Final Days at Home: Couchsurfing, Packing & Eating

When I moved back to my mom's house after college in September 2009, I was more than $8,000 in debt.

Moving home was necessary. With no savings, a small student loan and a big balance on my credit card, I had absolutely no idea how to manage my money, let alone how to afford living on my own.

My mom had turned my high-school bedroom into her office and filled it with big, heavy furniture. I was more than welcome to move my stuff back into the room if I would pay to move the office furniture into a heated storage unit, but I was already so deep in debt. No dice.

Instead, I stuck my bed into a nook at the back of the one-story house and slept there, with only a bookcase partially blocking the area for privacy. I lived that way for 16 months.

The nook. Picture my queen-sized bed on top of this rug. At least I had a skylight!

In January 2010, I began focusing on paying off my debt, and I became debt-free just six months later. I continued to budget and save like crazy, which allowed me to move out of my mom's house that December with more than $10,000 in the bank.

I was so thrilled not only to move out, but to have a bedroom again. Four walls, a whole closet to myself and a door — that locked, even! — seemed like such luxuries. And to top it all off, my room was huge and had its very own balcony. I caught some incredible sunsets on that balcony.

Thirteen months later, I've left that awesome, private room behind...

...to return to my mom's house once again. I sold all this furniture to the next tenant, so I don't even have my bed anymore.

This time, though, I haven't moved home because I have to. I'm just crashing on the couch for a few days as I prepare to travel the world.

Try telling that to the girl who, two years ago, sat in this house sobbing because she was completely drowning in debt.

She never would have believed this adventure was possible.

GETTING ORGANIZED

Now that I've moved out of my townhouse, all I have left to do is pick up a few last travel items and start packing. 

I've been buying things over the past several weeks and collecting them in one big bag. Yesterday I dumped everything out and began removing excess packaging, cutting off tags and organizing the items into categories: clothing, electronics, toiletries, medicine, etc.

No, I'm not bringing that remote control. I was watching Inside the Actor's Studio with George Clooney. : )

I was happy to find that everything fits nicely and compactly into my packing cubes (toiletries, medicine, cords/chargers) and compression sacks (clothes, underwear, socks). This was the first time I actually looked at everything and envisioned how it'll fit into my backpack.

Once I pack for real, I'll put together a detailed post with pictures and a list of everything I'm bringing. I found other travel bloggers' packing posts to be so helpful when it came to determining what I needed for my trip!

QUALITY TIME

I'll be seeing my mom quite a bit before I leave since I'm, well, living in her house, but my dad and I have to make more of an effort to spend time together. We had lunch this past weekend, and last night he took me out to a wonderful going-away dinner at Big Fish Grill.

Lately, I've been torn between trying to eat healthily because I'll probably be wearing a bikini soon and wanting to indulge because I'll be hesitant to splurge on good ($$) food and treats for myself while traveling.

I did a bit of both last night. : )

I had the Big Fish Cobb Salad with salmon, scallops and shrimp, as well as all the traditional Cobb fixings...

...and then rounded it out with the Double Chocolate Brownie, featuring vanilla ice cream, candied pecans and caramel sauce. My dad and I could have split one of these huge, evil creations, but we each got our own and I ate most of mine.

I may not be training for a marathon anymore, but I can still pack food away just like the good ol' days!

A note on food: I love it, and I'll try anything. I hope to sample tons of new, exciting and weird foods as I travel, and I plan to document the highlights and lowlights. The only thing is that I'm a wimp when it comes to spicy foods — hello, Southeast Asia — but I may just have to put on my big-girl pants and suck it up.

Three-and-a-half days until I leave!

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Clearing Out & Going Away

I spent this weekend clearing out my bedroom, hauling most of my belongings to Goodwill and storing some of them at my dad's place.

I'm getting down to bare bones — check out this emptiness.

Since I sold my desk chair ($5, even though I originally dragged it off the street for free), I can compute in bed without feeling too lazy. : )

I'm very happy with the amount of stuff I've gotten rid of versus the amount of stuff I'm keeping. It was tough to part with some items at first, but as I sold and gave away more and more, the easier it became.

The key question was: What is replaceable?

Photos and letters from loved ones are not, and I've kept those neatly bundled together in a plastic storage bin. Clothes, furniture and random trinkets, on the other hand, hold no meaning for me, and someone else will find them much more useful if I pass them along.

I'm also happy with the money I've brought in from selling stuff to friends, to thrift stores and on Craigslist — more than $1,000!

• Furniture: $550
• Clothing: $164
• Miscellaneous: $305

Now I just have to finish cleaning up and clearing out of the townhouse today and tomorrow. I'll miss this place, but I'm also excited to move forward!

LAST HURRAH

I had a little going-away gathering Saturday night, which seemed to come out of nowhere. How did it get to be time for that??

First, my closest girlfriends put together a Mexican feast of tacos, rice, beans and Coronas. Delish.

I requested this just so my friend Gillian would make her amazing guacamole, and it totally worked.

Later, we met up with more friends and enjoyed more beers at a few bars in Fremont. It was a laid-back, low-key night, which was exactly what I wanted. 

I loved being able to catch up with — and, sniff, say goodbye to — some of my very favorite people.

The good times and goodbyes continued on Sunday with a visit to John Howie Steak in Bellevue. My friend Amy told me I must experience the happy hour burger and Beecher's mac and cheese before I leave, and I was all too happy to oblige.

It was incredible. I could happily drown in that mac and cheese.

There may have been some deep-fried bacon involved. It wasn't my idea, but I didn't fight it, either!

My only problem is that I have a bunch of food in my fridge, freezer and pantry that I need to use up, but people keep insisting on taking me out to delicious meals. Take Friday's lunch that I shared with Meg at Poquitos in Capitol Hill, for example.

Man, it's just such a tough dilemma. How will I ever manage? : )

THE FINAL WEEK

This week will be all about tying up loose ends. I need to:

• finish moving out and establish my place on the couch at my mom's house (which will also serve as my permanent address)
• cancel utilities accounts
• forward my mail
• sell my car (not looking forward to this — I have no clue who will buy a 1993 Dodge Grand Caravan with a cracked windshield and missing hubcap)
• cancel my car insurance
• obtain New Zealand currency
• pick up the last few items on my packing list
• test pack
• freak out
• actually pack
• LEAVE!

Did I miss anything? (I've already done my taxes and have a $2,100 return on its way — woo-hoo!)

Six days to go...

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The Townhouse: Part II

Oh, hellooo. Excuse my feet!

I'm sitting here resting my legs after running seven miles in brand-new shoes and suffering the slightly painful consequences. So why don't I continue that townhouse tour I started back in February?

To refresh your memory, here are the kitchen and the living room:

$120 Craigslist couch for the win!

I'm not much for decorating, but fresh flowers are always nice, especially when they come from a nice young gentleman...

 Flowers just make everything happier!

And they made it up to my room.

The bed and nightstand used to belong to my mom. There's a matching nightstand on the other side, which I don't use, but I appreciate symmetry.

When I moved into the townhouse, I splurged on new sheets, a new down comforter and a new memory-foam mattress topper. For years, I had been using a weird combo of mismatched sheets and an old, too-small comforter from my freshman year in the dorms, so it was time to start fresh. This bed is now ridiculously comfortable and very difficult to get out of!

The other side of my room opens up to a balcony with a sliding glass door that lets in a lot of light. Lucky me, I know! The curtains also came with the place. The view outside is nice sometimes.

Fun fact: I rescued the office chair from the curb while I was in college. It has a few tears, but it's pretty comfortable! I ain't picky.

My race bibs are the only things I've put on my walls. Like I said, I'm not much for decorating. The desk is a castoff from my brother, I think, and the basic plastic drawers to the right hold all my old school supplies and files of important papers. You'll spy a bottle of Elmer's glue if you look closely. What?

The top shelf is a great place to throw papers and mail that I don't want to deal with. I also displayed my high school and college diplomas up there to prove I got me some education.

I keep my book collection to a minimum because I don't reread a lot of books, and I'd rather grab something from the library than haul a bunch of books around every time I move. This is probably too many books for me to have, even.

The Clinton book is signed by the man himself, but I haven't read it all the way through. I skipped to the pages under "Lewinsky, Monica" in the index. Oh, you would, too!

I have a few bears that hold special meaning, plus an old postcard from my favorite college professor's address to the graduating class of 2008. I didn't attend his address since I graduated the following year, but the professor saved one of those cards for me to have, and I happened to like that quote...

On to the bathroom!

I share this with one of my roommates, but it's pretty big and we each have our own space.

The his-and-hers — hers-and-hers? — sinks are great, and the shelf/drawer unit in the middle is fab for storage. We girls have lot of fancy stuff to put in our hair, you know.



I hang out over on this side. I picked out that shower curtain you see in the reflection — it was the least ugly one I could find at Bed, Bath and Beyond. What's with all the ugly shower curtains, BB&B?

That's it for the tour! There are two other bedrooms, two other bathrooms and a garage, but you'll have to use your imagination.

I'm off to go make some dinner and ice my shins in the hopes that I can hit the pavement again soon. After all, I'm only 11 days away from my first 10K (6.2-mile) race! And then I'll have another bib to add to my, umm, minimalist decor.

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The Townhouse

For 15 months, I lived in a little nook of my mom's house that was partially blocked off by a bookcase for privacy. I could have had my old bedroom back, but it had been turned into an office and was full of giant furniture — furniture that I would have to pay to keep in heated storage during my stay. Frankly, I'm just lazy and cheap. I chose to move my bed into the nook, and it was fine.

I was pretty ready to move into this townhouse, though.

After living at home for a while, I really wanted to find a nice place to live. A grown-up place. A place I wouldn't be embarrassed to show to my parents. It took a bit of looking, but my two roommates and I found this place and jumped on it.

The TV came with the townhouse, by the way. As much as I'd like to, I won't even pretend that it's mine!

We're still lacking some bar stools. Anybody have any? : )

Couch. Craigslist. $120. It fit perfectly into my minivan (with the seats taken out). It almost didn't fit up the stairs, but after a lot of sweat and frustration, it finally made it into the living room.

My room is far too messy to show here, but it has four walls, a closet and a door — all things that I'd been missing for the past 15 months. I honestly didn't miss them much — I always had a comfortable place to sleep and everything else I needed — but doing without them for a while just made having a room again that much nicer.

I had quite a bit of growing up to do during the time I lived at my mom's house, and now I feel like I have a grown-up place to match.

Also, there's cake here! And cake makes everything even better.

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Grabbing the bananas

Several good things happened today. I'll begin at the beginning.

Good Thing #1:

My mom emailed this to me after I told her that my future roommates and I signed a lease for a lovely townhouse this morning. I laughed out loud. And then I nearly teared up.

But then I began envisioning how I would decorate my new room, and I got so excited. We get the keys the day after Christmas.

(Yes, my mom calls me Devie-Doodle. You heard it here first.)


Good Thing #2:

(Please note that if I were the Punctuation Fairy, I would add a possessive apostrophe to this logo...)

This is happening. I was innocently browsing 2011 races by month, looking for a 10K to do at some point before I attempt a half marathon in June, when I thought, "Hey, I wonder if there are any races on my birthday!"

Lo and behold, this 15K (9.3-mile) race around Lake Union falls on the 24th anniversary of my screaming entrance into this world. (My poor mom, Mama Bird up there, was likely also screaming on that day, since she asked for the epidural just a tad too late. Oops! I plan to request my future epidural approximately nine months before I'm due to give birth. On the rocks, please.)

I ran into a snag while completing my registration for this race, because not only did the online form ask for my date of birth, it also asked, "How old will you be on May 21, 2011?" Ummm. Hmmm. I'll be 23 until about 1:30 p.m., then 24 for the rest of the day.

(The race starts at 7 a.m. I put 24 anyway.)


Good Thing #3:

Well, hello, Chris Guillebeau! This man, who is a massive source of inspiration and general awesomeness, visited the UW Bookstore this evening as part of The Art of Non-Conformity book tour. I'll have you know that he told me I was awesome and gave me a hug just as I finished chatting him up and he finished signing my book.

I'll also have you know that this was not the first time he told me I was awesome.

When I got back from the cruise, this note from Chris was waiting for me on the kitchen table:

I told you the man has a way with words! Inside the note, he wrote, "Devon— so glad you're coming to WDS! —Chris."

I thought this was pretty sweet, but I wondered about the stamp on the back of the envelope. What does this dude have against monkeys?

If I had his book more fresh in my mind, I would have remembered the monkey story he referenced in The Art of Non-Conformity, a story that I first read about in one of Dave Ramsey's books. Ramsey tells the story like this:

John Maxwell tells of a study done on monkeys. A group of monkeys were locked in a room with a pole at the center. Some luscious, ripe bananas were placed at the top of the pole. When a monkey would begin to climb the pole, the experimenters would knock him off with a blast of water from a fire hose. Each time a monkey would climb, off he would go, until all the monkeys had been knocked off repeatedly, thus learning that the climb was hopeless. The experimenters then observed that the other primates would pull down any monkey trying to climb. 

They replaced a single monkey with one who didn't know the system. As soon as the new guy tried to climb, the others would pull him down and punish him for trying. One by one, each monkey was replaced and the scene repeated until there were no monkeys left in the room that had experienced the fire hose. Still, none of the new guys were allowed to climb. The other monkeys pulled them down. Not one monkey in the room knew why, but none were allowed to get the bananas.

Chris uses this story to illustrate that people may try to bring you down if you attempt to live an unconventional life, just because they think everything should be done a certain conventional way (but can't really explain why). They'll get mad and punish you if you attempt to reach an amazing goal that they never believed was possible for themselves to achieve. I instantly realized the significance of the anti-monkey stamp when I read what Chris inscribed in my book:

Such a good day, and so much good stuff coming up. I hope y'all are ready to go out and grab the bananas, too.

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Winding down 2010, gearing up for 2011

Dear blog,

I'm sorry that I've been ignoring you. But guess what? After a year and three months of living with my mom, I'm house hunting!

Finally!!!!!

When I was in the midst of paying off all my debt, I wrote a list of specific financial goals — ones that I needed to accomplish before I could move out. I'm happy to report that I have only half of one goal left to cross off, and that is moving out itself:

1. Pay off my credit card by my birthday.
2. Pay off my student loan by July 1. (OK, technically it was July 16.)
3. Move out of my mom's house by the end of January 2011 with no debt and more than $10,000 in the bank.

(A year ago, the last half of the last goal seemed impossible, but here I am. It wasn't easy to accomplish, but everything has been worth it.)

Looking for a place to live is exciting, but time-consuming and a bit stressful. Mostly exciting. I'll let you know when my future roommates and I nail down a place and get the details worked out.

Until then, posting on Answering Oliver will be light since I'm a perfectionist and like to spend way too much time writing these posts. It's a sickness.

In the meantime, you can keep an eye on my running blog, where it's much easier on my psyche to throw up quick posts that I don't have to obsess over. Plus, I'll have tons of stuff to write about there since I need to start training for my next 5K and another little race that I'm registered for...

Oh, yes. It's happening.

I'm ridiculously excited for 2011. The half marathon is just one of many adventures I have planned. Let's finish 2010 strong, and then go get it!!