The Shopping

If you like to shop, get an RV!  There are so many things you'll need that shopping becomes like a new hobby.  Or an old hobby gets a new shot in the arm if you are a shopaholic.  I'm somewhere in the middle.  I know I'm not a shopaholic because I'm getting tired of shopping.  Well, almost!

It's like trying to set up a small apartment.  The furniture and appliances are already there, for the most part but there are all the little things, like kitchen utensils, spices, towels, pots and pans, an on and on and on.  Of course, there are lots of things we had that we don't have to buy but since weight is a big issue, we are trying to be sure we use small things that are light and very minimal.  And we're weighing everything that is going into the trailer and keeping track.

Andy's an old Navy man so he's spent a lot of time on narrow, hard cots.  He wants to try sleeping on the mattresses that came with the trailer.  He likes hard pillows and these mattresses are like big, hard pillows.  I, on the other hand, am used to a Sleep Number bed and am totally spoiled.  I opted to get a custom made mattress from a local factory.  I had to buy a twin mattress and give them the smaller dimensions and they re-made the bed to fit into the bed frame in the trailer.  With both of the trailer mattresses stacked up for Andy, they will be the same depth as the mattress I had made, so when the beds are all made up, it shouldn't be obvious that they are two different mattress-types.

We had an extra TV that we're going to use.  We didn't like the dining, card-playing, computer desk, art easel table that came with the RV, it's too big and heavy to move around easily so we are going to take it and it's legs out and leave it home.  We will substitute a couple of wooden TV tray tables instead.  They will be easily moveable, lighter and smaller.  We had those too, so that's another thing we don't have to buy.

Storage space is at a premium, so any place there is an extra few inches of out-of-the-way floor space we'll put some sort of multi-purpose shelf, drawer or storage footstool.  I'm still looking for one of those over-the-toilet, tension rod, shelving units but they aren't easy to find ...  not as narrow as we need, anyway.

One of my favorite things, at least right now, is my camper clothes washing apparatus.  I wish I had some cute anagram for this little marvel of science.  Well, maybe not science but innovation at least.  I took a 5 gallon bucket with a lid and cut a hole in the center of the lid.  Then I took a cheap rubber toilet bowl plunger, the rusty red kind you can get just about anywhere, and cut 3 or 4 holes around the body of the plunger between the neck and the bottom rim.  This keeps the suds from taking over when you're plunging away on your dirty laundry.  Then you just put hot, warm or cold water with a little laundry detergent into the bucket along with a few pieces of dirty laundry and plunge!  Use the same movement you would imagine a pioneer woman would use to make butter in an old-fashioned churn.  I may learn to hate this cute little idea, but for now, I'm living in oblivious bliss imagining washing our clothes this way.

There are a few things we still need but we're doing pretty good at getting all our trappings gathered up.  Saving money when we can and keeping it light.

Oh and one word to remember... Amazon!  It's where we shop online and we have a Prime membership so we save because we get free shipping on Prime purchases and get the stuff in two days.  And most everything we've bought, so far, is priced comparatively to other stores, sometimes even cheaper.

It's been raining for two days now.  I hope it stops so we can start loading all this stuff in the trailer.  I don't need a lot of extra stuff in my house.  Already have that.