{"id":102,"date":"2021-09-16T18:35:54","date_gmt":"2021-09-16T18:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/?p=102"},"modified":"2021-09-16T18:36:07","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T18:36:07","slug":"welcome-to-my-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/?p=102","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to My World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Have you ever thought about what your life would look like from someone else\u2019s perspective? Ever considered what people would think if they could watch your day as if they were watching a movie? Well I have.. and it\u2019s more of a blooper reel than a feature film. But since I have absolutely no talent with a camera, and since I love nothing more than to embarrass myself, I\u2019ve decided to describe<\/em> what a typical day is like for Sheila and I, so that you can get a good laugh at our expense, and get a better idea of what an average, every-day series of screw-ups might look like. So welcome to our world- a day in the life of Caroline and Sheila. I hope you\u2019re sitting down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wake up every day very early. Not a normal early, like, say, seven or eight-ish, but an elderly-person, can\u2019t-sleep-on-account-of-my-hemroids early. I\u2019m usually up by 5, and reaching for the JetBoil by 5:30. The JetBoil is how I make my coffee. Sheila still does not have any power\u2026 but luckily, when I was planning for life in the van, I completely forgot that she had power to begin with, and I planned a crazy, convoluted system of heating water in the camp stove and using a pour-over to make my morning coffee. In hindsight, just pushing the button would have been much easier. But it does make good coffee when I remember not to fill the entire filter for one cup. Half-awake, I open the cabinet above my bed, most of the coffee supplies fly out at my head, I grab the few things that don\u2019t, and set up the stove. I light the propane burner with an old cigarette lighter, using the \u201cdo it quickly\u201d method, which one day I\u2019m sure will cost me my eyebrows, but until then I plan on just telling myself \u201cwell it hasn\u2019t happened yet.\u201d Then once the coffee is made, I wipe everything out with paper towels and throw them away in my grocery-bag garbage can that hangs from the passenger seat arm rest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now it\u2019s time to say good morning to the truckers. So I open the van curtains, check for any parking tickets on the front windshield, and step outside with all the grace of a potato-sack racer as I trip over one of the 800 items I keep in the van doorway. Hopefully only spilling half my cup of coffee, I drink the rest of it while considering how dirty my hair is. Or rather, considering if it\u2019s dirty enough to warrant a shower, or if I\u2019ll be able to make it through the day unnoticed with just a baseball hat, a pair of sunglasses and possibly a fake mustache. But if the fake mustache just isn\u2019t going to cut it, it\u2019s shower time. However, since I don\u2019t have any water, I fill jugs of water to use as a replacement shower. I then pour one jug over my head, wash my hair, and pour another jug onto it to get the shampoo out. Is it a perfect system? No. Do I usually end up with half-soapy hair, looking similar to someone who may have inadvertently walked into a car wash and then realized their error and escaped halfway through the rinse cycle? Most likely, yes. But hey, if it works, it works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My weekly shower complete, I dry-shave my legs and throw on some dirty jeans, and I\u2019m ready to hit the town, looking like a damn supermodel. I can only imagine what people must think- who is that girl? How is she so\u2026 clean? Is she from Los Angeles? Have I seen her in a movie before? Is that Jennifer Lopez? Don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s a common mistake. I won\u2019t hold it against you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our mornings are pretty consistent, but from that point on, Sheila and I change up our plan a little every day- I like to keep her on her toes. However, there are usually two distinct types of  days- hiking days, and town days. Hiking days are 95% of our time, but the other 5% occurs when we either (a) run out of socks, (b) run out of pepperoni, or (c) actually need to get real-world things done (In my defense, (c) doesn\u2019t happen very often). Hiking days are pretty self-explanatory, and by far the best days- I love nothing more than being outside and breaking a sweat. Does that make me a little psycho? Possibly. In my defense, I considered lying to you guys so you would think I\u2019m cooler, but I\u2019m very confident that ship has sailed. Hell, it\u2019s halfway across the Atlantic by now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the town days- the 5 percent- are the interesting ones. The wild cards. Let Sheila and I loose in a town, and you never know what\u2019s going to happen. I fully anticipate that some day there will be an iPhone alert announcing our arrival. Instead of an amber alert, it will be a \u201cSheila alert\u201d- an alarm will sound on your phone that makes you scream and jump three feet off the ground, and a message will appear that says something like \u201cSheila has been sighted entering Boulder, Colorado this morning, June 10th at 8:56 A.M. All residents are advised to stay in their houses, leave only for emergencies, and blockade their driveways to prevent an un-solicited parking situation. This is not a test. I repeat, this is not a test.\u201d Or something like that. However, until that happens, we\u2019ll continue to sneak through small towns across American unannounced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when we do, we always stop at Grocery Outlet. Ok not always.. as upsetting as it is, not every town in America has a Grocery Outlet. So as much as it hurts my wallet, we do sometimes have to visit normal grocery stores. But either way, I am always running low on food. So we quickly pick up our go-to\u2019s: pepperoni, taco shells, tuna packets, and jugs of water. Sometimes I splurge and buy a bag of ice for the cooler, so I can keep a container of guacamole cold. But that\u2019s only on special occasions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I then usually go to a Starbucks to charge my computer. I\u2019m really not a big computer person- in fact, I\u2019m not a big technology person in general. Usually my attempts at using any kind of 21st-century technology end in a lot of yelling, a few this-piece-of-crap-is-broken\u2019s, and end with some poor, concerned passer-by stopping and pressing the power button or turning off the keyboard lock. I\u2019m not proud of it, but if that doesn\u2019t prove that I am living the right lifestyle, then I don\u2019t know what does. But before I moved into the van full-time, I had finally heard enough people tell me that I would need a computer that I succumbed to peer pressure and bought one. Many times I\u2019ve considered throwing it out the window on my way down the highway, but so far it has lived to quite literally tell the tale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Depending on the day and the amount of remaining socks in my basket, I\u2019ll sometimes stop at a laundromat, then find a parking lot with good cell service to loiter in as long as legally possible. But once I start pushing the limits of the \u201cmax allowable parking time,\u201d I\u2019ll make a pepperoni taco for the road and Sheila and I will high-tail it out of town as fast as possible. But there is one more stop we occasionally have to make.. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every once in a while, we have to dump the poop tank. Now, the technical term for it is the \u2018black water tank\u2019, and this is much less offensive, but I\u2019m secretly 5 years old, so I prefer the colloquial version. But despite my childish choice of words, this still should not be an incredibly difficult or particularly disgusting task. It should actually be very simple- but by now I\u2019m sure anyone who has read a single one of my other posts knows that nothing I do is ever that simple. My method involves a hammer, a can of PB Blaster, a roll of duct tape, a leatherman, a pair of scissors, and 2 plastic grocery bags. Is it absolutely ridiculous and unnecessarily difficult? Yes it is. But until it stops working, I\u2019m going to continue to do things the complicated and sightly less effective way- it\u2019s much more fun like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A hard day of social interaction behind us, exhausted and most likely covered in poop, Sheila and I finally retreat to our campsite. I eat my dinner of pepperoni tacos or tuna packets, brush my teeth outside with a jug of water, open all the van doors and watch the sunset. And every night, right as the sun is going down over the horizon, laying in the back of my van in the middle of nowhere, the Grateful Dead playing quietly over my bluetooth speaker, flicking the last of the poop off my shoulder.. every night I find what I was looking for when I took off in my van earlier this year. I find peace.<\/em> And every night I remember how incredibly fortunate I am to have these experiences. Sure, sometimes it\u2019s frustrating, or difficult, or frankly a little gross. But it is always <\/em>worth it. And I wouldn\u2019t trade one minute of it- not one dirty pair of shoes, or one pepperoni taco, or one tough moment- for anything else in the entire goddman world. Because without those moments, I wouldn\u2019t be able to appreciate the moments of peace and beauty and pure joy that I am lucky enough to experience every single day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Sheila and I have many more of these days to come. So until next time, we\u2019re off to keep screwing up- and I can\u2019t wait to tell you guys about our latest adventure!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post\u2019s quote is from a podcast I heard a few weeks ago- it\u2019s long, and I transcribed it while listening, so it may not be perfect, but it is very worth reading. It\u2019s from a man named Colin O\u2019Brady. Among many other amazing feats, he has walked across the continent of Antarctica completely alone and unsupported, pulling a 375-lb sled behind him full of his food and supples, a feat which he completed in 54 days. And on his second Joe Rogan podcast, he talked about his philosophy on life and experiences: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve started to think about the totality of life experience between a numerical one and ten, one being the worst day of your life and ten being the best day of your life\u2026\u2019one\u2019 might be a day that a family member passes away.. just rough moments in your life\u2026and \u2018ten\u2019 is this hedonistic joy, the most pleasure-filled day ever\u2026People say, \u2018what are you afraid of.\u2019 What I\u2019m really afraid of is actually living a life range-bound between four and six\u2026in this life of quiet desperation in the middle. And I think a lot of that is because\u2026we\u2019re afraid of the ones. But what I\u2019ve realized\u2026is to get to the ten\u2019s, you also need to embrace the one\u2019s. I\u2019m not experiencing these high high\u2019s or these hedonistic joys in spite<\/em> of the ones, in spite<\/em> of the challenges- but it\u2019s because<\/em> of them.\u201d -Colin O\u2019Brady<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I probably butchered that quote, but the concept behind it is beautiful. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever thought about what your life would look like from someone else\u2019s perspective? Ever considered what people would think if they could watch your day as if they were watching a movie? Well I have.. and it\u2019s more of a blooper reel than a feature film. But since I have absolutely no talent with a camera, and since I love nothing more than to embarrass myself, I\u2019ve decided to describe what a typical day is like for Sheila and I, so that you can get a good laugh at our expense, and get a better idea of what an average, every-day series of screw-ups might look like. So welcome to our world- a day in the life of Caroline and Sheila. I hope you\u2019re sitting down.  I wake up every day very early. Not a normal early, like, say, seven or eight-ish, but an elderly-person, can\u2019t-sleep-on-account-of-my-hemroids early. I\u2019m usually up by 5, and reaching for the JetBoil by 5:30. The JetBoil is how I make my coffee. Sheila still does not have any power\u2026 but luckily, when I was planning for life in the van, I completely forgot that she had power to begin with, and I planned a crazy, convoluted system of heating water in the camp stove and using a pour-over to make my morning coffee. In hindsight, just pushing the button would have been much easier. But it does make good coffee when I remember not to fill the entire filter for one cup. Half-awake, I open the cabinet above my bed, most of the coffee supplies fly out at my head, I grab the few things that don\u2019t, and set up the stove. I light the propane burner with an old cigarette lighter, using the \u201cdo it quickly\u201d method, which one day I\u2019m sure will cost me my eyebrows, but until then I plan on just telling myself \u201cwell it hasn\u2019t happened yet.\u201d Then once the coffee is made, I wipe everything out with paper towels and throw them away in my grocery-bag garbage can that hangs from the passenger seat arm rest.  Now it\u2019s time to say good morning to the truckers. So I open the van curtains, check for any parking tickets on the front windshield, and step outside with all the grace of a potato-sack racer as I trip over one of the 800 items I keep in the van doorway. Hopefully only spilling half my cup of coffee, I drink the rest of it while considering how dirty my hair is. Or rather, considering if it\u2019s dirty enough to warrant a shower, or if I\u2019ll be able to make it through the day unnoticed with just a baseball hat, a pair of sunglasses and possibly a fake mustache. But if the fake mustache just isn\u2019t going to cut it, it\u2019s shower time. However, since I don\u2019t have any water, I fill jugs of water to use as a replacement shower. I then pour one jug over my head, wash my hair, and pour another jug onto it to get the shampoo out. Is it a perfect system? No. Do I usually end up with half-soapy hair, looking similar to someone who may have inadvertently walked into a car wash and then realized their error and escaped halfway through the rinse cycle? Most likely, yes. But hey, if it works, it works.  My weekly shower complete, I dry-shave my legs and throw on some dirty jeans, and I\u2019m ready to hit the town, looking like a damn supermodel. I can only imagine what people must think- who is that girl? How is she so\u2026 clean? Is she from Los Angeles? Have I seen her in a movie before? Is that Jennifer Lopez? Don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s a common mistake. I won\u2019t hold it against you.  Our mornings are pretty consistent, but from that point on, Sheila and I change up our plan a little every day- I like to keep her on her toes. However, there are usually two distinct types of  days- hiking days, and town days. Hiking days are 95% of our time, but the other 5% occurs when we either (a) run out of socks, (b) run out of pepperoni, or (c) actually need to get real-world things done (In my defense, (c) doesn\u2019t happen very often). Hiking days are pretty self-explanatory, and by far the best days- I love nothing more than being outside and breaking a sweat. Does that make me a little psycho? Possibly. In my defense, I considered lying to you guys so you would think I\u2019m cooler, but I\u2019m very confident that ship has sailed. Hell, it\u2019s halfway across the Atlantic by now.  But the town days- the 5 percent- are the interesting ones. The wild cards. Let Sheila and I loose in a town, and you never know what\u2019s going to happen. I fully anticipate that some day there will be an iPhone alert announcing our arrival. Instead of an amber alert, it will be a \u201cSheila alert\u201d- an alarm will sound on your phone that makes you scream and jump three feet off the ground, and a message will appear that says something like \u201cSheila has been sighted entering Boulder, Colorado this morning, June 10th at 8:56 A.M. All residents are advised to stay in their houses, leave only for emergencies, and blockade their driveways to prevent an un-solicited parking situation. This is not a test. I repeat, this is not a test.\u201d Or something like that. However, until that happens, we\u2019ll continue to sneak through small towns across American unannounced.  And when we do, we always stop at Grocery Outlet. Ok not always.. as upsetting as it is, not every town in America has a Grocery Outlet. So as much as it hurts my wallet, we do sometimes have to visit normal grocery stores. But either way, I am always running low on food. So we quickly pick up our go-to\u2019s: pepperoni, taco shells, tuna packets, and jugs of water. Sometimes I splurge and buy a bag of ice for the cooler, so I can keep a container of guacamole cold. But that\u2019s only on special occasions.  I then usually go to a Starbucks to charge my computer. I\u2019m really not a big computer person- in fact, I\u2019m not a big technology person in general. Usually my attempts at using any kind of 21st-century technology end in a lot of yelling, a few this-piece-of-crap-is-broken\u2019s, and end with some poor, concerned passer-by stopping and pressing the power button or turning off the keyboard lock. I\u2019m not proud of it, but if that doesn\u2019t prove that I am living the right lifestyle, then I don\u2019t know what does. But before I moved into the van full-time, I had finally heard enough people tell me that I would need a computer that I succumbed to peer pressure and bought one. Many times I\u2019ve considered throwing it out the window on my way down the highway, but so far it has lived to quite literally tell the tale.  Depending on the day and the amount of remaining socks in my basket, I\u2019ll sometimes stop at a laundromat, then find a parking lot with good cell service to loiter in as long as legally possible. But once I start pushing the limits of the \u201cmax allowable parking time,\u201d I\u2019ll make a pepperoni taco for the road and Sheila and I will high-tail it out of town as fast as possible. But there is one more stop we occasionally have to make..  Every once in a while, we have to dump the poop tank. Now, the technical term for it is the \u2018black water tank\u2019, and this is much less offensive, but I\u2019m secretly 5 years old, so I prefer the colloquial version. But despite my childish choice of words, this still should not be an incredibly difficult or particularly disgusting task. It should actually be very simple- but by now I\u2019m sure anyone who has read a single one of my other posts knows that nothing I do is ever that simple. My method involves a hammer, a can of PB Blaster, a roll of duct tape, a leatherman, a pair of scissors, and 2 plastic grocery bags. Is it absolutely ridiculous and unnecessarily difficult? Yes it is. But until it stops working, I\u2019m going to continue to do things the complicated and sightly less effective way- it\u2019s much more fun like that. A hard day of social interaction behind us, exhausted and most likely covered in poop, Sheila and I finally retreat to our campsite. I eat my dinner of pepperoni tacos or tuna packets, brush my teeth outside with a jug of water, open all the van doors and watch the sunset. And every night, right as the sun is going down over the horizon, laying in the back of my van in the middle of nowhere, the Grateful Dead playing quietly over my bluetooth speaker, flicking the last of the poop off my shoulder.. every night I find what I was looking for when I took off in my van earlier this year. I find peace. And every night I remember how incredibly fortunate I am to have these experiences. Sure, sometimes it\u2019s frustrating, or difficult, or frankly a little gross. But it is always worth it. And I wouldn\u2019t trade one minute of it- not one dirty pair of shoes, or one pepperoni taco, or one tough moment- for anything else in the entire goddman world. Because without those moments, I wouldn\u2019t be able to appreciate the moments of peace and beauty and pure joy that I am lucky enough to experience every single day.  But Sheila and I have many more of these days to come. So until next time, we\u2019re off to keep screwing up- and I can\u2019t wait to tell you guys about our latest adventure! This post\u2019s quote is from a podcast I heard a few weeks ago- it\u2019s long, and I transcribed it while listening, so it may not be perfect, but it is very worth reading. It\u2019s from a man named Colin O\u2019Brady. Among many other amazing feats, he has walked across the continent of Antarctica completely alone and unsupported, pulling a 375-lb sled behind him full of his food and supples, a feat which he completed in 54 days. And on his second Joe Rogan podcast, he talked about his philosophy on life and experiences:  \u201cI\u2019ve started to think about the totality of life experience between a numerical one and ten, one being the worst day of your life and ten being the best day of your life\u2026\u2019one\u2019 might be a day that a family member passes away.. just rough moments in your life\u2026and \u2018ten\u2019 is this hedonistic joy, the most pleasure-filled day ever\u2026People say, \u2018what are you afraid of.\u2019 What I\u2019m really afraid of is actually living a life range-bound between four and six\u2026in this life of quiet desperation in the middle. And I think a lot of that is because\u2026we\u2019re afraid of the ones. But what I\u2019ve realized\u2026is to get to the ten\u2019s, you also need to embrace the one\u2019s. I\u2019m not experiencing these high high\u2019s or these hedonistic joys in spite of the ones, in spite of the challenges- but it\u2019s because of them.\u201d -Colin O\u2019Brady I probably butchered that quote, but the concept behind it is beautiful. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-screw-ups"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Blog-Post-Pics.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions\/105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}