Welcome to Creating Your Happy Place! A podcast that explores how our spaces support (or sabotage) our happiness and make it easier (or harder) to reach our goals, then empowers you to do whatever it takes to get happy at home. 😊🏡

Today, we’re chatting with special guest Carol White!

If you would rather read the episode than listen, we have provided a full transcription of the episode below. Enjoy!

Rebecca: Welcome to creating a happy place, a podcast that explores how our spaces support or sabotage our happiness, and then empowers you to do whatever it takes to get happy at home. I’m Rebecca West host of creating your happy place and author of the book happy starts at home. And I am so glad you’re here today.

Now it goes without saying that this is an unusual time to be alive. Thanks to the Coronavirus. We are all spending a lot more time at home right now than we ever have before. And for some of us the need to escape in a time when we can’t cross any borders and may not feel comfortable getting on a plane has meant revisiting the great American road trip.Just getting in an RV and taking off on a grand adventure in a self-contained home. So on today’s episode, we’re going to chat with a gal who did just that she and her hubby decided to reduce their footprint from a full-sized house down to an RV and live on the road for a full year. I thought this would be a wonderful chance to talk with her about her experience with downsizing and RV, giving us all some tools, not just for living on the road, but also downsizing our everyday lives.

Even if we aren’t moving into a tiny home. So let me welcome to the show author of live your road trip, dream Carol White. Welcometo the show, Carol

Carol: Well, thanks for having me, Rebecca. It’s a pleasure to be here and you’re right. This is a crazy time. So to talk about road

Rebecca:  Yeah. And how we can escape or maybe just live smart when we’re in our own homes.

And now you’re chatting with us from your summer home in bend Oregon. And you also have a winter home in Arizona. Correct. Um, and so I definitely want to chat with that about how that works too, having and caring for two homes, which is the opposite in some ways, downsizing to a tiny home, but I want to start with the adventure you took when you, you and your hubby decided you wanted to downsize and spend that full year living tiny an RV.

So start with telling us how that dream started for you.

Carol: Well, it really started before Phil and I retired. Uh, we were lucky to be able to retire somewhat early in our careers or our lives should I say? And I had traveled a lot. I worked for at and T. But it was always just airports, some convention hotels.

I never really saw anything until it was a small business guy. So he was pretty much tied to his store. So once we retired, he got ready

to retire. We started thinking about what does that next chapter look like? And both of us have always been kind of travel junkies to some extent. So the idea of taking a long road trip of some sort and M being able to see what is in this country besides, you know, hotels and airports.

So, um, W we kind of hatched a plan to do that. And the plan kind of kept growing. We said, well, if we’re going to do this, let’s really do it. Let’s really disconnect from our current lives. And do this for some long period of time. And we kind of said, okay, you know, there’s 48 of the contiguous States and 52 weeks in a year, maybe we take a year and we do roughly one state per month or per week, you know?

So that was kind of how, uh, the basis of our planning started.

Rebecca: I love it. And so how big of a house were you living in before you moved on to the RV and how big was the RV?

Carol: Uh, we were living in a two bedroom and a Dan, a 2000 square foot, roughly home. It was really lovely on a golf course. We had a very nice home.

There was nothing we didn’t like about that, but we wanted to go do something different. You know, we had lived there for quite along time and. The idea of doing something different was very appealing to us. And the tiny homes they say are kind of three to 500 square feet. These little new, tiny homes that are popping up.

I think the inside of our, uh, travel van, we were a 19 foot class B travel there. I think the inside was 178 square feet. Hey, Holy smokes. That’s tiny.

Rebecca: Yeah, you think about it as a bedroom, a small bedroom is 10 by 10, that’s a hundred square feet. So you were basically living now in a small bedroom that was carved somehow into all the things that you need for life.

Carol: Exactly. And that was really a challenge to, uh, I always tell the story. Um, my husband’s business was men’s clothing and, uh, back in the days when men wore suits to work, so he had always been a very. Meticulous dresser and all of this. And when we started loading our, um, van, or we started talking about what we were going to take the closet for both of us was I think, 18 inches long.
And so his idea about all of these pressed shirts and shorts that he was going to take, came to a screeching halt really quickly. No

Rebecca: kidding. What was it like to pare down to the essentials? How did you figure out what the essentials would be for that year?

Carol: Um, I did some online research, you know, people that had done this before and, um, developed a list of things.
Once we chose our vehicle, that was kind of the beginnings of it was okay, what are we going to travel in? And that began to dictate them. How much you could take what that configuration would look like. And we spent a lot of time looking at different kinds of, we knew we didn’t want to. Anything big because either one of us had ever told anything, we knew neither one of us had ever driven a truck, you know, or any of that sort of thing.

So we knew that for us, the right answer where these little small self-contained vans that you could park at a regulation parking spot, you know, little taller than us. SUV or a van, but basically the same footprint. So, um, once, you know, once we determined which of those many kinds that there were, uh, then you can begin to say, visualize how that’s going to get packed up.

Rebecca: So, and did you bring it cause you mean your space is so limited, so you might, people might think that you’ve just, you know, really focused on the essentials. Like we need underwear, we need glasses. Right. But did you bring things that were personal to you as well to make it at all homey or connect you to that path?

Carol: Yes, we did. Uh, and that was kind of a little bit of a last minute pop when, uh, we were. Starting to put our itinerary and our, um, uh, what we were going to take together. I didn’t really think about that, but as we got closer and closer to time to leaving, I said,

I really think we should put in a few things that are really personal to us and things that will help remind us of home.
And it turned out to be just little things. Like I remember I had a really pretty crystal, a flower vase, a little one, you know? So if you happen to pick wild flowers along the road, or, uh, got a little bunch of flowers someplace, uh, you had something special to put it in. So I’m really, I’m a big advocate of taking a few little things that are special to you and they need to be little,

Rebecca: definitely.

So, what was the biggest surprise about living tiny? Like what did you imagine it would be like, and then what surprised you about how it really was?

Carol: Um, it was actually easier than I thought it was going to be. Uh, when we came home at Christmas, we left the van in Raleigh, North Carolina. It had never had any of its interior or its RV kinds of functions checked out.

So we left it with an RV place, flew home for Christmas. Uh, and we decided or figured out that we had been apart nine hours in six months. So, um, that was easier than a tr than I thought it was going to be. Uh, it is a real test of the marriage. My husband has said many times that the secret to it is learning how to say yesteryear in a very genuine and sincere manner.
I

Rebecca: love that. Do you think that the yesteryear went both ways? Did you also have to learn to accommodate him or was it

Carol: more yes, of course.

Rebecca: So you did this adventure for a year. And because you are choosing to live in a camper van rather than a full-size RV. I understand that part of your choices was to stay with family.

Like if you were going to a place where family was, you might stay in their home for a little while and their guest quarters. Um, how was it living in other people’s spaces as part of figuring out home for a year?

Carol: Um, and, and we didn’t stay in the van all the time either. So we did stay in motels. If we were in a national park that had a beautiful lodge or something, we might splurge and spend a night in something like that.

So we, we got used to being itinerant, vagabonds really quickly. Uh, we did have as part of, uh, what we had on board, the van, uh, a duffel bag for each of us. So. We could pack up what few things we might need for an overnight or two in somebody’s house pretty easily. And, uh, so you know, that worked good and truly there was nothing quite like having a home cooked meal, a friendly face.
Someone who had some history with you to just talk to for a little bit, we’ve found that to be really recharging and reinvigorating. Cause it is lonely out there. It’s just the two of you. Yeah,

Rebecca: absolutely. And a lot of people are feeling that right now they’re spending a lot of 24 sevens with their spouse in their home.
And. It can be, um, they’re, they’re, they’re needing that recharging time with other humans and it can be, yeah. Yes,

Carol: yes. I’m seeing a lot of, you know, there’s various degrees of how, um, uh, strict people are with this cold quarantine and whatnot, but, and I’ve seen people who have. Had parties, if you will, and five or six people and all stayed really socially distant, you know, uh, just to have that human contact.

And I’ve seen other people that are a little more casual, Hey, let’s go down to the local restaurant and grab a bite to eat. You know? So there’s various ways of handling that, but the, the overriding factor is we do need that human contact, right.

Rebecca: So in those, in all that time, you guys were spending together when it was just the two of you, what kinds of things do you think made it work?

Well, aside from the yesteryear, like, did you spend quiet time alone, but, but apart, you know, you’re doing one thing he’s doing another or w what were the

Carol: couple of times we did that a couple of times. Yeah. We didn’t do a ton of that. Because, um, most of our time was spent actually sightseeing. You know, we kind of, uh, would get up in the morning and say, okay, what do we want to do today?
And where do we want to end up tonight? So we were moving forward, doing sightseeing things almost all the time. But, uh, there were a number of times that we took a, what we called a vacation from our vacation. When that was you, you settled down in some place. For maybe two or three or four nights again, to get that recharging, uh, feeling going and a feeling of being a little more settled.

Rebecca: Why do you think that was important? What was it about being settled? That was recharging?

Carol: Um, It’s exhausting. I think too, you know, and we were much younger than, than we are now when we did this. Uh, but traveling every day and figuring out every little thing from where are you going to get groceries?

Where are you going to get gas? Where are we going to stop? What are we going to see? I mean, that does day after day after day become a little bit exhausting, but. Um, we also considered have doing much more of a, uh, scheduled outline, you know, when we were trying to figure out how to do this, but it occurred to us that if something happens, say maybe, uh, maybe you had a car accident, which we did, um, that if you’ve got things planned day by day, you know, out ahead of you.

You’re going to have to undo all of that, which is also going to be very frustrating. So we decided in the end that we were just gonna fly by the seat of our pants. We knew that we had our van. We could always stay in that someplace full over to the side of the road if we had two or a Walmart parking lot or, you know, so, um, we just decided that.

So doing that, you know, flying by our seat of our pants and stopping when we feel like, felt like we were really tired and just needed a little recharge, what was the way that would work for us? That’s

Rebecca: fantastic. So it seems like routine is a really important part of making sure that we don’t get too worn out.
It sounds like, I mean, one of the things about having a home that doesn’t change is that we have our autopilots. We don’t always have to be thinking so hard about. How we’re going to brush our teeth. Right. And when you’re constantly on the move, everything is a decision. And that it’s not that it’s not fun, but it is that it’s

Carol: exhausting.

Yeah. And the M every morning was kind of, you know, having coffee wherever we were. That was kind of when we planned our day was that morning coffee time. So that became our moment of routine, if you will. That, that was how we, uh, one of those things that we did on a daily basis is what are we going to do today?

And, and being able to make that decision without other people impinging on that decision is, is a very freeing thing, you know, at home, you’ve got your, um, Work that you’re worried about. You’ve got the kids or the grandkids, depending upon your age group and volunteer things. You got people yapping at you all the time, but when you’re out there on the road, it is very freeing to be able to just the two of you make a decision every day about what you’re going to do.

Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. So it’s freeing, but freedom can be exhausting. So it’s a balance of all the, all the pros and cons. So now fast forwarding a little bit, you have two homes. So you went from the normal, big home to a tiny, tiny home, and now you have two homes. And I think that you and fel had talked about like, what was going to be next?

How did you decide that snowbirding was the right answer for the two of you?

Carol: Well, after the army year, we spent quite a lot of years in just one home. And, uh, we did a lot of international traveling. Then after having spent a year learning about our own country, then we spent several years doing some traveling around to foreign countries and eventually it came to.

Our age, our age came to the thinking, you know, we are going to slow down a little bit. We’re not going to travel quite so much. And you know, the snow and bend in the winter. I don’t want to fall anymore, you know, and I’m not skiing anymore. So, um, those kinds of things made for a decision. And when we decided to move to band, we lived in the Portland area before.

Um, I said to Phil, I said, okay, We can either have one really nice house in bend, or we could have two smaller houses, one in band and one in a snowbird climate in a sunny Southern climate. And so we eventually decided that to smaller houses, again, not tiny houses, but smaller houses would make more sense to us.

You know? So for about the same number of dollars invested. We decided to buy a couple of smaller houses. So that’s how that decision

Rebecca: got made. And so now a couple of times a year, you are again transitioning. I don’t know if it’s just a duffel bag. Like it was when you’re on the, in the camper van, but you have to pick up and move to your other life a couple times a year.

How was that transition? And do you ever find yourself in one place, wishing you had the thing from the other place? How do you manage it?

Carol: It’s not so much wishing you had the things from the other place, but you go to look for something and you’re looking and looking and go that way to be at the other house.

You know, we have both houses. It’s like pretty well equipped, so we’re not bringing a lot of things back and forth. We’ve gotten it down to the point now where we’re bringing our golf clubs and some of our favorite clothing we do, we keep close at . But me in particular, I have certain things that I. You want to move back and forth from a clothing standpoint.

But, um, other than that, we pretty well have things equipped, both places. So it’s more, it’s a matter of what is at each place, because they are slightly different, you know? Well, yeah. Climate and everything.

Rebecca: So with all of this pairing up paring down that you’ve done. What if you found, what have you learned about creating a happy home when it comes to.

Having stuff and having the stuff that you want need or enjoy.

Carol: Um, I think we’ve learned we are not, um, well, you’re not big. Accumulators is what I would say is when every year when we make the transition from one home to the other, we try to do a little bit of a clean-out. So that when we come back in the next season, it’s fresh again.

And that means getting rid of things we’re no longer using, uh, occasionally, uh, I’ll change something from one house to the other, just because I think it would be more useful at the other house, but, um, we do try to minimize what we own and, um, I think that’s, I think that happiness does not depend upon having stuff.

And so we try to have what we need, uh, but not by a lot of stuff that is frivolous, especially. I think it’s in talking to friends our age. Uh, that’s a really common thing. We’re all now starting to gift things to the kids, things that we would like them to have that are momentos, that we can give to them and see them use.

Now, you know, well, we’re still here to enjoy them using it. Uh, for instance, my daughter has a beautiful area rug that she has on her floor in her living room. And it’s the third generation have that floor, that rug on the floor. And, uh, so, you know, we just, I try to do things like that to minimize my own accumulation, but to see the joy that somebody else has in using it, we just.

I’d rather have the memories than the things. Yeah.

Rebecca: And I actually have a question for you. So from the perspective of the people who might be getting the hand me downs, one of the things I had mentioned in my, in my book was the idea that when we empty nest, we don’t wanna necessarily create burdens for other people too.

So. What advice would you give to somebody who wants to hand down some things or somebody who’s receiving things that are being handed down? What if it’s not a fit? How do you think is a really good way to have the conversation around? I would like the gift of this to you, but I don’t, but I only want that to be, you know, if it’s going to be a gift to you, how do you have that conversation without people trying to be careful with each other’s feelings?

Carol: Oh, I guess maybe our family is pretty direct, but we, we have those conversations pretty directly, you know, um, when my mother passed away, she had a lot of really beautiful jewelry and we tried to my sister and I divided up not just between ourselves, but also between our daughters and daughter-in-law and, uh, but it was a very specific discussion about.
Not, I’m just giving you this stuff. It’s one of these things would you like to have? And so I think that that’s the perspective is the joy of not just the joy of giving it, but the joy of receiving it also. And if it’s not a joy to receive. Then you need to make some other arrangement for it, right.

Rebecca: It’d be able to, so as the giver say to the person, would you enjoy having this?

I want it to have a different home. Should that be your home? As the receiver being able to say, Oh, I would love to have that. Or that’s probably not going to fit into my life. Maybe somebody else would enjoy it more. And just really being able to say that, honestly, so that. We aren’t pretending something that isn’t true because I see a lot of guilt when I work with people in their homes.
They’re like, well, so-and-so gave my aunt, gave this to me and I feel like I have to keep it now. And I feel like I have to have it out when she comes over. And I’m sure that’s not the intention behind the gift. Right. The giver. Like joy. They’re not guilt.

Carol: Exactly. Um, it was again, when my mother passed away, she, she not only had beautiful jewelry, but she had beautiful crystal, China linens and all of this sort of thing.And, uh, again, we did a little multi-generational planning with that, you know, who has silver, who has dishes, who has crystal, who wants this, who doesn’t want this, you know? And, um, so. We did some planning at that time so that we didn’t have to have those conversations again, you know, at a later time too.

So, so far so good, you know, but I’m sure that you, there will be a time. There’ll be something that I really want to give one of the kids that they’re not going to want, you know, or one of the grandkids. So, in fact, uh, I don’t know if I can show this here. These diamonds in this ring, my mother’s there’s six of them.

They’re beautiful diamonds. So I have three granddaughters. So I’m thinking your diamond earrings for each of the granddaughters. My daughter warned me. She says, I’m not sure the girls are going to want that. You know, so. And it’s also an

Rebecca: age thing, right. Because we, as we get older, we tend to value things differently than when we’re younger.

And so it might be something that they would really value depending on their age when they receive them.Carol: That’s true too. Yeah,

Rebecca: absolutely. So what do you think people don’t think about when it comes to creating a home? What do you think they get caught up in and miss when it comes to creating a home that you’ve learned over the years?

Carol: Oh, that’s a really good question. What do they miss? I, I think, um, we get too caught up in, uh, doing furnishing the things without a lot of thought to how is this going to enhance my enjoyment of the space? How is it going to interact with the people that I want to have around me in that space? Um, I think we tend to get really caught up in, Oh my gosh.

Is that so for right, is that rug right? You know, is this place right, rather than thinking about creating a joyful space for yourself and your family and guests? Um, and, uh, that’s a little bit hard to think about both at the same time.

Rebecca: You can’t be well, what’s an example of something that you’ve created in your spaces that allows for joyful interaction in your family.

Carol: Um, I think some of the smaller little spaces, I try to do little what I call vignettes little spaces within the spaces that become cozy, that maybe they have a little view out some place. Um, uh, in my Arizona house, uh, we have a little bit of a mountain view. And, uh, I’ve tried to create an outdoor space that takes care, that takes advantage of that, you know, a little rug to center it.
Then some pieces of furniture that look out there, place put your coffee, you know, pretty a little, uh, pot that burns the oil and stuff, you know, so trying to create little vignettes of spaces within the bigger space has been, uh, one of the things I focused on.

Rebecca: And I think that’s nice too, because it’s more achievable.

Like if let’s say somebody moved into a big house, for example, it can be very overwhelming to think about how am I going to make this whole house at home. But if you take it one vignette at a time and say, all right, my job this month is to create. A wonderful little spot for my family to have breakfast and enjoy this view that we paid so much for.And I’m not going to worry about the rest of the rooms. I’m just going to create our breakfast spot or whatever it is. Yes,

Carol: exactly. Yeah. I think that’s, uh, that’s very good advice. Um, I remember in air, we just moved from one house to another in Arizona. So this is all a little bit fresh in my mind, but in my guest room, my guest room in my first house down there.

So small, you know, I didn’t have much room for anything, but this one’s a little bigger and had a little Bay window. So I’m thinking I took my rocking chair that I rocked both of my children and put some new padding and covering and I put a quilt on it and, uh, table with a little lamp that all fit. So I felt like I created that little space for my guests to enjoy.
And yet it’s a part of my heritage too. Yeah,

Rebecca: that’s beautiful. So when you think back way back to when you had to set up your first home as an adult, what rules did you think that you had to follow when it came to setting up a home that over the years you discovered. Weren’t true at all. And he stopped following

Carol: them, uh, matching everything, had to match the styles of your furniture had to match the colors, had to be perfectly coordinated.

You laid out your room and very specific ways. All of it, my mind, all of that has gone out the window. I, um, I enjoy decorating in a very kind of eclectic sort of way. Um, what I noticed in your background there, you have one picture that has a gold frame around it. One that has a white frame of around at one that has a wood frame around it.

And in, in my early life. Oh no, you would never do that. All of that had to match, you know, and yet I think this is much more beautiful. So. Yeah,

Rebecca: I think it’s one of the nice things about living in this day and age is that we get to bring together kind of the best of a lot of different episodes of decorating and make it our own version.

There’s no one version anymore.

Carol: You can mix things beautifully, you know, and they don’t have to match and you don’t have to have all. You know, uh, sat in Chrome or satin nickel or a, it doesn’t all have to be bronze or whatever. You can kind of again, create those vignettes that have a consistency to them, but don’t have to make.

Rebecca: Absolutely. And now you seem like you’re somebody who isn’t terribly. Attached to stuff. You’re able to disconnect stuff from the meaning that in your life, which is really powerful. Um, but it also sounds like the various homes you’ve been in have been an important part of each adventure you’ve taken in each chapter of your life.

So I guess the question is, do you think that your home space is still connected with your wellbeing and what is it about the home space that connects to your wellbeing? If it’s not the stuff. Cause it’s still a physical space. That’s holding your story.

Carol: It is a physical space holding the story. Um, uh, I guess I would have to say the people that are around you, the activities that you participate in, um, the way you spend your time, all of those things create that, uh, feeling.

And that to me, what’s in your house is merely a vessel. If you will, to, uh, or an accoutrement to living your life, you know, um, I am very oddly unattached to my things. Um, on a number of occasions over the years, uh, we have rented our house out for various reasons. If we were going to be gone two or three months, uh, one winter when we went South, uh, we rented it out to my, uh, nephew son.

So it wasn’t like it was a complete stranger, but. You know, some people go, Oh my God, how can you do that? Your stuff is still all in there, you know, but I’m, um, it’s stuff, it’s just stuff, you know, it’s replaceable your memories and you know, the things that bring you joy, uh, you know, those are, it’s not your stuff.

Rebecca: Well, and it seems like when we think about the homes we’ve talked about so far, you know, the idea of the RV or your home before that, which was on a golf course and your current home, which is that in the two snowbirding locations, they are really connected to the activities of your life. It’s like you’ve chosen your home as how it’s going to support what you, the adventure that you want this chapter to be about.

Carol: That’s very well put. Yes. And, uh, we, we moved to band because three of our four children. Uh, had migrated over a several year period of time to Bandon. We’re kind of scratching our heads and thinking, why are we sitting here in Portland where it rains all the time. And then we could be sitting in bed with our kids and grandkids where it’s sunny all the time, you know?

So, uh, you sometimes have to kind of smack yourself upside the head as to why you’re doing what you’re doing. Yeah, but it is all about, you know, how does your surroundings support what you want to do?

Rebecca: Yeah. And the life you want to live. Right. Looking back on the homes that you’ve created and experienced.

Is there anthing you would have done differently? Looking back,

Carol: not much of a one to look back and try to second, guess what I’ve done in my life. I’m sure there are things that. Uh, if I were to rewind and become 35, again, that I probably would have done differently, but I really am pretty happy with the way my life has gone.

The decisions I’ve made. And, uh, yes, there’s been things along the way that I had only done that a little bit differently, but, um, I don’t think that there’s a lot of joy to be had in trying to second guess and go back and look at things. Uh, from your previous lives. I really don’t. I’m just, that’s not who I am.

Rebecca: Well, put a different way then if you, if somebody were wanting to end up feeling like you do right now, content with their life and not looking back with regret, what advice would you give them?

Carol: Um, I think, um, I want to say maybe plan well, but that’s not a, um, Planning again is only a means to an end. But I think if you, if you keep looking ahead, what am I, what are my goals?

What am I trying to reach? What gives me joy? Am I moving in that direction? Am I discarding things in my life that no longer gives me joy? Um, I think those are the things that over a period of time will. Give you that contentment, you know, and make no mistake. You know, I have been very blessed in my life to have done a good job of working hard and planning and, uh, creating the life that I want to live.

Um, um, so, you know, it’s, I’m not saying that there are not hardships along the way. We all have hardships of different kinds, but, um, Uh, you do have to, I think be very proactive in deciding what you want to do and what you want to have and not just letting life happen to you. Hm.

Rebecca: I think that’s, that’s pretty powerful.

And I think you said something in there about discarding things, so that sort of implies that you have to. And you said discard and he said proactive, right? So those are both very active things. Those are not letting things passively happen to you. It’s making a decision. I’m going to clear this out. I’m going to make room and I’m going to, you can’t make something happen, but you can make room for something to happen.
And

Carol: I think, you know, in the very first line in my book, um, I think is a real indicator of that. As I was sitting down to pay my bills one January the January, before we were leaving in June, there were a couple of magazine subscriptions there and I just kind of automatically started writing out those checks.

And I said, wait, I mean, my, in my mind it said, wait, You’re not going to be here to read those. Why aren’t you doing this? So everything has an intention and a purpose, and you discard the things that no longer fit that intention and purpose that you have going forward. Whether it’s something as small as a magazine subscription, or as large as changing your home.

Rebecca: That’s interesting because we were talking about how, when you were living in the camper van, One of the things that made it exhausting was the lack of autopilot. Right. But it also sounds like making sure that you’re not living on autopilot in general is part of living a more intentional life so that you don’t just go, I’m paying a bill because that bills in front of my face.

You go, why am I paying this bill? And it can take, I’m assuming a lot of energy to live with that much purpose day to day.

Carol: Um, I don’t think about that, but, um, that’s kind of how I’ve always done it, you know? Um, is that living with intention and purpose, but, uh, I think for somebody who is more in the mold of.

Well, I’m here. I’m going to work tomorrow. You know, I, I hope I get a little extra pay this week or gee, but dog is something’s wrong with the doc. You know, if you just kind of let things roll along, your life’s going to happen to you, Mr. You choosing the life that you want to have and working towards that, you know, it doesn’t happen overnight for sure.

Rebecca: Did you, where did you get the spirit from? Was this something that you learned from your family or were you born this
Carol: way? You know, that’s a really good thing. Um, really good question. Uh, my sister and I both kind of, we’re both kind of the same way. And yet neither of our parents were that way, which is, you know, my mom was a stay at home mom and she was more, they let life happen to her kind of person.My dad did have his own business. So he lived perhaps with a little bit more purpose, but he was an engineer. He wasn’t very vocal about things, you know? So where my sister and I kind of got this, um, go get her, you know, make your life intentional. I don’t know. I really don’t know.

Rebecca: Well, it’s wonderful that you ended up that way, wherever it came from.

Carol: Yeah, exactly.

Rebecca: You see it showing up

Carol: in your children. Very much. So, uh, my daughter in particular, uh, she is a hundred times more intentional than I am, um, to the point where I think she drives herself crazy. Sometimes it’s a way too much, but as, as do I, but, uh, like mother, like daughter, I guess, um, my son’s a little bit more laid back, but he lives his life with purpose too.

You know, he has. If there’s things he wants in his life, he figures out how to get them, you know, he wanted it to live on a big farm. And when he moved to Ben, he found himself 40 acres and that were there like a decent house on it. And he’s been farming and he’s really liking that, you know, uh, At one point in his life, he decided that he wanted to go into law enforcement and he started working as a reserve deputy and, you know, eventually got hired into law enforcement.
So he lives his life within intention, but at a much slower pace than my daughter. Hmm. So

Rebecca: I want to finish, I want to go back to the RV life that you, you spent that, that. Exciting year away. Um, it’s a few years ago now that that happened. Do you think that it’s any different now, if somebody wanted to do what you did?
I mean, now the world has cell phones and GPS.

Carol: I was going to say, yeah, from a technology standpoint, it would be much easier to do. I can remember. The idea of websites was just starting to happen. And I have a bit of a technology bent in my brain anyway. So I figured out how took some classes and figured out how to build a little website so that.

Our friends and family could kind of follow along with what we were doing. So, um, technology was much more rudimentary, uh, no banking online to speak of at that time. Uh, just even being able to go online and check your bank balance and stuff was much more difficult than it is now. So, uh, um, we had cell phones, so that was fine.

Uh, digital cameras were just coming on the market. So I had a very early rudimentary, uh, digital camera, so I could take some pictures and put in, load them up to the website. You know, my. Uh, trip pictures per se, were all taken on a regular camera. Um, so from, uh, from the technology standpoint, yes, it would be much, much easier to do it today.
Uh, GPS, we didn’t have such a thing as GPS. All, we did everything on maps, you know, so.

Rebecca: Uh, huh. And he still stayed married

Carol: these days.

Rebecca: Don’t have any clue what marriage looked like back

Carol: in the day. I know. Yeah. Um, I mean, some of the other things I’m just kind of rolling through, you know, laundry, um, cooking and all of that kind of stuff. Stuff is all pretty much the same as it was then. Um, obviously you probably could order your food ahead online and pick it up when he got to the town that you were going to, you know, there’s some of that kind of stuff that you could do, but, um, the technology has been the big change.

Yeah.

Rebecca: But really it’s a simpler life because it’s a simpler life, simple things don’t change from decade to

Carol: decade the basics, we would have more time to actually explore. And not some, not so much time trying to fiddle around with all these other things. That’s

Rebecca: true. Yeah, because you can get it to your campsite earlier because he didn’t get lost.
Trying to follow the map in the first.

Carol: Yeah.

Rebecca: Well, if people are interested in reading your book, where can they find you?

Carol: Uh, easiest places on Amazon? The great bookstore. Um, the name of the book is live your road trip, dream. And, uh, it is available at Amazon, so fantastic. And of course the only thing that’s really kind of gotten dated out of that is, is the technology section, because it’s been a number of years ago that I wrote the book, but I talked to one of the things I talked about.
It’s not a book of what we did. It’s a book about how to do what we did and it talks about. Leaving your family and friends behind what are the, all of the things I can insurance and all of that, that you have to think about a health insurance before you go, um, meeting people along the way, you know, all of those kinds of things.

So there’s still, you know, 95% of the book is still very relevant to today’s. Travelers.

Rebecca: Technology becomes irrelevant. In six months. So that’s always something that’s going to be

Carol: updated. Anyway, I did one update a few years after the initial book came out. I did an update and updated that technology section, but I should say within another couple of years it was sorely outdated too.
So. But the

Rebecca: message, the underpinning message and, and encouragement. I think for people who want to, to take the leap is, is enduring an evergreen.

Carol: Yes. And I think that’s what I really tried to stress was, you know, anybody can do this, uh, and it’s just a matter of setting your goals for it and figuring out how you’re going to do it.

And I talk a lot about how. To do those kinds of things, the goal setting, and, uh, even various ways of doing it. I ended up corresponding with a lot of people who had taken their children on the road and were doing homeschooling on the roads I had. I ended up in the second edition, putting a chapter in there about homeschooling and that sort of thing.
So

Rebecca: folks right now, Yeah,

Carol: exactly. You know, so, uh, it doesn’t, you don’t have to be in a retirement mode to do a trip like this, but it just takes a little bit more planning, uh, if you’re going to do it pre pre retirement. Yeah, absolutely.

Rebecca: Well, thank you so much for spending time with me today. I really appreciate hearing some of your

Carol: story.
Well, thank you. I certainly enjoyed sharing them with you and with your audience. So I hope you, um, That in theory is in choice. What we’ve talked

Rebecca: about. I hope so too. And speaking of the audience, I hope you, the audience enjoyed this episode of creating your happy place and that our conversation helps you feel a little bit more encouraged and empowered to make your home your happy place, or to leave your happy home and find a new happy home and create a new happy place.

If you feel stuck, please do check out my book. Happy starts at home. It’s full of exercises that are meant to help you figure out why your home isn’t working for you and identify what might need to change. And if you have a specific design dilemma in your home, you can also reach out to my team at Stacy happy homes.

We can meet with you over zoom, no matter where you live. Thanks for the magic of the internet. To help you figure out the next practical steps to creating your happy place. And in the meantime, no matter where you call home, whether that’s fixed or it has wheels, I hope it makes you seriously happy until next time.

Carol: Yeah.

MAY YOUR HOME ALWAYS BE HAPPY!