NMC081 Post Wedding Storage

Daphine Mbithuka

NMC081th_Post-Wedding_Storage

Subject: Going through the whole storage unit looking for a few things!

Just like everything, traveling has both upsides and downsides. And one of the downsides of traveling is the fact that one can end up forgetting, misplacing, or even losing some of their stuff. Having sold her family’s floating home, s/v Dawn Treader, and then traveled to so many different places, Rosa Linda Román can’t stress enough how hectic it can get to try and retrieve misplaced items or even find them once lost.

In this week’s episode of New Mexi-Castaways, Rosa Linda takes us through how she spent hours going through the storage unit in Kissimmee, Florida trying to locate a crystal kayak they had sold to some friends. She also shares a story about how they ended up losing their Google phone in a hotel. Have you lost something valuable during one of your travels? If yes, you will definitely relate to Rosa Linda as she shares how it feels to lose stuff. If not yet, listen in to get a feel of how it normally happens. Enjoy!

P.S. If you liked this episode check out our most recent episode:

NMC080 Traveling Family Packing

Recorded: July 18, 2018

Location: Kissimmee, Florida

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Episode Transcript:

Rosa Linda Román (00:29): Hello and welcome to New Mexi-Castaways. I'm Rosa Linda Román and I am staring at all of our junk stuff, treasures in our storage unit. I've been thinking about how hilarious our things are all over the place, our things that are our loved ones or furry loved ones. First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Rosa Linda R Román. This podcast is basically Rosa Linda's ramblings. It is where I discuss whatever is on my mind as we go along our, our life adventures as a family of five plus one fur baby. And we lived on a sailing catamaran up until about two months ago when we sold that and everything was moved from that boat, the Dawn Treader into a storage unit in Kissimmee, Florida. So, that's where I am now because I just came back to Florida because my brother got married in Clearwater on a boat this weekend. Rosa Linda Román (01:29): Congratulations Anna and Jose if you're listening. And it was a wonderful wedding and we had a really good time. And now I'm using the opportunity being here in Florida while my sister and brother-in-law are watching my kids back at the house that we're sharing. And Nathan is driving to Jacksonville and I'll get into that in a second. But I'm using the opportunity to get to the storage unit. I came here with Nathan this morning because he has a business trip to Fort Lauderdale this morning. And the issue is that we were selling the crystal kayak, which if you go to my Facebook group and join, you can see pictures of us using that crystal kayak when we were living on the boat. It was a gift that Nathan gave me right before we sailed to The Bahamas and it was fantastic. In the Bahamian waters, you can see everything and it was just fantastic because if you haven't seen a crystal kayak, it's completely see-through. Rosa Linda Román (02:25): All right, so putting the rest of this stuff away, oh my gosh, it was cute. I had no tea and was just in here cleaning. It's funny though because my history working in broadcasting kicked in because you know, I've covered kind of the worst of the worst stories. I was realizing just this trip that I probably have some PTSD from some of the stories that I've covered that were just the most heinous things you could ever imagine. But anyway, I was telling my sister last night that whenever I'm in a situation my mind goes to the worst scenario. So, this sweet little lady just came up and was talking to me and just, you know, like another human interaction, which I certainly craved myself. So, it was a nice little conversation. But because of my history, I'm like, "Oh, is she sizing up my storage unit?" Rosa Linda Román (03:14): And like so stupid to even think that way. And I'm actively working on shifting away from any of those negative thoughts. I listen to a motivational speaker guy that I like and I've talked to you guys probably about before, Tony Robbins. He is a just personal development person and I really like his stuff. And I was listening to his tapes yesterday, not tapes. He has a new podcast. I was listening to his podcast, and he was working with someone, and her issue was that she always felt that men were going to cheat on her. And anyway, so she worked through it and she had some resentment issues toward her mother and all this stuff. And Tony Robin says, well, it's not what the men, in her case, in her life had done, it's the story she tells herself about what they might do or what her future might be. Rosa Linda Román (04:10): And I think that is so spot on because a lot of times we tell ourselves the story. It might be based on the past, or when we were little, or who knows what, but because of those stories that we tell ourselves, they can stand in the way of our big awesome life, which is what I believe I like to spend my energy focusing on, our big awesome life. And you guys may have heard me talk about the BAL before, big awesome life. And so, the story in my mind is, well, that you got to be careful, people might be out to get you. And part of that is growing up, you know, being in Chicago, and before that my dad comes from Puerto Rico and he had some rough experiences when he was growing up and some of that got kind of passed down without meaning to, and he still to this day is like, "Oh you got to watch out." Rosa Linda Román (04:59): And you know, he's always worried about us, about his grandkids. He just worries and some of the things, the stories, I think, and part of that is also watching the news, which is kind of ironic because now that I'm not in the news, I don't watch the news at all, but yeah, just what stories do we tell ourselves, right? So, I try to shift that and that was a big benefit of living on the boat, is you realize like that mentality that other people are out to get you, and things are bad, and there's something terrible in the world, which there are terrible things in the world, but the choice to focus on that as a way of life is a choice. You can decide that you're not going to live that way and you don't want to do that and there's, you know, a better way. Rosa Linda Román (05:46): And so, that is how I try to live my life, remembering that people are generally inherently good and they're not usually out to get you. And something came up this week when… we're sharing this house with two families, my cousin's family. They're the ones that you may have heard in the conversation with the lady. They went to Universal Studios today and my sister's family. And you know, as is the case, sometimes you have conflict with siblings, loved ones, right? And one of the things when my cousin, we were making dinner and everyone else was out. They had decided to go to the Clearwater Aquarium. Well, I'm against keeping dolphins in captivity and I know that the Clearwater Aquarium might be the exception but it still makes me sad and I don't enjoy it. I wouldn't want to go. So, I didn't go. Rosa Linda Román (06:34): And so, we came to check into the rental place earlier than everyone and we decided since they were all eating out that night, we cooked. My husband is an awesome cook and one of the things that I've been really trying to focus on is having us remember to help teach our kids whatever our skills are. So, like, I put together a movie club at their school because that's one of my skill sets, is I was a director of some short films, and I help, hopefully, teach my kids good writing skills and good communication skills because that's my area of expertise, right? Well, Nathan's an amazing cook and so he, I said, please make sure they are learning from you because my family does not have the history of being great cooks. And so, I asked him to please make sure to share those skills with the kids. Rosa Linda Román (07:20): So, that night they were cooking dinner. They made this wonderful gourmet meal. And Samuel's job was to make dessert. So, he picked brownies. Well, it was just a tiny little pan of brownies and he made this tiny little pan of brownies, but it was going to be great. And we sat down to eat and all the cousins came home and I felt, you know, a little awkward because we were just about to eat and everybody walked in. And so, the very first thing my daughter said, no, Samuel said, "Hey, I made brownies, you know, and everyone can have one. No, no, no, I made brownies, you know, for dessert there's brownies for dessert." Like, he was meaning everybody was going to get some. And Ahava said, but yeah, but there's not enough for everybody. And it rubbed some family members the wrong way. And it was kind of true because if we were to have a real full brownie, there was not enough, we have 15 people. And it's just a tiny little eight-by-eight pan. Rosa Linda Román (08:14): But the generous spirit that Samuel has, I don't want to squash that, and so I said, "You know, we'll see, yeah, they can have a little brownie, you know." But later when I was doing the work with Tony Robbins, going on a run and just kind of working on myself after some conflict that I had with my sister, I realized, you know, that's the story, that statement, there's not enough brownies for everyone, it's in line with kind of the story that I have told myself on and off in my life. I've told myself that there's not enough, right? There's not enough brownies for everyone. And also, the other part of that story is you got to get yours and you got to make sure to, you know, get your brownie if you will. Rosa Linda Román (08:57): And the news story that I'm telling myself, and I feel very strongly about this, but I hadn't fully realized that I'm not necessarily, I might be saying this but it's still so new, it hasn't like seeped in, and integrated in me. And that new story that I tell myself is I am abundant beyond measure. And every time, like we stay at a hotel, for example, when I leave a tip, which you know, I'm embarrassed to admit, I didn't use to leave a tip when we would stay at a hotel. I didn't know because I didn't grow up staying in hotels. And so, once I realized, wait a second, you know, the people who are cleaning up, especially, after our crazy crew, we try to be respectful but you know, we were sometimes messy. I want to make sure that they know we appreciate their efforts. Rosa Linda Román (09:44): And so, when I'm leaving the tip on the table and I have that little pain of like, oh, I don't know if I should leave that much, I stop myself and I say literally out loud if I can, if I'm by myself and not embarrassed, I'll say I am abundant beyond measure. And Ahava added something else to it to say, I am grateful and abundant beyond measure or I'm grateful that I'm abundant beyond measure. And you start to kind of say that to yourself, say that out loud and that starts to become real, right? That starts to become your reality. I am abundant beyond measure. So, it's my pleasure to be generous, you know? I'm generous and abundant beyond measure. And so, that is the work that I'm working on this week. And as I'm moving through in the past month I have spent time, month and a half, right, I guess it was May that we met my other brother who just moved to Germany. Rosa Linda Román (10:41): Anyway, between the past two months, let's say since we moved off the boat, I have seen every single one of my family members, my immediate family, my brothers and sisters, my parents, Nathan's brothers, and even many of my cousins and if we count all the way back to January, we saw all of our Puerto Rican side of the family. So, it's been a year of connecting with loved ones, and when we're connecting with loved ones, and also, by the way in these major life transitions, if you can stay mindful and sit with the discomfort of certain moments and not run away, which I've had moments where I wanted to run away, you can work through things and come out the other side stronger and more centered. And so, this morning I'm really proud of that, that I've been able to keep working on myself in the middle of the busiest, craziest, unbelievable rollercoaster of our life right now. So, yeah, I just wanted to say that I'm going to take a pause because I got to close the storage unit and it's going to be loud, and then, I'll come back and, and regroup and hopefully, finish some of the thoughts that I started in the beginning of this podcast. Rosa Linda Román (12:03): Okay, I'm in the car now and I thought that I would go back and actually listen to what I recorded for a change so I could actually wrap things up. I think that one of the things that I would get frustrated about if I listened to this podcast is the willy-nilly way the conversation goes. I start to talk about one thing and then I'm like, oh, but I think about this other thing and it comes up. And then, I don't go back and close the loop between what I started saying. And so, I actually went back and listened to this, and A, always, that's kind of hard for me to go back and listen to myself, but it was good because I realized I started this episode having a conversation talking about the stuff all over the place. I had said that you know, we have the storage unit here in Kissimmee and I didn't get into the other part of that equation. Rosa Linda Román (12:56): Basically, we rented a house in Austin and we're going to be in Austin for some time. I don't know exactly how long, but we had to rent the house for a year, which of course for me being the gypsy that I am, traveler, that just makes me feel like, you know, tension and stress at the thought of that, is what? We're going to be in one place for a year? But it's really just going to be the home base. And the intention was to be in Austin for six months because that would give Ahava time to really train and do her sport and give Nathan time to take his career to the next level. And that was just kind of a good home base, relatively easy to get to and we all seem to like it there pretty well, and we found a house that we liked and stuff like that. Rosa Linda Román (13:45): So, we have a bunch of stuff that we were traveling with when we drove our van to Austin. We always kept a van in Florida, and then, we drove our van to Austin because we were in Austin for almost two months. But then the stuff that we brought, like, our roller skates, and helmets, and just miscellaneous things that we had with us in the van and we had it, some of the rental houses, we couldn't carry in our suitcases, in our luggage. So, those bags are in Nathan's office in Austin. We have the storage and it's a small storage unit. I mean, probably 20 boxes plus all the little miscellaneous things, but you know, it's not a huge amount. We fit it all in a small moving van to bring here. But then, we have the stuff in Austin and then, we went and drove from Austin to Tucson where my brother-in-law is from, and where he has his camper generally because we were going to take this camper trip across the country with him from Arizona up to Washington. Rosa Linda Román (15:02): So, it was Ziva, Nala, Samuel, and I that drove to Austin, I mean, to Tucson. And my van stayed in Tucson because then we took the camper up all the way up to Washington and in Sequim, Washington, the camper and the dog are there staying with a woman named Captain Crystal Stout. And I actually say Captain because that's part of her profiles where actually, she, you know, names herself captain because she is a captain, a balloon pilot captain, I think. And so, my brother-in-law was supposed to watch Nala in Washington while we flew here to Florida for my brother's wedding. But my brother-in-law decided he didn't want to watch Nala, and so, we had to pay and hire someone to watch Nala. Gratefully, through our various social connections, a woman named Barb Tomlin who is really awesome and teaches me a lot about not just social media but live streaming, she had put me in touch with Captain Crystal Stout in the past and I remembered that she had German Shepherds. Rosa Linda Román (16:10): And so, when I was scrambling to try to find a place because my brother-in-law didn't want to watch Nala, and it wasn't Ari, Ari would've watched Nala but he had his own commitments to fly to. So anyway, all of this to say she put me in touch with, I was in touch with Captain Crystal to ask her if she knew of anyone that dog stacked German Shepherds, in particular, because I wanted somewhere where she would, you know, have some space and be well taken care of. And it turned out, like, a week before, maybe two weeks before she had just lost her longtime companion German Shepherd. She has had two and one of them passed away, the female. Rosa Linda Román (16:50): So, she only had the male German Shepherd left, which is, of course, heartbreaking. So, she said, "Well, let me meet Nala and we'll talk." And so, she met Nala, she was sweet and loved Nala. And she had some people, like renters, that lived with her and they loved Nala. And so, she approved of watching Nala, which was a huge load off. I mean, I wasn't thrilled with the unexpected financial cost, but you know what? I am abundant beyond measure. So, I know my dog is taken well care of and she is with another dog who loved her right away. Charlie is an old, old German Shepherd and he was very sweet with her and they were good together. Rosa Linda Román (17:32): So, we now have a storage unit in Kissimmee, ourselves here also in Kissimmee, with all of our liveaboard luggage and whatnot. And then, we have stuff in Austin, we have our van in Tucson, and our dog and the camper along with all the stuff that we had in the camper in Sequim, Washington. So, I do not know what that's going to mean as far as what we're doing next. I do know some things, that's why I was at the storage unit, which is the other thing I wrote down that I started talking about but didn't finish and I will get to, the crystal kayak in a second. But to finish this thought, we are going to take the stuff from the storage unit, pack it into a U-Haul on Saturday, and then, I am going to drive that to the house that we've rented in Austin starting on Sunday. So, that is part of our big complicated crazy plan. So, let me pause because I just arrived to my location and I want to make sure I know where I'm going before I go any further. Rosa Linda Román (18:41): So, basically, that's how to wrap that up. We've got stuff all over the place. That was the point of that whole recording is to say that we have stuff all over the place, stuff and our sweet doggy, which I'm hesitant too about leaving Nala at all because she had big unexpected adventures when she ran away from the people that were taking care of her in The Bahamas in the past. So, you know, I was a little nervous about finding a place that she would be okay and it sounds like we have so that's good. So, the stuff is going to slowly be consolidated. We also by the way have our stuff in, so our house in New Mexico, that is why it's called New Mexi-Castaways, it came from New Mexico. Our house is rented out to a family, some friends of ours. But we do have a storage space under the stairs of some of our treasures. And so, that is another place we have stuff. Rosa Linda Román (19:33): So, lots and lots of stuff all over the country. We're going to get this stuff out of Kissimmee and bring it to Austin. We are then going to fly to Tucson to, no, no, no, we're flying to Albuquerque to bring the kids to camp in New Mexico, and then, Nathan and I are going on a trip where we're going to go to Tucson, get the van and drive to our condo in Mexico. We have a condo in Puerto Penasco, Mexico and that's on the rental market now. But we're going to drive there and go check on it. It's the hottest part of the year so it's not going to be as wonderful as, like if we go to Puerto Penasco in October, it's fantastic. Going in the end of July, beginning of August is maybe not so great. Rosa Linda Román (20:22): In fact, it's so hot that we block out our unit for the rental pool for all of August. We don't let it enter the rental pool because inevitably people are so hot, they crank the AC so much that it breaks and in Mexico, it's really hard and expensive to fix it. And so, we just block out all of August to not have to deal with that, which is kind of interesting. So, that is that about the stuff, most of the stuff. The other thing that I was talking about in my Rosa Linda's ramblings was the crystal kayak. Now, I started to say the crystal kayak, and then, the lady walked up to talk to me. The crystal kayak is a wonderful, wonderful plaything that you can, more like a canoe, and you can see through it. It's see-through, and it's clear, and it's wonderful. And so, it's just a really cool thing. Rosa Linda Román (21:11): And so, the crystal kayak was not sold with the boat along with several other things that weren't sold with the boat, some life vest, and AIS, I think it is. And so, we sold that crystal kayak to some friends who lived on a manta our first boat, their boat is called Mel and Zen and they're buying the crystal kayak and they were trying to buy the other stuff but digging through the storage unit, that was a moment when I was like, oh this is the downside of all this traveling all over the place because we packed it somehow that I could not find it. And I went through the whole storage unit, you know, not deeply, but as best I could and I could not find the other stuff that was for sale. Rosa Linda Román (22:00): So, he did take the crystal kayak. It was funny because he fit it into a Flex vehicle, which I think that's a Ford Flex, I'm not sure. And it barely fit. It's a huge kayak. I don't know how he fit it and how he drove from here to Jacksonville to deliver it, but that's what he is doing right now. And then, he's flying to a business trip. I am continuing my trip with my brother, and sister, and cousin, and their families here in Disney. And then, let's see, there was one more thing that I had made a note that I was forgetting to talk about or finish my thought on. I had been talking about how living on a boat, I was talking about that feeling when, you know, you kind of think people are dangerous or you're thinking the worst about a person. Rosa Linda Román (22:46): And I mentioned living on the boat helps that, and I didn't follow through with why that is and specifically, it's because you are putting yourself face to face with people from different cultures and really just getting the chance to talk to people individually and it reduces the fear about people and about a place. And I think that if you're fearful, you draw negative energy toward you, right? I mean, I think if you think about someone stealing your stuff, I know not everyone will agree with this, but I feel like you're increasing the odds that someone's going to steal your stuff. Now, there are obviously exceptions. Some people are just random victims. But I'm just saying in my life I try not to wallow in the negativity and the more that I meet people and the more that I travel and it's not just living on a boat, but the nice thing about living on a boat is I'm able to like take my kids and invite the people who we meet to come to our house, and see our home, and our way of living, and we invite people to Shabbat, and so, they share a meal with us, and you know, that's the benefit of having your home with you whether it's an RV or whether it's a boat. Rosa Linda Román (24:00): But yeah that, so that was the last thing I wanted to say. There's some downsides of all this travel. One of them being we leave stuff in places we forget, and we pack things, and we realized like just this last trip we lost our spare family phone, which was the Google... We had like a Google phone that mostly was used to listen to music at bedtime by Ziva and she accidentally, it must have fallen behind the bed at one of the hotels because we can't find it. So, you know, there's a downside, you lose some stuff. But the upside is so much worth it because you really get to connect with people you love, make new people you love, like meet new people who you grow to love, and you know, I definitely think that people should travel with their families, especially, when they're young. And I think the world would be a better place if more people got out of their little neighborhood, and their comfort zone, and actually, you know, met people different from themselves and realized most people are not scary. So, that's my soapbox for today. I'm back at the rental unit, and the kids are swimming, and so, I'm going to get out and go and join them and talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to New Mexi-Castaways. I'm Rosa Linda Román

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