It’s the little things

I’ve spent a lot of time in the blog describing the hardships we’ve faced thus far and much less time talking about the upsides to RV living. For the sake of brightening up a dreary winter day and to keep from scaring off those of you who might be thinking about fulltiming, here’s a little list of things we love about this life:

1. The thing that might bug most folks about living in an RV, the limited storage and living space, is one of the things I like best. I still marvel at the cleverness of the designers who really take that whole “a place for everything and everything in its place” philosophy to heart. I dig the challenge of figuring out where to put our stuff. I even like our teensy kitchen (which is massive by RV standards), our very cozy bedroom, and our little restroom (honestly I’ve had smaller). I think we’ve done a great job of adapting to the amount of space that we have without giving up the things we enjoy most – our computers, television and movies, reading, cooking, knitting and spinning, and our pets.

2. Lex says she really appreciates not having noisy neighbors tramping across the ceiling, not listening to screaming children bounce their balls on the floors, and not having to hear couples fighting every payday. We also enjoy the absence of mice, though we realize that could become a problem again should they decide to take up residence in our basement storage.

3. The view is terrific. I’ve posted plenty of photos of Bear Creek and its environs, so may already know this to be true. Lex particularly enjoys the sights just outside her window since she has to spend so much time in the RV working and attending online courses. She spends hours watching the creek the wildlife. I think that our site – while a pain in the butt during inclement weather- is actually quite pretty.

4. I take a kind of twisted pleasure in the people’s reactions when they find out how we live. Some are shocked, some think it’s pretty cool, and some are just confused. At any rate, it’s a real conversation starter. When we lived in an apartment, no one ever asked us how we used the toilet. During this winter, we’ve had a number of friends and family concerned about our well-being. While I’m grateful, I don’t have the heart to tell them that in truly dire circumstances we are probably better off than they are since we have backup power, water, and heat.

5. I really enjoy being so close to my job that I can walk to campus if I want to. I’ve never been able to do that before in my life! I really should walk every day; heavens knows I need the exercise. I’m going to make a commitment to try and walk in at least once a week this semester if the weather permits.

6. There’s a bit of the pioneer spirit required to live this life, and I like to think I possess at least some of that. I’m not out chopping wood or plowing the fields, but I do have to manage things that most folks never think about like dumping my sewage and not running out of propane. I have to be hyper-aware of the weather so we don’t get caught in floods or tornadoes. I have to be a little handier than when we lived in an apartment and had management to fix things for us. Part of me can’t help but that think that if my dad was still alive, being the tough-as-nails cowboy that we was, he would be proud of me, even if he might think I was a little crazy.

So that’s the short list. The long list would include loftier items like generating a smaller carbon footprint, avoiding conspicuous consumption, and defying societal expectations. Truthfully it’s the little joys, not the environmental and ethical considerations, that keep me from getting so frustrated with the hard parts of fulltiming that I throw in the towel altogether.

Tags: fulltiming, pros, rv