Getting Outside RV life

What I love about us buying an RV

is that it changed the way

we play in the everyday

We get out with our kids

and consider it essential

that

If we live 45 minutes from a lake

then we MUST GO

Because its the rule when you travel

to feel the mountains

and streams in your soul.

Taco Salad (family) recipe

I Was Mistaken

This writing is brought to you by these writing prompts, I posted about.

I realized I was mistaken when my I got out of the car at the lot for our house.  We were checking to see if any more work had been done in our 6 month wait.  It was literally just a hole in the ground but the lady across the street was quick to walk out to warn me of something.

She had been involved in a street-wide lawsuit against the developer of that neighborhood.  The land was no good.  The houses were all sinking, and basements had "fallen off" of houses.  I took her words in as a form of memorization to follow up with phone calls to basement repair companies she mentioned and to pass this info on to my husband still seated in the driver's side.

Damn.  I was so wrong for so long.  So wrong to be friends for years with the folks who it felt like were silently trying to "trick" us into building there too.  Our presence in that mess gave them a "credit" into a down payment grant program.  Basically our mortgage existing granted them 20-30K.

In the weeks that passed us cancelling that contract my stomach felt like it was falling out.  Which was the worst part?  Losing our house we had spent months designing?  Losing my best friend I shared motherhood and dreams with (including those damn houses...).

In short it was a lot of suffering.  It spanned years.  It prompted a spiritual death, and complete rewiring of emotions and beliefs.  So yeah, I was mistaken.  The fallout was so much bigger than I would have dreamed.  I still look back at how shocking that all was and probably still would not choose it even for the lessons learned and better paths life took us.

I saw a picture of a backyard in that state a few days ago on facebook.  An unrelated (to this mess) friend showed her 4 children, same genders as mine, playing under the trees naturally found there--identical to the back of the lot we had picked that eight years ago.  It's been that long, but I immediately felt that picture in my gut and heaved with tears for the lost hopes and dreams of us and our children.

Good morning.  Today I had to push and force    to go to yoga.  I'm grumpy.  That's all there is to it.  I'm trying to recover from emotional whiplash of so many changes for my friends, and maybe its frustrations of the whole family being together in the house 24/7.  Casey is taking the girls to omaha next week and at first i was mad and super jealous but i'm to the point i'm excited for them all to go, just to have less people and a little quiet.  They are going to have so much fun and I have jealousy that casey gets to be the fun parent while i am here keeping the house clean. But whatever.  I'm not a fun parent.  I just want to be by myself once in awhile.  I feel like I am the stable parent which means nothing to a teenager.  Lane wet my bed last night.  It is so frustrating.  Both that he keeps wetting the bed and that he keeps sleeping with us all night.  My grumpiness I generally blame on Casey but perhaps this isn't accurate.  I'm mad at his parents.  I resent them whenever he's grumpy or sleeps in too long or stays up too late or barks at us all.  It reminds me just of how unwarm and barky his mother is, and of course then I wonder if I did the right thing marrying into that.  But if I look at it as a balance scale he gives us a lot.  Financially he provides.  And he builds things, and buys things the kids are excited about.  But damn, there is 0 romance in my life.  And if I do something heartfelt for him (like the father's day poster yesterday) he grunts at it, refuses to say thank you or even look me in the eye.   He can see what this stuborness did to his brother's marriage but he refuses to try anyway.  Maybe its because he wants our marriage over because my breasts aren't the shape he wants right now.  He complains about my body, won't look at it, told me I was "lucky" he would still have sex with me.  As far as a relationship with he and I, there isn't one at all.  I take care of the house and kids for the unspoken contract that he pays the bills and gives me grocery money.  And that's it.  He stays up late with Shae to watch TV every night but doesn't care to watch anything with me.  He doesn't touch me or ever want a hug.  The hugs I have given him in the past month are me holding him with his hands loose to his sides.  If we ever fight he basically says he can't be held accountable for anything because of the emotional relationship i had online.  It's been 4 years I think since I have had any contact at all with that person.  He knew when it ended.  But he holds it like a precious thing he can obsess over.  I'm pretty sure he reads the things he spied on over and over and hasn't deleted them.  So I have forgotten what they said but he never will.  I don't understand it.  He gets all excited to talk to or know the news of any person in the ward or neighborhood he thinks is pretty.  Like Sarah Lym, he used to go talk to her (without me) at all times of day when he was out of school and studying for the bar exam.  I feel like he does that now, and when he is in Omaha he goes and builds stuff for female coworker alone at her home.  He has no expectations or standards for himself and no expectation of loyalty to me.  Just me to him.  And now he is taking our girls to her house for a week.  Nice.  I'm in for the next 10 years, but a relationship it is not. It's weird we're here watching the neighbors fight through for our marriage with no love in our house.  I dont want to go to cody anymore.

Stir-Fry (family) recipe

Indian Goulash (family) recipe

Kitchen DRAWERS

Trendy or not, I like drawers in kitchens so much better than normal side by side cupboards.  I gathered a few ideas of how they look in modern kitchens.

Photo by Blakes London - More kitchen ideas

Photo by Fireclay Tile - Discover kitchen design inspiration

Photo by MossCreek - Discover kitchen design ideas

Photo by Kitchen Interiors - Browse kitchen ideas

Photo by Epic Development - Browse kitchen photos

Photo by Royalty Construction - Browse kitchen photos

Photo by Michael Alan Kaskel - Browse kitchen ideas

Photo by Design Shop Interiors - Discover kitchen design ideas

Do you have a drawer-heavy kitchen and wish you didn't?  I've never had a lot, so I'm curious if there's anyone who regrets the trend.