Skirting the Trailer

We are enjoying our first full weekend in Millie (our RV).  Yesterday we spent the day helping my dad work on his fence.  I spent the day inside using my parents washer.  There is a laundromat here, but at 3 dollars a load it adds up quickly.  So now we just show up at peoples houses with our laundry.  I have a feeling people will stop inviting us over. 

The girls stayed at my parents house last night and it was definitely the best sleep I've had since moving in.  So now I am rethinking it's the beds fault and maybe it is my children's fault I don't sleep well.  I still hope we can get a regular sized queen or better topper, but it's nice to know I can sleep well here.  Everyday we feel this is more and more our home.  We notice that when we are away we feel exited to get back home.  I'm glad we don't feel like we are too cramped and would rather be gone all the time.  I was worried about that.  I can already see a our family changing and being together more.  Small spaces certainly push you together. 

Today we worked hard on getting the skirting around the RV.  The temperatures are really nice now and we want to get Millie ready for winter before it gets cold outside.  Brian bought an old billboard sign tarp and we cut it in pieces.  He then used the existing screws on the trailer to hang it all around.  It looks great.  I think it really dresses her up.  Next up we will be building a small deck at our front door.  Hopefully that will help the shoe situation around here.  We always have a pile of shoes by our front door and it drives me crazy.  I hope to get a box on the porch we can drop them in.  

         This is how we pinched the tarp onto the side.             

             
              Getting her all skirted in. 

          Doesn't she look beautiful?

Miles of Love,
     Stacey

A Rough Time

Looks like we had our first trying 24 hours in the trailer.  It's funny because it seems like when you have a bad day it isn't one big thing that causes it. It's usually lots of little things added up.  We actually had been having a fine day and then around dinner time we all seemed to fall into a funk.  

Lily stood at the table painting her nails and proceeded to pee all over the carpet because she didn't want to stop.  O.K. no big deal but then I put her in the tub and proceeded to clean up dinner. Because I was in a hurry I didn't notice half the bag had fallen off the garbage can and I was scraping oily onions straight into the bin.  So add that to the clean up.  Brian was feeling bored and a little claustrophobic so he was also in a bad mood.  Oh and remember the girls were painting their nails.  They had nail polish all over the table.  

                 Don't those nails look so pretty though?

I quickly realized we were headed downhill so off to bed everyone went.  Normally these types of hiccups would bring joking and laughter but none of us were in the mood to see the bright side.  The next morning I woke up to find out that Lily had wet the bed.  What was happening!? My fully potty trained kid was definitely regressing.  OK off to the laundry mat to clean the sheets.  Also did I mention all this was during the time the toilet water line was broken and we still hadn't figured out how to fix it.  Anyways, We headed out to our new church and there were some tears and anxiety about the whole thing.  I forgot how hard it is to be the new people.  We were so comfortable in our last place that it was definitely the hardest transition we have had to make.  We were all a bit tired when we got home so we spent the rest of the day playing and relaxing.  That did the trick and everyone is back to feeling in better spirits.  

                         Our first Sunday in the trailer

I have to remind myself that whether we live in a big house or a small trailer, rough days happen.  This isn't unique to our home.  It's easy to start blaming this on the trailer and tell ourselves we have made a bad choice and maybe should have never done this.  But bad days always pass and things always get better.

Miles of Love,
          Stacey

The Plunge

We did it!!!  We took the plunge and are now houseless.  This is different than homeless since we indeed have a home.  It now has wheels on it and is only about 15% of the square footage we once had, but it is a home.  Selling our house was a very stressful process and we all feel relief that it is over.  In a nutshell the buyers had to change lenders and push the close date back three weeks and then we had a pipe burst days before closing and had to push the close date back another week.  The day we found out that we had a broken pipe we were supposed to be moving into the trailer.  However on that day we found out the RV park we were planning on staying in was not going to work out.  Can you say stressful?!  We found another place to park the RV and feel it ended up being a much better fit for us.  So I guess it all worked out but it sure was overwhelming for a few days. 

We have been in the trailer for about a week now.  We are still organizing and figuring out how to fit everything in.  We already moved another full box of toys out.  We have spent the last year working on downsizing but it still wasn't enough.  I have a feeling that this will be an ongoing process.  The bed situation is not working and we are in the process of figuring out what to do.  We are sleeping on a lumpy short queen which means we feel like two giants on a kid bed.  Also there is this problem with our girls sleeping through the night.  They play musical beds all night long.  Kya has her mattress from the house, which is the only decent mattress we have. As soon as she crawls into our bed there is a race to be the first one in her bed.  I really want to sleep train her to stay put but I also like her bed.  It's an internal struggle. Other than the sleeping, everything else is going well.  We like the small space and I like that cleaning takes no time at all.  The kids spend more time than usual outside and less time on electronics. 

While we find ourselves missing the security we felt with a house, there is something to be said about the freedom of having few possessions and our home is able to move whenever we want.  We aren't exactly sure how this risk is going to work out and that feels a little scary.  Living outside the box is not necessarily easy and I know that there are more naysayers than supporters out there.  But it feels right for us and we feel comfortable with the risk we are taking. 

Here we are saying goodbye to our home. The brown house as the kids call it. 

Here is our new home.  We call her Millie.