Roadsteading Mom Finds Magic in the Mundane

She Who Wanders

Feb 1

A convo with Joey from Destination Mommy

Meet Joey. Wife and mom to one miracle baby girl, Joey is a lover of all things nature and slow, intentional living. She’s passionate about cooking from scratch, being barefoot in her garden and helping people see how to more deeply connect to others and the world around them. Inspired by her then 3 year-old, she took her family on the road in their RV for a year to travel and experience all of God’s creation. Unwilling to give up her homesteading ways, she found a way to blend the two and continue fully live out her free + wild lifestyle before finally coming full-circle back to homesteading, where her heart belongs. A true adventurer, Joey is an inspiration to slow down, connect with yourself on a deeper level, focus on what really matters and always find magic in the seemingly mundane moments of life.

Joey, Destination Mommy, The Great Wanderlust, She Who Wanders

Joey, Destination Mommy, She Who Wanders, The Great Wanderlust

Tell us a little about you and your family like where you’re from, where you live now, how old are your kids and anything interesting or unique you’d like people to know.

I was born and raised in Durango, Colorado a used to be small tourist town in the mountains. I am a huge homebody and honestly never thought I would leave home, I even walked away from a scholarship to vet school in order to attend a college where I received my Masters in Education, an Associates degree in Agriculture. On the other side of campus, I worked on my art degree-mainly because I wanted access to the ceramics room, but also because art has always been a hobby and a way to find my calm.

I met my husband at the school I student taught at and eventually was hired to teach at. A Chicago boy that had made his way to a very small town just outside of Durango. I always thought I would marry a local, turns out the world had other plans and put us both in the right place at the right time.

My daughter will be seven, she is my miracle baby and the original meaning behind my ig handle as I started my journey on IG to share my infertility story. Funny story, she is also the reason I kept @Destinationmommy as she helped me find my love of traveling. When she was 3 she said, "let's travel to see that place!" We were reading about manatees and dugongs while looking at Florida and Australia on the globe. Her desire to travel moved my heart as well as my husband's. Shortly after that conversation, we sold our home, moved onto family land and began traveling. After some month long adventures, we decided to head out for life on the road. Long story short we loved the year on the road, but due some RV repairs we are waiting on, we are currently stationary in our RV back in Colorado and wondering if we have been called back to homesteading- I may have baby chicks in the broader as we speak….and I definitely have major garden plans laid out. Sometimes the world pushes you back to where you belong. We will always travel, camp and explore, we are a nature loving family and spend most of our days outdoors, but for now we are happily making plans to stay put for this season.

The Great Wanderlust is all about moms stepping outside of the box and diving deeper in both travel and in life. The mission is to inspire mamas and families to feel fully alive through adventure and exploration! What is your great wanderlust? What most makes you come to life??

Homesteading, living intentionally and just being mama is my love language. What truly makes me come to life is working with my hands-from motherhood to the garden. I don't lose myself in nature, it's where I find myself.

I believe that adventure is with you always. It's in your home, your backyard or wherever you go. As long as you take the opportunity to see beauty in the everyday.

Why is it so important to you to slow down life for yourself and your family? What are some tips you’d give for helping make the mundane magical for ourselves and our kids?

Slowing down is how I was raised-essentially because my mama was a single mom of two under 5. She cooked our meals from scratch, had a beautiful garden and taught us to turn ordinary household items into treasures. She did the things many scoffed at then- yet in today's world, people pin, save, like and share. I only wish she knew then, the gift she was giving us. A simple and slow life because it's what she could afford was worth all the money in the world.

A few more reasons living a slow, connected and intentional life is important to me…

I never thought I would be able to carry my own child, yet I knew I wanted to be a mama when I was 4. My brother came home from the hospital and I told my mom he was mine :)
I am am a recovering Type A personality. I know my boundaries and I know what the other side means for my health. Living the way I do is a choice, one that brings me joy and fulfillment.
When I was teaching I met a mother that had terminal cancer. She told me the one thing she would do differently is spend more time with her family. Her words shifted so much for me.
I taught and realized just how fast children grow up, and I watched how beautiful the mundane was in their eyes. I learned that I wasn't the magic maker. They saw the world through an incredible lens! So I took on their view and life changed.
My daughter was born and it was then everything above came full circle.

Some Tips for Making the Mundane More Magical

Watch your child or children at play. Watch them in the early years when their imagination is strong. Watch as they marvel at the world around them. Take note of how they enjoy the box more than the toy.
Let go of the idea that children need things- the latest and the greatest - in order to be content. Children are born content when their basic needs are met. We lose sight of this and believe that boredom means we need to give and do more, when in fact we need to do nothing more than give our children our attention + time to move through the boredom. When we replace our attention with things, it becomes a vicious cycle.
Stop comparing your life to others. You don't have up be the Pinterest mom or the nature mom in order to be a good mom. You need to be the mom you are and the mom your children need. You won't find that if you're too busy looking at another's life. Social media makes this hard. We see the beautiful crafts, the child at the table doing xyz. All of a sudden we are up prepping our child's life and forgetting to sleep. We then have little energy for the thing our children crave the most-our time, love and energy to be present in their world.
Reduce what you have in your home and work on being content with less. Contentment is the key to finding magic in the mundane.
Fall in love with the life you have instead of always dreaming about the life you want. It's great to have goals. But don't miss out on the present.

In a world where simplicity and a “wild childhood” are unconventional, what are some practical ways you stay aligned and true to your values and convictions despite the influence, pressures and distractions of society, family, friends etc.?

I was raised a wild child. I think it's so deeply engrained from my childhood that I don't struggle with the pressures from others. I believe in leaning into the things that bring us joy and for myself and my daughter that is a barefoot, in nature lifestyle.

I do know that when I feel the pull from the outside world, that often means I need to take time to turn off the outside noise- step away from social media or change what I'm reading or listening to. It also means I need to look at who I am surrounding myself with. I always ask myself

Does this bring my family joy
Do I feel content or feel I need more, more, more
Am I calm centered and balanced
How does my home feel? Are we struggling? If so we are most likely doing too much.

I love the phrase you use - “from the homestead to the roadstead” because I think many people think of those two lifestyles as opposites. Tell us how you are able to mesh both now that you’re living life on the road.

When we were on the road, I knew I had to stick with some key things that were important to me.

Supporting local agriculture- while I wasn't growing a huge garden, I could go to farmers markets and shop locally wherever we were. I would ask around and eventually find connections.

I continued to grow herbs , but on a smaller scale. I also continued to make my own salves, soaps and lotion just as I did when we lived in a traditional home, but scaled down a bit.

So many told me that I would probably have to change the way I cooked. Instead I made sure to find an RV with a good oven. Yep, the oven sold me! Cooking from scratch is how I was raised and important to me. I even bought fresh fruits so I could can a few jars of jam while we were in Florida and when I came across a bounty of veggies to pickle, I prepped them to ferment. While I wasn't canning on a larger scale, I found a way to make it work while we were on the road.

Connecting with our kids on a consistent and deep level is so important, and it takes effort and intention on a regular basis to make it happen. But between the daily tasks and commitments of life, it can be easy to miss out. What are some ways you connect with your daughter on a deeper level? Can you give some ideas for other parents who might have a hard time with this?

My number one - do life with them. Stop trying make time outside of the time you have. Invite them into the kitchen and let them help you. They will make a bigger mess, they won't clean up like you would, but this is your time to connect, to talk to pass along family recipes and traditions.

Talk to your children at dinner, when they are younger read a favorite story together at the dinner table. Conversation is a lost art and it begins in the home.

We have a pretty strict rule that phones aren't out for connecting with others when we are together. We put them on airplane mode and use for photos, but work hard to be present.

Remember that your child is part of the family and the way we treat them and invite them in, is incredibly important.

We don't have a TV, so I know that being a low tech family definitely helps give us back some time and pushes us to connect with those that are in front of us.

I think one of the big concerns of moms who want to start traveling/adventuring more with their kids is their unpredictability and how to handle meltdowns + problems when everyone is out of their element/comfort zone. As a traveling mom who is passionate about honoring your child’s feelings, how do you handle situations or moments when your daughter doesn’t want to cooperate with what is planned?

My daughter and I are both empaths and as I mentioned in a homebody and with that an introvert. More often than not, I'm the one that needs the convincing, but with that said we have meltdowns and resistance. This may not be popular, but we respect my daughter's feelings. She knows she can share how she is feeling and we will listen.

We do a lot of co-regulate, time ins and connection when things are hard. Transitions aren't fast for our family and something we learned while on the road was that we needed to have a ritual for when we were leaving. Something simple, but it changed everything.

As for the everyday-i think my years of teaching helped me realize that every child struggles. Every child has meltdowns. It's our response that makes the difference. I tune out where we are or who we are surrounded by and I lean into what my daughter needs. Most likely we have done too much or need a snack. You'll have to find what works for your family, but we found that slower travel was best for us. We weren't jumping from place to place. We explored and stayed put for awhile.

I always keep snacks with me as well, always!

Another thing that helped us-finding a routine or having a few things that were always predictable. For us that was meals and story time. That was our grounding moments to help us find our calm with all the new.

Remember, it's ok to step back and slow down if it helps your family thrive. There's no reason to push through things if it leads to stress for all.

When it comes to things we had planned, I always made sure to prepare my daughter before. We would talk about the adventure, remind her that it would take x amount of time and that she could choose an activity to do after. If we struggled in the middle of what we were doing we worked as a family to make it to the other side. This often looked like tears, hugs, reassurance, a snack, deep breaths and moving forward.

We also spent a lot of time talking about what we wanted from our adventures. Sure there was hikes I would have loved to do, but it wasn't our season and sometimes it's best to know that and respect that.

Is there a question you wish I would have asked or anything else you’d like to share with other mamas relating to travel or life?
I think the only thing I would want to bring up again is to remember to create your own journey. Sure social media is great inspiration, but you won't see a lot of the in between and messy moments. The hours and hours of planning and so on. It's ok to do less and enjoy the less touristy spots. Some of most treasured moments were on the off-beaten trails. The ones no one mentioned. In fact we look for those!

Who inspires you to dig deeper in life? Do you have a few recommendations of someone I should feature next? :)

My daughter. She pushes me every day to be better and to seek the magic in the mundane. She is my constant reminder to be content, to make art with things we have and to rekindle my imagination.

As for those that have inspired me and connected with me in the IG

Vicki and Jason @createyourbestlifetoday

Jess and Stephen @nomadicdwellers

Jameela @thatmuslimmom