The Dream Begins To Take Real Form...

It's a really good thing we took that driving class last week. Cause guess what??? We bought our very first RV today!!!!!!!!!!! I know, that was a whole lot of exclamation points there .But after almost two years of dreaming, planning and pleading with the universe, we are finally feeling that this most definitely will be happening. So yeah, bring on the exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What we got: a 34 ft 1994 Fleetwood Bounder. She has typical 1990's decor but it's in good condition so we will forgive her for being dated. The exterior is fading but is not bashed in anywhere. The mechanics appear to be functioning very well. When the owner powered her up I didn't even realize he'd done that. It was that quiet. And the generator was surprisingly quiet as well. From what we can tell she's been very well taken care of and came with a very well organized binder of manuals and records.

This model has no slides but is overflowing with storage. We are positively giddy! And it has the biggest shower/tub that we've ever seen in an RV. And we've looked at so many of them. Seriously. Some of the showers we've seen have made me want to cry at how tiny they are. And the same for the toilet rooms. While it's true we are both losing weight, I don't think we're going to be svelte anytime soon. So that extra space is going to be quite the luxury.

We plan to take her out next week for an overnighter to a local state park so we can get properly acquainted with her. And from there we will probably take her out for short trips through the week as often as we can so that by the time we're ready to go full-time (December) we'll be pretty comfortable and not acting all newbie stupid.   :)

Eventually we will do some interior updating; replace the flooring with wood laminate, paint over fugly wallpaper, put up new window coverings, swap out the brass everywhere with something more to our liking and cover up that upholstery. But for right now she is perfectly livable. There is some plastic trim throughout that is cracked and coming off. That we will deal with sooner than later. It's the biggest eyesore in the rig but looks like an easy fix.   :)   We'll have a lot of fun making it our own. We've always loved nesting!

Since pictures say a thousand words, I'll quit writing now and get on to the picture show!

In the picture with the bed you can see the trim on the nightstands that is all broken. There is more of that trim throughout that is the same way. Fixing that up will be our first task. Fun!  

We're pretty stoked to just be able to say that we're RV owners and will (soon) be hitting the road as full-timers. Nothing like watching a crazy plan you hatched come to life.    :)

Drivers Ed

Prep work for our full-time RVing goal continues. Yesterday we went to Lazydays here in Tucson and took their driver confidence course. It was a great introduction into driving a rig, which is something neither of us really has any experience with. Really glad we did this! Kind of boggles my mind how anyone could do a decent job starting out without learning the tricks they taught us.

 Karin was super excited about the course while I was pretty terrified. I felt VERY intimidated going into it, especially when I saw the size of the RV they had for us to learn on. It was a 40 footer, which is considerably larger than what we plan to purchase. But nonetheless I was determined to do this. Even though Karin is typically the one driving whenever we go places together, I think it's unwise to rely on just one driver. I want to be able to drive whenever the need arises and be completely comfortable doing so.

 Karin volunteered to go first in our group. I waited until about halfway through. Everyone in the group did great. Over half of us were women. :) It was amazing to me how easy it was to concentrate only on the rules we were given and not even think about the enormous length sitting behind me. Hmmm.....now that just sounds hilarious to me when I read back what I just wrote!

 Karin got some video of me making my first turn. I was too freaked out to even think of capturing her moment of glory.

I was really quite proud of myself afterwards! And here are our certificates. 

No Raves Here, Just Rants

I solemnly swear to never be a condescending blogger. How I live is NOT above however you may choose to live. How you live is NOT lame just because you don't have the DEEP insight to have figured out the ONE & ONLY PERFECT way to live.

As long as I have the freedom to choose the lifestyle that suits me, you are free to do the complete opposite for all I care. REALLY. I don't need to sit around and blog about how stupid your life is.

Sorry. But tired of people who have supposedly figured it all out, enjoy visiting a "charming" town (enough to make it an annual stay) but at the same time can't stop themselves from knocking the local townsfolk for being different from them. SERIOUSLY??? Just cause it ain't your thing doesn't make it the end of the world.

I suppose a person like that really is better off being in the boonies.I hope I never reach the point where way far away from everyone else is the only place that truly suits me.

Back In January....

Since it's almost March (HELLO!), thought I'd finally post about some January stuff. The stuff other than my granddaughter being born anyway.   :)

We took a couple of days to go check out the big assed RV show out at Quartzsite being that we had never done that before. One simply MUST do this at some point if they are to be an official RV'er. Am I right???  We drove over in the morning with the thought to spend the afternoon at the show and then go back the next morning to finish up and then head back the second afternoon. The first part of that plan was kept. But that one afternoon there is all that we wanted. So the next day we changed our plans and drove down to Yuma and visited the Territorial Prison and afterword drove home from there. Turned out perfectly. Yay for being flexible!

Back to Quartzsite. Wow. What a huge sea of RV's! Have never seen anything like it before nor will I likely ever again. We first visited the big tent of vendors. I'd say at least half of the vendors were hawking stuff not all that closely related to RVs. That was kind of a let down. So it really didn't take much time to go through it. Then we hit the RV dealer lots. That's the fun part for us! We specifically wanted to see some of the smaller, older rigs. And we saw so many good ones that we felt had a lot to offer for our needs. It was reassuring. One of the things that amazes us is that even when we think we've seen it all as far as layouts/designs, we keep seeing things we haven't seen before. This pleases us greatly.   :)

The overall vibe of the show is part fair, part swap meet, part RV life. One long afternoon of that mix was enough for us frankly. I have no love of either fairs or swap meets. So we drove on to Blythe CA for our dinner & over-nighting. And in the morning we headed south.   :)   Here we are "pretending" at the show.

Karin

Moi

On to Yuma. Since we'd never been before and we were interested in seeing the Territorial Prison it made sense to just make that our return trip route. It turned out to be a really pretty drive down from Quartzsite. And Yuma was nothing like we had imagined it to be. I know I expected it to be really dusty and ugly. Where one gets ideas like this I have no idea. It couldn't have been further from the truth. Being that it hugs the Colorado River, Yuma actually has irrigation. It was freaking green!!! It's a very agricultural community with loads of farms that we drove by into town. We saw all kinds of lovely green leafy things growing in pretty rows. Happiness! Yup. 

And then there was the prison. No green stuff growing there but I in particular dug the cool little architectural details all over the place. Not a huge history buff so the museum was a bit of a yawner for me but there was still plenty to keep me amused. And it didn't hurt that it was a stunningly gorgeous day.  :)

Prepare now for an onslaught of pictures. I would love to incorporate a slideshow here but don't know how to do it? Anyway, I'll figure that out eventually. 

Karin

Oh yes she did!!!

Need a trim???

Taken from deep within the "dark cell". Karin looks like a ghostly apparition.  :)

Row of cells. Love these metal doors!

Me on the good side of a cell door.

The following week we had a very different RV encounter. Full time RV'ers Ayo & Yair of http://ourtakeonfreedom.wordpress.com/ spent a week or so in Tucson and we hooked up with them for a day. They graciously gave us the grand tour of their rig and gave us loads of tips and insight on the realities of RV living. We really appreciated that! Then it was on to lunch at a local favorite and then time to go play in the desert. Ever get the chance to meet these two, do! They are super friendly, super sweet and just good good people. 

Ayo, Yair & myself

Yair & Karin

Ayo waving hello. 

Saguaros always fascinate.

I never get tired of them.    :)

                   

Not a Professional Blogger

So how many times am I allowed to start off a post with "I've been a bad blogger" before it gets really annoying?  I may need to find a new approach. The goal is not to annoy. This much I know for sure. I will never be a daily blogger. Number one, it feels too much like a job if I put deadlines and such on myself. And number two, how many of us actually have something relevant to say to mostly strangers on a daily basis? Okay, a few people maybe but not this girl! I would bore you to tears. I even try to limit my facebook updates so I don't wear out my welcome.   :)   But I would actually love to show up here semi-regularly. Say maybe weekly? Or at least several times a month. Enough to keep me working on my writing that I inflict on other people.

I've been in hyper reading mode of late. I had three books going at the same time. I'm about halfway through Life by Keith Richards. It's a really BIG book. So big that I can't take it to bed to read at night. If I did I would risk hurting myself if I should happen to fall asleep while reading. Trust me, I am all too familiar with being hit in the face with a falling book while reading in bed. But it is a really enjoyable read!

So for my bedtime reading I've been reading the Hunger Games series on my Kindle. Yup. A nice light weight Kindle! How awesome are those things? I have a ridiculously large number of books stored all one terrifically light little tablet. My face is safe. You might ask why I don't just get the Keith Richards book on my Kindle. Because the library has the hardcover for FREE. Duh. I am having a hard time bringing myself to pay for books I can get for free otherwise. Only reason I have the Hunger Games series on my Kindle is because my dear friend gifted me her older kindle already loaded with those books and many many more.

And then the third book is Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It by Gary Taubes. I won't give the ending away. I'll just say that the book is amazing in it's dedication to presenting the actual facts based solely on science. Boggles the mind how much BS the medical community has tossed out there as fact without anything to actually back it up. And because they are the supposed "authorities" we buy into it even when we can clearly see it doesn't work. You can bet your sweet patooty I will be working to change my eating habits to better align with how our bodies actually function in regards to what we do and do not eat. It won't be easy. At least not at first. And my biggest obstacle may be getting my sweetie on board with this. Ohhhhhh, she's NOT going to like it one teeny tiny little bit. But as a diabetic it will most assuredly be in her best interest. And I LOVES her so very much!    :)

Look What I Made!

I signed up with Pinterest many months ago but have only become active there in the last month or so. For those that don't know, Pinterest is a website that allows you to create virtual bulletin boards where you "pin" websites that are of interest to you. For example, recipes to try is a popular thing to pin. You share your boards with others and they with you. In this way ideas are shared between large numbers of people.

I've been spending quite a bit of time there recently pinning all kinds of things. Mostly recipes and craft ideas. Now since it's been time consuming, I've promised myself I would do more than just pin all this stuff. I promised myself I would actually USE these ideas! And I've been doing pretty good. I've tried (successfully) several recipes.

Back in my stay-at-home-mom days I was quite the crafter. I did all kinds of things from sewing to crochet to embroidery and more. I've just really not done much at all since the kids left home over eight years ago. But the desire is there. And it's been getting stronger! So seeing all these cool crafts on Pinterest has really pushed me to the point where I'm determined to get crafting again. But honestly it's been so long for some things that I feel extremely rusty. Like almost frozen in fear that I won't know what to do anymore. This is especially true for crocheting. So I am selecting projects that are at an almost beginner level till I get my confidence back.

One area I had only barely gotten started on back in the day is jewelry making. But that is the one thing I am most drawn to now. So I have decided to really delve into that. Once again, beginner projects only. I've spent a lot of time scouring boards for just the right things to try. Yesterday I picked up the supplies for one of them and actually made it today! It was super easy and quick. I think it took less than an hour and I now have a bracelet I love. I want to make more of them and already figured out ways to make them turn out better.

This is a cotton wrapped leather & ball chain bracelet that double wraps and uses a hex nut for closure. Next time I will use a thicker leather cord and a smaller hex nut.

Nothing fancy, but still with a lot of fun detailing. I love unusual uses for things like the hex nut closure.  :)

And Now Introducing........

So much stuff to share, I scarcely know where to begin! I could go in chronological order but that would mean delaying what I'm most excited about. May as well get right to it then.  :)    My second grandchild, beautiful Brianna Marie, made her entrance into the world in the early hours of the morning today! Baby and Momma are doing well and hopefully getting at least a little rest. These are the pictures I have thus far.

It's killing me to not be able to be with them right now, getting to know my granddaughter! But we plan to drive to Indy in mid-March. This will give them time to settle into their new family for a bit. We will also be able to celebrate Kaleb's fourth birthday then. We have had to miss his birthdays up to now. So we have much to look forward to!