friends – A Gray(t) Adventure

The Fix-It Fairies

Publishing my first book is an exciting time. I love how a simple story I once told my kids has transformed into something real.

A couple of years ago, I did what all moms do. I made up a story to comfort my daughter after she got hurt. She questioned why it took so long for her cut to heal and while the nerd in me wanted to talk about the process of cell regeneration, I knew that my three year old would not take that as an answer.

Instead, I told her of a group of fairies. These fairies were not magical but they were hard workers and they would come when she was sleeping to help fix her cut. These fairies soon became a part of our household conversations. Both Evelyn and her brother, Alexander would talk about the progress the fairies made the night before, and for once, they were excited about healing, instead of painful aware of the long process it took. Evelyn’s addiction to Bandaids even subsided as she realized it would make the fairies work even more difficult if they had to crawl under the Bandaids in the middle of the night.

About a year ago, my husband told me that the Fix-It Fairies needed to be shared with the world. So, one day, I sat down and wrote out the story I had been telling the kids. I didn’t think too much about it, but instead of stressing, I sent out the first draft to a publisher. Within a week, there was a response: it was being sent to the editors. Then a month later, I was sent a contract. Now, here we are and this little story, made up out of desperation to calm a hurt child, is about to be released.

May 15, 2018.

I am shocked. I am excited, but mostly, I am thrilled that this story that helped my own children can be used to help children everywhere. It is about hope and hard work. It is fun and is something I hope to read to my grandchildren when they are young. It is something that I hope my children will always treasure and look back at, knowing that they inspired these fairies to come to life and helped me create the book.

Writing a children’s book was a fun adventure for me. The process of getting the book from random thoughts in your head to being on paper to getting published for the world to see is a lot more stress than I had originally thought it would be. However, it is worth it. I also had a lot of help from my wonderful husband and my awesome kids, especially when it came to the illustrations. If I had to do it all over again, I would in a heartbeat. In fact, the kids and I have already started thinking of other books that we should write. We shall see.

If you do want to check out the book, It is on Amazon:

The Fix-It Fairies by Samantha Gray

The Mom Belt System

After spending the past few months watching my children learn Jiu Jitsu, I have begun to realize the sport of MOTHERING has it’s belt system too.

Mothering is a really tough sport. Whether you are a full-time mom or a super-full-time mom, it is ROUGH. It is a rewarding and heartbreaking sport though. There are many highs, lows and lessons learned that you would never have imagined. My children are ages 5 and 7, and are both obsessed with Jiu Jitsu. As I have watched them at practice, day after day, I have started to think about how the sport of mothering is much like the sport of Jiu Jitsu. There are different belt colors: White, Blue, Purple, Brown and Black. The kids have a whole different set of colors, but for parenting purposes, I’m focusing on the adult belt system. It starts with the white belt.

The WHITE belt is ALL about survival. You need to make it through the round without getting your ass kicked and hopefully learning a few new techniques and strategies that will make you look semi-good (if you tilt your head and squint in a dark room). That is the birth-5 year-old parents in my opinion. They are learning the sport of mothering. They have transitioned from a fun-filled life to having responsibilities, but it is still new, exciting and terrifying to them. You have enough skill and talent to keep your kids alive, but the amount of knowledge you still do not know is almost impossible to imagine at this point. You are constantly getting schooled about what to do and what not to do. You win some battles, but most of the time, you feel as though you are caught somewhere between an arm bar and a choke-hold. You look up at that clock more than you should and try to hold on as best as you can until it is bedtime or even that five minutes rest you can squeeze in between matches. It is exhausting and your entire body and mind hurts all the time, but as time goes on, you adapt. You learn. You adjust. Then, somewhere in the chaos, you graduate to a blue belt.

The BLUE belt. The blue belt mother has the fundamentals of the “sport” down. They know what the moves are but still are in an experimental mode. Yes, at this age, blue-belt mothers experiment. A LOT. They test out different sports, adventures, classes, techniques, toys, foods, bribes, pretty much everything you can thing of. There are self-help books, mothering books, cooking books, and random inspirational books littering their counters or Kindles (most of them only skimmed through). They are trying to figure out what path they can take that will lead them to the most success in their game. The hone in on that special skill that they take to a match in hopes for the right moment to shine and conquer. Blue belt mothers are constantly on social media or engaging with other mothers looking for praise, support, or the feeling of normalcy. They are constantly seeking the latest and greatest way to give their child that edge on life that they need at this level. They are finally starting to win some of their matches, while still being surprised on almost a daily basis of things they have never seen before. The blue belt is rewarding and inspiring, but at the same time still full of humility and defeat. This belt is usually in the 4-10 year old mothering age-range. Once they have a set standard of what works and doesn’t, moms get promoted to a purple belt.

The PURPLE belt. I think of this belt as the tween belt. It is for the mothers who have children progressing into the teenage years. The hormonal years. This is where the real mentoring of the sport begins. They are still working on their own techniques, which the kids will certainly test on a daily basis. However, for then most part, their mothering-style will be set quite well. They will continuously reinforce the basic lessons of life and technique, style, and grace with their children. They will start reaching out to those around them and give them advice (wanted or unwanted) on what they are doing right or wrong and ways they can improve their mothering game. They are gearing up for that age where they can refine their own certain skills and prepare for the future. Their children should already understand the basic concept of this world. Even if this mom has new babies at this time, she is confident in her abilities to raise the child they way she sees fit. Once the purple belt is “mastered”, we move to the brown belt.

The BROWN belt is reserved for the mom of teenagers, specifically ones that are close to being ready to leave their care and move out on their own. She has endured countless hours of no-sleep, stressful days and nights, numerous teacher meetings, more flash-card than she wants to admit, and at least a handful of days where she was left with no-voice, due to whatever circumstances (we don’t judge). These moms have been there. Done that. And SURVIVED! They are just putting the final touches on their children; grooming them to go off and be adults. They are preparing themselves for what the world has to offer. Hoping that their journey as parents is as fulfilling as their progression through the ranks was. It is not an easy time for a brown-belt parent, but seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is a rewarding one (so I believe is the case). When that child finally moves out of the house, the mom graduates to a full-on black belt. She has made it to the top. Her children are out of the house, successful, and maybe even starting a parenting jiu-jitsu journey of their own.

The BLACK belt. After many years, sleepless nights, all-out battles with the children, devotion like no other and undying love for the sport of mothering, one may reach her blackbelt. It is when a mom has made it through the trials and tribulations of parenting. She has felt on top of the world, yet at the same time feared the judging eyes of everyone around her (whether or not they even existed). She raised, trained, and mentored a (or multiple) human being from a helpless creature to an adult. It is a magnificent time. She is a mentor. A leader. A coach. She has made many mistakes along the way but came out on the other end a winner because she never gave up. She is there to give advice to her students when needed. She is there to watch them make their own mistakes, because that is how they must learn. She is there to guide and cherish them, but to also let them fail if they have to. Hopefully, her children will not believe they are too good that they don’t have to reach to her for advice and guidance, but it is only a natural part of the belt progression where the white belts and even blue belts will think they are all-knowing and need to learn the hard way that some of their techniques simply do not work. It takes a strong black belt to foster the lower-belt mom’s confidence and knowledge but respect the fact that they must make their own choices in their fights. They must determine what path they take. Because that is the only way they can grow. In my opinion, the black belt is the hardest role as a mother. It is having the ability to let your children make their own choices, their own mistakes, and their own successes, while still being there to support them in the process.

I currently am a blue belt in this sport of mothering. My kids are young, but I have survived the first phase of their lives. I am learning everyday on how to raise them correctly while still trying to get over the constant feeling on inadequacy and failure. I am trying not to take comments and social media personally, while making my own opinions on how my children should interact with this world. I am trying new things all the time and read way too many “how to make sure your children are successful” articles. I make mistakes by the dozen and feel like I tap out to my self-doubt more than I should. I hope as I earn my higher mom-belts, I will be able to look back and say I did a good job or at least I did the best I could do on any given day and any given match.

Being a mom is a rough job. It doesn’t get easier either. I just hope that someday, I can make my coaches proud of the journey I have accomplished and the lessons I have survived. As I look towards the future, I also hope that one day, I will be at least half the black belt as the ones I look up to and have guided me through this crazy journey of Jiu-Jitsu mothering.

A Year’s Journey

Blog: It’s been a while since my last post. A lot has happened. Here is a recap and a forecast of what the future may bring. Wish us luck.

It’s been quite a while since I last wrote a post. We have pushed the pause button on our RV journeys for the time being. We made it through 12 states and ended up deciding to settle back down in Idaho, almost right where we left off. Our house is still being rented out (with amazing renters I must say) so we decided to keep living in the RV, since it only made sense.

Yes. I said it. We are STILL living in an RV with two kids and a dog and so far we haven’t lost our minds. So far.

I must also add in there, that we are living on the ostrich farm that Dan works for. So now, instead of just having one dog, we also have four Great Pyrenees, three goats and about 450+ ostriches (and growing…). It is quite a life to say the least.

In the last 12 months, we have downsized immensely. We have learned to live simpler, happy, more fulfilling lives. We have grown as a family and learned a lot about ourselves. We have seen the western United States and visited 17 National Parks and Monuments (if I counted right… it may be 18). We found beauty in nature. It has been beyond amazing.

We have also struggled. My health has not improved the way we hoped it would. Being in close quarters with two kids sometimes makes me feel like I am losing my mind. Living in an RV is not as glamorous as one would think (ok… no one thinks RV living is glamorous). I miss taking long, hot bubble baths. I miss sitting at a real dining room table having dinner. There isn’t much room for toys, so they end up on the floor ALL THE TIME. My kitchen is tiny and there are times (everyday) that I seem to find myself trying to cook with two kids and a dog all in the 21 sq ft of space. I miss my old kitchen soooo much.

However, in this year, Alexander and Evelyn have excelled in their academics (homeschool). They get along SOOOO much better. They have learned to help one another. With all of our traveling, they have learned to make friends quicker (although they are still pretty shy). They have pushed through long hikes and have thrived without technology. I’m beyond proud of all their achievements and their growth. I’m honored to be their mom and humbled to be their teacher. It has been a good year.

So… what do we have in store for year two?

For starters, I have a short children’s book being published in the next month. It is exciting because it started off as a quick story I made up on the fly and progressed into a fairy tale the kids loved talking about. We are very excited to see it come to life and anxiously await the release.

We are still going to be at the ostrich farm. I have begun to work in the social media and customer service realm while Daniel still works as the Assistant Manager. American Ostrich Farms is an amazing company. They have values and morals and I am proud to have my children see daily what sustainable meat production is like. I love everything about the ostriches and am excited to start working with them in soap production, using the ostrich oil in phenomenal soap.

The kids are still homeschooled. Alexander is learning to play the guitar and they are both in Jiu Jitsu. We love the flexibility of homeschooling and the ability to focus on what we need to or advance as we see fit. The kids love being able to sleep in (almost as much as I do). It just works better for us so we will keep it going.

This summer, we are planning on returning to Wisconsin to visit family for a week or so. We are also hoping to make it to the Redwoods in California as well since it was part of California we missed the first go-around. We have built a greenhouse so I already have plants started and we are going to plan a huge garden. Maybe do a farmer’s market or two. Maybe just donate the produce to the homeless shelters. We will see. I have never had the green thumb, but I feel as though this may be the year.

This has been a long rant, and for that I do apologize. I want to thank all of you for your support, encouragement, love and friendship. It means the world to me to have you in my life and the messages I have received since starting this journey have helped us keep our heads above the water. I have met so many new friends on this journey and I hope to continue to keep in touch and meet many more.

Until we meet again.

Invisible Sludge

When your nightmares come to life yet you are the only one that can see them… Autoimmune disease and the true reality of a fake perception.

I have had the dream for as long as I can remember. It is one where I am running but I am stuck in some sort of sludge. not physical sludge, but one that I can’t see. It is pulling me down, making me slow, letting the bad guys get closer and closer. I can see my escape but I don’t know if I can reach it before they get to me.

Now I am an adult. I know I am fast. I have made myself that way over many years of training. I know I am strong. I eat well and make sure I don’t get sucked into a vicious cycle of fast food and unhealthy choices. I have made the decision to avoid the sludge. Yet, somehow, the dream has breached into my reality. My body doesn’t function the way it did even a year ago. It is painful to step up or down stairs; to squat down to give my children hugs. The exhaustion clings to me, pleading with me to stay in bed or lay down a bit longer. Sometimes the pain is so bad that it brings me to my knees. The dream has seemed to taken over a body that was trained to fight, but I haven’t surrendered to it.

18156964_10212776208741111_734561318501367772_n — Even though my body may want to quit, I have two beautiful children that keep me striving towards my super-hero status.

Learning to live with an unknown autoimmune disease is almost as if I am living in that nightmare. My body wants to quit on me, but yet, my mind keeps trying to tell me to keep running. To not give up. To keep moving. Just a year ago, I was the definition of health. I felt great, my body was strong. I was Super Mom (well at least thats what my kids thought). However, things started changing. Fast.

10346525_10204572639136998_7200623846684054604_n — My life just a couple years ago. Fit, strong, and unstoppable

Now, I look in the mirror and I am a girl trapped in glass. My body still looks the same. However, it is the battle that is going on inside that has changed me. That is the hardest part. I look like a very healthy woman. So healthy that my immune system doesn’t know what to do but to fight itself. It has left me blinded in one eye and has presented me with issues such as extreme fatigue, joint pain, migraines, and painful muscle spasms to name a few. I keep hoping this is just another nightmare that I will awaken from, but I know better. This is my new normal, at least for now.

18056712_10212714719403916_2345226196498622210_n — Even with only one eye, I am still able to see how lucky I am

I am not a person who posts the bad things about my life. It just isn’t my style. However, with this post, I am hoping for people to realize that what their eyes may see when looking at a picture or a person isn’t the whole story. Just because people make look healthy or happy doesn’t mean they are. Perception is not reality. In fact, I have talked to many people who are sick, have been sick or who are disabled and I would never have known if it weren’t for their courage to talk to me about their experiences. What you see with your eyes is only an optical illusion when it comes to a person’s life and their struggles. Please remember this when you talk to someone. We rarely know what a person is going through and we never know the whole truth about their feelings or their pain.

I haven’t given up on my body. I keep fighting, even when it causes repercussions that last for days or weeks. I still have unfinished dreams and goals that I need to achieve and nothing will stop me from trying. I have had a rough year but it is only a year, not an eternity. I hope that one day, the dream will end. I will make it out of the sludge and get away. However, even if the sludge is still trying to hold me back, I will continue to run away from the darkness trying to take over. I will keep running towards safety and I wont let this nightmare get to my heart and soul.

So until then, the nightmare continues, even when I am awake. The sludge is slowly incapacitating me. I am trying to run but my body is in fighting something it can’t see. This may not be my dream anymore, but I do know how it always ends. Somehow, someway, I always manage to escape. Maybe that is what life is all about: making it through the sludge and coming out a better person.

Idaho: Coming Back to My Reality For Two Weeks

After two months of travel and adventure in Western USA, coming back home (for two weeks) was more than I expected. d

We are back in Idaho. Home sweet home. However, Idaho brings about a whole new set of emotions with it. A little less than two months ago, we set out on our first adventure. There was so much to see and so much that we didn’t even have time to see. We added trips to Utah with Zion, Bryce and Cedar Breaks and Arizona with Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon. These were not on the initial itinerary but were phenomenal additions that helped me cross off some bucket list items. The entire trip was breath taking with a lot of great pictures, memories and feelings along with it.

Coming back to Idaho was a wakeup to reality though in a way. The day after getting back into town, I had a couple doctor’s appointments and today rounded it off with another optical appointment. Each brought back the harsh reality that I am not the same girl I was a year ago and there is a big possibility that I will not be the same girl a year from now. It is a hard pill to swallow.

Going on the first trip was almost an escape from reality. There were issues that we had to overcome. Days like Bryce Canyon where I can barely remember the day because the pain in my eyes was so bad that I laid in the front seat on our way there trying not to throw up. However, the storm settled and I pulled it together to go on a bike ride with the kids, soaking in their smiles and the beautiful landscape that unfolded before my eyes. The reality of how life has changed in the last eight months was always present, but less to deal with since in a way I was trying to run away from the reality of it. I suppose it was bound to catch up with me.

Oh! But I have missed Idaho. I miss the “suspiciously nice” people that live here. I miss the scenery. Good friends and a familiarity that I hadn’t had in nearly two months.

The thing that got me was the doctor appointments. It wasn’t bad enough that there were still no answers or solutions to the puzzling health issue. It was the fact that I was returning to my former place of employment. The place I had to quit because I was no longer physically able to work. My old life. It hurt more than I was prepared for. It hurt bad enough that my doctor had tears roll down her cheek as she gave me a hug and told me WE would get through this. Being there reminded me that my life has taken a huge 180 and brought me from a professionally motivated go-getter to someone who can’t read for more than 5 minutes without pain and can not work because she got death the wrong cards. It was not the place I was ready to be at.

The first couple of days in Idaho also made us think a lot about where we want to be. Do we stay in Idaho where the mountain streams beckon to our wild west side? Or do we leave the West and move closer to family, who will not only provide the support and history but also allow for our kids to grow up while getting into mischief with their cousins? How long will we travel full-time? We are currently doing two weeks in Boise followed by two weeks on the road. What is our end game? There are so many things on the table that make things hard to figure out. What we do know is that we are happier having a simpler life. We are in a house that is about 400 square feet but are more relaxes than when we lived in something five times the size. It brings with it an easy fresh start, new adventure, or good memory. Life is better when it is less complicated. Less stuff. I focus more on the stuff that matters instead of the stuff that I once collected to impress those around me.

Coming back to Idaho has really shown me that while you can’t hide from your life, you certainly can embrace the new normal and make the most of it. It has made me appreciate the relationships I have with my friends, family and those I meet along the way. It makes me realize that we need to have an end plan. Maybe even a place to settle down and make my own. It had me torn about where I should be. For just the beginning of the Grayt Adventure, it sure seems to pack a lot of emotions with it. Good thing, we leave for the next chapter in less than two weeks. Maybe it will bring yet another perspective of the future. Only time will tell.

Discovering Friends Amongst Strangers

All it takes is a genuine smile and a glass of wine over a fire to find friends anywhere.

For every mile you go forward, your past drifts another mile away. It is the down fall of traveling I have found. I love new adventures and seeing things that I have always dreamt about, but the lifestyle also means that am isolating myself from my family, friends and familiar acquaintances. It means there are fewer and fewer people that know and understand my inside jokes. There are no longer “girls night out” while my husband stays home with the kids. It can be lonely. You miss the feel of good friends chatting into the depths of the night.

It makes it even worse for me. I do not make friends easily. I am anxious about new people and I feel awkward engaging in conversation or even approaching someone new. Not the best combination for a girl on the road. At times I wish I was instantly comfortable walking up to a new group of people and bonding. At other times, I enjoy the excuse of being awkward so I don’t have to even try. However, every so often, it feels natural. I just hoped that this would occur more with our new lifestyle.

Truth is: not very many full-time RV’rs or campers are all that comfortable with strangers either. We spent 3 weeks in Barstow and talked to a total of four different individuals LIVING at the RV park; each only once. I figured that in the RV community or even camping community, the physical boundaries that are reduced will increase the amount of socialization. Turns out, it is generally only with the people they already know. Strangers are still strangers, no matter where you are.

Yesterday, we traveled on the Eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We had booked a KOA (Kampgrounds of America) for the next four nights in Coleville, California. The town itself is a mere 550 people but had a genuine charm that made you want to buy a small farmhouse and enjoy a simpler, kinder life. The KOA didn’t look like the standard ones you see on the website. It had charm and was smaller but with a unique individualization that was different from the cookie cutter KOAs we have stayed in recently.

When we got to our RV space, we quickly realized that our huge 43’ Fifth Wheel was going to have a almost impossible time making a tight turn into the spot. It was the making for a terrible ordeal. The site was on a slope and with a 90 degree turn to get in, we feared the worst. We also found that our huge RV was drawing attention from other campers and I am sure there were quite a few bets going on whether or not we would succeed. I decided to stay out of the truck why Dan figured out what to do because I have learned in the last couple months that the best thing I can do is to let him handle anything RV wise… especially driving it.

As I stood outside the RV on the road trying to look like I was devising some master parking plan, something crazy happened. People came up and talked to me. Yes, strangers decided to talk to me. This is one of the first times this has happened since we started off on our trip. In fact, most of the people we have communicated with is because we have initiated the conversation. However, this time the tables were turned and before you know it, I had found two guys that helped Dan (a thousand times more that I ever do) park the beast and we had a few invites to go over to their area for wine.

Such a simple invitation was such a refreshing feeling. In fact, over dinner we talked about our previous stays and how this was what we thought would happen everywhere we went; people wanting to meet and engage with strangers. Fellow travelers wanting to enjoy other’s company and swap stories over the campfire. But that never happened. Yesterday though, made the wait worth it.

After dinner, we headed over to the fire of our new aquaintances. As we came up, we were welcomed as if we had been friends for years. Talk was easy and the stories, ideas, and laughs flowed freely. The people were real. Humble. Kind. But most important: welcoming. It may be the best evening we have had at a campground so far.

Last night made me think a little differently about things. While I am generally very polite and nice, I may not be as welcoming as I can be. I always say hi but rarely do I put myself out there for conversations or friendships. It makes me wonder what responses I can get if I am the one who initiates real conversations instead of just pleasantries. There are so many potential friends hidden amongst the strangers in our lives. Maybe if we were just willing to tell them to come over for some wine, the world would be a different place.

On a side note: if you ever find yourself in Eastern California, check out the Meadowcliff Campground: Coleville/Walker KOA. The place is amazing in every way from the friendly owners to the gorgeous campground. It is by far my favorite KOA I have seen and will certainly be a future destination for our family.