing. My husband, mother, other two daughters and (soon to be) son in law then met us in Europe and we spent two weeks traveling three countries. I was thrilled to have my husband there, hoping he would feel some of the desire I got from travel. It must have worked! A year later we are rolling with the plans to change it all and forget “normal”!

Moving Past Normal

So, now you’re past being normal and have to figure out exactly how you are going to fund this insanity. Most people don’t have so much disposable income that they can just fly off to another country on a whim and travel the world. I know we certainly don’t. There is a great worldschooling community online that is so helpful when it comes to figuring this stuff out, which I looked through frequently. Ultimately we decided the best thing for us was to sell our huge house, downsize and figure it out from there.

But How?

As of right now, our plan is to sell the house, buy a 5th wheel to park somewhere, invest our proceeds into some rental property and the girls and I will travel. The hubby will only be able to travel occasionally. Honestly, it makes me happy to take the girls to see new things, but it would make me even more happy for Shawn to be there. Through all the conversations about this we have always discussed the girls and I traveling and Shawn joining us full time after he decides to retire. Despite the fact that he always said he was perfectly happy with this and it made him happy to see us traveling, it did make me feel guilty. Especially if we had decided to sell the house and get an RV that he would be living in alone while we are off seeing the world. Though, if you knew my husband, you would know that being being in an RV and having the freedom to put his time into all his hobbies when ever he wanted to would make him as happy as a clam. So imagine my surprise when he told me he wanted to retire from his job in a year and travel full time! Maybe it’s all the travel shows I watch, maybe it’s the blogs I read him by people who did just that and are surviving better than fine. Which ever it was, his decision surprised me! So now the plan, for today, is to get the RV, the girls and I travel and he will retire in a year. This will give us a year of his income without the amount of bills we have now so that we can save more money. We are still up in the air about the investment property. No doubt we will decide once the house sells.

Here We Go!

So the house is for sale now!  It’s all just a waiting game until it sells and I’m going crazy after only a week and a half!

#worldschooling #worldschoolers #familyadventures #traveldeeper #holidaywithkids #mytinyatlas #travelwithkids #familytravel #lpkids #caminobabies #caminobaby #sellthehouse #changeyourlife #forgetnormal #travelteens #teentravel