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......