Day In The Life, Van Life

 Hey Y'all!

Our day typically starts with a trip to the bathroom, or if we're away from facilities we'll use our portable toilet, and collapsible sink.

After than we get dressed for the day, and decided what's for breakfast. Usually something easy and filling- like oatmeal with whatever fruit we have on hand.

We'll check our email, and social media, then eat, and take vitamins. Once breakfast is finished and cleaned up we begin to plan our day. What we need to accomplish-  like finishing running the lights, and picking up some AA batteries, or what we'd like to see for the day- local hot spots, hidden gems, parks, etc.

After the day is loosely planned we'll start our adventure. Like today it was cleaning (so adventurous)! Yesterday Chris worked on the blackout pieces for the rear window, while I did laundry and other vankeeping tasks. Tomorrow? We're planning on going to the gym, and the store (for the aforementioned batteries, and maybe some veggies). Afterwards we want to explore a bit further north- depending on the weather, the forecast is cool but clear, however we're quickly learning in Indiana it all depends on the wind.

When we finish the days activities (including a trash drop somewhere at some point in the day) we start planning dinner. (We usually carry a snack when out & about as we rarely eat a full lunch.) While cooking we take note of our grocery situation for upcoming meals, and to limit gas usage as much as possible on single small trips.

Once dinner is finished and cleaned up we finish any other tasks we had for the day, like mending clothes, tightening a loose screw somewhere, etc. Once we finish those, and before dark we'll go over all vehicle checks- ratchet straps, hitch pin, tires, etc. 

Then we do our "work" for the day- video editing, blog writing, answering emails, etc.

Come nightfall we hang out inside the van and chill. Usually we'll play a movie or a few YouTube videos on one of the laptops, and fall asleep. 

If you'd like to see a video of DITL, just let me know and we can make it happen!

Have a great day,

Craftin' Wife

Playing Catch Up

 Hey Y'all!

We're in Indiana!

In this blog I'm playing catch up:

Wed 6th- What's in our "bathroom" drawers Pt 1

Fri 8th- Van Storage, Current Layout, and Organization

Mon 11th- My Coloring Book Collection (On the Road)

Wed 13th-  What's in our "bathroom" drawers Pt 2

Fri 15th- Q & A... Ask any of your questions here in the comment section

Mon 18th- My Marker Collections

Here we go, starting off with the bathroom drawers... I had Chris take the pictures, and appreciate his help, however there's only three photos. Not much has changed from our previous blogs and vlogs though so if you've seen them you know the overall layout. 

First aid and hygiene, followed by the nail kit and sunscreen, lastly is mostly meds, and other misc.

I'll do a full van tour, at a later date. It's a bit of a mess currently with our clean laundry, and my markers out.

Coloring Book  & Marker Collection:

Lots of markers!

Spectrum 

Crayola

Copic

Hobby Lobby

Prisma

and several other brands...

Coloring Books!

Chris' coloring books:

Mine, followed by Chris'...

(except the one his brother is borrowing, LOL)

I think my favorite is probably the Disney Villains book.

I never asked for any questions, and I don't have any, so there's no blog for that. Feel free to ask any questions at anytime in the comments below!

Have a great day,

Craftin' Wife

If you want a more in depth blog about any of these let me know in the comments below and I'll get to it ASAP.

What's New?

 Hey Y'all!

As I write this Chris is editing the video for last weeks Outland Adventures Thursday video/blog. I'll share the link in this blog in an update tomorrow.

Video LINK:

Saturday the 24th of February we were headed out to my sisters for the day, since we had a shop appt for Brunilda (the van) the following Monday we couldn't do much until then. The upcoming update will go into more detail, but we spent a week at my sisters while Chris and our amazing BIL fixed what broke. 

Sunday the 3rd we went back to my Moms, picked up all our packages, and spent the night in her large driveway. Monday Chris did the brakes himself. (Saturday we went to our nieces second twirl competition! They all did awesome, but she's our favorite!)

Chris had been in communication recently with his uncle & aunt, who invited us to an event for the upcoming eclipse in Bowling Green, KY. It has been years since Chris has seen them, and I've never met them so we decided to take them up on the offer.

Our other BIL (Chris' sister's husband) is a mechanic in Indiana and had offered to assist in any work we needed done a while ago as an open invitation. All this coupled with the warming weather and the shorter travel window before my next appointments (mid April) made the decision to travel KY and IN this next month or so pretty easy.

Don't worry, we'll get to Alabama eventually! (Potentially fall, but maybe we'll brave it in the summer, who knows...)

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller - Dr Richard Chambers.

As I write this we're sitting in Georgetown, KY.  We're slowly meandering towards central Indiana, and plan to get there sometime tomorrow. While in Georgetown we've explored the town a little bit, when there was a break in the rain.

On the way here we stopped often, and had to hit up Buc-ee's in Richmond for gas, bathroom break, and snacks! Other stops weren't of anything "cool" because of the weather.

Going back, We spent the night at our home base (Kingsport, TN) Planet Fitness on Monday, would not recommend- extremely busy all night long, and rather loud. It felt safe enough to stay, but it's not a place I'd frequent for overnights if we were to stay local van lifers. Tuesday we spent running errands; laundry, groceries, banking, port flush, etc. Last night we stayed at a Walmart in a small town, that was much better. Far less noise and virtually no traffic. We both got much better sleep. 

Tonight we're splurging on a cheap hotel, mainly because it's been raining and that means less power (because no solar), but also we wanted to take showers (while there is a PF here it doesn't allow overnight parking, there were about 100 signs stating such),and we really just wanted to stretch out and cook some dinner. The Walmart here didn't have any no overnight signs, so I suppose we could have done that, or looked for another spot, but we chose not to- we'd had enough of listening to it rain (since mid day yesterday) and just wanted to chill for the evening.

Now your caught up! We've completely changed course and are Indiana bound.

Have a great day,

Craftin' Wife

March Blog Schedule

 IDK Y'all...

We're still working on the van so I don't have many stationary blog ideas. I need your suggestions for April (and beyond).

Here's March's Blog Schedule:

Mon 4th- What's New (Not Crafty)

Wed 6th- What's in our "bathroom" drawers Pt 1

Fri 8th- Van Storage, Current Layout, and Organization

Mon 11th- My Coloring Book Collection (On the Road)

Wed 13th-  What's in our "bathroom" drawers Pt 2

Fri 15th- Q & A... Ask any of your questions here in the comment section

Mon 18th- My Marker Collections

Wed 20th- Typical Day In The Life, Morning & Evening Routine

Fri 22nd- Books, What I've Read Lately

Mon 25th- Have I been crafting/creative? What am I working on?

Wed 27th- March Makeup Looks

Fri 29th- April Blog Schedule

As stated above I really need your blog ideas, so please feel free to share them with me either in the comments below, or on any social media platform:

https://linktr.ee/CraftinWife

Have a great day,

Craftin' Wife

February Makeup Looks, There is no Makeup Routine

 Hey Y'all!

When transferring photos over, I was shocked to see I had done several more makeup looks than I realized. I have also come to the conclusion I have no routine with makeup. I now generally start with whatever sunscreen I'm going to wear, and then do all face, followed by eyes, and then pick a lip product. Finishing spray, and I'm done.

Here's the months looks:

1) Closing on the house!!! I did my hair & makeup this day. Foam rollers are awesome for van life.

2)

3) I was dressed before makeup, and these shadow colors looked far more nude in the pan than on my face. (I think they are a bit yellow/orange leaning.)

4) Hair did not turn out how I envisioned with this roller set. I also had to take them out still damp, since we had errands to run.

5)

6) Listen y'all. I'm trying to show you the new Colourpop purple mascara. It's one of the items I bought the day we got the tires put on. It's far more noticeable in person. (This was one coat in the first pic, then 2 full coats.)

7)

Jelly highlight, IDK how I feel about this one, but it's not in the "take with" container.

8)

I think the first look is my overall favorite, how about you?

I did 8 looks in February, which I think was pretty good. For March I'm going to set a goal of 10! We'll see if I can complete that challenge.

Have a great day,

Craftin' Wife

Cricut Design Space News & Updates

 Hey Y'all,

There's been quite a few new things happening with the Design Space updates so far this year. 

Windows-

Right at the beginning of the year we got an update on notifications, and a save reminder. That save reminder is super helpful for me, how about you? Definitely a much needed feature.

In that update we also got several bug fixes, but nothing major.

Next we got (for Access Members only) Create Sticker! I ended my access membership in December, for two main reasons money at that time, and traveling I wasn't sure how much I'd use it. While this feature isn't something that would sway me one way or the other I do miss the ease of picking from any of the thousands of designs ready to go that are included with that membership.

Create Sticker looks like it makes the whole sticker process easier, so I'm sure access members are enjoying the simpler process.

 

The end of January brought some more fixes. The "Not enough material" issue was an annoying one, glad they fixed it quickly. There was also an update to Bookmarks, but nothing major at this release.

Starting in February we got some performance updates, and bug fixes followed by Zoom enhancements. This allows for zooming out further than 25%. I see this being very helpful to me when creating something very large. (Like the storefront signs I've done, or the banner I've yet to do for the van.)

In the latest update we got a collapsible navigation panel on the home screen, which allows for more visibility of the images and projects there. For me this wasn't a big deal, I don't spend much time on the home screen. I usually open a canvas and search/work from there. There were also a few small fixes, but again, nothing major.

I wonder what's next? I'd like to see a less busy/interactive home screen, but I know that's an unpopular opinion. It just takes too long to load, and I have to wait on it to do it's thing before I can begin (click on canvas). 

If your ever looking for what's included in each update patch notes can be found here:

https://help.cricut.com/hc/en-us/articles/19154203490327-NEW-Release-Notes-2024-02-20

Android-

Android has had lots of bug fixes and performance enhancements, from 5.42, 5.43, 5.47, 5.48, that was the only "updates".

5.44 brought us Create Sticker (still just for access members) & 5.49 brings us up to the current update with Create Layers, again for access only. Create Layers gives you the ability to upload multicolored images and create a layer for each color (as opposed to the single layer/one color image). This is a feature I'd like to play around with, but again I'm not currently an Access member. Maybe if I find I'm crafting more often, but currently it's not worth the additional $10 a month for the little amount of time I'd be using these access only features.

What's next for android? I'd like to see a simplified UI on the canvas, editing designs takes so many clicks back and forth it's a bit annoying. This is why even if I'm using the Joy (Bluetooth) I'll design on the laptop, save, and cut from my phone.

To find out "what's new" on Android it usually pops up when DS opens, or you can click the hamburger menu and scroll down.

What would you like to see in Design Space? Share in the comments below.

Have a great day,

Craftin' Wife

Design Space Series:

https://craftinwifescreations.blogspot.com/2022/12/how-to-cricut-design-space-on-pc-android.html

Hey Y'all!

 Hey Y'all! 

We've been busy now that we finally have the money from the house sale, so I haven't really had time to blog the past few days. My apologies!

We've paid off everything- some could be done online, others had to be in person, joined Planet Fitness, bought everything we needed for the van (plus a few extras)...

Today we had an appointment to get the tires put on, and all that squared away- it took 2 hours. While we waited for that we walked around the nearby shopping center. Then we had some more banking to do, and stopped for lunch, then hit the gym. After that we had to stop by the UPS store for an Amazon return. Our emergency toilet was the wrong color, which would have been no big deal, but it also had a hole in the bag, so that should be exchanged in a few days. When we got back our main power source for the van had arrived. (We've been getting packages, mostly van parts, all week.) 

...Oh and we did an oil change today.

Good thing we had a beautiful near 60 degree day.

I'm writing this from the new laptop, it's nice to have u, 6, and 7 keys that work! However there are no pictures on here to add to the blog. And other than either another pic of the van, or a stack of packages there's not really much to share.

I'll work these 2 missed blogs in at a later date, and normal (as scheduled) blogs will return on Friday.

Thanks for your patience!

Have a great day,

Craftin' Wife