Enough to Go ON

Tomorrow we trade sleeping on the floor- the awkward bed of transition, for a chair, the bed of choice while flying the red eye. We bought our tickets and will be heading to France. Bags are being repacked through caffeine induced energy. All our natural energy has been left cleaning bathrooms and getting rid of the last of our precious to us- stuff.

We are leaving with 5 bags that contain all our earthly goods (other than the goods we have left in other people's homes). I can't tell you how GREAt it feels. Lighter. Less attached. Funny thing is, I know the minute we get off the plane and have to carry, pull, and finally sit on these priceless posessions out of exaustion, they too might be left behind. Thoughtful packing of all the things we need might go quickly out the window in favor of- How the heck can i make this thing lighter.....It's not going to rain today is it?

We will let you know how it goes.....from France.

a send off

Two weeks ago a bunch of friends got together to say goodbye and have a kickin' party. Kris and I missed throwing a kitchen party at christmas, but made up for it. Kris and Liv did a ton of work to organize and then perform. AMAZING!!! We have such great friends and felt so loved.

What is important in terms of trip is that it set us on a path of saying....this might be possible. Thanks everyone who came you bought our tickets to Europe. We raised $2400. A way awesome blessing when we were just happy to see so many friends in one place.

check kris out on www.songshareproject.ca

and liv on www.livimack.com

Thanks so much Terry for hosting. I'm glad I finally made it to another party at your place.

For Sale or not For Sale

Well, we pulled the plug. As we have dashed around cleaning from one showing to the next, walked around the neighbourhood waiting for people to leave, gone house surfing.....and most of all waited (pronounced waaaiiiiiiitttttteeeeeeddddd).

We have been happy to keep the house, or to sell it, but as we are rapidly approaching Sept we have had to ask, 'should we just wait till the house sells?' Which could be, today, tomorrow, or November. As we have prayed the one thing that keeps coming to us is....we gotta go and do this. So we are taking the house off the market tomorrow. Hopefully renting it next week.

This will be great relief to those who have been praying that we wouldn't sell. I won't mention names....kris. In fact how could i expect my prayers to be heard with the deafening sound of all the others praying 'don't let it sell'. So now....if we could all pray on the same page.....God how do you intend to give them the cash they need for their trip??

Here is some Great news...... WE LEAVE NEXT WEEK!!!!!!

which means we pack up EVERYTHING. LEAVE NOTHING.

if you need kids toys, garden stuff, furnisher (not the leather couches they are spoken for), Art, clothes, camping gear....COME BY.

Sunday-Thursday anytime......

PLEASE!

by the way...notice if you want to join in our leaving conversations you can now by leaving comments on the blog.

Customizing Gear

You know you are doing something serious once you start to need to design your own equipment. This has been an awesome part of our journey. There just isn't products out there that are designed specifically for what we need.....so I have been making our own.



As an inspirational word to all of you.....Customize. There is no one looking over your shoulder saying do it this way. Some of the best successes in life happen because you customize your tools to do something totally brand new. The hardest part of my customizing has been trying to figure out how to thread a needle on a sewing machine.



Here is what I have been making....


Because we need to travel light to bike in Europe, but the kids may need warm sleeping bags, the run of the mill bed liner that can be purchased for about $60 a piece wouldn't cut it. The kids needed something so that if they were freezing they could get something warm on top. Solution.....create a bed liner that is light cotton on top for warm nights, and quilted on the bottom for cold nights. Basically they fold up to a little larger than a store bought bedliner, but 1/3 of the price. The other thing is....why carry a 6ft bedliner for a kid who is only 3ft long....each of the bed liners is custom length so we don't carry too much fabric and excess weight around.


For inspiration.....customize your own solution for your journey. It will be a lot better in the long run than a on size fits all solution you can buy in a box store.

Cheers.

Living in the waiting

Be flexible....
Ya right!
I was speaking with my wise and venerable father-in-law about how we were supposed to be in Europe on thursday and our house STILL has not sold. All the thoughts, doubts and anger about not seeing what we've hoped for were brimming at the surface of my conversation.

He told me a story about his days as a young father:

"You know Kate, I didn't know I had any issues with anger until I was a young father. Our oldest son would cry every night from midnight until 2 am. One Saturday night I was so angry I just wanted to throw my son out the window. I then remembered that when I became a Christian I was giving up my rights to controlling my life. I just said "God, if you've made this baby and made him to cry then you need to give me a sermon" and, he did. I learned that I need to be like bamboo (He laughs), flexible yet strong."

So our update is that at this point we are not leaving for Europe on thursday. Our house has not sold and we are quite uncertain about what an appropriate "plan B" would look like.

We are living in the waiting.

K.