Out of Balance and An Anniversary

I won't be reporting on the last two weeks progress today.

Nope.

Sorry.

There has been progress, to be sure, but I'll catch up on all that next week.

This week...

well, this week I'll tell you all about how last week marked the 

one year anniversary

of us living in our trailer.

Yep, it's true.

Here's something funny -

on June 27th of 2013, I posted the following Facebook status...

I feel just a wee bit like a pioneer woman may have felt trying to decide what I can and cannot live without for the next 6 months or so. It's time for us to move into our travel trailer and take this old house down!

Well, here we are 12 months + one week later
still living in our trailer.

Let me tell you a little bit about that for the sake of celebrating commemorating 

that unexpected trip around the sun in our RV.

First of all...
it's been okay, fine, alright-
really, it has been.
All our friends, neighbors and fellow ward members expressed their concern for us
throughout the bitter-cold winter months, but we honest-to-goodness, really did stay warm.
But not without problems.
We went 10 days without running water because our pipes froze solid.
We were thankful we kept a storage of water in the basement and that our basement,
at least, was above freezing.
Before we went to bed, Dean would set 3 of those 2 liter bottles on our little electric radiator

and by morning they'd be nice and hot and that's how he bathed for a week and a half.
I drove to JoTan's to take my morning showers.
I heated water in a pot on our little gas stove top so I could wash dishes or wash my face before bed.
Working together in the single-digit temperatures (and sometimes wind),
Dean and I wrapped every single water line going in and out of the trailer
in a double layer of pipe insulation, constructed a box of rigid insulation under the trailer to
enclose the tanks and bought a space heater that we set inside that box and kept turned on at all times.
As I said, it took 10 days for us to thaw out, but after that we stayed unfrozen for the rest of the winter.
And I thought trying to decide what we could live without for 6 months made us feel like pioneers!

The only other frustration during the winter months was the mud.
Despite everything around being seemingly frozen, we somehow always managed
to have mud on the trailer floor.
That drove me nuts.
Oh, there was one other winter time woe -
mildew.
Because we would turn the furnace down at night and back up first thing in the morning,
we always had condensation on the walls and windows...
and in our tiny closets which resulted in mildew on our clothes.
As soon as I discovered this, I laundered everything, took Dean's suit and blazer to the dry cleaners and then took them over to JoTan's and kept them in the closet in one of their spare rooms.
On Sunday mornings I'd have to go over to their house to get something to wear to church.
Kind of a pain.
We also noticed that the 'head board' had started accumulating mildew,
so when I made our bed in the morning I pulled the mattress down, off the end of the bed a ways to create a gap at the head so the darn 'head board' wouldn't get so damp.
I folded the bedding back over the top of the foot of the bed and
tucked it in so it wouldn't hang on the floor.

This worked pretty well, but we eventually just removed the 'headboard' and threw it away.
We haven't missed it a bit.

But let me tell you somethin'...
I loved warming my pajamas on the little space heater we used to supplement the trailer furnace...

aaawwww yeah, it felt good to put on toasty-warm pj's!

And there was this...

short little drawer.
It took a half dozen times of me pulling it out too far and spilling its
contents on the floor before I finally learned to be more careful.
Half the time I just laughed at myself.
The other times I may or may not have said #&@%.

I developed a friendship with the service guy at
AmeriGas...

cuz when you live in your RV you have to go get your propane tanks refilled frequently.
About the 4th or 5th time I showed up with three 5 gallon tanks, he asked me in his thick,
Spanish accent why I was a 'frequent filler'.
So, I told him the story.
He thought it was pretty cool.
People say that, but I wonder if they're really thinking,
"Those people are crazy."
He's been so good to me.
When he sees me drive up in the truck, he comes right out to pull our empty tanks, fill 'em up while making small talk (unless it's raining and I stay in the cab), and loads them back in the bed.
He's always friendly and smiling. I admire and appreciate that in a person.

And then there are the tanks.
Every day the 'gray tank' needs pumping.
It's not a difficult job; it's actually very easy, but if the task happens to slip my mind,
well...

then the dishwater and bath water will back up in the tub.

There's the other tank as well, which is just as easy to pump, but its unpleasant nature does not merit attention. 
And I never have to think about it or deal with it because I'm married to my hero.
And that's all I have to say about that.

Based on the list I've made, I could go on for a long time about the adventures we've had over the last year.
Let's just abbreviate  all this by posting that list, shall we?

*Tending the grand kids has been interesting and forced me to get creative.
*We've celebrated all the holidays and family birthdays at our children's homes, which has been very nice.
*We've told Ally "scootchie" about a million times because
when she's in the trailer with us she's always 'in the middle of the road'.
*And we've said 'excuse me' to each other about a million times as well, because we're
constantly stepping around each other getting in or out of the little bathroom.
*Our 'bathroom' sink is teeny-tiny, so whether brushing our teeth or washin' up,
there's always water on what little counter surface there is that needs mopping up.
*Showers are hot, but short - like 4 minutes, max.
*The 'pantry' is narrow and deep. It's hard to keep it tidy and organized
and I always have to use a flashlight to find anything in there.
*We've been doing our laundry at JoTan's the whole time -
3 to 4 loads twice a week...going back and forth and back and forth to their house.
We are very grateful to them.
VERY GRATEFUL.

I'm sure there are more gory details I could share, but that's all I can come up with for now.
And I'm sure it's enough.

People have made some interesting comments about our chosen situation.
Most of those comments have become predictable.
It usually has to do with whether or not our marriage can survive.
They obviously don't know us very well.
Our daughter (in-law) asked me if we'd had any contention at all.
I told her the honest truth about that...
'No, contention has never been much a  problem for us.'
We are healthy and happy.
We committed to this together.
We've done better than just fine;
we done well.
And we still love each other like crazy.
After all...
that's what we are -
CRAZY.

**About the 'Out of Balance' portion of this post alluded to in the title...
that'll have to wait.
I'll get to it later, because it's late.
Time to get to bed and head into another week of
progress on the Bungalwo and livin' in a trailer.

Thanks for stoppin' by.
Good night and God bless.