Airstream Adventures: garden

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Our first few days.

Wow. It's kinda surreal sitting here, in the Airstream, listening to the rain making that tinny sound as it hits the aluminum. This is my home now. All 240(ish)sqft of it. We're really doing this. It is happening.

There's been a lot of drama and stress the last few weeks with the delayed closing. Our last day in the house we spent 10 hours moving the last bit of stuff (which I swear multiplied like rabbits as we packed it up) and cleaning (BIG thanks go to my sister for helping!) and signing papers for the closing since we would not be in town. We then drove 8 hours to PA, getting in at 2:30am the same day! Well, I guess that would be considered the next day... but you get the idea. And then it took another hour to get our son to back sleep once we got to Rob's parents so, 19 straight hours of insanity. I hope I never have to pack to move and pack for vacation in the same day ever again. Talk about crazy! You can't find anything, you don't remember what went where and you pretty much don't even care. You just want to be DONE. We had a good time in PA though and enjoyed our time with Matt (Rob's brother), who was in from Thailand, and our last day there we took a little ride on his parents' sailboat, which was lovely. I needed a little sunshine in my life.

When we came home, we came home to the Airstream. Well, sort of. We spent the first night at my parents since there were boxes and piles of things that had been thrown in during the move that were preventing us from even having a place to sit, let alone sleep. We spent the next day cleaning and organizing and by the end of the day we had made some good progress. There was no running water yet so I wanted to wait another day to sleep here but, Rob wanted to stay and we did. I wasn't exactly happy about it so Mrs. Grumpy Pants (that's me, in case you were wondering) was hanging around for most of the night. Here we are, 4 days later and we still don't have water. 1975 pluming is stupid and nothing at all like what we have today. Rob has tried and tried to make it work but it looks like we're going to have to scrap the leaky drain connection and start fresh. I'm not grumpy anymore about it (mostly) but it is kind of a pain to haul my dishes in the house to wash them and I can't even rinse my hands in here if I cut up an orange or something, which is... sticky. It's not so bad though, really, and James and Laura have been so amazingly gracious to us and are letting me add my dishes to the dishwasher and come in and out for drinking water, etc... SO thankful we're starting our journey here in their driveway. The 'Stream just isn't ready to stand on her own 2 fe... 4 tires.

I neglected to take photos of the first day or two but I snapped a few while cooking dinner today. The following give a glimpse into my life now.

Rain, sweet potatoes, bacon grease... not so bad.

Note the stack of dishes... :-/

Kitchen!

My boy watching Mighty Machines.

Will's room. Also home to all of our clothes (except hanging ones).

The curtain-door I made for Will's room. It's actually working pretty well.

Yep. The bathroom is a disaster!! Someday, this space will be lovely... but until then, it looks like this.

:-( More bathroom randomness. (Note the new toilet!)

I am not complaining that I have a box of fresh tomatoes, eggs from my girls
and a bag of our home-grown garlic taking up my counter space.

My spices, oils, etc!

I have to say that living small doesn't really bother me too much and I think things are going to start calming down a little bit soon. Because the camper feels so connected to the outside and we always have the windows and door open (the weather has been Amazing!), William has been just running outside all the time. Sometimes he asks, sometimes he doesn't. It's been a real struggle for me but, I can feel myself adjusting little by little. Today was slightly more normal feeling, which was nice. Will and I ran around in the (light) rain to burn off some energy this afternoon and then watched some Mighty Machines on Netflix. After I finally got him down for bed, the rain picked up. I'd like to go shower but, a) it's raining and I have to go walk to the house to shower and b) it's dark. Hmm... Maybe I'll go over later.

In other news, we STILL haven't picked a name for our puppy and we get to pick him up in 9 days! I admit that it's probably going to feel a little cramped as we adjust to another body in here but, once he's potty trained and sleeping through the night and we can ditch the crate I think it'll be much better. Yes, we have to fit a crate in here. No, I'm not exactly sure how. We will make it work. I was showing Will how to use the clicker for training the dog today. He was loving that. Though, I don't think I'll actually let him use it for a while, since I don't need a confused dog! :-)

Thanks for reading this long post! Feel free to contact us with questions, encouragements, ideas, dog names, etc... :-)

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

A little plumbing, a little paint...

Hi friends. I haven't really posted our progress on here in a little bit since I've been pretty busy. With our house under contract, the pressure is on to get some things done.

On my plate right now:

~Dealing with the home inspection and waiting for results (and wondering how many things the buyer is going to ask us to fix).
~Picking paint for the A-stream (I think we did!).
~Creating and prioritizing a materials list for the Stream of things we still need to buy.
~Buying the things on that list as we can afford to.
~Working on the Airstream as much as we can.
~Starting to pack this week.
~Getting together the things we will need for the bank for the construction loan (this means we have under two weeks to finalize a floor plan and create a full materials list with job quotes from all of the appropriate people. Eek! Lots of meetings and phone calls.).
~Going through our stuff for a yard sale.
Oh, and did I mention raising a toddler and feeding the 3 of us? Or doing the dishes? Or cleaning the bathroom? Or... going for a walk? (If monsoon season will ever end...)

So yeah, busy and mentally taxed is an understatement. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I have friends who are doing all of these same things... with 5 kids! (Five wonderful, fun, helpful kids, but five is still more than one, every time.) I'm actually starting to get excited for what is ahead of us. I'm enjoying seeing my husband feel excited and happy even though he's working so hard, at work and at home, because he sees an adventure ahead. He motivates me... and I keep us on track. Good balance.

So... the Airstream. Where are we? Rob has started the plumbing work and was able to lay the first line yesterday. We are using 1/2" pex pipe, for those of you who are wondering. He had some frustrations getting the new pipe to slink under the subfloor and come out right where he needed it, under the kitchen sink, but he got it. Thank the Maker. It's a tight work space under the sick, to say the least(!), and it's going to take some real patience and creativity to unhook and re-hook things under there. Hopefully, there won't be any other big plumbing issues... but, I won't get my hopes up. The next big plumbing adventure will be in the bathroom but, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it I guess.

I may have mentioned before that we finished priming the Airstream... but that's not entirely the case. We haven't touched the hallway or the bathroom yet. We aren't going to worry about it though. The plan is to get the main living areas done first because we need those done before we can move in. The hall and bath are secondary because we will have a bathroom available to us at my sister's house for the first month after we start living in the camper. That way, if it doesn't get done, we won't be stuck squatting in the woods somewhere... which, wouldn't be horrible but I'd rather not HAVE to. Anyway, back to paint. Yesterday I rode over to my local Benjamin Moore paint store and got 5 (yes, five.) paint samples to try out. (BTW The people at B.Moore are the BEST. They are so nice and helpful and they always take great care of me. I am a customer for life!) We put up the samples in the front room and picked one. It's called "white wisp" and I've always thought we would choose that one. I've had my eye on it for months. I'll pick up a gallon of it later today or tomorrow so I can get to work putting it on the walls. Can't wait!

Rob's parents are coming in this weekend and we all know what that means! (Well, I do...) It means Rob will get even more work done! Rob's dad is a HUGE help. I'm pretty sure we would not have done half of the things we've done to our house without him. He assisted us with installing our kitchen and bathroom, refinishing our deck and a million other things. They're even coming down a day early so they can get more done. I can't tell you how thankful I am for that. It's hard to keep Will away from his PapPap while he's working but, I'll do my best. Rob's mom and I will just have to entertain him. I need to think ahead and buy some of the materials for them so they can be more efficient with their time. I think the plan is to check the gas lines and finish the plumbing and do some more exterior caulking. Maybe they'll even get the new kitchen cabinet in! >fingers crossed<

(Thank you, also, to my parents who play with Will once-a-week so we can get some solid work done!)

Well, here a some photos of our current state. The big news of the week is that we got a refrigerator! Finding one the right size was not easy but we were able to score one for $75 on Craigslist. Very happy about that! Last week our Craigslist score was the table I wanted, also $75. I would have tried to get it for less but, I wasn't about to haggle a single mom of a 3 month old baby who was selling all of her stuff so she could move to AZ to be with her mom. She was so sweet and her baby was the cutest little girl! Enjoyed meeting them. Oh my gosh, Sarah, stop rambling and show these people some pictures! Sheesh!