Swimming in STUFF

62 days and counting...

Meanwhile, DeWayne and I took a trailer to our old place and managed to load most of the "stuff" to bring back here.  Thanks to the great weather forecast for this week, we were able to leave all the boxes on the trailer so that I'll be able to take my time this week to go through all of them.  Some of it will be stored here at the folks' place, some needs to be eliminated, and we will take the rest to Ginger's (my daughter) in McAlester this weekend where she and I have planned yet another garage sale.  I love to spend time with Ginger and her family, so I'm looking forward to it.

Poor DeWayne was left to pack up most of those boxes from the house and move them to the storage during my extended stay in the hospital last summer.  The house was to be moved, so he was forced to do the daunting task by himself.  Now it's my turn.  I'll be going through, sorting and eliminating since each box contains a little of everything from virtually anywhere in the house.  I'll feel better once it's done and better knowing our "stuff" is no longer in a storage building on a now vacant spot of land and vulnerable to thieves.

One more step toward our new life on the road...ahhhhh.

The new fridge arrived on Friday, so we got it moved in on Saturday.  I never knew I would be so tickled over an appliance, but considering we graduated from 4.4 cubic feet of refrigerator space to 10.3, well......I'm on cloud nine!  I couldn't wait to get to Wal Mart to buy a whole gallon of milk, orange juice, a good stock of yogurt, and a few other items that previously just wouldn't fit.  Oh, and enough meat in the freezer to last a week.  Doesn't take much make me happy, does it?  The new fridge fit the space perfectly, so all is well. 

I had a great birthday.  I guess being 55 now qualifies me to get "senior" coffee at McDonalds and I can join AARP.  Gee, I'm just thrilled, lol.  On the bright side, I got tons of "Happy Birthdays" from friends and family on Facebook, then went to Red Lobster with my folks, my sister, and of course my handsome husband and we ate ourselves silly.  Yummm!

Something I'd like to begin here on this blog is to share pictures of some of our "babies".  No, I'm not talking about the grandkids right now.  I'm talking about puppies.  See, we were fortunate enough to raise Miniature Schnauzers for three years and we had some of the most beautiful "babies".  Heck, who am I kidding?  I thought each and every one of them was the best puppy in the world.  And I took LOTS of pictures of them and their parents.  So I want to try and include some of the best pictures along the way.  Here is the first sample:

Isn't she a beauty? 

I thought I'd post a picture of the new fridge, but I think the puppy is a better subject.  I'll do the fridge later.  Now since I've posted the picture, I can't get the text to go back to the left alignment, so if anybody has any suggestions, please let me know.  I don't suppose centered text is too bad, so it's no big deal.

So, that's all the news on our progress toward our new lifestyle.  I'll be updating periodically.  Meanwhile.......

62 days and counting!

Happy Trails!

67 Days and Counting

The first of June...that's our goal and the countdown begins.  Let me introduce us.  We are DeWayne and Joy  and we are about to embark on a new lifestyle.  Full-time RVing!  We have been living in our 38' Fifth wheel since June of last summer due to a delay in our plans (medical issues) and we are preparing to hit the road one year overdue, but as they say....better late than never. 

Our first destination is not decided yet, but I will share that as soon as we know.  Living in the RV has given us time to decide what we actually need to take with us and what to leave behind.  One thing we simply could not do without is our king size Tempurpedic mattress, so the bedroom has already been modified to accomodate the bed and we sleep like babies. 

The original refrigerator drew it's last breath a few months ago and we have improvised by buying a small fridge that DeWayne found at Lowe's.  However, it doesn't fit the hole from the previous fridge, so we were looking at having to install wood trim around it.  As we were visiting the mall in Texarkana a couple of weeks ago, I happened to notice a larger refrigerator, that I thought might fit better, in Sears.  We took the measurements and came home to find that it would fit with room to spare, so I went to Sears' website to see the specifics and found yet another, larger, fridge that would fit the hole perfectly.  So it was ordered and should be delivered today.  Woohoo!  More fridge space!  We're getting pretty weary of having to re-arrange everything in there to put in one item.  DeWayne is currently in Dallas for his last out-of-town meeting, so getting it installed inside the RV will have to wait til he gets home.  I miss him, by the way.

We went through all the garage sales a year ago to weed out the tons of "stuff" that needed to go.  Furniture was sold or distributed to family members and lots of stuff went into the storage building that we will need to go through and clean out before we leave since we now have the land up for sale.  It's amazing how much "stuff" you can accumulate, isn't it? 

DeWayne and I both retired a year ago in May.  He was a civil employee for the Army Reserve, facility manager over all the reserve buildings in this area.  He went back to work at the same job as a contractor and has given his notice to resign the last day of May this year.  I retired as Director of the local "Battered Women's Shelter" as most are called.  It's actually a non-profit organization that serves victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.  There is one in your area and are all funded through the federal "Violence Against Women Act" which Vice President Biden wrote in 1979.  They are much more that just "shelters" and provide outreach services as well.  Anyway, since my recovery from the medical issues last summer, I have gone back to work there on an as-needed basis as consultant until we leave in June.

That's about all the boring details that I figure our readers can stand for now.  I'll keep posting as our countdown continues and our departure gets even closer.  Until then....67 days and counting!

Note:  DeWayne was kind enough to point out my error in counting the days....such a little thing, actually.  Like....uh....leaving out the entire month of May.  What can I say, I'm a ditzy blonde.  lol  Anyway, I have edited the post with the correct number of days and the other thing he pointed out, which was mispelling refrigerator.  Apparently there's no "d" in there.  And I was so proud of myself. lol