*shake the dust off*
Well, look who's here! It's me! Who knew?
It's been so long since I've done a blog post and I thought now is the perfect time to blow the dust off the ole computer keys and get reacquainted. I know a few of you may have followed some of my posts years ago, and many of you reading this will likely be new to me and who I am.
Let me reintroduce myself 🙋 I am Jeanette Macleod, of the Clan Macleod and yes, there can be only one. Give yourself a pat on the back if you got that 90's tv reference! Anywho, I'm in my late 30's 😨 and have two redheaded daughters. I'm happily married to Kevin since 2008 and we are beginning a pretty adventurous adventure...
As the story goes... before Christmas a good friend of mine texted the celebratory news that she was going to be GETTING MARRIED!! How cool is that?! THEN she asked if I would be a bridesmaid! Whoa Nettie! 37 years old and asked to be a bridesmaid?? I thought my ship had sailed, but I eagerly agreed! Then we started talking details. You see, Angie lives in Prince Edward Island, Canada. Kevin and I started discussing what this would ACTUALLY look like. Would it just be me? The whole clan? If all four of us were to go, we were looking at a $10,000 holiday. We also talked about driving and AirBNB.
Christmas came and went and as we were playing around with scenarios, Kevin looked at me and asked, "Why are we even here?" Uuuuhhhhhh. You see, I've homeschooled the girls for the last three years (and LOVE it) and our Young Living business has enabled us to both work from home (crazy awesome, right?). Nothing in particular has really been keeping us in Red Deer except our friends and the extracurricular things like dance and piano.
In February, we really started considering upgrading our truck and fifth wheel to something we could "full time" in. We prayed to God HARD about it and surrendered to Him that he would lay the path we were meant to take. We said, "God, open the doors if they're meant to be open and close the ones meant to be closed." Kevin put our bumper pull trailer on Kijiji one Sunday night; Monday evening it sold.
The next few months we focused on selling our older truck and looking for the upgrade. We also looked for a fifth wheel and spent a lot of time scouring used ads to find the perfect one for our family. Needless to say, it DID all fall into place. We've had a few curve balls and have spent way more money then we anticipated to get properly outfitted! After being on some Facebook communities a while now I've come to realize people prepare for something like this for 2+ years in advance; we are working on 5 months. Oops! 🙊
For the last few weeks everyone has been asking, "Are you excited for your trip?" Of course some people I humour them and simply say "Oh, yes!" but the reality is we aren't! Kevin said the other day, "It's hard to be excited when this isn't just a holiday. This is us living. I don't want to miss anything." And I agree with him. The details and lists and insurance and truck things and trailer things and and and are overwhelming and many. We have essentially decided to leave behind everything we know that is familiar and jump in with both feet. Sink or swim. It's scary. There are definitely parts to it that are exciting. What will we see? Learn? Discover? Who will we meet along the way? But for the most part we are focused on getting a job done in packing a house and making decisions of what stays and what goes.
The other thing to consider in this is that we are not going on a holiday. We will be living. It will be "normal" life in the fifth. We won't be having ice cream every night or amusement parks every weekend. We are still on a budget and school work will be done. Work will be done and meals planned and prepped. Bed times and laundry and all the things. We've been VERY consistent in talking to the girls about this. 😂
So here we are. Seven days to departure with a sea-can in our driveway, boxes all over our house and no free space on our kitchen table. There are things I look forward to and minimal living is one of them! The amount of CRAP we have acquired is almost embarrassing! The folks are looking after Sarge (dog) and Sykes (cat) and I look forward to a pet hair free zone! I don't look forward to leaving our friends and our church and routine. Please don't take this as a need to tell me how great everything is going to be. I already know that! It will be amazing and I promise you as soon as we cross the Alberta border we will be EXCITED! This is a wonderful opportunity and an exciting adventure for us, but there are hard parts too.
We would love to have you follow our adventures here, Facebook Jeanette Macleod or Instagram @macleods.on.the.move
Now look out North America... we're about to have some @macleods.on.the.move
Well, look who's here! It's me! Who knew?
It's been so long since I've done a blog post and I thought now is the perfect time to blow the dust off the ole computer keys and get reacquainted. I know a few of you may have followed some of my posts years ago, and many of you reading this will likely be new to me and who I am.
Let me reintroduce myself 🙋 I am Jeanette Macleod, of the Clan Macleod and yes, there can be only one. Give yourself a pat on the back if you got that 90's tv reference! Anywho, I'm in my late 30's 😨 and have two redheaded daughters. I'm happily married to Kevin since 2008 and we are beginning a pretty adventurous adventure...
As the story goes... before Christmas a good friend of mine texted the celebratory news that she was going to be GETTING MARRIED!! How cool is that?! THEN she asked if I would be a bridesmaid! Whoa Nettie! 37 years old and asked to be a bridesmaid?? I thought my ship had sailed, but I eagerly agreed! Then we started talking details. You see, Angie lives in Prince Edward Island, Canada. Kevin and I started discussing what this would ACTUALLY look like. Would it just be me? The whole clan? If all four of us were to go, we were looking at a $10,000 holiday. We also talked about driving and AirBNB.
Christmas came and went and as we were playing around with scenarios, Kevin looked at me and asked, "Why are we even here?" Uuuuhhhhhh. You see, I've homeschooled the girls for the last three years (and LOVE it) and our Young Living business has enabled us to both work from home (crazy awesome, right?). Nothing in particular has really been keeping us in Red Deer except our friends and the extracurricular things like dance and piano.
In February, we really started considering upgrading our truck and fifth wheel to something we could "full time" in. We prayed to God HARD about it and surrendered to Him that he would lay the path we were meant to take. We said, "God, open the doors if they're meant to be open and close the ones meant to be closed." Kevin put our bumper pull trailer on Kijiji one Sunday night; Monday evening it sold.
The next few months we focused on selling our older truck and looking for the upgrade. We also looked for a fifth wheel and spent a lot of time scouring used ads to find the perfect one for our family. Needless to say, it DID all fall into place. We've had a few curve balls and have spent way more money then we anticipated to get properly outfitted! After being on some Facebook communities a while now I've come to realize people prepare for something like this for 2+ years in advance; we are working on 5 months. Oops! 🙊
For the last few weeks everyone has been asking, "Are you excited for your trip?" Of course some people I humour them and simply say "Oh, yes!" but the reality is we aren't! Kevin said the other day, "It's hard to be excited when this isn't just a holiday. This is us living. I don't want to miss anything." And I agree with him. The details and lists and insurance and truck things and trailer things and and and are overwhelming and many. We have essentially decided to leave behind everything we know that is familiar and jump in with both feet. Sink or swim. It's scary. There are definitely parts to it that are exciting. What will we see? Learn? Discover? Who will we meet along the way? But for the most part we are focused on getting a job done in packing a house and making decisions of what stays and what goes.
The other thing to consider in this is that we are not going on a holiday. We will be living. It will be "normal" life in the fifth. We won't be having ice cream every night or amusement parks every weekend. We are still on a budget and school work will be done. Work will be done and meals planned and prepped. Bed times and laundry and all the things. We've been VERY consistent in talking to the girls about this. 😂
So here we are. Seven days to departure with a sea-can in our driveway, boxes all over our house and no free space on our kitchen table. There are things I look forward to and minimal living is one of them! The amount of CRAP we have acquired is almost embarrassing! The folks are looking after Sarge (dog) and Sykes (cat) and I look forward to a pet hair free zone! I don't look forward to leaving our friends and our church and routine. Please don't take this as a need to tell me how great everything is going to be. I already know that! It will be amazing and I promise you as soon as we cross the Alberta border we will be EXCITED! This is a wonderful opportunity and an exciting adventure for us, but there are hard parts too.
We would love to have you follow our adventures here, Facebook Jeanette Macleod or Instagram @macleods.on.the.move
Now look out North America... we're about to have some @macleods.on.the.move
So excited to follow all your adventures and tag along!
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