The decision to stay.

So this month will mark the 90 day anniversary of our move to Florida. For the first two months, I will admit I couldn't relax. I just kept thinking some huge cosmic rubber band was going to snap us back up north against our will. But my husband convinced me that our future is up to us. It's our decision where we end up and how we do when we get there.

So after much discussion, we decided to really put down some roots here. And by roots, I mean deck legs. Yes, we are building a deck. Well, no, we aren't. OMG. It's 100 freaking degrees out there! I mean, we are paying to have a deck built. One of the guys in the park works with another of the guys here and they build decks for the full-timers.

So this will make it official. Well, as official as it gets, I guess. I mean, when we do eventually leave, we can't take the deck with us. We'll have to "give" it to the resort like the one in Ohio that we bought used and already on-site at the campground there. But in the meantime, if you spread the payment out over 12 months, it's literally cheaper than the total monthly cost of Patrick's Dunkin Donut runs. How could we not add 128 square feet of living space?

It's going up over the patio area so we'll be forsaking a wonderful piece of concrete. But it will add a whole bunch of extra space for the dogs and I plan on buying some screen panels and hanging them from the awning so we'll finally be able to eat outside without being eaten alive ourselves!


After all, that is also where I cook every night.

Now, yes, for those of you who have never seen our humble abode, we do have a full kitchen setup inside. However, as any of you who have lived in smaller homes/apartments know, whatever you cook can and will smell up your entire house for days, especially if the rooms are open to each other. Well, in our home, every room but the bathroom is open to the  main area and I'd really appreciate it if my clothes didn't smell like frying fish, baking clams or even the occasional splurge of garlic-laden homemade red sauce. 

So some reconsideration of our set up was necessary if we were going to do live this lifestyle long-term.

First, we took the two old grills to metal recycling and bought a new smaller grill for 2 people (Bonus for the future: it's easy enough and tiny enough to get on a condo patio without paying movers to help). It's a pretty nice model that has enough room for 6-8 half pound hamburgers, which is still more than we would need, but it's got a great compact footprint, especially with the sides down.

It's only about 2x2 and it's fairly no frills, but it does have a really nice ceramic coated inside and it seems to cook very well. But will it hold up? We're notoriously hard on our grills, going through a gas grill every two seasons since we even grill throughout the winter months. Our longest lasting grill was the stainless steel Jenn Air Patrick bought with his first bonus check from BAE, and that lasted us 8 years. But not without all 3 burners dying on us and the starter going fairly early on.

So the BBQ is taken care of. We could grill meats and crisp up corn and potatoes, but what about pasta and sauce? Or frying anything? Our only other modes of cooking are in the microwave or in the toaster/convection oven combo inside. Back to the drawing board.

And that's how we got to investing a small bit into this new diddy:

She's a beaut, ain't she? I named her Sally the Stove. (I don't know why, she just looks like a Sally to me.) We had been eyeing her since we decided to do this trip and then when Patrick started working, we took the plunge and brought her home. Well, really, FedEx was kind enough to deliver her to us from her previous home at Amazon, but you get the picture.

She's got 2 burners, 30,000 BTU's each (your home stove is lucky if it's got 10,000 BTU burners on it as most are 5,000 and 7,500), so of course that means no teflon-coated pots lest we die from poisoning as it melts off the aluminum. (Did I mention I can boil 5 quarts of water in just under 3 minutes on her?)

Nope, everything has to go to cast iron or copper clad. Being that the cost of copper is outrageous and cast iron will last long enough to eventually be willed to my grandkids, we decided to go with the cheaper and longer lasting of the two.

So that then meant I had to add a few pieces to my already established collection of Lodge cast iron cookware. (Do you see where this is going? Have you caught on yet?)

Let me just state this before we go any further:

I LOVE LODGE COOKWARE.

If you've eaten at my house, you've probably been fed from my gorgeous rooster-red ceramic coated dutch oven. It is the bomb! Everything I've ever made in it comes out perfect each time. I can't tell you how much I love this piece!

From a whole 8lb 30 clove garlic chicken to enough Di Russo's sausage links to feed 30 people at 2010's Christmas Dinner, plus all the green peppers, onions and mushrooms it could hold, this baby is one beautiful and solidly build work horse that goes from the stove to the oven and back again with no issue.

All in a striking red paint job. Brilliant!

However, she's currently packed away  and buried in an unmarked and inaccessible box in the storage room. ACK!

So I had to head to Walmart and find something to replace her when we first came down here and were cooking right on the grates of the old grills. We picked up a 6" skillet, a grill pan and another 5 qt dutch oven. I figured that's a good start.

But I just felt with this new stove, there were still a few pieces missing. I searched online to see what else would make me a gourmet full-timing chef and I came across a griddle and this nifty combination of dutch oven base (that I'm going to use for making pasta and sauce in since it has a nice rounded bottom) and lid that doubles as a 10" skillet.

 

Now we're talking...

But how did this lead to the deck, you ask? 

Well, have you ever carried cast iron cookware? It's heavy. With food in it, it's freaking heavy!

So the way things were set up, we had the grill and the stove on the patio, which was down the 3 precarious shifty metal steps of our rig. Carrying food in and out meant having to brave a trip up and down this staircase that rocks like one of those carnival fun-house get-ups. Add to that a 20 lb pot of steaming hot liquidy food and you've got yourself a definite recipe for disaster.

So we opted to have the deck built.

Now all I will have to do at dinner time is step directly out the door onto a nice level surface, with my stove and my grill not but 5 feet away. No steps, no traversing concrete, no extra danger of scalding myself as I try to climb back up 3 wobbly stairs with 20 pounds of food and cookware in my hands. 

And it gives us somewhere to put the picnic table, a few of the wrought iron chairs we got from Craigslist, and second best of all, it gives the dogs somewhere to go outside where they will be safely confined so they can watch the world around them instead of staring at me blankly all day, stuck inside.

And if all else fails, while we're still here, it will double as a very weighted place to tie down all our outside stuff during the hurricanes...

Because if you know me at all, you know that's the main reason I signed on to have it built in the first place.  ;)

Did you know celery has fat in it?

What kind of crap is that? Richard Simmons used to say that veggies were free foods, you could eat as many as you wanted and they didn't count. So we did! Who knew we were still "chewing the fat"?

So why do I care about celery, you ask. Well, I care because the health insurance companies keep telling me that I'm not in their range for coverage because my Body Fat Index isn't less than 24%. What? Really?

Ok, let me start again. I jump in too fast. Sometimes I'm bad that way. Oh, and this is going to be short because that's just how I feel today.

Here's the generally accepted chart.

Body Fat Percentage Categories
Classification	Women (% fat)	Men (% fat)
Essential Fat	10-12%	2-4%
Athletes	14-20%	6-13%
Fitness	21-24%	14-17%
Acceptable	25-31%	18-25%
Obese	32%+	25%+

I am in the "acceptable" category. Firmly in the acceptable category. But based on my weight and my height, my BMI is too high. Which makes my Body Fat index too high for coverage.

If they'd accept me at all, some companies want to charge me an additional $1,000 a month to offset the fact that I'm not below 24%. So, if paying an extra $1,000 a month is Plan A, we're moving onto Plan B.

Get below 24%.

I don't have far to go. Like I said, I'm firmly in the "Acceptable" range. But some lifestyle changes are going to be necessary.

For example, we're buying bicycles. We've been looking at some basic models from Walmart since we don't want to spend a lot of money right now. I think it's come down to a few retro style cruisers with wide, whitewall tires so we can ride around the resort after the sun goes down at night, and plus they'll work well out on Honeymoon Island on the sandy bike trails.

We're also changing our diets up a bit. I'm doing protein shakes and veggies during the day with a protein and veggie for dinner. Patrick is allowing me to change his diet a bit, too, and cut out the extra foods that are holding us where we are. Dinners out are also going away. Can't keep track of what's in the sauces or the dressings, so it's better just to grill it up here at home.

I've even got my food journal and my measurement journal all ready to go, so Mondays I can pull out that measuring tape and see my progress once I pop the numbers into the excel spreadsheet I downloaded. My handy dandy charts and graphs will hopefully keep my spirits up as I see the numbers go down. If not, I'm going to stick a big blowup copy of a  $1,000 bill above my desk here and stare at it until I'm too depressed to eat. One way or another, we're going to get below that 24%. Oh yes we are.

Now where did I hide that body double?

Changes, alterations and modifications

I know, I know, it's been two weeks since my last confession. I just haven't had time to have a deep thought or even a funny one! Time has sped up to lunacy speed this month and I can't keep track of where I'm going from one minute to the next. So many things have gone on, so much needs to be done on a daily basis. It's almost impossible to keep up with the different schedule now.

However, the one thing that has been constant since we arrived here, heck, even since way back in September of 2009, is change.

Most of you know that story. Man has a good job in a defense company. Democrat (socialist) gets elected to office. Democrat cuts all defense spending and man loses good job. Hence, man's family is put into a tailspin with their lives and 22 months later, here we are now.

3 moves in 2 years. Buy stuff, sell stuff. 4 different cars in 10 months. And now our 3-person group is split across 1200 miles.

It's been a challenge to keep going. The phone doesn't ring often enough. No calls from Jaryd upsets me, and no calls from hiring managers upsets Patrick. Together, we sit and stare at the phones most of the day willing them to ring. (Note: He's winning. Jaryd, CALL YOUR MOTHER.)

But one thing that's for certain is that our marriage is under a deep amount of testing every day. If you think it's hard to live with someone in 1200 square feet or more (I know some of you have huge houses), imagine being locked into one room of your house with your spouse for 31 days. We spend 24 hours each day together in a space the size of a middle bedroom. Sure, we can go outside if we want, but mostly we're attached at the hip. The only real time we've had away from each other is doing hygiene rituals, where it's just not feasible to fit two people together in a room that small.

But we're doing ok. In 31 days, we've had 2 fights, neither too serious, both over within an hour or so with no lasting implications. Our most common bone of contention comes with the discussion of "inside" versus "outside".

You see, it's summer in Florida. Which means it's hot. Not Palm Springs or Death Valley hot. But days are 90-95, and now with the humidity, the heat index is around 100-105 each day. Nothing we can't handle from a past of humid, stagnant Ohio summers or summers in New Jersey, where for a few weeks, barely a breeze would blow by in the 97 degree heat. But I really thought Patrick would have a problem with it, and our staying here depended on his acceptance of these 3.5 months of continual, no-relief-in-sight heat.

Comes to be that he loves it! I don't mean he can deal with it as we walk the dogs or go to the clubhouse to play some pool. I mean, LOVES it. He wants to sit in it, "bathe" in it, relax in it, spend his hours in it. And he wants me to join him.

I, on the other hand, am totally for air conditioning. Ok, fine, our system isn't the best in the RV as it's 81 in here most days with 2 humans, 2 dogs, a cat and 2 computers on; it's still 15 degree warmer when you step outside. I'm sorry, I like it "cool". Ok, I'm not sorry - I just like it cool!

So most days, it's a tug-o-war to see who's going to win. He's resorted to tricks, like, let's go for  ride (in the air conditioning) and then he gets me to a shoreline somewhere and makes me get out of the car to walk it with him. Or, he'll put down the windows while we're driving so there is a heated furnace blast blowing in from the asphalt at us.

Now granted, he does have reason for this. Whatever struck him at the Westview house has completely changed how he has to live. Cold, chilly weather caused his body to lock up and during the Ohio winters, it was impossible for him to get out of bed in the mornings due to horrible pain and stiffness. He would drain the hot water tank while taking a shower upon dragging himself in there just to unlock his joints. Here, when he gets up, he's moving. And he's moving good. After a little while outside, he's like his old self and working as a well-oiled machine. I can't believe the difference.

He's also anxious to go walking - not only around the park but to places where you have to walk all day, Epcot, Sea World, Cape Canaveral. It brings back a memory of last year when we went to Colonial Williamsburg on a weekend where it was 96 degrees every day and he jogged around that place like it was nothing. It's amazing the change in him.

It's just one of many modifications that have been made since we've been here. There's been others, like  when I had him take out the curtain rod in the shower and put in an extender rod in there. Please, people, if you have an RV with a regular shower using a curtain rod, you have to invest in one of these:

Extendable shower rod

It is the best thing on the market. We put a PEVA shower curtain in there so there wasn't any hard vinyl corners and this thing makes showering a pleasure. Even if you just have a small shower at home, go find yourself one. I can't tell you how great it is. (And then, when you're doing laundry and you need a place to hang stuff, it folds into the shower so you can drip dry your unmentionables. Awesome!)

Another thing we've changed is how we store things. I've always loved Command hooks, but we have become vertical storage commandos with those things. Just sitting here right now, I can see 20+ things around me hanging on the walls, held up inconspicuously by Command products.

We've even modified the stuff we eat. Without any way to boil water or use a frying pan, as I refuse to use the stove inside the RV, we are living carb-free for the most part. No pastas, large loaves of Italian breads, or fried foods. None of that stuff. We're grilled meat and veggies most days, with 2 days a week saved for fish. I walked in front a full-length mirror yesterday for the first time in a month and was amazed at what I saw in changes to my body. In Patrick's case, I've been wolf-calling at him this whole time as I can see him slimming down right in front of me but I didn't realize I, too, was being altered by our new healthier and lighter diet.

It wasn't fully unintentional. I did want to lose weight and slim down, as I have a delightful blue and white polka-dotted bathing suit of my grandmother's, in a true rock-a-billy style, that I want to fit into. It's from the forties, maybe fifties, and the look of this piece is absolutely darling. It's in immaculate shape, I don't know that it's ever been worn; but if you knew my grandmother, you'd know she was 4'11" and at her heaviest, a size 14. That's a foot shorter than me and she weighed half of what I do. There's no tag on it, so I can't tell it's size, but it is much smaller than the clothes I currently wear. So I do have a way to go; I have that bathing suit hanging at the foot of the bed on the wall, so I can see it when I wake up, when I'm cooking and when I go to bed. It's going to encourage me to alter myself in this process.

So that's what's been going on and where I've been. Nothing too exciting has happened, but all-in-all, we're still glad to have made the move and are enjoying our location. Please pray, if you get a second, that some work comes through and then we'll be fine. It's the last major change we need to happen (other than maybe convincing Jaryd and Nori to go to school in Florida!).

Until next time...May all the changes in your life be positive, happy and healthy ones! God bless.

I'm with Stupid

First and foremost, please let's get it straight that I'm not referring to Patrick.

No, I'm actually referring to the mutt that I have been assigned to walk every day.

We have two mutts right now but one of them has to be the most stubborn, hard-headed, focus-challenged dog I've ever owned.

For those of you who know my dogs, I'm talking about Toby Joe.

For those that don't, please know he is a sweetheart. Don't let me give you the wrong idea about the dog, but thank God he has that saving grace because otherwise he and I would be having much stronger issues.

I do want to set up this scenario properly. We have always had a fenced yard. From the moment we brought Toby home in October of 2008, he has only had to "go" on a leash for about the first 2 weeks when we still had the camper down the shore. Otherwise, we had merely to open the back door and let him outside into our fenced mountainside, where he seemed to know just what to do. Even our pet-sitter in Vernon was impressed how easily he learned from our older dogs to go outside, do his business and come right back in.

The Westview house had a nice flat, fenced backyard that the dogs loved and once again, in and out, no problems. Valley View was only a 30 by 6 foot fenced run, but he was quick and disciplined. Out and back in within 3 minutes.

So why would we think we'd have a problem with him when we had to put a leash on him? After all, we've had him for just shy of 3 years, and he has been very good about going about his business then coming right back in when we've let him out.

But I should have known there was going to be a problem when after riding 4 or 5 hours in the truck on the way down here, Patrick couldn't convince Toby to follow Diesel's lead and mark the trees when we stopped for a break. It took a good 12 to 13 hours before he'd relieve himself, usually where we had stopped to overnight.

The second clue I should have had was that he's part Beagle, which makes his first interest "prey". We couldn't have a bird, squirrel or rabbit in the yard without his shrieking yelp announcing the invasion from his view inside the house. It didn't matter the time of day or night, he'd let us know there was a "visitor" outside and made sure the rest of the neighborhood knew it, too.

So is it really any wonder I find myself so flabbergasted with getting this dog to focus on relieving himself as we walk through the resort?

To my husband's credit and at his insistence, we were taking them down to the dog park twice a day, where, after running 10 laps around the huge fenced in area, Toby would promptly do number one and number two on each visit. However, we moved across the resort from the dog area, to where the walk in the heat is too much for me with my asthma; and on top of it, they were having diarrhea while using it, which made me nervous about worms. So much did the worm issue bother me that I'd have both Patrick and I studying the poo very closely before picking it up. I still wonder how that looked to the folks who had sites around the dog park and were watching these two transplants squatting on the ground, staring at excrement in the 90 degree heat. Idiots with a poo fascination, I guess. (I still look, but we walk them where there aren't any sites now, so I feel a bit more casual about examining the poo for parasites.)

But at any rate, last week, when we moved over here, he didn't go for 24 hours at a time as he was strapped to a leash and unsure of how to act. Diesel didn't seem to have much issue at all, and once I started carrying treats with us to try to help with training, Diesel has since learned to pee on every tree he comes across, then he stares at me expectantly, waiting for me to reward his leg-lifting endeavors. Toby, on the other hand, who is usually my food-obsessed pooch, couldn't care less about the treats.

Instead, he's completely, wholeheartedly, decisively focused on every squirrel, duck and bird that happens to be in the field behind the pond. He chirps at the door in the morning and early evening, seeming to want to be let out to lighten his load; but instead, all he cares about are the animals around us. As he pulls me violently across the green grass to the treed area where we take them, you would think his urgency had to do with internal pressure. Instead, he gets to where we're going and then acts as any good hunting dog would. He stands there. Rock solid. Feet planted. Muscles taut. Eyes glued to each and every movement happening around us. And no amount of my pleading, encouragement or demanding can take his focus off the animals he is stalking.

I can't convince him with food. I can't bully him with commands. I can't even lure him with the smell of Diesel's markings. No. There is nothing that can interfere with his unwavering dedication to hunting the critters around us.

So today I started chiding him about his intelligence. Patrick even suggested I get a shirt that reads, "I'm with Stupid". And it was all fun and jokes until my husband then says, "Here, if I take him and he goes, will you pick it up?" Okay, uh, sure.

Patrick puffs out his chest, pulls back his shoulders, hands me the leash of the big dog and then grabs Toby's leash out of my hands. As I stand there with Diesel, I watch as my husband trugs along with the 35-lb Beagle dragging along behind him, like a stilted, cardboard cutout. Nothing he tried worked either. Then as if to solidify our incompetence as Beagle trainers, a squirrel ran up the tree in front of us and sat right over us on the towering branches, with Toby's eyes glued to it like his life depended on it.

As we stared up into the tree at the gray rodent that seemed to be mocking us and our difficult dog, we realized we needed a new strategy. Although he's extremely easy to train when it comes to tricks, he's absolutely horrible on the leash. His focus is completely off us, especially when we come across another animal, whether it be a woodland creature or another dog, and his screeching and screaming at their presence is hugely annoying, to say the least.

So the first thing we did when we arrived back at the RV was look up training collars. We're ratcheting up our efforts a bit and we're taking things to a new level. Somehow we need to break the bad habits and then, when he's ready to accept the positive rewards (treats), begin again with the leash training.

It worked with Spark. It worked with Jaz. It works every day with Diesel...with him, you just snap that collar on him and with a beep, he's a different dog. So how will Toby react?

I'm not sure any dog can beat Diesel's reaction the first time he was buzzed (if you've got some time, remind me to tell that story!) I still almost pee myself with laughter when I remember his first time and as much as I don't want to come off callous and mean, it's quite impressive how the training collars get their attention.

I just don't know what else to do with Toby and we're pretty much out of options. If he won't go, he can physically hurt himself and possibly need a vet visit. On top of that, I best not come back to the RV to find he's gone inside.

So until I can get him a collar and a remote, we're going to use Diesel's to begin to train him. We'll see how long it takes until we get his attention and his focus is back on the pack alphas and their commands again.

And I hope it works quickly...For Patrick's sake, I'd hate to have to order that t-shirt.

A Break in the Weather

My sister Kerrie texted me yesterday and asked how we were doing. The conversation was going along fine and I updated her of our site move, since the last time I had talked to her was the day after we arrived here 2 weeks ago.

It wasn't until I said that we had moved 50 feet from the pool before she stopped writing back.

I had told her before I didn't want to talk about the weather or about where we were, as I'd like to keep talking to her in the future. What I meant by that was, I don't want her to ask me about the weather or our activities and then get upset or jealous when I give her an answer.

Before moving down here, I watched some folks I know posting things on social media sites just to get a jab in at those in the colder weather. One of those cold weather people was me, and it drove me nuts. It didn't make me jealous, but it did give me the push I needed to make a drastic change in my life and go somewhere I considered to be paradise. So I was ok with it, working a grin-and-bear-it attitude through the cold, wet Ohio spring. Some folks weren't, though.

So I wasn't surprised when Kerrie stopped texting me. She is stuck in the humid mid-west, 90 minutes from Lake Erie and hours from the east coast shoreline; the closest thing she has to water to swim in is a teeny pool her friend owns over by Nana's old house. I knew this and I tried to answer her questions as ambiguously as possible so there weren't any hurt feelings, however, I'm not sure I succeeded.

There are somethings in life that I have done that people are in awe of. Not huge inspiring things, like winning the Nobel Peace prize or climbing Everest, but out-of-my-mind crazy things, like driving to Miami to go to school when I was 18, or leaving Ohio with a 2 year-old little boy and heading to New Jersey to make a new life for myself. Our recent move to Florida to live in an RV seems to be one of those things people keep gawking at me over, like the others in my past.

I've heard:

"Wow, I wish I could just up and leave everything to start someplace new! You are so brave!"

"You are doing something I always wished I had the guts to do!"

"You're living my dream. I just want to walk away from everything here (Ohio) and move to Florida with you."


I have looked them right back in the face and said, "You CAN do it! Just make the choice, stick to your decision and make it happen!"

Then their faces cloud over and a slew of excuses comes tumbling out.

"I can't. My mother is sick and someone needs to look after her."

"I wish I could, but I own a farm and I can't get rid of it in this market!"

"Oh, I'd never have the guts for that! It's better left for people like you!"

From owning businesses to kids still in school to spouses with jobs they just can't give up, all the excuses are there.

But we no longer had an excuse. My job is portable (thank you to my very understanding clients!!!) and Patrick's occupational skill set can take him just about anywhere there are people, so we didn't have any reason to stay.

Well, not in the "excuse" sense anyway.

Some people have asked me about missing my family. I lived 15 years in New Jersey and they only came to visit 2 or 3 times in that entire time span. Some never came to visit at all even though they were within an hour or two of us. And even when I moved back to Ohio, cousins I saw maybe once a year. My own sisters lived 1.75 miles from me and I saw them at my house about 2 or 3 times in the last 13 months. It was evident time and the lack of distance wasn't going to bring us closer together.


Others have asked me about again leaving friends from where I grew up. Same scenario. Until facebook came around, I didn't even have contact with most of them. Had to build me a whole new set a mere six hours away from where I was raised. Weirdly enough, to this day, it's the New Jersey set that I still usually talk to the most.

So yes, I will miss my family and the few friends we spent time with, but I couldn't let them become my "excuse" to not move on with my life. I love each and every one of them, but in all honesty, I love myself, too.

Most of the moves in my life have come down to the weather. I can't do gray. I can't do shades of gray. I can't do white, either (unless it's white sandy beaches against sparkling blue water!) When fall would come, a sadness would overtake me that destroyed my soul. I put up with it a good long while, but it finally became too painful to endure. I wasn't rebounding in spring and that worried me. When I wasn't finding any joy by summer, I knew I had to do something.

It wasn't until Patrick started to react the same way that I finally knew we could go, but together, we made the decision that we had to follow the sun, no matter whether it took us - south or southwest - we had to go where it was.

And now, when people ask me what the weather is like, I can't answer them. Come November and December, and further into winter, when someone wants to know if we're enjoying the warm weather, I can't say. And I won't. Because our move wasn't the right one for everyone. They might want it to be the right one, but the timing has to be right, as does the "weather" they are going through when they finally make the decision.

And so what's the weather like in Tampa today?

Well, as I type this, there is a steady rain tapping at the roof and the light coming in the windows is dim. Thunderstorms rolled across the peninsula today and we saw some awesome lightening bolts come down from the heavens right before the air and ground shook with maximum ferocity. It was a wonderfully rainy day, 20 degrees cooler than it has been, with bruised, rolling clouds dominating the skies. As we move from a steady tap to what is now monsooning swaths of water pouring down on us, we've taken to loving every minute of it.

I guess that's what happens when almost every waking day is 90 and sunny, with a slight salty ocean breeze coming in off the water...you can finally appreciate the gray skies.

Now who's watching the hurricane forecast again?

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.

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!