We are (technically) moved in

Here is a quick rundown of how picking up the RV went.  

We got up super early on my birthday to go to Dallas and learn how to use our new home.  It was so cold, but we got to learn all the ins and outs of setting it up, taking care of poop, keeping it warm and cool etc.  Plus I got to see how the sweet patio works.  The picture is a bit blurry, but that's how I seem to roll when I take pictures.

We spent about 3 hours in training and we were ready to go.  Except the person who was to drive this thing to the campground for us was driving RV's to the Forth Worth RV show.  We waited and waited and finally decided to go home with promises from our sales guy to keep us updated.  Three hours later I called and he was still, "working on it".  Finally got my husband to call and found out we wouldn't get it until morning.  I was crushed...I know in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't matter, but I was ready to start moving in.  

Finally the next morning it got there bright and early.  But they had forgotten to bring the power cord.  Luckily the heat does not need electricity and so we started moving stuff in.  By the time we went and got our second load the power cord was there and we were in business.

We did a total of 3 van loads and 2 car loads of stuff.  And my dream of putting away stuff as we unloaded it from the car vanished.  It got thrown in and we did our best.  What is that game called where you have to get the car out of the puzzle.  You move the pieces around in order to make room for the car to exit.  That is what the RV is right now.  A giant puzzle.  Every time we want to do something, we have to move 6 things and hope to not get distracted before we actually do the original task.

I took these pictures after one or two loads of stuff.  It's worse now.  I kinda freaked out last night, wondering what I had gotten myself into.  I know it always stinks when you first move in to a place because you can't find anything.  This is just a bit more complicated by the fact that it is so tiny.  But my daughter is all moved in and set up.  My 16 year old son told me he really liked it this morning.  And if you know him, that is huge.  He will love something and never let you know.  Chaos doesn't affect him much.  My daughter is not happy right now, but she hates chaos and I expect it will get better for both of us once we can move about properly.  And on that note...I am going to continue unpacking.

I have so much stuff

Monday is the day...the day we get our new digs.  It's my birthday too.  So this year I get the best birthday present ever.  We are so excited, nervous, stressed, and a million other emotions all balled up together.  We went and showed our oldest daughter the RV last week and just sat in there...soaking it all in.  We are really going to do this.

As we sort through our things we are finding it easier and easier to leave stuff behind.  I've loved experiencing the process of letting go.  When I start with 100 things, I think I need to keep at least 50 of them.  When I look at the 50 I see another 25 I can get rid of.  Then I look at that 25 and realize that I was holding onto an extra 15 that I didn't need.  So then I am down to 10 and it might get even less than that after a bit.  And it's really cool to see my children go through the same process.  I love that I am teaching them that all this stuff isn't important.  It will be interesting when they are grown up to see if they accumulate tons of stuff because of this process or if they realize they like living with less. 

I'm amazed at the stuff I have felt like I needed to keep all these years and I have moved it, stored it and moved it again.  How much money has keeping all this stuff cost me...never mind the effort to move it and find a place to store it.  Here are some items I have felt the need to keep all these years:

1.  A box of stuffed animals from my childhood.  Including a giant bear with a missing eye.  I couldn't even find the box to take a picture of it.  That's how buried and apparently important to me it is.  I can remember that bear vividly and even remember his name.  Which sounds like no big deal until you hear his name.  It's Christopher Thomas Robert Alexander Roger Ferguson Porter.  Somehow I can remember the ridiculously long name of my childhood toy, but not of the person I just met yesterday.   But the fact is, the bear is burned into my memory.  I don't need the actual bear.  If I find it I will take a picture of it.  If not, I have my memories.

2.  A bin of old baby clothes.  Most of which I barely remember which child wore them.  I went through it and found 3 items that my grandmother made and I wanted to keep for future grandchildren pictures.  Seriously though, why was I keeping a bunch of stained old clothes?  Like my children are going to be all...oh I wore that and it's all stained, I would love my child to wear that.  Um...no.

3.  While we are on the subject of clothes...let's view this lovely box. Can you read what it says....Jen's smaller clothes.  So I have been hauling around a box of clothes that are too small for me in the hopes I will lost weight.  Because that is exactly what I want as a reward for the hard work of losing a million pounds.  A box of old out of date clothing. 

4.  I've had this big bin of keepsakes for the last 25 years.  It's got stuff like an old jewelry box, a wooden doll that has no meaning to me, a sea shell my grandma bought for me.  Stuff that really doesn't mean anything and keeping it doesn't make me a better person.  This box was full and heavy.  I sorted out what I want to take pictures of or scan.  I threw away most of the stuff and here is what is left.  I would have thrown this stuff away too, but my estate sale person said to save everything.  Okay...I'm sure someone wants that sea shell and that shelf I made in 7th grade woodworking class has got to be worth at least a couple hundred dollars.  I mean....the great Jennifer Smith made it...maybe I should sign it.   :P

5.  I have a shelf full of first aid supplies.  You can't see half of what I have in there.  So if you are over to my house and your leg gets sawed off...I have the supplies needed.  Of course it's probably 20 years old because no one ever had their leg sawed off at my house before....but I'm ready!!

6.  And this is the best...a trampoline that hasn't been used in who knows how long.  It's currently storage for the lounge chairs we barely use...and the hose we don't use to keep it out of the way when my husband mows the lawn.  Such an efficient storage plan.

The best part of all this is helping each other out.  I was going to save a hat my son wore and my daughter looked at me and said...it's a denim hat...what do you need it for.  She was right.  My husband wanted to save our ladder...I said, we live in an RV...what do we need a ladder for...his response was, what if we wanted to hang something up in the tree?  He got the stink eye from me.  It really is easier to get rid of other people's stuff than your own. 

The Grand Tour

I am supposed to be creating Christmas cards, but instead I found pictures online of an RV that is identical to ours and thought I would give the grand tour for anyone interested.  So if you don't get a Christmas card from us you can just read this blog post and know we love you :)

We will start with a lovely picture of the outside.  Not quite sure why RV's have to be so hideous looking, but it seems to be a requirement.  I'm guessing having all those lovely swirls of gold mean something to someone.  I would prefer a cool ocean scene myself.  Or maybe a forest so I could blend in.  Although to blend in I might need to paint it with pictures of other hideous looking RV's.  Kind of an RV inception.

Luckily, that is where the hideousness ends.  Up to a few years ago, the interiors of RV's also had to be hideous.  But thankfully someone somewhere said..."you know what, there might be people out there that would prefer their couches to be all one color, not some giant floral pattern which matches the curtains which matches the wallpaper."

So as you walk in the front door, here is the main living area.

Not too bad looking.  Quite honestly, it's the nicest furniture I have ever owned.  You can see in the top of the picture the loft where my little girl will sleep.  It's big enough for two small children.  We will make it a sweet hideaway with a comfy bed, book shelves, electronics charging station and even room for a stuffed animal or two.  

Here is a closeup of the kitchen.  Yeah, super small.  The fridge is decent.  The oven is miniscule.  We figure we have enough storage for kitchen stuff or food...not both :)  Here is where our creativity will kick in.  We are already making plans for how to continue baking our super yummy chocolate chip cookies.  

Here is another view of the long couch.  Each section is a recliner.  The holes in the floor are for tables.  We haven't decided if the tables will stay up, stay down, or where exactly we will eat, but again...this is a fun puzzle for us to figure out.  You can see the loft again.  It has a curtain that closes it all off if she would like some privacy.

This is the other side of the living area.  We plan on taking out that loveseat and putting it in my new office.  In that space we will put a desk for our computers.  The TV is 50" which makes me laugh.  Why would someone need a 50" inch TV in this small of a space?  In fact the RV comes with 3 TV's.  And we really don't watch hardly any TV.  I'm hoping I can scan all my pictures and use the TV as a huge picture frame.  And yes, that is a fireplace underneath it.  I can't wait to use it.

This is the back garage area.  Officially it's for hauling your 4 wheelers and such.  For us it's a kid's area.  As you can see there is a bed and couches which go up and down electrically.  This area will be my son's.  During the day the bed can be raised to the ceiling.  We will probably take out one or both of the couches and put in a desk.  We will carpet the whole area to make it feel like a bedroom, not like he has been relegated to the garage.  See that stuff on the back door, that folds down to be a super cool patio.  The couches can form into a bed or a table can be put in the holes in the floor to be an eating area.  And he even has his own door if he wants to sneak out at night when we are asleep.  We are going to put up a curtain and make the front few feet of the garage a play area for our youngest.  That way she has a place to play other than the loft area.  I will take pics when it is all done.  I sincerely hope it looks as awesome in person as it does in my head.

This is taken from the garage looking back inside.  You can see TV number 2, storage and the door leads to a half-bath.

A teeny tiny half bath.  It was important to us that the RV have 2 toilets.  This will work perfectly.

This is taken from the sliding glass door towards the front.  You can see the stairs up to the main bathroom and master bedroom.

This is the main bathroom.  The shower is bigger than I have right now.  There is a decent amount of storage, we will just have to plan out our shower schedule a bit more carefully than we do now.

And here is the master bedroom.  It's small, hardly bigger than the bed.  You have to sit on the bed to get to the closet and if we get a washer/dryer it will go in the vented closet.  We chose one with a small bedroom on purpose.  We figured it was more important to have a larger living area than a larger bedroom.  I do wish there were cabinets above the bed and we will have to figure out how to make small little shelves since we have no bedside tables.

This is the other side of the bedroom.  To the right of the vented closet you can see a small cabinet.  This opens and a 3rd TV slides out.  Seriously...why so many TV's?

For those of you who need a floor plan to fully visualize our home.  Because it is so complicated :)

So what do you think?   I'm in love and cannot wait to move in. 

We will be sitting still

We have noticed that people cannot wrap their head around the fact that we bought an RV and we are going to live in it full time at a local RV park.  So I have developed a handy dandy FAQ post to answer the questions we keep getting.

A conversation typically starts like this:

Us:  We bought an RV and we are going to live in it full time.

1.  How are you going to transport it?

We are getting it delivered to the RV park and we are going to live there full time.

2.  But you don't have a truck, how will you move it?

We don't plan on moving it.  We are going to live full time at an RV park.

3.  Where is it parked now, at your house?

No, it's still at the dealership.  They are going to deliver it to the RV park and we are going to live there full time.

4.  What are you going to do with your home?

We rent, our lease will be up.

5.  But then where will you live?

In the RV.....full time.

6.  Where are you planning your first trip?

We aren't planning on traveling, we are going to live in the park full time.

7.  Are you going to homeschool?

Nope, we will be continuing to have our kids go to school here, because we are going to live full time in the RV park.

8.  What if you want to move it?

We will pay someone to move it for us.  We are confident that by living in an RV park we are going to make friends with trucks that will be willing to move it for us.

9.  But if you don't have a truck how do you plan on traveling?

Not going to travel right now....remember...RV park, full time.

10.  How cool, you can just go on vacation whenever you want.

I wish, but we still have kids in school, jobs and traveling isn't our goal right now.

11.  If you aren't going to travel, why are you going to live in an RV?

Because we want to.  

12.  How will you cook?

It has a small but really nice kitchen.

13.  You are going to get tired of each other being stuck in there all the time.

We really like each other, we enjoy hanging out together, and we actually won't be in it 24/7.  We all have jobs or school to attend.

14.  Where are you going to put all your stuff?

That's the point...we plan to sell most everything.

15.  When are you going to buy a truck?

Maybe never, again no plans to travel right now.....RV park....full time.

16.  What if you change your mind. 

Then we will buy a truck.

17.  Don't you have to have a truck if you have an RV?

Not if you aren't going to travel with it.

18.  So where did you say you were going to visit first?

At this point I just smile and walk away :)

Learning About Estate Sales

Ever since I signed on the dotted line for the RV I have been on a mini roller coaster of emotions. Like the kiddie ride kind, not the Texas Giant kind.  Some days I'm so excited and I want to move in right now.  We own it, let's go live in it.  Then other days I look at something I am going to have to sell and think...what am I doing?  I love my vacuum cleaner.

Isn't she beautiful.  

We have decided to sell everything via an estate sale.  Yes, I could dedicate my life for the next month and a half to sorting, posting, craigslisting, garage selling everything myself.  But I have things to do.  Like find office space for my counseling practice, sort through things I want to keep, celebrate some major holidays...and oh yeah...work for a living.  So we decided the cost of hiring the selling of our stuff out was going to be worth it.

See...that's me and like most people, I have a lot going on.

I have learned much in the last week about Estate Sales.  Not near enough I'm sure, but I'm much more educated on the process than I was a week ago.  I've learned things like:

1.  There are many ways to take advantage of the customer in this business.  When you break it down, I'm inviting complete strangers into my home, they are going to sort all my stuff, they get to price it themselves, they will then sell it all and then they will inform me of the total and how much I get after their take.  Plenty of room for dishonesty.  And I understand that I do not have nice stuff, I will not be making a ton of money.  But this is all I have, I would like it to be taken care of in the best way possible.

2.  Even though you don't own really cool antiques, you can have an estate sale.  I expected the companies to come in and laugh at my stuff.  Nope...they tell me even half used bottles of shampoo will sell.  Who knew?

Sadly this is not my house...look at the goldmine they have sitting there...cha-ching!!

3.  Some companies are much snootier than others.  My house is messy.  (One of the main reasons I'm downsizing...keeping a big house clean is not on my priority list.)  You can walk through it without tripping in most places.  I tried to clean up the cat puke off the floor before they came...you know, the basics.  Some companies have smiled, told me to just move out and leave everything messy...they will take care of it for us.  Some have looked around and wrinkled their nose, apparently irritated that they had to step over the pots in the hallway that catch the rain because our landlord won't fix the roof.  Guess who is going to get our business.

"Dahling...your stuff is not worthy of my services."

I actually like this print...I need to research who drew it.

One of the reasons I have so much stuff is because I can always find an excuse to keep it.  "I got that cooler when I worked as a lifeguard at age 16, I've kept it this long, it would be a shame to throw it out."  "You never know when you are going to need purple fabric with orange flowers on it."  "What if someone wets the bed...then I will be glad I have 3 extra sets of sheets in every size on hand."  

It's much easier for me to part with something when I know that it's going to someone who can use it or I can sell it.  So an estate sale is the perfect solution for me.  Everything is going to have a chance to be sold.  And then a donation truck is going to stop by and pick up the leftovers.  I don't even have to throw away a perfectly good half bottle of shampoo I tried and hated.  How awesome is that!!

What I'm going to miss

I'm expecting to miss some parts of living in a house.  I wanted to post about them so I could look back in 6 months and see how accurate or off I was.

Here is what I expect I will miss in no particular order:

1.  My washer and dryer.  I have always wanted a nice set and we got them this past January when we moved into this house.  The RV has room for a washer/dryer combo until that can hold about 3 pairs of socks.  Hopefully washing clothes at the laundry mat isn't too awful.  I'm going to miss being able to "iron" Ryan's clothes in the dryer every morning.

2.  Parking my car in the garage.  Ever since the hail storm in 2011 that demolished both of our cars I have wanted to keep my car safe in the garage.  Plus it's a bonus on cold days like today.

3.  The ice and water in the fridge.  Our fridge will be much smaller.  That I can deal with, but I'm going to miss having ice and water pop out of the front of the fridge at my convenience.  

4.  The garbage disposal.  I can't remember the last time I didn't have one of these.  I wonder how many times I'm going to accidentally put something down the drain that I'm not supposed to.  

That is all I can come up with right now.  Here are some things I won't miss:

1.  My huge rent payment.

2.  Taking care of and storing stuff that I don't need or want.

3.  $300+ electric bills

4.  The impossible task of getting the entire house cleaned at one time.

5.  The feeling that every time I sit down I should be doing something to upkeep the house instead.

6.  Yard work

7.  That feeling that I should decorate my house super cute, but don't have the budget or drive to do so.

8.  The stress of how am I going to pay my bills when my client load is down this month.

9.  Having to go upstairs 6 times in the morning to be sure the kids are awake.

10.  Having to yell up to the kids when dinner is ready.  

I'm sure there are more for both lists.  But it's a good start I think.  What do you think you would miss most if you drastically downsized?

Where are we now?

So here is a quick snapshot of our thought process over the last two months.  

We really wanted that park home.  We checked out the local RV parks.  They vehemently let us know that we could not put a park home in an RV park.  Something about the size, the fact that it doesn't have RV hookups, etc.  But they own the park, they get to set the rules...even if I don't like it.

We looked at buying land to put one on.  We found that the local ordinances will not allow us to do that.  We live in suburbia...we cannot be putting such rubbish on our property :)  

(Hideous isn't it) :P

We forgot about it for a while when we got busy with life.

We thought about moving to an apartment instead.  After visiting several complexes we have learned that after renting an apartment capable of housing the 4 of us and finding me an office we will be spending the same or more money each month.  Unless we moved into the one complex that looked like drug deals were going on all over the place.  I'm not willing to go there.

We briefly considered living in a mobile home park.  When I really thought about the environment of a mobile home park versus an RV park I suddenly realized that I would enjoy the atmosphere of an RV park more.  I think we would get to meet interesting people and learn about living on the road in an RV which is our eventual goal.  

We started thinking outside the box.  How could we make an RV work?  As I started looking at floor plans I got to thinking how this could be possible.  We came up with an idea and talked to the kids about it.  They were of course a little hesitant, but did not object.  We found something that looked like it would work.  

So we went to check this particular RV out.  It didn't feel right in my gut, but we put down a deposit.  It fit all our needs, I just thought I was needing to look around more because that is how I function.  I need to feel like I have done my homework.  

A couple days later we went to check out the exact same model of RV, it was just a lot less expensive.  It was too beat up for our needs.  But....they had new models on the lot and we found the perfect one.  And this one felt much better to my gut.  A day later and we now own (or the bank owns for us) an RV.  The process was scarily easy to complete.

So now...all we have to do is decide what we are going to keep, sell all our stuff, figure out which RV park we want to live in and find an office for me.  By the beginning of January.  Not to mention keep on working and doing all the usual holiday stuff.  It's exciting, scary and overwhelming at once.