When we made the decision to remodel the whole house, I don’t think we understood just how much of a time suck that was going to be. Andy was stupidly optimistic despite insisting he could do it all on his own, aside from a little help from his friend Josh, and a lot of help from his dad and Connor. Thank God for his dad.

I was helpful in my own right, but I had a very hard time with it all at the start. I was a little annoyed that his plans for the remodel were filled with things I wanted to do when we lived there, so I was bitchier than normal when pushed out of my comfort zone. Of course, the whole reason we were planning to sell the house in the first place wasn't actually because of the bus, it was because we couldn't actually afford to do any of the things to the house that we talked about. We had spent so many years just paying the mortgage and bills and having nothing left at the end of the month, watching our collective pay go down every year he turned a wrench. The bus just happened to be the right idea at the right time to be the motivation for finally getting out of the house...and as a bonus, Minnesota winters.

To give you a little backstory, in 2015 Andy got an opportunity to stop being an Automotive Technician (the fancy new term for "Mechanic"), and instead start teaching high school students what they need to know to be an Auto Tech themselves. That was an opportunity that he couldn't turn down, especially since it came with a significant pay raise and insurance. It proved to be the right one, and his (and the entire family's by default) overall wellbeing improved ridiculously. It also helped him realize it wasn't just the job he'd had for 20 years that was the problem. It was the life we were living, or rather not living. When all you can afford to do is pay your bills, life gets pretty dull.

Sorry - I tend to get sidetracked sometimes. Most times. Oh hell, all the time.

The demolition of everything that needed to go took longer than Andy anticipated, and the month of remodeling that he planned on took two months instead. While I went to work almost every day and we lived on my minuscule paycheck, he went to the house every day and worked his ass off. We had a crazy schedule that I didn't enjoy too much. You see, I'm one of those up with the light types, and in August and September it is light outside anywhere from 5-5:30 A.M. Andy, on the other hand, is one of those awake until 4 A.M. types and regularly slept until 10 or 11. By that late in the day I was usually already at work for a few hours. Despite how it may sound it worked pretty well for us, but I am very glad that part is done. I can finally get to sleep without a lamp on now that he is home, because the place we are staying...

Sorry, there I go getting off track again!

That first week of taking things apart, ripping floors out, scraping & painting ceilings, and painting cabinets was a challenge. It was also the first time Andy had added footage of me to his videos. He showed the first videos to me and I told him what he had of me was fine, thinking that as long as it stayed like that all would be well. I figured it was time to be ok with being on camera, as making videos on our journeys was a definite plan in his book. Unfortunately, I can't always see the future. I had no idea his plans for the videos included having me in ALL of them.

Let's just say that my plan wasn't the same as his and leave it at that.