All Moved into our new Tiny RV Home

   We got our new home delivered last week and are officially moved in. So far I love it and do not regret our decision. It seems to be just the right size for us to live comfortably together. There have been a few moments when we have all been irritated and could use a little more space from each other, but in all honesty we have worked to make it work. Just yesterday my husband was in the kitchen with me when I was cooking and I yelled at him to go in the other room out of the way, so he took one side step into the dining area and all was good again.
  We are getting used to the small space and getting creative with storage. I even found an out of the way space in the bathroom bottom cabinet to place the cat box where they can get to it so long as the door is open. Maybe I will add a cat door for it one day. 

  The funny thing is I packed four whole boxes of things I thought I could not live without and have only brought in maybe a box and a half of stuff and I don't miss all the other things. We just don't need a lot and we are happy with that. I'll post some more pictures of the inside once we get everything situated and organized.


Follow the entire adventure here

Moving South to Live in an RV

   While my husband has been working in Texas, our 2 girls and I have spent the last two months in Idaho packing and downsizing our possessions. Well at least I thought I had downsized enough. A couple weeks ago he flew back to help load everything we kept into a moving truck and it was a really close fit. We had to give some stuff away real fast so everything was out of the house by end of day. We did it just in time. The kids flew to grandma's house and my husband and I headed down with the kitties in tow in the moving truck. Downsizing from a 1700 sq ft house is a lot harder than I thought it would be and I feel like I sold, trashed, and donated a ton of stuff. I packed only four boxes of what I think will be useful or important for us in our new RV but I won't know until we move in. That's not including our clothes which for the most part I got down to a basket each but that will be the hardest to store in the RV especially mine and his I think.
   When we got to Texas we have all been living in the 21 ft vintage 1971 kit camper for two weeks while we wait for the new RV to get to the dealership. Its a good thing we all enjoy each others close company. The first night was rather stressful getting the small space all figured out and the kids were cranky and tired. I sat down with my 10 year old who was having a preteen moment and simply explained why we were doing this and what we are hoping to get out of it. In short I told her we are doing this by choice not necessity. We are choosing to live small with the option of moving if and when we want with our home instead of away from. We will have more money for experiences instead of just "stuff " We can go to NASA and Sea World and all the other places we want with out all the the financial worries. We talked and she thought about it and got excited all over again.

   For the most part living in the 21 footer hasn't been bad at all. {except for that night when my cat came in with a leech on her foot and all three of us girls were screaming and huddled together} I have started painting the bathroom walls and pulled up the nasty 70s carpet. I plan to fix it up then on weekend adventures we will just hook that one up and go glamping. Quick and Easy. I have learned already how little stuff we need to be happy. Though I am super excited to get the bigger one so we can start moving into it. It should be delivered tomorrow. 

    When my husband took me to look at the basic layout of the RV we ordered that wasn't going to arrive til January, I went in one very similar but only one slide out in the girls room and a bigger living/kitchen area that I instantly fell in love with and would give us all extra space. So my loving husband had them cancel our order and we ended up signing the papers on that one plus we will be in it before Christmas. :)

This is the new floorplan we picked

Downsizing to Live Small

  Today's topic is downsizing and organizing in preparation to move our family of 4 plus the pets into an RV full time. In about 3 weeks the kids and I will will finally be in Texas with my husband moving into our brand new RV. My husband is already there living in our cute itty bitty camper that I still plan to remodel and paint.

side note: if it isn't obvious I really like blogging with lots of pictures

Downsizing my junk

   

He just put the deposit down for our new camper that we will all live in hopefully for the next few years while we work on becoming debt free. The price of this unit was really reasonable plus the space seems great. Now for the hard part. I myself haven't been in this model because I am still in Idaho so all I have are the pictures from the website. I have packed up most of our stuff for storage and sold quite a bit of my furniture but I still have a ways to go. The last several houses we have rented were pretty big and the bigger the house the more stuff we obtained to fill up space. I know I can get by with much less, which is why we are even doing this. Right now it's all the drawers full of little things. I'm having a really hard time sorting through it all because I hate to get rid of it if I can use it again but will I? I mean how bad do I really need it? So for now I'm going to sort out all my drawer junk then move on to my next major dilemma of our clothes. As it is I have a hard time keeping my clothes neatly contained in a large closet so maybe downsizing and sorting into warm and cold weather clothes, keeping one in storage will help. Or I won't be able to reach my bed due to the clothes monster. Eh, we'll see.

   Here's some pictures below of our new RV. I'm going to have to get really creative with what little storage I will have compared to a sticks and bricks house but I'm excited to see what I can pull off with the help of my favorite store. IKEA.

My two biggest concerns at the moment are...
1) Where am I going to put a litter box for the cats?
2) Where can I place a tiny Christmas tree?

Mom & Dad's Bedroom

The girls bedroom complete with their own couch

Dining Area

Kitchen & Living

Fulltime RV family

'Our new home'

This is my dream vintage rv

   That's right , we are going to do this, we are going to full-time live in an rv. So here's what happened to lead to our decision. We have been living in Idaho when my husband was given a job opportunity back in Houston where I'm from. It was a good opportunity doing what he loves so we decided to go for it but we were in the middle of a rental lease making things more difficult. We bought a cheap vintage camper trailer that he could park on my parents back property and stay for free in Texas and the kids and I would stay and ride out a few more months of the lease until thanksgiving break so during our final transition to the south there will be less missed school for the kids. Our original plan was to buy Our first house when we got there but looking more into it we just aren't ready for that kind of debt and commitment and I'm so done renting.  With a lot of very stressful decision making we decided our best option is to buy a larger, newer rv that we can live in for at least a couple of years while paying down our debt.    This is our plan as of now. We have found our dream rv for under $27,000. It has a back bedroom for the girls with tons of space and storage for them. Plenty of kitchen and living space for us. We Will be able to park it at my parents for low rent to help them out a little. On holidays we will travel and have fun in our home :)  we will work on paying the rv off quickly as well as paying off our other debts. After the first two years we will decide then if we will buy a house or continue fulltiming. This will give us plenty of time to decide if and where we want to permanently put down roots rather than making a hasty decision we regret later.
   Originally I personally wanted to find a 1950s aircraft spartan rv to refurbish and live in but my husband really wanted something new so I caved for now. Although I fully plan on finding one to use as a guest house when we do buy a house one day. For now I will work on remodeling the little vintage rv the hubby is living in now for fun camping trips.
    I gotta say I'm really excited for this. It will be ours for a fraction of the price of a brick and mortar home. I've asked my kids ages 10 and 6 over and over if they will be ok living in a small space and they are excited for it. So here we go, living the small and simplified life. I'm packing my belongings to be stored and selling off furniture we won't need.

  Our vintage camper that I plan to paint and remodel 

with a fun mermaid theme.

Have any of you done this or considered it? I would love to hear your stories.

Halloween Projection Fun

  Halloween might just be my favorite holiday. I just love the decorating and costume planing and watching spooky movies the whole month of October with my family. 

  This year I am on a strict budget due to trying to ultimately save money. So I have been getting creative so we can still enjoy our traditions and have fun. Plus it's my daughter's birthday so the party must go on. 

  The other night I found myself on the website of the folks who made the spooky unliving portraits that come to life er... death right in front of your eyes and found that they sell both scary and family friendly Halloween scenes that can be played on a projector in a window from the inside of your house to create a really cool affect. You can purchase a DVD for $39.99  that can also be played on the TV or you can purchase the individual scenes to download for only $9.99 which is doable for me right now plus I already have this awesome movie projector that has lasted me several years now and I absolutely love. So last night I put a white sheet on my curtain rod over the large picture window in my living room and created this for just about $10.

So hurry and go check out all the fun videos AtmosFEARfx has to offer on their website. You can preview them all there. Some are cute and fun maybe a little spooky and some are really kind of freaky. 




This Optoma GT200 is the projector I personally have and it has been amazing. I love it because I can use an old iphone that I saved for playing movies from netflix, hulu, or download and it becomes easily portable to play off of a giant white sheet anywhere outside or on a blank wall inside and it is crisp and clear and like bringing the movie theater home. With the price of going out to the movies with my whole family it has paid for itself after only 2 movies on it because man has the theater and concession stand gotten expensive.



Disclaimer: Amazon affiliate link posted above for the projector
P.S. all excited thoughts and opinions are my own and I am not in anyway affiliated with AtmosFX I just really really like them.

STEM kind of Summer

   It's been a while since my last post due to being super busy with life. At the beginning of summer this last year my husband and I decided I would quit my job for a bit for several reasons but boy, have I been busier than ever getting things done and taken care of around the house and keeping up with the kids. We had a pretty great summer this year. My girls have been really interested in all things science lately so my 10 year old went to a Discover Technology STEM summer camp in Nampa, Idaho.

It was pretty awesome. She was able to build her own Kano computer and learn all about using and writing code.

 
    Also, earlier in the summer I helped my daughter apply for the NASA girls summer mentor-ship where if chosen she would be mentored by a NASA employee using Skype for an hour each week for 5 weeks. Well to our surprise she got it! Her mentor's name was Katrina and she was amazing with emailing us all kinds of information and facts and working with my daughter over Skype teaching her about the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math used in NASA today. #STEM 

It was an amazing opportunity that both my girls enjoyed and learned from.  With all the New Horizons Pluto fly by excitement I made myself this special skirt this summer. :)

DIY Upcycled Pantry

Since we moved, our new place doesn't have any kind of pantry for food storage so I was using a metal shelf temporarily in the kitchen until we happened by a nice solid unfinished wood armoire at the thrift store on sale for $50. By nice I mean falling apart but perfectly fixable. We measured it and went to the hardware store to get a new back panel and extra shelves cut.

Then took it home where I stained the whole thing with a nice cherry mahogany wood stain 

We then put on the back panel and the shelves then applied a wax finish on the entire inside leaving it with the stained finish. Next I painted the outside with a antique white after the first coat dried I lightly sanded some edges so the stain peaked out just a little, painted the second coat and lightly sanded those same spots again, let it dry then moved it into the kitchen. 

The doors took the longest just because of the dry times on either side for each coat. The backside I just stained then applied the wax finish and on the front side I stained then painted two coats with very lite sanding at the edges once that dried I applied the wax coat everywhere but where I was going to paint on with chalkboard paint. 

Our Review of Tinker Crate

   I gotta tell you I have worked hard the last 6-10 years getting my kids interested in all things STEM, Science, Technologies, Engineering, and Math. I will continue to do what I can to keep them interested because science is important. Heck, not only is it important but it can also be loads of fun. Also as a public school parent I believe it is important to continue educating my offsprings even when they aren't at school because, well, they are kinda my responsibility and all.

  Anyway back to the point of this post, I finally ordered my kids a Tinker Crate, it is a monthly science kit delivered to our mailbox, after debating on it for several months and seeing cool projects they had sent out like a hydraulic arm or a motor that the kids can build themselves with the help of a blueprint included.

Well we received our first one yesterday and the girls were super excited. Our first kit was a build your own drip irrigation system with an information book on the many different forms of irrigation used for farming. This kit had perfect timing because we recently moved to a new house and were able to plant our first real garden a few weeks ago. Now they have a small garden in their bedroom with sunflowers, watermelon, peas, and wheat grass. Hopefully their watermelon will sprout well and make a good replacement for the one I may or may not have killed in the big garden.

If you are interested in trying out the Tinker Crate you can receive $10 off here.











I was not compensated for this post in any way, These are my own opinions, I really just like the product from what I have seen so far

Update: less than a week later 

TEAcher Appreciation Craft and Printable

  It's hard to believe just how fast this year is flying by, my youngest is graduating kindergarten this next week and my oldest will be in 5th grade next year! My parents warned me about how fast they grow but you know, I'm still their kid so of course I didn't listen ; )

  Anyway my girls wanted to do something for the last day of school for their teachers so we went to Michaels and picked up a few supplies costing less than 8 bucks total.

  We got some small unfinished little crate boxes for $1 each and little wooden birds to apply for $1 and some paints and paintbrushes. The paintbrushes were the most expensive at $4 something but most of the craft stores including Michaels have up 40% off coupons on Retailmenot.com and you can scan it from your phone.

  The kids did all the painting themselves because that was kind of the whole point of this gift and picked out some teas to include. Click Here For The Free Printable Gift Tags

Upcycled Painted Dresser

   

My cheap old thrift store dresser really needed a bit of a face lift so I finally got around to sanding and painting it using a couple cans of Valspar Color Radiance in Blindfold. It's a really nice bluish grey then I sealed it with a clear coat and added a vinyl cut out I made. I really liked using Valspar for this project because the sprayer on their cans are bigger and didn't hurt my finger (Gah! pesky bones aging!) near as much as the little ones on other cans and made the task a lot easier. 

Home School Fridays

   So because we just moved to a very small town apparently their budget only allows them to have school four days a week so the kids now get three day weekends. Well that just didn't sit right with me and as I thought more about it the more OK I became with it because guess what? I am their parent and I can make sure they are still learning on Friday and everyday for that matter. It is not the sole responsibility of the public school system to teach my children. So here we are with Home School Fridays. I think we will mostly be focusing on science and space for the time being. We will learn about NASA through their fun website set up for kids http://spaceplace.nasa.gov and I will be ordering these fun Tinker Crates where it is a monthly experiment in a box delivered to your home where you explore science, engineering, and technology.
 

 

If you follow my link to TinkerCrate you can receive $10 off your first month.

Our First Garden

   Well we recently had to move and ended up going for a rental home in small town Idaho to be closer to our grandbabies. It was quite the adventure making the transition from one home to the next because there was a gap between when we had to be out of one and when we could get into the next. We had to move everything we owned into a storage unit and stay in our overcab truck camper with two kids, two dogs, and two cats.

The girls were so excited to be "camping" till we finally got the ok to move in. The house is beautiful and newly remodeled with a large upstairs balcony with a cat door 😻 and a huge back yard with an area already spaced out for a garden. We have always wanted a vegetable garden so we decided to go all out since it is spring now and we have the space and time.

There was plenty of weeds to pull out wich was pretty easy once we got the dirt tilled. 

Then we put up a short garden fence just tall enough to keep the dogs out and made enough rows in the garden to plant everything I could possibly want. We are starting some from seeds and some already growing from the store. Right now we have planted giant sunflowers, corn, tomatoes, various peppers, cabbage, carrots, spinach, onions, strawberries, small and big watermelons, cantaloupe, squash,zuhchini, and pumpkin oh and catnip on the other side of the fence. Like I said, all or nothing baby. I can't wait to see what we get out of all our hard work put in. 

Thursday Giveaway Link Up Party

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LINENSPA pillow review and GIVEAWAY

 LINENSPA, an online bedding company that sells everything from sheets to bed frames recently was kind enough to sponsor a giveaway and review of their amazing Gel Convolution™ Pillow by Z™ I received my pillow two weeks ago and have fallen in love. Now, I am one of those sleepers that surrounds myself with pillows. One under my head, one to cuddle and one between my knees. I love being surrounded by softness, but I must admit I have been a cheapskate when it comes to pillows and now I realize that was silly because this new pillow has honestly changed my sleep and my mornings. I usually wake up with a dull neck ache that through the day leads into a migraine, which I have been attributing to stress and work but now I realize all I needed was a good pillow because I have been waking up feeling wonderful. Seriously.


Here's what I love about this pillow.

• It has a gel infused memory foam in the middle of the pillow itself, The Dough® memory foam is infused with Z™ Gel for a cooler sleeping option. this pillow offers three different comfort options, and is encased in a Tencel® moisture-wicking cover to enhance the cooling effect.
• The Memory Foam Formula makes it the softest, doughiest memory foam that is both comfortable and therapeutic. Coupled with the zoned pin-core design, this pillow provides superior pressure relief to eliminate sleeping pain. The open cell formula means this pillow will maintain its original form and won't lose its shape over time.
• The pillow around the foam is super plush, down-like but hypoallergenic
• It complements any sleeping position
• The kings size comfortably fits myself, my cat, and my daughter who inevitably ends up in my bed. 

 Visit LINENSPA for amazing deals on your linen needs. Don't forget to check out their Sale section too. They have king size satin sheet sets for a total of $15.63 with coupon code SNOOZE15 and everything is Standard FREE 5-7 Day Shipping.

Now for the real fun. A GIVEAWAY! Enter below using the rafflecopter. The winner will be able to choose what size/loft they prefer for their new pillow.

a Rafflecopter giveaway