Preparing for Long-Term Travel – Slowly Checking Things Off Our To-Do List

The last two weeks have been extremely busy! We have been crossing things off our To-Do list left and right. It’s amazing how much you can get done when you start to feel like you’re running out of time! We have been feeling the weight of our self-proposed deadline hanging over us lately. Our list is so long and seems to get longer every day.

So Many Clothes!

It started to get cold here, in the Cincinnati area, a few weeks ago. We decided that this would be a great time to focus on our home and start getting things in order. We began by going through clothing. I decided it best to start with the clothing already in the little girls’ room. We emptied out all the drawers and the closet so we could start fresh as we put things away. We keep a large tub of out of season clothing too. This is where the heavy sweaters and warm pajamas go in the summer. The girls tried everything on and bagged up the things that no longer fit. We made piles of the things that did fit. If they were in good shape and the girls liked them, we put them away. The summer-only items that made the cut were packed away in the large bin. It was mostly shorts, bathing suits, and a few dresses. By the time we were done, half of their clothing was gone.

Isabella had such a huge wardrobe that we chose not to replace anything at this time. She loves my capsule wardrobe so much that she has decided to start working toward her own as items wear out or are outgrown. This will lead to her having the perfect small coordinating wardrobe for travel.

Octavia wasn’t left with as many items. After seeing what she had, I bought her a new sweatshirt and a pair of black leggings. We have a close family friend that is bringing her some hand-me-downs to fill in the gaps. I have the framework for her perfect travel wardrobe on my phone. I have been working on it for a while and will gladly share it if anyone is interested.

We sorted out all the clothing that we have stored in the basement over the years we have lived here. There was a lot of it. We sorted it by sizes. We want to hold onto the things we may need over the next year as our children grow like weeds but we also need to start downsizing things as we can. We started sorting through other things too and actually managed to list some items on the Facebook Yardsale.

Painting, Painting, and more Painting!

We had started painting our house back in September but I wasn’t able to help after my hand injury. I didn’t want to make Michael do it without me especially since I had planned to do the majority of it myself. We are hosting Thanksgiving and wanted it done before that. We managed to finish it all this week. Michael spent one day working on the kitchen. Ivy and I spent an entire day prepping and painting. Michael and I finished the rest of it by working on it after work a couple of nights.

We put up new plate covers for the outlets and switches. We picked out the paint color for our cabinets. We started looking at countertop options too. We are doing them after Thanksgiving. We ordered a dog ramp for the suburban. Michael installed the new radio in it too. I finally found a workbook that Isabella enjoys for science class.

Which Camper/RV is for us?

We have further narrowed down our camper options too. Every time we decide that we want something or don’t want something our options decrease. This is something that has been happening very slowly as do more research. When we started we didn’t even know which type of RV we wanted. We narrowed that down to a travel trailer early on. We know our vehicles towing capacity now which narrows the options considerably. We know that we want to be under 35 feet and over 26 feet. We need bunk beds for the girls. We want at least 1 slide to give us extra space.

It’s been a productive couple of weeks but unfortunately, I didn’t spend any time blogging. I will do my best to try to get back on my goal posting schedule of Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Trip Countdown: 296 days to go! (Ahhh! We’re under 300!)