The Road She Calls

       I'm writing this post from the comfort of a bag chair in Austin, Texas. It's been  28 days since we left northern Indiana for a Roadschooling journey of a lifetime.    Who are we?  Myself and my 3 daughters, Naomi (14), Eden (11) and Ayda(10).  We set out with a list of goals to achieve and bucket list experiences to cross off.  

      The 28 day mark feels significant, a lunar month and a perfect number.   A great place to stop and reflect.  We have had to learn to live with less in order to have more.   We are collecting experiences and memories to hold in our hearts forever.   Some days it feels like we are on Survivor, we rejoice over fresh water or a shared meal.   Other days we feel like we landed in paradise and we are the most blessed girls on the planet.  

     I wanted to show my girls that America was not what we were seeing on the news. That people were generally kind and helpful.   It has been the people that we have met along the way that have made the most impact on us.  It is my hope that by sharing our wild adventure, perhaps we could inspire others to Go Wild too!

Homemade Halloween

 This year, our 10 year old daughter Naomi was certain she wanted to be a dragon for Halloween.  Dragon costumes that are not for toddlers are hard to come by, and so I was nominated to create Naomi the costume she always wanted. 
    
     We lucked out by finding a dragon jumpsuit at Goodwill from and old "How To Train Your Dragon" costume, and it fit her!   It was missing wings and of course a head, so off to work I went.  I visited our ACE Hardware and collected some empty boxes for the shape and purchased 1 can of orange spray paint 1 can of black and a clearance can of yellow, just in case.  

Dragon head formed together from cardboard, foam padding and of course, red duck tape.

    The hardest part was cutting out card board and duck taping it together to resemble a dragon and or dinosaur head.   After this was accomplished, I taped in some padding I had laying around from past craft projects and works on making the structure not appear so cardboardish.   I then spent an hour spray gluing fabric (from an old t-shirt sheet) onto the card board to make it have a more reptile texture. 

     Waking up Halloween morning, the pressure was on, it was now time to paint the dragon head and pray it dried in time for some Trick-or-Treating!



Naomi supervised my spray painting skills



   I went over the entire head with orange first.  I then cut out a make shift stencil of the pattern on the jumpsuit we purchased from Goodwill.  While Naomi carefully moved the stencil around for me, I sprayed the head with the black, creating the textured scale look of the dragon.   I painted the eyes with the yellow I picked up and then came back in and hand painted the details on the eyes and shaded the entire head with the black.  The teeth were made by cutting the design out of poster board and staple gunning them in the mouth.  

    

    Finally, the wings were created in a last minute panic.  I had a set of orange pillow cases I ran out to the garage and sprayed some black details on with what was left of the black spray paint.  When we got to Grandma's, she helped me safety pin the  wings in place on the back of the arms of the jumpsuit.   I think it turned out so great, but more importantly, Naomi LOVED it! 

The Minnie Winnie Make Over

From a "Crappy Camper" to a "Happy Glamper"

     It was a brisk spring day when she pulled into the drive.  It was dark and I could not see her beauty.  That was the day the doors of possibily blew wide open for the Minnie Winnie Make Over!   Owning an Automotive Repair business brings many an opportunity.  One, I am not sure yet how I feel about, is the opportunity for trade.   That's right, this beauty rolled in on a trade for payment of working on a customers vehicle.   You can see by the before photos, there really wasn't much I could do to her to hurt her.  She'd been rode hard, she'd done her time and now it was time to show her she could still shine.   Riley gave me free range.  He said I could do whatever I wanted to her, so she became my main project for 2011.  I started on her that spring and finished the interior up just in time for a Halloween party at the campground.                                                                          

       My favorite part was trying to keep this makeover as low cost as possible.  Even I was shocked at low it came in!  I spent right around $100 on this total makeover.  This includes, paint, flooring, duck tape, glue etc.   I made everything in her.  I sewed the curtains out of old sheets I picked up at an estate sale for 10 cents!  The pillows came from fabric scraps I had and some stolen dish towels from Grandma Birdie's house.  The cushions were recovered with drapes purchased for $2 at a yard sale.  I did purchase the red vinyl fabric I used to cover the dining cushions.  I got that at JoAnn fabrics for $1 a yard!   I even wallpapered the lower walls with the extra fabric I had!  My most loved item is the Happy Camper pillow I made with a cut out of the Minnie Winnie on it.  I did this using my cricut! 

      This year I plan to paint the exterior and bedazzle her to match the interior.  Then I will seriously be glamping! ~ (BTW, For those who don't know, Glamping is just fancy talk for Glamorous Camping!)~



Before Shot of the kitchen area!





Back Bed/Couch Before Photo 1977 Minnie Winnie



Laying Laminate Wood Floor to the 1977 Minnie Winnie.  Goodbye Orange Shag Carpet!



Glass knobs from Hobby Lobby add some whimsy to the cabinets!



The Orange Dining Table Before

Gorgeous!   I used an old shell station map I bought for $2 at an antique show to cover the table with!

The Garden Gnome Greets and Bids Farewell To Guests In The Happy Glamper

The lettering on the bathroom door reads, "Live Your Adventure"!



"The Journey Is The Reward"
1977 Minnie Winnie Camper Make Over

 



         DIY (that's Do It Yourself) Raised Bed Garden

DISCLAIMER:  This is not your usual "You can do it, it's so easy, explanation of gardening.  Body parts, feelings and the Earth were all hurt during this process.

     So, last winter I decided I was finished with the "usual" garden.  I had spent so much time on it every year in the spring, only to let it go to the weeds by July.  We were lucky enough to harvest a couple tomatos and that's about it.  I read a number of gardening books and scouted out sites online looking at the  latest "how to" projects and came up with the poor girls raised bed design.   We started by scraping the old garden (the rectangle of weeds) with the loader of my dad's Kabota.  

    The past fall we had removed several railroad ties that lined our driveway for a widening project.  I had my dear husband save them for this project and they worked out perfect!   I made a sketch, (let me be honest, I didn't literally make a sketch, it was in my head, I just had to throw my arms around and yell until Riley understood what this sketch looked like) and we layed out the railroad ties, stacking them and cutting them to match it.  While I would love for you to believe that this was a magical bonding experience and it all fell together perfectly, I will not lie.  Sometimes, saving money, cutting corners and DIY ends up costing you in the long run.   The "laying out" of the railroad ties, which really means throwing the damn things off the bucket, rolling them around and cussing, cost me 2 S.I. joint injections, and injections to my spine at L3, L4 and that darn L5.   The happy news is after limping for several months after the DIY raised beds the x rays revealed I had broken my pelvis a few years ago, after passing in a checkout line!   The silver lining?  When you injure yourself building a raised bed garden, you will have a raised bed garden for your crippled ass to sit down on for easier gardening!  I knew this was totally worth it!

       Back to the "How we made our raised bed gradens" lesson.   My dad was cleaning out his ditches on his farm and we brought home a couple dump truck loads of his black gold.  now, this isn't real gold nor oil, settle down.   It's black muck and peat moss.  We filled up them there raised beds with the mixture and WALLAH....A raised bed garden!  
       We were also so lucky that dad let us bring home a couple of his old tractor tires that were out in the field, this saved him from having to burn them.  What?  I'm joking, seriously, DO NOT burn tires, deep black smoke fills the air and it leads people right back to your place and it is illegal!   Anyway, the tires make a great raised bed addition.  Riley cut the edging from the top (not pictured here, I will take new photos soon) and we filled them up with "black gold".  They are perfect for planting potatoes in.  The fence in the background came from a moving sale.  The guy let me have a couple of them it if I'd take them down from his property for him.   We put it up and I planted our grapes along it.   The second one is still not up but I plan on using it for runner beans and the such. 

   The finishing touch was mulching around the beds so that I didn't have to run the mower around them.  We brought home a heaping trailer of the cities free leaf mulch they provide in the early spring.  This worked out perfect and made nice walkways!  We ended up getting 3 harvests from the garden in 2011 and are working on expanding it for 2012!   I will post updated photos when we get more done!

Welcome To Gypsy Soul Nicole

       Well Here Goes...   Gypsy Soul Nicole has been in my head for quite some time now.  A place to share my projects, ideas and crazy awesome stories that seem to happen on a weekly basis around our home! 
       Why Gypsy Soul?   I was born with a spirit that begged to roam, to not be pinned down by one thought or one idea.  To love and be free.   The modern day gypsy does not need to roam from town to town to meet this need.  Instead, I jump from one idea, project, obsession, to the next, always changing and growing.  Sure, you may call this ADHD, but I call  it  my Gypsy Soul!