 Whew! So, we're finally here in Panama City Beach, FL, our first stop along this adventure, and all I can say is, selling a home is probably the single most stressful thing I've ever gone through. Just when it looked like our home had very little contents and it'd be easy to move - the more things that kept piling up. The anxiety was running so high ALL the way up to the actual day we closed, it was paralyzing at times. The two nights leading up to our closing date, I was up at 2 a.m., on our mattress that we were sleeping on on our living room floor, riddled with anxiety that we wouldn't be able to get everything out in time. I wish I could sleep and not worry as easily as Doug does. I tend to carry the mental burden in the family and have issues trusting everything will work out fine when it always does, and even though, deep down, I know it always will. Hayden and I had been listing and selling things for the entire month leading up to our departure while Doug was out on the road. He was in Florida, then Colorado, then back to Florida and finally back home for SIX days to get our entire home cleaned out and into a storage unit. It seemed like Hayden and I had made a really good dent into minimalizing until the moment came to really get moving. Thank God for the family and friends that came to help us! We love you! If you know me in real life, you know the issues I've had with my Chevy Suburban for the past 3 years, but refuse to give her up, so we knew we had to button up a few loose ends on her before leaving. Since we didn't scrape up the funds to get all of those fixed before we left the Midwest, we decided the motor mount was the most important thing to fix before leaving and we'd do the rest once we arrived to our destination. I'm proud to say, thanks to Tuffy Tire and Auto {amazing customer service there, by the way} we have new tires, thanks to Dobbs {who got us in quickly and were the most reasonably priced}, we have a new motor mount, and thanks to Doug's mechanical abilities, we have new brakes and all dash lights are OFF in the Suburban for the first time in 3 years {feels good!}! She's got 250,000 miles, and I fully intend on driving her until she refuses to drive anymore.  Since we're traveling with all of our belongings and my equipment to run my Etsy shops and website, we had to purchase a trailer prior to leaving. We got lucky and scored a navy blue {my current favorite color} Stealth trailer that had been upgraded and equipped with a bed, flatscreen TV, dresser, air conditioning + heat and additional lighting so we're able to sleep overnight in it if we need to pull over to rest in between destinations! What's even better? If family and friends want to host us, I can plug in our trailer, leave my equipment in there and work out of it, rather than having to burden anyone with taking up so much space! Everything just fell together perfectly...  The Holiday Inn in Fairview Heights, IL was gracious enough to house us in a beautiful suite for 2 nights prior to our departure, to close on our home and say our "see you later's" to our close friends and family. If you're ever in that area, that hotel is a hidden gem, tucked away behind Lotawata Creek. It is a full service hotel with a restaurant/bar, fitness facility, pool, patio, and recreational vehicle parking.  We spent the night in the parking lot of a truck stop in Kentucky and slept in Doug's rig the night our journey began. Those are the moments I cherish, when we're all snuggled together and close. By the time we arrived here, I was exhausted and emotional.  Pulling the trailer was no easy feat with less than stellar tires and a vehicle that was in fairly dire need of brakes. Throw in an extremely windy first day of driving and my nerves were just totally shot. If you're trying to imagine how it went, just watch the freeway scene in the movie Clueless, where Dion accidentally gets thrown on the freeway and that's a pretty accurate representation of our experience. I went live on Instagram that night HERE. The next day, our final day of driving, Doug had to split from us to deliver a load an hour north of where we're staying, so that added to the intense level of anxiety I was experiencing. To top it off, I hate driving at night and planned on being here before dark, until my GPS rerouted me off 331 and on to a completely different route than I'm used to taking. By the time I realized it, there was no turning back. I called Doug to check his map to make sure this new route was, in fact, going to get us to our destination, and thankfully, it did. We spent our first night here as a trio, then picked Doug up the next day. We've been busy living our best lives and experiencing the actual culture of Panama City Beach ever since, so make sure you're following our Work and Play Across the USA blog and social media posts! How can you follow along?
If you own a vacation rental property and would like to host one of our stays, please contact us -- we'd love to sponsor your home in our adventures. I've had a lot of people message to ask how they can support us, and I love y'all for it! All of my shop links, YouTube channel, Hello Fresh + Get Upside discount links, GoFundMe and blog posts can be found HERE. Stay tuned for our next blog post that will document what we're doing while we're here in Panama City Beach, FL. Check out this blog post to read about how all of this got started.  Full disclosure: I blog about an array of topics from recipes and my favorite products to small business advice and tutorials. I may receive a small commission from links in my posts to keep this blog running, however, I do not represent any companies or products that I do not absolutely love and stand by 110% because that's not how I roll. The opinions expressed are my own. My blog is for informational purposes only and any information found on this site is not substitute for professional advice.
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 The time has finally come to escape Illinois {thank God} and embark on the journey of a lifetime. We are so excited to announce life's next adventure in store for our family: Work and Play Across the USA. Each month, we'll be in a new Airbnb in a new state, and we want you to join us! Find out how we're doing it below!  (Our empty home that housed us for 10 years that will forever store many of our family memories.) WHY? I created this trip, in part, to show you that our country, despite what the media shows you, is an extraordinary place, and that the American Dream absolutely still exists. I created this trip to teach my children to never be afraid to try new things and go to new places, and that you can always go back "home" or create a new one. It's all what YOU make of it. I created this trip because I don't believe we were put here to pay bills and die. I created this trip because I don't believe you should have to wait until you're elderly to LIVE your life or make your dreams come true. Our time here is not promised and there's nothing guaranteeing we'll make it to any certain time, anyway. I believe you can work and truly LIVE simultaneously, especially in today's society. I find it sad that people wait until they are terminally ill to make their dreams come true and knew that I never wanted to be in that space. I'd rather be broke and travel than rich and imprisoned to one tiny corner of the world or enslaved to debt. Some have asked, "How can you leave knowing your mom has stage 4 pancreatic cancer?"... If you wait for the RIGHT time, it will never come. It just won't. There will always be something stopping you from taking the next step, most of the time those somethings are excuses and fear. If my mom having cancer has taught me anything, it's to do ALL the things I dream of now and to teach my children the same. When I told people what we were doing and they called me crazy, I knew I was doing it right.  If you know me in real life, you know I always wanted to renovate a school bus into a living space and travel the country while running my online businesses. While I would still LOVE to do that, it's been 6 years since I began planning it and could never totally bring the idea to fruition because my daughter wasn't completely on board. My plan was to wait until she graduated in 3 years, homeschool Hawkins, then set out on my journey when Hayden went to college, BUT... Covid happened. Some saw a pandemic, I saw opportunity. Being forced into virtual learning has been a blessing, because it fast forwarded my plan to do this when Hayden graduated -- to now, and I believe she was meant to be a part of this journey. The hardest part was leaving my oldest son {21}, Hunter, behind and wishing I'd have done this sooner so he could've been a part of it {prime example of why NOT to wait}. Fun fact: Did you know in other countries, like Germany, homeschooling is illegal? You are literally a prisoner to one location because you're forced to send your children through their education system. That's just one tiny example that shouldn't go unnoticed, of how blessed we are to be in a country where we are free to choose how to educate our children. How are we doing it? Financially, I own 4 Etsy shops: My website: I earn us free gas with this app. There's no catch. You have to get gas anyway, so why not get it at a discounted price AND earn cash back for every person you refer? I earn meals for our family from everyone that signs up for Hello Fresh meal deliveries through me. Sign up to receive meals HERE and you'll save $40 and earn $10 for our family. Doug, my better half, drives an 18 wheeler. We have also set up a GoFundMe for any incidentals/emergencies we may incur.  We purchased a trailer to pull behind my Chevrolet Suburban that houses my work set up and our belongings. How can you follow along?
If you own a vacation rental property and would like to host one of our stays, please contact us -- we'd love to sponsor your home in our adventures. Our first stop is Panama City Beach {look out for my next blog post about our journey}. Where do you think we're going next? Drop your guess in the comments below and stay tuned... We have one life to live. There are no re-do's. There's no rewind button. Your time is now. Go. Full disclosure: I blog about an array of topics from recipes and my favorite products to small business advice and tutorials. I may receive a small commission from links in my posts to keep this blog running, however, I do not represent any companies or products that I do not absolutely love and stand by 110% because that's not how I roll. The opinions expressed are my own. My blog is for informational purposes only and any information found on this site is not substitute for professional advice.
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AuthorProud Mom of 3 beautiful children. Creator, designer, & owner of Liv & Co. 
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