Okay, if you read my blog regularly, I know you didn't miss the post where I was lamenting the loss of my washer and dryer. You won't believe what happened the day after I wrote that entry! My husband and I believe the kids need to have chores and even when we are on the road, things go so much smoother if everyone pitches in and helps out in some way. Well, laundry is an area that has been assigned to my children from time to time over the past few years. They've had plenty of practice and we didn't really pack any clothes that required special treatment. Pack and wear is certainly the way to go when you're in a camper. So, I was trying to plan for a biology class I was teaching and sent two of my children to do a load of laundry. All was well until it was time to collect the clothes from the dryer. My son returned with wet clothes saying that the dryer had started to smell and the office manager had turned it off. Of course I wasn't pleased, this just added to my displeasure at no longer having the convenience of my own washing units. And they hadn't even offered to reimburse our quarters for the load! I instructed the kids to hang everything outside, thinking about what rednecks we must look like with all our laundry airing in the front yard. A bit later I looked out and saw puddles under the articles of clothing. This perplexed me. As I looked closer, I could see that the clothes were literally dripping wet! After questioning my son, I was horrified to learn that when he went to transfer the clothes from the washer to the dryer, the washing cycle wasn't finished. Deciding not to wait, he removed the clothes, dripping wet and put them in the dryer! I could not believe it, whatever had possessed my son to act so irresponsibly? I was not a happy camper and began to think about how many quarters we lost, but how many it would take to replace the campground dryer. Well, the next day the manager had a talk with me and my son, explaining the proper use of the facilities. Mortified, I humbly listened, nodded my head, and profusely apologized and thanked God that the dryer was still functioning. My husband has vowed to get me a washer and dryer...and soon...if only we could figure out where to put it....
© 2009 Tonya Prater/Live the Adventure
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Early this morning I awoke because I was hot. That’s probably not hard to imagine, after all, we are in Alabama right? Wrong! Since the kids sleep with the air conditioner on, I normally wake up because I’m freezing and though it may be hot outside, inside our camper, the temps are LOW. So, I immediately knew something was not quite right. That thought was confirmed when I peeked through my door at the kids and saw that they weren’t huddled under their usual mass of covers, but were actually laying on top of them. An unusual site indeed!
Upon inspection, I saw the air conditioner was on, but instead of blowing cold air, it only seemed to be making an uncommon racket. Thankfully, we do have an air conditioner in our room that we can use to cool the camper until we can have the front unit inspected. It will be much needed since the abnormally cool temperatures that we’ve been experiencing have been replaced once again with the seasonal high temps. Oh yeah, I should probably have the back unit checked too because it will leak on occassion when we run it.
And I think I forgot to mention that Sunday we woke up to wet carpet in our bathroom and bedroom. When my husband investigated the matter, he discovered that the toilet was actually leaking! So, what is the good news? It’s only clean water escaping, but the bad news is after working on the toilet for several hours and thinking that the problem was resolved, yesterday we turned the water back on and found that we still have trouble! Off the water went again. Thankfully, we’re at a campground that does have a bath house with nice, clean restrooms and we can always turn the water on briefly when I need it for cooking or need a drink.
Hopefully, I can get an RV repairman to check things out for us next week on payday! And on the bright side, I’ve been meaning to have someone come out to look at our refrigerator which now has a check light that stays on. I guess if everything was going to break, it's best to happen BEFORE I call the service guy, we'll only have to pay one service charge, at least to get him here.
In the meantime, I’m still thankful and still smiling (actually, kind of laughing at how things are going) because it could ALWAYS be worse!
© 2009 Tonya Prater/Live the Adventure
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As you’ve read, we purchased an older motor home with the money we had on hand to avoid continuing a lifestyle of debt. That means that the camper wasn’t exactly what we had in mind. And though in many, many ways our camper really exceeded our expectations, with only one camper to choose from in our price range, we didn’t really have much of a choice. I hope that doesn’t sound terrible. It’s just our focus wasn’t on interiors, but on making sure the engine, tires, and all operating systems were in good condition and in properly working order. I truly am thrilled with our RV and I am so grateful to have it, but it hasn’t really felt like “me”.
My home in Ohio was decorated in yellows, olives and tans with white accents and oversized slip covered furniture. Everything was kind of shabby chic with flowers and pictures everywhere. The light blue and mauve of the camper, though in great condition, is dated and not to our tastes. I hadn’t realized how much this bothered me. And though I’ve taken Interior Design classes and love to decorate, when it comes to decorating the RV, I’ve been stumped.
Until, this week when I was shopping at the Dollar General and ran across a cute, cute shower curtain and discovered the answer to my dilemma. The shower curtain is pink, which matches the pink carpet in the bathroom. But, it also has a pretty floral design with muted greens and browns. So, I pulled out the brown in the shower curtain by purchasing a brown bath towel to display with matching hand towels and a small rug which toned down the existing pink floor covering. For less than $20, I have a newly decorated bathroom that could not match any better! Not only was I excited, but so was my husband.
Just that small step made our camper feel even more like home. My husband even asked me to continue to decorate because it is beginning to feel a bit more like ‘us’ now.
So, in the weeks to come, as money allows, I plan to continue the brown/pink color scheme throughout the camper. I hope to cover the blue couch and dinette with chocolate brown fabric, add a small brown rug or two, along with some small floral accent pillows to tie it all together. Inspired by….my $3.50 shower curtain!
© 2009 Tonya Prater/Live the Adventure
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Last night we experienced our first truly scary moments since we've been in our camper. It was around 10:30, my husband and I were already sleeping when I was awakened to a racket in our bathroom, or so I thought. It sounded like the kids were digging under the sink for something. The space isn't big enough to hold too much, so it really perplexed me as to what was taking so long because they were making so much noise. Not only was it noisy, but the movement was also causing the camper to rock back and forth. I couldn't believe that my husband hadn't already yelled at them to quiet down. So, I opened our door a bit further, to tell them to quiet down, only to discover one of my boys with his BB gun in hand, preparing to step outside, my other son had grabbed a flashlight ready to follow and our faithful, ferocious Beagle pup was cowering like a coward on my daughters lap! At this sight, I realized that the sound was not coming from inside the camper, but was certainly on the outside and it dawned on me that someone or something must be getting into our back storage compartment under the rig!
It was clear the kids were really rattled, and they decided it was some type of animal outside because they heard it scratch on the door. My husband still was not awake, so we woke him up, by this time the noise and racket had subsided, no surprise, these walls are really thin and whatever was outside had already heard the kids planning it's demise. Who or what would stick around for that?
At this point, the wind was beginning to pick up quite a bit more with the approaching storm and my husband decided it must have been the awning making so much noise and not a would be intruder. So, the menfolk bravely went outside in the pitch blackness to remedy the problem. Seemed to work, as we didn't hear any other sounds for the rest of the night. And though my husband insisted when he came inside that he was sure it was the awning, I noticed when he left for work this morning that he had slept with a weapon near at hand.
© 2009 Tonya Prater/Live the Adventure
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After spending time at our house last week, it’s been a bit difficult for me to return to the camper and not feel caged in. Everywhere I look, I see stuff and it’s driving me crazy! Not that my house was always spotless and clutter free, but I’d gotten to the point that if someone stopped by unannounced, I didn’t hide and pretend we weren’t home or let them in and apologize profusely, making excuses for the mess that surrounded us. The kids were older and able to pick up after themselves and I’d found and read a wonderful resource called Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley. Some of you may recognize the author as Flylady. She has a gentle method of teaching you to tame the CHAOS* monster. Flylady, coupled with the fact that we’ve spent the better part of the past four years on the road in hotel rooms, really made me realize that I didn’t need all of the stuff that I had laying around. De-cluttering became easy for me, a self proclaimed pack rat. Add to that, the fact that our basement had flooded twice in the past three years and I really didn’t have much clutter left to get rid of.
I’ve said all that just to say that I really didn’t think it’d be a problem for me to downsize to a camper. I certainly knew what was necessary and needed. I only packed a few items that I really couldn’t bear to leave behind, some of my Longaberger baskets and a few pieces of matching Longaberger pottery. It was really okay to surround myself with a few of my pretties wasn’t it? After all, I’d given away or donated just about everything else. Well, I quickly realized that I should have packed up the specialty items and left them at home because not only do I not have room for the baskets, one of my bowls cracked on the road! Ughhh….
Other than our clothes, blankets, toiletries and school books we haven't really over packed. The boys wanted to keep their Xbox and a few prized possessions, my daughter brought along her guitar and my husband thought to bring his tools. I don’t think we did too badly. But today while searching the internet for ways to maximize our space, I ran across an article that says you will only have problems with space if you have too much stuff. I beg to differ. After all, we have two adults, three children that are all taller than my 5’5” and a beagle puppy that is nearly full grown living in a 31 foot Class A motor home. How much extra space could we possibly have? Which has led me to believe that I…gulp…may need to…gulp…get a grip… and deal with it.
That may be so, but I also think that there has to be a way for me to utilize the space that we do have to the fullest. I know some RVer’s use their shower for storage and though we did in the beginning, it feels so much homier to shower in our own camper than to visit the bath house on a regular basis. So, luxury wins out over practicality in that department. Here are a few of the ideas that I do have: I need a larger shower caddy to organize our shampoo, soap, razors, body wash, etc. I’m also going to throw out the laundry baskets and buy a mesh laundry bag or two. That way we can store our dirty laundry in the shower when it’s not in use and the bags can easily be lifted out of the shower and placed on the floor of the tiny bathroom when needed, unlike the bulky laundry baskets that I don’t have room for. I’m also going to buy a shoe bag for the back of the bathroom door. This will solve the dilemma of tripping over shoes when you enter the camper, providing that everyone puts them away, in their place. The closets in the bedroom are deep, but don’t provide as much storage as they could. We’ll hopefully solve this problem by building shelves into the back of the closet for some items that we wouldn’t normally need on a daily basis. I’ve also talked my husband into building a shelf in our room to serve as a computer desk for the laptop.
I’m sure the newer motorhomes, fifth wheels and travel trailers probably have options that weren’t available twenty years ago when our camper was manufactured, but if you’re a full-time RV family, or you have a tip for me that would allow us to make the most of the space that we do have, could you please leave a comment or email me? I’d really, really appreciate it. And so would my children who are convinced that their momma is turning into Jekyll and Hyde.
*Can’t have Anyone Over Syndrome
© 2009 Tonya Prater/Live the Adventure
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