The Joys of Homelessness

Homelessness is a serious problem and we have empathy for those that find themselves in that situation unintentionally.  We are currently homeless, but this is a blessing in our lives - and entirely temporary.  This is the second time that our family has been "between homes" and both times have been a good experience.

The first time that we were homeless was in the summer of 2008.  We had a three year old, a two year old and twins  who were only about two and a half months old.  We sold our house in Logan at the beginning of July, but were not moving to Iowa City until the beginning of August.  We spent that month living mostly with my Aunt Kathi in her large house in South Ogden.  The basement of her house was larger than the house we were living in.  In addition, she cooked for us and we got to swim in her pool.  That was a great experience for all of us.

This round of homelessness is more meaningful for us because of our house in Iowa City.  We had it under contract to sell when we moved to Las Vegas last summer.  The financing for the buyers fell through, and by that time the market had slowed.  That meant that for the past year we've been paying for two houses.  The house in Iowa got an offer on it in June.  The offer was lower than what we were planning, but we went with it.  Then the house flooded.  We ended up getting some insurance money, and making some cash concessions to the buyers, but the house sold and we don't have to worry about it anymore.  The house sold on July 17th.  We moved out of our Las Vegas house on 21 July.  We are truly homeless, but not without a place to stay.  We've spent time staying with my mom and with my sister and her family.  We fly out to Kazakhstan in a few days and we know that we have an apartment there waiting for us.

Our Penske Truck Packed and Ready to Roll: Leaving Las Vegas

Until then, however, we are basking in the feeling of being freed from the burden of an unsold house - and free from paying rent for two weeks!

Packing, Decisions, and Sacrifice

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Or in the case of our journey of 6,000 miles (as the crow flies), it begins with a series of interconnected and complex steps.  One of those steps is deciding what stays and goes in general, and then what goes to Kazakhstan with us, specifically.  We are packing up our household and the accumulated possessions of 12 1/2 years of marriage, 4 kids, and the accumulated goods that come from home ownership in temperate states.  In general we are in favor of downsizing our possessions, but there is also the idea that we are likely going to return to the United States within the next 5 years and there are things we would like to have when we come back.

So we are renting a storage shed near my Mom's house in Payson and keeping many of our possessions there.  All of our winnowing of stuff will not leave us empty-handed, just lighter for the future. The packing of our things requires a number of decisions to be made for each item.  If we are keeping it AND taking it with us, we need to set it aside to pack later.  If we are keeping it, but leaving it in Utah, we need to pack it.  Another category of items are those that we are leaving, but which we want to have access to for later - on our trips home - to bring back and forth.  We have a number of books for kids that we plan on rotating back and forth on our trips home, so those need to be packed, but kept accessible when we unload our truck in Utah at the storage shed.

When I (Spencer) was a kid, our family moved out of our large house in Ephraim, Utah to a trailer in Payson Utah.  We had to get rid of most of our things to make the move work.  That was a valuable exercise in learning about the true value of possessions in relation to the rest of life.  Our time in our single-wide trailer in Payson with 5 teenage kids was one of the best of our family. One of the appealing aspects of our move to Kazakhstan is that our kids will be able to learn some of those same lessons about what is important in life.

This morning (Friday July 11, 2014) the girls did just that as we packed up their toy room.  On our last move from Iowa City to Las Vegas the kids didn't need to really make any hard choices about what to leave behind.  We gave away a bunch of their kids toys, but not anything that they were really using.  We limited the four of the girls to one stuffed animal to take with them in their carry-on bag and to one large duffle bag of other toys for all four of them.

Lina helping to sort out the toys.

The Kid's Toy Bag

They all did a great job of making hard choices.  After we had gone through a few things, the kids voluntarily gave up a number of items to the Deseret Industries (thrift store) box and got rid of previous "treasures" that were little more than trinkets and garbage (the trash bag in the second picture above).  We are blessed to have great kids who are willing to embark on a grand family adventure and to make the tough choices along the way that make that journey possible.