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.

Dealing with Questions

stewing on it..

There are lots of ways to make a decision. If we take the wise words of Treebeard 'don't be hasty Master Pippin, ' it seems inevitable that you will spend time stewing. Waiting for the best plan to emerge. Waiting for ideas to take shape.

Don't get me wrong this isn't a passive thing, waiting is filled with, asking questions, looking at different perspectives, looking for new doors to open. Stew just doesn't sit on a stove it 'gets married' flavors mix together, combine, become one. This is how an idea becomes a plan. Running off and just doing something legitimizes escapism where planning, reflecting, praying, turn an idea, a plan, a dramatic lifechange into something that allows you to pursue the things that God created for you to be and to do. Stewing on an idea, means you mix the idea with the other aspects of your family, of your thinking, of your dreams so they fit together.

We are in that stage now. Dreaming, fitting, piecing things together. We wish we could just...'go', just 'have something drop into our laps' but that only short changes the process.

Stew takes time.


rob