I’ve been sleeping through the night lately!! Its been great waking up and seeing the clock say something reasonable, like 6:00 am. I put the comforter back on the bed the other night and had the most beautiful sleep I have had in quite some time, waking up fully rested, refreshed, and loving the day. I’d love to say every morning since has been just as beautiful but that’s not the case, though I have to admit that I have definitely had the greatest start to my days seeing the time on the clock when I wake up.
As much as I’m loving this sleeping through the whole night, there are some drawbacks I hadn’t foreseen. I find that I am somewhat missing my alone time that I had during those early morning hours. I don’t have a lot of time to just spend by myself, not having to take care of anything or anyone and those early mornings at least gave me that. I’m not saying I would necessarily trade one for the other but…well, I guess I’ll just have to figure out how to carve out some time for myself during the day.
The other drawback is that, despite getting a full night’s rest, if I sit down for more than 10 minutes, I’m nodding out. I’m not sure what that is about, and its a little bit frustrating. I love a good nap, but falling asleep sitting up is not something I would put in the ‘good nap’ category. The first few times it happened I had just thought that it was probably happening due to how long I went through my early waking times, but I’ve been sleeping solid for about a week or so now and I’m still finding that I’m falling asleep after about 10 minutes of inactivity. Am I just that bored with my life or is something else going on? I don’t know and I think I have put as much worry into that as I feel I am going to. It will sort itself out or I’ll come to see that it isn’t and either decide it doesn’t matter – welcome to my new schedule of events – or I’ll talk with the doctor to make sure all is well.
after scraping, before coating
We finally have Marilyn’s roof completely sealed!! It looks so nice!! Yes, we really need to put a new roof on her but, for now, this is the fix and it is amazing. I love knowing that we will no longer need to put tarps on her whenever it looks like we might get some rain. This is also wonderful because we are not supposed to tarp off while in the campground system. Once I replace the alternator on Marilyn, we are ready to head back into system and I am ever so looking forward to that.
final coat
It’s been good staying at Lance’s brother Travis’s place. We haven’t had to move, we have had the time to take care of some of the bigger grievances with Marilyn, and it gave us some time to really talk about some of our mobile plans. We had already done this before, but I feel that we have a much better idea of what forward from here looks like in our minds. Also, since we have been reduced to electricity hook-up only here now, having full hook-ups again is going to be great. Hell! Having running water, again, is going to be a huge blessing.
That’s one thing I can say RV life has given me – a better appreciation for some of the things that get taken for granted, like running water, a city sewer system, storage space. There are many more, but these are the ones that jump immediately to mind. After being parked for nearly 5 years, we are finding that we have gotten used to the ability to have certain things, many certain things, and, though we have purged a huge amount before the move, during the move, after the move, we are seeing that there is still more that needs to go. There just isn’t room and, honestly, with our current game plan, we just don’t need most of it.
Sometimes I wish we had a newer rig for a multitude of reasons, one of the main one’s being storage space. That’s one of the drawbacks to Marilyn being 40 years old – these rigs had about zero storage space. There were made for the weekend warrior, not the full-timer. Plus, I think we have become a society that feels they need to have more even on those weekend get-aways. Or maybe life has just has more to it now. Either way, the storage space I’ve seen in the newer RVs is amazing!! I’ll admit that I have storage space envy leading to storage space fantasies. Everything should have a place to go and there are some things it would be nice to be able to buy in bulk if for no other reason than the savings it presents. Oh well. That is not where we are at this point. Maybe some day.
I’ve started another blog. It only has two posts, so far. The topic is full-time RV-ing on the less financially stable end of things – WhenPigsFlyRV. I decided to start the blog after reading a bunch of other blogs about full-time RV-ing. Though those blogs are great but, from what I can tell, these are people who have chosen to full-time RV. Ok. Sure. We choose full-time by not choosing to change it, but we did not initially choose it. Another difference I have seen on the blogs is a lot of these people had a house and other belongings to sell in order to make full-time happen, along with some funding to get going. Again, not us, and I have seen so many others that are full-timing it that quite definitely did not have that advantage either and are continuing to struggle just to make the less expensive RV life work.
That’s another thing. Sure, RV life is supposed to be a cheaper way to live, and it is for us as well, for the most part. Our higher expenses come when anything goes wrong with the rig. I’m certain it is probably less expensive for us to fix things on our RV than it is to fix things on a newer model, but things are more likely going to need to be fixed on our RV than a newer one, meaning money going out more often. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong about that one. It definitely feels right though. Then there is usually the lack of funding for repairs. Any that come up need to be saved up for in order to fix. I know it sounds like I am whining, and perhaps I am a little bit. Getting ready to leave here has me in newer RV envy, I guess.
Dragonfly Gypsy USA 