Jumbled Info and family time....

Today has been a really great day. I have learned alot and spent alot of time with some really great people. I have spent most of this day with Johns sister Tonya, who by the way I had only met once briefly. Tonya has 4 kids who are the greatest and most well behaved children I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I am, right now, at their home posting this. They live on a farm..well a sort of farm. They have something like 40 acres I believe is what Tonya had said. They have chickens, a goat, and a cute pup who is a great Pyrenees ( one of my favorite breeds). Let me tell you that I have become so much closer with Johns family than I had ever expected. They really are so wonderful. These last few days with his mom have made me feel so great. Almost as if she is my mom.(She is a much better mom than my mom ever was) I feel very comfortable around them including his dad. Johns dad, i have found, is a really good cook. Also, I was doing some math to see how long till we pay off the van. The van will be paid off by the end of the year...Yeah! I would like for us to be gone on the road trip before Jan 10. I really refuse to stay any longer. Even with a van this place seems to just suck us in. Ohh about what I had learned today. I learned how to can food and how to make freezer jam. We used blackberries. I cant wait to try it later. Everything is going great! Life with John is just as sweet as honey. I started a new blog-like on webook.com where I have alot of my poetry and the novel I am writing. We get to bring the van to his sister Tonya's as house to work on it. I am very excited about that. Gosh I need to get those pictures taken. Guess i will wait to take them when we get it cleaned completely out and ready for the laminate stone flooring. When I get home to the van today I will post the new schematics that I have for the van. Love you all.....

A night out

We have been living in our van for a couple of weeks now as you all know. We can definitely say that we love our van! We went out to the place on Big Creek last night and camped out there. It was a blast. We bought a small grill to cook on and a medium size cooler. I had decided to make kobobs but we forgot to buy the skewers, so I just put the cut meat and veggies on some aluminum foil and grilled it. Boy was it delicious. We caught a few fish last night as well. Though we just threw them back, no sense in killing them. To end the night, we ate and sang songs while John played the guitar, a nice ending to a wonderful day! After we woke up, I was going to fix breakfast of sausage and mushrooms but we saw a dog hanging around and felt so sorry for it because it was very malnutrition and extremely underweight so we fed it all the sausage. More about the dog, he is about (what i can guess) a year old, beagle mix, cute as can be and very well behaved and (what we like the best) doesn't have any bad habits like jumping on ppl or licking or barking. Well we took the dog home with us because we couldn't just leave it there to die of starvation or from anemia (from the infestation of ticks). He is very afraid of us leaving him for he cries when we both leave him alone. But all will be well. Its after 10:30 and we are tired and ready to lay down and watch a movie and go to sleep. Goodnight everyone!

Update 4 days in

We have officially living in our van now. We gave up the apt keys yesterday and finished cleaning it up. It has been 4 nights living in the van. There is allot of work to do in the van still. First, we absolutely have to get our bed of the floor and the only real reason for the is because we need that extra storage space. That is one of our first priorities besides oil change and tune ups and all that good jazzy stuff. This is going to be a short post because we are at his parents house and I don't really feel like doing allot of typing at 9 am. You know there is something that I have noticed about living in a van, its very easy to get up early in the morning, almost like an automatic thing. I have never really been an early riser..But as a van dweller so far my average time to wake has been around 7 and 8. Though this morning I woke up around 6 or so or even earlier not really sure. Well this is all I am going to post today. I will post more later today or tomorrow and give you real details.

Test Run

Yesterday, while John was at work, I went through all the boxes and organized every last thing. Everything has a place now. We had 3 boxes of kitchen supplies down to one small box, got rid of most of my books, and had one huge box of bathroom stuff down to just a small milk crate and a carrying case. After John came home last night, I had him go through some of his boxes of stuff. Then, we started to move everything into the van. First, we moved the large Tupperware box, that had all my art, sewing, mystic, and music supplies, into the van at the center of the bed so that we could use it as a table since it has a flat top. Next, went the box of books, the box full of board games, the box full of movies, and the 2 milk crates. After we finished all of that, it was about 3:30am so we made the bed and we were going to go to sleep but decided to go to McDonald's because we were starving. So after going to McDonald's, we sat in the van, talked and ate. When we finally laid down it was so wonderfully comfortable, and for some odd reason the bed seemed bigger in the van than it did in the apt, not just by looks but we had so much more elbow room. I have to say that when we were officially in the van (after going to McDonald's & ready to settle in for the night), the van felt like home, like we were meant to be there. It was comfortable, peaceful, and serene. We slept very well in the van much better than we had in the apt. Now having that said, when we woke up this morning at 8:30, it was so hot that John was soaked with sweat. Now we were sleeping in a parking lot outside of our apt. We didn't want any attention drawn to us so we kept the doors and windows closed. Except we cracked the pop open window and the sliding window half way to let a little airflow through. We are going to have to work on the insulation and coating the roof of the van, and just plain making it cooler during the day. Since we do have animals, it is imperative that we always have the van below 85 degrees and always with a good airflow (don't want to die from carbonation poisoning). Well that was our first night in the van. He is at work now and I am at the apt. All that is left is the animals stuff [kitty litter box, kennel, and the bag of there stuff (that includes their blankets and toys)], all the clothes (which he has to go through his and I have the last in the washer), the small box of kitchen stuff, and some odds and ends. When all those things are inside the van (as well as the animals of course) and put where they will not fall or be in the way, we will leave this life forever.

Van all cleaned out and ready to be moved into!!

Sorry we haven't taken any pictures yet. We have been so very busy disassembling the sofa from the van. But after 3 different tries, we finally got the damn seat out!! It took an impact wrench. Now the van is empty except for the front seats. We did some measuring yesterday and our bed fits in just perfectly and it doesn't interfere with the side doors. So tonight when John gets off work at midnight-30, we will be moving in the majority of stuff. Then we will move in the bed and the animals in the morning. Since John has to be at work at 11am, we wont have allot of time for moving stuff. Also, we chucked allot of dishes and odds and ends from around the house, about 10 or more bags of stuff. We would have taken them to Share'N'Care but we don't have enough time. We will be getting the pictures before we start to pack everything in tonight. Also, we will be taking more pictures of the van after we have everything in. Because of the fact that we lost all that money, we will not be able to build the sink and such till after the first. Therefore, the van will be very primitive with a mattress on the floor and all of our stuff still in boxes. Our next steps, after we move into it, are going to be : take out the carpeting and put in laminate wood flooring (we get a 10% discount at Home Depot), have it completely reupholstered, build a sink, build cabinets. We are also going to add a wash tub to the mix. We will be buying a small wash tub that sits on the floor about a 15 gallon size (so we can half sit in it) and a toilet that will go inside of the tub for compacting space. We will be attaching a wrap around shower curtain to the ceiling above and have a small shower over head. The shower will be a gravity shower with the water container on the roof painted black for heating purposes. Under our bed we will be making something similar to dresser drawers, except it will be made to hold milk crates and plastic drawers. We will be trying to go as light as we can. Because this is going to be our home, we want everything to be as original as possible. We also thought that tomorrow, when we are finished and out of the apt., we will go and take a look at some RV businesses and just take a look at the RVs and see if we can get some even cooler ideas. Compaction compaction!! That's what its all about. A flip top stove can be used as a counter top, with a fridge underneath and a miniature microwave over head and a coffee pot to the side of the stove. All nice and neat and orderly. Hopefully, we will be able to update this blog everyday or so and let you know how things are going and how we like living in our van.

From Bummed to Excited!!

Yesterday we went through several emotions from the completely hopeless to the exhilarated. A few days ago we lost allot of money, which was what we were going to buy the van in Colorado with. Therefore, we didn't have enough for the down payment. We tried and tried to get more money but it just wasn't happening for us. So on our way back from Heathers house, feeling completely bummed out and without a single shred of hope, we stopped in at a local auto dealer called Andy Yeager. They have 3 lots here in our home town. When we got there we saw a very awesome van, but they wanted 14grand for it...Well we're not rich but the salesman Bobby Wolfe, whom by the way I went to school with his younger brother, called the other lot that was up north of town. There they had a van for 2450. We were very excited. So we drove to that lot and low and behold, the van they had was the van we had been looking at, but we thought it was someones personal vehicle because it was parked in the far corner all by itself. Well they took 400 down and we will be paying 300 a month. Finally, we drove off the lot to his mothers house, took out the middle row of captain seats, and drove it to the apt. But on the way there, we ran into an old friend of mine from a few years back. His name is Loopy and he is a mechanic. So he will be helping us with all the work we will be putting into the van. This van is so awesome. It a '96 Ford Econoline with a very strong and sound motor. The inside needs a little help but we were planing on stripping it out anyways. It still has the original wood trimmings which are in great shape so we will be keeping them. It also has inside running lights which work. We will be taking out the bed/couch in the back to replace it with a wooden frame and memory foam bed with a down topper. Paying the deposit on the van gave us only 40 dollars until next payday. So for now we will be putting our mattress inside the van, until we can get the money to replace the floors and add-ins. We will be getting pictures today and hopefully will post them tomorrow. We are super excited. Tomorrow night we will be living in our van officially. Have a great day...I know we will!!!

Van time almost here....

Just a few more days till we leave on a bus for Colorado to pick up our new van! When we get back we will have 2 days to pack everything into the van and be out of this crappy apt. The air conditioner broke again and now the dryer doesn't want to work. I've been doing laundry all day, trying to get ready for the big move. My best friend Heather and her 3 boys came over yesterday and Heather helped me go through some old boxes. She took a van full of stuff home with her, including a brand new steam cleaner which I have no reason to have now. I hope she gets great usage out of it. I finally met some of Johns family. I just love his Mom to death. She is great! I hope that one day they will except me as one of their own. It would be nice to have a family that cares about you. I have never had that. My mother left me when I was 9 and I was tossed about from place to place. All my life I have been a burden to people. Finally I have found someone who truly cares for me. Who loves me for who I am. Who doesn't want me to change. I have found my paradise...It doesn't matter where we go or what we do...I would be happy to live in a cardboard box, just as long as I have John. The time we share together is precious. If I died tomorrow, I could say that I could die happy. Everyday I wait for him to come home, and everyday I miss him terribly. When he comes home it makes me so very happy to see him, to hold him, and to kiss him. I know it sounds crazy but we have the best times when we are together. We sing, laugh...oh he makes me laugh and smile!! Well in about an hour he will be home and we will be together again. When he is gone, it feels like an eternity without him...Time goes by so very slowly.