Sanding & Staining … ugh.

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Well the last week has had me pent up in the garage, sanding and staining, waiting and sanding and staining.  Then waiting and sanding and staining again.  Then waiting some more and adding a coat of polyeurothane and sanding.  There is a skill in here that I lack.

In the beginning of the year I was overcome with anxiety and stress.  These feelings being driven by fear and the many decisions we had made in a short amount of time.  The decision to leave my job, the purchase of the bus, deciding to sell our house.  While we planned this over a period of a year, the time to make a move on all of those decisions happened within about 2 weeks.  In the weeks of sleepless nights and days filled with anxiety, God kept popping up in unexpected places.  Telephone calls from people I hadn’t spoken with in a while, stories on the radio that pertained to exaclty what was happening in our lives (One being a radio program asking, “what would you do with your life if you were not afraid?”) and lot’s of prayer and encouragement from friends.

There were two things God clearly pointed out to me in this time of my life.  The first and most important was to let go.  Let go and let God jump in the drivers seat.  Stop trying to do what you think is best and give it to God.  He knows what you love, he knows what you need and has much more experience in constructing lives of fulfillment.  The second thing he told me was that I need to slow down.  Have patience.  Stop running through the days with worry about what needs to get done and how many things you need to do.  Stop and look around you.  The wonderful world that he has created for us to enjoy.  The sun, the rain, the trees and flowers, animals and the lives of others.  Enjoy it!

This past week I have felt like the whole project has slowed down.  It feels like I am never going to get the bedroom finished.  7 days of staining and sanding, clearcoat and sanding. I now have a true admiration for anyone that does woodwork.  I am anxious to get this project moving and I feel like I am walking through mud.  Take a breath….. patience.  Sand some more.  Enjoy the sunshine.  Breathe.

I now find myself repeating in my mind the same thing I tell my kids when they whine about doing their math schoolwork.  Don’t look at it like there are 45 problems to do.  Take one problem, break it down into steps and do one step at a time.  Be patient.  Take one step.  Sand one little spot.  Don’t think about everything else on the list just get this one little thing done and then move on to the next little thing.

Patience.  This is the skill I lack.

-Sean

Sacrifice

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We have concluded it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

Over the past couple months we have seen that bus life will not suit Dunkin well.  We knew when we bought him that his breed (sphynx) is active, curious, active, people-loving, active, affectionate, did I mention active?  We just thought he would outgrow this and mellow out with age.  We’ve since learned that they are this way regardless of age.  Truly, he was the perfect cat–a wonderful mix of love and play and snuggle.  Love, love, love him.  Even if he did eat all of our knitted/crocheted stuff and toss our puzzle pieces to the floor over night and claw my couch and jump into the washing machine, covering himself in laundry detergent and…)

When we brought him home we projected that bus life was a possibility (didn’t have the bus yet, but had been looking).  But we just thought we’d bring him along for the ride.  After all, 95% of the people we’d met or heard of that full-timed in a bus had either a cat or a dog–sometimes both.  Dunkin is not your average cat.  Not content to be on the harness (we tried) and certainly would (literally) be climbing the walls in a 320 sq.ft. space.  So we started preparing the kids’ hearts for the imminent re-homing of Dunkin.  We tried asking all of our friends if they would take him.  We would have given him to them just to know that he was in a good home and that we could visit any time we wanted.  No takers.  Apparently there is still prejudice in the world against nekked cats.  Its okay…we get it.  So we put an ad for him online–this time at a price–figuring anybody willing to spend an exorbitant amount of money on him would be certain to take really good care of him.

Today Dunkin went to his new home.  He now has brothers and sisters to play with at 10 o’clock at night.  There are two kids in his new home to snuggle with and the lady said she’d be happy to email pictures often.  We had a cry-fest and said our good-byes to our sweet velvety boy.

All in all, we are glad we gave this whole experience to the kids.  They got a taste of what it was to be responsible for a pet without gills.  They had the thrill of sleeping with a warm little snuggly next to them at night.  They had a glimpse of some of the realities of pet ownership (finding someone to watch him when you go out of town, needing to come home even when you’re having fun to feed him, waking up to destroyed property, etc).  They had a four-legged friend.  They will never forget him and we will always have pictures and memories.  This is the first thing we’ve had to sacrifice on this bus journey that actually stung.  We will surely miss you, Dunkin.

Fixing things

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20120224-233817.jpg
So I have to 1) shake my head at the irony and 2) praise God for his provision. After we bought the bus and realized all the work we’d have to do, we prayed that God would bring people to help Sean tackle it. He’s super handy and can pretty much build or fix anything but this is too huge a project for one man. A couple friends from church generously gave of their time and sweat a few times but we don’t exactly live “in town” so it’s asking a lot. One day I was walking with the kids in the neighborhood and stopped to talk to two young moms who were in their yards with their kids. I had met them once before several months ago and they knew our house was for sale. We had talked then about our hopes to have a bus and live on it. This time I got to share that we now have the bus and are working on getting it ready. One girl’s husband overheard us and came over asking about the bus and who was doing the work on it. I told him just my husband and joked that he was welcome to help out if he had any free time. He said right then that he’d love to. Turns out he is a carpenter and a welder! Has all the tools in his garage and can get us good prices on wood. I ran right home and told Sean I found him a new friend.

They’ve been making progress, as you can see in Sean’s posts under The Shell. One weekend they even brought the bus into the neighborhood and parked it in front of his house. (Quite the source of intrigue in the cul-de-sac that day!)

God not only provided help in a way we’d have never seen coming, he also gifted us with new friendships with these two sweet families. Of course this happens when we’re on our way out. We’ve determined to just enjoy each other for as long as we have. Anyway, nobody is guaranteed tomorrow. Makes me think we should approach every relationship with this kind of intentionality and fervor. Like, “Look, we don’t have much time…let’s dispense with the song and dance…what can we pour into each other that’s of substance and consequence…how can we best use this time we’ve been given?” I wonder how our lives would look if we stopped taking time for granted.

One of these new friends started a Friday night book club/bible study that I’ve joined in on. Its been so good. Apparently while the boys are fixing things in the bus to get it ready, my Father is continuing to use this time to fix a few things in me to get me ready. No doubt I’ll be undergoing renovations til I make that final trip home, but the matter on the chopping block right now happens to be insecurity. I was reminded last night that ‘my Father knows my frame…he remembers I am but dust’ (psalm 103:14). He has way more grace for me than I do for myself. It came out among the ladies present last night that none of us could come up with one person we knew who didn’t suffer from insecurity. Guess we could all use some renovating. If you need the name of a good carpenter, I’d be happy to refer you to mine. ;)

Stolen Water is Sweeter

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My wife asked me to write about this.  I think she is a little bit ashamed.  Maybe more for me but I couldn’t help myself.  For our 1st night out on the bus we had planned to leave about 30 minutes early.  This would give us time to swing by a friends house and fill up the bus with water.

The bus is parked at an RV storage lot and being it is winter (we have had a couple of nights this January that got down to below freezing)  I had emptied out all of the water tanks and put RV anti-freeze in them to keep pipes and tanks from freezing and cracking.  So for our 1st night out we needed water for brushing teeth, showers and possibly dishes had we ended up cooking (we didn’t end up cooking, Chinese food sufficed).

After all of our escapades of getting out of the RV lot, forgetting the insurance and registration information and me forgetting my wallet we ended up leaving about 30 minutes late.  In addition to this I was more concerned about getting the bus to where we needed to get it.  After my square off with the fence I have become overly conscious of where I am driving to, how I am parking and then pulling out again.  In our haste the water was forgotten.

After the 1st session of our Marriage Retreat our friends (we were supposed to get water from on the way over) came out to our bus and brought a bottle of wine (2 actually).  After they left we were hungry and went for Chinese.  By then it was late.  It was now 11pm and we had been up since 6 that morning.  When our friends left, they reminded us that we needed water.  They had been kind enough to check out the spicket on the side of the Wendy’s restaurant (same parking lot we stayed in) and let us know about it.  Wendy’s was open until 2am so we asked the manager and she said “no way”.

Now remember that this is our 1st time “boondocking” (no campground)  and our 1st time in any type of RV.  We are total newbies here.  But I refused to go to bed this evening without water.  Whatever it takes…I am getting water.  I even contemplated going into Wal-Mart to buy 40 gallons at 78c a gallon.  After realizing how ridiculous that was we took a stroll over to the parking lot right next door and saw a spicket on the side of the building.  It was in a place that was easy to pull up the bus and hook up the hose.  Easy Peasy.  We can do this.

Angie was a little uncertain and felt it was stealing.  And I guess it was as there was no one to ask.  It was 40 gallons of water.  Yes we stole it.  Angie wanted no part in this.  I was happy to know I could have a shower in the morning.  Was it worth it?  Yes.  Well… almost.

We get the bus back to Wal-Mart and in our scenic little spot and we are dead tired.  We brush our teeth (with running water) and off to bed we go.  Up the next morning and I get the generator running, turn on the electric and get the hot water tank up and running and the heater going too (it was chilly).  30 minutes later we check the hot water…it’s luke warm.  So off to Wal-Mart for a quick brekky and then back to the bus. The water has to be hot by now.  Still no hot water.  So a cold shower for me.  Serves me right I guess.  One more thing to add to the list of repairs.

First Night

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We did it!  We spent our first night on the bus.  Our church had a marriage retreat this weekend and a sweet sister offered to stay with our kids overnight.  We thought this was the perfect opportunity to stay on the bus, see what works and what doesn’t, and log some more hours of driving time.

After buying sheets for the bed (orange, of course), making sure we had towels, clothes, toilet paper, etc…we were on our way.  Or so we thought.  We got out of the storage unit gate just fine this time–praise God, and then Sean realizes he doesn’t have his wallet.  Nor is the proof of registration on the bus.  So I wait while Sean drives back home (in the van) to get said items.  He comes back and we’re on our way–in our usual fashion, like a herd of turtles.  Before we make it out of the parking lot Sean realizes that one of the headlights is out.  ugh.  He gets out and is messing around with it for like ten minutes.  Comes in to look in one of the ginormous manuals, goes back out and tinkers some more.  Meanwhile, I’m just sitting and praying.  After a while he sticks his head in the door and asks if I touched anything or did anything.  I said all I did was pray.  He looks at me funny and says, “The headlight is on now…just came back on by itself.”  Well, praise God and we’re on our way now.  For real this time.

We made it through town all the way to the church without hitting anyone or anything.  Each time we got back in the bus to drive somewhere my prayer was, “God, please don’t let us hit anyone or anything.”  I am pleased to announce that my man totally nailed every turn and parked it like a pro everywhere we went.  So our first night in the bus was spent in none other than the Walmart parking lot.  However, as Walmart parking lots go I have to say we had a most excellent view.  We got a sweet spot right next to a clump of trees (yes, in the middle of the whole parking lot) and if you didn’t peer too intently through them (at which time you would see the gas price clearly displayed at the Murphy station several yards away), you could fool yourself into thinking you were in a lovely little patch of woods.   Score.

our "woodscape" view

lots of work left to do, but a made bed changes everything

We even had the privilege of entertaining guests on our first night!  Friends Jim and Rhonda came bearing bus-warming gifts–flowers, wine and chocolate!  What better way to break in a bus?!

first guests

a toast in styrofoam cups...only the finest for our guests

As for the marriage retreat, it was awesome.  We thought there couldn’t have been a better time to take inventory and re-focus our marriage on Christ.  Best to do this before you’re holed-up together with four kids in a 320 square-foot space.  :)

Gallons

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Not sure if you are aware of just how much water you’re using when you take a shower.  I wasn’t.  Didn’t really care too much, either. Of course having a fixed number of gallons with which to take a shower, do dishes and brush teeth changes one’s perspective.  So we made it a math problem for the girls this week.  Bertle had to take a shower with the drain plugged.  We timed her (10 minutes) and then measured out the water that was in the tub using a gallon jug.  The results: 14 and a half gallons.  She actually turned off the shower just before the timer went off, so we figure the rate to be about 15 gallons every 10 minutes.  We will be working on taking “Navy showers” this week.  Better to get used to it now.

 Now, this will only really matter when we boon-dock.  We figure for the most part we’ll be in campgrounds where we can use the showers and toilets to our heart’s content.  Those nights spent in the Walmart parking lot or the random stretch in the desert–that’s when the Navy showers will come into play.  We can so do this.

Narrow is the Path

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Yeah, no kidding.  When you’re driving a bus every path suddenly becomes very narrow.

ugh

We had a little date this week where Sean and I visited the bus so he could show me the progress he’s made.  I’ve never even had a ride in it, so he insists that we at least go get some diesel from the gas station down the road.  Yippee!  Off we go, making our way through the storage lot.  We get to the gate, make the turn to go out, and hit the gate.  More accurately, we hit a little arm that is sticking out of the gate.  It lays a pretty good ding into one of our bay doors.  The gate itself is knocked off it’s course to the point where now it won’t close.  Great.  Of course, my first thought is that this is gonna cost a pretty penny.  I envision us having to pay for not only the fence to be fixed, but perhaps a live security guard or something during the interim.  Or what if somebody’s unit gets broken into and we are liable for that because we broke the gate?  ugh.

ouch

We got out and told the person on duty.  She came out and took pictures and our name/number.  Said she’d call when they knew what the charges would be.  We haven’t heard yet.  Praying for favor.

So I have to hand it to all those bus drivers out there.  I honestly couldn’t do it.  I guess eventually I’m going to have to.  I mean, what if something happens to Sean and I need  to take the wheel for a stretch?

We’re supposed to spend the night in it this weekend (just the two of us) and already we’re looking at the route we’re going to take to get to where we’re going.  How we’re going to take certain corners…how we can avoid certain turns…where we’re going to park it…best places to get gas…where we get fresh water from.  Very good that we’re doing this now.  We plan on taking several overnight trips in it to get a good feel for what we’re going to need.  This week I’m going to have all of us walk around with notebooks so we an document exactly what we use throughout the day.  Hoping this helps narrow down what the necessities are.

**UPDATE**

We got the call from the storage unit place…$300 was the total we have to pay to fix the gate.  Could have been worse.  They’re letting us pay in installments.  We’re grateful.

From the Beginning, How It All Began.

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Well, my wife has been posting away and I feel like I have been slacking a little on the posts to go along with the conversion part of this adventure.  While we are currently bus owners and I cannot wait to share all we are doing, I thought it might be informative and fun to share some of the adventure in not only finding this bus (researching, asking tons of questions and relying heavily on the bus conversion community) but also a little background as to how and why we got to where we are.

From the beginning…

It all started about a year or so ago when we started thinking about alternative styles of living.  Traveling is actually something we have always enjoyed.  But with the ages of our kids and everything that was going on in our lives it wasn’t up until this past year that a traveling lifestyle would have been possible.  We also had some things to work out in our relationship with God.  As stubborn as my wife and I both are, that took a good amount of work on God’s part to get us both to a place where we were loved and poured into.  I am learning daily to be humble and God has opened my eyes to many of my shortcomings.  I feel like I am finally in a place where I recognize how amazing God’s love and wisdom is and what an idiot I can be.

Initially I was intrigued at getting a sailboat and running up and down the east coast intracoastal waterways for possibly a few months (or a year).  My wife was curiously entertained by my excitement and we started looking at boats.  With our limited budget to buy a boat we quickly realized that it would be torture for our 4 young kids (for us really) to live in a small confined space for a week or two at a time.  Even if we pulled the boat into a marina for a week it wasn’t like the kids would be able to just jump out of the boat and go play in the water all day.

Along the way my wife had shared our spirit of adventure with many.  One of her good friends in Charlotte had mentioned to her that a friend of a friend knew another family who was living on an RV full time and travelling the country.  They kept a really great blog that was consistently updated and truly a lot of fun to read and follow along.  My wife had shared this with blog with me (www.happyjanssens.com) and we were excited again!  Excited for a chance to travel together, Excited that God’s great big world was out there for us to see, Excited that there were families already doing this!!!!  We have found quite a few other families that are living this adventure as well.    (see some of the other herds at the bottom right of the webpage) And these are just some of the ones that are keeping blogs.

How it all Began…

We started looking at RV’s.  Hundred’s of different RV’s.  It was a great market for us.  Many of the major RV companies had melted away and RV’s had slid through the cracks of the fallen economy.  Unfortunately for RV owners it seemed that no one was buying.  We looked at many RV’s in our price range and were finding unbelievably good deals.  There were so many available to us that I really had a hard time deciding on what we really needed that would work for us.  What made it really difficult was that there were so many different types of models, engines, suspensions and systems in RV’s that it was hard to determine what would best suit us.

In all the research that I had done, I was able to narrow it down to 3 things.  1. Safety – We wanted something that was safe to drive, safe to crash.  Something that offered security while we were living in it.  2. Serviceable – We needed something that could easily be serviced. Pieces and parts would be available.  Systems (suspension, brakes, engine, transmission, structural) could be repaired and replaced.  3. Space – Clothing alone for 4 kids (3 girls) can take up an entire bedroom.  Not to mention all the living amenities that go along with them.

There were so many stories of problems with RV’s as I read through many postings.  Problems that could not easily be repaired or parts not available.  Others had stories of having to take it to a specialty shop many states away.  These stories usually came up when I started researching an RV that I thought would be a good buy for us.  Keep in mind that we were looking for a 40′ RV and anything that was less than 15 years old was usually just out of our budget.  Many of the RV manufacturers were now out of business and no longer making parts.  It was typical that the common failing part on the model we were looking at was highly sought after and expensive because of that.  I would assume that this is not the case for all RV’s.  It just seemed that the all the ones that we looked at tended to fit into this category.

I did notice along my reads that there were a few people who mentioned buses instead of an RV.  My initial thought was that a converted bus (not schoolbus) would be very expensive.  When reading through the articles on bus conversions it did seem that a bus had everything we were looking for in our RV.  Buses are much safer because of the frame construction and size, engines and systems in buses are widely available, most system parts were accessible and the bays underneath the bus were much larger and more plentiful than RV’s.  Well, cost aside I figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least look at some of the buses available out there.  Who knows?

Over the next 6-8 months we started learning about buses and bus conversions.  Lots to read and the communities of bus owners that are out there were very helpful.  The support we got from the bus community was amazing.  Encouraged by members of the bus community, we took the trip to a bus rally in Florida to see the buses, talk to the owners and educate ourselves. The more we learned about buses the more it started to make sense.

We found that in todays market for bus owners the prices that they were able to sell the buses for was also much less than the amount of money, time, blood and tears that they put into these conversions. This did enable us to look at many buses that were in our price range.  Knowing that we would not be able to find the “perfect” bus we set out many times over the last 8 months to find the bus that best fit us.

In my next post I’ll show you some of the pictures of the buses we did look at and how we got into the bus we have today.

(The pictures of buses we looked at is posted under “The Shell” page – Turtle on over and take a look!)

An Offer

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Houston, we have an offer!

Our house has been on the market as a short sale for 3 months now.  There have been quite a few showings but nobody to fall in love with it until last week.  Finally (I say “finally” but really, 3 months isn’t that long) somebody submitted an offer that we just sent off to the bank for consideration!  Now we wait.  The selling of our home is perhaps the largest part of the getting-on-the-bus equation.  If the bank accepts the offer we could be in the bus sooner than we ever thought.  We would also be completely debt-free.  So exciting.

Puzzling

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“When life looks like a puzzle, just remember God’s got the top of the box.” ~Kim Jackson

We just got a puzzle.  We’ve never done a puzzle as a family before.  It’s been fun coming to it throughout the day and placing a piece here or there, watching a beautiful picture emerge–a 3ft x 1 1/2ft photograph of a cottonwood tree against red rock.  We chose it because it looks like a place we’d like to visit when we get to go out west some day.  It’s 1,000 pieces and we figure it will take us months to complete.  This is one thing people just expect to do at the pace of a turtle.

I envisioned cozy grey days with the kids huddles around it, chatting and listening to music as we worked together…date nights with a glass of wine and Burlap to Cashmere, Sean and I across from each other laboring to make an image appear.  So far it’s been mostly like I imagined.  Why haven’t we done this before?

Naturally, I’ve been pondering my friend Kim’s quote this week.  I can’t imagine doing a puzzle without a visual aid of how it’s supposed to turn out.  That’s how it feels to me most of the time, though.  Like you’re faced with so many pieces and they all look like they could fit into this little space but only one is a perfect fit.  If you try to cram the wrong one in to make it fit, nothing else around it sits right.  So I waste a lot of time and energy trying to build onto something that shouldn’t even be there.  I’ve learned that I’ve just got to go to the one who has the top of the box.  If I’m going to have to do this at a turtle’s pace, I’d like to at least be going in the right direction.