This past Tuesday evening around 7:45pm, we received a sign.I believe in signs.Do you?This particular sign came in the form of a broken closet shelf, a busted hot water heater pipe, and a lot of wet items - including myself.

A little word to the wise: when there is water spewing from a pipe and the only thing protecting you from getting soaked is a layer of clothes hanging in front of said pipe, do not move the clothes to get a better look at the situation. Doing so will only result in a sudden, rude awakening of exactly how stupid that idea really is. Trust me.

So, yeah, the shelf in our bedroom closet decided to fall, therefore busting the incoming pipe on the top of our hot water heater. This means that everything inside our bedroom closet had to come out, and in a hurry. We got the kids involved and had an assembly line that went from the bedroom to the living room. Within a matter of minutes, everything was relocated.

I’ve always complained about how this house has absolutely no storage space. The kitchen cabinets are tiny and weren’t designed with practical usage in mind at all. The one small cupboard area of food storage is just a tiny fraction of a closet and doesn’t lend well to buying/storing bulk items. The bedroom closets are a joke, just barely providing the essential basic amount of room to hang a few items of clothing and maybe a few boxes here and there. There is so little storage space in this house that we resort to storing our vacuum cleaner in our son’s bedroom.

Take two adults and have them share one bedroom and one bedroom closet, and the above photo is proof of what you get as a result.

As I stood before the pile of closet clutter on that Tuesday evening (after the hot water heater was repaired and operational, thanks to the handiness of my husband), I made a declaration that went something like this: Let me say this loud and say it clear. All of that shit is not going back into that closet.

It was a sign. Someone or something was telling us that it was time to get rid of that stuff. We’ve been talking about cleaning out that closet for a long time now. The task always seemed too daunting, too overwhelming, too time consuming. There was always an excuse to put it off and hold out until another time. A better time. A more convenient time. But I strongly feel that life sometimes has other plans for us. Other paths for us to follow. And I do believe that sometimes they could be as simple as a closet cleaning.

As of right now, my living room looks exactly the same as the photo above. It’s now Saturday and we haven’t put a dent in the pile (except for the clothes - they are now hanging on a freshly installed, much sturdier rod/shelf). Life has been happening since Tuesday. We had a concert to see, a homeschooling event to attend, and some project loose ends to tie up before tackling something else.

It’s ok if it stays there another day. Or two. Or ten. I don’t care how long it sits there as long as we finally get around to sorting through it and getting rid of everything we can before taking one single thing back to the bedroom. Because like I said, all of that shit is not going back in that closet.

Stay tuned for another entry detailing the sorting process. It’s bound to be entertaining.

image courtesy of striatic

Jim, of live.work.dream., wrote a great story about what it’s like to find a good place to get a haircut while traveling full time. [Note of warning: If the word “fuck” offends you, maybe you should skip it (and seek help ASAP). Just know that you are missing a really great story and a good laugh.]

Jim brings up a good point. There are some basic day-to-day routines in our normal, stationary lives that are easy to take for granted. It becomes very clear when you are on the road full time, however, exactly how difficult it can be to perform those necessary routines while moving around from place to place. Getting a haircut is one of those things.

What if you could have a hairstyle that didn’t require constant maintenance, though? A hairstyle that saves you stress, time, and - most importantly - money while traveling full time?Dreadlocks will do just that.

I have had dreadlocks now for eight months. While still considered to be “babies”, they are quite lovely and I am quite fond of them. In that short amount of time, I have noticed quite a few differences in my day-to-day hair routines now compared to when I had “normal” hair. I’ll list some of those differences and point out how having dreads has already saved me stress, time, and money.

Pre-dreads, this is what my hair routine consisted of on a regular basis.

I had an arsenal of products that I required in order to do my hair: various kinds of shampoos, conditioners, gels, sprays, hair brushes, curlers, hair dryer, and accessories. It would take me at least 15-20 minutes every day to get my hair looking halfway decent, and I still hated it. I had to wash it every.single.day. I couldn’t walk out the door without rushing to the bathroom to make sure my hair looked ok. I could never just roll out of bed and walk out the door. Every six weeks I needed a haircut. Every eight to ten weeks I needed a color to cover up the gray hairs that have been invading my head since I was 15.

Post-dreads, this is now what my hair routine consists of .

I only require a bar of natural soap or a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap to wash my hair. I only wash my hair once a week. Every two to three weeks I do a deep cleaning of my hair and scalp using common ingredients found in the kitchen: baking soda, lemon juice, sea salt, and tea tree oil. My hair air dries, thus eliminating the hair dryer. I no longer require hair cuts at all. And it seems that I can go eight months before growing tired of seeing the multitude of gray hairs. I can roll out of bed and walk out the front door without thinking twice. When it’s time to go somewhere, I don’t have to make sure my hair looks ok first. And for the first time in my life, I actually love my hair.

When we finally get our bus and start traveling full time, I like knowing that a little thing like having dreadlocks will help eliminate stress in our lives, save time when doing things on a daily basis, and end up saving us money. The only thing I will regret, I think, is never having an awesome story, like Jim’s, to tell about finding that perfect place to get a haircut.

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An aside: I feel it necessary to state that “saving money” is only a benefit of having dreadlocks that I came to realize after reading Jim’s entry. In no way was that the purpose or reason for me getting them in the first place. If you are interested in that story, let me know and maybe I’ll write a post about it one day soon.