Our Big Life

 When life gives you a polar vortex, make snow cream.  I actually had never heard of snow cream until I was teaching middle school kids in North Carolina.  As tweens typically are, they were shocked at my ignorance of this Southern treat.   Fast forward too many years to the present, and my kiddos are smitten with snow cream.  Which is good because we are in a polar vortex.    I won't lie, when I heard we were going subzero, I was nervous.   But I figured we would all snuggle up and watch movies all day.  Then the DVD/CD player decided that it had played too much Harry Potter and there went my plans.  But it's all good we have snow cream.  And some insane person decided they should teach the children how to play recorders, so they have been practicing their tu-tu-tus and sounding like lovely little song birds all day.  We are warm, safe and happy, hope you are! Don't forget to turn up your volume!

I come from the Mike Rowe generation.  Dirty Jobs was an expose of America's dirtiest, grossest jobs and a tribute to the men and women whom had the pleasure of doing them daily.  The series aired from 2003 until July 2020 (really 2020?!). I obviously have mad respect for those men and women who are neck deep in some gross stuff.  Then there is this man, my husband.  He is an educated career man who loves his job, all music, his piano, guitar, good steaks and his family.  He has never been featured on a show with Mike Rowe.  One area of Full-Time-RV-Living we both heavily researched was the black tank.  For anyone who might not know, RV's typically have a tank for grey water, sinks and showers, and a black tank for sewage.  We read blogs and posts, articles, watched YouTube videos and spoke to RV dealers and friends and family.  So obviously we felt like poop tank experts!   And then we move in.   This little guy tells us when, "shitters full".   At the end of week on

Our first week of RV life is complete and overall I would say it was a success!  We brought too much. We purged. We put stuff away.  Realized it was too much and purged again.  And I think there is still more to let go.   We are learning to work with the propain furnace, wooops used a tank in 24 hours.  We brought in an oil heater to supplement.  We shrink wrapped some windows.  Most of the camper has an insulated sub floor, which is great for keeping toes warm, but those other spots need reinforced with rugs, thank you Amazon!  There are drafts, but dont worry family, we are nice and toasty! Cooking is going well enough.  I am a stove top cooker and it as taken me some window opening and fans to figure out how not to set the smoke detector off, but the family has been eating well.  The oven, I haven't been as successful with.  It smelled funny, so I turned it off.  It turns our there is definitely something wrong with it.  Good thing I am not a

 I just wanted to take a minute to introduce you to my new friend, Wanda.   She will be an integral part of our Big Life!  More to come!

For five and a half years I have been blessed.  Blessed to start my day off with hot air balloons!  My phone may have more pictures of balloons then my kids. We left the city late, and by the time we made it to camp it was dark.  A true dark.  We are staying with several other families at a church camp.  It is about 20 minutes from....well, anything.  5 years of city life has dimmed my memory of county stars, but these are something else.   Balloons and stars....hmmm I apparently like to look upwards.  P.S. ohh I nearly forgot.  I used my bright lights for the first time in 5 years P.P. and I also forgot about turning them back off.  I just want to apologize to everyone whom I blinded. 

 When we moved to New Mexico I didn't know what to expect from the environment.  I had been to Colorado, Northern California, Oregon, and all over the east coast.  I studied environmental biology extensivly in college.  However none of that prepared me for the vastness that greeted me as we drove through the state for the first time.  I remember my excitement when we finally made it to New Mexico.  Then the shock that grew after hours and hours and hours of driving through the great southwest.   Vast evolved a new definition. It took me almost two full cycle of seasons to get used to the landscape and the landscaping of Albuquerque.  Growing up where there were so many shades of green, made it hard for me to see the depth of colors, the complexity of life, and the beauty of the high desert.   However nearly 6 years later, my appreciation and enjoyment of the ecology has dramatically changed.    When we started exploring properties out side of the city we looked north, beautiful hil

Oh, 2020. If I am honest, for our immediate family, the past year was actually a year of blessings.  And I am grateful for them all!   I was given an opportunity to see my children's education in a completely different light.  I became better acquainted with the challenges of, not one but two, Dyslexic ADHD kiddos!  The stengths and failures of their public school.  I was  inspired to educate children in a different way, a way that honored their personal quirks!  I am a proud home schooling Mama!   We made the decision (it's about damn time!) to leave the city, in favor of slower country living.  While far from Green Acres, our little piece of Quarter Moon Hill is our high desert paradise!  We have been doing more then our fair share of day dreaming about what "homesteading " means to each of us.  If I leave it up to my husband and kids, we will be raising everything.  We took a chance on the crazy real estate market of 2020 and were rewarded with more then we could h