Did I just sort of quote Ariana Grande?? ;)
I'd say this is the short answer to why RV life is on hold but I do tend to ramble so it probably won't be....
There are multiple reasons but the ultimate reason is Linus hated it. Linus is our problem child cat. He has a medical issue that causes sludge to form in his bladder, so he's on expensive prescription food. He also has epilepsy. None of this would be more than a slight inconvenience except he is also a scaredy cat....even though we fostered him from 4 weeks old, he just has trust issues. He's 4 and still runs like a maniac to hide under the bed if he thinks anyone is coming into the house. He knows all of the cues (the chime from the Ring, the sound of the lock being unlocked on the front door) and bolts at the first sound. He has adapted to the garage door but even then if we come home back to back, he runs when he hears it the second time, sure that it's someone new, not one of us.
Why does this matter?
Because of all the things we considered, we forgot this. We had visions of us sitting outside the RV, enjoying nature, the cats at our feet (they love being in the back yard with us) and just relaxing. But this will never be a reality with Linus. Each campground will be a new horror.
His reaction to us even taking him out the front door was terror. We didn't want to use the carrier because he associates that with the vet. So I carried him....and have a nice scabby scratch to prove it. He wasn't even IN the RV yet when the struggle began. Once inside and on the floor it wasn't even a second before he somehow darted through me and the screen door, bolted down the empty lot next to our house and after 2 attempts jumped a 6 foot wall to get back into our yard. I found him huddled by the back sliding door when I ran inside. Lucy's reaction was similar but she gets scared when he gets scared, she just ran to the front door. We were able to try again the next day with her and she seemed like she would adapt just fine. But we didn't want to stress him out again, since we realized it would be a long, if ever, process to get him adapted.
The whole point of the RV lifestyle was to be relaxing. I could never be relaxed with him cowering somewhere while we drove from one new place to another. I am not sure he'd ever adapt to driving, let alone new campsites.
So that's the reason that put it all on the back burner. We learned other things from renting the RV, but nothing that was a definite deal breaker. Just some things we also had envisioned a little differently.
We learned driving it wouldn't be a problem due to size, but the one we rented was old (over 80,000 miles) and it sure did rattle a lot if the road wasn't smooth. That could get pretty annoying. I am sure a newer one would probably be smoother but who knows.
The size of the one we rented was too small, but it was a Class C, so we knew it wouldn't be completely comparable. It was also 25 ft with no slide outs. Even so, sleeping didn't feel confining (which was a big concern for me)...the mattress was a concrete slab, so we only ended up spending one night in it, no sense killing our bodies when Linus already convinced us now wouldn't be the time to do this. We know we would have a better mattress, so again not a deal breaker. All of the little things were fine...doing the hookups, backing into the spot, etc.
The first park we stayed at was ok. The lot seemed small and wasn't nearly as "relaxing" as we had envisioned. It was also windy...like you could feel the RV move while you were sleeping. Not sure if a Class A would be better or worse...but again not necessarily a deal breaker.
The second park was essentially a parking lot. All concrete, it made the first place look like paradise.
This made us realize we would really need to read reviews and be picky about where we stayed. Both parks were over the budget price we had calculated for once we were on the road living full time. So we wondered how realistic our budget was (although there are memberships you can join to save lots on campground fees). But it doesn't change the fact that it wouldn't be as simple as bopping from here to there and just staying at places you come across. It would require some research and time. Not a deal breaker but again something to consider.
And finally there is me...crazy little me. I was finally finishing a 19 day long visit from Flo. I had hoped with that bitch finally gone my mood would begin to improve. Let's just say the Linus incident sent me tumbling... I was feeling despair, defeat, hopelessness and it was ugly. My mind goes to so many bad places once it starts to fall and I realized that part of my safety net is familiarity, just like Linus. Being on the road while hormonal could be unbearable. If we had a bad day, a dirty campground, an unexpected vehicle issue, any little thing could cause me to fall--and I wouldn't have anything to cling to to get through...yes I would have Dave, but sometimes my brain still screams at me that HE is the problem. What if I felt cornered, like I had nowhere to go...what would I do?
The past few weeks I have been having lots of "I wish I wasn't alive" thoughts. Not suicidal. There is a subtle, but very important difference. I don't want to "kill" myself. I just am tired of living. And I am not...I know this because, finally, I am starting to feel better. It's so hard when it lasts more than a few days. And what if that happened while on the road? I don't have an answer. So the safest thing is to stay put. And that alone is reason enough to delay this. I don't have to blame Linus, but he did help me realize how dangerous it could be for me, not just him.
So, we are looking at other options. Once this was a no go, I was still in a bad place and I hate making decisions then because they aren't "real" or true to how I feel when I am "normal". But my brain doesn't stop just because I know that. And I kept telling Dave I don't want to be here...meaning the house...when really it was anywhere..alive. So that really isn't a great time to be deciding anything. We managed to talk through all of that and come to the conclusion that we would love to sell and find something cheaper and smaller, but not if it was just to not be here. It needs to make financial sense. Smaller but still having the same monthly expenses, is just not worth the upheaval. Like with the RV life-- We were going to be able to work significantly less with that lifestyle. We'd have a stash of cash and a set monthly expense, that we could alter simply by boondocking if needed or working a holiday season. So how can we replicate that without traumatizing me or the cat?
A mobile home park. The problem being 75% of them (here) are 55 and over. But we are persevering and talking with a realtor who knows which parks aren't 55+ and looking to find a home that isn't too shabby, a little more expensive than an RV but still will allow us to work less, with an HOA that would be much less than campground fees. If she can find us something we will sell...otherwise we just stay put. With the caveat...we will be enjoying life more by tapping into our savings. We will budget a certain amount each year for day trips or concerts or whatever to live a little when we aren't working.
I have a gyn visit soon and will discuss whether a hysterectomy could help--though based on internet searches, it won't stop the hormone imbalances, so why do it? Having a period isn't the problem it's the hormones that go with it. I can't take hormones--I have a clotting disorder, and like I said I may not want to be alive but I don't want to kill myself either. And I am considering seeing a holistic doctor. As weird as it sounds, why not? I can't take antidepressants but maybe something else can help me.
I thought of the perfect analogy to explain why I won't take antidepressants again: it's like life support. Living on a machine that breathes for you, a feeding tube...but you are trapped...you aren't living, you are alive. I was only alive when I was on antidepressants. I was not living. I didn't feel happy or sad. I mostly slept. That isn't how I want to live. That would be staying alive so others can have me in their lives...but I wouldn't really be living. And I won't go back to that. It sucked.
So there you have it. Not so short. Not so simple.
A side note to any readers who may feel like my dear sweet aunt felt ---if you read my blogs and think I am a "whack a doodle" (her word, not mine) maybe you should ask yourself what you are, since you keep coming back to read them?? Every hateful, hurtful bitch that I remove from my life brings me one step closer to a day when I am surrounded by people who only wish the best for me. It never stops feeling good to remove these cancerous people from my life! You should try it. Blood is a stupid reason to keep nasty people in your life.
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Sunday, September 8, 2019
Full time RV'ers ..or not?
So I promised a post about the plan. Here's a quick synopsis.
The plan was to sell the house, buy an RV, live in it here for a year to see if it's too confining. We were going to keep working during this time, keep the cars and then if all went well, quit our jobs, sell the cars (this has now evolved to be keep one car until we see if we feel we need it) and hit the road.
We have been thinking about doing this for over a year. A zillow email with the estimate of our house's worth prompted us to light a fire under our ass. Our first stop was an RV lot. If they felt confining there would be no need for any more research. I had already researched what approximate cost of living would be. Factoring in everything, except healthcare, that's a necessary evil that I wasn't going to allow to stop us before we even started. But there is still a lot more research to do and I didn't want to waste time if the RV felt too small. So off to a lot we went and the RV's were much bigger than my 12 year old brain remembered from my neighbor's tiny one I played in as a kid. We were so excited to proceed with step 2.
The next step was to have a realtor come tell us how far off zillow was. He gave us really great feedback and our excitement continued to grow. However, he made it clear that if we couldn't list until November that we might as well wait until January. People don't buy that close to the holidays. So....what to do....rush or wait? With the housing market, you never know what will happen and with the moron running (I use that term loosely) our country it's more likely to be a shit show than not. So now the rush to get the necessities done by the end of the month. But...first we need to rent an RV. We need a real life experience, not just standing in one in an RV lot.
Renting an RV is to answer some simple questions.
Can I sleep in a tiny box? That's what the bedroom is like. I can be a bit claustrophobic so I need to know I can feel comfortable sleeping with walls so close, even with a slide out, the walls are still pretty close in the bedroom area.
How hard is it to drive? Will I ever want to drive it?
Will the cats be terrified driving around? I know it will take time to get used to it but their initial reactions shouldn't be too terrible or we may need to reconsider. We know the birds will be ok, they were in a cargo van road trip for 4 days and were fine.
Those are the questions renting can answer and then we can push forward with listing the house. Tomorrow is the earliest rental we could get that fit our schedules. And unfortunately renting a Class C was the economically reasonable way to go. It will be smaller on the inside, so if we can handle smaller, well obviously larger will be no problem. As for driving we are renting a 25 ft and the plan is to get 25-30 foot Class A (after much research). We are leaning towards getting the smallest we are comfortable in, because some national parks won't allow really big ones on some of the roads.
So tomorrow could signal the end of our next adventure or....the beginning.
We know 3 days isn't going to give us a true idea of what it will be like, that's why we plan to stay here for a while. I say a while because after discussing the whole year idea, Dave isn't sure he wants to summer here in an RV. So we have some options. One is for him to take an off site summer job. His current job sometimes has the need for employees to temporarily go to other locations. There is a housing stipend and a food stipend, so you actually make more money than if you stay and work your home location. It would be a good way to see what it feels like to be on the road but not quite on the road. It's usually a 2-4 month gig and we'd be making money. Or we can just start our adventure after 6 months instead of a year. The plan includes knowing that being on the road could change everything. It isn't going to be the same as living in an RV park. The expenses will be more and the whole experience will be different. If we hate it, nothing is forever...we sell the RV, buy a condo or smaller house and go back to a more "normal" way of living. Maybe we find somewhere along the way that we like as much as here but with less expensive housing options. Or maybe the housing market has crashed and we get back in while it's down. Who knows? But at least we got a year of travel out of it.
If we really enjoy it but are finding it more expensive than we anticipate, we have allowed for working either the holidays November thru December somewhere or working a summer at an amusement park (like Cedar Point!!). Or both if we have to. Working 5 months and seeing America, still beats working all year and never getting to vacation (our epileptic cat makes it extremely stressful to go away).
We have thought long and hard about this and have done every imaginable "What if?" scenario.
We know we will experience problems, but there are problems with owning a home. We don't want any regrets and we aren't getting any younger. It would be nice to do this while we can still hike the trails in the parks we will visit. The best part is: it isn't something that can't be undone. We are leaning towards buying a used RV for a few reasons. One being how quickly they lose value, the other being horrible reviews from people who bought new...it seems that new ones have a lot of kinks that need worked out, a lot of people suggest letting someone else deal with that hassle and you buying yours after they get those kinks out. Since we aren't sure we will love this life, it makes sense to start with a used one (let's not get crazy...we don't want a junker, so the plan is to get one just a couple of years old!)
Reactions have been mostly positive but we have gotten our fair share of "You are crazy!"
We are just tired of "living to work" to pay for a house that's too big and takes up most of our free time to take care of. We want to "live to live" now while we are young(ish). There is so much equity in our home right now it makes the most sense to use it to give this adventure a try. Worst case scenario...we end up buying a smaller place and going back to work for a few more years.
Stay tuned....we feel 95% sure this rental thing will go well...but you never know.
I won't let fear ever make my decisions for me....don't think I don't have moments of anxiety about the unknown road that lies ahead. But thanks to my brain...I have anxiety about nothing too, so I might as well just go for it!!
🎵🎵 On the road again...I can't wait to get on the road again... or something like that...
The plan was to sell the house, buy an RV, live in it here for a year to see if it's too confining. We were going to keep working during this time, keep the cars and then if all went well, quit our jobs, sell the cars (this has now evolved to be keep one car until we see if we feel we need it) and hit the road.
We have been thinking about doing this for over a year. A zillow email with the estimate of our house's worth prompted us to light a fire under our ass. Our first stop was an RV lot. If they felt confining there would be no need for any more research. I had already researched what approximate cost of living would be. Factoring in everything, except healthcare, that's a necessary evil that I wasn't going to allow to stop us before we even started. But there is still a lot more research to do and I didn't want to waste time if the RV felt too small. So off to a lot we went and the RV's were much bigger than my 12 year old brain remembered from my neighbor's tiny one I played in as a kid. We were so excited to proceed with step 2.
The next step was to have a realtor come tell us how far off zillow was. He gave us really great feedback and our excitement continued to grow. However, he made it clear that if we couldn't list until November that we might as well wait until January. People don't buy that close to the holidays. So....what to do....rush or wait? With the housing market, you never know what will happen and with the moron running (I use that term loosely) our country it's more likely to be a shit show than not. So now the rush to get the necessities done by the end of the month. But...first we need to rent an RV. We need a real life experience, not just standing in one in an RV lot.
Renting an RV is to answer some simple questions.
Can I sleep in a tiny box? That's what the bedroom is like. I can be a bit claustrophobic so I need to know I can feel comfortable sleeping with walls so close, even with a slide out, the walls are still pretty close in the bedroom area.
How hard is it to drive? Will I ever want to drive it?
Will the cats be terrified driving around? I know it will take time to get used to it but their initial reactions shouldn't be too terrible or we may need to reconsider. We know the birds will be ok, they were in a cargo van road trip for 4 days and were fine.
Those are the questions renting can answer and then we can push forward with listing the house. Tomorrow is the earliest rental we could get that fit our schedules. And unfortunately renting a Class C was the economically reasonable way to go. It will be smaller on the inside, so if we can handle smaller, well obviously larger will be no problem. As for driving we are renting a 25 ft and the plan is to get 25-30 foot Class A (after much research). We are leaning towards getting the smallest we are comfortable in, because some national parks won't allow really big ones on some of the roads.
So tomorrow could signal the end of our next adventure or....the beginning.
We know 3 days isn't going to give us a true idea of what it will be like, that's why we plan to stay here for a while. I say a while because after discussing the whole year idea, Dave isn't sure he wants to summer here in an RV. So we have some options. One is for him to take an off site summer job. His current job sometimes has the need for employees to temporarily go to other locations. There is a housing stipend and a food stipend, so you actually make more money than if you stay and work your home location. It would be a good way to see what it feels like to be on the road but not quite on the road. It's usually a 2-4 month gig and we'd be making money. Or we can just start our adventure after 6 months instead of a year. The plan includes knowing that being on the road could change everything. It isn't going to be the same as living in an RV park. The expenses will be more and the whole experience will be different. If we hate it, nothing is forever...we sell the RV, buy a condo or smaller house and go back to a more "normal" way of living. Maybe we find somewhere along the way that we like as much as here but with less expensive housing options. Or maybe the housing market has crashed and we get back in while it's down. Who knows? But at least we got a year of travel out of it.
If we really enjoy it but are finding it more expensive than we anticipate, we have allowed for working either the holidays November thru December somewhere or working a summer at an amusement park (like Cedar Point!!). Or both if we have to. Working 5 months and seeing America, still beats working all year and never getting to vacation (our epileptic cat makes it extremely stressful to go away).
We have thought long and hard about this and have done every imaginable "What if?" scenario.
We know we will experience problems, but there are problems with owning a home. We don't want any regrets and we aren't getting any younger. It would be nice to do this while we can still hike the trails in the parks we will visit. The best part is: it isn't something that can't be undone. We are leaning towards buying a used RV for a few reasons. One being how quickly they lose value, the other being horrible reviews from people who bought new...it seems that new ones have a lot of kinks that need worked out, a lot of people suggest letting someone else deal with that hassle and you buying yours after they get those kinks out. Since we aren't sure we will love this life, it makes sense to start with a used one (let's not get crazy...we don't want a junker, so the plan is to get one just a couple of years old!)
Reactions have been mostly positive but we have gotten our fair share of "You are crazy!"
We are just tired of "living to work" to pay for a house that's too big and takes up most of our free time to take care of. We want to "live to live" now while we are young(ish). There is so much equity in our home right now it makes the most sense to use it to give this adventure a try. Worst case scenario...we end up buying a smaller place and going back to work for a few more years.
Stay tuned....we feel 95% sure this rental thing will go well...but you never know.
I won't let fear ever make my decisions for me....don't think I don't have moments of anxiety about the unknown road that lies ahead. But thanks to my brain...I have anxiety about nothing too, so I might as well just go for it!!
🎵🎵 On the road again...I can't wait to get on the road again... or something like that...
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