Sanity Check

It’s been almost two months since we made the decision to sell our home, many of belongings, and move into an RV full time. Many of our friends questioned our sanity initially; many still do. But so many others have found our choices interesting, entertaining or inspirational.

And, since we’ve been in our RV for a couple of months now, many have asked, “have you been happy with your choice?”

If you’ve read much of my blog, I think the answer is easy to ascertain. But, let me elaborate a bit more.

Neither Jeff or I regret our decision at all. And, our children are very happy. If we have any regrets, it’s that we didn’t make the changes sooner.

There are two things that you’d always like more of when you live in an RV…storage room and time. Pantry space and closet space are premium real estate; the closet especially now that the weather is in a transition phase where it’s cool in the mornings and hot in the afternoons requiring us to have cool and warm clothes. And, we wish we had more time off from work to take longer weekend trips. There is so much we want to see and do and just not enough time to do it all. But we fit in what we can both in time and space and life has been enjoyable as is.

We’ve had the RV serviced for routine maintenance and they kept it over the weekend. We ended up staying in a hotel which I hated. The places we stayed at were nice. It’s just that I never sleep well in a place that is not my home. And, I hated living out of a suitcase if only for a few days. I guess that is why traveling by air or car never seemed as appealing to me….too much work packing and unpacking. With an RV, we don’t have that problem unless we set up a bunch of things outside of the RV like decorative lights, etc.

I wasn’t sure if I’d like our washer/dryer combo in the RV when we purchased it. Many people told us that these units don’t wash much at a time and take up much needed storage space. But, we’ve used ours a lot! Every morning I throw in dirty clothing from the day before. The beauty of the unit is that it is both a washer and dryer. So I put in the clothes before I leave in the morning and it will wash the clothes and then automatically go into the dryer mode. Our clothes are dry and ready to be folded and put away when Jeff gets home in the afternoon. The only negative that I see is that I can’t wash all of my bedding at once. So, we usually bring those items to the comfort station on a weekend and wash those at one time.

Living in small quarters continues to affect my decisions on what I will and will not purchase; and that is a good thing. When you truly think about it, most people could get by with significantly less stuff. And, we have found that to be even truer with each passing day. I evaluate each new purchase carefully. If it’s something I have to store and maintain or has no useful routine purpose I honestly have no use for it. We have splurged on some decorative lights to go outside of the RV so that the kids still get some of that festive holiday spirit but other than that, we haven’t bought much other than wonderful memories.

I leave you today with this parting thought from Jim Stovall:

“I am often reminded of the early mountain man who roamed freely throughout the Rockies far before that area was settled. He was able to move unencumbered along beautiful mountain trails where very few people had ever been able to go. Years later in his life, he had obtained more possessions and wealth. While traveling through the area in a wagon, he was forced to take a desert road instead of his beloved mountain trail. As he gazed at the beautiful mountain peaks in the distance, he realized that his quest for a few material things had changed the course of his travels and the course of his life.”