houseless, not homeless

 So, with our no build build we took the bus on camping trips and dreamed of the future build. I (Chelle) wasn't keen on my wife owning saws and blades etc lol and I am pretty minimal to my needs in a bus lol. I needed a bed and a bucket and was fine with jugs of water or using the water spigot at the campground or wherever. Wifey not so much lol she is the bougie one lol :p but I love her for it :D bc she has shown me that even with minimal skills SO MUCH is possible in a bus build! I love that we both can help make each other see things in different ways :D

So, we purchased our bus in 2020 yep! RIGHT after the pandemic hit not knowing what the year really had in store. This was before any mask mandates but people were being semi cautious. It was April I was working two jobs at this time. One eventually shut down due to covid (school photographer). The other was a small office and I worked on the weekend with one other person and usually in a completely different office. Wifey was working her job many hours until the hours got lower and lower with no work to be done.

My adult kids by this time had also moved back home. Still living in the house full time with 4 cats and 2/3 dogs ( one passed during these times) and a sis in love.

So around August I had to have a hysterectomy and wife was let go from her job. So we used that time to BUILD what we wanted (or what we needed for the moment lol~ we have done several adjustments since). She wanted to start with a bed that gave us more storage and use of a more functional space. So, I still was against saws lol so I made her take measurements to Home Depot and have them cut the wood we purchased. So, we got her a drill and she built us a bed! I was so impressed I was like "well now we need somewhere to sit" lol our bed was built up pretty high and I am pretty short lol I still need a stool to get up there but we have lots of storage underneath. So next she built us a bench with storage and even a lil dog cubby for our lil old Chihuahua Binks. Still using the same method of buying the wood and getting HD to cut it lol. After the bench I ok'd saws lol but still cringe at the thought of her using them even though she has proved she is good with them :D Her tool collection has vastly grown in this process and her skills have soared! She watched video after video about solar and felt up to the task of doing it on her own so she did! and connected it to our current 30 amp shore power too! (If you have any questions about our set up I will gladly connect you to her lol). I know the basics and we have added to it since the beginning to what we need since going from camping to full time living. 

I was healing for several months and she was building and making our floorpan happen alongside our budget. At some point our sis in love moved out and we didn't want to move into another home or apartment, so we decided we would move into the bus in the back yard and boys could have the house as theirs as they were both employed full time and we could use some of this time to go visit family where we could safely be in our bus. So we planned a trip to California to go see Griselda's mom and nana. We had a free place to park with power for our A C. 

We used Boondockers Welcome to plan our trip out west and only paid for ONE site for the week we took to get out there. And that site was totally worth it because it was the best showers we had ever seen and the campground was nice and peaceful altho almost treeless. We didn't have a shower in our bus at the time, so we used Planet Fitness to shower along the way. When we were in California we used her mom's shower.

So, not a DAY into our trip to Cali, our landlord called and said "we are selling the house, & will not be renewing your lease, be out in 30 days". um ok. So we were shook, not upset bc I feel like it just kicked us into full time bus living a bit faster. So while we were traveling we told the boys to pack and start looking for an apartment they could afford and helped them find the perfect situation for them. Altho we also tried to convince them to do bus/van life but they are gamers who prefer a dark room lit up with LED's and high speed internet. So, allowing them to live their best life lol. Luckily I had been sorting and selling after we lost our employment and knowing the boys wouldn't be using the living room furniture and their new apartments were fully furnished. Had been downsizing our life and clothing. Taking pics of all that we needed to get rid of in some capacity. We sold, donated. stored our life away. We enjoyed our week in California with mother in love. We did have a check up and oil change while there and also had a flat tire changed ( we had no clue we even had a flat tire bc our back tires are dually's). So while bus was in shop for a couple of days we slept in moms house. We did end up losing a lot of our solar power that affected our drive back ( will go into that more in a bit). We had a time line to get the house buttoned up so we headed home and had a couple of stops on the way back planned. So we headed out back east. 

More to come :D Have any questions? feel free to ask away! have anything you want us to blog on? let us know :D