Russian Roulette with the TOILET

 Let me start by sharing this little tidbit of info from an RV website: "Black water, as you might have guessed, comes from the toilet after it is flushed." Go ahead and click the link if you would like to learn more about the black water, or its holding tank.

 Okay good, now you know what black water is. So I will go ahead and assume that you can guess what the "black water holding tank" is. Vital information to this story. Tanks fill up, and then they get dumped. Luckily the guy that does the port-a-potties at the job site said he would come empty our black water tank for us when we need it. That is AWESOME news because if he didn't do it, then we Jared would be the one doing it!

 Last Friday the guy came for the first time to dump (no pun intended, har har) our tank. We have a little indicator box in the "kitchen" that tells us the levels of all of our tanks, fresh, grey, and black. Black got to full so black got dumped. I heard it happening. Thank goodness I didn't SMELL it happening (this was a huge concern of mine). It was a quick process, he got in he got out he was done and gone in 5 minutes. Hardly seemed like enough time but I'll take his word for it. So just to be doubly sure, I checked the little indicator box. STILL FULL. What? Impossible....

 I told Jared that the lights were still all lit when I left to go home so when he got home he checked and it now said 2/3 full. Huh? So he called me and told me and I said "okay, fine, but it DID say full when I left". Got back to Paris and I checked the indicator to see for myself. FULL. So I tell Jared, he gets around to checking it and tells me "2/3 full". WHAT?! I'm not making this up, all the lights are lighting up when I press it, but not when Jared does. So anyways, Jared calls the poo guy Monday morning and they say they will come that afternoon to check things out. Keep in mind this is the ONLY place to go to the bathroom unless I go squat outside. The nearest gas station is a few miles down the road, oh yeah and I have 3 small CHILDREN. So waiting for this guy to come check it out is TORTURE. I am terrified to go to the bathroom because, pardon me, but when the lights say that the black tank is full....I'm gonna BELIEVE THE LIGHTS! I get through it, life goes on, the guy comes out pumps it again but says its fine. I check the lights. Full....no wait 2/3 full now. Well at least I have 1/3 to gamble with.
  We go through the owners manual and this is its reason for our indicator light malfunction "something is stuck on the sensor". Okay....so whats the solution? THERE ISN'T ONE. They suggest we flush with more water. Jared suggests I start rationing myself to one square of toilet paper per session. So now its a terrifying game of toilet roulette every time I use the bathroom. What is going to happen if this tank is, in fact, FULL? Because in MY head I see a geyser of you-know-what shooting up out of the toilet hole when I go to flush. I get anxiety over this. I am CONSTANTLY checking the indicator lights to see if they have straightened themselves out yet. Full, no wait 2/3, no wait full. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, I am afraid to use the camper toilet, but there are no other options for me, none that are sanitary anyways. I flush with probably a GALLON of water every time, praying that it'll do the trick. I ask that when your knees hit the floor tonight you include this problem in your prayers....I'd do it for you.
  Oh yeah, and here are pictures of the camper :)

I can't rotate this, so tilt your head sideways :) This is what I call the Living Room

The Master Suite

The Kitchen

The view from right in front of the "bunk house"

 And now blogger won't let me upload more pictures so I'm going to punch the computer and go to bed.
 Oh wait, the laundry mat.....UGH. It wasn't so bad until I killed the baby roach that ran across the floor and then the little gem of a woman that lit up her cigarette RIGHT by the dryers! This woman had pig tail braids, half her teeth (literally, each tooth was only half there) and was PARANOID. Jared was playing with my phone, running around like a crazy person and this woman leans over while I'm getting my clothes out of the dryer and says in her thick hick accent: "I thank he just took a picture of me" I said "What?". She repeated herself. And I said, "Oh, no, I don't think he did (yeahhh probably a lie)" and she said, "Yes huh, because he just ran over her and then ran back to his little sister over there and said hey look what I did ha ha" and I said "Ugh, okay well if he did then I will delete it".
  She leaned over again and said "Did your clothes get dry?" and I said (as I was stuffing them back into my laundry bag without folding them) "DRY ENOUGH! See ya!" I let them dry for a total of 16 minutes before I hi-tailed it out of there :)

Black hole of a camper

  I still haven't given you all the grand tour of the camper, I know, but the pictures are on Jared's computer and we came home this weekend so I am on my own computer! So you'll just have to be patient, I apologize for the 'pins and needles' feeling that you may be experiencing. You'll be okay.
  There is a small problem with the camper, other than Stinkyrat and the owl and now the coyote that Jared spotted Friday night. It is a BLACK HOLE for all things small and somewhat important! Geeze. It hasn't even restricted its powers to just the camper....oh no. It has spread itself to pretty much anywhere in Paris. So maybe PARIS is to blame and not the camper but stuff didn't start disappearing until we moved into our home on wheels. Here is a list of things missing so far....some have been found, some are still a mystery:

1. Purple water gun (finally found after a day and a half)
2. Jared's brand new phone clip (still missing, going on like 2 weeks now)
3. Jared's blue tooth (still missing, only for about 2 days so far)
4. Yellow water gun (still missing, one week)
5. Pacifiers.....(seems like one pops up right when the spare missing, I actually think that's just Wylee and not the black hole. She takes them when no one is looking, except Russell, and no one knows what she does with them)
6. Here's a big one. The KEYS TO THE CAMPER! (Still missing, since about 2 days after we moved into the camper....might be in the lost & found box at Wal-mart but I honestly don't remember what they looked like)

  I think that is it so far, I feel like I'm forgetting something so I'll probably bring this subject up again later on.
  This week I think I'm gonna take my sewing machine back with me. I really don't know how that will work though. But its worth a shot. I have 6 blankets and a comforter to get finished! And Jared has like 4 pairs of jeans that I'm supposed to be doing something or other to. I dunno if there's enough room in the camper for both the sewing machine AND the popcorn maker. I'll probably choose the popcorn maker if it comes down to it. I don't even have a desire to go to the movie theater anymore thanks to that little gem. Oh, except for when Breaking Dawn comes out.
  I was gonna save this for the camper tour post, but it cracks me up so I'm gonna end with this thought for the night. We have these 3 steps that go from the "living room" to the "master bedroom". These stinking steps. I can't even call them stairs. Poor Wylee is so clumsy, even without these evil steps getting in her way. That poor girl has fallen down those steps so many times that I have lost count. She's fallen forwards, backwards, up the steps, down the steps....sideways once. I tried to keep track the other day and in about 2 hours she had fallen off the bench seat at the table twice, ran into the table once, tripped over her own feet once, and then tripped over Russell's bouncy seat. I quit counting after that. The first few nights when Russell would wake up and I went to feed him a bottle I would COMPLETELY forget that they were there. I'd be half asleep thinking I was going down one small step and forget that there were 3 there and BAM....It was like those dreams where your just falling and you have no idea when you'll hit the ground. I only did that about 3 times till I started taking it nice and slow, hanging on to the wall the entire way down. Sometimes I would even think that maybe a 4th step might have snuck in there so I would feel around for a minute just to make sure I was finally at the bottom. Baby Jared has fallen down them a handful of times himself. Big Jared says he hasn't done it yet, but come on....everyone else has, I think he's just embarrassed to admit it :).
  That's all I've got in me for today but stay tuned because along with the tour post I will include details of our first Laundry-Mat trip!!! OH BOY! It's colorful :)

Tooooooo be continued...

Valentine's Day in a camper

  Happy Valentine's Day!!

  When we got back to the camper yesterday after a not-so-relaxing weekend at home (just lots of chores to do), we got to play a little before dinner and bed. The electricians at the job site fashioned a sled for the kids the day we got 8 inches of snow. Well it didn't get much use until yesterday. Here we are about to be pulled by Jared's truck :) Safe. I know. He went very slow don't worry.

Jared playing with his cars today in the beautiful weather!!

Wylee and Jared being pulled by Daddy on the sled (daddy on foot, not by truck)

I don't know why this won't rotate....ugh

  We have a big ol' owl living in the barn next to our camper. Jared found him when we first moved in and I wanted a picture of him yesterday. Jared told me to go to the door of the barn and then he would scare him so he would fly out. Oh. My. GOSH!!!! I didn't realize that thing was going to fly right in my FACE! I screamed like I had just witnessed someone get murdered and almost threw Wylee to the ground so I could run faster....but I guess my motherly instincts kicked in and I managed to hang on to her. I did get a shot of it as it was flying away but I need to crop it so you can see it better. Anyways, I guess you want an explaination for the stinkyrat picture. We think the owl killed it. We found it in the barn last night and we haven't seen stinkyrat since we got back so we think it MIGHT be him. Yippie if it is!!! But if it isn't then.....gross, that means there are more. Maybe a family of them :(

What's white, brown, and smells disgusting? Oh, that would be Caine. He got himself sprayed by a skunk tonight. I have to say that it isn't the fowlest thing that I have ever smelled but its VERY close. My nose and throat are still burning! His poor little eyes can barely open because they are so irritated. But that's what he gets for running off and exploring! Moron.

Wylee helping Jared eat some chocolate covered strawberries before dinner! Oh and yeah, we hang out on the proch of the crap-house that we are parked in front of. Ha! Classy :)

She was so excited to open her card :) I love how she lights up by the littlest things!

Sweet cheeks himself. Always smiling!

Sweet Wylee this afternoon.

Wylee was insisting that she hold Russell yesterday when we got back. He's almost her size when you put them right next to eachother!



    I'm not posting as much tonight as I thought I was going to because, well, it's Valentine's Day and my husband would rather I NOT blog all night. But tomorrow I'll finally put pictures up of the camper!! Queen of the Camper, signing out.

 

  To be continued...

Stinky Rat

  I'll go ahead and apologize for this post being picture less. I did, however, find my camera charger so this blog is gonna get a face lift.
  Yesterday morning started off pretty normal. The kids and I got dressed and we headed out to the "local Wal-mart" for diapers, milk, water guns, and well nevermind the "and".  I can't tell you how exciting it was to be going to Wal-Mart! We needed out of the house camper so badly that I would have been happy going just about anywhere at this point.  I only wished I had a longer list of things to get. Wal-Mart went by too quickly so I took Wylee to get her very first hair cut! She looks adorable, of course. I'll put a picture up when my camera is ready. The camper fun really didn't start until we got home from our errands....nappy time.
  The kids were supposed to be napping but I heard them both yelling "stinky rat", so I went in there to see what they were doing. Both of them were in Wylee's bed pointing their new water guns out the window yelling "stinky rat!", "lets kill that stinky rat!".....and there was our nasty opossum waddling across the yard again! Broad stinking day light. And now his new name is Stinky Rat...but you have to say it like its one word. Stinkyrat.
  I started this post Saturday and didn't get around to finishing it until today (Monday) so I'm gonna wrap it up and move right along. We went home, I did laundry, Jared cooked dinner Saturday night, had to come back before church on Sunday. And now were at Monday.

To be continued...

Look at that big ol' mouse!

When you live in a camper, in front of an old house that is probably going to be burned down by the local fire department, sooner or later things will start to come out from their hiding spots. As I was making dinner baby Jared was sitting at the window and Jared was on the phone and I really don't know what Wylee was doing but baby Jared kept saying "Look at that big ol' mouse walking through our yard! Hey, hey, look at that big ol' thing. Hey mommy, look at that big ol' mouse, what's it doing walking in our yard?" I didn't even turn around. I just kept saying "Yeah, look at that. I don't know what he's doing Jared. Wow." He didn't quit talking about it so I finally stuck dinner in the oven and walked over to the window and asked him where the mouse was. He was squealing at this point and he was point to about ohhhh 5 feet from the camper and there it was. DISGUSTING. Walked it's happy little self right underneath our camper and big Jared took off outside with a knife (I later found out that was just for show). He came back in and told me where that big ol' mouse went.....

EEK!!!! Are you KIDDING ME?!?!?! That IS a big ol' mouse!

  Baby Jared just goes on and on about this thing and won't stop talking about how daddy is gonna kill that nasty thing or maybe Caine is gonna go out there and tear that thing up, my favorite was "oh, I bet Fritches (Britches) will go out there and pee on him"....yeaaaahhhhh that thing is bigger than "fritches" the only thing he'll be peeing on is himself if he gets close to him. I can't wait till we get a repeat appearance from our new friend. No wonder the dogs wont leave that house alone. 

  I probably shouldn't have started with the rodent story since that was probably the last fun thing that happened today so this is all out of order but, oh well. The kids' new favorite thing to do is get baby wipes and "clean" the big windows. Ugh, this drives me crazy. Mostly because Jared insists on MASHING the wipe into a tiny ball and squeezing whatever juices he can out of the thing and then smearing it ALL over the window. Wylee does whatever big brother does.

Please excuse the "mobile uploads", I'm trying to track down my camera charger.

  I wouldn't exactly say that I'm in the running for World's Greatest Wife here over the last week. You see when I mentioned that we have no cable or satellite, I failed to mention that that also meant nothing to watch the SUPER BOWL on. Why is this my fault? Because Saturday night Jared asked me to find out if there was a way for him to watch the SB online, so I googled it. Friends, do not believe everything that you read on google. I glanced at a couple of search results and said "Yep, tons of places". Ugh, tons of illegal places that make you download a bunch of stuff or were shut down before the game even started! At 5 Jared asked me to set the game up. Instead I looked up FABRIC while he showered. So at the very last minute I realized, no you in fact cannot watch the Super Bowl for free online. And now I'm his least favorite person in the room, easily. The entire first half was spent trying to figure out how in the world we can watch it. He finally finds a website, gets it up and running just in time for the Half Time show, and then after maybe the first down of the second half the site gets shut down. But hey, at least we got to see Fergie and her AMAZING live voice...seriously, she was terrible. My bad, Jared, myyyy bad.

  Last night Jared left the water in the bathroom dripping so that our lines didn't freeze for the 10th time. And at around 2 am when baby Jared was up screaming about something I may have turned the water off after getting him a refill. I didn't realize what I had done until 3am when Russell needed a bottle and there was no water. I turned the pump on (upside to living in a camper) and after I fed him I went back to bed and honestly almost didn't even tell Jared what I did. But I decided it would be easier for him to fix now than call him to come home from work because the lines were frozen and I used up all the water in the tank :) That was sweet of me. So I woke him up, confessed my sin, and he suited up and went outside to try to defrost the lines. Only took him like 25 minutes! I feel bad, don't worry. Anyways, life goes on and next thing I know its like 5:15 and in comes Jared with Wylee right behind him talking about something being wet...

  Her shirt was wet, I assumed sippy cup. Her pants were wet, I realized DIAPER! So I went to go grab her a diaper and clothes when I see Russell is awake too, so I went to grab him and HE'S WET TOO!!! Both of them leaked through their diapers, in a big way. Little annoyances like this aren't that big of a deal when you live in a house, but when you live in a camper....you end up washing blankies in the kitchen sink because you don't have a washing machine. At least Jared hooked the dryer up in the old blue house. I ran out there with two soaking wet blankies at like 6 in the morning, pitch black, no lights in the house. So I guessed the setting on the dryer, started her up and ran back into home sweet camper. Went back out about an hour later when the sun was up and they were FROZEN to the inside of the dryer. Apparently the dryer was spinning, but not heating. So I spent the rest of the day drying them on space heaters in the living room. Why? Because we freakin live in a camper......

To be continued <3

  And just because he's so cute....here's a picture of sweet Russell from this morning.

When you live in a camper...

  Our first OFFICIAL night in the camper was 1.30.2011. Since I didn't decide to start this little blog until today, I need to do a little catching up from day one. Actually, I should probably start with an explanation for WHY we are living in a camper.
  We still have our actual home, don't worry, and while most of you might be asking yourselves "why in the world would they live in a camper", it really is a great idea! Jared is doing out of town work for his company. We have landed in Paris, Tx building some dairy barns (farms? can you BUILD a farm?) for Daisy Brand. You know, the famous sour cream?! Cool, right? Anyways, at first when Jared decided to do some out of town work and this came along it was perfect for us! I was pregnant with Russell (baby #3) and the job was estimated to be done right around the time I would be giving birth. So Jared found a little house in Paris and we got it all set up. I was 7 months pregnant at the time and I think it was a week later when the contractions started super early. Anyways, the job kept being extended and then finally we were told that it would last through the year of 2011. So we decided we needed to find a different place to live and we weighed all of our options. We decided on getting a camper so that at the end of the job its OURS! We can keep it, we can camp in it, we can sell it....we can do whatever we want with it. It has a "bunk house" in the back that has lots of storage space and 3 bunk beds in it. And then it has a nice sized living area and then our room at the front. Most people think we're nuts for deciding to live in a camper but we have our home to back to if we get sick of it, and we PLAN on going home just about every weekend.
  We are now 9 days into it, we're on our 3rd (I think) winter storm, and we are going strong. The day after we moved into it, Jared sent us back to Rockwall. Bad weather was coming and we honestly didn't know how the camper would hold up in the freezing temperatures and he just felt more comfortable with us at home. By Wednesday we were missing him so we decided that before more bad weather hit we would make the trip up to Paris and be with him. I think it was Thursday when the 2nd storm hit. And this is what it looked like from the window of our camper:

  The weather man had said we had 1 MAYBE 2 inches of snow coming. We got like 8. It was crazy. The water lines froze, which resulted in me doing dishes like this:

  Poor Jared worked on the water for HOURS. No matter what we tried we couldn't get the dang things defrosted enough to get city water in this dang camper. So we, Jared, continued to fill the tank with 5 gallon buckets of water. Once everything finally started to defrost on Saturday we were able to get the lines all wrapped up and insulated. We were SURE they would be fine now, right? Winter storm #3 hit this morning, went to go brush and teeth and yeah, no water. UGH. Jared came home, got us all fixed up and now we just have to listen to the bathroom sink running water all day. I'll take it. Here's what it looked like outside our camper window (btw every time I try to type "camper window" my brain goes dead and I type "camper winder"...oh gah I am already turning into a camper stereotype)

  Okay, so that has us all caught up to today. I haven't gone nuts yet, but to be honest, when I added up the days since we first spent the night in the camper I thought it would be a LOT more then 9 days. We are 9/365 of the way done.
  It's funny how your kids start to entertain themselves when you haven't provided them with buckets of toys. I thought I would see how long they would last without toys until they went crazy. Jared ran to Wal-Mart today and brought home some new dishes. We got them out of the box and it was like Christmas around here. That's when I said, "Only when you live in a camper does something like new dishes make small children happy..." Normally, at our "real" house, something like new dishes would only appeal to ME. And had we not been living in a camper and gotten new dishes, my tulips might still have petals on them.

  Instead they were ripped off their stems and are now "dinner". Sure, the kids won't eat salad but give them some tulips and its game on.


High points so far:

1. I'm actually learning to be a more patient mother, I have to be, we live in a CAMPER.
2. We don't have cable or satellite so we are finding better things to do with our time.
3. It's like were camping! If you camp the way my parents and their friends camp. Which I do. Jared doesn't. I'm sure this feeling will fade soon.
4. There is lots of time to read. I just finished New Moon and today I started Eclipse.
5. We are getting our monies worth out of Netflix. More than our monies worth...its only $8 a month.
6. My kids are being extra creative to entertain themselves. Lots of hiding from monsters and ghosts goin on around here.
7. Without buckets of toys, there are no DUMPED buckets of toys. No toys to clean up :)

Low points so far:

1. I can't rinse the shampoo out of my hair before the shower turns cold.
2. EVERYONE can hear you go pee. No matter what room they are in.
3. The kids don't have an actual door to their room, its a big curtain....don't worry, we're fixing that!
4. We had to take showers/baths in an office building over the weekend because we had no water in the camper. AWKWARD.
5. There is literally NO room for crap. Which will also go under "High points".
6. I can't blow dry my hair while the space heaters are going or I flip the breakers.
7. I can't vacuum while the space heaters are going, either.No matter where you go in the camper you aren't really any farther away from everyone than you were before you tried to get away.

  So Highs and Lows are equal as of day 9. We'll see how long that will last as well. Long story short, the space is cramped, tempers are on moderate alert, and the dog and I are on the same cycle. Inapproptiate? Probably, oh well.


To be continued......