Growing up, I had a black and white TV in my bedroom. The screen couldn't have been more than 11 inches from bottom left to upper right, but how cool was I that 3 whole stations, fuzzy and bland as they were, somehow made it to the small box in my bedroom? In the living room, we had a 19 inch set that actually had color. On it, we could watch 5 stations. Three were out of Youngstown, one was out of Cleveland and the last was out of Alliance (PBS).
Sometime when I was 7 or 8, my grandparents had cable turned on at their house. Not only did they have a huge console TV, which was all of about 25 inches diagonally in the glossy wooden cabinet, but we could get upwards of 30 whole channels! Watching TV was a true experience at their house.
Not one to be beaten, the male part of my gene pool called Armstrong and not only signed us up for cable and HBO, but went out and bought a big screen TV for the basement. Life suddenly centered around television - when no one was really watching it, the Weather Channel or CNN replayed constantly. But when someone wanted to see something, we placed bids on the TV in the basement and spent hours waiting for our programs to begin.
Soon, we had a VCR and we had to figure out how to set the time if we wanted to record our shows. The blinking light was no match for a young teen that wanted to see Poltergeist one more time!
In college, I headed to Miami sans TV. I really thought one of my roommates would be bringing a boob-tube but no dice. Not one of the 5 of us had the money nor the parents back home that would afford us outside entertainment. It was the first time in my life I couldn't just flick on the TV when I was bored and at first, I hated it. We all did.
We went through withdrawals and eventually a group of us formed that would go to the movies twice a week just so we could have some mindless entertainment. Schlepping 10 of us across town on the monorail was a feat in and of itself, but once we met up with the group of guys that would inevitably want to come, it was a true miracle anyone got to see the screen.
After a few months, we really didn't need the movies anymore to entertain our ever-overloaded brains and mindless entertainment became passe. The trips across town became an excuse to just hang out and even after moving back home, it was a long time before TV actually interested me again.
Then, on a stormy day in the middle of summer, that all changed.
A few years after Miami, I was hanging out with a friend, one of my former professors from Sussex, who had satellite TV. It was a totally new concept to me and as I sat in her living room in Newton, New Jersey, watching her scroll down hundreds of channels, I was in awe. No VCR was needed to record programs, no more remembering when to turn on a machine to record or having to set the clock every time the power went out so my weekly programs would record. She had something called a "DVR". Light from heaven shined down and angels sang. I made her walk me outside to look at her setup in the raging weather and I memorized everything she told me.
I got in the car and drove as fast as I could to tell my husband and before the end of the day, I had called and put in our order. It was back in the early days when the system was still being developed, back when people still used the term "Tivoed" to mean they recorded something digitally. But we loved it. We'd flop down on the couch and scan all 450 channels (we skipped the 100 that had sports on them) and we'd hit the record button a hundred times in 10 minutes with all the programming we didn't want to miss. It was glorious.
We told everyone about it. You can record without having to program anything! No, there is no blinking clock that needs to be set! Yes - you can watch one channel while recording on another! Oh My! Life was grand. If DirecTv had that offer back then where they give you $100 for each referral, we'd have made some cool cash. We had everyone turned on to it!
But then we realized as our prices rose, it was time to reconsider our options. The cable company was now up-to-speed and we really didn't want Sprint running our internet connection any longer, so after 9 years of DirecTv, we sent back our boxes and went with the cable company. They were good but they weren't as good as satellite. Still, we made do.
Then we moved to Ohio. Armstrong kicked some ass when it came to our DVR. It was on par with the DirecTv system, minus some functions we had come to love. But still, at any given time, you could turn our TV system on and find it 50% full of programs just waiting to be watched. We never missed anything! Mornings at the water cooler talking about last night's shows put us at the top of the TV gossip pile. We had "access" to everything and we loved it!
So when we decided to pull up and move again, it was a big consideration as to whether we were going to go back to satellite, as most RVers do, or if we were going to stick with the cable in the park. It's not bad, the resort cable, now that we have it working well. After all, we get about 40 channels, which include 4 HBO stations. And most of our favorites are on there, Fox News, Food Network, FX, Travel, HGTV, Comedy Central, USA, Discovery and TNT. We're missing Pay-per-View, Syfy and the Military Channel, but we're okay so far without them. (Thank goodness for Redbox!)
However, the one thing we don't have - a DVR.
Life has come to a stand still. Now, it's back to the old days, watching the clock to get to the TV for our favorite shows. Putting them on a calendar to remind us when they are on. Researching their existence on the web to see if we can stream them online.
I've been lucky, GLEE and Swamp People are easily accessible, as are most ABC, NBC and CBS shows. However, not all shows are so open about their broadcasting and easily watched. Kitchen Nightmares, for example, or Dancing With the Stars. Sure, we can see recaps, but no full episodes.
It was a mess last week when the finales of American Idol and Dancing with The Stars was on at the same time. It was an earth-shattering decision to watch one over the other, but the stations made us choose by purposefully scheduling them at the same time!
It's going to happen again when Hell's Kitchen and America's Got Talent are on the same nights starting July 19th. Neither is available online. What are they thinking? Don't they know not everyone in America is digitally savvy? Please don't make us choose! There's too much pressure, I swear!
So it's come down to looking for a way to record as much as we can. We've been back and forth on setting up a computer station at the television. It's one way to go but probably not the most cost-effective and definitely not easily programmable.
We've talked about dipping back into satellite TV, but seeing where people have to put their dishes here, and knowing how expensive it is, it's also not one of our first choices.
Tonight we went back and looked again at TIVO receivers. However, the additional $20 a month for service and the fact that it probably won't work with the cable (that's indirectly DirecTv broadcasting through the clubhouse) that we have here in the park causes us to second-guess ourselves on this plan.
So what's left?
Yep, you guessed it. If we can find one, if there's one out there and usable, we're going to look for a VCR (right after we've sold and given away all 200 of our VHS movies). They're extremely hard to come by, and because of their scarcity, their prices have gone back up. However, we just don't see any other way to handle this dilemma.
Ugh.
Really, I'm okay with the huge tapes and having to remember to rewind them before we re-record the next night's programming. It's doable, the weekly scheduling I'm going to have to remember to do. I'm even okay with the fact that we'll be able to only record one show at a time. However, the one thing that ticks me off the most - someone's going to have to remind me again how to set the clock to get rid of that damn flashing light!
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
A Thousand Miles and oh, I miss my son
Vanessa Carlton came out with a song a few years ago called, "A Thousand Miles". It has the feeling of a love song, but I never heard it that way. I always thought of my son when I heard it. He is, after all, the greatest love of my life and the best gift God ever gave me. It was natural to me to dedicate it to him when I heard it.
He knew how much I loved it and one day when it happened to come on the music channel on the TV, he turned it up so I could hear it. I walked into the room and said, "Oh, I love this song!" With a look of pride on his face, he said, "I know that! That's why I turned it up!"
He doesn't remember that day but I do. And I remember how much it meant to me that he had paid attention and that he had gone out of his way to make me happy, that something as simple as a favorite song of mine had registered with him when he was but 11 or 12.
And tonight, after a brief meltdown on my behalf when I couldn't find him to talk to him when I was really missing him, I was brought back to what I would do to see my child.
No one can understand how much love there is between a mother and her child, the depth of the river of feeling that flows from our hearts into theirs. But as he goes on with his life 1,200 miles away, this song is just as true to me today as it was back then when I originally sang it to him 9 years ago.
After 19 years of hugging and squeezing him, sometimes several times a day if I was lucky, it's been 2 L-O-N-G weeks since I hugged him last and I don't know when I'll get to do it again. I think my heart will never get over that, but every day I know I'd walk all that way just to hug him again.
I love you, honey. And I miss you with all my heart.
"A Thousand Miles"
Making my way downtown
Walking fast
Faces pass
And I'm home bound
Staring blankly ahead
Just making my way
Making a way
Through the crowd
And I need you
And I miss you
And now I wonder....
If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass me by
'Cause you know I'd walk
A thousand miles
If I could
Just see you
Tonight
It's always times like these
When I think of you
And I wonder
If you ever
Think of me
'Cause everything's so wrong
And I don't belong
Living in your
Precious memories
'Cause I need you
And I miss you
And now I wonder....
If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass me by
'Cause you know I'd walk
A thousand miles
If I could
Just see you
Tonight
And I, I
Don't want to let you know
I, I
Drown in your memory
I, I
Don't want to let this go
I, I
Don't....
Making my way downtown
Walking fast
Faces pass
And I'm home bound
Staring blankly ahead
Just making my way
Making a way
Through the crowd
And I still need you
And I still miss you
And now I wonder....
If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass us by
'Cause you know I'd walk
A thousand miles
If I could
Just see you...
If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass me by
'Cause you know I'd walk
A thousand miles
If I could
Just see you
If I could
Just hold you
Tonight
He knew how much I loved it and one day when it happened to come on the music channel on the TV, he turned it up so I could hear it. I walked into the room and said, "Oh, I love this song!" With a look of pride on his face, he said, "I know that! That's why I turned it up!"
He doesn't remember that day but I do. And I remember how much it meant to me that he had paid attention and that he had gone out of his way to make me happy, that something as simple as a favorite song of mine had registered with him when he was but 11 or 12.
And tonight, after a brief meltdown on my behalf when I couldn't find him to talk to him when I was really missing him, I was brought back to what I would do to see my child.
No one can understand how much love there is between a mother and her child, the depth of the river of feeling that flows from our hearts into theirs. But as he goes on with his life 1,200 miles away, this song is just as true to me today as it was back then when I originally sang it to him 9 years ago.
After 19 years of hugging and squeezing him, sometimes several times a day if I was lucky, it's been 2 L-O-N-G weeks since I hugged him last and I don't know when I'll get to do it again. I think my heart will never get over that, but every day I know I'd walk all that way just to hug him again.
I love you, honey. And I miss you with all my heart.
"A Thousand Miles"
Making my way downtown
Walking fast
Faces pass
And I'm home bound
Staring blankly ahead
Just making my way
Making a way
Through the crowd
And I need you
And I miss you
And now I wonder....
If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass me by
'Cause you know I'd walk
A thousand miles
If I could
Just see you
Tonight
It's always times like these
When I think of you
And I wonder
If you ever
Think of me
'Cause everything's so wrong
And I don't belong
Living in your
Precious memories
'Cause I need you
And I miss you
And now I wonder....
If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass me by
'Cause you know I'd walk
A thousand miles
If I could
Just see you
Tonight
And I, I
Don't want to let you know
I, I
Drown in your memory
I, I
Don't want to let this go
I, I
Don't....
Making my way downtown
Walking fast
Faces pass
And I'm home bound
Staring blankly ahead
Just making my way
Making a way
Through the crowd
And I still need you
And I still miss you
And now I wonder....
If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass us by
'Cause you know I'd walk
A thousand miles
If I could
Just see you...
If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass me by
'Cause you know I'd walk
A thousand miles
If I could
Just see you
If I could
Just hold you
Tonight
Friday, May 27, 2011
Campfires and New Friends
It's amazing what campfires do to people.
For those of you who have never been to one, you need to find an excuse and go, or figure out your fire laws where you live and have one in your own backyard. There is nothing so soulfully cleansing and primitive as watching beautiful red and yellow flames gently lick the sides of rough-edged logs. It's mesmerizing.
When you add in the company campfires draw, often times it's the best of both worlds - the internal one, which is somehow hypnotized into a sedated, ancient comfort and the external one, where friendships are often born and nurtured under the starry sky.
Such was the evening tonight.
After "Casual Friday" in the clubhouse, eating Chinese food and playing games with other residents, a woman we met last week upon arriving here invited us to come back to her site to see a camper sofa she and her husband are giving away for free because it's too big for their space. As we stepped with her onto her deck, the group around the campfire, most of whom we've had only met briefly, welcomed us as if we had just walked into Cheers. Before long, we were sitting around the fire pit, laughing at the stories told and spinning some tales of our own.
Of course, Patrick and I have always loved campfires.
He grew up camping in the woods in NJ, and for him, fires weren't just a chance to catch up on the lives of friends, but means by which to cook food, clean utensils, and heat water for their stay on the mountain. With my childhood being spent at a cottage on Berlin, campfires were precious to us because it was only a few times a year my grandfather would go through the motions of building one. But when he did, out came the fruit pie makers and the smores ingredients. You didn't have to ask us twice if we wanted one stoked up. And when a pyre was blazing in the yard, just strides from the rocking dock on the black water, kids would come from throughout the neighborhood to hang out by our fire.
Some of my most precious moments around the campfire, though, have come from last summer and the summer of 2008. When we had the foster kids a few years ago, we had put the RV down the shore in New Jersey and on Patrick's long weekends off, we'd head down, with my husband building a blaze Thursday night which lasted all the way until Sunday morning. Those were extremely fond memories, sitting around that circle with my son, my husband and our foster kids. If I close my eyes, I can still see their young faces reflecting in the flickering glow, and the joy those city kids shared with us at getting back to nature there on that sandy soil.
Last summer, in Ohio, we put the camper at a seasonal spot out by Salem and had the pleasure of spending the summer with Mandy (Fleet) and Rob Mackie and their kids. Most weekends were spent sitting on their site, sticky smores smearing goo everywhere and kids laughing into the night as they got themselves ready for bed. It was a rare occasion that we'd have a fire at our spot because of our location, but even then, it was a pleasant way to relax before turning in.
Campfires are magical. Even without the alcohol often brought to them, they seem to be earthy and simple ways of bonding for humans. It's really amazing how filled your soul is as you walk away from the deep red embers left in the pit, and how good your heart fills at the friendships you've just built upon.
Everyone should attend at least one bonfire or campfire a year with friends. Even if you just roast a marshmallow or spend fifteen minutes staring into the flame, you'll find life never feels so rich as it does when you're disconnected from the world and centered on nothing but the heat of the flame and the hearts and voices of those around you.
Somehow, even without the smores, life is sweeter when your life is blessed by a fire pit and the company of friends.
For those of you who have never been to one, you need to find an excuse and go, or figure out your fire laws where you live and have one in your own backyard. There is nothing so soulfully cleansing and primitive as watching beautiful red and yellow flames gently lick the sides of rough-edged logs. It's mesmerizing.
When you add in the company campfires draw, often times it's the best of both worlds - the internal one, which is somehow hypnotized into a sedated, ancient comfort and the external one, where friendships are often born and nurtured under the starry sky.
Such was the evening tonight.
After "Casual Friday" in the clubhouse, eating Chinese food and playing games with other residents, a woman we met last week upon arriving here invited us to come back to her site to see a camper sofa she and her husband are giving away for free because it's too big for their space. As we stepped with her onto her deck, the group around the campfire, most of whom we've had only met briefly, welcomed us as if we had just walked into Cheers. Before long, we were sitting around the fire pit, laughing at the stories told and spinning some tales of our own.
Of course, Patrick and I have always loved campfires.
He grew up camping in the woods in NJ, and for him, fires weren't just a chance to catch up on the lives of friends, but means by which to cook food, clean utensils, and heat water for their stay on the mountain. With my childhood being spent at a cottage on Berlin, campfires were precious to us because it was only a few times a year my grandfather would go through the motions of building one. But when he did, out came the fruit pie makers and the smores ingredients. You didn't have to ask us twice if we wanted one stoked up. And when a pyre was blazing in the yard, just strides from the rocking dock on the black water, kids would come from throughout the neighborhood to hang out by our fire.
Some of my most precious moments around the campfire, though, have come from last summer and the summer of 2008. When we had the foster kids a few years ago, we had put the RV down the shore in New Jersey and on Patrick's long weekends off, we'd head down, with my husband building a blaze Thursday night which lasted all the way until Sunday morning. Those were extremely fond memories, sitting around that circle with my son, my husband and our foster kids. If I close my eyes, I can still see their young faces reflecting in the flickering glow, and the joy those city kids shared with us at getting back to nature there on that sandy soil.
Last summer, in Ohio, we put the camper at a seasonal spot out by Salem and had the pleasure of spending the summer with Mandy (Fleet) and Rob Mackie and their kids. Most weekends were spent sitting on their site, sticky smores smearing goo everywhere and kids laughing into the night as they got themselves ready for bed. It was a rare occasion that we'd have a fire at our spot because of our location, but even then, it was a pleasant way to relax before turning in.
Campfires are magical. Even without the alcohol often brought to them, they seem to be earthy and simple ways of bonding for humans. It's really amazing how filled your soul is as you walk away from the deep red embers left in the pit, and how good your heart fills at the friendships you've just built upon.
Everyone should attend at least one bonfire or campfire a year with friends. Even if you just roast a marshmallow or spend fifteen minutes staring into the flame, you'll find life never feels so rich as it does when you're disconnected from the world and centered on nothing but the heat of the flame and the hearts and voices of those around you.
Somehow, even without the smores, life is sweeter when your life is blessed by a fire pit and the company of friends.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
288 Square Feet
"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak." - Hans Hofmann, Introduction to the Bootstrap, 1993
In a home, 288 square feet would make a nice sized space. You figure, that's 14 feet by 20 feet, plus some. With a sofa, loveseat, easy chair and a TV and you've got a living room. For a dining room, 8-10 people could be seated comfortably around a long country-style table with a fairly large china closet against a wall.
My first real apartment in Brookchester, over in New Milford, NJ, was 400 square feet and 288 of that would have been 3 full rooms. Still not bad if you're prepared for apartment living in post-war housing.
But then you've got our 288 square feet of internal space. In it, we have a bathroom, 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and we had to forgo the dining space for an office built to fit 2 people and run a business out of. Now granted, if you add the outdoor space under our awning, as most RV people do, there's another 119 feet you don't want to squander. So, that gives us a total of 407 square feet to make a home. In reality, it's actually bigger than my first apartment, because there you weren't allowed to place anything outside, and those extra 7 feet are to be cherished.
"Small rooms or dwellings discipline the mind, large ones weaken it." - Leonardo Da Vinci
So what's it like living in a space so small?
Well, let's make it clear the two humans in this tin box aren't alone. There are fellow travelers that reside with us. In the top bunk in the back bedroom, a 14 lb fuzzy 7-year-old cat makes her home. She's in the top floor condo, enjoying her sky-eye view across the RV. Her gear fills up a lot of her space, but she's made it home and seems to be settled in.
Under her, two canines have taken the lower floor condo (read: bottom bunk). Our big boy, a 70 lb mix who loves his humans a little too much sometimes, shares his residence with his little brother, a 35 lb mix, who has a mind of his own. Together, they sleep on a top-of-the-line baby mattress, with their toys, bones, food and water bowls surrounding them.
Then we have two humans. Patrick and I. We share the rest of the space. Barely. I say that because it's hard to share space that only 1 human/canine/feline can occupy at a time. You see, the RV is quite large inside without all our "stuff". But between 2 big office chairs, the rocking chair that came with the trailer and the island we built that I just had to have, there is a small aisle of about 2 feet that leads from our bedroom at the bow to the bathroom, in the stern. We spend most of the day sliding past the other person in that aisle because what we need is always on the other side of the warm body in our way.
Add to that 3 critters that are always underfoot and you can imagine how tight things are.
But I say that lovingly.
"Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge." - Winston Churchill
After all, small houses bring closeness. There's not much between these walls that takes up as much space as our love for each other, even though pictures would belie that fact. Love for the pets that share our lives. Love for the child that is living 1,173 miles from us and never calls (that's a hint if you're reading this - CALL YOUR MOTHER!) Love for the sunshine outside that gives us a wonderful boost of Vitamin D and a healthy, positive outlook on the future. Or love for the cool air conditioning when that blazing ball of gas in the sky gets to be a bit too much for our delicate, Northern-born skin.
Yes, we have frustrations as we trip over each other or hand things to each other to "hang up", "put away", or "hide". And even sometimes the animals are frustrated with the size of the space, preferring to go back to their "condos" to hide out in the open space the bunks provide for them.
But all in all, as we hang hooks up and down the walls for things we will use (umbrellas, keys, dog leashes, etc.) or as we move the giant, 250 lb island back and forth so we can see the TV or access our bedroom, it all leads us to appreciate the roof over our head even more. And more than anything, it begs us to simplify. It forces us to choose. It makes us live "honestly" and "simply".
It's not a huge space by any American standard, but it's our space. It's our home for the time being, and if it gets too tight in here, we have a lovely lot that gives us another 1500 feet of space to move around in. Of course, depending on our length of time here, there may be gardens in the future and once again, we'll be resigned to following "paths" to the outside areas we plan on accessing.
But as I sit here and look out at the grounds around me, the resorts' fire pit area with it's rustic charm, the flower-laden picnic area and inlet pond to our left, the beautiful blue pool surrounded by towering palms, sea blue umbrellas and crisp white fencing to my right, I realize that no matter how small the inside of this trailer really is, there's a whole world out there calling to us. Inviting us to make it our home, encouraging us to make use of that space. Insisting it's okay to lose ourselves in the room it offers.
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Leonardo DaVinci
And of course, there's that screen room we put on order. It should arrive by next Friday. And not a moment too soon!
In a home, 288 square feet would make a nice sized space. You figure, that's 14 feet by 20 feet, plus some. With a sofa, loveseat, easy chair and a TV and you've got a living room. For a dining room, 8-10 people could be seated comfortably around a long country-style table with a fairly large china closet against a wall.
My first real apartment in Brookchester, over in New Milford, NJ, was 400 square feet and 288 of that would have been 3 full rooms. Still not bad if you're prepared for apartment living in post-war housing.
But then you've got our 288 square feet of internal space. In it, we have a bathroom, 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and we had to forgo the dining space for an office built to fit 2 people and run a business out of. Now granted, if you add the outdoor space under our awning, as most RV people do, there's another 119 feet you don't want to squander. So, that gives us a total of 407 square feet to make a home. In reality, it's actually bigger than my first apartment, because there you weren't allowed to place anything outside, and those extra 7 feet are to be cherished.
"Small rooms or dwellings discipline the mind, large ones weaken it." - Leonardo Da Vinci
So what's it like living in a space so small?
Well, let's make it clear the two humans in this tin box aren't alone. There are fellow travelers that reside with us. In the top bunk in the back bedroom, a 14 lb fuzzy 7-year-old cat makes her home. She's in the top floor condo, enjoying her sky-eye view across the RV. Her gear fills up a lot of her space, but she's made it home and seems to be settled in.
Under her, two canines have taken the lower floor condo (read: bottom bunk). Our big boy, a 70 lb mix who loves his humans a little too much sometimes, shares his residence with his little brother, a 35 lb mix, who has a mind of his own. Together, they sleep on a top-of-the-line baby mattress, with their toys, bones, food and water bowls surrounding them.
Then we have two humans. Patrick and I. We share the rest of the space. Barely. I say that because it's hard to share space that only 1 human/canine/feline can occupy at a time. You see, the RV is quite large inside without all our "stuff". But between 2 big office chairs, the rocking chair that came with the trailer and the island we built that I just had to have, there is a small aisle of about 2 feet that leads from our bedroom at the bow to the bathroom, in the stern. We spend most of the day sliding past the other person in that aisle because what we need is always on the other side of the warm body in our way.
Add to that 3 critters that are always underfoot and you can imagine how tight things are.
But I say that lovingly.
"Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge." - Winston Churchill
After all, small houses bring closeness. There's not much between these walls that takes up as much space as our love for each other, even though pictures would belie that fact. Love for the pets that share our lives. Love for the child that is living 1,173 miles from us and never calls (that's a hint if you're reading this - CALL YOUR MOTHER!) Love for the sunshine outside that gives us a wonderful boost of Vitamin D and a healthy, positive outlook on the future. Or love for the cool air conditioning when that blazing ball of gas in the sky gets to be a bit too much for our delicate, Northern-born skin.
Yes, we have frustrations as we trip over each other or hand things to each other to "hang up", "put away", or "hide". And even sometimes the animals are frustrated with the size of the space, preferring to go back to their "condos" to hide out in the open space the bunks provide for them.
But all in all, as we hang hooks up and down the walls for things we will use (umbrellas, keys, dog leashes, etc.) or as we move the giant, 250 lb island back and forth so we can see the TV or access our bedroom, it all leads us to appreciate the roof over our head even more. And more than anything, it begs us to simplify. It forces us to choose. It makes us live "honestly" and "simply".
It's not a huge space by any American standard, but it's our space. It's our home for the time being, and if it gets too tight in here, we have a lovely lot that gives us another 1500 feet of space to move around in. Of course, depending on our length of time here, there may be gardens in the future and once again, we'll be resigned to following "paths" to the outside areas we plan on accessing.
But as I sit here and look out at the grounds around me, the resorts' fire pit area with it's rustic charm, the flower-laden picnic area and inlet pond to our left, the beautiful blue pool surrounded by towering palms, sea blue umbrellas and crisp white fencing to my right, I realize that no matter how small the inside of this trailer really is, there's a whole world out there calling to us. Inviting us to make it our home, encouraging us to make use of that space. Insisting it's okay to lose ourselves in the room it offers.
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Leonardo DaVinci
And of course, there's that screen room we put on order. It should arrive by next Friday. And not a moment too soon!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
"Do I have too much stuff?"
So let's play a game. This game is called, "Do I have too much stuff?" It only has a few steps, but the guidelines can be a little strict. Here's how it goes:
First, let's go over the rules.
1. You get 60 days to prepare for "Game Day."
2. You can have 1 person go with you on this adventure full-time.
3. A third person can help you up to game day, but for the last battle, they must not be in attendance. (Yes, in your hardest hour, the one where you are exhausted and would give anything to go back in time to before the game started, you must work one-person shy.)
4. You must take all pets with you, regardless on your feelings about your son's snake or your daughter's rabbit, unless your spouse agrees it's ok to give said pets to someone who will love them unconditionally. If you decide to take the pets, remember they will need their own space.
Here are the pieces you're playing with:
You need to get a metal or fiberglass box on wheels, as nice as you can afford with all the amenities you want to invest in, but you can't make it any longer than 30 feet for two people.
Secondly, you can have 1 storage room, but it has to be realistic in size. Let's go 10x10x12.
Next, you can buy as many packing boxes as you want, but you have to give your partner 30% of the total weight allowed in the moving truck for his/her personal stuff that will eventually go into storage. Total amount of all of your stuff together may not weigh more than 7400 pounds and your moving truck cannot be larger than 26 feet.
Now, here's how we play.
When I say, "Go", go through your entire house, garage, current storage units, campers, sheds, etc and look at every single thing you own.
The first time you see everything, you will think all you own has to go. Weigh it and measure it. Weigh each and every piece, marking down it's weight and it's cubic footprint. Realize it's way overweight or takes up too much space in the moving truck, and also that you can't get it in the box you're pulling on wheels behind you. Look at everything all over again with a lump in your throat.
Suddenly, the entire game as changed.
This isn't a game a good percentage of people would want to play. Most wouldn't even attempt it. Especially when you're like us - 40 and coming up on our mid-life crises. But after years of accumulating things, making memories, buying and selling furniture to make your house look just right, the game says you must somehow give it up or give it away.
That's the hardest part, I think. That letting go. Things don't even have to have memories, it just feels like you need it. Like it's part of you somehow.
For example, I had a little tiny piece of wood given to me by my sister when we first moved into the Westview house. She thought it would match my country theme, as it was a piece of thin plywood with an apple cut-out on it, and it, of course, was made in China. (If it had been made here by a fellow crafter, I'm sure it would have meant much much more to me.) When it came time to decide on that piece, I sat for a long moment staring at it. I could remember the exact evening she gave it to me. I remember thinking how nicely it would fit into my thematic home decor and how I proudly displayed it. But did I need it? No. Did it hold a special memory for me? Not really, other than accepting it from my sister. But yet, how could I let it go?
It was the pit in my stomach that caused me to drop the plaque into garage sale box. How was I ever going to get rid of anything, especially the stuff that memories were made from, if I couldn't even find a new home for this little plaque?
It was a hard month. We had to go through everything. From boxes of papers we had accumulated from 1987 and on, to boxes I hadn't unpacked since 1998 when I moved in with Patrick. I had to buy a new shredder for those papers, as I burnt out the first one, and most of the stuff in those old boxes was thrown away. But I can't lie. It was horrible having to pry these memories out of my hands and almost torturous to either throwing the things away or selling them for pennies on the dollar.
But if it wasn't nailed down, it went up for sale. If it wasn't worth at least $5 for someone, it went in the garbage. We threw away over 60 black contractor bags, the really really big ones, full of stuff. That's not to mention all the things we didn't put in bags and set out at the curb for people to take for free.
After a while, I have to admit, I got used to the severing of ties. It actually started to feel good to let go. Before too long, I was ruthless.
Have I used it in 6 months?
No? Throw it away.
Yes? Will I use it again in the next six months?
No? Throw it away.
And so on.
The morning of the big move, Patrick and I were alone. Jaryd had left us the night before to move in with his girlfriend's family. We had wanted to be on the road by 7 AM but as we stood looking out over the 2 car garage still full of stuff, we realized there was no way we were going to make the timeline.
We spent the next 5 hours being extra cut-throat. All these items had either come from the office or had not been packed due to conflicting feelings on their place in our future. By 2 PM, we had another 20 bags of garbage at the curb. I couldn't see through the black bags and I was glad. Would I run out there and try to rescue that red shirt? Would the boxes of folders I threw away guilt me into sneaking them onto the moving truck?
I'm not a hoarder, but my only saving grace was that I couldn't see through those bags.
It was my stuff, our stuff. Stuff we had accumulated together. Memories we had made.
But I think the thing that really encouraged my purging was knowing my son and the fact that he would never, not in a million years, respect the memories I had accumulated. He doesn't have a sentimental bone in his body. I feel bad about that, as I would love to pass down heirlooms to him, but that's just how he is. He has no interest in family history or belongings passed down from departed relatives. I have a big box of photos and nostalgia that will never mean anything to him because he has no interest in it.
And looking at the stuff we were parting with, I realized it was better in someone else's house, making more memories and possibly becoming a loved and cherished heirloom, rather than sitting in storage, waiting until my son would come clean it out, just to sell it off or throw it away later.
So we did what we had to do. And when we reached our storage room, a whopping 1200 cubic feet, with a ceiling soaring 12 foot high over a 100 square foot footprint, Patrick packed what little we had left (which is still quite a lot) as high as he could. You can't open the door unless you're willing to be laid out by a 100 pound queen sized mattress, but he got it all in there.
Now granted, the car is still packed. And I have 2 boxes outside the RV waiting to be unpacked because the bathroom cabinet in the RV is full. Inside the RV, we are still organizing on a daily basis and we are yet finding more and more things to throw away. Just today, Patrick tossed out 6 or 7 t-shirts he first felt he should store in case he needed them. That wouldn't have been so bad, but I realized they were stained, torn, bleached, you name it. They were cruddy work shirts he was willing to put into deep storage. Even he has the "stuff" disease.
It's in all of us. Stuff. We need stuff.
Only we don't. Not like we all think we do.
This is our experiment in how to get along without stuff. Keep coming back and find out how we're doing. Who knows? You might want to try living large while living small, too.
First, let's go over the rules.
1. You get 60 days to prepare for "Game Day."
2. You can have 1 person go with you on this adventure full-time.
3. A third person can help you up to game day, but for the last battle, they must not be in attendance. (Yes, in your hardest hour, the one where you are exhausted and would give anything to go back in time to before the game started, you must work one-person shy.)
4. You must take all pets with you, regardless on your feelings about your son's snake or your daughter's rabbit, unless your spouse agrees it's ok to give said pets to someone who will love them unconditionally. If you decide to take the pets, remember they will need their own space.
Here are the pieces you're playing with:
You need to get a metal or fiberglass box on wheels, as nice as you can afford with all the amenities you want to invest in, but you can't make it any longer than 30 feet for two people.
Secondly, you can have 1 storage room, but it has to be realistic in size. Let's go 10x10x12.
Next, you can buy as many packing boxes as you want, but you have to give your partner 30% of the total weight allowed in the moving truck for his/her personal stuff that will eventually go into storage. Total amount of all of your stuff together may not weigh more than 7400 pounds and your moving truck cannot be larger than 26 feet.
Now, here's how we play.
When I say, "Go", go through your entire house, garage, current storage units, campers, sheds, etc and look at every single thing you own.
The first time you see everything, you will think all you own has to go. Weigh it and measure it. Weigh each and every piece, marking down it's weight and it's cubic footprint. Realize it's way overweight or takes up too much space in the moving truck, and also that you can't get it in the box you're pulling on wheels behind you. Look at everything all over again with a lump in your throat.
Suddenly, the entire game as changed.
This isn't a game a good percentage of people would want to play. Most wouldn't even attempt it. Especially when you're like us - 40 and coming up on our mid-life crises. But after years of accumulating things, making memories, buying and selling furniture to make your house look just right, the game says you must somehow give it up or give it away.
That's the hardest part, I think. That letting go. Things don't even have to have memories, it just feels like you need it. Like it's part of you somehow.
For example, I had a little tiny piece of wood given to me by my sister when we first moved into the Westview house. She thought it would match my country theme, as it was a piece of thin plywood with an apple cut-out on it, and it, of course, was made in China. (If it had been made here by a fellow crafter, I'm sure it would have meant much much more to me.) When it came time to decide on that piece, I sat for a long moment staring at it. I could remember the exact evening she gave it to me. I remember thinking how nicely it would fit into my thematic home decor and how I proudly displayed it. But did I need it? No. Did it hold a special memory for me? Not really, other than accepting it from my sister. But yet, how could I let it go?
It was the pit in my stomach that caused me to drop the plaque into garage sale box. How was I ever going to get rid of anything, especially the stuff that memories were made from, if I couldn't even find a new home for this little plaque?
It was a hard month. We had to go through everything. From boxes of papers we had accumulated from 1987 and on, to boxes I hadn't unpacked since 1998 when I moved in with Patrick. I had to buy a new shredder for those papers, as I burnt out the first one, and most of the stuff in those old boxes was thrown away. But I can't lie. It was horrible having to pry these memories out of my hands and almost torturous to either throwing the things away or selling them for pennies on the dollar.
But if it wasn't nailed down, it went up for sale. If it wasn't worth at least $5 for someone, it went in the garbage. We threw away over 60 black contractor bags, the really really big ones, full of stuff. That's not to mention all the things we didn't put in bags and set out at the curb for people to take for free.
After a while, I have to admit, I got used to the severing of ties. It actually started to feel good to let go. Before too long, I was ruthless.
Have I used it in 6 months?
No? Throw it away.
Yes? Will I use it again in the next six months?
No? Throw it away.
And so on.
The morning of the big move, Patrick and I were alone. Jaryd had left us the night before to move in with his girlfriend's family. We had wanted to be on the road by 7 AM but as we stood looking out over the 2 car garage still full of stuff, we realized there was no way we were going to make the timeline.
We spent the next 5 hours being extra cut-throat. All these items had either come from the office or had not been packed due to conflicting feelings on their place in our future. By 2 PM, we had another 20 bags of garbage at the curb. I couldn't see through the black bags and I was glad. Would I run out there and try to rescue that red shirt? Would the boxes of folders I threw away guilt me into sneaking them onto the moving truck?
I'm not a hoarder, but my only saving grace was that I couldn't see through those bags.
It was my stuff, our stuff. Stuff we had accumulated together. Memories we had made.
But I think the thing that really encouraged my purging was knowing my son and the fact that he would never, not in a million years, respect the memories I had accumulated. He doesn't have a sentimental bone in his body. I feel bad about that, as I would love to pass down heirlooms to him, but that's just how he is. He has no interest in family history or belongings passed down from departed relatives. I have a big box of photos and nostalgia that will never mean anything to him because he has no interest in it.
And looking at the stuff we were parting with, I realized it was better in someone else's house, making more memories and possibly becoming a loved and cherished heirloom, rather than sitting in storage, waiting until my son would come clean it out, just to sell it off or throw it away later.
So we did what we had to do. And when we reached our storage room, a whopping 1200 cubic feet, with a ceiling soaring 12 foot high over a 100 square foot footprint, Patrick packed what little we had left (which is still quite a lot) as high as he could. You can't open the door unless you're willing to be laid out by a 100 pound queen sized mattress, but he got it all in there.
Now granted, the car is still packed. And I have 2 boxes outside the RV waiting to be unpacked because the bathroom cabinet in the RV is full. Inside the RV, we are still organizing on a daily basis and we are yet finding more and more things to throw away. Just today, Patrick tossed out 6 or 7 t-shirts he first felt he should store in case he needed them. That wouldn't have been so bad, but I realized they were stained, torn, bleached, you name it. They were cruddy work shirts he was willing to put into deep storage. Even he has the "stuff" disease.
It's in all of us. Stuff. We need stuff.
Only we don't. Not like we all think we do.
This is our experiment in how to get along without stuff. Keep coming back and find out how we're doing. Who knows? You might want to try living large while living small, too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)