To house or not to house, that is the question.

So hubs and I have been married for almost 6 months - yay us! Well, we are currently in the state of what to do next. We don't want a baby - yet. So that's completely off the table, we don't even want to think about it. The Girl is enough for us and, honestly, we think we could be happy with just the three of us and our gaggle of cats plus dogs. 

Ever since my 11-year-old self went on a road trip with my aunt and sister, I've wanted to travel. My feet are not planted anywhere. This was intensified when my grandparents bought an RV and we (my sister and I) spent our vacations and weekends on road trips in the comfort of our home on wheels. I also married a man who has never had a true home. 

About 4 years ago I came across the idea of tiny house living and full-time RV living. If you don't know what this is, I'm going to link you to my favorite YouTube channel. It's called Less Junk, More Journey and it's an adorable family that travel full-time in their RV. 

Here's our reasoning for doing it and you, dear reader, are more than welcome to give me your thoughts: 

1. We hate Florida. Don't get me wrong, this is home. I've accepted that one day I will join the ranks of the old ladies in the Red Hat club that can't drive and should not be toting a dog around (in my case a cat). But for now we want to leave.

2. We like new places. We LOVE the idea of not staying in one place. If we hate the weather or the yard isn't big enough, we can pack up and leave. On to the next!

3. We LOVE the idea of educating The Girl with natural elements. For example, museums and state parks. Visits to libraries and seeing national monuments. How cool would it be to see the country in your own home!?

4. We have no real debt. The only debt looming over us right now are my student loans; yes, I have quite a few, but we could pay them on the road. We have 3 cars and all of which are paid off. 

5. My mom owns a home and his grandmother owns a home. If, and Jesus please don't think I want this to happen, something were to happen to them, we'd have two homes. We don't like the idea of owning three and trying to figure out where to live. So either we rent or buy our own home or we get an RV and travel.

6. I can teach online. I don't know if you've looked up online teaching options, but there are tons. FLVS is one of the best options for Florida teachers. My husband is a mechanic and there's a website specifically for mechanically inclined people to get work on the road. 

7. This is our last one and our biggest: my mom is eventually going to need us to support her. She's disabled and I don't foresee anything changing on that front. She plans to have her sister live with her to help her out when we move out, but she'll always need us. Not owning our own home would be beneficial because we'll probably need to live with her and the RV would allow us to travel and still have something that's ours.

So, what do you think? Could you live in a small space if the outdoors was your playground? Would you get sick of seeing your spouse everyday? Please let me know in the comments!

Christmas in... September?

So my husband and I started Christmas shopping. I know what you're thinking: it's September and it's still 105 degrees outside! Stay with me here: My husband is a retail manager and works a ton and I have college classes, an internship, a job on the weekends, and now we have a 9-year-old who we try to enrich with family outings and church gatherings. We decided that the best course of action was to get ahead of the game. We took The Girl (annonimously referring to my daughter) to school and decided to do a little shopping at Walmart because they have layaway.

Since we only have the one kid, spoiling was a must. This will be our last year with Santa and Hubs' first year playing Santa. I had to work really hard to convince The Girl that Santa was even real because an awful kid in her class last year decided to ruin it for her. I don't know who spoiled that kid's milk, but she was very upset by this. Anyway, I'm one of those moms that thinks about the other kids. Yes, I want to spoil mine, but I know that there are children less fortunate out there.

We live by this rule: small gifts are from Santa - Monster High dolls, Baby Alive, play make-up, etc - and the bigger things - bike and tablet - are from mom and dad. I'm trying to avoid her going to school after Christmas break and telling the kids Santa got her the big, expensive gifts when I know that Santa cannot afford to do that for every kid. We also do Toys For Tots and we pick out a gift or two to donate every year.

If you haven't checked out the Walmart layaway policy and are planning on doing it, let me enlighten you on how it works: You get a cart and go shopping for your kid. Once you pick out everything, in our case pile all the stuff in one cart and hope for the best, you take it all to the service desk. This is in the back of the store, not the front, don't be like us. We piled everything on the desk and sorted through what we were buying that day and what was Christmas layaway. We should've used two carts but it was 8 am and no one was behind us.

The friendly cashier was telling us about her $800 layaway for her 4 kids and I was instantly thankful for the one kid. After scanning a few items she informs us that some things don't qualify. The layaway policy is as follows: You pay and pick up at the same location, you have a 10% or $10 minimum deposit - whichever is greater, you cannot put clearance items on layaway, and each item has to be $10 or more. I did not know anything about the $10 minimum on items or that clearance items don't qualify. We picked out clearance Monster High items and some baby doll accessories that were $9.97. We also had Monster High bedding that doesn't count for layaway either.

After putting what did qualify on layaway we paid for the unexpected and moved on. My bedroom closet is now home to the start of Christmas. I'm pretty much done shopping for The Girl, but we still have a few small things on the list. She's never had a Christmas where she gets anything she actually wants.

All-in-all, I'm thankful it's over. Two hours shopping and setting up layaway then we went to our favorite diner for breakfast and coffee. All of this shopping was pre-coffee and no one likes me pre-coffee.

What are you doing to prepare? Are you like me and had to start early? What did your little ones request this year?

Who am I?

Hello and welcome to my ramblings! Since I have no idea how exactly I want to start this intro (I've started, erased, and started again more than a few times) I've Googled a few blog intro questions. I'm not going to answer all of them - just the best!

Here we go:

Describe yourself in seven words.
Perpetually tired (two but whatever)
Semi-Mom (more on this later)
Wife
Writer...sometimes
Serious (husband's description)
Spiritual
Inquisitive

What keeps you up at night?
My dogs. My cats. My husband's snoring. No, but seriously. Most nights I'm late to bed, early to rise. Usually I'm thinking about something I forgot to do or the dishes that I know my husband is ignoring. Occasionally the book I'm reading (Witches of East End).

Who would you like to be?
I feel like this is a loaded question. Realistically, I want to be an educator that makes her students question the world around them and draw conclusions based on those questions. I want to be the teacher that inspires my students. Unrealistically, I want to be the wife that gets more sleep and invents an eighth day in the week that we can get everything in the week done that we were ignoring. You know what I mean, don't act like you don't.

What are you wearing right now?
Teal PJ pants that are too big with pigs all over them, my husband's old band tee, and my hair wrapped in a towel. Typical PJs and not-in-school clothes.

What scares you?
Losing. Not in the Monopoly game sense - I kill at Monopoly - but losing in life. Falling behind in bills or in my child's education. I try to stay one step ahead of what could go wrong, but who is really prepared for that? If you talk to me in person there's usually a list running through my head of things that could go wrong as soon as our conversation ends. Did I mail the mortgage? Did I fill the dog bowl? Did I remember to plan something for dinner? It's not that I find your conversation boring, it's that I'm a worrier. And that I lose things. :)

What was the last website you visited?
Aside from Blogger to post this, my school website. I looked at the guidelines for this blog intro!

What is one thing you would like to change about yourself?
The fact that I lose things. I would say 90% of my worry is spent over losing something or forgetting something. Since this is my Senior year of college, my worry has increased. I'm worried about finishing everything for graduation and I worry I will forget something.

That's it for these questions! I know there's more to be said, but I'm hopeful that most things will be covered in the blog posts.

Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments!