Just up puttering about online, over a coffee/toast in our airstream cocoon… celebrating my girls birthday to boot…YAY!

I have to say it wasn’t looking so YAY yesterday, was a few million miles far from YAY in fact.

We had been staying in one of the motel rooms (since our replacement moved into the house on friday) in an attempt to try to get the trailer and ourselves organized.  Since it’s a holiday weekend, we had to vacate our room to allow for a “paying” customer.  Which wan’t a problem as we were going back into our cocoon… i for one was looking forward to that move.

Unfortunatly the happy anticipation of the return to the trailer day was totally marred by the fact that our trailer neighbor decided this particular weekend was the PERFECT weekend to have his whole damn family come to stay.

Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but these trailer spots are really small. There’s literally a car width between us, and no where to park. (i’m sure they were all WTF when they came home to our trailer parked beside them on thursday night too!).

In fact the first thing trailer neighbors wife did on thursday was come over to ask if they could encroach on our 5 feet of space and pitch a tent with 2 adults and 4 kids?? Fortunately my deb deb had the words to say…. uh not so much… and helped come up with a better solution.

It was a crazy day with us trying to clean rooms, vacate ours and get our stuff all squared away. Combine that with our exhaustion level, let’s just say it made for probably the combined crankiest day ever!

So there we are sitting in the trailer, exhaused and cranky feeling absolutely invaded by 15 adults and 55 kids….yiii haw, we having fun yet?

The way the neighbors parked cars forced everyone to squeeze between his truck and the front of our trailer to access their area. The area where all the action, food and festivities were happening. So let’s just say 1 person a minute filed by where we sit in fishbowl like fashion… making for an even more fish bowl like experience.

PLUS, Yea there’s a PLUS…. given that the whole damn family was there, he decided it’d be a great day to smoke ribs….. all day long, inches away from out windows. MMMMM good…. say the vegetarian neighbor girls!

We managed to run away twice get a little space and perspective. But were totally dreading the first night back in our home as the campfire was literally at our heads ….  expectations of a good night sleep were pretty low, and our spirits were pretty low as we sunk into bed.

Fortunately the goddess of airstreams was on our side. We cranked up the heater fan, snuggled together and couldn’t hear a word of the festivities beside us, not a word. We both decided we hadn’t felt that relaxed in oh…. since end of january!

(and errrr … the neighbors redeemed themselves by inviting us over to have some of those great (did i just write that??) ribs before we tucked in for the night)

As i closed my eyes, i looked around me and sighed… HOME SWEET HOME!!

There i was feeling all high and mighty, queen of downsizing, better that all the rest of you stuff attached mere mortals…

Well, guess what? It’s official, i’m also an attached person… go figure!

I was feeling pretty darn good this week…. three garage sales, few craigs list ads, and a couple of runs to the sally ann… was all making me feel that we were whittled down to the barest of minimum’s. Free as little birds from the ties that bind.

Well then came yesterday, the day we put all our stuff in one little room… a 13′ x 14′ room to be exact (not so little). And somehow, not sure how, the room is pretty much full. 

OY still got so much crap, where the hell did it all come from???? And how am i ever going to live a simple airstream lifestyle with all this stuff in tow??

One week left tomorrow…. man o man, hope we make it! The both of us are staggering about the place like two drunken sailors right about now… post another busy weekend. The only think keeping this old body alive at the moment is a huge bowl of fresh black raspberries topped with heaping scoops of ice cream.

We’re both feeling like marathon runners hitting a wall…. hoping the raspberries give me the will to breakthrough! One more week deb deb… we can do it, i know we can…. yea right.

We’ve promised ourselves a luxury visit to the Harrison Hotsprings spa/motel next week… hmmmm soaking in the mineral hot springs, massage, the works.

WHooooooHoooooo, we have an official end in sight…. and it’s soon! Can you hear me screaming from where you are internets? Whooooo Hoooooo

One gullible happy woman has the job, and we are out of hear right after labor day. She’s spent a little time with us for the interview phase, and she actually thinks she can do the work, and actually seems to be happy to have the job, so she’s been hired.

I can’t tell you how happy, excited, thrilled, and ecstatic we are. Getting back on the road again, heading off for further adventures of kim and deb…. seemed such a distant memory of late.

We’ll actually hang out here for a bit, they are allowing us to use one of the trailer spots, so it’ll give us some breathing room to explore some of the areas we never made it to; okanagan valley for one, vancouver for two, without the expense of trailer parks for now.

As soon as we are feeling ready we can pack up and head off to parts unknown.

Whoooooooooooooooooooo Frigging HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ya’all

Despite a full weekend at the no-tell-motel, we managed to escape for a few hours yesterday, yahooo!

We headed off to Harrison Hot springs, with a burger and beer out on the terrace as our destination.  Cause that’s the logical destination for two tea tootling, vegetarians let loose on the town, don’cha know!

A few weeks ago, deb deb and 1/2 of our only nearby friends spent an afternoon there and managed to finagle an afternoon in the pools/hotsprings. So as we were walking up to go to the restaurant, deb deb thought it’d be fun to finagle a pass and show me around.

As we were touring the pool area, who do we bump into but those same friends, lounging away poolside… looking like they own the place! Turns out they were also looking for some fun and a way to entertain Mark’s son who was in town, so actually got a room.

So we crashed their little party, headed up to the room and had a great evening overlooking the lake…. talk about sheer luxury!

My deb deb’s turn to be a little craggy in the morning, somehow when we are let loose from the compound, and end up hanging out with mark and abby… a little excess gets into the mix (my turn was the night before the garage sale… ugg). Though now that i think about it it’s probably a beef hangover!

One of the scenes down below was a wedding. When deb and i had arrived, there was a wedding taking place on the beach. An odd affair to me as on the periferie they were surrounded by friends and family, and beyond that every tourist in town…. not my idea of a lake side wedding!

As it was getting dark, we looked down on a lovely scene of the bride and groom alone on the beach (well alone but for a camera man!) taking the last shots of the lovely occasion, minus every tourist in town!

I’m totally addicted to blogs, have my 50 (yikes) or so favorites in a blog feed reader, so start every day off with a coffee and a read of any new content.

For those who don’t regularly follow blogs, blogging and following blogs might be hard to understand as an addiction…. for those that do, i know you get it.

One of my daily reads, wrote a great post on why she blogs, and put that question out to her readership. Thought i’d mull it out here in my space…. and hey, it’d make a great blog post wouldn’t it?

Initially i started airstream dreaming because deb deb and i decided we were going to strike out on this grand adventure, and i thought it’d be fun to write about it as we went along. We initially thought we’d both input, but as we go i seemed to have more of the yen for it… or maybe am just a chattier kind of girl… so it’s become the kimi show. (Course deb deb’s along for the ride… and pipes in via my typing fingers from time to time.)

I write because i love to write, and really wanted a journal if you would of the journey.

I write because it’s a great way to stop and smell the roses. Coming up with a blog post often starts by identifying something in the day that’s blog worthy. I know, I know… YOU might think cleaning toilets isn’t really blog worthy content. But imagine the pleasure and distraction it offered me while not absorbed in the thankless task to be thinking about what i could write about?

I think that the oxymoron about writing the blog is that when we were really busy with life, and travels, there really wasnt’ time to site down and expound on it. I hardly wrote at all on our journey across the US looking back through the posts. Am writting more now cleaning toilets… go figure!

I blog because it connects me to the blogging community. Meeting the talented Alison, was one prime example of how that virtual world can cross over into a real world and produce some great connections…. so absolutly love that aspect of it.

I write because you read, and you keep coming back to read….. go figure?

Wikipedia’s definition for the word DIVESTMENT: In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for either financial or ethical objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm. A divestment is the opposite of an investment.

Which sounds just about right when talking about downsizing or getting rid of accumulated “stuff”. I’m not sure i agree about it being the opposite of an investment…. feel very much like getting rid of half of our stuff in the garage sale was a huge investment in out future!

We are both totally beat up today, but  feeling good about getting it done. We are whittling down our life into a more manageable state bit by bit. That feels grand.

We still aren’t sure of what we will do after here, trying our best not to focus on it both feeling like just getting on the road, getting a little air under our collective feet before making any decisions. But we are bouncing general ideas around, creating a picklist if you like:

• I like the feeling of “what’s next”, so no matter what we do i’d still like to have that question in the air as part of how we live.
• Deb deb’s wanting to be a little more settled, airstream as part of life, but not our main and only home. I’m ok either way, love living in it, but also do like some space, so for me as long as it’s part of our life, then it’s all good.
• We both want to be close to our kids in some way, shape or form. Which is hard when you consider at the moment they are on opposite coasts, and opposite north/south’s. (Northampton, Montreal, California and Vancouver oh my.) At the moment west seems to be the part of the world that we are drawn to and west works for at least 2 out of the 4!
• Deb wants to work (well and our bank account needs that too!), so somewhere she can find work
• Ocean… i personally want the ocean close by. Mountains are nice, lakes are lovely, but the ocean calls to my soul. I’d absolutely love it if we found something on the ocean (probably a pipe dream), but a quick walk down the block would work as well.
• People…. we need people, community, friends around us. So somewhere we can re-establish that again…
• Interests… somewhere that we can both explore our various interests easily. Art classes, spiritual groups, reiki… all that good stuff that keeps you growing and flying through your life.

Originally when we ventured off on our airstream dream, the idea was to float around until we found that place and situation that spoke to both of us. It’s official that this place is not it… so onwards and upwards!

In yet another attempt to downscale our lives a bit, we are having a garage sale tomorrow…. witch is pretty redunkulous when you think we paid $1/lb to get that same ”stuff” out here…. well ya live an learn!

It’s interesting how you see your “things” differently after a year of living without them. There were certainly items i went, “ohhhh baby i missed you, i’ll love you for ever” over when i unpacked in april… but there were an equal amount that i went “ok bud, it’s time we broke up”.

So, despite the fact it’s an overwhelmidly busy time at the motel, and i have no idea how we are going to do a garage sale and clean all the rooms in one day… we are going to bite the bullet and get her done.

After all if we are going to airstream down the road, we need to travel a tad lighter!

So it’s official, we are being sprung out of no-tell-motel prison…. whooooo hooooooo!

After much discussion, re-discussion, and more discussion, it’s been decided that the boss men will find someone to replace us asap (like they can.. ha!) and we will pack up the airstream and hit the road. Did i say whooooooo hoooooooo?

Not sure where we are going, what we are going to do, but it all feels wonderfully like forward momentum.

We really thought this would be a great place and plan, gave it our best shot. Somehow the job on paper, and the job in reality seemed to be two different kettle of fish… or would that be apples and oranges? Certianly not ying and yang!

So packing up, and moving on to our next adventure, whatever that might be….. did i say… whooooooooooooooohooooooooooo ???

(note, despite the fact that it looks like i’m dragging deb deb into the airstream, she’s coming along willingly!)

So this no-tell-motel gig is a great study in human life. It’s kind of interesting (well interesting only if you are bored out of your mind and have nothing much to occupy it!) to be that up front and personal into how people live. And ya know… there’s nothing like cleaning up after people to know how they live!

We decided this morning that we love old people, and aren’t so enamored with vacationing people with kids! 

Old people tend to use one bed even if there are two in the room, hardly ever use the shower, and often leave tips. People vacationing with kids, tend to let the kids run wild outside while they relax in the room, leave lots of spillage, stain-age and trash, use all the towels/pillows/extra blankets… well i could go on. 

It’s not been scientifically proven, just “kimi’s theory”, but people in Jeep’s typically are the worst offenders. Not sure why, what profile fits the Jeep buyer, but somehow our worst of the worst of the no-tell-motel visitors… drive spanky new Jeep’s.

This morning we crowned the “Summers Worst”. Two women and 5 kids under 10 who stayed for two nights…. oh my god, they are officially banned from the no-tell-motel forever and for LIFE!

Having never been in a service type job, i’m endlessly fascinated in people’s ways of being with other people. Some people really care and give thought about their impact on the world.  Others… not so much. I personally have to say that there are some aspects of how i move in the world that could use improvement post this experience!

Not sure how we are going to survive the next few weeks… send your prayers would ya?