We all know by now how extremely random my life can be. Yesterday night I received an e-mail from my previous real estate agent asking if any of my neighbors wanted to sell their houses. Well, let’s be honest, I don’t know my neighbors or if they want to move. what I do know is that I hate my house and I am more than happy to get rid of it and get a new one. Hell, burning it down is even an option. You know what I mean?

I hate this house. It is just too much and I don’t have time for it. I need a change.

It has been decided between me, the husband, and real estate agent that we are going to sell this house. It will officially be on the market within the next day or so and pictures and a listing will be put up in about 2 weeks! This gives me time to clean, fix shit, put stuff in storage to reduce clutter, and sell unwanted stuff before people come traipsing through.

I have also found a couple of houses on Zillow that I plan to ask to see. EEEEEeeeeeeKKKKKKKK!!!! I love looking at houses. All the newness!!! I am so excited! Come on new house!!!

I totally laughed when I opened my e-mail today. You will not believe this. A couple of days ago I applied for a position as a test question writer for shits and giggles. I mean, it came up as recommended for me and I figured maybe the computer was on to something. Couldn’t hurt right? So I applied.

One of the questions in the application was about test question writing experience. Y’all, I was honest! I told them I had no experience writing test questions, but had plenty of experience answering test questions. PLENTY! Another part of the application required me to write a couple test questions and rationales. Not to brag, but I know a bit about test questions and rationales.

So I submit my application and forget about the whole thing. They would never hire me.

Come home today and check my e-mail. Well what do you know, they freaking send me a contract to work for them!!! They want me to write some test questions for other people to freak out about and stress over for the rest of eternity. Yes, sign me right on up.

So looks like I am a student, home school mom, wife, PRN nurse, and test question writer. I cannot believe this. I mean why not right? This could be a whole lot of fun!

P.S. – My exam/test question subject is science for anyone wondering.

Why? Why do I constantly do this to myself?!?! WHO NEEDS THIS MUCH EDUCATION?

Me, apparently the answer is me.

I should probably quit. I tell myself this every day. I should stop stressing myself and dragging myself through the ditches of the education system. I don’t need this kind of negativity in my life (the schools’ not mine). I could continue being a successful person just as I am now!

Or maybe I should just keep going. This is the last degree. No more after this. It will be enough. Maybe…

We are closing on a new house on the 18th and our current one will be sold on the 15th!!!! I can’t wait. I NEED a house y’all!!

P.S. – already making a list of all the improvements/changes I want to make for the house and furniture needs/wants!

Homeschooling in Five-teen easy steps:

1. Decide that you are going to home school your child because for right now this is what is best since you are considered homeless and he would probably have to start at a school only to switch schools once we have a house. It will definitely be better to home school until you have a local address and then no school switching will be necessary. Whats a few weeks? This will probably be so awesome we may home school forever!!!! (Homeless even though you are still paying a mortgage on a house you don’t live in, which is totally unfair!)
2. Sign legal documents making you responsible for the education of your child. Not only are you responsible for keeping him alive, but now your also responsible for teaching him everything. Oh goodness.
3. Sit down and panic because you have no idea what to do now because you thought the hard part would be signing up and didn’t fully consider curriculum for kindergarten. It’s fine. Everything will be fine. You do/did ________ for a living and went through _______ many years of school. You can surely teach kindergarten. How hard can this be?
4. Google what kids learn in kindergarten and make a plan as best you can. Whatever you come up with will be fine. Look both ways, hold hands when crossing the street, letters, numbers, easy peasy.
5. While google searching purchase whatever products and programs look and sound good to use to teach your child. The more fun it looks the better.  It’s best to find ones that include things they can do independently, games, or anything that doesn’t really look like learning. Just buy all the things.
6. This is the point when you find out you have to log and keep track of the hours you are in “school”. WTF! That’s right, you have to keep records of what you taught and how long was spent DAILY. PANIC. Now take some deep breaths and find an App and/or teaching program that will log the stupid time for you. Good, crisis averted, and now we can move on.
7. Its time to plan out all the field trips, extracurricular activities, and leaving the actual house things. Yay we get to go out and play all day! Not. It’s time to figure out ways to make outings educational, plan group activities, sports, etc. Then you remember you have no idea what is even in this town, where Walmart is, it’s cold outside, and you don’t know anyone. Nope, never mind, it’s too much, who leaves the house that often anyways? Get rid of this plan, instead when its time to go out due to necessity or because everyone is going crazy you can always add in some kind of random learning or we will just call it learning.  Just wing this part. Remember, you are the fun parent and it will all be fine.
8. Get on Facebook and join at least one homeschooling group. It’s a lot, just read little bits at a time. Who are these people? Her kid is 4 and speaks 3 languages and they are looking for a 4th language to start? Look at your child. Close Facebook.
9. Load up the electronics with all those fun programs, tools, Apps and such that you bought to do this teaching stuff.
10. Decide that electronics aren’t enough because it makes you look bad so you have to go to the store to buy all the things. ALL THE THINGS. Art supplies, flash cards, writing books, pencils, a sharpener, scissors, paper, again ALL THE THINGS. Load up that cart.
11. It’s time to start the teaching/learning process. Get your child and sit them down to get started with your amazing, spectacular, and fun plan. Day 1 will be AMAZING!
12. Day 2 and every day hereafter is where the real fun begins. This is when you realize your child is a monster. A crying, screaming, snotting, tantrum throwing monster. Uncooperative. WTF! Unwilling. WTF! This cannot possibly be your child right? Do/did they do this in regular school? Remember to question the next teacher you meet and then hug and thank them for their service.
13. Remember that murder is still illegal in all 50 states and you are too cute for prison. They also know that you have this child, he has a social security number, it has been recorded. Remind yourself that you love them even though you don’t like them right now. Regroup. Make a plan.
14. Decide that reading really isn’t that important, nor letters or counting above eleven-teen. Who needs to read? They already took cursive out of the curriculum so reading will probably be next. He will be ahead of the curve. Yep, he’s going to be illiterate and will have to take up a trade. It’s fine.
15. Figure out which school district your new house will be in and go enroll your child in elementary school because his life and yours depend on it.
16. Sit back, have a glass of wine, and know that you tried and in a couple days you will have some peace and quite. You won’t have to log time, fight over the fact that eleven-teen is really just eleven and the next number is, in fact, twelve, and five-teen doesn’t cover 14, 15, and 16, you don’t have to go outside or make going outside some kind of learning exercise, and he may not end up illiterate after all. He may even make some new friends! You are a good parent. You are making the right choice.

Sorry I haven’t been posting, but I got a cold. A cold from the cold? I think not. Matt brought this junk home from Colorado with him. I have pretty much been laying, watching movies with the kids, and sleeping. Hopefully I’ll feel better enough to really write tomorrow.

Love,

Racheal

P.S. – It’s going to snow again Tuesday and Wednesday. ❄️

I know tiny houses are all the rage right now. I’m going to tell you this stuff is for the birds. It’s a big sham. Trust me, I’m living this “dream”.

We are currently calling our 33 ft camper home until we can buy a house here in Montana. Now this sounded like a solid and awesome plan until the reality of space, privacy, tidiness, and an early Montana winter hit. Now in this 33 ft camper are Matt, myself, a teenager, a small child, and 3 dogs. Not an ideal situation after all. I will admit when this was considered I totally forgot about the dog component. NEVER AGAIN!

Space. Lets talk about the fact that we have very little space. We are always within a couple feet of each other unless we leave (Damn you Matt and your fancy job allowing you to escape!). Now if you are a cuddle person, a clinger, or someone who needs to be within touching distance of another person this would be ideal living for you. Not so much for this girl.

Now let’s just think about this, you are within a couple feet of one another and combine it with using the bathroom. If you like to listen to your beloved in the bathroom or are one of those weird couples that likes to keep the door open to chat no matter what bodily function the other is doing, this life could possibly be for you. We are NOT that kind of couple/family. I love you, but I don’t need to listen to you pooping under any circumstances and anything we need to talk about can wait. Unless serious medical assistance is needed you are on your own in that bathroom, and even then it might be iffy.

Privacy. We covered the bathroom and the lack of privacy there. Getting dressed is a bit tricky with the small space and a teen daughter. Thankfully she is a modest teen and wants to hide to get dressed. Us adults face the same modesty issues. The little guy will just strip anywhere and zero f*cks are given on his part (good for you buddy!). Let’s just say it can make for a very awkward situation.

Privacy for sex you ask? NONE. Yep, there it is. If you are the type of person that does’t need privacy or are living alone, this is very likely the life for you!

Tidiness. My favorite topic. My need for order, organization, and tidiness/cleanliness is going absolutely nuts. There is only kind of a place for everything to go because everything in here has to be multipurpose. This is difficult. Everything gets spread everywhere and everything is pure chaos. My thoughts daily are as follows:

• OMG, this place is disgusting!
• Why is EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE?
• Doesn’t this bother anyone else?
• Everyone GET OUT!
• That’s it, just burn it down. BURN IT DOWN! Problem solved!

Not only is everything messy but the dogs…..damned dogs. Why do we have dogs? Who in the hell wanted all of these dogs? I’m not going to answer that, let’s just move on. The dogs bring in the snow/ice and mud, spill food and water, and there is hair on everything, EVERYTHING. If you are a messy person or thrive in chaos and clutter, this life may be for you!!

The early Montana weather also threw a wrench in the works. I wasn’t counting on snow and ice. The dogs bring it in on dirty paws. We all bring it in on our shoes and pants. The hoses freeze and we lose water. Making sure it’s warm enough. Layers of clothing have to be put on and shed in this tiny space with no privacy. Well, you get it. Unexpected chaos.

Now, I fully feel that this tiny house/camper living thing would be alright if you are single /divorced or it’s just you and your significant other. No one else, period. Preferably with no pets, maybe just a cat (but then you have to figure out the litter box situation, yuck!) or something caged. If your mind just went where mine did, don’t think I haven’t thought about caging the dogs/kids/husband but apparently that’s frowned upon in all 50 states. You can’t cage people but a bird might be okay in a tiny house. I’ll let you pick what you want to cage in your own tiny home.

That wraps up this ramble from Racheal and there is my take on this tiny house movement. It might be the perfect situation for some, but I will tell you that it is not the perfect situation for this girl. Thankfully it’s not forever and will provide a whole lot of laughs for all of us in the years to come.

Good morning! I wanted to share some pictures from yesterday. After Matt blessed us with water we decided to go for a drive because it was so clear and sunny out. So enjoy a few pictures 😊.

After posting last night the fun really started. I went to flush the toilet and lo and behold the pee went down but no water followed. What the hell? What happened to the water? MATT!!!! We have no water!

So poor Matt had to wake up and tell me that the water line had frozen and proceed to fixed it. Then Turned on the faucet to drip all night and bam we have water again. Then comes this morning….

It’s sunny, but still cold, which is totally deceiving. Once again I try to use the water, and NOTHING happens. NO water. Alright, I got this. I go do what Matt did. Nothing happens. Still no water. Crap!! It’s frozen. Here is a picture of the water line and the icicles clinging to the camper.

Call Matt. “Who turned off the faucet?” He asks. It was the big kid, she thought he left the water on by accident (thankfully it wasn’t me this time!). Ooops, poor kid is from Florida too so we have no clue.

So looks like showering is out. Gonna have to wait for Matt to come home and fix the frozen hose and give us the blessing of water once again. I’m pretty sure this hot mess is my new winter look.

Behold the glory of Montana!

Oh that’s right, it was probably me. Why yes, Montana sounds like a great idea!! Let’s move there! I’m sure it will be Ah-mazing!!! The pictures look so awesome! This will be fantastic! It was all half planned out and sounded beautiful. Until it wasn’t. But it kind of was. But this is my life we are talking about so it had to be at least a little bit of a mess or it wouldn’t count.

Montana, Montana, Montana. I now live in Montana. Big sky country. Land of the……uuuuummmmm, I really don’t have a clue what lives here besides me and some other fools (I totally mean Matt here). Oh and snow, SNOW lives here.

I have been here a little over a week and already had a freak snow storm. Many inches of beautiful, puffy, frigid, white fluff while living in a camper. Don’t worry, we will talk about the camper living in more detail here soon. I’m almost positive this was Montana’s way of making me feel welcome and showing me what this life is going to be all about. 

So who thought this was was a good idea? It was probably me. Welcome to the next 5 glorious years of Big Sky Livin’. Maybe.