Having to face another winter

Winter here in Quebec can be brutally cold and humid.  We hosted an Norwegian girl for a year a few years ago and even she thought that winter here was incredible!  And she lives in Tromso, which is near the Arctic Circle in Norway...

Why am I thinking of winter in august?  Well, I'll be going back to work in a week, the trees are already turning yellow, the mornings are colder than they were just a few days ago and I can't wait to leave for our RTW trip.



Facing another winter is like facing my worst nightmare. I'm a summer person.  I like the sun, the clear blue sky with just enough velvety clouds to bring some shade at the end of a hot and humid afternoon, when you sit down and grab a cold beer.  I like walking barefoot in the grass.  I like wearing thin clothes and listening to the birds.  I like going to open markets to buy fruits and veggies.  I like not having to wake up early to go to work.  My favorite color is green, not white.

This coming winter also means that we will have only 6 or 7 months left to prepare for our RTW trip.  And it scares the hell out of me.  We have to renovate the house, box everything we want to keep and put them in a locker somewhere, sell our cars, sell our house, buy a camping car, make an appointment at the vet for Lulu for her multiple shots, give my notice at work, pack, try to make everything fit in the camper, find the perfect insurance company, take a closer look at our itinerary, try to make peace with my mother and the rest of the family - they really don't understand why we are leaving - and above all, keep a sense of stability for our kids.  Like if we were a normal family.

Which we are not. 

Oh, and we also have to try to make a living on the road somehow.  We won't be out of money after 2 months, thanks to the upcoming buyers for the house and the cars, but money can run pretty fast if we're not careful.  And our goal is to live on the roads for many years so, we will have to find ways to keep the bank account happy.

I guess our biggest challenge is not about leaving.  It's about the ups and downs of preparing for this new life.