Photo Contest Entry And How You Can Help Us Win

So I submitted a photo of our Italian Greyhound Louie to the photo contest. The winner will get a digital painting of that image and I am of course hoping that would be my image. Please click this link to the photo contest and vote for the number 47. On the page is a link to the voting right above the entry photos. Thanks for your help.

I do have some good news too. So, we re-homed our cat of almost 6 years yesterday. I was very nervous and heart broken, until we got to the house where he was gonna be living. He is in perfect place now. It was like a cat haven with two other cats and the whole house pretty much dedicated for them. I am so happy for him, he is gonna be much better there with tons of attention and buddies than he would be with us, dogs chasing and he would be hiding. He even sent pictures of them us to see how well they were doing. A huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders!


                                   

Struck of Luck and Some Tears Too

Today was a day that we had an engineer that is specialized on foundations come here and check on the house. We were expecting a really expensive fix, since about a year and a half ago we got an estimate for the foundation repair and that estimate was a hefty 5 digit number. As it happens, that estimate was for work that we did not need. We got a report stating that the foundation is not in a need of a repair at all. However we do have some cracked mortar that needs to be fixed but our bill will be about $10 K less than we thought. I wish you could hear the screaming and hollering from here, we are so happy! This means we can either spend longer on the road, or we have a bit more money that we can put to work. Ok, in reality it just means that we don't have to come up with non-existing $10 K.

So right now it looks like we need to kick in the purge gear and get rid of the stuff. Some will be saved for later use, once we are done with our RV'ing. I am being realistic thinking that the day will come that I will have a need to settle down somewhere where I can plant a garden and herd some critters. But I might be fine for several years to come, you never know. I think tomorrow I will start going trough my clothes (once again), pack away what I want to save but not take for the road. Rest will go to some local animal shelter. Looks like the packrat in a bathroom is gonna have to get rid of a bucketful of make up and other stuff that doesn't seem to get used. It is in need of some serious overhaul as well.

My weak spot will be kitchen. I used to work in a factory outlet for a glass factory while studying glass blowing. The company sold silver ware, pots and pans, table ware and glass and most these were high end and collectible and of course I bought bunch of it for a good employee discount. The problem came to be when we got married and we combined our kitchens, so we have lots of my modern stuff and lots of Lee's retro, hand me downs that came down from his parents and has been around the world with him and of course holds a bunch of personal value. None of that stuff is really great in the RV, but I think we are going to have to avoid buying more stuff, so we are either gonna take a risk of getting something broken on the road. I think I would like the retro stuff in the RV. Even a thought of  an old pyrex and stone ware makes me smile. The problem with that stuff is that it is quite heavy, which is a concern when the weight is a matter of an interest.

Today is not full of only happiness and good news, it is also a little bitter sweet. Our beloved cat Zubov will be spending his last night here before getting re-homed. We dearly love our big goofy cat but the relationship between the cat and the dogs has not been all rosy and we can not expect good outcomes if we all cram into the RV. We found him a home with couple other cats where he will not be tormented and where he can live a regular life in a center of attention, without having to worry about being out of the reach when the dogs come around. I am so heart broken about how lonely our cat has become in a house that is full of life. So sad that he feels like he can not take part on anything. It has gotten to a point where we allowed him to hang out on our dining table, just so that he can be closer to us a little more often.

I will be spending tonight with Zubov in a guest room behind the closed doors, so he can have all the attention he ever wants for the last time. Tomorrow he will meet his new buddies and we will sadly say good buy. I am happy for him for finally getting enough attention and a place where he doesn't need to run, but sad for having to make this hard decision of giving up on what I would consider a family member. It will be happier life for him and a little easier for us too, though I wish we never needed to make this decision. It will be weird not having a cat around. I will miss the headbutts and the talks with him, I so love talkative cats. Good luck Zubie, we will dearly miss you!

                                   

Bugging Out And Bootlegging

It has been one busy and long Christmas for us. We celebrated 4 days in a row and now we are exhausted. Though I had a chance to go to work to get a little bit of "rest". We took the Revcon for the first trip hoping that all the issues with the fridge and what ever else would have been resolved. We were pleased to notice that indeed they were. As expected the dogs were all fine, excluding Pixie, who always freaks out if we go somewhere. Just a matter of getting used to that sort of thing, or so we hope. The drive itself down to South of Texas to meet the family was uneventful, though once we had a deer run in front of a rig. That was not entirely unexpected, there are lots of deer around, but what surprised us was that it was in the middle of the day.

We arrived to our destination and camped out at Lee's cousins house, where they have repeatedly provided us with their RV hook up and this time we almost blew up their Christmas lights. They have a nice level driveway that we were allowed to use. This might not sound like anything special, but I can tell you that it felt luxurious compared to our driveway which is not level nor is it long enough for our rig. We have done some creative parking blocking the use of our garage, but let's get back to the story.  We spent the first night thinking that only the greyhounds would be able to climb up to the bed above the cabin and we were right. We did not expect though that the old girl Nelli would decide that she wants her place between our pillows, but as soon as we decided to hit the hay, there she was staring up at us and making noise and we knew that there would be no end to that if we didn't give in (14 years of training us has paid out). Plus she is surprisingly easy to ignore, since she doesn't really take a space that we would use anyways. We slept our night tightly and warm despite of the close to freezing temperatures. We also came to a realization that we need to add a rail and a step to our bed to keep the dogs from hopping down to the floor from that high. All of them did jump down at some point without requiring any broken bones, but it will be just a matter of time if they keep doing it.

The next day the weather warmed up nicely and we went for a Christmas dinner with Lee's mothers side of the family. I only wish I had taken pictures there, the house and the few acres of a lot is simply amazingly beautiful, it is surrounded by the fence and cattle guard, and they usually have cattle too, but due to last two years of drought the cattle has been sold and the donkeys are claiming it as their territory. The old crooked oaks shade the lot nicely and every time we visit I dream of finding as lovely place for us. I would never even consider moving again! Oh yes, the dinner... The dinner was like usually nothing short of delicious and it fed tens of people. The dishes were beyond the drooliest dreams and we stuffed ourselves silly and drove back to our dream spot on our cousin's driveway.

How lucky do you have to be to have views like this every day
 from your porch?

Before going to bed, the cousin's husband, Lee's sister and her husband plus we two hang outside talking and the discussion for some reason geared towards zombie apocalypse, prepping and they decided that the Revcon should be the bug out vehicle when the crap hits the fan. The plans to mount some heavy artillery and  to use dry erase board as lining inside was brought up and of course nobody would take us seriously without run flat tires. This conversation pointed out the direction for days to come too and this Christmas will go into the history as Zombie Christmas. Alas, the time goes fast and soon it was the time to crawl back into our cave to sleep. The night was hot, and the dogs were restless, making our sleep a bit sporadic.

The next day we drove to the city to Lee's grandmother's house to meet the father's side of the family. We were greeted as soon as we walked in with a cold beer, of course Shiner, since we are in Texas. The cousins and aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, boyfriends and girlfriends and what not all filled up tummies with another amazing setting of holiday foods and all kinds of appetizers and deserts. If anyone left hungry, it was their own fault, food was delicious and there was plenty of it. We also took a yearly family picture, this year being special, since we are pretty sure everyone made it, not one person was missing of the fun. The next part of the day was the high light of the year. The big bootlegging: liquor exchange, there is no better fun that it is. We do the Chinese Christmas where we either open a concealed present or steal someone else's present. And each present is available for stealing three times. And the liquor is high quality and there is plenty of it, the stealing goes on for quite a while. The plotting and planning is so fun. I left with a keg of my favorite beer Newcastle and Lee got two bottles of Texas wine with a stack of scratch offs.

Soon we had to head out to Dallas. The dogs slept most of the way home, they were too tired of all the excitement and about worrying when ever we left them into the RV alone. Next time they will know better what to expect.

Louie, pretty perfect travel dog

The next day would be Christmas Eve, the day Finnish people celebrate their Christmas. We have now for few years had the tradition that I make the Finnish Christmas meal and Lee's sisters family and mother will come over and we will eat all together. So we did this year too, except that it is becoming more of a tradition and we actually sat down almost till midnight talking and having fun. At least I really enjoyed it. The three kids are all old enough to be able to take a part in our conversations and we really enjoy their sense of humor. They are all really great kids, so much fun to be around them. The clean up was really easy too, we had dogs to do the dishes ;o)

The weather turned back to really cold again in the wee hours of Christmas Day and it started hailing and raining and the aluminum roof was very loud keeping us awake. We also realized that getting the greyhounds to potty outside became a serious chore. So the next morning we headed to Lee's mother's house for the actual Christmas celebration. We were hours late, since the weather kept us awake the night before and getting the dogs settled took longer. I am sure that the kids were just about to go bonkers waiting for us to come over so that they can open the presents. First we ate breakfast, which is traditionally corn beef gravy with some toast. I remember thinking it was strange food when I first ate it, now I am expecting it as a breakfast every Christmas.

We told everyone not to buy us any presents this year, but that of course didn't happen. But we really can't complain, we received some really amazing present, like a table top grill for the RV from my sister in laws family, some LED lanterns and lights and the cutest flip flops ever, just to mention some. All in all, Christmas was lots of fun and for a very long time. It remains as my favorite holiday and next time it might be very different if we get our plan in action. We shall see! For now I am happy this Christmas is over. I enjoyed it a lot, but considering all our dinners around Christmas they just all happened one after another and it can be kind of tiring. Still I wouldn't miss any of those days!

                                

It Is Official, the Dogs Love the Beast!!!

So we decided that it was time to go fix the day and night curtain if we could possibly figure out how to do it. And we decided to take the dogs with us to get used to being in Revcon. After all, we needed to see if it is going to be a disaster or not. I lifted up one of the greyhounds to the bunk bed, since that is where we are going to be sleeping and this is the spot that we were expecting to cause most problems. Let's go to the ugly truth and admit that the puppies sleep with us, under our covers and the hairiest dog Nelli... heh, on our pillows, so this is what is going to be the biggest obstacle. Louie seemed to like it up there and so did Pixie, we didn't even try to put old girl Nelli there. She will most likely want to sleep there too but for her safety, I think she will have to learn to sleep in her own bed on the couch or on the floor. It will be interesting to see how that will work out. So I took Louie and Pixie down and we started to fix the curtain, and it looks Louie figured out in no time how to get back up there. So the dogs love the bunk bed, that is clear, now we just have to make is so that they can get down from there without hurting themselves. Some sort of ramp thingie with a rail will have to be put up there at nights.The stuff we do for our little hairy kiddoes.

Oh, and not to forget, we did figure out how to fix the curtain. We are going to have to be more self sufficient in order to survive out in the boonies. And boonies is where we would love to be! Boonies, be prepared for a crazy bunch!


 
                                

                                

Serenity

The decision to keep the house has calmed me down. I am not so worried anymore what kind of rig we have, or if we have enough room. Not that having the house will help anything with the fact that we are living small while on the road, but just the knowledge of being able to return here will release some of the pressure of having to sell everything. It might actually be worth keeping the furniture at least some of it, so we don't have to go all crazy spending once we are done roaming around the country.

We also are relieved that we don't have to fix as much right away, since we are not trying to sell for a top dollar. Some changes that we need to do can be done down the road, whenever it seems necessary and we get to keep our nice neighborhood and all our friends and family close. Such a nice feeling. I am already feeling a little sad of missing on all the fun lunches and dinners with one of my closest friends. We usually have dinner in our favorite Indian buffet once a week, or anywhere we feel like, and those will sadly have to be iced until we come back from our Tour de America.

Fresh herbs will be greatly missed, especially the basil that
 took over the whole back yard

I have been following a few RV bloggers and I have to admit that I am pretty anxious to get on the road. Some of the bloggers have absolutely amazing photos on their blogs, and I am sure they would be able to make our dumpster to look like a dream vacation spot, but I can't help but wish I could go to see all those fabulous views and sceneries that they have photographed to their blogs. Looking at those pictures it just makes you think that they are either professional, or they have a camera that has a button "$1M" that makes everything look like million dollars. Maybe you can train your eyes to see the photo in front of you, but the colors look sometimes so surreal, maybe they have more professional gear than my point and shoot.

I have been frustrated with my own photos, since there isn't really anything yet to take pictures of, and when you are trying to blog about the brainstorming it gets a bit difficult to take photos that are actually somehow related to the post itself. I have to use pictures of what ever random stuff  that are not related to anything that I am really talking about, but that have something in them that I like, not necessarily great photos, but images of things that I like. This is one of the reasons you have seen so many pictures of our critters and our home. But this is one of the things I would like to concentrate more once we hit the road. I can't wait for that one.

Another amazing photo of the... vegetation on our yard. 

Moving from 3000 square feet to about 150 will be a huge change. I am sure the lack of storage is not going to be the only issue, one of the things I have been threading is the cooking. We have a pretty big kitchen with all the possible appliances and gadgets and the RV, well, it just doesn't. I have been thinking about toaster oven and maybe a single burner to add little cooking power, but then again storing them will be an issue. I think we will just try to figure out how to use the convection micro as an oven and try to get by with as little as possible. I think my Kitchen Aid might not have a spot in the RV, drats!


                                 

Last Trip With Chinook

It's not the kind of trip we wanted to make, but as I am typing this, I am laying on the bed of Chinook with 3 dogs, and we are heading to the South of Texas to attend a funeral. As we drive down on I-45, I am pretty sure we have couple of skunks hiding under the table, pretty strong stench at times. Makes you wonder if the hair in my nostrils is gonna survive the burn the skunks left behind. Roadkills are everywhere, so sad.

We so wanted to take the Revcon to the road, but we didn't have a chance to clean it yet, or work on few issues we have in it. Mainly what we have left now to do is to get the fridge fixed and try to figure out where the dogs are going to sleep. I bet they think under our covers, like they've done so far, but that isn't safe anymore, since the bed is above the cab.

This part of RV'ing was my favorite, driving from point A to point B. Not so much anymore, since in order to keep one of the dogs from going crazy I have to go to "sleep" with them, so I miss on everything on the road or aside it. But I guess the only way to get them used to it, is to actually keep driving around. I don't think it is that they don't like it, I think they (or actually just Pixie) gets overly excited and maybe worries of us leaving her behind. She is unlike many greyhounds and stays indoors, doesn't dart out the door when she gets a chance, except if we are packing the RV, then nothing is going to hold her in, she will run into the RV if an opportunity arises

Over day has passed since I started to write this post, we had a funeral, lots of tears and sadness, but also laughter and like Granny wanted, tons of food. Granny was loved by many many people and she made quite many friends during her 95 years of life. She didn't want people to leave her funeral hungry and if they did, it was their own fault. We left the dogs into the RV while we were at the funeral, and we were so glad to notice that even Louie, who gets always crated, did fantastic without his crate.

You ever feel like you have someone just sitting on your
shoulder barking orders while you are driving... we do.

We left the funeral a little earlier than we wanted to, but we had a long drive home, and didn't want to drive all of the way in the dark, especially since I had to be ready for work the next morning. Regretfully we had to skip also visiting Grandmother, time did not allow us, and we felt awful about it. We passed many cars with our brave Chinook, and were absolutely sad thinking that it will be the last trip. It is perfect size for a single person to live on, and two people to make trips with, and seems like the only option for us to get around at all with all the critters. It drove so beautifully, I am sure we will miss the ability to just step on the pedal and zoom by the slow pokers. Even Pixie calmed down on our way home, and I was able to sit on a seat instead of laying in bed with her to keep her calm. Though it didn't come without any enforcing, every time she got jumpy all over us, I cracked the window a bit, and the sound scared her to go lay down. I am sure it would be safer to have them all crated during the drive, but it is not possible in this tiny rig to have 3 crates.

The cotton is ready

We passed again tons of stinky stuff, roadkills of all sorts, cats, raccoons, dears, dogs, possums, skunks and armadillos, and each one of them made me sad and some of them made me nauseous. I am sure we passed some chicken farms too, the smell was really strong, and almost made our eyes watery, that would not be explained away with roadkills alone. The trip was quite successful and we are once again thankful to my husbands cousin for letting us suck their power to keep the rig cool for the doggies. I just wish we could have stayed couple of days, instead of having to squeeze the whole trip into one day. After all, Chinook deserves a goodbye trip.

                                  

Mixed Emotions And Video Intro Of The Beast

While I am excited about the Revcon, I can't help but think how many of my boxes it actually ticked. Well, not too many. However I know that Lee is very excited about it, and I am ready to give it a good try, I will try to get over the fact that the kitchen does not have an oven, and has only two burners, the fridge is one of the smallest possible RV fridges, and the storage is minimal. The fact that the bed is above the cabin will create problems too, but maybe we can adjust to all that. The cab of the truck takes almost half of the space, so I think on top of the one removed seat, we are going to have to remove another one too, and make best use out of that space. But this is where I think my inner interior designer will get a chance to do its magic.

Here is the video intro to the belly of the Beast, it is pretty home quality, and please, don't hold it against us, it will give you maybe a bit better idea of the space and what we have to work with.

This all will be a huge change not only for us two, but also for our pets who have had a run of the huge house and a gigantic yard. They will have to deal with a minimal space with no yard to run around. I see frequent trips to dog parks in our future. The cat who has been indoor/outdoor cat, will have to adjust to live in a small indoor space with 3 dogs and two humans. Right now he has a pet door to go in and out as he wishes, his own room, bathroom and climbing trees on both ends of the house. We are wondering where is the limit for our adjustments, and who is going to actually need to adjust the most. It will definitely be a challenge to stuff the cat with three dogs into a small space, especially since the greyhounds like to chase him, and he does take it as an attack and will defend himself in that situation. At 18 lbs, Zubie is not likely going to take any prisoners, it could get bad if we didn't make sure that he has his own area where the dogs are not allowed.

Zubov, see how vicious he is?

We are tossing all kinds of ideas around, and once we decide on something we are pretty guaranteed to back out as soon as we get a chance. We are reconsidering selling the house, at least to start with we might want to hold on to it, and if we really want to stay on the road, maybe then we will let it go. I am just worried if the life on the road doesn't fit for us and we sold the house, then what? If we were able to rent it, or just rent a room out of it, then nothing would be so permanent that we couldn't change our minds and come back home if we wanted to.

the nightly race around the pool 

We don't seem to make tons of progress, but we have received the title to our other RV and can sell the old faithful Chinook. I bet selling it will be a bit emotional, not because we had it for a long time, no, we have actually had it less than a year, and used it only couple times... drove all together probably less than 1000 miles with it, but because it actually does have all we need, just not enough space on a long run. But in order to get the house fixed, we need to let her go. So I think tomorrow we have to remove all of our belongings out of it and make her ready for a sale. It is perfect for a couple or a single person, but not for couple with tons of junk and 4 pets. Stay tuned if it is something you'd want to consider, it will likely sell fast.



                                   

Another Week Goes By

There will be lots of things that are going to be very different, or things that we had to give up totally in order to transfer our lives to living in an RV. Today while I was sitting on the court yard with my husbands cousin, who came to harvest some of my basil, I noticed that there aren't going to be visiting friends and family members anymore. I am sure we will make lots of new friends, but the ones we have are all dear to us, and nothing can of course replace the family.

Morning sun on the courtyard

One thing to be missed for sure is going to be the pool, that will be totally gone from our lives. We had done lots of changes to our pool, including changing it from regular pool to saltwater, and adding a heater to it, so we can extend the season a bit, or continue it through the winter if we wanted to. Not having one seems like a loss, and for some reason I keep thinking that the next house we will own one day will not be as outdoorsy as ours. The Pessimist in me is proud from planting foolish thoughts into my head.

Lee grilling by the pool

Another thing that we will be missing is our courtyard. It is not anything special, just a closed in yard in the middle of the house, but it is nice place to sit down and relax, eat dinner and drink a beer or glass of wine. We live close to a busy street, but in our courtyard you can't hear it almost at all. It is somewhat safe from the hottest sun, and also from strong winds. It also is a place where the greyhounds love to race around the table, the outside turf is a great grip for their feet, since their speed can be very high while they run and turn around the table. We have a had few people just stare at them without blinking an eye, just not believing what they are seeing, the sight is funny when they tear around the courtyard. They also like to go there in the mornings to sun bathe. The courtyard is also perfect place to host parties. We have hosted plenty of crawfish boils and pool parties. We usually haul our kegerator and margarita machine there (two more things to be missed there), and entertain lots of people. And I bet even neighbors agree that it is nice that our courtyard is kinda closed area, the sound doesn't really travel out of there either. Fun memories there. We had big plans for this area, but only few of those got put in action. I am still feeling a bit sad that I will never see the house the way I imagined it to be.

Piece of courtyard

I will also miss being able to just let the dogs run out free, since we have all fenced in yard, well, we actually have two fenced in yards, we live on the cul de sac, and on the other side of the house is a huge area, that was supposed to become the place for dogs to run free, and for me to have a herb and vegetable garden, that never happened, we just got it fenced in totally (which was lots of fence). The plan was to make it into bigger entertainment area, adding gazebos or decks and trellises with some water features to keep the street noise less noticeable. And of course that garden with few fruit trees.

One of our crawfish boils on our bigger yard

And that brings me to another thing I will miss, which is herbs. I always have a bunch of herbs growing and most of the time the Texas summer is too hot, so the potted ones dry too much. I will miss my opportunity to use the oregano, cilantro and thyme before it is too late, but my basil has taken over pretty much the whole pool area. And I love the scent of it when you walk by, yum. It is so nice to go out to harvest the basil and make your own pesto, and I make pretty good one too, no, not really that proud of it, oh heck, yeah, I think I am. It kicks some serious butt! Maybe I will make some tomorrow and let my secrets out.

The end of the diving board is our cats Zubovs favorite hang out spot

Most of the things that I seem to have the attachment to are outside. And I think that is also why this all feels so silly, and at the same time exciting, cause I can have the biggest back yards once we start travelling, on the beach, or on the mountain, where ever we choose it to be. The dogs will be visiting lots of dog parks and will have to learn to walk on the leash several times a day. I have already downloaded an app onto my phone that will tell where the closest dog parks and vet clinics are, and other dog related things, like places to buy their food or get them groomed. Pretty handy if you ask me. 

Lots of fun memories at our house

Sabotage! I'm Sayin' It Is Sabotage!

I was prepared to try today a recipe for a banana bread I got from my coworker. The recipe is in her church cookbook, and I can tell you, the banana bread is amazing. And I do not like banana bread. I have been proven wrong once again.

 I bought some bananas last weekend, and was hoping they would be ripe enough for this delicious bread before I started my work week. Seems like this is the only occasion known in history when the fruits are not rotting fast enough. Well, yesterday before leaving to work I peeked at them and noticed that they are getting there, almost week later than I expected, but they should be ready by the next morning for my plans.

Stealth kitty did not find bananas in the bag

Lee had been working all evening and it was time for a short lunch, that's when I saw him devouring my rotten bananas. No, this can't be true! How am I gonna blog about my awesome banana bread now? I bought some more bananas on my way home from work, but was planning on using those for banana pudding that I would take to work for our Southern potluck, plus they weren't anywhere ripe enough for a banana bread. Disappointment! But I guess it is my fault, since the peaches I bought were not ripe enough to be eaten, and the bananas were just about to go bad... that's what Lee thought. Oh well, I guess the banana bread will be my post next weekend, and instead I got to whine today.

 On another note, there is plenty of stuff I need to do around the house today, but I am sworn to silence for now, since Lee is sleeping through the day, trying to prepare for his next graveyard shift. And this would be the perfect day to cut the hedges and trim the tree on the court yard, after few over 100F days, it is supposed to stay in mid 80's. The weather felt so nice in the morning, almost could have worn longer pants, but I wanted to soak in the coolness in the air. Be blessed Ms. Autumn, we have been waiting for you!

The part where we actually get closer to being full time RV'ers, is getting closer. But we didn't make any progress, after all, the days we work are very long, 13 to 14 hours, so it is almost impossible to do anything else.

On the other hand...

As soon as we thought that we had made the decision on what kind of  the rig we were looking for, we are now backing out of that decision. Lee started to get a little hesitant about the cost of the toy hauler, it being about $30k more expensive, it really needed to be worth the expense. I agree. And I started to think also that the living space definitely did shrink from the added garage, we really need all the living space we can have with 2 young greyhounds. If I wanted to take the glass studio with me, that would be on the expense of the other space. And I think I would love to enjoy living comfortably also outside the work.  So it looks like we are back to the square one.

This is most likely going to be a long and winding road of decisions that will be exciting and at times little consuming too. And once we make the decision and we have time to absorb it for a while, we will most likely find out that we need to look for something else. But it is all good, luckily we do have time, and nothing would be worse than spending our savings on an RV that is nothing we wanted it to be.

Changing our minds about the basics on this life changing event can be rather disappointing, since it does not feel like removing one of the options is taking you actually any closer to the big moment. I was a bit worried about the loft bed in the toy hauler, knowing our crazy dogs, they will sneak in there to sleep with us, and maybe not have so safe exit. I feel that it would be cruel to crate two almost hairless dogs in an RV, especially if they were allowed to bunk in with us before. And Nelli, the old fart, she has only ever been crated once, on the flight from Europe to here, so I don't think it would go too well with her either. We are not willing to add the expenses of our trip with any vet visits due to the layout of the RV, safety of our pups is important for us.

So we are going to look for a regular RV once again. We will be focusing on one with nice kitchen and enough space to store our clothes and what not. I might be able to find a way to work with the glass on a small scale, but right now it looks like I will be concentrating on other things. It is kinda disappointing to realize that the glass studio is not going to make it onto this adventure, at least not on the grand scale. But I am sure I will be glad that I can finally concentrate on other things. I always wanted, but there was never enough time left.

One of the things I need to concentrate on is exercising, and it shouldn't be difficult, since the dogs will need to go for long walks at least 3 times a day, especially if there isn't any dog parks for them to run in. But I am not really talking about just walking, I need to really exercise, and that might take some serious getting used to. Seems like last years have passed by and I have done absolutely nothing, this will have to change. I am sure Lee will be looking into something too, since he has been playing hockey for years now, and that has kept him in shape, but when there is no hockey, things can get a bit hairy on the fitness section. We need to find something that we can do together, and preferably include the dogs too. I bet the next door boon dockers will find a giggle or two when we bust out the exercise video and our 80's gym outfits in front of the RV. Unforgettable memories are must on a journey like this, but I bet they weren't expecting that. Heh!

Back And Forth... Back And Forth

I have been torturing myself all morning with potential rigs that we could buy, and with the thought, that we should go cheaper first, and see if we even like full time RV'ing. And if it seems like it is our kinda thing, then go ahead with a little more expensive. It is easier said than done, I keep going back to oohing and aaahing those ones that are almost the same value as our house. Which would equal pretty much something like: unrealistic! Sucky! Champagne taste and beer budget is what I got.

The problem is that as an artist I do like pretty things, and I don't mean decorative things, I mean designs. I do not understand how RV's ever sold when some of them have so ugly upholstery and carpeting, and I am not talking about the one that are from the decades ago, like you would think looking at some sofas and curtains, no, some of those are just from few years back, and even the brand new ones have some pretty hideous fabric choices. But looking at them, it looks like the outside of the RV's are from this millenia, the inside is straight from That 70's Show. Maybe I am just too picky. Could totally be the case.

I have really fallen in love with Monaco Vesta, but unfortunately it is brand new model, and there aren't any used ones in our budget range yet. Maybe in couple years, if we are lucky some will be little cheaper, and still in nice condition. But finding the right RV can be tricky. I don't think my wish list is that unreasonable, but it is not easy to meet with the fact that one of my requirements is: no butt ugly couches!!! And once again, the rest of my requirements are maybe a bit superficial, however, they are somewhat important to me, and I wish to have as many of them as possible. No carpet in bathroom, spacious kitchen with oven, washer/dryer, and separate bathroom... at least the toilet seat should be behind the doors even when all the doors between the bedroom and living area are open. And I would love to have side by side fridge.

I would love to have an old Airstream, but finding one in our price range and with all the bells and whistles that we want, is pretty unlikely. We might have to just get one that is not in perfect shape and restore it ourselves. It will be lots of work, and it worries me that we might not be actually prepared to all the work that it will take to make sure everything will work and be the way we like it. Could be lots of money, and most likely some of the things will be learnt the hard way. I'd love to say that we are ready for it, but I am not sure we understand the size of the project it would be.

While I struggle with the decision making about the RV, I realize that I am way ahead of myself. I need to be concentrating on the house right now. We need to organize everything room by room , so all can be either sold, donated, destroyed or packed away, or saved to be taken into the RV. While I realize that the latest category is the smallest, it is really difficult to let go of certain items. I believe that the stored items group will be much bigger than we realize. It will also be sad to let go of some things that have more than just monetary value. And I am afraid that most of those things that I brought with me from Europe will end up in that category. I also suspect that the entire insides of my studio will end up either in storage or in the RV. I won't be able to work with glass (like I can now), without proper space, but I can perhaps concentrate on other aspects of my creativity.

There has been talk about mobile studio, but if we are driving a bit bigger rig, we really need to haul a car or SUV. If that wasn't necessary, we could possibly haul a tiny trailer that could be transformed into a studio. Mobile studio wouldn't come without any issues, I would still have difficulties storing my glass on the road so that it wouldn't break, but I bet there could be solutions for that. But it would take lots of special attention to several things, some maybe not worth the trouble. I have come to the terms with my glass, and I could agree taking a break from it. It would be too selfish to think that we would survive in a small space with dogs and a cat, just so that I could justify haulingl my studio around.

This weekends agenda will be to organize my studio, and find out how to move my gigantic storage units to be stored. I will not be selling anything from my studio, at least right now I feel that it will be just a break. But maybe I can compromise a little more with other stuff. At least I am still keeping the hope alive.

Z.