Today our five-year-old, Madeline, approached me and asked when we were leaving.

“Leaving for what,” I asked her, sure she was thinking about a local park or Grandma’s house.

“For our journey,” she said.

Still not getting what she was talking about, I thought she wanted to pretend that we were on one of our make-believe adventures as pirates looking for treasure, superheroes fighting crime, or rock starts at a concert.

“What do you want to be on our journey, Maddy,” I said.

“No, Daddy, not one of our pretend adventures… when are we leaving for our real adventure?!”

Then it clicked, and something in my spirit threw a can of gasoline on the pilot light inside me. I want to go now. Not for me, but because my kids are getting anxious to go. My five-year-old wasn’t interestd in some made-up, fictional adventure. She wants the real thing.

We may not be digging up treasure or fighting crime. The odds are we won’t be performing for sold-out stadiums to thousands of screaming fans. But that doesn’t matter… traveling the country with my family, exploring places we’ve never been, teaching our children what true diversity and acceptance is, instilling in them a love for God and all His Creation… that’s more exciting than any adventure I can make up in my head.

Today I collected three bags of junk from our aptly named “junk closet.” I don’t even know why we’ve held on to most of this stuff.

I put my Mac Pro up for sale on Craigslist to see if I can sell it there before taking it to eBay, where I’ll have to deal with shipping three boxes weighing more than 80 pounds total. It’s not going to be cheap. Not to mention the eBay AND PayPal feels which will total about $100. I really hope I can sell this locally.

I also posted an ad on Craigslist to start looking for temporary housing after our lease is up where we live now. We are kind of thinking it would be best to leave on our adventure the first week of March 2009, after we receive our federal tax return, which is usually pretty sizable thanks to Earned Income Credit we receive for having kids and being middle-income. With our tax return, school refunds and money we can save from now until February, we should have close to $20,000 to spend on a decent truck and trailer or used motorhome. It all depends on the market at the time.

Most of the money we are making from the stuff we are selling now is going into a savings account to pay for our diesel/SVO engine conversion. I kicked around the idea of using biodiesel but there’s no real safe way to make it on the road and getting into biodiesel co-ops is difficult, especially for people who won’t be in the co-op’s area long-term. Still, even with a converted engine we can use biodiesel if we can get it or make it somewhere along the way.

Madeline and I sat down with Microsoft Streets and Trips yesterday and talked about all the places we could go and all the things we’re going to see. I’m not sure she completely understands the whole concept quite yet, but she’s processing it and knows we’ll be on the road staying at campgrounds and such. I don’t think she understands that when we come back to the area we are now, we will have to stay with grandmas and grandpas because we won’t have a house of our own here any more.

Madeline’s also very excited to start school. I’ve been working with her from an incredible book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She is doing great! Every day she is gaining confidence and learning more and more words, actually teaching them to herself. At first I was skeptical of the book because it is a method of teaching children to read that is so different than anything I’ve seen before. But Madeline caught on instantly and is progessing through the 100 lessons right on track. 100 lessons in 100 days for 20 minutes a day. At the end of the 100 lessons, she’ll be reading a 2nd grade level. Amazing!