Harrison Family to join the Live Lightly Tour

Go to Sara’s latest post to find out more about our upcoming plans. We’ll post more photos of the bus and details soon.

Dash to West Monroe

We had a great visit to West Monroe this past weekend. It was a very short trip, but pretty relaxing. We dropped a few things off of sentimental value, my great-grandmother’s china,some of Parks’s baby things, and some random items for my little brother’s new house in Nashville.  We are aiming to have very few things in storage, probably only family photos and some art that we just can’t yet part with once we finally start living on the road.

Parks enjoyed swimming in my grandparents’ new saltwater pool. It’s much easier now for both my grandad and my dad to take care of without the use of chemicals that need to be constantly monitored. And sounds so much safer for everyone too!

You can see our trip photos here.

We’ll be posting very soon about our family’s plans for this fall and the beginning of 2009. Stay tuned!

Sale update…………

Just wanted to give everyone a brief update of how our weekend sale went. We did really well, and the weather was not too brutal. I thought it was going to storm at one point, but it didn’t! That allowed some well needed breeze and cloud cover for a bit.  So, right now we are just doing more sorting and donating. We’ll be taking a short trip home this weekend to visit with family and drop off some items they would like to hold on to for us. Ok, and maybe sneak in some things too…………………

We’ll be back soon and hopefully have some more updates and exciting plans to tell you about !!!!! To be continued………….

Before and after

So, I’m looking forward to what our rental house looks like after the sale, not before! Our buddy Jenn comes in tomorrow night to help us out on sat for our yard sale. We are pretty much selling all furniture, lots of kitchen stuff, and just random frames, and clutter, all priced to sell!  Of course the weather looks stormy for sat, but we thought we might just have to sell from the inside of the house. It has been interesting trying to figure out what we would keep in an RV, but with everything we’ve heard from others that have “downsized” before us, you’ll always start w/more then you need and you can always weed out, donate, etc. after you start living in such a smaller space.

Thanks to all of you who have given us such positive words of encouragement!!! Keep them coming!

 

Back to the basics

So, in the midst of the overwhelming task of weeding out what we think we’ll need before hitting the road, we have been trying to introduce some raw food goodness into our diet. Our recent Costco trips have been pretty simple. Step one-go directly to the produce section. Step two-gather fruit, veggies, and any raw nut or fruit snacks. Step three-check out and actually enjoy scanning our receipt, realizing that we don’t miss all those “extras” we used to pick up. Our budget and bods don’t need all the frozen items, chips, dips, and who knows what else which seemed to jump in the cart! I’ve been trying to experiment a little and make some recipes from gone raw and Matt Amsden’s book, Rawvolution. He has some very basic recipes which fit our lifestyle and my lack of cooking skills perfectly. And, the fact that he looks like Jeff when he had long hair (pic below) doesn’t hurt any either! (Click on Matt’s name above for Sara’s recent pic of him.)

Earth love:

Introducing raw foods, ridding ourselves of extra “stuff”, clothes, etc, and not purchasing items that can’t fit into our future “home” just reminds me that getting back to the basics can make such positive differences in the way we live. It’s just a cycle that begins to point you in a direction of the things that really matter most in our world. Raw diets to fresh food to farmer’s markets to organic farming to CSA’s to buying fair trade to recycling to composting to thrift store shopping to walking more and driving less. All these things bring our focus back to helping ourselves, our communities, and our earth. Yes, it sounds hippie and corny, but I feel like I’m experiencing more of life this way. I definitely should have paid more attention when my mom grew okra and tomatoes in our back yard when I was younger. I’ve been listening to a great podcast that has taught me a lot about buying food locally and what to look for at your local farmer’s markets.

Take your time:

Parks wanted to ride his bike to preschool Friday morning, which is luckily for us just over mile away, but we had just enough time so I let him. It was great, he made up the big hill, arrived on time, and he was able to tell EVERYONE that he rode his bike to school! It felt good to make time for that, to slow down and enjoy our time together.  Although my first thought is always, ugggh, “I don’t have time for that!” I don’t seem to ever regret those moments. Retraining my mind to slow down is quite an undertaking…….

Speaking of slowing down, guess I should stop blogging and get going to work on more ebay posting and compiling of garage sale items! We are extremely blessed that a friend from CO is flying in Thurs evening to help us out with the craziness! Thank you Jenn!

Oh, one last thought. Because of our travel goals, we have chosen to find a home for our dog, Marley. She is a choc lab mix with beautiful golden eyes. If anyone reading this post knows someone who could give her amazing amounts of love and a new family, please contact us. I will add photos and more details in a later post.

“Be not afraid of going slowly; be only afraid of standing still.” Chinese proverb

 

 

 

 

Wondering, dreaming…..

So, it’s been a month since I wrote my last post. After we got home from Arkansas, we’ve been spending time brainstorming even further about living on the road fulltime as a family. I started thinking about this as a possibility several months ago, just desiring for something more for our lives and for our 3 year old son, Parks. We absolutely love to travel and meet new people, learning about new places, opportunities, foods, history, music, etc. I work remotely from home, so it just made sense to research other families who have been doing this, or are just starting, asking the same questions about just how to live and make it on the road. That’s how we ran across Matt and Sara Janssen of the Live Lightly Tour. They are a young family with a 4 year old daughter, Bella, traveling the country in a veggie oil powered RV. I had to learn more!!!!! I contacted them because we currently live in Plano, TX and luckily for us they were going to be making a stop in Dallas, TX in April of this year.

They were able to spend a couple of days in town, so we really got to know them a bit more and find out some great information about living on the road. Jeff was able to learn alot from Matt about the veggie oil conversion, and I just tried to soak up Sara’s knowledge of raw food, being a loving mommy, and just lover of life.

After they left, we honestly felt a loss. I think we knew in our hearts that being with them solidified our desires to do much of the same thing and we were having to temporarily let go of our dreams as their RV rolled away.  Matt was able to speak at our church the day they left, at Life in Deep Ellum, and told everyone how when they set out to travel, they knew they wanted to make it a mission as well, to spread some love around. That’s exactly the way we felt too, so my heart and mind began to work overtime, questioning where we as a family could make a difference and a positive impact in communities.

For some reason, my heart kept going back to hunger in America. There is no perfect solution for combating such an overwhelming problem, but just one person can make a difference, right? Check out the starfish story for some inspiration.

So, our goals for our “mission” would be somehow to highlight those local food banks and shelters that never get much focus, especially when it’s not a holiday. People are hungry everyday, not just Thanksgiving and Christmas. Do I have any experience w/non-profits? Not much, donations of food/clothing/supplies when we’ve been able to. I’ve always wished I could do more. Within the last 2 years we’ve given more of our stuff away then we have since we were first married. We are just finally opening our eyes and our hearts to the fact that we don’t need all this stuff that we’ve worked so many long hours since the minute we were out of college to acquire . Way too many cars, 2 houses, and countless other things we could have done without. We’ve also come to realize, unfortunately late in our Christian walk, that we are to take care of the “least of these.”

Matthew 25:35-36For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

 So thanks to Matt and Sara,  we now may have an opportunity to make our mission and dream happen and it’s alot to comprehend.

I’ll end by saying I will spend more time on this blog so that hopefully when we hit the road, people will have somewhere to go to learn more about us and our future plans.

Step#1-Huge garage/estate sale on June 14th!!!!!!!

Thanks for listening………………….