The Curriculum

1st day of homeschooling

I made the decision to begin homeschooling a week before the first day of the school year. (Mind you, my husband had decided during the previous school year, but I really like to mull things over when it is a life changing decision.) That left very little time to figure out what, when, and how to do everything. As I began my research online, I was quickly overwhelmed. The vast amount of information out there was daunting. Abeka, Classical Conversations, the Charlotte Mason approach, homeschool groups & co-ops… there was so much information that simply choosing where to start and what to teach felt like one of the most difficult choices I had ever made. A lot of it looked exciting and promising. I narrowed down a couple of methods and a few curriculum brands, and then came the cost realization. I was shocked! I had asked a local church about their group, which used a curriculum I found quite impressive. The price, however, threw me for a loop. I never imagined the cost of homeschooling my children could be comparative to college tuition. That is exactly the opportunity cost that came to my mind when I heard it. There had to be a better way.

Lessons on Easy Peasy All-In-One-Homeschool

As I weighed this over in my mind, I reflected on a time long, long ago when all children were educated in their own home for the most part. Why was I allowing doubt to steal my peace? I was after all college educated. Surely I was capable of teaching my own child what I had learned in junior high. I just needed to come up with some lesson plans, and I needed to do it quickly. That’s when I found it. A complete, free, online, christian homeschool curriculum called Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool. It had 180 lesson plans for preschool through high school for all the core subjects as well as specials and electives. It seemed like everything I needed and all for FREE.

Art – Ancient: cave painting lesson

My family has used Easy Peasy Homeschool for three years now, and we love it. The site was updated this last year with a new, easy way to access and track lessons for both the parents and kids; although you can still access everything the same as before, which I like to do on occasion if I want to see another program year or course description. Another thing I like about this curriculum is that you find so many free resources out there, and you can use those to supplement when wanted. You have the freedom to add, subtract, or alter the plans in whatever way you wish to suit your family’s needs and preferences. It is a wonderful foundation.

Geography & Cultures: eating tortillas & guacamole they made from scratch

I personally am a saver, not a spender. I really hate debt, so the last thing I want to do is send my children off to college on student loans. I save money whenever I can so that I can put away money for their college educations as well as for our own retirement. Having this totally free resource has been an enormous blessing in our lives. I am extremely grateful for the ministry this homeschooling mother has provided with her website. For those of you who can afford it, she does accept donations. I’d say it’s a worthy cause for what you get, as she does a wonderful job keeping her site updated and speedily repairing any link issues that arise.

Bible – Old Testament: field trip to Ark Encounter in Kentucky

What began as a sort of nerve wracking decision, quickly turned into my new favorite part of each day since – when I come together with my children as we all continue learning and growing in a fun, easy way. Teaching our children doesn’t have to be expensive, and it doesn’t have to be hard. Easy Peasy offers everything you need free of cost and it is truly easy peasy! We’re thriving with it, and you can too!

Science – Zoology: field trip to Bear Country USA in South Dakota

This school year, we sold our house and started full time RVing. It was a cinch to turn our homeschooling into roadschooling with Easy Peasy. Now in addition to our online lessons, we enjoy actually showing them places and things about which they’ve learned. It’s a fantastic experience. Keep a lookout for us and maybe we’ll see y’all down the road!

The COVID-19 Pandemic

The word “unprecedented” seemed to come out of nowhere and quickly become overused. Unprecedented is defined as “never done or known before”.¹ There is no arguing that word perfectly fits the time in which we are now living. Never before in history have countries across the world been more or less shut down on this scale from a worldwide pandemic. Satellite pictures show past and present shots of once bustling places eerily empty and still. Life as we all knew it seemed to virtually change overnight.

My family had reservations at a Tennessee state park for a long weekend with friends. All of us had been looking forward to this vacation as it had been about half a year since our first caravan camping trip together. Traveling with another family and staying at the same campground had been so much fun that we were all excited to do it again while checking out a different park. We had neighboring sites, and we had planned our daily menus to share meals as well as the cooking. As the time drew closer, we all realized that even though it would be a huge disappointment, this trip would have to be postponed indefinitely.

News was spreading that more and more states were closing their parks to day use and/or overnight campers. Although I had received an email stating that Tennessee state parks were remaining open, it seemed imminent that they would eventually follow suit and close their parks as well. We didn’t want that to happen while we were actually at one of them. The thought of packing up, heading out, unpacking, setting up, and then being turned out – during a rainy weekend, was not welcoming. And so it was agreed, we made the cancellation.

Officials were recommending people not travel. Larger areas in the states were already beginning to “stay at home” and “shelter in place”. There was talk of possible travel restrictions. People began stocking up and store shelves began to empty. No one was sure how far or long restrictions would be put in place. I seldom pay attention to “the news” anymore as it seems to have strayed far off course from truthful, factual journalism into strongly opinionated and even imagined sensationalism. (My apologies to any journalists out there if you find offence, this is merely my general, overall opinion; and I hope you are a genuine fact finder and reporter!) In times like these, you feel the need to stay informed. So we did our best to remain calm, tune in for updates, and do what our government leaders asked.

Toilet paper & paper towel aisle at Walmart

During the onset, we were at a family owned campground in a covered site with a screened in porch. If we had to stay in one place for the duration, it seemed a good place to be. This is where we would weather the storm of a worldwide pandemic, possible food, soap & toilet paper shortages, and the unknown.

Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park closed down due to COVID-19

In mid March, over a third of all states had already closed their state parks. Tennessee state parks did wind up closing, not only to campers, but also to day visitors. I later spoke to a lady whose family was at Rock Island State Park (where we had planned to visit) and were asked to leave when the closure happened. Schools, of course, had shut down as well as many businesses. Food establishments shut their doors to dine-in customers, but many began offering curbside pick up and even delivery. Now places and employees had begun to be divided into essential and non-essential with non-essentials closing, being laid off or furloughed. With so many children and adults at home, unemployment soared.

Barton Springs Campground closed their day use area, but they waived their stay limits to encourage campers to stay in place

April brought extended closures and increased restrictions as well as mixed messages about the corona virus. I tried to glean the information for truth, prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. We continued our homeschooling lessons as if nothing had changed. I was grateful that we already had that routine in place and that my kids’ education would not be interrupted or thrown off course by what had ultimately closed public schools for the remainder of the school year. I found that to be a two-fold blessing in that it also kept our minds occupied with good things instead of idle time.

My youngest child happened to be reading the book Pollyanna for her English Language Arts course as all this has been transpiring. If you have never read the book or watched the movie, it centers around a young girl named Pollyanna who plays “the glad game” and shares this game with almost everyone who happens into her life. The gist of this game is to always look for a reason to be glad in every circumstance. What a timely message it has been. I highly recommend reading this book as I found it even better than the Disney movie I had watched as a child, which was also uplifting.

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

I Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV

In times of trouble, it’s beneficial to count your blessings and keep a grateful heart. I am thankful that although my husband has had to leave our home for his “essential” work, our income has not been affected. I am extremely grateful that when we sold our home and bought our travel trailer, our remaining mortgage was paid off and we became debt free. I appreciate that as a homeschooling family, we were unaffected by mass public school closings and were able to maintain our normal routine. I am glad that when so many full time RVers were being displaced due to parks and campgrounds closing, we happened to find ourselves in a secure site. I am joyful that even though churches were asked to close their doors and parking lots, we have been able to congregate online for worship and the Word.

For months prior to all of this, I had been meditating on how busy lives are in this day and age. Often both parents work, children go to school and afterward are carpooled to a variety of lessons and extracurricular activities almost every day of the week. I have known families that eat fast food dinners in the minivan from one stop to the next. Homework is done the same way, if not late at night or early in the morning before school. Bedtimes are late, mornings are rushed, and weekends are a blur in what many see as a full and active life. Even when we are intentional, it can be hard to say “no” or avoid becoming overextended in our schedules as well as our finances. Most people long for a slower time like the “good ole days”, but as nostalgic as that seems, it can seem equally impossible. And yet without intent, look what COVID-19 has done. It has brought families home together. We are eating home-cooked meals. Our busyness has been replaced with leisure time. Time seems to have slowed down.

Do I want to get back on the road again? Yes. I really do. I would like a change of scenery, and I am looking forward to our next RV move. All good things come in time as they say. So until then, I will be patient and I will do my best to enjoy every moment with my family; because I believe it is a gift. For now, we are simply living… learning… and loving. Later on, we’ll see y’all down the road!

¹ lexico.com/en/definition/unprecedented 5/3/20

The Grey Wolf

Our “home” at Fall Creek Falls State Park October 2019

We started our full time RV life in a used 2011 Grey Wolf Super Lite 28BH bumper pull travel trailer. The exterior had corrugated sides with one big slide and an awning. The interior had a master bedroom, living area, bathroom, and corner bunk. It wasn’t everything we had wanted, but it quickly became our home.

The master bedroom had a queen size bed with three storage compartments overhead. We had ordered a memory foam mattress for it, which was money well spent! There were his and hers closets on each side of the bed with nightstands. It was designed to have a turn around TV serving the MBR or living area, but our TV was so large that it had to be kept facing one way. You could access the under the bed storage by lifting the foot of the bed or pulling out a large drawer at the base of the entertainment wall in the LV. You could enter or exit the room on either side, but the end of the bed went all the way to the wall. Curtains could be closed on each doorway for privacy, although they didn’t offer the same privacy that pocket doors would have offered.

Master bedroom

The living area had an entertainment wall, futon couch, U-booth, and good size kitchen. The wall separating our master had a TV, entertainment system with indoor & outdoor speakers, cabinets, and an extra large, deep drawer. Behind the couch was a shelf where we displayed different things to make our camper more homey like homeschool projects, art, or a tiny Christmas tree. The couch wasn’t really comfortable to sit on, but our oldest dog & youngest daughter both enjoyed sleeping on it. There was a short storage space underneath that was accessible from the exterior. The U-booth fit everyone comfortably for meals and homeschooling. During lessons, there was room for three of us to sit there with our laptops and still have writing space. Storage beneath the booths was ample. We kept all of our school and home office things under one side, extra kitchen appliances and items under the other side, and a few miscellaneous things under the back leaving room to stow away everything loose when we were on the road.

One of my favorite things about this particular layout was the kitchen counter. Instead of the common angle by the door, ours had an L-shape counter. The double sink was square against the front wall under the window supplying natural light as well as a light directly above mounted under the cabinets. This sink placement allowed all the side space for bare counter. That was like a slice of heaven. This good sized rectangular area of counter was accessible from three sides making it advantageous for many uses. To the right of the sink was a three burner gas stove top. The wall behind the stove top had enough space for a line of command hooks that held spatulas, spoons, ladles, measuring cups/spoons, and a long lighter as well as enough counter space behind for bottles and jars to line up. The Suburban oven was small, but once we learned how to successfully light it, it served its purpose. Above the stove was a small microwave and above the sink was a good amount of cabinet space, but it was difficult to access. You had to lift the cabinet up and hold it with one hand while using the other hand to retrieve and put away items. We tried to replace the hardware so that the cabinet would stay up on its own, but the wood could not handle the stress, so we had to go back to the original hardware. The previous owners had installed an under the cabinet light underneath the microwave that better lit up the area for cooking. They also had installed pop-a-plate and pop-a-bowl dispensers that proved to be a very handy space saver. Underneath the sink was a tall cabinet door to an area twice that size where we kept our food stuff, and under the empty counter space were two deep drawers for utensils, towels, oven mitts, etc. To the right of the stove was a small freezer and refrigerator, and I mean small. It was almost impossible to fit enough food in that refrigerator to feed our family for a week. In fact, I could not do it.

Kitchen view (counters still wet from cleaning)

The corner bunk area had a single bed on top and a double bed on the bottom. It was made with access to storage underneath, but the mattress we purchased for it weighed too much to do this easily. That storage area did have exterior access though. There was one drawer mounted underneath the top bunk and one closet hanging on the back wall, which our daughters shared equally for their clothing. I should also mention that we purchased a mattress for the top bunk. We felt since we were going to be living full time in a camper, we should invest in better mattresses in the beginning. Upon reflection, I would have waited to make these purchases after living in the camper for a while. I recommend this because if you decide to change campers for any reason, mattress sizes are NOT standard like they are in houses. There are so many different sizes that chances are, your mattresses will not fit in your next RV home.

Corner bunks

Across from the girls’ bunks to the left of the U-booth was our sink and medicine cabinet. I really liked this layout for one simple reason. It is not easy for a family of four to share one bathroom, especially after living in a house with multiple bathrooms. This set up allows someone to be able to use the toilet or bathe, while someone else brushes their teeth, and someone else could be washing their hands at the kitchen sink. It greatly reduced our getting ready time in the mornings to have two areas where people could prepare for the day. There was a cabinet under the sink that had enough room for three baskets – one for each of our children and one for my husband & I to share. This is where we kept our toiletries. That left the two-shelf medicine cabinet free for strictly first aid items.

The bathroom housed a toilet and tub/shower. I really enjoyed the amount of natural light that came through the skylight above the shower. Having the tub made it nice and roomy to bathe, but there was little space to put your soap & shampoo. We all had to adapt to using the same kind as there wasn’t room for multiple bottles. It was important to open the sky vent when showering to avoid steaming up the bathroom and camper. It was within reach from the floor or the tub so even the kids could turn the fan on by themselves. We kept the towel bar the previous owners had installed, and I added command hooks on the walls and door for our towels as well as a broom & dustpan. There was a full length mirror hanging on the outside of the bathroom door which was not only functional for self reflection, but it helped give an illusion of a larger space.

We made this camper our own by painting most of the brown cabinetry a white with light gray tones. Not only did this brighten it up, it also made it feel more spacious. Good friends of ours that have a camper of their own were complimentary of how bright our interior lights were which also helped. Although I originally had wanted a larger camper, the small size grew on me for two reasons. I found it convenient that no matter what I was doing or where I was in the camper, everything was still pretty much in reach. If we all sat down to dinner, it was no problem to stand up and reach over to get something that was forgotten. The best thing about it though, was the time spent together. When you put four people in a space that small, the only really private escape is outside. This made our evenings together after school and work full of quality time that will be lifelong memories. I will always remember this small space fondly because we stuffed it full of love.

The Stuff

Moving out of a house and into another house is very different from moving out of a house and into a camper. When you move from house to house, you typically just box everything up and then unpack it. However, when you move from a house to a camper, you know from the beginning that not everything is going to be moving with you. This type of move necessitates a whole new way of thinking.

We were moving out of a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house on about 1/2 an acre and into a 28 foot travel trailer. Clearly, we couldn’t take it all with us. We had to start taking a good look at all the stuff that was in our house. Initially it was all this stuff that made our house so full that we felt we needed to find a larger one to move into. Dave Ramsey talked about “stuffitis” in his first book Financial Peace. Nathan and Marissa talked about the constant need to get rid of stuff with their donate box on Less Junk < More Journey. This was it. It was our time to let go.

We divided all of our possessions into three categories: take, store, and sell. If it was essential, needed or used on a daily/weekly basis, or brought us joy & there was room for it – we would take it with us in the camper. If it was sentimental, seasonal, or brought us joy & there wasn’t room in the camper – we would pack it away in storage. If it wasn’t essential, sentimental, and it was replacable – we sold it.

Once we had the criteria for making our decisions, we dove into our rooms and closets of stuff with determination. It’s surprising to realize how much of the stuff you have in your home that you can really do without. Clothes, books, music, games, home decor, sports equipment, holiday decorations, etc. were pulled from dressers, shelves, cabinets and closets for multiple consignment sales in the area. Furniture and electronics were listed and sold on Facebook. You name it, we were selling it. Our stuff was turning into cash, and it was freeing!

The camper was packed with clothing, toiletries, school supplies, cookware, dishes, and groceries along with a couple of non-essentials for each of us. It was neat and tidy. We even had storage space that we didn’t fill when we first set out. Everything there had a purpose and a place. We were keeping it simple sweetie!

We began to fill our storage unit with things that were seldom used in the back. The walls were lined with the pieces of furniture that we kept. Boxes were labeled and piled as high as possible. Dressers were put toward the front containing seasonal clothes for easy access. It was shocking to see how quickly it filled up even after we had sold so much. In the end, we had a 10×10 poorly packed unit as well as a 10×30 climate controlled unit which had been organized and reorganized. Still, it was a lot less than when we had begun this journey, and we are continually trying to whittle it down even more. Our current goal is to eliminate the 10×10 unit and consolidate our remaining possessions as we persist in selling off our stuff.

As we have started living in our camper, we are discovering what works best for us. We may wind up getting a slightly larger camper. We may be able to reduce the size of our storage units from two to just one that’s even smaller than our largest. Who knows? We can tell you this. When the year started, we were looking to increase the square footage of our home by 500 to 1000 square feet. Now we have less than 625 square feet of living and storage space. The more we let go, the more free we feel!

The Decision

Sometimes it’s the smallest decision that can change your life forever. – Keri Russel

Our journey began one day when my Mom, my sister, and I were doing homeschooling in our office. My Dad happened to be home from work that day. My two boxer dogs were on their big beds in the middle of the floor, and my Dad was at his desk. The 13 x 13 room also contained three additional desks for each of us to do our schoolwork as well as a piano for music lessons and a treadmill for exercise. My Dad commented on how our office/classroom was too small, and that we needed a bigger one. That one comment started it all.

From that point on, my Dad was on a mission to find us a bigger house with more space. After months of viewing countless houses online and viewing some in person, we were no closer to finding a new home than when we began. One morning, I had an idea that we move into an RV. I discussed it with my Mom and she liked the idea. Later that day, my Dad came home and told my Mom that he had a crazy idea and to hear him out. He said that he thought since the housing market was hot for sellers, we should sell our house right away and buy an RV in which to live or even travel for a while. He had done some research and looked into it, and a bunch of people were living in campers and RVs full time. My Mom asked my Dad if he’d been talking to me. She was intrigued by the coincidence that we had both approached her separately with the same independent idea on the same day.

After months of searching and viewing houses without progress, we were open to suggestions. We had gone through multiple ideas, and this one just felt right. We all loved the thought of living in an RV. We went from looking at houses, to looking at RV/campers. We even went out of town and looked at some RV dealerships. Almost every night we would watch a full time RVers episode on YouTube. Our two favorites are @Less Junk, More Journey and @Knorpp and South.

After listing our house, we got an offer from the first viewers. After a bit of negotiation, we signed a contract. We got ourselves in gear because the sale was pending; and we needed to buy an RV, empty the house, move into the RV, and begin our new adventure!