Full Time RV Living: Old Habits Are Creeping In....

What am I doing? I am I'm falling quickly back into my old habits and I don't want to do that. Welcome to the Hang with the Bangs podcast. Hi. Hey, we're currently in Orlando right now. We have been here. This is the longest we've been in any one place so far in our nomadic journey. It's been a little over two months. We had a realization the other day of the effect of staying in places longer versus staying in places shorter. Yeah, and we're realizing that we have stayed here too long for a lot of reasons. Potentially, yes. Yeah. In my mind initially, I was like, yeah, of course, Orlando. Let's stay there for a couple months. We'll go to Disney World every other day or every day have some off days, go to SeaWorld and it'll feel great. And while that is true, I think that was really fun. We did hit some blackout days and even then in these days that we're not doing those things, what are we doing and how are we spending our time? And it feels a little different than what we feel when we're going from week to week. Since we haven't been doing Disney the past few weeks, our passes have been blacked out. We've really built a community here. And I'm thinking this is going to be hard to leave. Yeah. Those repeated friendships, relationships, interactions with people. I mean, we've gotten so many at church. Being here in the RV park has been so amazing and we've made so many friends here. And it's really fun because you literally walk out your door and you see people all the time that are either out walking their dogs or taking their kids around. And we've made tons of friends here. And just a few places down, we have some sweet friends, Stephanie and Phillip. And we've been hanging out with them every single day. And we've been going paddleboarding and swimming. And that's what the girls asked to do. They're like David Scott or like, hey, can we go play with Phillip? Can we go see? I want to see my friend and go over, which is great. And it's fun to be doing all these things. We're already planning a time to be able to meet up again because I don't want to say goodbye. I've been so grateful for the friendships we have made here. It's made Orlando super incredible and amazing. We've been having repeated interactions with the staff here. It's been super sweet and nice. They put on their amazing Easter egg hunt. That was incredible for the girls and all the kids here. It was amazing! I was wondering how we were sweet dogs. Oh my goodness, so many. They gave our girls a pedal bike so they could start learning to ride. It's just like this feeling of family. And I think it's it's what's happening is we're we're this is what it feels like to create roots. You know, you stand up, you get in a place, you plan on staying there for a while. You start seeing similar people more often. I mean, maybe even more so here in an RV park versus in a neighborhood. Totally. Because when I normally go out the mail, I'm usually what run into a neighbor. But here to get our mail, we have to go up to the front office and then sign out that we've gotten our mail and stuff. And so we're talking and learning more about everyone. And so it makes me more invested. And I I'm already feeling like really sad. I mean, you go give stickers, saying goodbye. And we've never felt that in a smaller place, right? Well, because normally we stay places week to week. And so being here for this amount of time, it's just making me sad because all of a sudden I'm feeling like, oh, we've been going to the same church every week. Our girls are now going to be going to a new church again, which is totally fine. We've been doing that before. But some of those fears and insecurities, I think, are like starting to creep back up that I didn't realize. And so I think what it means is I've gotten too comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. We've gotten we've been in a place for too long that we're feeling a little complacent, comfortable, like, oh, but this is so nice because it's the same thing. The girls are going to love to see Kate on Sunday. They're going to want to see Sister Lisa and all these familiar things. And we had just gotten them so good at like just going every Sunday to a thing. And I wonder and we'll have to keep you guys updated. What's it going to be like when we go to a new place? Is it going to be like stranger danger again? Type thing where or are they going to be fine? You know, I don't know. I don't know. But I know for us, too, it's feeling this complacent of like, oh, it's just so nice. Like, we have to have a baby. There are some comforts that we do love, but it's also a reminder to myself that I didn't realize is that by putting ourselves in a new environment, I feel like a lot of those fears and things that I had went away really quickly. And so I have to remind myself, it's OK. That's where it's going to be fine. And we just need to do it a few more times and get to a new spot a few more times and realize, oh, it's not a big deal. Like we've been able to maneuver through this before. We can maneuver through it again. But I think I am realizing through this journey, I don't want to get super comfortable because I feel like when I get really comfortable, I don't work as hard. I want to play. I get in party mode, sleeping in, sleeping in more. And I mean, are those the worst things in the world? No, no. But I also think our long term goals and things that we want to do, I know I can't reach the goals we want to do with those behaviors. Yeah. Living this way right now. I think it's interesting, too, this idea of like, you know, we're in this fixed spot. Our trailer hasn't moved for two months. We've gotten a lot more comfortable putting stuff outside, like storing a few things here and there or like the chalk easily accessible so the girls can get in and play with it, having their bikes easy to get into. We've changed some things up that I know, at least for me, is making me feel like, oh, well, the next logical step would be like, well, if we just had a yard, a fence. Yeah. We could let Zeke out. We could just let the kids out. They would play outside. We wouldn't have to keep an eye on them. They come back in when they're done, you know, that kind of stuff. And it's like, but wait, wait, wait, wait. That's not what I wanted to do when I went on this and started this journey. That wasn't my intention. But then I'm feeling, oh, it'd just be so easy just to have a yard and that's it. Well, totally. And then I'd want to put stuff in the yard. Well, that's exactly it. That's another thing is like we have been consuming so much more being in one spot. So I'm realizing I'm still a real bad shopaholic. I mean, I've known this, but it's been interesting being in a place where I can ship items or leaving in a few days. And even last night I was looking online. Oh, if I get this on Amazon, I could get here in time. Or if I order this through Anthropologie and I rush it, I can get it here. And I'm like, what am I doing? I am I'm falling quickly back into my old habits and I don't want to do that. All these things, too, I think, like, is it really stuff that I need? You know, like I'm even thinking the stuff I want to get that I'm like, oh, yeah, I probably do need to get some little ties to put on our sunglasses. So when we're out in the water, like our sunglasses will float when they fall in, you know, like, yeah, those are probably great to get. But like and a new pair of pants and a new pair of shirt, you know, and all these other things, I'm just thinking I need, need, need. But I really don't need any of those. And if I found, oh, it's not going to get here in time for the week I'm here, then I don't buy it and I move on with life and I still live life. Like maybe I buy cheap sunglasses that I don't care if they fall in the water. There's other things that I could do. But it is interesting, this this feeling of wanting to buy more or get those last minute things in and like, oh, yeah, leaving. Let's stock up on toilet paper. Let's stock up on this because the Wal-Mart's not going to be close to our next spot. We're going down to the Florida Keys next. And there's not a ton of very commercialized things out there. And things will probably be more expensive, you know, the grocery store. But the truth is, we've been in that situation before and it was fine. And it was fine. They had a grocery store at the local gas station down in Tropic, Utah. That was like the most remote place that didn't have a grocery store or Wal-Mart anywhere close by within 45 minutes at least. And yeah. And so it's like, guess what? We were totally fine. It was fine. But I think there's just all of those things that where I do want to prep, but also a lot of times I'm realizing in this lifestyle, as much as I want to prep and do those things, those things weigh us down physically because they have to be in our space. And so I have to create a space for those. It also costs us more because then our gas is more expensive because we have more of a load. So in reality, it probably really doesn't save us. It's like these mental games. I'm like thinking it would save us. Yeah. Last night we went to Costco and the girls were so cute and they saw this cool little playhouse and they went inside and started playing and they invited this little girl who was walking by to come in and play too. And I thought to myself, old me would have just said, oh, cool, this looks real fun. The girls will like it. Let's buy it. Three hundred dollars. Put it together. Put it in the backyard and they could just have fun and play it and have friends come over and things like that. And I see like that was really fun for them to do and experience. But like we also have our home here that's like itty bitty and small that like we can have them help out in the kitchen. We can have them help out with chores and like things like that, like in a small house too that maybe we should try to do more of. It does get a little crowded sometimes I feel like, but where it feels a little tight when everyone's trying to work on dishes or something. But that's part of the fun too, though. It's part of the closeness of why we chose the Airstream. There were a lot of reasons why, but I think a huge reason was we wanted a different lifestyle change. And this is just a reminder to me that, yeah, I might be thinking about I want a different rig and that might be in the future. But the reason we chose the Airstream is we really want to change. We don't want to be these huge consumers. Yeah, it might be something I'll be struggling with forever. But I hope that I can learn that I don't need everything and buying things doesn't always make it better. And I think getting back on the road and now taking that money and spending it towards adventures and travels and having fun as a family, I think I will quickly be reminded this is why we're doing this. And I need that reminder right now because I really am just thinking these last minute projects that I want to try and get done. Yeah. And I feel like to as we get out and start moving around more, we're going to feel more alive because that's the thing. I feel mentally like sedentary, as in like I'm mentally just stagnant. I'm just here. This is cozy. Let's go swim in the pool. That's great. Let's come back out. And yeah, and I think having that change of location is going to help me get back into this, like feeling more alive. There's going to be a sense of urgency to get things done because we're going to be leaving the next week. Yeah. So we're going to go do stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it totally does. And I think that's one thing that I've realized and we've talked about it before. I think that we've both realized is changing our environment is one of the best ways for growth. Yeah. It doesn't have to be super drastic, like moving every week to week. It can be changing up your room or it can be changing your space where you go work or adding a walk to your day every day and going to a new location. But I think that's something that we've realized is for us to thrive with our goals and things that we want to do, being in new locations and mixing things up is the best thing we can do for us to expedite our growth. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think so, too. It is going to be a balancing act in terms of like, because finding a new place every week, I mean, the reason it's exhausting to go to research and find and, you know, plan routes and then plan ahead. Zeke decided to join us. Little dog distraction. But I think it is going to be a little bit difficult to balance, hey, going from place to place and not staying too long versus also having to plan and keep on top of like booking and setting up these different places every week. I think we're going to try two weeks and see how that see how that goes. If that still feels too much, too little, that'll give us two weekends in a place because I think there is value in having off days for the girls to rest or recoup or focus on schoolwork instead of out doing adventures, you know, like focus on reading, focus on letters and drawing and things like that. So I think there will be value in having some of that. And hopefully we can still get everything done. It's a little sense of urgency. But in the meantime, we're going to be attempting this two week thing and seeing how that goes. We're going to be trying to be as friendly as we can to everyone we meet. Same as always. But I just don't want it to feel again like I'm like ripping a bandaid again, because that was the hardest thing about moving from Utah is leaving all of our friends behind. And then that was the hard part about leaving Arizona. We were leaving family and friends and we had built this community again. And so it's like I feel like we've been here long enough that once again, it's like, OK, we need to rip the bandaid off and go. And yeah. And so we'll just keep it short and sweet and we'll keep that up and see how that goes. It'll be interesting. We'll see. But in the meantime, we're going to be shopping less. Oh, God. We're going to be staying in places less. I that's honestly my biggest reason is why I feel like we need to keep moving on is I just don't need an excuse to keep shopping. I mean, we're just in a place and I just am like, oh, well, because I can't get it. I should just go ahead and do it. Yeah. Let's get pool toys. Let's do all of that. And I'm like, we spend time without pool toys this whole time. But why do I feel like we need them now? And it's just working through some of those dynamics. Yeah, because we have I mean, we have the pool toys that the kids like playing with their crab, their orca. Yeah, I just forget to bring them every time because they're inside, not outside. There's also rocks they can like diving for rocks is so fun. Anyway, it's all going to change. We're going to be in some tropical water and going to be finding shells and collecting shells. Yes. I want to go paddle boarding like that. Yeah. But we're going to be out and about. And I think I think we're still going to have we're going to make friends. We're going to have meaningful connections and we're going to shop less. Yeah, that's all right. That's our goal. Yeah, I mean, I really do. I just want to change focus from things to experiences. And it's funny, literally being out here living on the road and feeling like I still am consuming. I didn't expect that. I thought that I had tamed back on a lot of these things. But as the cabinets and stuff get full, you know, we just made several bags to donate. Yeah, I'm going to be. That's one of the things I got to do this week before we leave is take it to goodwill. You know, sometimes we think we're over a habit or we think we're evolving in certain ways and realizing, oh, my gosh, I still got a lot of work to do. But isn't that what life's about? We're supposed to be learning. We're supposed to be growing. And that's part of the adventure. And I think that also is a reminder to me to be appreciative of where we where we've come from and to acknowledge that and find ways to move forward. Yeah. We would love to hear of any changes that you guys are trying to go through and make or challenges you're having along that path. Comment below. We'd love to get into a discussion about that because I'm sure there's a lot of similarities. For sure. For sure. And it's just a reminder to all of us we're going, we're learning, we're all trying the best we can. And, you know, we probably need to be a little bit more gentle on ourselves on some of those things, but also keep ourselves in check and not let us slip into those old habits. Well, we're excited for Key Largo. Stay tuned. We're excited to have you come join on the adventure. Yeah. Thanks so much for following along. If you like what you've seen, please like and subscribe and share with anyone who you feel would also benefit from our videos. Thanks so much. See ya! Bye.