This is the life!

To think that just a year ago I was worried about getting my own place to live and downsizing so that I could afford to work less and play more. I struggled with my situation, made lists, schemed, and prayed for miracles. But what finally helped me in the end was just doing it. I worked at a job I didn't like, saved money, got out of "the job", went on unemployment, and just did it. I took a few detours along the way because we humans are like that sometimes. The safe and familiar is more dear, and the promise of better circumstances can be quite a lure. I thought I had a "real job" waiting for me, but that did fall through. It is HARD to change, one of the most difficult things that we can do. You have to be willing to throw your hat into the wide open ring and just do it.

So I did it. After a few painful months of downsizing, I was able to put all my interminable boxes of stuff into a small storage room, load up a tiny Ford Escort with the stuff I considered my most basic requirements, and then I hit the road. Yes, I had a real destination, but it was just a stop to allow me to execute the rest of my plan. I spent my savings on a used Sprinter van which is mechanically sound. Without modifications it serves as a bedroom and kitchenette on wheels. I've already used it for camping, for retiring to after a night of babysitting, and for accessing my jewelry supplies and tools to keep up an online business. I've even gotten back into the software contracting business, also from out of my van. I still have a room in a tiny trailer I share with an old friend. Our goal was to downsize both of us in preparation for an early retirement--two old birds giving each other a hand. But she got sidetracked by her own life and we are essentially keeping up two places between us. Until her son gets out of prison, she's stuck with her grandsons and in her current job.

So I'm rattling around the little trailer, the RV I like to call it. It's a good thing, because it would take a lot of diesel or even propane to keep Henry the van warm right now. We got a hard freeze last night and I tried to sleep in the van, but it was just too hard to function. I think my tv froze and my feet definitely froze in spite of two pair of socks and my thermals. The problem with the van as it is with the bare metal and no real insulation is that it was probably colder inside than outside. The plan has always been to get the van outfitted more like a real home inside, but that does take time and money. Realistically, if I had to live in the van full-time as it is, I'd be farther south by now. Or, parked at a friend's house. But then I'd be spending my spare time insulating. Now I'm working on the practical matter of completing work on the software contract to get some money to stashed. And because it makes more sense to stay in the RV and be comfortable I've been working on winterizing the RV.

Winterizing, you say? Oh, yes. All over the country, wherever it might get cold, poor folks are gathering newspaper, plastic bags, duct tape, staples, nails, and hammers, even old blankets, old sheets, old mattresses, old pillows, you name it, all for valiant attempts to seal up the holes that run rampant in older homes and trailers. I've even lived in a fairly new condo in New Jersey where I would swear that the wind was whistling through the drywall, not the cracks, the drywall itself, right through the coating of paint! I nailed quilts to that wall that went up two stories. I also closed the upstairs bedrooms and moved my children down to the dining room where we lived that winter, with their bunk beds and my full-size bed. I moved in the TV and the VCR and the computer and their toys. We wouldn't have been able to financially survive that winter if I hadn't. If you don't know how to winterize, you'd better pay attention now. Sometimes you have to be ruthless and often you have to be creative.

Winterizing the RV is still in progress but I've gotten a lot done. The two air conditioners are covered with heavy plastic and winter grade plastic tape. They are covered both on the outside, around the window openings, and inside. Windows have been covered on the outside with heavy plastic and tape, while I took a lighter plastic and wound it around the screens, reinserted the screens (where there was no storm window to insert), then taped plastic around all that. I left one window in the hallway untaped, in order to get air when needed. Then the doors, oh my, the doors! I think these doors have never seen a gasket or a weather seal, so I cut strips of felt and glued them to the sides, shut the back door and hung four $1.00 quilts found at the thrift store in the recessed opening of the "back door". The front door has a heavy quilt hung in front of it, plus there is a baffle set up with quilts on either side of the opening. It won't be fun getting in and out, but the quilts can be moved out of the way during the day. I set the propane heater on 62, and use a couple of space heaters when I'm awake. Two quilts on the bed and I don't need heaters at night. I even turn the propane heater down to 58. Then you wear sweaters inside, stay dressed in clothes, and keep your socks on. That completes the winterization of a less than cosy place to live.