Gypsy Mom Ready to roll – NOW

Eh, the play-on-words in this title could definitely lead to something more exciting, but mostly I just wanted to talk about the facebook friends lists.

If you’re not using friends lists, you’re doing a disservice to yourself. With my friends lists, I can easily see “Everyone I know in Las Vegas” or “All my friends who hula hoop” or “mom bloggers” or “Marketing reps” or “People who support my work” or “Other Freelance moms” or “Past clients” or “Present clients” Heck, I haven’t yet but I should make one for “Future clients,” huh!

The value of this is huge, for me it means I can target messages to groups of people who are interested, I can send articles out to the population of my friends who would appreciate it, I can send a note saying “I’ll be in Vegas next week” to solicit lunch dates.

Most of my lists are geographically centered. I’m trying to build a life of travel, so every time I add a new friend, I try to find out where they live, so I can group them appropriately.

Here’s How to Make A friends List:

If you click on profile, to view your own Facebook page (instead of your news feed) you’ll notice on the top of the left column that it says “Friends (1367)” Actually yours might not say 1367, what are the odds? Mine says 1367 because that’s how many people I have. Yours will have a different number, but the number is irrelevant… just click on the word Friends on that line.

OK- it will bring up a screen that shows you a list of all your friends and at the top of the list, on the right side, click the button that says “Edit friends”

OK then at the top you want to “create list” and just choose everyone you think should be included.

Later, when you request friendship with someone, you’ll get to choose “Add to list” before they even decide to accept or decline your request.

When you go to send notes, share links or photos, click the “sort by list” (I think that’s what it says?) and you’ll be able to pick and choose according to which list they’re on. Every friend can appear in more than one list, so if you have a list of “Friends from high school” you can still have them sorted by their state by making a statewide list

For more advice managing facebook, please check out a company I work with called Business Resource Alliance. We teach businesses how to manage their online presence.

Ok, perhaps over the past year or so you’ve noticed that I haven’t ACTUALLY gone anywhere except an East coast funeral. That’s not exactly a vacation, is it? Lack of travel can drive a gypsy nuts. Seriously. I’m not made to sit still. I blogged last week that I was getting a divorce, even. But so far all that’s transpired is that my husband is committed himself to making SURE I get to go places. He’s taken me out to dinner and at that time, he didn’t even know it was such a big deal to me. It’s working, so far we’ve taken a day trip and an overnight (the first EVER since we had kids). Plus he’s taken me out to eat a few times. I guess we’re falling in love again.

Next month, I will be traveling ALONE and I am so darned excited, my head could explode. I’m going to be speaking at the Life Rocks Conference in North Conway, New Hampshire. It was a difficult decision, to go without the kids, but I’m really looking forward to allowing myself to become immersed in the environment, with no responsibilities and the freedom to explore. My plane flies in and out of Boston and I’ve always wanted to explore Boston. I can’t wait. I’m so so so excited

Although, not as I had previously discussed. This may come as a surprise, but my husband and I are getting a divorce. I’m grateful for the time we spent together, but our life paths are increasingly incompatible. I wish him the best of luck and love. I’m looking forward to being myself for a while, instead of someone’s wife. After 17 years of marriage, I’m not entirely sure who I am, I just know she needs to be free. I haven’t announced it on my normal blog yet. I don’t want to accidentally say anything that might hurt him.

Anyway, this means a lot of new things for me, all of which I am excited about. Sharing custody means I get a break more often, right? It means I get to move out of this house and into my own, with a decent kitchen, bathroom and porch. It means that my decisions, my clothing, my language and my Facebook status are a reflection of no one but myself. It means I’m free, like a gypsy should be.

I had the absolute most wonderful week. First, I stumbled upon an artist who’s so absolutely inspiring in so many ways. Kat O’Sullivan is an etsy artist who’s sold over 2500 gypsy coats since she started in 2006. Each has a price tag between $200 and $300. OK, so as a wannabe artisan, I find that very cool. However, when I poked around her website, I saw that she’s lived a VERY colorful and inspired life. Most ironic, was her resume, which was written in 2006. I wonder if it was the impetus for her launching the etsy business. She’s got quite a following, each of her coats is one-of-a-kind and her fans know each one by name. Their names are things like “Storm the Castle” and “Seven Years in Tibet” and “Queen Bitch.” She also sells arm warmers. All of her products are made from recycled sweaters. Visit Katwise on Etsy to see more of her work. If you want to check out her personal website, I guarantee it will be a treat. She has the most phenomenal bus she’s painted and if you make it as far as her Facebook page you’ll be amazed with the paint job on her house. She’s totally amazing. Here’s just one of her coats:

But finding Kat wasn’t my only amazing gypsy-soul experience this week. I love this next story.

So here I am, minding my own business speaking to a group of local business owners about why they should have a blog on their website, when a woman (a radiant glowing woman with a twinkle in her eye) comes to thank me. We chatted for a minute and she says “Are you an Aquarious?” I said “Nope, December 7th” and she brightens up, looks deeply into me eyes and gushes “You’re a gypsy” I’m sure it took me a minute to scrape my jaw off of the ground, I said “OHMIGODTHATSME” you have no idea, I’m gypsymom.com, Gypsy has been my screenname online for so very long, I am SO a gypsy, and then I started blobbering all my favorite gypsy-ish things. It turns out she’s an evolutionary astrologer. I’d never thought much about these things before, but as soon as she said that, I KNEW I needed to hang out with her a little more. I did some computer work for her in exchange for an astrology reading. I know it sounds silly (It did to me, anyhow) but it was awesome. She confirmed a lot of what I already knew about myself. She gave me some huge insights into my own thinking and process that I hadn’t thought of before (consciously) and I’ve come away so… excited to be me. If this makes any sense to say, the best I can describe it is that I have a different relationship with my identity now.

I AM a gypsy, a storyteller. I’d decided a few weeks ago to write a screenplay and I’ve been plugging away at it for the last few weeks and in the reading, I became filled with confirmation that my story needs to be told. I felt this, now I damn well know it.

And gypsies can have houses, too.

Anyway, the lady I visited with The Enchanting Experience. I don’t know if she does long-distance readings, but she was awesome.

OK- so the windows are measured for the valances modeled after the Gypsy Faire Tents. I haven’t settled on a fabric yet, but I’m going with purples and reds definitely. I think I can avoid adding additional lighting if I paint the walls a nice, clean white to cover up the wood that’s already there.

The dinette, the couch and the captain’s chairs don’t NEED to be recovered, but I definitely want to get rid of the 1980′s mauve. I also want to get rid of the pink carpeting. I’d settle for oriental rugs, for their gypsy-esque qualities, but I think a scrap of remnant carpeting would be cheaper.

The cabinets and counter tops would be expensive to replace and they’re not really THAT offensive. I’m sure that if I can get rid of the wooden walls and ugly upholstery they’d look just fine.

We went for a drive around the block and Ohmygoodnessitwassofrickingamazing. I can SO picture us tearing up the highways with that little piece of heaven. I want to leave NOW. Seriously, I was looking at my bank account, mapping out how far we could get with the cash we have available, how long would we have to stay there before I get paid again…
I need to chant “I will not spend my vacation money decorating the motor home” or rather “I will not spend whats left of my vacation money decorating the motor home.” Actually, I should say “I will not blog about decorating the motor home when I’m supposed to be working to re-raise vacation money”

But anyway- what other gypsy decor strategies can you think of? I’m very close to wanting to paint peacocks and vines on the cabinet doors, but that’s beyond my talent level, so I need to think of new things… and I like shabby-chic, too. Shabby-chic-gypsy. that’s my style.

And who knows, over the coming week it might change again. I figured we’d have some unexpected expenses, right? But I didn’t figure they would include

A- patching the water tank, so that it would, well… hold water
B- towing the motor home out of a ditch following an electrical power failure that sent my husband rolling backward into traffic on Highway 90
C- replacing the generator that was stolen while vehicle sat for a little while
D- repairing the fiberglass where the tow truck ripped off the back of the motorhome

And I haven’t even started decorating yet, but I’m totally going to use the shapes and patterns from the gypsy tents I wrote about a few weeks ago as inspiration for the replacement of the window treatments and recovering the headboard on the master bed. I already have a purple crushed velvet comforter with tassels on it that I love, and it will fit that bed better than it fits my King size bed at home.

I don’t mind the wood cabinets, but I really hate the wood on the walls, so in addition to SOMETHING with the ugly kitchen & bathroom wallpaper, I want to paint the wood on the walls white. Which is odd for me, I usually never want white walls, but I think a nice crisp clean white will balance out the vivid fabrics I’ll be using on the windows and cushions. Now, about that pink carpeting…

Anyway, we love it. I love it. Not the carpeting, but the motorhome. I’m trying not to be too attached to the sadness I get when I think that we might have to A- skip the Dallas portion of our trip or B- skip the trip altogether. Instead, I’m focusing on WORKING more and trying to make up for all these EXTRA unplanned expenses. Who knew $250 was such a pathetic “slush fund.” That didn’t even pay for the tow.

And I didn’t even take before pictures, but my husband did and his friend took a photo of the RV in the ditch. I’m still just glad he’s alive. That was so close.

and she’s ours. We get to pick it up Thursday.

I know some people blog in order to help their readers. I must confess, I blog here at Gypsymom.com mostly because I’m so excited about this trip that I can’t stand not to share the details, and I’m not yet ready to put them on my normal blog where I might have to discuss them with friends and family.

But here’s my unreasonable fear…

don’t laugh…

I have relatives in the south and we’ll be visiting them. Whenever I tend to see my Aunt Maryann in Mobile, Alabama, I end up talking like I’m from Alabama. It’s true. Whenever we go to Texas, I come home with a little bit of a Texas drawl. I’m from Maryland and my parents live there, I’m sure I’ll end up using a Maryland accent when I say words like “out” and “roof.”

I’m afraid I’ll sound like an idiot with a hundred different accents all the time.

Unreasonable? I don’t think so, y’all.