It’s funny how the simplest things in life become so valuable once you don’t have them. I miss Randy grilling mushroom cheese burgers in the back yard for the kids; I miss sleeping in on my huge bed on the weekends; I miss the kids piling in my room one by one (even though I am not ready to get up) and wanting breakfast; I miss making the kids French toast; I miss our family dinners; I miss our family meetings that the kids oh loved so much; I miss all of us on the couch watching movies; I even miss television; I miss driving out on the beach with the bubba truck; I miss going for walks with my husband; I miss taking a shower or soaking in the tub whenever I want; but mostly I just plain miss all of US!
Life on the road is not easy, and one of the hardest things about this job is driving during the night. I’m sure that eventually we will get used to it, but for now it is still a challenge most nights. The other very hard part is trying to get a good night’s sleep. Randy is having a harder time sleeping than I and he usually functions on 3 to 4 hours of sleep a day. The roads are very rough and while the truck is running everything shakes and rattles making a lot of noise. Some state roads are better than others, but it is hard to sleep when you are being shaken to death. I used to kid around with my trainer about it when I was going thru training. I was convinced that the vibration and bounce would make me lose weight LOL. Remember those exercise machines from very long ago that had that band around the butt and then the machine would vibrate your entire buttocks? Well we get the same effect in the truck except the entire body is shaken. When we were deciding on making this life style change, a friend of my dad’s told me that the best way he can describe “over the road driving" is to compare it to prison. Yea I can see how it can resemble prison, but with a beautiful and constantly changing view. I enjoy driving very much, and I am not really itching to go home either, which is a good thing. If the girls were home from college, then yes, I definitely would want to go home. However, by staying out on the road I am avoiding the “empty nest syndrome”. Oh and I also get to spend every minute with my wonderful husband.
There are many perks of this job. At the top of the perks are the pay checks we get. Every time Randy gets annoyed or frustrated, I just pull out one of our pay stubs and remind him of why we are doing this. Another perk is that we can take time off any place in the entire country we want. We simply tell the company the city we want to visit and the company has to get us there. We can visit family or friends in 48 states (we can’t go to Hawaii or to Alaska). On a daily basis we see breath taking sunsets and sunrises. At night we see shooting stars. We get to see all sorts of landscape. We are starting to know Southern California very well, which I love by the way. Sometimes I think that is where we are based out of. By being on the road we are definitely eating better. It is very hard to stop at restaurants to eat. Mostly it is only truck stops that we can eat at, but we just can’t bring ourselves to doing so. We decided that the best option for us is to eat in our truck. We have a little fridge and a microware, and we shop at Wal-mart for groceries. I think we have even lost a few pounds. When we can get to a decent restaurant we do treat ourselves, but it is not very often.
Randy and I have everything to be thankful for. We have great kids; great family and we both have jobs so we really have nothing to complain about. We get to spend every minute together, which I’m still deciding if that is good or bad…ha ha . I want to work hard as long as I possibly can so that I can help my kids out (and have a little fun). In today’s economy it is extremely hard to get a head, but I surely want to try.
Please keep the comments coming. It makes us very happy to know what you all think and that you are interested in our little journey. Very best to you and your family…
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