Make art, not (small) talk

I shopped four thrift stores today for towels, tablecloth and napkins, bedding and fabrics to make curtains and quilts for our Little Green.  I love fabric, love the colors, love finding things that work together but not in a matchy-match way.  I got Timmy a striped white, avocado and subdued lime green colored twin sheet, with a solid avocado sheet to match.  I want to make him a simple quilt with the two fabrics, and Anna Joy one also with the pink, orange, gold and avocado colored ones I got her.  Both are poly cotton which means that they will last forever, and from their colors I surmise they have been around since the 70s.  I also got two twin lime green jersey like t-shirt fabric bottom sheets, two flat sheets and two pillow cases of the same color.  So each will have a different, gender specific quilt, but they will coordinate and the sheets will match.  I will use the twin jersey sheets to back the quilt so the stretchy, 100% cotton will be next to their skin.  And I got two nice woven cotton blankets to use as batting.  This is going to be so fun!  I called my friend Donna who quilts to see if she had an idea for a pattern.  She said she’d think on it, but I’m thinking I should just design one myself.  I need to give myself more credit for being able to actually design things that are pleasing.  Esp. things having to do with color and patterns and fabric.  So there.  Only I wish I’d paid more attention when we did a quilt in a day class.  I can’t remember the short cuts.

So I have knitting on the needles, two knitting projects in the cue, and two quilts, plus curtains and cushion covers to make.  Maybe I am creative?  I sure enjoy the planning, execution, problem-solving and usefulness of each piece when finished.  So, get off the computer and get busy with the creating already!

Gas hit $4.19 yesterday.  The rv is 29 years old.  We can’t park it at our house.  But we can’t think about any of this right now. Fact is, we are following a dream, and we are all in it together.  The kids are just as excited as we are.  Steve keeps saying, maybe we can go on the road full time.  Yep.  The old hippie dream.  Right here in the suburbs of Southern Nevada.  You can take me out of Sonoma County, but the hippie heart remains.  Which is why I had the idea to only use thrifted fabric for curtains and cushion covers in the rig.  And Steve and Timmy will install solar panels so we don’t have to use a gas-burning generator.

We are working on coming up with a name for our little rig.  I like ‘Little Green’ from the Joni Mitchell song of the same title.  The song ends with “have a happy ending” which can be our gospel reference painted on the back.  Little Green was the name Joni gave to the girl child she bore and gave up for adoption at age 19.  That brave act always haunted her, and she actually met her daughter not very many years ago. I love the lyrics:

…call her green and the winters cannot fade her, call her green for the children who have made her, little green, be a gypsy dancer.  Just a little green like the nights when the Northern lights perform, there’ll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow…there’ll be icicles and birthday clothes, and sometimes there’ll be sorrow.

Life is like that, full of wonder (icicles), blessings (birthday clothes) and sometimes there is sorrow.

A week into planning for my dad’s recent triple by-pass surgery I developed an obsession.  There is nothing like the stress of a family member in a health crisis to get one to crystallize one’s ambitions.  We have always talked about wanting to travel as a family, to see America and the rest of the world, if possible.  Alas, rarely does the teacher’s salary afford such luxuries.  A small inheritance, however, has given our savings a nice shot of cash, and I began the quest to find the perfect motorhome that might allow us to get up and go much more easily than trying to save for a trip.  Facing my father’s mortality has made me join a gym, start a diet of sorts, and want to get on with our dreams of travel.  So, this morning I bought a motorhome.

Steve and I have, of course, discussed the idea of buying an old one in good shape for the past few weeks.  We looked at some new ones and some old ones, so we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted in terms of size and style.  I have been scouring craigslist Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego and the Inland Empire, making alot of phone calls, asking alot of questions.  Most of the smaller ones only have two beds.  We need at least three, one for the kids to share and one for each of us, as I cannot sleep with my heat emanating husband in a bed smaller than king sized, and rv beds are small.  Most of the ones in our price range were either really beat up or missing an essential part, like a generator, fridge that works and/or airconditioner that works. 

I finally realized that I could also check Craigslist Chico, as with my sister living there, we could maybe get one there.  Yep.  Found a keeper.  1979 Dodge Vaquero with four beds(cute bunks for the kids), kitchy 70’s wallpaper and paneling and everything else in great working order.  The owner was hoping to find a family like us to buy it.  Plus he is a math teacher, so he gets the whole teacher-family-wanting-to-but-unable-to-afford-travel issue.  Sweet guy sent me maybe twenty pictures so we could get to know it from afar.  He drove it to my sister’s house this morning so she could drive it and check it out.  She loved it, wrote a check for us and will keep it at her house until we can come up and get it.  And for only $3,800.  A steal.  The owner says to call him anytime we ever have any questions or trouble with it.  Feels like a dream come true to me.  He wants to stay in touch, also, because his eleven year old son loves the rv and wants to hear about our trips and have us send pictures.  Fun!

So I went online to find some rv books we might need, realized that there are some well selling ones written as memoirs of rv trips and realized I wanted to keep a record of our life as rv owner/travelers.  Creativity with a motorhome will be a no brainer I’m thinking. My brain is fried now from little sleep taking care of my dad, but I wanted to start since we have made the purchase.  Not up to figuring out how to post photos right now, but one of these days I will.

Little Green