2010!

I glanced at the calendar and realized that this is our final week of 2010. Wow! Where has this year gone? How could this year be over already?

Every year seems to get shorter. It goes by so fast. Maybe it’s just me!

The year 2010 had some rough spots for us. But those rough spots have given us additional strength and we managed to pull ourselves right through it. This year has also been a productive year for us. We have come a long way in our preparations for fulltiming.

February; my mother finished her chemo treatments and in May she finished her radiation. It has all paid off because she is now CANCER FREE!

She is feeling great with the exception of dealing with occasional lymphedema symptoms. She walks a few miles a couple times of week and has started taking a pilates class.

March; Dawn celebrated fifty-two years. We had a great time celebrating her birthday. Our Jesse passed away. She was the oldest of our four legged kids. We miss her dearly.

April; I had a return of Bell’s palsy. It reoccurs every time I have a severe sinus infection. I took a week off to recover. This is like the fifth time I’ve had it.

May; Mom completed her radiation. We had a lot of garage sales and hauled a lot of STUFF off.

June; Dawn had another bout with cluster headaches. We are NOT falling apart. We are only suffering slight setbacks.

July; my only living uncle was diagnosed with cancer. He has since undergone chemo treatments and is now in REMISSION.

August; my oldest niece got married. It was a beautiful wedding. This newly- wed couple has already had an addition to their family. Yes, they are the proud parents of a new puppy.

September; our neighbor’s donkey, Blessing had a baby girl this summer. Her name is Pumpkin. She is the cutest little donkey kid on the block.

October; we suffered a huge lose that we shared with our blogging friends when Bruce and Margie’s lives were cut short. They were ran over and killed by a reckless driver while they were enjoying a daily walk. Margie was great about leaving helpful and funny comments on our post. They are missed by many.

November; I celebrated fifty years. It doesn’t seem possible that either of us could be in our fifties. Physically that might be so, but mentally we are somewhere in our thirties. Love the thirties, old enough to know better, but crazy enough to do it anyway!

December, Abbey visited the groomers. She wasn’t happy about going but she seems to feel better since she went.

Throughout the year we made a lot of progress such as; selling the hot tub, selling the piano and some odd and in furniture.

We cleaned out the RV garage. We’ve made many trips to the dumpster and got rid of six mattresses and box springs.

We bought a new sofa and electric heater. Installed bedside shelves and a new kitchen sink faucet. We’re now officially finished redecorating the interior of our fifth wheel.

Our truck got a new airflow tailgate and new tires.

This year also gave us the opportunity to reconnect with old friends and make some new friends.

Our spare time has been spent boxing up and throwing out.

We’re NOT going to make any New Year’s Resolutions!

2011 is going to be full of changes as it is. That’s right; there will be plenty of changes this year without the additional burden of making New Year’s resolutions.


Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Christmas Poem

Recipe for Christmas All Year Long

Take a heap of child-like wonder

 That opens up our eyes

To the unexpected gifts in life—

Each day a sweet surprise

Mix in fond appreciation

For the people whom we know;

Like festive Christmas candles,

Each one has a special glow.

Add some giggles and some laughter,

A dash of Christmas food

Amazing how a piece of pie

Improves our attitude!

Stir it all with human kindness;

Wrap it up in love and peace,

Decorate with optimism, and

Our joy will never cease.

If we use this healthy recipe,

We know we will remember

To be in the Christmas spirit,

Even when it's not December

~J Fuchs

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Merry Christmas & Happy Holiday

We just wanted to say "MERRY CHRISTMAS" to all our great blog friends.

We wish everyone a happy and safe holiday.

Travel Safe
Dawn and Denise

We are Pumped!

The weather here has been cold and windy one day and warm and windy the next. Yesterday was a warm windy day. We seem to get more done on those days. Last night we made another dumpster visit with a truck load of trash. I never realized how trashy we were!

On the way home from our dumpster visit Dawn made the remark that no one seems to notice how much we’ve done around the house. A few people have made comments about how bare it’s looking but I don’t think it has really sunk in. We talked about the possibility that maybe no one believes that we’re really going to become fulltimers. My mother knows that we are serious but I think she is the only one. She is excited for us and looks forward to coming to visit us when we are staying in interesting places that she wants to visit.

I think part of the problem is that other people can’t phantom the idea of living in an RV and staying wherever you want. They can’t wrap their heads around the notion of NOT being tied down to a job, house and other obligations.

Let’s face it, most people live in a mental rut of how life should be lived and can’t think outside the box. We’re conditioned as children that we must reside in a stationary house and working long hours at an understaffed company in order to earn a good living. Because of that mind set we spend our earnings on a lot of material things that are suppose to make us happy. The more money we make the more money we spend. It is a crazy!

We then become so attached to our material possessions that we feel we can’t live without them or feel trapped because we have invested so much just acquiring them. It is an endless cycle.

Dawn and I are fortunate enough that we are both on the same page and agreed that we can do without all the material possessions. We want to get out there and live our lives.

There is so much we want to do and see. We’re not going to let any material possessions keep us from moving forward and doing what we both enjoy doing. EXPLORING.

We’re looking forward to visiting all the interesting places our fellow RV friends have visited. We want to visit the east and the west coasts. We want to live along the oceans. We want to eat fresh seafood and relax on the beach. We also want to see everything that lays between those oceans.

We’re pumped!

We could be packed up and out of here tomorrow with little effort. We just need to sell the house.

Travel Safe
Dawn and Denise

Christmas Shopping

We've been busy getting things done around the house. Saturday I took full advantage of the warm weather and worked in the yard. Our flower beds are in desperate need of some serious care. I spent about five hours removing some dead plants and thinning out some others. I reduced the size of a couple of the beds. It was a lot of hard work but it sure looks better. I now have to wait for another warm day so I can get back out there and see how much more I can get done.

One thing for sure, I'm sore from all that yard work.

We spent Sunday running some errands and doing a little Christmas shopping. Dawn loves Hickory Farms smoked cheese and we had to go to the local mall to get it. OMG! What a MAD house that was. We had to walk half way around the mall before we found the Hickory Farms kiosk.

They were giving out samples and that is where the danger is. They offer you a sample. One bite and you’re instantly hooked. We bought several of the smoked cheese, a jar of Hot & Sweet mustard, a couple of cheese balls and one ham sausage. They hooked us and reeled us in before we knew what hit us!

It’s all good! Dawn is now a happy girl.

We've been buying each other practical gifts for Christmas this year. One example is a hand mixer. Ours went out on us a couple of months ago and we just haven’t gotten around to getting a new one until now. We found a good deal on one at Target. It was $19.99.

Dawn found a Corelle dish pattern she really liked on sale at Kroger. This pattern is called Pewter. We needed a few more plates and bowls anyway. We bought a 16 piece box set at Kroger.

I needed a new pair of house shoes and we found some at JC Penny’s. The really great thing about these house shoes is the fact they were on sale and Dawn had a coupon for ten dollars off. I believe this is the cheapest pair of house shoes I have ever had. The grand total was $3.45. WOW! What a deal!

We’re boxing up things every few days and we had added more to our garage sale garage.

Travel Safe
Dawn and Denise

What's This World Coming To?

OMG, Is it just me or is everyone else as upset over all the news about these poor children that are being abused and or even killed by their own parents. It’s just insane.

A brother and sister ages 3 and 4 year old that were killed by their father in Mississippi and buried alongside the road.

The three little brother ages 5, 7 and 9 years old are missing in Michigan.

What about the little 10 year old girl from North Carolina that survived cancer only to be killed and cut into pieces by her stepmother and or father.

Everyday there is a new story in the news regarding children that are abused or killed by their own family members.

What on earth is wrong with these people? I’m truly disturbed by all the violence towards children. There should be a special place for these people that abuse, molest and kill children.

What could a child possibly do that would warrant such drastic measures. Were these monsters never children themselves? What could possibly be going on in their lives that would make them snap and do such terrible things?

There are thousands of caring and loving people in this world that would gladly open their hearts and their homes to these children whose parents evidently don’t care to love and protect.

It is a long drawn out ordeal to adopt a child. It takes money, attorneys and patients. You have to be interviewed and your home inspected, your income checked out and your background investigated. It’s almost as difficult to adopt a pet. Yet, anyone can have a child with no questions asked. There are no interviews, no income requirements and no background checks. Some of these people wouldn’t even make decent pet owners.

I have come to believe that some people think their children are like property and they can treat them anyway that want.

If these people find their children difficult to handle or realize they’re just not cut out for the parenting job, why don’t they find someone who is?

I am so sorry about the rant, it’s just upsetting how often we are hearing this sort of thing on the news recently.

New Christmas Tree

I’m still trying to get use to these short days. I’m able to stay awake until about eight-thirty now! I’m trying to stay busy when I get home in the afternoons. That means we have packing up more boxes. It’s really starting to look pretty bare around the house.

A few comments were made regarding the new table we have. We are down-sizing but we aren’t getting rid of everything. We’re planning on storing a few pieces of furniture that we just can’t part with right now. The table will be one of those pieces. We are very serious about getting rid of a lot of our things. If you could have seen all that we HAD compared to what we have now, you would see just serious we are.

We want to hang on to some of the things that are really special to us so if and when we find someplace we want to settle into permanently we will have our special things to use again.

We are now using one small corner of our large RV garage to store the things we want to keep. It is so nice to have that building almost completely cleaned out. Wow, that is one major feat!! We will never again accumulate that much JUNK.

We went all out and bought a new Christmas tree. Kohl’s was having a sale last weekend. They had a cute little four foot pre-lit tree for $39.99. Wait, It was on sale for $15.99. Wait we had a $10.00 off coupon. That made it $5.99. Wait, we also had a 15% off and that took care of the tax. We ended up paying $5.49 for our new RV Christmas tree!!! What a deal!

This little tree is small enough to fit nicely into our fifth wheel.  It's four feet tall and about two foot around at the bottom.

From Trash to Treasure

Dawn and I both love old well worn things. We have an old buffet hutch in our kitchen that was inches away from being sent to the garbage. It is an old piece of furnture with the paint peeling off but we love it. We love things with character.

Dawn's father made a wooden tool box when he was young. It measures some where around two foot wide by one foot deep by two feet tall. We brought it in and cleaned it up. We painted the box black and left the drawers the natural wood color. It has many small drawers on it.

We bought four table legs to mount to the bottum and it is now our mail organizer table.
 
 

 
We recently saved some old sewing machine legs from a trip to the dump. A friend of ours had put them out for the garbage man to collect. We threw them in the back of the truck and took them home. 

We need some one to weld a support to the legs in order to hold a piece of wood, so we could make a table out of it. I took them to work and asked about getting them welded up. The welder told me they were cast iron and it would cause them to become brittle if they were welded. Too bad.

A good friend that is a plumber said he could fix it right up for us. He asked what our plans for the legs were. I explained that we thought it would make a nice table or desk. That we were going to paint the legs black and put a piece of wood on the top. He told us we would need to take it home and work on it for a few days.

A few days later he bought the legs back and this is what it looks like now.

He not only added a support for the two legs but he also painted it and added a beautiful piece of wood to the top. We just love it.

Abbey's New Look

Well, This is it! Abbey before and after groomers.

They did a great job! Abbey was absolutely terrified. It was something that had to be done.

She is one of the sweetest little dogs I have ever met. Why she took up with me, I don't know but I feel so fortunate to have her in my life.

She can sure give the boys a run for their money. When they run and play, she is right in the middle of it. They pull her off the sofa by her ears and they wrestle with her just like they do each other. She is one tough little cookie.

The boys like to lay on the back of the sofa in front of the window. She has laso learned how to get up there too. Here she is with Willy .

Abbey Goes to Groomers

Our little girl Abby goes to the groomers for the first time today since she has come to live with us. We have been doing our best to clip her at home. She is a Shih Tzu. To me Shih Tuz means lots of hair! We have had her since last July and haven't taken her to a groomer because we wanted her to trust us first. She was abandon and we don't know her history. She gets nervous and we didn't want to scare her to badly.

She didn't need a groomer when we first got her because she didn't have much hair. She was so infested with fleas that most of her hair was gone. She now has a beautiful coat of hair and it needs to be groomed by a professional.

This picture was taken after she had been treated for the fleas and her coat was growing back in.

We will post pictures later of the results of her day at the groomers.

Not Feeling Well

Dawn started feeling bad Wednesday while she was cooking our Thanksgiving feast and on Thursday she was feeling worse. Everyone we know is coming down with this terrible stuff. It starts with the feeling like you have just been hit by a Mac truck. That’s followed with some serious nasal drainage and then there is the cough. We didn’t do anything much this weekend but lay around. Dawn asked me a couple of times if I could load a gun and shoot her. She was not able to enjoy our Thanksgiving feast at all. She hardly ate this weekend. We have leftovers but she can’t taste anything.

Thanksgiving Hang Over

We are currently suffering from Thanksgiving over ate hang over!!!

Why did we eat all that? Who's idea was it to graze every hour on the hour?

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Friends

Thanksgiving is a time for reviewing what we treasure,

The people we hold dear, Who give us so much pleasure.

Without you as our friends, Life would be such a bore;

Having you in our lives Is what We’re thankful for.

Poem By Joanna Fuchs

Winterizing

Winterizing the fifth wheel is pretty easy. I open all the water valves and let the water drain. I did however have a problem with finding the right socket to fit the water heater drain plug. It took a while but I finally did find one and was able to drain the water heater too. I am embarrassed to mention that this is the first time I have drained the water heater. We keep the fifth wheel in an insulated building and have not had a problem with freezing. KNOCK on WOOD! Now I need a gallon of RV antifreeze to pour in the traps and we’ll be set.

Our winters don’t get very cold here in north Texas. I realize I need to drain the water heater on a regular basis anyway but have just failed to do so. The water was a little dirty but it was better than I expected. We have owned the fifth wheel two years and I really thought the water was going to be real nasty. I have now placed the socket that fits the water heater plug into a Ziploc baggie and labeled it water heater plug. It will be easy to find in the tool box next time.

A very good friend bought us a spark plug socket and extension that fits on the drill that allows us to raise and lower the rear stabilizers without the cranking with that metal rod. That socket is also in its own labeled Ziploc baggie. We are all for easy to find when you need it. We’re not planning on taking a lot of tools with us when we hit the road. Matter a fact; we have plans to go thru all our hand tools in the near future. We have some good Craftsman tools and we also have some cheap no-name stuff. We have at least five hammers and a ton of screwdrivers. We have a nice tool box that we’re going to take with us and it will hold only the tools we need.

Homemade Tex-Mex & Friends

We decided Friday afternoon that neither of us really felt like dealing with a garage sale this weekend. So instead I cleaned house and did laundry while Dawn cooked most of the day. We invited friends over for Sunday Tex-Mex buffet.

Dawn was in the kitchen with the oven on and the stove top burners loaded with pots of good stuff. The entire house was filled with the aroma of homemade Tex-Mex cooking. She was truly in her element. She was making beef enchiladas, chicken enchiladas, taco beef, chocolate crunch dessert, egg custard pie and Ritz cracker pie. She also made chicken spaghetti. Wow, it sure smelled good.

On Sunday our friends arrived about noon. We all prepared our plates with plenty of spicy homemade goodness. It was a wonderful mean and I do believe everyone had seconds!

We watched some Sunday football and played a little Wii golf before our company went home. Dawn made sure everyone brought their plastic bowls so that could load up on leftovers to take home.

We can’t have a frig full of Tex-Mex when Dawn is ready to prepare the Thanksgiving feast! We won’t have a lot of people show up for Thanksgiving because our family is small but we will have a lot of food!!

The smaller the family, the more room to stretch out after over stuffing your gut! I'm really not sure why I always manage to gain weight this time of year.

The weather is warm and very windy. Apparently that is going to change on Thanksgiving day. The last report was highs in the forties and lows in the twenties with the possibility of rain.

We do want to wish everyone a "HAPPY THANKSGIVING" and if your on the road TRAVEL SAFE

New Wireless LED Lights

Dawn bought me some really neat wireless lights for my birthday. Two wireless motion sensor LED entry lights and a pack of three wireless LED spotlights with remote control. They also have a dimmer on them. She bought them at Costco. We just love that store.


The entry door of our fifth wheel doesn’t have a light above or beside it. The light is located towards the front of the trailer. When you open the door it blocks the light. Instead of mounting a light on the exterior we are going to try using the wireless motion sensor light. It is light weight and we can use Velcro to mount it. We plan on mounting it next to the door so that we will get the full benefit of the light. The neat thing about them is that they are battery operated and will detect motion within twenty-five feet in the dark. They do not come on in the daylight hours. They will go off automatically after twenty seconds of non motion. They are bright and rotate ninety degrees. They sell for $9.99 each and come with batteries. It has a one year warranty.

The wireless spotlights are nice in case the power goes off. They are also very bright. They have adjustable directional swivel and pivot heads. You can direct the light in any direction. We are going to place one of them near the stairs in the fifth wheel. It will be nice to have a beam of light shining on the stairs in the middle of the night. They sell for $19.99 per package and batteries are included. It has a 2 year warranty.

Can’t wait to pull the fifth wheel out this weekend and get the lights installed.

It's the Holiday Season Again

I wanted to thank everyone for the birthday wishes.

Where has the time gone? It’s already time to get busy for the holiday season! Our calendar is full for the next few weeks.

Saturday we are planning a garage sale, weather permitting. We have a lot of Christmas décor that someone might have a need for!

Sunday we have friends coming over for homemade Mexican buffet.

Monday getting things done around the house before family arrives for Thanksgiving feast.

Tuesday more preparing the house for family before Thanksgiving feast.

Wednesday, cook all day for Thanksgiving feast

Thursday, eat and eat. Take a nap and eat some more!!!!

Friday, hang-over recovery from eating too much Thanksgiving feast.

This will be the last Thanksgiving at our house. We usually host Thanksgiving (when we are in town) and Christmas at our house.

We look forward to celebrating Thanksgiving in a different place each year. We have decided what we will do about Christmas yet. We’ll have to play that by ear.

The weather here in North Texas has begun to get cooler and the leaves are dropping from the trees which means I had to clean the gutters on the back of the house. We have a few large pecan trees in our back yard.

We love having the pecans but our gutters don’t. Dawn held the ladder while I climbed up and cleaned out the gutters. It is a nasty job! It didn’t take long but that is just one of many times we’ll have to do that before the trees are bare. We have learned a valuable lesson here. Don’t plant trees that close to the house.

We didn’t plant these trees. Dawn’s parents did and they weren’t that close to the house until we extended the patio.

Great Weekend

I am happy to announce that I made the transition into my fifties with little, to no effort.

I took the day off Friday. We were up early and drove a friend to the airport. At noon I had an appointment at the salon to get a temp. Now I am a kinky fifty year old! My hair dressers birthday is Monday so Dawn bought pizza and we had lunch together.

Friday night Dawn made reservations for us at the Old Warsaw. It is a wonderful old restaurant in the heart of uptown Dallas. We like to eat there on special occasions.

Dinner was great. I had the Asparagus soup, Jumbo Lump Crab cake, Grilled Filet Mignon topped with crab meat, Garlic Mashed Potatoes and green beans for dessert we both had the chocolate Soufflé drenched in a chocolate sauce. Wow, we were so stuffed by the time we got out of there.

Saturday we had a few errands to run and a trip to the grocery store. Dawn had arranged for a few friends and family members to have dinner together at our favorite Mexican food restaurant. That was a lot of FUN. There was about twenty of us all together.

Denise, Troy (Brother) & Jennifer (Sister-in-law)

Sunday I took the gift cards and the cash I got for my birthday and went to Lowes. We have been looking at the electric fireplaces for the fifth wheel. The one we really like that would fit perfect in the desk area cut-out just didn’t put out enough heat. After much debate we decided to go with the Duraflame electric stove. It is the lightweight and comes with remote control. We are happy with the amount of heat it puts out.

We couldn’t wait to put it in the fifth wheel. Speaking of the fifth wheel, a friend of ours stopped by on Sunday. While we were standing outside talking he mentioned that the rear tires on the truck looked like they were too close together. We took a closer look and he was right. The rear tires are so close together you can hardly see daylight between them. The problem is when we hook onto the fifth wheel the tires are going to squat and at that point they will be touching. This is NOT a good thing!

We sold the last curio cabinet too. We had a guy come by and look at it Sunday afternoon and his mover came by Sunday night and picked it up.

Dawn went back to the tire store this morning all geared up to argue with the salesman about the dilemma with the tires. She was pleasantly surprised when the salesman told her that he tried to tell the other salesman that he didn’t think those tires would work. He said he thought the tires were too wide. He was right and he changed them out with no problem. Lesson learned!

Farewell Forties

We have had a busy week so far. We made two visits to the dumpster this week. Wow! I feel so much better getting rid of that trash. Last night I cleaned off the patio. It’s somehow became a dumping ground. We’ve been just piling stuff up in the middle of the patio for the last few weeks and it was a mess. It looks much better now.

Today I am taking the day off. I have a temp scheduled around noon. I tell my hair dresser I want a temp and she laughs and says you mean a perm. No, I have never had a perm. If I had a permanent I wouldn’t need to come back. So, my thinking is if it isn’t permanent it must be temporary! I just need a temp.

Dawn has big dinner plans scheduled for us to celebrate the last day of my forties. Saturday will be the big 50! What, that can’t be true. I don’t feel any older. I still look like I did when I was twenty. NOT. When I was twenty I had a twenty-six inch waist and weighed around one hundred pounds.

OMG! What have I done to myself?


I now have a much larger waist. The truth be told, it’s not just my waist, I have blossomed all over. Good Lord, I haven’t looked twenty since, well, since I was twenty.

I now have to wear glasses to see and have arthritis in my hands. My memory is nothing like it used to be. I can remember faces but not names, oh well, what’s in a name!

Gray hair doesn’t bother me. It is the lack of hair that is the problem. Going to bed at nine o’clock! There was a time when I was going out at that hour.

Enough is enough, I’m starting to get depressed.

All kidding aside, I don’t feel fifty. Mentally I am still just a goofy kid and plan to stay that way.

"Better to be over the hill than burried under it"

Half a Century ?

O.K this is it! I have reached the end of my forties! As of Saturday I will be officially a half century old.

Let’s see, in the first part of this half century I’ve seen a few changes like, I remember back through the past forty years and think of things that aren’t around anymore like block ice, freezers had to defrosted, Cloth diapers, glass baby bottles, swamp coolers instead of A/C Units, black and white TV’s, TV’s didn’t have remotes, cola in glass bottles, selling glass bottles for a nickel, manual type writers, hand pull adding machines, manual can openers, beer can openers, oil can openers, filling station attendants, carbon paper, 8 track players, record players, pay phones in phone booths, station wagons, Goodtime Vans, Disco music, Metal roller skates with a key, Metal lunch boxes, Pet Rocks, Mood Rings, Rubik’s Cube, Roller Blades, Lava Lamps, Streaking, Earth Shoes, Clogs, Leisure Suits, Platform Shoes, Troll Dolls, Mini Skirts, Bell Bottoms, Hot Pants, String Bikini, Go-Go Boots, Rabbit Coats, Hippies, Cabbage Patch, Hip Huggers, Beanie Babies, Drive-In Theaters, Muscle Cars, Tie-Die, Shag Carpet, TV & Stereo Consoles the list goes on and on.

Wow! That was a real trip down memory lane for me. LOL! I look forward to having many more birthdays and looking back down memory lane with each one of them.

The old saying is right, “ The older you get, the faster it goes”. I’ve got to get up and moving so we can hit the road soon.

New Truck Tires

The time has finally come for us to bite the big one and buy new tires for the truck. We were hoping to win the lotto before this had to be done but our chances of having a blow-out is more likely!

We have a front tire that looks pretty worn. The plan is to replace the two front tires now and replace the four rear tires after the first of the year. Right now I drive it work about four miles.

Dawn is good about doing her research before buying big ticket items. She woke up this morning ready to take on the challenge. She decided to visit a couple of local tire stores. She likes to talk to people in person when she is doing her research. After a couple of tire stores she found the tires she wanted. She bought B F Goodrich Commercial T/A all season tires. She decided to bite the big one and get all six. OMG! We will be eating tators and beans for awhile!

She did get a good deal on them. The salesman made a mistake and quoted her the price for the 215 instead of the 235. The guys were already installing the tires when the salesman realized his mistake. He told her he made a mistake and that she was getting a sixty dollar discount because of it. That is a bit of good news!

We will definitely feel safer driving the truck with new tires. It’s just another one of those things that has to be done.

Thanks for the Prayers

Just wanted to thank everyone for their prayers for my son. He is doing fine and is heading back home to Oklahoma this morning.

Another Weekend Gone

We had another garage sale on Sunday and sold a lot more STUFF. We’re really getting down to the end of it. We’re planning on making another dumpster visit this week as well. The dumpster is dumped only once a week so we are limited to about a truck bed amount at a time. Not complaining because it is FREE. A very good friend of ours lets use dump stuff without any charge.

We came in late last night so we didn’t get a mattress pulled out for the garbage man. I know he will be disappointed. LOL! He’ll just have to wait until next week. We have two left.

Sunday morning Dawn and I got up early. We left out with our loaded picnic basket and took a road trip. We just needed a day to relax and enjoy the weather.

First on the agenda was having breakfast at Cracker Barrel. The second was to drive to Dangerfield state park and check on their renovation progress. The weather was beautiful and the drive was really nice. We were really disappointed to find the park was closed even for day use.

We decided just to head back towards home but taking a different route back. We stopped by Bob Sandlin State Park on our way back. It is a nice state park but doesn’t appear to be a very good place for large RV camping. The pads were short. We noticed a couple of motorhomes but they were short. We only saw a couple of sites that would accommodate our truck and fifth wheel. We drove through the day use area and found us a picnic table near the water. We had a nice picnic and enjoyed the great weather.

On our way back we stopped off in Sulphur Springs at the outlet mall. I bought a shirt for ninety-eight cents. That’s right, a button up khaki shirt for ninety-eight cents. I love a good bargain!

We left the outlet mall and got back on the highway and decided to stop in Greenville for dinner at Red Lobster. We stuffed ourselves. While there I received a phone call that my son had been taking by ambulance to a hospital near our home. We paid for our meal and hit the highway again.

We arrived at the hospital about forty-five minutes later. We went to the emergency waiting room and told the man at the desk that we were there to see my son that was brought in by ambulance. He asked my sons name. I told him and he said there was no one there by that name. We decide he must have been taken to the other local hospital. Before we could get in the car my phone rang. It was my cousin in Colorado. She said her grandson who was with my son when the ambulance was there told her they were taking him to the hospital where we were. While I was talking to her, Dawn decided to call my sons phone to see if anyone would answer. Well, my son answered. He confirmed that he was in the emergency room of the hospital where we were. Dawn and I went back in and told the gentleman at the desk that we had just talked with my son on the phone and that he was indeed in their emergency room. The man than asked for his date of birth. When we gave it to him he asked if he went by any other names. I gave his full name and the man looked at us kind of funny and said for us to come on back. The problem was the paramedic only listed my son’s first and middle name on the paperwork and the hospital thought his middle name was his last and that’s how they had him listed.

To make a long story short, he was having some chest pain and breathing difficulty and that is why the ambulance was called. They ran a few tests on him and he was given some medication to help with his breathing and was released a few hours later.

We took him home with us. It was late before anyone got to bed.

Weekend Plans

I wanted to thank everyone that commented on our last post (Making a List). The comments are very helpful.

This week has been a total waste as for as preparation is concerned. This is always a difficult time for me when the sun sets at six-thirty. Luckily we set our clocks back this weekend and I am hoping that will keep me from wanting to go to bed at eight every night. These shorter days drains me of my energy. I require lots of vitamin D.

Dawn seems to over the cluster headaches. It is the strangest thing. They last about three weeks and go away as suddenly as they appear. She will have many each day that last anywhere from a few minutes to thirty minutes. She said that the three week episode feel like eternity. This is her second year to have to deal with them. The doctor said they are cluster headaches that seem to be seasonal. We are just glad that they are gone for now.

We are planning a garage sale tomorrow and hope we sell a lot more STUFF. We are getting so tired of having these darn things. I did collect some boxes this week so that we can box up all the STUFF we don’t sell and take it to the local charity thrift store. Maybe they can make some money off of it.

Sunday we might take a little road trip to look at the fall colors. I need to get the camera out and charge the battery. Last year we drove to Mena, AR. It was beautiful. Lots of fall colors everywhere.

Making a list

We are compiling a list of things we need to buy before we hit the road. We actually have two lists, one being NEED List, things of necessity and the other is WANT list, and things we don’t have to have but would like to have. We’ve done pretty well so far. The items marked off are the things that we have already acquired. I’m sure we will discover other things that we need before it’s all said and done.

NEED List

• New Truck Tires, $$$$$$$
• Surge Protector, $$
• Tire Chokes, $
• Leveling Blocks
• Kingpin Stabilizer
• Sewer Tote $$
• Heavy Duty Sewer Hose $
• Water Pressure Regulator
• Laptop (Replacement) $$
• Dog Ramp
• Plastic Dog Pen
• New Water Filter

  

WANT List

•  Sofa
•  Window Curtains (Energy Savers)
•  Kitchen Faucet w/ Veggie Spray
•  Portable Canopy (10x10)
•  Pet Barrier for Truck
•  Chrome Truck Wheels, $$$$$$$
•  Electric Fireplace, $$
•  Big Foot Levelers, $$$$$$$$
•  Patio Rugs
•  Two Burner outdoor stove
•  Outdoor Kitchen Stand
•  Outdoor Chairs
•  T.V for bedroom
•  T.V for Living-room
•  Slide-out Awnings
•  Leaf Blower

Some of the items on our list will have to wait. But some will be done as soon as we get closer to our launch date.

We are also open to suggestions if there is something we don’t have listed that you couldn’t live without, just let us know.

75 Followers?

Wow!
We have 75 followers. Amazing how many RV bloggers there are.

Welcome new followers Laural, John & Judy, Froggi, Brian & Tricia, Dany, Good Luck Duck and Chuck & Anneke.

Comments are always welcome.

Just Thoughts

The weather here in north Texas is cool and rainy today. It makes for a great napping day.

Yesterday I placed a couple of ads on Craigslist for some old Barbie’s. Dawn had from her childhood and for Honda Goldwing parts that was taken off her Goldwing when they did the trike conversion. Well, I am proud to announce that today I removed the ads because both items sold this morning. More Progress!

We only have two more mattresses to sit out for the garbage and need to have a couple of more garage sales. WOW! We are getting there!

My plan was to start moving the packed boxes from the spare bedroom to the RV garage this week. Looks like I might have to wait for a couple of days due to the weather. I guess I’ll just be a lounge lizard instead!

Recently I keep having this reoccurring thought about how we’ll someday be living our fulltiming dream. These thoughts of how we’ll be exploring new places and seeing new sights. When I’m having those thoughts I feel a big happy smile on my face.

We have got to hurry up and hit the road. Next week I’ll be advancing to the BIG 50. That’s right. We’ve to get this show on the road while we are still young enough to enjoy it. Good Lord, last week I had to get new glasses. I’ve now advanced to bifocals! What’ll be next?

All kidding aside, I believe we’re at the right age to start this kind of lifestyle. We’re mentally still young enough to have a good time (I really don’t see that changing anytime soon) and mature enough have some life experiences under our belts and we’ve both managed to be lucky enough to have been blessed with some good old common sense. Now with that said, I have to also explain that we don’t really ever let anything get us down. We laugh at our mistakes and cry at our misfortune but, we always overcome and end up stronger because of it.

Productive Weekend

We had a busy weekend. Friday night we had dinner at our favorite Mexican food restaurant with my brother, sister-in-law and cousin. I haven't seen this cousin in years.We had a great visit and the food was pretty good too.

Saturday morning we were up before the sun. We setup everything for the garage sale. It was cold when we got started but the weather warmed up to a comfortable seventy degrees by noon. We were busy all day and managed to get rid of a lot of STUFF. We have tons of christmas decorations. Well, we had tons. we sold a lot at this garage sale. It looks like we only have a few more garages to go! After the garage sale we treated ourselves to dinner at Cotton Patch.

Sunday morning we went out for breakfast and ran errands. We spend the afternoon putting the pet barrier in the truck and trying to devise a raised platform for the little guys so they can see out of the windows. We came up with an idea we think might work. With the back seat laid down, we placed five plastic totes with lids from door to door. They all fit nice and snug. We then covered the tops of the totes with a twin comforter (This will be replaced with doggy beds when we get ready to hit the road). This raises the little guys up to window level so they can see out. This will also provide us with some organized storage in the truck. We plan to carry a gallon of drinking water, doggy water bowls, flash lights, road side emergency kit and a few other odds and ins.

When we finished getting it set up we loaded the kids up and took them for a ride. We wanted to and see how well they like it. There was a little whining at first. Willey is used to riding on the dash of the motorhome so he is always the first to arrive at our location! He loves to travel. He always starts crying when we pull out the fifth wheel. Otis has been with us since he was six months old and doesn’t have much experience riding in a vehicle. He doesn’t really seem to mind as long as his brother and sister are with him. Abbey thinks she should be in my lap. After about ten minutes the whining stopped and everyone seemed happy. We drove them around for about a half hour. When we got home everyone was fine except Abbey. She ran to the other side of the truck. She wanted to stay. She must have traveled in her past life before she came to live with us. She was abandon so we don’t have any history on her.

We plan to take them riding often now that the weather has cooled down. We want them to get used to riding in their own area of the truck.

We don't live in a regular neighborhood so we didn’t have any trick or treats come by. That’s O.K because I would have eaten the candy anyway.

We put another mattress out with the garbage. We only have two more to go! We know the garbage man is not happy with us right now. Last week when they stopped in front of our house and had to load another mattress they were looking towards the house as if to say, enough is enough.

Today the garbage man will feel better about stopping in front of our house. Someone has already stopped and grabbed the mattress. Dawn saw a man pull into our driveway and load it into a truck and drive off. LOL! Now everyone is happy.

Just a note to clarify the information we posted earlier about the netbook we purchased. This is not our only laptop. We’ll be replacing our existing laptop when we hit the road. The netbook will be used as a backup laptop. We decided to get it because it was a really good deal. We thought it would be a great laptop to carry with us as an extra because it is compact. It’ll be easy to store in the truck. We just added it to our current contract. We have been Verizon customer for many years and love the service they provide.

Happy Halloween RV Friends

Where did October go? This month has just flown by. My Pop’s once said if you think the first forty went by fast, just know the second forty is faster. Boy, was he ever right. I will be turning the big five-0 next month and I can’t believe how fast time has gone by.


I had so much on my To-Do List that I was going to complete in October. Needless to say, other things came up and the month has past in the blink of an eye. I have only a few days to get a lot done if I am going to get that list completed this month.

"HAPPY HALLOWEEN"

Thank You for Your Comments

Welcome new followers; Kevin and Ruth (http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com ) Pepper and Me & My Dog (http://dewelldesigns.blogspot.com ).

Wow, we were just blown away by all the comments we received from our last post. This is just another fine example of what makes fulltiming RVers so wonderful. The willingness to help out when someone has a question and the responses came so quickly.

We really do appreciate all the recommendations. This makes our decision much easier and we feel more confident with recommendations made by people we trust. Thanks Again.

I also feel much better being after being told that my feeling are perfectly normal. I do believe that this is the first time in my life that I've been told that I'm normal! LOL.

Dawn stopped by the Verizon store yesterday to up the minutes on our cell phones. While she was there talking to the store manager she mentioned that she would soon be purchasing an air-card. The manager asked why she would need the air-card and she explained that we would be soon hitting the open road and wanted to be able to have internet access. She told him that we were going to buy a new laptop first. He told her that Verizon had a promotion that could provide us with a laptop with broadband. This way we wouldn’t need a separate air-card. The promotion was on its last days. They only had two laptops left at that store so Dawn snatched one up. We now have a HP Mini Mobile Broadband 10.1-Inch Netbook that cost us less than forty dollars because of the rebate. We are going to give it a try and see how well it works. We have thirty days to test drive it.

This week we haven’t done anything worth posting about. We’ve spent our evenings running errands. We’ve missed our weekly dumpster visit because we had other things to do. Next week we’ll have to get back on track. We’re planning another garage sale for this Saturday. It looks like we’re getting down to the last bit of STUFF to sale and that sure feels good. We’ll have one last big garage sale right before we hit the road to get rid of furniture that we’re currently using. I need to get back on track with moving boxes to the storage area of the RV garage. We’ve dedicated one corner for storage of our KEEP STUFF. I must say, I’m very proud of us for making so much progress in the last couple of months.

Need Help from the Fulltime Experts

We are both very excited that we will hopefully be able to start our RV fulltiming life real soon. We have spent the last year or so preparing. We need to have a few more garage sales and need to pack a few more things for storage. We’ve been so busy preparing that we’re just now getting to a point where we can slow down a bit.

Now that we’ve slowed down, reality is starting to set in. We’re really about to give up nice twenty-four hundred square foot brick house on two acres of land. We’re really going to move into a thirty-three foot fifth wheel and live all over these glorious United States. WOW, that is exciting and also a little scary.

We both love to travel and explore. We’ve worked so hard to get to this point and now that we’re getting closer to making it happen, I’m getting nervous about it. I suppose I am just worried about the unknown. But it is also the unknown that excites me. It is as if I’m excited and nervous to get started.

I suppose this is normal? I’m usually the one that says, it’ll be o.k. We can do this. Now Dawn is the one doing the coaching and reminding me that we can handle it.

I think part of the problem is that neither of us is very mechanically inclined. That means we will have to depend on others when we have mechanical problems. It is true that women really do get taken advantage of when it comes to mechanical repairs but, at the time I know that we’re not total idiots. Besides, I have a grown son that is very mechanical that we can call when we have questions and he’ll guide us in the right direction.

We have a list of things that need to be done before we can hit the road. Our list consist of the following;

Roadside Assistance Policy
We are going to purchase some kind of roadside assistance policy. We would love any kind of suggestions or recommendations.

Fulltimers Insurance Policy
We are going to purchase fulltimers insurance too. The more I read the more confused I get. We could use recommendations

Air Card for Computer
We will purchasing a new laptop before we hit the road and will need to have a good internet source. We could use recommendations.

Camping Clubs
We want to join a camping club that offers discount camping rates
We could use recommendations.

I don’t know what else we will need. We could use recommendations on that too.

We are just hoping that some of you that are already fulltimers can help us out with some recommendations and advice to what we may need that we haven’t thought about. We would greatly appreciate any free advise we could get.

Laid Back Weekend and Electric Fireplace ?

Hello new followers, Four Windows with a View, The Coleman's and Susan

Thursday evening we decided to sort through the lawn tools we have. We laid everything out in the middle of the floor. Wow, we have a lot of lawn tools. In the process we discovered we had 9 hoes, 13 shovels, 6 picks, 3 post hole diggers and 3 leaf rakes. We examined each one closely and narrowed our keep pile down to 3 hoes. We don’t use them for gardening, use them to kill snakes. We also kept I pick, 3 shovels, 1 leaf rake and 1 post hole digger. The others will be placed in the garage sale.

Friday evening we put the fifth wheel back in the garage and went out for dinner. Saturday we did laundry and stayed inside. We had off and on flash flooding rain. Dawn is experiencing the cluster headaches again. It is difficult for her to get involved in anything because the headaches come on sudden and last anywhere from five minutes to twenty minutes. There are days when she suffers almost one an hour. She has been dealing with this for about two weeks now and is hoping they will subside soon.

Sunday morning we got up and out early. We went to the grocery store and ran a few other errands. I mowed the lawn while Dawn coached some TV football.

We are trying to decide if we want to add an electric fireplace to the fifth wheel. We have seen some we really like but aren’t sure if they put out enough heat to be worth the money.

We would be interested to know if any of you have electric fireplaces and what you think about them.

We're Motivated

Welcome Karen as a new follower of this sometimes boring blog.

We're MOTIVATED. One of the real motivating factors for us has been all our RV blog friends and their travel postings. We read their blogs religiously. Everyday someone post about an interesting place they are visiting and attach wonderful pictures too. We read the post and look at the pictures and want so bad to be out there seeing those places and taking our own pictures. That is our true motivation.

With all that motivation, we loaded the truck with boxes of trash and made another haul to the dumpster last night. Man that sure feels good! I would have never thought in a million years that a visit to the dumpster could feel so gratifying.

In the past, I just dreaded opening the RV garage door because of all the junk that was stacked up in there. Now, I get a real feeling of accomplishment every time I open that door and see how much better it looks. This is the way it is suppose to look. We just had so much STUFF to store and it just became overwhelming.

We have now gone from STUFF being stacked from floor to ceiling down both sides of the building to boxes and totes being placed neatly into one corner. We’ve defiantly made some real progress in the last few weeks. We’ve had some successful garage sales and many trips to the dumpster. We’ve also made a few trips to the local charity center too.

We plan to work in the garage again tonight.

Welcome New Followers

Just a shout out to our new followers, Rod & Connie, Julie, Barry & Linda, Dave & Betty, John & Carroll, Fred & Wilma and Ken & Nanette. We are impressed that anyone would want to read this blog.


I MUST WARN you that I do most of the postings and my grammar is not very good and my spelling is worse.

New Kitchen Faucet

We had a very busy weekend. Saturday we had another garage sale. It was a slow day. We didn’t have many people stop by but we did sell many things.

After the garage sale we loaded up the car with STUFF and made a trip to our local Helping Hands Thrift Store and made a donation. We then went for Mexican food and ran some errands.

Sunday morning we had breakfast and did some laundry. I installed a new kitchen sink faucet in the fifth wheel. I am so proud of myself. I've never installed a faucet before and just thought I'd at least make an attempt before I asked for help.

It was kind of difficult getting up under the kitchen sink. first problem is the cabinet door opening in approximately eighteen inches wide and I am,  well let's just say a LOT wider than that.

I didn't have any real problem getting the old faucet out. The problem started when I slide my large upper body into this small opening and had to twist around to reach above my head to attach the new faucet. It took about twenty minutes to get everything fastened down before I could hook up all the water lines. OK, with that all done I had to somehow slide myself out of the rather small opening. Suddenly I felt like I had stuck my upper body in one of those Chinese finger traps. Yes, I slide in there fairly easy but it appears that sliding out was a different matter!


My back was really starting to hurt and so were my legs. My arms were numb from having them over my head in an awkward position for the past twenty or so minutes. Here I am, stuck under the kitchen sink and all alone. Dawn’s in the house doing something in the kitchen while coaching TV football. If I yell out she wouldn’t hear me. No, not a chance, when she’s coaching, the volume goes way up and I’m not just talking about the TV!

After a minute or so of resting my arms, I decided I would attempt to hook up the supply lines while I was under there. That only took a second. I than realized my legs were starting to quiver because of the twisted shape my body was in. I took a deep breath and slide my upper body out of the cabinet and when I thought I was free, I bumped my head on the cabinet facing. Luckily, I was moving slow so I didn’t hit it too hard!

I had to set there for a minute and let my muscles slowly untwist. I couldn’t believe I had it all connected.

As soon as I felt like I could stand, I was on my feet ready to turn on the water and see how well I had done.

I hooked up the hose and asked Dawn to assist me. I asked her to stand at the kitchen cabinet and watch for water leaking when I turned on the water. I slowly turned on the water and waited for her to yell out to turn off the water. I never heard her say anything. I walked back around to the door of the trailer as the water began to shoot out of the veggie sprayer into the living room. She quickly grabbed the veggie sprayer and aimed it towards the sink drain. The veggie sprayer would not shut off! I must have connected something wrong.

I looked under the sink and checked. It was all hooked up like the instructions stated. Dawn was steadily working with the veggie spray to get it to turn off when it occurred to me that the water lines were full of air too. The air in the lines might be causing the veggie spray to stay on. I asked Dawn to go into the bathroom and turn on the lavatory faucet and see if that helped relieve the air in the line. After a few seconds, the veggie sprayer stopped. I let the water to continue to run a few minutes. This allowed the air to pass through the lines. We tried the veggie sprayer again. It works, just like it’s intended to.

WOW! its working fine with no leaks!

Sunday afternoon we took a friend a birthday cake. I also had to change out a signal light bulb on the ION. That is the first bulb we’ve had to replace on that car. That went well.

We had dinner out and turned into bed early. I feel like I have been hit by a Mac truck. I am very much out of shape and all this lifting and moving STUFF is really getting to me.

We also did some reorganizing of our front basement compartment.  Things are easier to find now.

The Loss of Fellow RVers

Our hearts are heavy because of the sudden and tragic deaths of our fellow RV bloggers Bruce and Margie http://bruceandmargiesfulltimejourney.blogspot.com/  the following article tells the horrible story. http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2010/10/16/1330911/pismo-fatality-freeway-pedestrian.html

We will certainly miss reading about their RVing adventures. Our thoughts and prayers are with their family.

More Progress

We have spent several evenings this week out in the RV garage and have made some real progress. We have sorted, thrown out and boxed up a lot of STUFF. Once again, I’m proud to announce that our KEEP pile was the smallest of all the piles.

We are now placing our KEEP boxes in one small area of the RV garage. We will soon be moving everything out of the spare bedroom and placing it in the RV garage as well. Before long we will be repainting the interior of the house and it will be nice to do that without much furniture in the way. I love to paint so that is something that I am saving for the cold weather when we can’t work outdoors.

I just can’t express how excited I am that we have made this much progress. It has been a job well worth doing. We both agree we will never accumulate this much STUFF again. We found boxes of old paperwork from our bed and breakfast that we closed about ten years ago. Some of the boxes we found were empty.

We’ll be taking another truck load of trash to the dumpster next week. Can you imagine anyone having this much trash in their garage. I am ashamed. This got out of hand because we had so much going on at once and then we settled into life here and didn’t make any effort to go back and sort through all the STUFF.

This all started building up when Dawn’s mother passed away unexpectedly. Shortly thereafter her father’s health began to decline. So we closed our guest house and catering business and moved in with him. That meant we had to store some of our STUFF and some of his STUFF in order for us to have room in his house.

We put most of our STUFF in storage so that he was not overwhelmed too much when we moved in with him. His mind continued to slip and he died a few years later.

We liked being back in town and made the decision to remodel the house. We drew up our plans and found a contractor. The contractor had another job he was starting and we would have to wait a little while. That was fine with us, we had a lot of STUFF to sort and pack. Well, his other job kind of went south and he was able to start our remodel right away. That meant we just packed up everything and put it in storage.

When the house was finished we brought in some of our old STUFF and also bought some new. We got all settled in and started our catering businesses. Therefore a lot of STUFF remained in storage, untouched until now.

So now you see how we got into this mess! This year has been a year of playing catch up. We are now going through her STUFF, his STUFF and our STUFF. The good news is we are finally making progress and it’s really starting to show.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, we may be able to hit the road sooner than expected, so we have to get it all done.

We will share details as soon as everything is a for sure thing.

Blogs and Forums

We check the blogs and the forum every day. We’ve learned so much about RVing just by reading the forum and blog posts. We have learned about the ups and downs of living full-time in an RV. We’ve read about some great places to visit and camp. We’ve also found some great RV modification ideas too.

We belong to an RVing Forum that we read on a regular basis. We have learned so much by reading the forum. The forum we read is RV-Dreams Community Forum ( http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?aBID=91511&p=1&a=45  ). It has a wealth of information and the best part is that the information comes from RVers. This forum has full-timers and wannabes.

One very important thing that we’ve learned is that RVers are the friendliest people. Most RVers are eager to share information and to help out when someone needs a helping hand. The RVing community is great and we’re very proud to be a part of it.

There is one thing you can say about us, “what ya see, is what ya get”. We are not pretentious people. We consider ourselves as friendly, outgoing and sometimes a little crazy. We enjoy the little things in life and are fascinated by the big things!

We like to eat out but prefer to cook our own meals. Meals always seem to taste better when prepared outdoors. We enjoy the simpler things in life. Things money can’t buy, things like being in the great outdoors enjoying a roaring fire and relaxing, being on top of a mountain and listening to the silence, driving the dirt roads to see what’s around the next bend, standing on the beach watching the waves roll in, setting at a sidewalk café people watching.

Our fifth wheel is not top-of-the-line but, it’s ours. We’ve made a few improvements to make it comfortable for us and we’re happy with it. We’re so grateful that we were able to retire at our age. We are so looking forward to getting out on the road exploring and making new friends. We look forward to making new friends with other full-time RVers.

We have friends that own RVs that we camp with. It’s always a lot of fun to meet up with them and spend a long weekend together. Those friends don’t share our desire to become full-timers. They say it sounds like fun but they wouldn’t want to actually do it.

We know of people that bought a new high-end motorhome so they could take extended trips. They only stayed in RV resorts that catered to high-end type rigs. Those people didn’t last long. They didn’t like the idea that they had to drive so much and had to deal with dumping they’re waste tanks. They said they liked flying better and really enjoyed having the room service they get when they stayed in hotels. In less than a year and after only a few trips they sold their high-end rig and took a real loss. What a shame!

We’ve encountered folks that think anything less than a high-end motorhome is well, just trashy. Needless to say those people are just acquaintances, not real friends!

New Bedside Shelves

Here is the pics of the new bedside shelves I installed last weekend.

They measure 8"x4". They are small but will serve a purpose.

I think they turned out pretty good. But I have to confess something. I am not a wood worker. This was actually a larger shelf in its former life. It has been in the garage sale and no one seemed interested in it. I just walked by it and the ole light bulb lit up! That sure would make nice bedside shelves.

I just cut it in half and attached small blocks underneath and drilled pilot holes through the small blocks. I spray painted them a chocolate brown. I used screws through the pilot holes on the small blocks to attach them to the wall.

The only thing we bought was the paint. What a bargain! Theses are about the same size as the ones that came in our motorhome but they look a lot better.

Another Dumpster Visit

Last week was CRAZY! First of all, we have several friends and family members that were hospitalized last week. Our Neighbor, Great Uncle, Cousin and a good friend’s brother.


Friday evening we loaded the truck and made another dumpster visit. The RV garage is starting to look better. We did uncover a couple of boxes of STUFF that was left over from the estate sale we had a few years ago. That was a great find. The STUFF in the boxes already had prices on them!

On Saturday we did house work and laundry. We stayed close to home because we are dog sitting for some friends and needed to let the dogs out several times a day.

On Sunday I peddled around the house while Dawn coached TV football. She loves her football! I am not a big football fan. I took full advantage of the great weather. I worked outside and made a couple of bedside shelves for the bedroom on the fifth wheel. They will come in handy for holding a glass, eye glasses, remote and cell phone.

It took me several hours to cut the wood and paint and than a few minutes to hang them. I took pictures but for some reason they didn’t upload. Oh well, I‘ll post them later. I think they turn out really nice and I know they will come in handy.

We also drug a mattress and box springs out with the garage. The city allows us one bulk item per week to be picked up with our garbage. The neighbor is letting us put one at their garbage can too. What a deal! We now have two mattresses and one box springs left.

Yep, we are making progress.

We also would like to give our condolences to Tioga George ( http://blog.vagabonders-supreme.net/ ) for the passing of his son David.

New Blower/Mulcher/Vac

It was on sale and we ordered one. It is a Worx Tri-Vac. We don’t have slide-out covers on the fifth wheel like we did on the motorhome. Instead we are buying the Tri-Vac and see how well that works to remove debris from the top of the slide-outs.

Worx Tri-Vac is a three tools in one. It is blower/ mulcher/vac . It’s lightweight, approximately 8lb. They say you can use it with one hand.

They claim as a blower, it can produces an air speed of over 210 mph. As a yard vac, produces enough suction to vacuum 14 gallons of dry leaves in less than a minute. It has an air regulator that you can adjust.

They claim it is quieter than most blower/vacs so you won't bother your neighbors.

We also thought it might come in handy to clean up around the RV. We have stayed at some places that had a lot of debris on the ground around the picnic tables and parking pads. They claim it will also mulch trash too. We will find out just how good a product it really is! It will be in on Friday and I can’t wait to try it out!

Lots of STUFF Still

We had another garage sale this weekend. The weather was beautiful and we didn’t mind being outside. Our sale didn’t do very good this weekend. It might be because October is Texas State Fair Month here and this weekend was also First Monday Trades day in Canton. We know people would rather be at the Fair or Trades Day. We made about a hundred dollars and got rid of a few things. When I told a friend, It wasn't worth all the work we did dragging the STUFF out for the sale. She pointed out that we did manage to get rid of a few things and that was better than getting rid of nothing. That did make me feel better.  

Oh well, it wasn't a total waste, we had a few friends stopped by and visited with us most of the day and we all enjoyed the nice weather.



We did work in the RV garage and made some more progress. This is the RV garage.

This is the mess the RV garage is in now. It looks bad right now but believe me when I say it was a lot worse. We had STUFF stacked six feet tall on both sides. We have removed a lot of STUFF this past week and will continue for the next few weeks.

Until last week, I only had a foot of clearance on each side after I backed the fifth wheel in. We are making progress. One of the really great things about this whole process is that we know we will never have such a collection of STUFF to deal with again. We will live a much lighter existence!

After we retuned all the garage sale STUFF to the garage we treated ourselves the dinner and had some great mexican food. Sunday we did laundry and somethings around the house. We also ordered a WORX TriVac All-in-One Compact Blower/Mulcher/Vac. We have wanted one to take with us when we hit the road.  They were on sale at ACE Hardware but we had to order it.  Can't wait to get it Friday.   

Tie it Down

I was just reading a post that was written by Kevin and Evelyn (http://rvkhroniclesofkevelyn.blogspot.com/) about a near serious accident due to a ladder and a step stool that had fallen out on the interstate. Lucky for them they didn’t have a serious accident. They did however, have damage to their trailer.

It just blows my mind that people will throw anything in the back of a truck and jump on the freeway without tying it down. We spend a lot of time on the freeway and currently live on a two-lane state highway with a speed limit of 55 MPH and there are no shoulders.

I cannot tell you how often we have witnessed people hauling past our house with stuff blowing out of the back of their vehicles. Not long ago, someone lost a futon and it landed in the middle of the highway. We ran out and pulled it aside before it caused a serious accident. The driver never slowed down. I guess he didn’t realize it had flown out. I guess he will figure it out when he gets to his destination!

Someone else lost a beautiful antique china cabinet. The bed of his truck was full of antiques furniture. Nothing was tied down. He did stop and threw the pieces into the truck. You could tell he was very upset by it.

Another truck lost a yard swing and frame. He stopped, looked it over and drug it into the ditch in front of our house and left it!

Each week before we mow, we have to walk the ditch in front of our house to pick up trash. We pick up beer cans, beer and coke bottles, fast food containers, gloves, socks, feed sacks and paper.

We’ve driven down the interstate and have seen mattresses, ice chest, furniture, bags of clothes, boxes, tires, ladders, brooms, lifejackets, air mattresses, box springs and there was a large awning that fell off a RV. Recently we hit an icemaker box out of a refrigerator.

We don’t leave any kind of trash in the bed of our truck. We don’t want to litter. When we haul stuff we always tie it down. Sure, tying it down takes extra time, but we don’t want to lose anything in route.

I believe these people that have stuff in the bed of their trucks that are not tied down should not be allowed on the road. Not sure how we could enforce it. Stuff blowing out of trucks and cars can cause serious accidents and death.

Enough venting for now.

Making More Progress

In order to save a few dollars we decided to have our landline telephone disconnected. We use our cell phones most of the time anyway. We have been informing everyone for the past couple of weeks that as of October 1, 2010 we would no longer have a home phone. We know a lot of people that don’t have landline phones. It just seems like a waste of money to have our cells and a home phone. It does seem kind of strange not to have that phone number anymore. That number has been Dawn’s family phone number for forty plus years. We considered changing my cell phone number to that number but lately the majority of the calls we receive on that number have been solicitors. We will not miss them! We will not miss the many calls that we answer that are made by machines that play a prerecorded message. I can’t help but wonder if they will they miss us?

Disconnecting the landline is just another small step we have to make in order to move towards our fulltiming life. It is kind of like out with the old, In with the new.

We spent our evening working in the RV garage. We went through more boxes and filled the truck with junk to feed to the dumpster. We made three piles in the floor. One pile for the dumpster, one for the garage sale and one to keep. I was so proud when I noticed that our keep pile was the smallest of the three. We really are making progress! We cleared out an entire corner. Now that is real progress!!!!!

Some of those boxes were left from the house remodel. We had to pack up and move things pretty fast when we remodel the house. We had not yet gone through all of Dawn’s parents stuff. So needless to say, it was amazing the STUFF we found in those boxes last night. We found hearing aids, false teeth, lots of old eye glasses, pictures, record albums, books and old paper work. Dawn found a box of childhood dresses and the suit her father wore when he got married. Just last year Dawn gave her mother’s wedding dress to one of mother’s close friends. When I say her parents saved everything, I am not kidding!

Some of the STUFF we ran across made us laugh and some nearly brought us to tears. For example Dawn’s father, I always called him Pop’s, saved every card we gave him. We found lots of cards. We also found some china that didn’t get packed in the box it was suppose to.

We are planning another garage sale for Saturday so we have to restock our garage sale garage.

We are making PROGRESS!!!

New Followers

Welcome new followers. Wild Blue Yonder, CeiPui, Dennis and Donna, Heidi, John and Judy, Jerry and Kimberly. We are happy to have you on board. This blog maybe kinda of boring since we are not fulltimers yet. But we are looking forward to summer 2011 when we will be.

Thanks for following and comments are always welcome.

Stay Safe

They Just Don't Get It!

People are constantly stopping by our house to visit. That’s not a bad thing. We know a lot of people around here. Dawn was raised here and I have lived here thirty years.

Recently it has been interesting to watch people faces when they come in and notice the absents of furniture and knick knacks. They always ask where is all your STUFF. We explain that we have sold a lot of STUFF and will soon be moving into our RV and hitting the road.

This explanation always brings on a lot of questions. First question is usually, how long you going to be gone? We explain we are not sure how long we will be gone. It all depends on how long it takes us to see all we want to see. We have even had friends ask just what on earth is it we think we needed to see out there? They just don’t get it!

Second question, what are you going to do with the house? We explain that we are going to sell it. They get this look on their face and then tell us that we can’t just sell the house and hit the road. Where will we live when we get finished traveling? We explain we are not sure. We are pretty sure there won’t be a housing shortage when we get ready to settle down. We might find another area to live instead. They just don’t get it!

Third question, What about your family and friends? Sure some of family members think we have a loose screw but, for the most part, they wished they could do the same. We all have cell phones and computers. We can continue to communicate just as we do today. They just don’t get it!

Of course we have a few friends and family members that think we are totally insane and won’t last a month on the road. Dawn and I have discussed why some people give us nothing but negative comments about living in our RV. We had to stop and put ourselves in their shoes. These people that make those negative remarks don’t go anywhere. They are homebodies. There are some that are afraid of their own shadow. There are also those that get so set in their ways and change is very hard to take. Some cannot imagine living anywhere else beside in their hometown. Some are so physically attached to their families that they would not go anywhere unless the entire family went too. They just don’t get it!

We had a friend recently tell us that we are crazy! The scenery might be a little different but the people are all the same wherever you go. There is nothing out there worth giving up your house and all your STUFF. That comes from someone that was born and raised in this small town and anything outside of it upsets their comfort level. They just don’t get it!

We have also been told that it will be dangerous for two women to be out on the road alone. That person doesn’t know us as well as we thought they did. We are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves. Dawn has had her hand gun license for a good while and grew up hunting. She knows about guns and how to use them. I on the other hand can carry a mean case of PMS and no one wants to cross me. All kidding aside, we have traveled a good deal by ourselves and are always caution and don’t take any chance.

Anyway, they just don’t get it!

We also realize it is not everyone’s cup of tea. Why can’t people just be happy for us and stop with all the negative comments? Maybe we won’t live in the RV for more than a year or two, who knows? But one thing about it, we can say is we did it!

New Look for Sofa

Just wanted to show you what a difference the leather treatment did for the sofa daybed. Here is a before and after picture.

This pictures shows the black frame.

This is the finished product. This finish treatment ties in better with the colors we now have.

This is a close up of what the leather treatment looks like

We also had a made some light weight wall art out of some cheap jewelery and some dollar frames. We removed the glass and used some of the left over leather and glued the earrings, neck less pendent and button covers to the frames. We think they turned out really nice and they don't weight much at all. The horse art we found in the Christmas aisle at Hobby Lobby. It is a Christmas tree ornament! We have used a lot of Christmas ornaments for decorating. People don't believe us when we tell them they are ornaments.

This wall of art work cost us about five dollars. I love a good bargain!