One day a few years ago, Andy showed me a YouTube video of someone’s tiny house build. I watched, with a not so very open mind, and told him “Absolutely not.” All I could think was our kids were 12 and 16, and no way would that work with the four of us.

Fast forward a year, and now he was showing me people who were building Schoolies. Again, with 2 teenagers, that did NOT seem like something that sounded like a good idea. Although, this time I told him that we could definitely do something like that once both the kids were out of school.

Last summer, he decided to start showing me eBay listings for Prevost buses and telling me how much bigger they were than a school bus. He had also been telling me about the online school options so we could take our son along now that our daughter had graduated, and wanted to move out. He saw it as our opportunity to sell the house and use the money to buy and build a bus so we could finally get out of Minnesota for the winter.

Lucky for him, I had been thinking about exactly that. Connor did not take much convincing, and he is such a hands-on learner, that online school with real-life on the menu sounded good enough for him to say yes. He just wanted to make sure we had a bus big enough for him to have an actual private space. I wanted that too. There is nothing like the idea of sharing a bus with your husband and a 15-year boy that guarantees you will be the advocate for private spaces! How the hell else would I get away from them when I can’t get outside?!

After much discussion and research (because Andy is the king of researching things for years before he buys anything, from a toaster to a computer) we decided that a school bus wouldn’t work for us. We also decided that Prevost was too expensive for us. We have been keeping our eye on a few MCI D4505 buses, and are planning to buy one as soon as our house sells. Emphasis on the soon.

To get what we need to pay off the mortgage and have enough left to buy and build the bus, and have money to live on until we get up and running (that is another story altogether) we were going to have to remodel the house. We built it in 2003/2004 and had only maintained, not updated. The style of our house was pretty classic, so really what needed updating was very cosmetic on the inside. Lights, carpets and floors, appliances.

Unsurprisingly, the remodel took longer than we had hoped, and the house is only just on the market. November isn’t really the perfect time to sell a house in Minnesota, especially with how cold it has been this year. I keep reminding myself that my timing isn’t always going to line up with Divine timing. I keep forgetting to listen. It’s a vicious cycle I keep trying not to repeat. Hopefully, this time is the time.

I’m sure you’re wondering what all this has to do with the shipping container in the photo. That happens to be when all this shit became completely serious. Not to say that before this we weren’t serious, but this was definitely the moment that drove it home for me.

We bought a shipping container. As in purchased, paid for, owned. My parents graciously allowed us to land it at their house, despite not being too supportive of our crazy idea. This lovely blue box is going to house all of the material objects that we decide we need to keep, but can’t take with us on the bus. My great grandpa’s dresser, Andy’s crap from the garage, Christmas decorations, my big heavy kitchen-aid mixer, and among other things, about 100 boxes of books that I refuse to get rid of. I mean seriously, who the hell gets rid of books?!

Andy decided that he was going to do a series of videos of the remodel to put on his YouTube channel. I told him “no way in hell!” when he suggested that I be in his videos. Insert eye roll here. I am in his videos. Reluctantly at first, which you will understand if you watch them and see the conversation about the rolling door. He learned real fast to play them for me before uploading them after he uploaded that one without playing it for me. He is lucky I love him. I was not impressed. I may have yelled or slammed a door or something like that…By the end of the series though, you can see that I finally sucked it up and voluntarily did one…where it seems I ended up on screen more than he did. Hmm.

The photo is a still from the first video in the series. Click on the video below to watch.