What About Our Stuff?

Moving into our fifth wheel has been a wonderful adventure and a necessary step towards reaching our goals (more on that later), but living in our little space is not without adjustments.  Fewer than I thought, some I hadn't considered.  (see previous post on Positive and Negative aspects of living in a RV.)   One thing I knew would be difficult was eliminating possessions.

Once John accepted the job here in Texas, I knew we'd be leaving, but I didn't know what kind of home we were going to find.  Would it be a house where we would move most of our belongings into?  Would it be a small apartment into which we would only be able to fit  a couch, our beds and a few other items?  Or, would it be an RV which comes furnished so we would only need to bring a few select items sentimental to our hearts and necessary for living?

I threw a yard sale in October to take advantage of the last of the good weather and clean out the most of our belongings in expectation of moving into an apartment.  I was happy to see some of the clutter go, but other things were much harder to part with: Furniture John had built, the cradle Zoey slept in the day after she was born, mountains of baby clothes (much of which I  passed on to friends), and other such items.  I sometimes had tears in my eyes seeing the mountain of possessions we had spent hours shopping for, and years admiring in its carefully chosen spot in our home - just drive away in the back of a rusty dodge pickup.  I kept a few select favorites for our new apartment, but our plans quickly changed and an apartment was no longer where we were going.

It's so hard to say good-bye :(

Midland was not hospitable to last minute movers and we had to find other housing, hence the RV.  Once we had the RV, I was to follow John down to Texas in a month.  I took the next month to try and sell a few more items on Craigslist as the cold Northern winter set in, but my heart wasn't in it.  I was finding it hard to part with the last of my things.  So after our funds ran dry for renovations so that I had nothing else to accomplish in Idaho for that time and Zoey and I couldn't bear to be away from John any longer, I left all my things locked up in my beautiful Idaho house wondering what I was still going to do with all our stuff.

Now having spent nearly four months away from our old house and all our stuff, I find that it doesn't mean so much anymore and frankly, I don't miss it.  The couch is replaceable, the mirror just a mirror, the coffee table fills too much space and so on.  As I prepare to leave for Idaho in the next month or so, I feel relieved to lighten my load and ready to commit fully to our new simpler lifestyle.  The house will be harder to let go of, but that's just something I can't take with me.

Our possessions may be simplified, but taking care of them isn't always.  We chose this particular camper for it's storage space.  A large cabinet in the living area, L-shaped kitchen providing extra storage, and an entire "toy hauler" space we can use. Still,  I've found I spend a lot of  time organizing and reorganizing to keep things tidy and make room for new food and projects. 

We've made a few upgrades to our little RV. When we first brought it to Idaho, we made living upgrades by installing soft play mats for the flooring in Zoey's loft and equipping the garage area with a tall plastic (for weight) cupboard which has provided a lot of extra storage space and installing a toilet paper holder (hmmm, Why wasn't there one in the first place?).  Since our RV had been a repossession, the former owners had stripped it of anything of value.  Although the seller had replaced most of the items,  a few were still missing.  John put in the garage-to-living-area door when we first got it and we just installed the replacement ceiling fan to help keep things cool as the temperatures rise.  We also just installed our space numbers on our trailer.  After a small dyslexic moment, we got them on in the right order and now we are officially #873, not #783.

I had planned on putting a few planters outside on our patio, but water conservation measures in the area prevent us from adding new plantings at the moment.  So for now we admire anything that manages to bloom and flourish in the Texas sun on it's own.

Most of the trees are shading the trailer park quite well, but a few trees in our little trailer park are missing their foliage, and ours is one of them.  This was a huge disappointment to me since we only have the one tree outside our front door to shade our patio (most spots have 2) and without it things are so barren and hot.  On it's dry cracking branches we've hung Zoey's artistic bird house, which she diligently painted herself, and a hummingbird feeder which received little visitors within minutes of it's arrival, and we regularly see yellow-breasted chats perched in the branches, but the tree is still nothing more than a tall pile of sticks.  Perhaps I can talk the manager into moving us under some shade once another tenant has left, after all numbers are cheap.


Who knew our life would take such a turn from settling down in a sprawling house in my hometown to moving half way across the country to live in a RV?  We're content, even happy with the changes and look forward to so many life enhancing changes we have scheduled in our future.