The Next Great American Road Trip: Plans Change Again and Reservations Complete

Now that my grandmother is out of the rehab facility and back in our daily lives, it makes things harder daily, but planning our trip is much easier.

My daily life changed significantly when I cut back my work schedule dramatically so that someone would be with my grandma all the time...mainly me. Don't get me wrong, my mom takes the night shift most nights (tonight I am on it because she just needs to sleep better for a night), and she fields the phone calls and sets up appointments. She's making the hard calls and I'm just there to make sure everything is run smoothly during the day.

All that being said, being a substitute teacher means I can work 2-3 days a month when my mom is off and still have a job. It's not ideal, but I like my job, so keeping it and still caring for family is important to me.

Back to road trip planning, though. The daily life makes things change with the road trip. It means I don't have an income that I can rely on to save for expenses during our travels. It means that some of the trip will have to be a bit different and less expensive.

The thing is that my grandmother is still coming with us. We still have some things that she can and can't do to figure out...and some things for her are not super cheap.

Last time we hit more camp sites and fewer hotels. This time we are only camping twice, for 2 night stretches each.  It's going to spoil my kids and cost way more money, but we gotta do what we gotta do for my grandma. My mom is happier to tent camp less, too, but it really isn't about her.

We have her new custom fit wheelchair, not an electric chair this time, so the whole hitch on the back of my van is going to be unnecessary now, so that takes something off the budget. The next thing I have to do is figure out how to haul that thing. It fits in my back of my van, but not with a bunch of stuff in with it. The other thing is that I wanted to bring a few bikes with us, and our bike carrier goes on the back of the van. I don't want to have to take the bikes off every time I get the wheelchair out. I'm working on a plan to see if the wheelchair will hook securely on the bike carrier. If so, it has space for 4 bikes, I'm hoping to get 2-3 bikes on the carrier with the wheelchair and pack it alll that way. I would then pack camping gear on the bottom of my trunk space, then put things on top that my kids will want to get to during the ride and basically have that storage be accessed only when necessary.

I also bought a car top carrier so that we could pack some things up top. This will help with carrying all the things that are extra for having my grandmother with us.

Last road trip, my kids were smaller. It was back in 2012, so Micah was 10, almost 11, Becca 8, turning 9, and the twins were 5, almost 6. Now I have a 14, almost 15 year old, a 12, almost 13 year old, and 2 9, almost 10 year olds. The size difference is significant. Space in the car is going to be at a premium. Having the space to get everything we need to bring along the way is going to take some Time Lord science (bigger on the inside for those unfamiliar with the Doctor Who reference). I will probably blog more on that later, once I get more organizing ideas.
After a long time and a whole lot of research and a help from Furkot, I have all of the reservations for the places to stay. I'm excited to have that all planned (and paid for!).  One step closer!

Rest: The Next Chapter

I keep wondering how far this rest thing is going to go.

The next place it has taken me, though not truly because of my focus, is that I am not working. Well, technically I am, just only a couple of days a month right now.

Huh? I love my job. I'm good at it. It helps pay the bills and gives me a little wiggle room in my budget that we have never had before.

Yeah, then my grandmother got out of the hospital.  Her stroke affected her tremendously. She has to have 24 hour supervision now. Here's the thing: hiring someone to care for her would cost about my salary. Yeah, I'm not working to pay someone to come in to take care of her. She doesn't qualify for assistance since she worked hard all of her life, was frugal and set herself up financially so she wouldn't be a burden to anyone in that way. That's awesome, but I doubt she considered the fact that she would be unable to be physically independent when she and my grandpa planned for this stuff.

Anyway, she needs care, she has family who love her, she's getting care.

I'm not a caretaker type. I had babies, and this is kind of like that in that there is some diaper changing, coming when she cries, holding her when she needs it, and feeding her. Still, my youngest are 9 and I'm kinda over that. Plus it's way grosser as an adult. It's not my first choice to do this kind of thing, and certainly wouldn't have been a career choice for me.

I don't mean to complain. My kids are learning first hand how much family means to me. I'm doing things I really kinda hate because I love my grandmother. I know there were times when she was there for me growing up when she really didn't want to be. I was a horrible child.

If I could change things, I would. If my mom was financially capable of retiring, she would be able to care for my grandmother most of the time and not be as tired all the time. Unfortunately she is a couple of years away from that. Until then, I'm up to bat for a while.

So, it may not seem restful that I am taking on my grandmother's care, but in reality, it's keeping me home and making me focus on slowing down more than I ever have...and kinda driving me nuts after the first week.

I find myself wanting to fill up the extra time at home. I keep contemplating going back to school and getting my masters online or something. That won't help me rest, though. I am still feeling like this call to rest is being forced upon me further.  I'm looking forward to seeing what God will fill the time in my life with as I seek His rest.