Where we are now.

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Life -  

Well, a lot has happened. Actually, since I last posted anything about our lives, a whole lifetime has happened, it seems like. Technically, the last time I posted anything about our life was back in January, when I laid out our plans for 2014. It's now... nearly 10 months later.

Long story short – We moved out of Maine, are living in the Rosewood House and are starting to get things on track for the holidays and get our family in gear for life.

Long story long... it was a tremendous challenge for us to get to where we are. Virtually everything that could go wrong, did. But virtually everything that could go disastrously wrong went okay for us, so there's that at least.

After a lot of work and research, we decided that the best thing we could do to get our family moved back to Idaho was to get Linz and the kids out there with the Element and most of our stuff, then I would fly back to Maine, do some home improvement stuff, sell the trailer and drive to Idaho in the Fit.

The first part went pretty smooth, though we ended up not leaving the state until later in the year than planned. The drive was nice, though long. Hating the idea of a week of interminable driving on interstates, we cut south and took Highway 50 most of the way, through West Virginia, the Midwest, over the mountains in Colorado and up through Utah to Idaho. If you are planning a trip cross country, I very highly recommend this route if you have the time. It takes an extra day or two, but it is so much more relaxed and has more character in fifty miles than 500 miles of interstate travel. We ate BBQ, wandered remote campsites and generally enjoyed ourselves as much as possible considering how much was left looming over our heads.

As for our stuff? That's a whole 'nother blog, my friends. We shipped it using Uhaul's U-Box service, where you load the box, they load it on a truck and deliver it to your nearest U-Haul. Something that, while slightly more expensive than towing a trailer is more than compensated for in convenience and gas money. Or it would have been if u-Haul hadn't lost our box, been unable to provide even a semblance of customer service on any end of the ordeal and finally delivered our shop products and house a week or so later. Ugh.

But we had our stuff, in a big pile in the in-law's garage, Linz and the kids were firmly installed in their basement, my mom was working on moving out and I flew back to Maine. Despite taking pretty good care of the trailer, it was a trailer all the same. Things degrade so fast in a mobile home and after a few years, there was a surprising amount of little things that needed repaired. Soft spots on floors, re-painting, replacing some damaged linoleum. At the same time, we ran our shops from two parts of the country.

If you ever have the opportunity to live 3,000 miles from your family in a super isolated location with no friends and try to run a shop from there and out in the other location at the same time, while dealing with money woes and home improvement, politely decline. It was terrible. I'm not planning on reliving it here, but suffice it to say that I experienced some of the darkest times and lowest creative ebbs of my life in that trailer.

Eventually, repairs complete and plans made, we convinced the lawnlords to buy our trailer where it was, so that they could rent it out and I wouldn't have to find someone to move it. The deal was not perfect, we'd end up owing an additional $2k on the trailer and we had to wait for the bank. Which, it seems, in Maine consists of conceiving and raising a person from birth to then sign the loan papers. It took forever. The whole time, I stewed in a nearly empty house, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, unsure of when I could actually leave.

The news of an approval finally came a scant hour before the bank closed in the middle of July. I'd already had my car loaded with the last of my gear, save a few essentials. As soon as I got the call, I hopped in the car, drove to town, signed over the trailer and left the state of Maine. Possibly forever.

The drive to Idaho wasn't quite as fun this time, despite taking the same general route. I was in a smaller car that wasn't quite as fun to drive for long distances and more vitally, it was stuffed FULL. It was so loaded that at one point I actually had to unload it and eliminate some heavier items because the body was dragging too close to the tires for safety. I could slightly recline my seat if nothing shifted, but sleeping was next to impossible and there were no funds for motel rooms. I pretty much loaded up audio books and podcasts and drove non-stop.

Once I got back to Pocatello, things started moving at warp speed. We helped finish moving my mom and brother out of the Rosewood House, threw our stuff in and started getting our poor neglected shop back up and running. Earlier in the year we had started attending comic cons and we wanted to continue that and Christmas would be here sooner than imaginable.

But we were back in our house. For the first time in a long time, possibly ever, we were living in a place that we planned to intentionally live for the next 5-10 years of our lives. No crazy plans running constantly about leaving, no half unpacked rooms in prep for a motel, none of that.

The house needs a lot of work. Foundation work, new roof, deep cleaning, new floor coverings, yard work galore, but it's our home. For better or worse, and we plan to make it better.

And I know I've said this before, but I'm hoping to start updating this blog regularly with our adventures again. I'm likely re-directing most of our other blogs to this one and condensing all of my interests here at the ROUS Motel. It might make for a more eclectic page, but it should be a livelier one too.

The ROUS FAMILY -