The good, the bad, the smelly

(To read how our journey started, begin here.)

Well, folks. This weekend we are celebrating one year in our tiny home. Time has really flown by.

We really do, truly, love living here. Throughout the course of the year, I've made a mental list of everything I love and don't love about our home.

Things I LOVE:

1. I love how close our family has become. I love that my kids are learning to love each other and depend on each other more than ever before - most days, they are each other's only friends.

2. My kids are maintaining a level of innocence that wouldn't be possible otherwise. We leave for school at 6:40am. They come to my classroom until the bell rings. After school, they are back in my classroom, or playing on one of the computers in the computer lab. Then we come home, make dinner, shower, and begin the bedtime routine. Our schedule doesn't allow for dirty jokes on the bus, the questionable neighbor kid who knows too much about the birds and the bees, or the snotty whines of kids who'd rather hang out with friends at their house instead of mine. In a word: our kids are sheltered.

3. Even if the place is a complete and total disaster, which is daily, it only takes about 15 minutes to have everything back to normal. The kids have their own chores and know how to maintain their space without much effort on my part.

4. It is pretty much impossible for Ashley to clog our toilet with her mass amounts of toilet paper usage. The flusher on our toilet is activated by stepping on a lever and a giant hole opens and everything falls out ... no clogs. Like, ever. (Bliss)

5. I don't have to buy as many toys. My kids are getting used to hearing, "We don't have room for that." My favorite is when we are in the checkout at Target and my son asks for one of the little Lego sets or a pack of Pokémon cards. Ashley will quickly reply with, "No Ryan. We live in a trailer. We don't have room for that." I'm fairly certain it is her mission in life to keep me humble.

6. Obviously, we are saving a ton of money. I love this. Even more: I love being totally debt free. If we want to take a vacation, we book it. If we need new tires, no biggie. Ryan gets admitted to the hospital for the third time in a year? We still want to scream at those medical bills, but they are immediately paid in full. These are things that were otherwise quite frustrating on a firefighter/teacher household budget.

7. No yard. I know that Gary misses the half acre creek lot with 14 fruit trees, but the upkeep on that was rough. Now our weekends and time off are really weekends and time off. We're pretty much earning our black belts in rest and relaxation over here.

8. Traveling: This summer, we are taking off on the road for 7 weeks: Murrels Inlet, SC, Charleston, SC, Charlotte to visit cousins, Illinois to visit Grandma and Grandpa, Mt. Rushmore, Steamboat Springs, CO, and Gulf Shores, AL. When your monthly "mortgage" payment is $340 ... you splurge on vacationing.

9. I care even less about material things than I did before. I grew up quite privileged, with a mom who dwelled and focused way too much time and energy on the things of the world. I watched the greed and need to show off consume her. As an adult, I've made a conscious effort to focus on what matters most. This past year has taught me the immeasurable value of spending money making memories instead of making purchases.

10. And finally ... I love the memories we are making. I've taken over 6,000 pictures on my phone and another 4,000 on the Canon. This is a time that Gary and I will absolutely cherish as our kids grow up, move on, and our adventure ends .... whenever that may be. For now, we are relishing these moments. Truly, if I could save time in a bottle ... Jim Croce was on to something there.


So. There's my top 10 LOVES from this past year. Here's my top 10 not loves:

1. I have no dishwasher. Well. That's not entirely true. There are actually 4 dishwashers in this tiny house. The problem is that only 1 of them works on a daily basis. 2 are pretty much good for nothing. And the last one is gone saving lives so frequently that when he's home, I prefer him to sleep and do the laundry.

2. I don't have a washer/dryer. This isn't really a horrifically terrible thing. And actually, most of the time, I don't mind it at all. (I even thought about putting the laundromat on my list of loves, but then you might have thought I had lost my mind.) Here's the deal: I do love the laundromat. We can do 14 loads of laundry in about 2 hours, start to finish and folded. That's pretty much priceless. I just miss being able to throw a random load in last minute before heading to bed.

3. Ice. Oh my gosh. I miss ice. Y'all take a quick look at your microwave. That's the size of my freezer. Keeping bags of ice isn't an option and my fridge is too small to stock it with cold bottles of water. I recently bought these two little square silicone trays that each make 9 ice cubes. I use those for chocolate, banana, and peanut butter milkshakes. Mmmm.

4. I don't love my oven. It is a propane oven, so there is an open flame on the bottom of the oven. The door to the oven doesn't have a window, so if I open the door to check on what I'm baking, all the heat escapes and the propane flame turns on full blast and the bottom of whatever I'm baking gets burned. I'm learning to figure out the exact time for things I bake. I'm trying to break the vicious cycle.

5. I don't love the water situation. I've blogged about that before. Here's a brief glimpse of the issues I face, from March 9, 2015:

"This morning, right after getting all suds up in the shower, a kind (no doubt) yet clueless (no doubt) neighbor turned off the water at the spigot. It was just as I was going in to the rinse cycle. I stood there for a moment, thinking one of the kids had flushed the toilet or turned on the kitchen sink. (#‎trailerprobs‬)

And then reality set in.

And so, I did what any of y'all would do if someone shut off your water, mid shower, hair full of shampoo, pre rinse cycle: I threw on my trusty robe and flip flops and marched outside (in the rain), down the way, to the spigot. I turned the water to the spigot back on and shut off the flow to my sweet (no doubt) neighbor's water line.

And since you're wondering: yes. I had an audience. But thankfully, I was without glasses and my horrible vision rendered me incapable of studying their [surely] mortified faces. Just keeping it classy back here. In the trailer. Next to the million dollar Prevost.

I secretly hope he got a good look because I'd like to not repeat this mistake again. Red handle stays up, black lever gets turned off. K, thanks. And if you need the wifi password, I'm your girl."

6. Things get smelly sometimes. I think we can all agree that there are occasions to use the bathroom vent/fan. Well. In an RV, it is very important that before flushing, you first turn off the vent/fan ... unless you want to instantly suck up all the glorious smell from the black tank. It's a wonderful aroma that only a port-a-potty could love.

7. I miss having a backyard. I know. You're confused because not having a yard was on my list of loves. Here's the thing: I miss looking out the window and watching my kids jumping on the trampoline, soaking wet, with the sprinkler hanging over the side. I miss inviting the whole block over when Gary put up a bounce house water slide. How many of you Prosper friends knew we were the founding/original owners of Engine 9 Bounce? Sigh. Fun business. Miss the memories. Don't miss the work. Tanner is doing a great job at that now.

8. I feel bad that my kids can't go to "their" school. Ryan asked me almost weekly all year if he could go back to Rucker. When you live in an RV, you are classified as homeless, which makes it hard to register for school. As long as we live in an RV, they have to come to school with me. I have some guilt about this, but I'm super excited because we are moving to a new school where they already have friends.

9. I miss my old schedule. I miss finishing work at noon and meeting friends for lunch or taking Lovie on an extended afternoon of running errands. This was the hardest adjustment for me, but I think I might be just about over it. The summer is healing that ache for me.

10. We all hate walking Caroline over to the small patch of grass to potty several times a day. It was nice to just open the back door and let her roam free, chase rabbits, and sniff out every pesky roly poly to her heart's content.  

So, there it is. And. If I'm being totally honest, which I am ... it was waaaaaay easier to come up with the LOVES than it was to scrape up things I don't love. But I like even numbers, so I pressed on and found 10 things I don't love or missed from before.

We feel so blessed to be where we are, know where we are going, and to be experiencing this adventure. I will only regret the risks and adventures I didn't take.



Shower Wars

This morning, right after getting all suds up in the shower, a kind (no doubt) yet clueless (no doubt) neighbor turned off the water at the spigot. It was just as I was going in to the rinse cycle. I stood there for a moment, thinking one of the kids had flushed the toilet or turned on the kitchen sink. (#‎trailerprobs‬)

And then reality set in.

And so, I did what any of y'all would do if some...one shut off your water, mid shower, hair full of shampoo, pre rinse cycle: I threw on my trusty robe and flip flops and marched outside (in the rain), down the way, to the spigot. I turned the water to the spigot back on and shut off the flow to my sweet (no doubt) neighbor's water line.

And since you're wondering: yes. I had an audience. But thankfully, I was without glasses and my horrible vision rendered me incapable of studying their [surely] mortified faces. Just keeping it classy back here. In the trailer. Next to the million dollar Prevost.

I secretly hope he got a good look because I'd like to not repeat this mistake again. Red handle stays up, black lever gets turned off. K, thanks. And if you need the wifi password, I'm your girl.

The Grand Tour



We sold our home in one showing without ever putting it on the market. We closed less than three weeks after the showing. It was the most painless. process. ever.

 

As I said in the previous post, we picked out our new home. That exact fifth wheel was sitting at my dad's dealership in Atlanta. So, I called my dad and told him we wanted it. He said he would let the manager in Atlanta know. I bought an airline ticket to fly up, walk through it, sign the papers, and have it shipped down to Dallas. As I was standing in the security line at the airport, the Atlanta dealership manager returned my call. He had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. He quickly checked inventory to discover that the unit I was flying up there to purchase had literally sold two days before and the new owners were taking delivery that day.

 

Insert crying emoticon here.

 

After a quick phone call to Dad, everything became clear: he completely forgot to tell the manager in Atlanta that we wanted to buy that fifth wheel. Bummer. Lucky for him ... I'm his daughter and not another actual, real customer. ;)

 

So, we began the process of ordering our fifth wheel. It was painless and we ended up with a better RV than the one in Atlanta. The problem? We were going to be homeless for a month while it was built. Our sweet friend graciously offered to let us invade her beautiful castle of a home and we pressed forward. Finally, over 4th of July weekend, 2014, we moved in to our tiny, new home.

 

This is a Cedar Creek Silverback 37BH Fifth Wheel. So, this is a really freaking huge 'trailer' that you tow behind a big arse truck. It's just under 40 feet long. I'm going to start at the front end of the 'trailer' and move to the back end with my photo tour. Here we go ....

 

This is the master bedroom. Not much walking around room because we brought our king size Tempupedic bed with us. It was one of very few things we weren't willing to part with. It's worth not being able to do yoga on the side of my bed. Not that I actually do yoga ...

 

 

Across from our bed .... this TV gets more use than the other TVs. The kids come home, kick off their shoes, head to my bed, and flip to their favorite shows to veg out after a long day at school. The four of us cram into bed, snuggle up, and watch movies on the weekend.

 

What you can't see in this picture is the two big hampers that fit perfectly in that little alcove in the wall. Every two weeks, like clockwork, those hampers are filled and Superman hauls them over to the laundromat to do the laundry.

 

Here we have the master bathroom. The shower is bigger than the shower in our old house. Go figure.

 

I have very few complaints about our new life and home, one of which is the lack of bathroom storage/space. But. We do the best we can.

 

These little drawers help provide the storage we need.

 

The vanity.

Above the toilet storage -- I only wish there were more.

 

Both the master bedroom and bathroom are upstairs. So, now we are going to go down a couple steps to head into the living area.

 

This couch is pretty fabulous. The metal holes in the floor are for the tables that pull out of the big drawer under the pull out bed, inside that couch. I'm telling you, it's a great couch.

 

The kitchen. You can see the stairs and master in the background.

 

Remember how I said there were just a couple things I didn't like about our place? The size of the freezer is one of those things. I need more ice and popsicles in my life.

 

We even have a ceiling fan - livin' large, people. Living. Large.

 

TV and fireplace below. The fireplace puts off quite a bit of heat and it was able to warm up the entire trailer all winter long.

 

Just another angle of the living area. Front door is on the right after the couch, by the fire extinguisher.

 

 

The kids' room. Ryan took the top bunk, Ashley took the bottom bunk.

 

Lots of room for everything - they each get a side of the armoire for all their clothes and shoes.

 

When we tried to donate this TV .... they wouldn't let us. I was so baffled! It's a perfectly good TV! So, we brought it and stuck it across from the bunk beds on the shelf of what should be a third bed. But, we don't need a third bed, so ... it works.

 

Let's just ignore the big soft Pottery Barn chairs crammed above the TV. K, thanks.

 

And finally, the kid bathroom. The door on the left is the back door that opens to the opposite side of the trailer as the front door in the living room. I was a priority to have 2 bathrooms.

 

And there it is in all 550 ish square feet glory. We love it. It is perfect for us.