Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas!

This is our first holiday in Ruff Road.  It was almost one year ago that this dream began.  My Facebook timehop popped up with One Year Ago today…my friend and I were taking pictures of RVs at a local dealership.  This time last year, we had no idea we would be “looking at freedom” everyday.  So here are our tweaks, tips, and trials at Month 5, as well as some general observations.

General Observations:

• It’s cold even in Florida, but Ruff Road has stayed warm and cozy.  Temps were chilly, but not freezing.  Stay tuned for Month 6 reflection to see how we’ll do in much chillier weather.  However, so far so good.
• When you retire, you don’t have to be the one to cook and host.  We enjoyed going up to the big house and eating our Thanksgiving feast with my daughter and her family.
• This leads me to another observation.  We love being with family.  What a difference it makes when the cloud of a stressful job is not hanging over your head and you can enjoy your family mornings, middays or afternoons.  This is something that was difficult for us to find time to do in our past life.  We know not everyone reading this is retired.  We were there.  My advice that I tried to follow while I was working was to work towards a work/ home balance.  It was an ongoing goal.  Sometimes I was really good at it and sometimes work just took over.  However, as long as you set it as a goal, your chance of success are higher than if you don’t.

• Christmas with the family in St. Augustine, Florida
• One more observation, a retirement bonus that I noticed.  Christmas shopping and events were so freeing because I didn’t have the work load I did in past years.  My budget was smaller-retirement budget-but we all still had a great Christmas and I loved looking at freedom this time of year.

Tips:

• Make a plan to balance work and home.  Hang in there and know that the day will come when you can look at freedom everyday.
• Need space?  Rethink it.  Even though we feel like we have ample room here, the use of space needed to be improved.  I was using the table for an office but that meant it was always cluttered with the computer and papers.  We were also busy digitizing home videos (part of our downsizing process) and the video and second computer were always on our limited counter space along with copied and to copy VHS tapes.  Clutter, everywhere!  We also observed that the passenger chair, when turned around toward the living room served mostly as a catch all as you came through the door- ugh, more clutter.  What was our solution?  We have a very roomy cab area.  There is a small table next to the passenger chair and the dashboard area is quite large.  I already had office supplies and photography equipment stored there, so…naturally this became our office.  We left the passenger chair turned forward and the space is quite roomy to work in.  We were also able to gain some room by moving one of the dog crates to right behind the passenger chair giving a more closed off look to the space.  We like it.  Expect that tweaking space and rearranging will be the norm when you begin RV living.
• Protect your RV floors.  We made a huge mistake when we moved in.  We were leaving behind ceramic tile floors that seemed to be indestructible no matter what you pushed across them.  Ruff Road has laminate tiles.  We now know, they will scratch easily.  When we moved in we took baskets, boxes, and crates of belongings to Ruff Road and, like an assembly line, shoved them in the door and pushed them inside to add more.  All of this pushing of weighted items put fine scratches all over our floors.  You can’t really tell unless you are on the floor so that’s the good news.  Then I wondered, were they there all along?  No, I think we did it.  To further protect our floors, we stopped sliding things on them.  The dog crates rest on rugs.  In addition, we put felt on the bottom of our ottoman and free standing chair.  Lesson learned.

Tips relating to dogs:

• Keep nails trimmed.  We should know this but we let it slip.  Our girls’ nails grow long and sharp if not trimmed.  We wish we were part of the group of folks who know how to do this, but we aren’t- yet.  Our dogs’ nail trimmings require a trip to the vet after a calming pill.  They are overdue and our dash paid the price.  We now have one little pinhole from an excited Terra who jumped up before she could be stopped.
• Set boundaries for pets.  This should go without saying but…sometimes this doesn’t happen.  Our girls are allowed in the driver and passenger chairs, the ottoman, or the floor.  They are not allowed on the couch or the bed.  They also know to “stay” when we are coming and going through the door.  Consistency is the key.  Make sure both pet parents are on the same page.  If one allows a rule to be broken, pets become confused and, like children, will push their limits.
• Use Velcro to keep covers on furniture.  When we purchased our RV, the coach seats were already starting to flake.  We keep them covered with blankets and that works well.  Our ottoman is looking a little worn as well so it is covered with a quilted piece of fabric.  I used Velcro to attach the fabric to the ottoman.  I plan to use Velcro to help keep blankets on the coach chairs.  I’ll let you know how that works out.  Until then, we will just rearrange them after the pups mess them up.

What are some trials we’ve had this month?

• Our onboard water tank filled up twice this month.  The first time water was actually leaking out of the fill tank area.  We thought we had the switch flipped over to city water, but it still happened twice.  After draining the tank twice and rechecking, we haven’t had anymore issues.  Maybe it wasn’t all the way over.  It’s still a mystery.
• This is tragic!  We purchased a Powilling Dehumidifier from Amazon to take care of excess moisture in the air.  It rode on the built in side table next to the couch.  We had no problem in all of our travels.  However, on one fateful day, as we turned into our driveway, it took a tumble and fell to the floor never to work again.  We recommend this unit.  It has worked great for us.

We are just days away from our first full time RV Christmas.  The tree is up.  The lights are hung.  We are warm and cozy and happy.  Peace to everyone.