Living

The Best Rest Stop Ever?

| jamiefeinberg

Yesterday was a long day, but we powered through and we are hopefully within a day’s drive of our destination today. Moving forward we would like to limit the driving to more like 5-6 hours plus stops, but the car issue definitely set us back. On days where we sightsee, we want to drive even less. 

Although the internet was only useable during the evening when the Visitor’s Center was closed, the Lamoni, IA rest stop makes the most of its location in a way I haven’t seen before. Art permeates the building, with the Mormon Trail as a centerpiece. The gorgeous design includes lots of comfortable seating, and against the wall are booths with Internet and seats so that you can work with electricity (and heat!) in comfort. The rest rooms are really nice too.

Outside you’ll find a pet area, tons of picnic tables and some historical information in the area. An outdoor patio invites you to linger. Two additional walking trails are worth a look. One leads to an overlook of the river. It’s a nice walk, even if the foliage is a bit overgrown like it was when I was there. And the other leads to an absolutely incredible spot on the lake with a picnic table to enjoy the views. There are also walking trails (not handicapped accessible) that look like they go around the lake, but I wouldn’t explore that without an orange vest at this time of year.

I absolutely loved waking up to the sunrise here. What beautiful (and free!) views.

Other things we did yesterday:

Got gas in Kearney, MO (and resisted the excellent Krispy Kreme displays)

Crossed the Missouri River

Walked downtown of historic Independence, MO, home of Harry S. Truman and his library; full of beautiful homes and sidewalks and diverse residents (at least one that didn’t seem thrilled we were visiting!)

Drove through Kansas, including a few city areas that were crazily busy

The highways had “exits on exits” which weren’t our favorite

Drove the Frontier Military Historic Byway

Enjoyed the look of Fort Scott, KS (future trip?) which seemed fun and historic

Enjoyed this pretty state with lots of lakes and trees 

Visited Missouri for literally another minute before entering Ohio

Stayed warm although it got down to 25 degrees outside our RV (40 in)

We had hoped to stay at another rest stop last night, but they actually close it down after hours so we found a different free parking lot (Walmart) to crash in. Miami, OK is home to eight American Indian nations and it is kind of fun to be in Miami! We were also charged the car rate when we exited to pay a toll, $.75, so that was fun. 

Today we will head toward a friend who lives outside of Dallas for Thanksgiving. No grand sightseeing plans for today. We are ready to relax our pace after this. Thanks for reading!  

Dining in Des Moines

| jamiefeinberg

We had originally hoped to leave Iowa on Monday, but after a ton of frustration with our car insurance, we didn’t get the word that the car would be totaled (and hence no reason to stick around) until late Friday. After getting our electric step adjusted (will need to order a new motor, but at least it’s all the way in now), we drove back to our friend’s in the crazy wind before some snow came in. So we planned to leave Sunday morning, after the wind fest was over. 

We had an admirable goal of 9 am but by the time we were actually ready to depart it was closer to 11:30. We said our goodbyes to Dan and Aoife, to their cats Buddy and Zoe, and to my adorable dog friend across the street, a collie. We were off. 

We stopped an hour or so in for a quick break in Mason City, which looks walkable from the brief bit we saw. I visited my first Hy-Vee grocery store. They’re quite the experience! This one has pizza, Italian, Asian cuisine (all in mini stores along the outside) as well as a pharmacy, a huge alcohol selection, great deli and bakery and everything you’d expect. I grabbed some additional Thanksgiving essentials since a friend of mine in Texas has invited us to join them!

We passed through Ames, IA, as well, which has a university and a bus system for public transit as well as lots of lakes and nature trails. We didn’t explore, but maybe next time we pass through. 

Our main goal for the day was to visit a food co-op or natural food store. Since we hadn’t been in Des Moines yet, we headed there, only a few miles off our route.

Gateway Grocery was beautiful, with a market cafe attached. Parking was a challenge in the RV but we made it work. Don’t bring a big rig here unless you want to park on the street. The little glimpse we had of Des Moines showed us some very nice neighborhoods worthy of further exploration. 

The Grocery was quite overpriced for most things, but the food was really high end which helped make up for it. Ross was tired and had worked hard all day, so I treated him to some Spicy Pork Belly Ramen. He loved the pork, enjoyed the spicy dish and kept raving about it, so I think I did good!

After our food adventures I grabbed some dinner and we headed to our destination, a rest stop in Lamoni with wifi and walking trails that other RV-ers had found really welcoming. We had quite the adventure getting there – we tried following one of my apps for a gas station and spent way too long amidst corn fields and deer – but we worked it out and got back on course, found gas and found the rest stop. It gets dark so quickly now. We were settled into bed before 8 am! 

The temperature dropped to 25 degrees last night (winter weather camping isn’t our favorite but we are very capable) so we are glad to be heading out of Iowa!

Today we might make a quick stop in Kansas City as we pass through. Time will tell how far we get. We can stay in Texas tomorrow night but we can also wait until Wednesday if we don’t want to rush, so we will see how the driving goes. Thanks for reading!

It’s All Fun and Games Until You Meet a Deer

| jamiefeinberg

Well, I was thinking I should update you all on our adventures in Iowa. This past Friday Ross and I had an amazing adventure in Minneapolis. After getting the boring stuff, like prescriptions and mailing things, out of the way, we headed to the Mall of America before enjoying an amazing AIP-approved dinner and an original show with friends. (Incidentally, my friend is a Smithie like me, and although we worked with each other a few times in college, I didn’t know her well. This trip is proving to be a wonderful way to meet new people and strengthen existing connections!) 


Saturday we left their gorgeous home to explore downtown Minneapolis. We had tons of ideas but the focal point became a historic tour of the Old Stone Arch, ruins and the land bordering the Mississippi here. There are also amazing free things to do in this city – Art museum! Zoo! Botanical Gardens! – but the walking tour was perfect for this gorgeous, cool fall day. 

Afterwards, we headed to Pumphouse Creamery because they offer coconut milk ice cream and lots of gluten-free options, and although you should follow my ice cream blog for the full story, suffice to say that we had an absolutely phenomenal experience we will be shouting about for a long time. We even took some with us! 

Our last plan was to head to Build a Bear in the MOA. Ross had gotten me a $100 gift certificate for my birthday, and he’d received one for $50 from his mom so he could build something too. I got to be a child for a few hours (I was able to build a bear and a bunny) and I seriously had the most wonderful time. It was so fun that when they offered me a $50 gift certificate for only $25, I said yes!

After grabbing dinner (we kept it under $20, yayyy!) we grabbed coffee for Ross who had a two hour drive ahead of him. 

It was an uneventful drive. Well, until we were four miles from our destination. Ross turned off his high beams as a car approached – just as a deer decided to launch itself into our car. 90 minutes later we were towed back to our friend’s house, and now we wait to see what’s next. We have great coverage but we do wonder if they will want to total the car given it has over 200,000 miles. And if they repair it, I imagine it could easily take a week or two, so we may be spending Thanksgiving in Iowa after all. (So much for avoiding the 20’s as we head south!) 

Whatever happens, we are extraordinarily thankful that we are safe and that we have a comfortable, free place to stay with friends. Our RV steps aren’t working right so we will try to fix them while we are here. Stay tuned for more adventures with Ross and Jamie!

There’s Nothing Halfway about the Iowa Way

| jamiefeinberg

So begins the song that’s been rollin around my head (thanks, Meredith Wilson) since we entered Iowa about a week and a half back. We really came here to visit friends and get some stuff done, but we’re managing to have plenty of fun along the way. 

We are in a tiny town of about 100 people, but there’s a nice neighborhood feel and I usually get out for a walk each day, particularly enjoying the river views. Ross and I have also visited Decorah twice, which is a lovely college town that is home to Luther College. It has some gorgeous architecture, an extremely walkable downtown with fun historic information and murals and all of the chains and big box stores one needs for the essentials. (Including a 24 hour Walmart. Why can’t NH have more 24 hour stores?) 

One museum we haven’t visited yet (it’s pretty pricey for us) is Vesterheim, the four story National Norwegian-American Museum & Heritage Center. It looks like it would take at least four hours, so plan ahead around the guided tours of some of the out buildings. 

The fact that we skipped the museum doesn’t mean we have lacked for activities. We did some shopping (I couldn’t help it – the dress and the cowboy boots were gorgeous and the boots were at an unheard of price) and picked up some goods and goodies at the New Pioneer Co-op and at the bi-weekly farmer’s market. They’ve also got a music store and a game store, so Ross was a happy camper, and we bumped into the headquarters of StoryPeople, a wonderful company that makes artsy books and wooden things that are colorful and with wonderful stories. I’ve always enjoyed their products at fancy galleries/boutiques in New England and have given a few as gifts. Who knew they were based in Decorah?!

We managed to catch a wonderful concert by the community orchestra last weekend. A local professor was the soloist for Rhapsody in Blue, and the concert also included works by Bernstein and Copeland that were very well done. Best part? The concert was free! 

Our first RV puzzle has come up. We have a small power steering leak. So we need to find someone to fix that, ideally before we leave but definitely soon. Stay tuned for that one.

Otherwise we have been super busy transferring prescriptions, lining up health insurance, revising resumes and websites and lots of other important things. Still tons to do, but we are making progress – and Ross booked his first gig from cold calling! 

Lots to do. And the election and the pipeline are making me nervous. But we are blessed and thankful to be here. Thanks for reading! 

The Big Reveal and the Beanie Baby Purge

| jamiefeinberg

Well, it’s done. I gave my notice at my full-time job. While I am not yet ready to announce my RV plans to the world yet – we need to wait until the summer so I can keep my church job – I am delighted to announce that after May 29, I set arts administration aside, at least for now, and can focus on other things.

Am I excited? Ridiculously so! I wouldn’t say a giant weight has been lifted yet – much of the weight was definitely caused by financial stress – but for whatever it’s worth, I am not as tired or quite as stressed. So yay for that.

I am also happy to report that last night, as I ran a purchase by my mom (fleece t-shirt quilt to use all my old tees) and talked about how much progress I am making with purging old clothes and my grandmother’s beanie babies, she sees genuinely happy for me. She encouraged me, congratulated me on my progress and asked thoughtful RV questions. I am so glad I got the telling her part out of the way to give her room to do her mom thing. She’s a good mom, even if she doesn’t always understand my way of thinking, and she’s usually right about things. 🙂

Handling Ross’ finances is proving to be exciting, in that we can try new things to pay down debt, but also disappointing in that there isn’t nearly as much room to trim our budgets as I’d like. So I need to get back to work for Judy and hustle some more lessons ASAP. My first north country voice student (minus a few vocal coaching sessions) is tomorrow, so I am looking forward to that.

It’s also hard to make frugal food purchases when you are trying to lose weight (both of us) and hoping your diet can help fix your body (me). I have been doing a great job so far – trying to keep my food budget to $30-40 per week – but Ross is buying a lot of his own food too…and it is just a lot of work to choose which fruits and veggies you can afford if you need a lot of dairy products, for instance. I know we will keep refining it though…lots of things will get easier when we are on the same schedule too.

The next step for Ross is promoting his solo album. Meanwhile, I need to not only make more money, but start getting on top of RV planning. Hoping we can set up an RV appointment this week for the spring.

That’s all I have for now. Thanks for reading!

The Money Machine

| jamiefeinberg

I’ve been thinking a lot about money. Mainly because my blog of the month reading has consisted of financial blogs – mostly Mr. Money Mustache, which I highly recommend if you are interested in getting serious about saving or even retiring early. 

For my entire adult life, I have considered myself to be succeeding if I was breaking even each month, with a little left for fun money. I have never made big bucks, but I  have always figured out a way to make things work…but likewise, even when I was making 45K or so a year, my expenses were so high (living solo, driving too many miles, etc.) that my savings rate was never great. 

When I went to graduate school, I really thought I could get a significant pay raise with my degree, so I thought 20K of debt was no problem and didn’t even bother trying to pay any of it off during school. After all, I didn’t have any undergraduate debt (thanks Mom and Dad!) so I was better off than many. 

Of course, I didn’t foresee struggling for over a year to find work in my field, settling for a boring desk job, and then taking a pay raise that was really a pay cut because it came with no health insurance or other benefits (besides vacation)…also, no opportunity for a raise…and very limited opportunities for my husband to find work nearby. 

And meanwhile, Ross’ amazing success story of going back to school, working in radio, building his own teaching studio etc. is not nearly as amazing when you realize how much debt he picked up at school….and a decent portion of it in private loans. 

So while Ross has payed off his credit card debt (!!!) and I have paid off my cat medical bill debt and I’m almost finished paying off my own medical bills thanks to charitable care, we still have a huge amount of debt between us. 

So my new obsession has become getting really serious about finances. Saving more and paying off debt will be the focus for the foreseeable future. And I am posting it here, for accountability. Ross and I have big dreams, dreams of achieving a level of financial independence where we only need to make 15K or so a year to live – which would let us pursue our creative projects with abandon. 

We will have to work very, very hard to get there. But thanks to Mr. Money Mustache, I believe it is actually possible. And if you want to contribute to the cause, let me know. 🙂 We have lots of skills to share. 

Poverty sucks, but Disney is awesome

| jamiefeinberg

Yeah, I know. My poverty revelation isn’t exciting. But the more I read and research, the more I realize that if Ross and I had previously been in comfortably middle class jobs, it would be FAR easier to do what we’re attempting to do. Seems obvious, of course, but if you make more money, you can save more money.

But I said I was going to focus on practicing thankfulness, so that’s what this next post will be about. And I am researching more ways that we can do more with what we have, even if we can’t, say, retire at 40.

I’m thankful that my doctors are taking me seriously. The rheumatologist hasn’t said anything enlightening yet, but I’m still hopeful.

I’m thankful that I have a supportive family who will back us up.

I’m thankful that I was offered a job for the summer, if I want it. It may turn out that that particular opportunity goes away due to some crazy circumstances, but I’m hopeful.

I’m thankful that Judy Pancoast has asked me to musically direct her Carpenters tour this fall. I’m hopeful that between that and our own work,  we can get an exciting schedule together.

I’m thankful that my church so appreciates my work that they gave me a nice Christmas bonus as well as a raise, before I’d even been there a year.

I’m thankful that my arts job gives me the flexibility to attend appointments.

I’m thankful for my husband. He makes it all worth it.

I’m thankful for a loving and relatively sane family.

And final thought for this moment? I’m thankful that due to the generosity of Ross’ sister and husband, we just got back from a one week escape from reality aka Disney World. Since they covered our tickets and housing, we just had to save for the flight and our incidental expenses and food. We enjoyed a much needed break from real life and had a truly marvelous time. It was so good for our relationship – and it got us really excited for RVing because we LOVED being together 24/7.

Life is good. Thanks for reading. Keep at it and I’ll talk to you soon.

Resolving to Kick Ass

| jamiefeinberg

It’s January 2nd, which means we’re in the season of New Year’s resolutions. I don’t normally make resolutions – although the idea of them is appealing, I’m definitely of the school that feels like they’re hard to keep, so I prefer to set goals on my own terms – and often privately – to avoid disappointment.

But there is something to be said for accountability, and I have a ton of respect for those who can make, and keep, resolutions. And given that one of my clear resolutions is to make more frequent updates to this blog, it feels appropriate to make the time to talk about my resolutions, as ethereal as I may feel they are in some cases, today.

#1 Take the time to practice thankfulness.

This is something I used to be awesome at. First of all, I’d thank God or whatever power there is at least once every day, almost without fail. I never in a million years thought I’d get worse at that, but I have – I tend to get caught up in my own thoughts and worries and not necessarily take the step of pausing and giving thanks.

One of my friends posts five things he is thankful for on Facebook every single year. I believe he’s entering year three of this discipline, which was intended to last a year only. It is so lovely and inspiring to see his thoughts in my feed each day. I don’t need to copy him, necessarily, but I want to do more to call out my own thankfulness.

As someone who is truly an optimist at heart, I have never struggled to acknowledge all that I’m grateful for. But being sick is really challenging me. If someone asks how I am doing, it is very hard for me to say yes and not feel like I’m lying – if I feel “good” today because I only had to lay down for a break once, does that mean that people will think I’m back to normal? And God forbid we find this is the new normal – I flirt with those ideas but I REALLY am not ready to accept that. So for all of these reasons, I need to be better about practicing thankfulness. I know that as our income drops and RV challenges begin, we will have some VERY challenging days. Better get in the habit now!

#2 Make the time for meditation and exercise.

When I had mono – which I have apparently officially kicked by the way, although a mystery chronic illness (involving fatigue) or two hasn’t been identified yet – I did as little activity as possible. Although I might stretch my legs or my arms, I chose to sit instead of stand, and to lie down instead of sit, as much as possible in order to get over the illness. But now that mono is behind me, exercise, at least gentle exercise, is probably good for me.

For instance, if I have endometreosis, exercise would be good – it actually can lessen the symptoms. And if I had chronic Lyme, for instance, gentle exercises like yoga would be good for me, although running or other more strenuous activities probably should be avoided.

What is crystal clear is that whatever I’m dealing with, my symptoms get infinitely worse when I’m dealing with high stress levels. And what’s my highest stressor currently? Work. Although I’m relatively stress-free playing the piano, just sitting at my desk to work I notice changes in my body. Since I’ve got at least another five months or so before I won’t be doing this job, I need to build in meditation, yoga and some gentle exercise so that I can get through all of this and be the better for it on the other side. This will be a good practice for the new stressors to come, of course.

Making the time to get outside is definitely a part of this – Ross and I took a nice walk yesterday and we both felt better afterwards. When we’re on the road it will be even easier to build the outdoors in. Can’t wait.

#3 Find the time and the energy to keep setting goals – and then make the time and space to work toward reaching them.

There are so many unknowns in our lives right now as we look forward. I’ve got a few possibilities on the horizon for this summer and fall, but so much is still a big ? as I plan. But despite the temptation to sit back and just wait for the time to pass, especially when I’m not feeling well, I know that that would be really foolish of me to do. Just a quick brainstorm tells me I have beanie babies to give away/sell (thanks Gram!), belongings to sort and give away, scores to scan, tour locations to scout, websites to write, set lists to create, and much more. So if I don’t keep setting goals, and perhaps even more importantly, working to reach them, June will arrive and we won’t be ready for it. (I bet a lot of you can relate in your own lives too!)

I’m sure I could make many more resolutions, but I think these are three great ones. And if anyone reading this wants voice or piano lessons, an accompanist, a baker or cook, or anything else that will help get us closer to our goals (resolution #3), please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Let’s all go kick some ass.

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