Brown Eyed Bell(e): Week of Thankfulness: The Traveling PhoBlogWriPher

Sara over at The Traveling PhoBlogWriPher (is that not the coolest blog name?) and I first started bonding over the fact that we are both married to guitar playing men who happen to share the same first and last name. How random, yet cool is that? Sara has an amazing heart and picks one charity a month to donate a part of her proceeds from photography to, and in October she chose to help me raise money for my cousin's kidney transplant and donated her proceeds to Kidney for Kristy (THANK YOU!). I can't wait for you to hear her plans for the next year, so exciting! Be sure to swing on over to her blog and say hello. After hearing her plans for the next year, you may just want to start following her on this journey! <3

Note: I posted a giveaway late last night/early this morning. Be sure to check it out, it packs a powerful message for kids and adults a like.

Another Note: Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow is Thursday, and being it will be Thanksgiving Day, what better day to participate in my weekly link up, Thankful Thursdays? I can't wait to hear what you all are thankful about.

Now, without further distractions, let's give a warm welcome to Sara :)

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I am thankful for so many things- my husband, my family, my job, the very breath I breathe- but one thing I think about every day is how blessed I am with the travel opportunity I've been given.

Last year I sheepishly told my husband about a dream I'd had for a few years. I wanted to travel all over the U.S. in an RV, writing novels in various cities and towns. Not only did he not laugh at me, he embraced the idea himself and fell in love with it.

We talked about it and researched it and eventually decided we needed to buy it and move into it now so we could be saving our money and have a good emergency savings backed up for when we left.

A few days later we pulled $500 out of savings and bought ourselves a 1973 Winnebago Brave.

We sold or gave away over 90% of our belongings and moved into it just over a month later. It cut our rent and utilities bills in half each month and we've been settling our debts and building our savings since then.

I have never considered myself to be an overly materialistic person, but I guess at the end of the day we all are, just a little. Even still, the prospect of traveling all over the U.S. with my sweet husband at my side made it all feel just fine.

Getting rid of my material items was no big deal. Moving into something about 1/16th the size I lived in at the time was no big deal. Looking like a crazy white trash loon was also (basically) no big deal.

My only real concern was telling our families.

Our families were miraculously incredibly supportive. The two people we were most concerned about were quite possibly the most supportive. (I'm super thankful for that too)

We have also saved so much money on rent that we can easily afford to do things we never thought we'd be able to. Just since moving into the Winne in June, we've visited Nevada, Utah and New Mexico... and we also have a Texas and Minnesota trip in the works before we hit the road full-time next summer.

I am thankful for the support of my husband and family, for the awesome new blog-friends I've met this past year, and also for the opportunities we've already been presented with and will continue to be presented with... but most of all, I'm thankful for how happy my life is right now.

I have changed my perspective on life so much along the way. I don't care about the little things any more. I don't care about material things or inconvenience versus luxuries.

I care about living out my dreams. I care about being a good person (we plan to help people in every state we visit) and about placing my focus in life on the things that matter most. I feel pride in myself and my actions now instead of feeling pride for my home (although there might be something wrong with me if I were incredibly prideful of the Winne) or my car.

I choose life, love and happiness every single day.

I have so, so much to be thankful for this year and I praise God for that.

Thank you for reading my story! I hope it brightened your day a little and reminded you that you have a lot to be thankful for too.