October 16, 2025 5:24pm – I believe my last post was in February 2025. The months have flown by and each time I would sit down to prepare a post, I did not feel like posting it. So…here we are now, 8 months later.
Spending the cold Kentucky months in Gulf Shores has been a wonderful blessing for me, personally. Oh I miss my kids and my home but the beauty and peacefulness of the beach has consumed me. I was fortunate enough to spend most of April walking the beach, collecting shells, enjoying sunsets, riding my e-bike, dinners with my husband, walks with the dogs and very few chores that consume life. Once we get back to our home in Kentucky, my life seems to be never-ending cleaning, de-cluttering and juggling.
By April 27th, we returned to our home in Kentucky with a long list of things we planned to accomplish. First up, empty that camper, clean it up and prepare it for rental. We had trips planned but nothing for a few months. Until then, I would rent the camper out and try to make some money. Second, we had a college graduation to attend. Our daughter chose to walk, though she received her degree in December, she wanted the experience of being able to walk.
May was consumed by hunting for contractors to do the concrete, flooring and bathrooms. Sadly, we never got the bathrooms done…contractors are so hard to come by for complete renovations. They either give an estimate that is too low to be good or too high to be possible – or in most of our cases – never showed up with estimate.
June we were teaching on weekends a few hours from home. Meant we were up at 4am on Saturday, driving 2 hours, teaching for 6-8hrs, then back home to repeat. Off weekends were spent gearing up for contractors. We found someone to do the driveway and patio. Yay! Distruction of the existing wooden deck took place most evenings and weekends. In the middle of all this stuff, we also stumbled across a heck of a deal on an enclosed utility trailer. Our plans to go out West required an enclosed trailer and we hadn’t actively looked so this falling into our lap was nice. We had our flat open trailer advertised for sell but was renting it hoping it would sell. We ended up purchasing it and now our poor yard was a bit full. Between camper and trailer rentals, the deck dismantle and life — the months kinda blended.
July – we were deep in home rennovations. The driveway and patio were done! The hardwood flooring in the last 2 rooms was a HUGE undertaking! Emptying our bedroom was the easiest by comparison and doing so allowed us to finally sell our old canopy waterbed frame. We shopped for a simplistic platform bed to fit our Cali King mattress. By the end of July, we had been able to relax on our new patio that was still being outfitted but all in all, the family, and the dogs, seemed to congregate most evenings around the table. We cooked out more. The weather was perfect and it was so nice having a place to enjoy the outdoors.
August – home projects were behind us. We celebrated our youngests’ birthday and on that day, took a trip to IKEA in Ohio. Shopping to fit he new vibe of the house, specifically our bedroom and of course a day in IKEA is always an adventure. That same day, we did something sort of ‘spontaneous’. We stopped into our local Caming World. Looking at Class C RVs for a friend and a family member. We hadn’t looked in a while and it felt like if these folks wanted our help we needed to become better versed in the Class C market. While looking, we were curious about a Class A – of course, we looked at it. Within moments, we fell in love! It wasn’t the one of our dreams – but it was so much nicer than our 26 foot travel trailer. Long story short, we put a deposit down on it August 3rd. That is another post to come..
The latter part of August was our annual trip to Tennesse for the Jeep Invasion. We had hoped to be in our unplanned Class A – but we took the beloved 26′ Alpha Wolf. Had a good time too because the entire family went. We did Dollywood and Jeep stuff for a week! Our traveling friends joined us as well during the Jeep event days. Fun was had by all.
September – kinda of a blur… mostly uneventful but also not much to write about. We did finally get that Class A sorted out! We finally sold our flat utility trailer. We taught our last MSF class for the season and we just enjoyed having friends over when we had the time.
Now…here we are into October…it’s mid-October now as I type this. To sum it up, October has NOT been a great month. Thus far, October 2 seems to be a particularly hard day for our family, hope the rest of the month stays much calmer. I will have to fill in the blanks on a separate post – just hang in there!
So..for the most part, if you read this, you are caught up on things happening here. Appreciate you hanging out with me.
CLIMB ABOARD MY SOAPBOX 