The Silver Lining of Moving Day

This week has been another challenging week in the camper! I enjoy hearing people say things like "what you're doing is awesome!" or "I wish I could do something like this too!" because it makes me feel like we maybe aren't crazy for the decision we've made. It's not that I am really concerned about what people think (c'mon, I wouldn't be living in a camper if that were the case!), but it helps remind me to look to the positive and ignore the negative. I'm reminded that the pain and irritation of a given situation is transient, but the memories and laughs will be what we will remember.

There truly is something there, in that way of thinking. For instance, let me show you a few snapshots of what has gone wrong in our camper this week.

As you know, the brother-in-law is in town. And as such, apparently when brothers get together, it's necessary for brothers to wrestle with complete disregard to their whereabouts. Well, they wrestled.... and accomplished breaking the table that was already on it's last leg. So we are now table-less.

Silver lining is that we have a picnic table outside and that there's an IKEA in Tampa where we can pick up a cheap wooden table.

The door that closes off the master bedroom from the rest of the camper has broken. That's lots of fun. ;)

Silver lining is that the hubs now works for Budget Blinds and he has all the handy tools to fix a mishap like this one.

The doorknob to the only bathroom closet on-board has broken. Last week, you had to jiggle it and bang on the door just a certain way to get it to open. This week, we got completely locked out. The handle broke when the door was shut and so JD had to take the handle off... after about an hour of fighting to get the door open without breaking it down.

The water line for our ice machine is also shot. We encountered this Week #1 in the camper, so it doesn't really count when we're talking about recently, but it still happened! JD and my brother-in-law worked on it a bit this week, but parts and less children in the camper are needed to perform the repair.

I'm convinced my dad checked out of this camper at just the right time. Clearly, the warranty just went up on this baby earlier this year. Right? Isn't that how things always work?

Silver Lining is that I have an amazing husband that can fix damn-near anything. He'll get this all cleaned right up.

So I believe I was supposed to be talking about moving. Monday and Tuesday of this past week found JD and I incredibly stressed out. We had to move the camper by Wednesday.... but we had no way of moving the camper. Really. My dad's truck has the hitch on it for this fifth-wheel (for those that aren't trailer-saavy, you need a special, expensive hitch to pull a camper like this one with a powerful truck) and he's a solid 850 miles away from us. JD has a truck, but it's only a 1500 so not quite strong enough AND we do not have a hitch here in Tampa. To top it off, we didn't know exactly where we were going to be moving to. I'm sure you can imagine the level of stress floating around in the camper!

Luckily, we scored a sweet deal with the RV Resort we are already staying in and just had to move within the park. But we still had to find someone to move us. I blasted all over Facebook, trying desperately to find someone that could help us. This wasn't your average "Can I borrow your truck?" request - we needed to find A) someone willing B) a big truck and C) a hitch. I even called a tow company, but they wanted $250 to just show up. We knew THAT wasn't going to happen before even hanging up the phone with them!

Luckily (again) at 9 AM on Wednesday (only the day we needed to be checked out by, at 11 AM! No big deal.), JD found a very generous man inside of our RV park that would help us move. Talk about last minute! We were able to get moved and get our more permanent home set up. We'll be here until November at least, folks!

By the skin of our teeth, we were able to get moved just in time to our new spot. (Cue the fanfare) Dun du duh!

So welcome home. This is it, until at least November 1 and maybe even longer. It's shady and cool... and perfect. So perfect that I've been able to experience moments like these since moving.

I love Florida. 

Yes, I miss home. 

Yes, it's hard from time to time. 

Yes, I feel like we are standing on the edge of our future. 

Yes, we are struggling to maintain the small hand-hold we've been able to carve out.

But I told ya I'm not looking back. There's nothing like your kid asking to go to the beach, and being able to take them any day. There's nothing like continually learning and continually seeking to learn new things about life. There is NOTHING like choosing to design your life.

If you could choose any way to live your life, what would it look like?

Why should retirees get to have all the fun?

Live for today. Guess and put-away for tomorrow. 

Most of all... decide to live.

Things may be get hard, and that's fine.

Because there's always a silver lining like my son doing a headstand on the beach.