My First Blog Post

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

In the beginning…there was chaos…in the middle…there was chaos…in the end…there will probably be chaos. Written by Sandra E. Brandon.

Winter 2018 to 2019 we decided we wanted to figure out how to move back east. We are both from the east coast and miss having 4 seasons. We have moved back once since we met(1999) and married (2003) for 3 years. We have decided it is now time to go back for good. The desert heat of AZ has never been our thing.

Around spring break of 2019 all of our coworker friends knew that we will be leaving (we at that time thought by summer so we would not have to endure another hot AZ summer). This did not work out time wise for us. At this time I was working my 3rd year as a first grade teacher at a school in Maricopa City, AZ. I loved my team (Patricia and Kourtnie), my principal (Eva), the city of Maricopa and most of my coworkers (specifically Jen, Beth, Valerie, Joy, Jamie and Stephanie). It’s so weird using your first names!!! My husband was the network engineer for the city of Maricopa and worked with the fire department, police department, and the city of Maricopa itself (including city hall). We really loved and will miss living in such a small happy city. I applied and filled out everything to sub for the following school year (initially thinking we would be staying locally while we sold our home and able to drive in and sub). I also applied, interviewed, and was accepted as an onschool teacher for VIPkids, (knowing we would be on the road) however, found that almost any place we stayed did not have the internet capacity for me to work successfully with them. I was referred by a very good friend at my school to VIPkids…(Joy). Types of nightmares….because I have a BUNCH…wanting my job back and being told no, missing the kids I am attached to and not knowing how their lives turned out, being buried by boxes and books…

April 2019. Our son was getting ready to finish middle school. We have no idea where we will be next school year. He has been attending a local homeschool online school the last 2 years, but can not attend the same school for highschool when we leave AZ. We created and submitted a slide for his graduation from middle school. I found discovery K12 and hope it works out. So while packing the house, packing for an RV (which we will be using during our transition of selling in AZ and buying in WV), putting stuff aside for yardsales, personal sales, packing up my classroom (bittersweet), trash, returning stuff we borrowed (thankyou Slider and Bob), returning stuff we stored for others…finding realtors, prepping stuff for mass shredding days and bulk trash pick ups…Oh…AND TAXES. Finalizing yearbook, (which I have led the last 2 years at my school…an immense undertaking…) Prepping our son for final state testing days. Student led conferences with my first grade cuties. Getting letters of recommendations from coworkers and my boss. Going through all my teacher “stuff” and trying to find homes for it. Every day over the past 2 months I have attempted to pack at least one box a day. If I did not I moved the boxes I missed to the weekend…joy for me. Types of nightmares…constantly packing…never done…parents mad I “messed” up their yearbook. Still being here next year because the house never sells but not having a job because the filled my spot and don’t have a place for me.

May 2019-Our baby graduated from middle school this month. Tears of joy and loss of youth. Got dogs all their annual shots in prep for being mobile for the next several months. Finalizing all teaching stuff (yearbook, documentation, IEP’s, saying goodbyes). We have a huge love for pets and currently have 3 dogs, 1 cat, 1 ferret and 1 rabbit…so we had to find homes for the ferret and the rabbit. There was no way way we could bring them in an RV for an undetermined time with us. I also had classroom hermit crabs I had to find homes for. All this was not easy, and I shed tears each time I found a home for each one. On May 1st we met our realtors. They were referred by my friend Kourtnei who found a home locally through them. They are awesome! This month we also spent researching and looking for the best RV for us. Our financial plan…use my retirement to buy the RV, use his to survive off of till we find a new location and use the sale of the house to help us get that new location. Types of nightmares…the hermit crabs, ferret, and rabbit all come with us because we could not find homes and there is NO space for US! People steal from our yardsale and the money from me at our yardsale. People know that we are moving and break in to our house and steal stuff.

June 2019- a month of collecting free boxes, packing them, and finding more. A month of finding storage for our stuff, packing our stuff, planning the sale of our house, getting final doctors appointments and prescriptions, finding health insurance while on the road, dog shots, organizing painters, cleaners, shipping, storage, yard sales, saying goodbye to coworkers, searching for and RV, finding RV parks along our way, buying and placing a trailer hitch on the jeep to take with us, cancelling services for things like Hulu and trash. We were required to keep electric and water running to sell the house. Searching in the AZ heat for an RV. My last day teaching was May 24th and my retirement cash out came on June 14th. On June 15th, we found the winner. I named her charity, because every time we put money in to her we can say we gave to charity. This month, Kourtnei found an awesome home with the realtors she referred and she had a house warming party. I showed up sweaty from packing, and can’t WAIT till I am in that spot in our new home, at some point in WV. Our wonderful RV Charity has had some “issues”. Unbeknownst to us, she needed to have ALL six tires replaced, we added a safety stearing stabilizer, and the AC has been repaired. We had a chip in the windshield the first week we got it and had to have the entire windshield replaced. On July 1st we had an RV place all set to stay at for the summer while we both worked in Maricopa. 6/29 and 6/30 yardsale….HOT HOT HOT HOT…

July 1st we planned to move to our first RV spot…nope…RV in the shop getting new tires…pushed out everything with the house…stayed our last few nights on air mattresses we sold to a buddy because everything is packed…we are living out of boxes and have no idea what is to come.