So Much to Worry About

I don't know why I have had such a hard time sitting down to blog.  I don't know if it is because it is hard to find quiet time to write, or if I am just "too busy", or if it's because I don't want to face some of my emotions... but here ya go again.  I am sorry it has been so long, I have so much to write about and not enough discipline to sit and do it.  

At this time, on this day, I have officially experienced a miscarriage.  A lot of you follow me personally on Facebook and already know this.  I found out about my pregnancy in mid-February, and by Feb. 24th, I was experiencing "spotting", something considered normal in early pregnancy.  But it continued... and actually I haven't stopped bleeding since that date.  I knew something was wrong, my heart knew something was wrong, but my body wasn't clued in.  My hcg (pregnancy hormone) levels kept going up, even though on ultrasound, it was obvious that a pregnancy tried to set up shop, but the baby just didn't hang on.  So for the last 3 weeks, I have had 2 ultrasounds, and I can't even count how many blood tests, just to try to figure out what odd thing was going on inside of me (or not).  

Yesterday, I got results from my Monday blood test that finally line up with what my heart already knew.  My hcg levels dropped tremendously.  In this case, though it is a sad truth, I am so thankful for this.  I lost the baby, but   it means that my body finally got with the program and I am able to avoid a surgery (D&C) most likely.  I am praising God for this.  I don't have time for surgery.  I have no desire to have any surgery.  I am not a fan of modern medicine, not that I don't appreciate it when it is really needed, but I hope my family never really needs it!  

So with that summary being written, what does this have to do with our RV life?  Well, with the pregnancy, I would have been due in October.  That would have been right in the middle of our "planned" trip.  I was so confused with God's timing and why He would have put all these plans on my heart and then change them all by a pregnancy.  And then, a few weeks later, God's plan confused me again!  Why would He allow me to become pregnant, and the allow me to loose the baby, all the while changing our plans over and over again?  

I think I have an answer to that.  For the last almost 3 years, God has had us walking in faith, completely.  With our finances, with where and how we are going to school our children, where we are to live, and the people we are to impact and who would impact us.  Joey has not gone out and chased work down.  God asked him to trust fully that our needs would be met, so Joey just waited for the phone to ring.  And it did.  Our bills are always paid, though we might not have much left over, we always have a fridge full of food, shelter, and the things that we need.  

God has done amazing things with Joey's heart and trust.  And now He needed to work on my heart too.  I have had the ability to time every pregnancy just how I wanted it (with God's will, obviously).  I made plans to move into an RV, and though it happened later than I would have liked, here we are.  I have decided how to school our kids, and it has happened.  It seems like I have had a lot of control over how my life is going.  God needed to remind me that HE is in control, and that He has the ultimate say in our plans.  I am not sure what we will face in the future that God is preparing us for right now, but I hope I am ready.  I have learned through this that I shouldn't be making "plans".  That I need to be following God's lead first, going to Him first to pray about "my plans", and wait on Him to move forward.

So, now when people ask me when we are planning on traveling, my answer is, "When God says move, we move".  A lot of people might think that is crazy, or that I am just living by the seat of my pants... but God specifically says (more than once) that we are not to worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.  (Matt 6:34)

So that is my verse for now.  I remind my children when they come and ask me what we are doing tomorrow, or next week.  I remind myself when I am start to question life and why/how things are happening.  I remind myself when I am struggling with the dreams I have for our travels, and the bank isn't adding up to my plans.  I have to remember that God is in control, not me.  I can't control bleeding, I can't control a pregnancy, I can't control tomorrow, I can only worry about and live in today.

The Laundry

Recently, I asked my Facebook friends on the Rollin' with the Rowas page if there were any questions about how we live life now.  My sweet friend wanted to know how we do laundry and organize clothes in such a small space.  So, here ya go.  

We keep two tall laundry baskets in the shower so that they are out of the way.  They are easy to move for a shower and big enough to hold one load of laundry each.  

We are so very blessed to be parked at a friends house to save money and to be able to be closer to her until we travel this summer.  We are also amazingly blessed to be living close to my parents house, because that is also our shower house and laundromat. (since we are not at an RV park, which supplies both) 

When the laundry baskets are full, we just was over to "Gaga and Papa's" house to hang out, shower and wash clothes.  When we will be traveling, we will use the local laundromat or at the RV parks (laundromat) we will camp in along the way.

The more important part of doing laundry in an RV is how to store it.  Especially with 5 girls on the bus!  You might know that my hubby, Joey, is a bit of a handy man.  He rebuilt our bed frame (see a previous blog) to provide more storage for clothes and shoes.  He is brilliant!

You can see in the picture that Ivy's clothes are all in one laundry basket, each girl has one with about two weeks worth of clothes in it.  There is also a shoe shelf above the clothes but still under the bed. Mainly for Joey's shoes (LOL)

One of the big reasons I fell in love with this particular RV is the full sized closet in the master bedroom.  It holds all the hanging clothes for Joey on one side, while Lily, Daisy, and I share the other half.  

The two littles, Ivy and Sunny, share another hanging cabinet for their dresses.  

I think that covers it for laundry, but I am guessing that you are now curious about showers, being that we have one in the RV but I mentioned that we take showers at my mom's house... I will write about that next!  :)

The RV Description Post

HELLO!!!  I am back to the computer, and all the wireless and tech issues are hopefully figured out now!

There is so much to tell!!!  We got our RV!  It is a 34 ft Winnebago Adventurer, it has everything we NEED, and lots and lots of storage space.  It is a tight fit for our family of 6, but one of my favorite country songs says it best... "Love grows best in little houses, with little room to separate".   I have many reasons for deciding to become a "roadschool" family, but a big one is to make sure that I am working on what is most important, and that is the matters of the heart.  With a lot less space, I am much more on top of' my parenting with the girls, both literally and figuratively.  I won't lie, the move into the RV was way harder than your typical move, but I will talk more about that in another post... the reason I mention it now is because during the weeks it took to get this all figured out, my parenting went by the wayside.  I actually pretty much ignored the kids except for meeting their basic needs.  They had to fend for themselves for attention and entertainment.  Needless to say, things got bad fast!

I know all of you are dying to know what it's like living in such a small space with this many people.  First of all, I am loving it.  It is exactly what we need right now, nothing fancy, but it's perfect.  There are a few things to fix and rearrange as we are getting settled in, Joey already fixed the bed frame to allow for more storage space and the brakes need some work, but nothing major.  We decided to get a Class A, which means that the driver sits in the front like a bus, though ours has a driver's side door too.  We decided to get this instead of a travel trailer for many reasons, but mainly to have access to the bathroom while on the road. (with 4 girls that are potty trained, counting me, and one more on her way to being potty trained)  We hope to be traveling quite a bit, so this was the best choice for us right now.  

Alright, picture it... at least until I figure out how to add pictures to this little blog page.  In the front is the driver's seat, at the moment being used for storage for the toys and dolls.  Overhead in the center of the two front seats is a tv/dvd mounted with a very specific mounting bracket on it.  I tell you this because two of the ways we found out that this really was the perfect RV for us was after we had already bought it and started moving into it.  This mounting bracket has a very specific piece that goes on the back of the tv to hook and LOCK onto the mounting bracket so that it won't bounce off the wall while we are driving down the road.  It just so happens that when we sold our last RV (we spent 5 weeks in that one on vacation) we had the piece on the back of the tv, but didn't think to take the mounting bracket out of the RV when we sold it.  This is the exact same one we had in the old RV... we had the missing piece to attach to the bracken and we didn't even know it until after we purchased this.  

So, the passenger seat is pulled up close to the front of the RV right now, and that area is now our office space.  Our computer is set up and there is a little room on the dash board for my calender or a notepad.  Lily also likes to use it as her little reading nook.  She spends more time in a book than anything else she does.  I am pretty sure Gracsyn has had a lot of influence on that for her.  :)  Behind the passenger seat is a space where a fold out table used to be.  I took it out so there would be more room for the pack n play where the baby sleeps.  On the other side of the pack n play is another chair, this one swivels and reclines, but is still attached to the floor like the front seats.  It also has a seat belt.  Next to that chair is the two steps leading down to the door.  After that is the dinette area.  At the moment, Lily is asleep there, as it folds into a very roomy bed at night and is a 4 person (or 6 kid) table and booth seats during the day.  The fabric covering the booth seats/mattress pads seem like it was never touched, even though we purchased this used.  
Now, behind the driver's seat is a couch that "jack-knife's" down into another bed, enough room for Daisy and Ivy to sleep comfortably.  Next to that is the kitchen counter and sink... of course it is higher than the couch and there is a little ledge keeping the water on the kitchen counter and not on the couch/bed.    Next to the sink, which has covers you can put over it that are made out of the same stuff as the counter top (for more counter space), is about 12" of counter space and then the edge of the stove/oven.  There is a 3 burner liquid propane stove and a very small oven, neither of which I have used yet, because frankly, I am a little scared too, the stove top has this handy metal cover that is hinged to move out of the way to cook, but covers the burners for more counter space when you aren't using the stove top.  Above the stove is the little microwave.  That was the second way that we knew this RV was the right one after we started moving in... the microwave had this little glass, scalloped looking salad plate in where the big, heavy glass plate should go that works to make the food spin while cooking.  Randomly, I remembered that I had somehow along the many moves we have moved, I acquired an extra glass plate with the same description.  I went in the house and grabbed it.  It also fit perfectly in this little microwave oven.  It is such a small thing, but it was a huge moment when even the little, tiny details were covered ahead of time.  God is so cool!!!  

Next to the stove is the refrigerator/freezer, which is a decent size for an older RV, and keeps the food cold, so that's good.  After the kitchen, things get a little different.  In our other RVs, the bathroom was split between the two sides of the bus by a hallway, meaning the shower was on one side, and the toilet and sink were on the other, or some sort of configuration like that.  In this one, next to the fridge is a bathroom with a door opening out to an angled hallway.  It is all on the one side of the bus, the shower with a shallow tub, the toilet, and the sink.  Diagonally across from the bathroom door is a corner cabinet with a small, triangle counter top and an above corner cabinet over it.  To us, that means storage for coffee, tea, and such needed supplies, as well as most of the kitchen appliances that I use often, like the coffee maker, the blender, and the hot plate.  (yes, I said hot plate)  So if you are still picturing this... the hallway is a little zig zag and to the passenger side of the bus, instead of through the center.  This makes for a nice entryway into the "master bedroom".  

As you walk into our bedroom, you look directly back to a wall to wall closet with cabinets and drawers on either side.  This was the first thing I fell in love with when we saw it for the first time. Having 5 girls and a husband with a wardrobe like a girl, we need closet space!!!  There is even a second cabinet to the right of the bed with more hanging storage,  that is where Ivy and Sunny's little dresses fit.  So all our clothes fit snugly, and thanks to Joey rebuilding the bed frame, there is room for all our shoes and folded clothes as well.  The bed is turned sideways, with the head of the bed on the driver's side of the bus.  If you were standing on the side of the bed, and looked toward the front of the bus... you would see the second thing that made me fall in love with this RV.  There is a second door to the bathroom, a pocket door that slides back and forth.  This is the best design I have seen so far!!!  It makes it easier to pass each other going from one end of the "house" to the other, it is fantastic not to have to go through the main living space to get to the bathroom from the bedroom, and the kids don't have to open our door to get to the bathroom either.  Oh, and a side note... we have two tall laundry baskets in the shower/tub.  One for the all the girl's laundry, and one for Joey's.  (his work clothes are gross)

So that is basically the RV floor plan.  There is cabinets just about everywhere, above the tables, chairs, couch, bed, everywhere.  There is storage underneath the dinette booths, under the couch, and pass-through storage under the house almost the whole length of the 34' bus.  We have a generator that can give us complete power to everything we need while living where plug-in power isn't available.  We are hooked up at our friend's house right now, she is sharing her water with us by way of hose, and she already had the 30 amp breaker and plug for us to plug into... God had even thought of that.  Now we won't blow fuses in her house, or ours by just plugging into a regular wall outlet.  

There is also a large fresh water tank to hold water while we travel, a 50 gal 'grey water' tank, which holds what waste water goes down the sinks and shower drain, and a 50 gal 'black water' tank that holds the stuff they just want to call black water.  You don't want to accidentally let that one get to full... just sayin'.  Oh, and I didn't mention the couch has 3 seat belts as well, for when we are traveling and seat belts are needed. The laws for seat belts in RVs are very loose, if there are any.   So we have our own rules for them for our family.  

I should probably stop there, I hope this satisfies your curiosity until I can figure out how to get pictures from my phone to this blog... it has taken me days to finish this post, I keep falling asleep when the rest of the family does, and there is just no way to get enough time or peace and quiet to be able to blog during the day. 

Thanks again for hanging on for so long between posts.  I will do my very best to learn more about blogging and keep posting more regularly... but life with kids is never predictable!