Letting Go

 

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the time has come. It is with sadness but also just absolutely massive amounts of relief that I have asked my brother to help me finish the van. I will be driving up to Wyoming this week to leave the van with him for approximately a month. In that time we are hoping the majority of the work should be done. Anything left should be smaller side projects, such as installing a small bookshelf or attaching hooks for a hatchet, or design work like painting the cabinets, etc.

This has been a long, long time coming. Unfortunately this project was just stressing my dad and I out SO much and putting rather wild amounts of unnecessary strain on our relationship. I began the conversation about transferring the project to my brother timidly, but quickly found that my dad and I were in total agreement. As much as it irked me, (little siblings somehow always seem to be better at everything don't they?), we agreed that he would do the job better, loads faster, and cheaper than we could ever hope to. The boy is a whirlwind. So, instead my dad and I set about the work of becoming friends again, just learning how to live with each other in peace and enjoying the time we have left together. We've gone hiking, to the movies, and we've been working on my side pet project which is a secret for the time being. 

With the stress of the project off my back I've spent my days researching better designs for the van and answering design questions such as how many electrical outlets, what kind, and where do I want them? It seems weird at times, but keep in mind this is still a type of house. Tiny. Very, very, very, very, VERY tiny, (About 78 square feet), but a house nonetheless. I've decided on a color scheme, which took ages as I wanted pretty much every color scheme imaginable at some point. And I'm planning out storage, what to take and what gets left behind, and finding ever more clever ways to store things in the kitchen especially.

I just cannot emphasize enough how much of a weight this was off my shoulders. As much as I wanted to do this for myself (granted, with help), it ended up being so much better for my mental health and emotional state to let go of that "need." Everything is so much easier now and suddenly I can find joy in my life again. And really, the bigger need is to finally be out there, living in my own space, on the road, out in the world exploring it all at will. This will get me there so much faster and happier and I am so excited!

 

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Here are several of the things we accomplished before we stopped stressing: 

I have finally been able to sleep on my new mattress and she is plenty comfy!

The new tires and windshield have both been installed.

We did get the heater installed, though with much cursing and swearing, and now it just needs the electrical hookups.

When talking with my brother we realized one of the next big steps is the electrical setup, so we were checking to make sure I had the big components. I knew I had ordered everything, however, when I checked our inventory in my notes and physically checked it in the shed, I had no batteries! It was a long process of digging up old receipt emails from a now out of use school email before I discovered that I had ordered them, and I had paid almost four grand for them, but the shipping number I had received told me the batteries had been successfully delivered to...Nevada?!?!! I panicked that my shipment had been diverted and stolen, but it was the weekend so there was nothing I could do...except stress myself out of sleep apparently. I'll keep this short and explain what they told me when I finally got my call to go through, which is that somehow their distributor got their wires crossed and mixed up shipping numbers. The good news was they still had my money because what that meant was my order had never gone through! It had been almost a year, but they put the order through and got the batteries to me within the next week.

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The file is a bit large, so if you would like to see a very nice timelapse of our mountain range, follow the link here to YouTube: https://youtu.be/mLNEomfOEy8

 Another gorgeous, fiery, sunset

 

A rather unique phenomenon, iridescent clouds!

 

 Just a happy little bee checking out the flowers!

 

 We were very lucky to have two nights in a row of lightning storms. But not only were there storms, on both nights there were three simultaneous lightning storms happening in slightly different directions!

 

💜