Trailer Trash Tuesday-Gah!

Today while we were at school, the awning was blown up and over the RV. It is still there as the rain hasn't stopped and it is not safe to go up there.  The frames that hold it are all bent out of shape.  Just one more thing  to add to the list of things needing to be fixed.  I am grateful there wasn't any more damage and that we are all safe and warm. I'll post a picture as soon as I can. It is too scary out there for now!

Trailer Trash Tuesday- The Toilet

One of the *cough* joys *cough* of RV living is the pedal flush toilet.  There is no water tank on the back of the toilet. Instead there is a little foot lever that you step on and everything  goes down into a  large holding tank.  When you want the toilet to have water in it, you pull up on the pedal and it fills the bowl with water.  Of course, the holding tank gets full on occasion and we have to trod outside to pull a lever and all the waste rushes out in a big whoosh, through a large accordion pipe down into the connection for the sewer. Then once it is empty you push the lever back in and it stops all the crap from coming out. Or, at least that is how it is supposed to work.

Lately, my toilet has been giving me more problems than if I had goblins coming out of it.  I already told you how it is leaking.  Well, now it doesn't want to keep water in the bowl.  My precious J2 has the stinkiest poo imaginable and he needs that water to stay in the bowl for his mother's sanity.  On top of that, the pipe leading down to the tank keeps getting plugged.

I went about trying to fix it by buying some septic emergency bacteria stuff.  It was $8 and I decided to dump it down, hoping those little bacteria would eat up all the crap in the tank.  Well, come to find out, the tank wasn't completely closed. So, I basically dumped $8 into the toilet and down the drain.

I crawled all the way under the RV to try to manually move the piece that completely shuts the tank off, but I couldn't get it to budge. So, now every so often the pipe gets full of toilet paper and poo and starts to come up into the bowl, but luckily gravity has been helping and it eventually swooshes back down into the darkness.

Now, I need to convince the hubs to crawl under there and get the tank closed up.  Some things, I just can't do on my own. Now to find him some spare daytime hours to do it. That will be the real trick.

So, now you have a reason to be thankful for having a normal toilet! You're welcome. ;)

Trailer Trash Tuesday-Broken

List of things that are broken on the Trailer:

1. Kitchen sink has a big hole in the divider part of the two sinks. I fixed it with clear packing tape.

2. Refrigerator shelf. Attempted to fix with super glue but it broke again.

3. The toilet keeps leaking even after it was "fixed."

4. New floor vent covers are now cracked.

5. Hood for stove top doesn't want to stay up.

6. Bathroom fan is busted.

7. Laundry basket broke.

8. Hand towel holder in bathroom broke.

9. Couch covers are coming apart.

10. Shower/Tub faucet won't turn off so we have to close the shower head so that the water will stay off.

11. Silverware drawer.

I think the RV is trying to tell us to move or it is trying to help us accept the fact that we are living in a trailer that is trashed at the moment. But in better news, I am not feeling broken!

Trailer Trash Tuesday- Thankful for Laundry

Fifth wheel living means no washer and dryer.  I used to have to pack up all the kids and take a weeks worth of laundry to the laundry mat every Tuesday, because that is when they had 1/2 price drying time.

These days I am blessed with a SIL who lives in town and lets me use their washer and dryer.  Lately, all I've had to do is drop off my laundry with my kids.  My kids end up happy and my laundry is washed and dry when I get home from school.  It is a huge blessing.

Of course, occasionally the kids will get sick or have an accident and then I still have to spend two hours at the laundromat, but luckily those are few and far between. Now, I just need to fold it all, so that it isn't taking up half my living area.

But today, I am thankful for having laundry to fold and in laws to help me clean and dry it all.

Trailer Trash Tuesday-Dream home

Last night I had a dream that we had found a house to live in Medford.  It wasn't anything fancy, it was modestly priced.  It also came with beds in each of the four bedrooms, I was really excited about that in my dream.  Of course, upon  waking I was thinking that it would be kind of gross to use other peoples beds. There could have been bed bugs or all kinds of nasty stuff.

In the dream, the former owners of the house had left a bunch of their stuff, Ammon and I looked at each other and said "Garage sale!" It was a nice dream though, because all of the kids had their own full sized bed.  We also had a washer and dryer.  The kitchen was full sized.  Then things got weird because suddenly we realized that someone was sleeping in our master bedroom.  The man woke up, he had a full white beard and looked like a cross between my music teacher and Santa Claus.

He explained that he was a private investigator and  had been staking out a neighbor.  He had been told the house was abandoned and wouldn't be sold soon.  He was actually really nice, but it was still creepy. We then sent him on his way.  I awoke and despite the weird things, I was left wide awake wishing the dream was real.

But, alas it is not.  I can't spend my day wishing for something that cannot be right now.  I must enjoy the time we've got left in the trailer, because we are over halfway done. Off to fold laundry, do some Punnet squares and conquer the Biology lab today. I hope your day is great too.

Trailer Trash Tuesday- My new love

I have a confession to make. I have a new love.  I have fallen in love and don't think I can ever go back to the way things were.  This love had always been around and I never really thought about it much.  But circumstances being what they are, love has blossomed.

Now before you go and think that I have truly embraced my Trailer Trash status, I think you may understand when I explain a few of the things my love does for me.

1. Cooks
2. Cleans
3. Gives me facials
4. Washes my hair
5. Cleans the toilet
6. Gets stains out of my carpet

I mean, how can I not be in love.  I was able to sneak a picture....

Check out those biceps!

Trailer Trash Tuesday- Home is Family

Circumstances being what they are, I have been contemplating on life in our RV.  I was struck this morning by the lovely view and the stars twinkling as the sun started to rise over the horizon.  I then sat in awe in realizing that we are getting close to ending our time in the RV. A wave of gratitude washed over me and strangely a sense of sadness.  I will miss this place.  I like to joke and complain about the difficulties of living here but the truth is we have grown closer as a family.  It made me realize that home is family.

As we were trying to find a place to take our family pictures, we drove past the kids old school that was shut down last year. We decided that we should take our pictures there as it was empty. We were going to take some photos by the grass but the "HOME" part really stuck out to me.  We have been labeled as homeless but we really aren't.  As I said before, home is family.

Trailer Trash Tuesday- Too Many Tomatoes

Let me introduce you to my fridge.  As you can see it is very small and I shove as many things in there as I can. What can I say? This is trailer living at it's finest.  Recently, the bottom shelf on the door decided it had had enough and bailed on me.  So, now I have even less space than normal in there.  Those shelves are expensive at $25 bucks a pop. Ouch.

We were really blessed this year as far as tomatoes are concerned.  My BIL gave us a bunch of tomato plants toward the beginning of the summer and they just took off.  We have big tomatoes, medium tomatoes and small grape tomatoes.  I'm told tomatoes don't normally do well in this area but we must have them in a prime spot.

I have too many for our family to eat on our own, but not enough to can.  Luckily, this last Saturday our church had Super Saturday.  It is a day where women can pick a craft or two or more and just spend the day working on it and enjoying the company of other women. They also have a lunch and I signed up to bring a salad and a dessert.

I made a regular salad with the grape tomatoes but felt like I needed to do something else.  So, I looked in my teeny fridge and saw what I had on hand.  I had mozzarella and tomatoes. I then remembered that the Pioneer Woman had posted a recipe called Caprese Salad. I headed over to the grocery store and picked up some basil. I had all the other ingredients on hand.

The planets aligned for the briefest of moments and soon I had this:

OMGoodness, this was amazing.  I even heard much raving about my Caprese Salad at the luncheon.

Unfortunately the planets went out of alignment for my dessert and it wasn't as great as it could have been. My cursed oven wasn't cooking fast enough and the pumpkin cake I made was taking forever.  So, I made some vanilla pudding and put whip cream on top of it.  The whip cream melted on the way to the luncheon and looked horrendous.  The cake did get done in time and although it wasn't pretty, it was tasty. Here is the link to what I made but with regular icing, so easy, as long as you don't have an RV oven.

I was happy to use up all the tomatoes, but I just went out yesterday to the garden and got all of these...

I think another Caprese Salad is on the menu, or maybe tomato soup. Decisions, decisions. All I know is there is no room in my fridge.

Trailer Trash Tuesday-The truth shall set you free

Last week in my wellness class, Prof. D was asking what everyone did over the weekend.  The responses were fairly mundane and some even said how they had a bad weekend because of one reason or another.  Then he gets to me and I say, "I spent the weekend getting lice out of my kids' hair."  The whole classroom groaned.  I think it may have helped them feel better about their weekends.

 Prof. D then asked if I had washed everything.  I told him that I made an extended trip to the laundry mat with all the kids, because I don't have a washer and dryer.  He then asked if I had laundry hook-ups.  I told him, "No. We live in an RV 5th wheel."  The class went dead silent at that point, and were listening more intently.  Prof. D had quite the shocked look on his face, but then recovered with asking where we parked it.  I told him that a gentleman in our church lets us park it on his property because he has RV hookups and gives us a good deal on rent.  Prof. D said that was good and then proceeded to ask others in the class how their weekend went.  No one had a bad weekend after that.

So, now Prof. D, an older gentleman, (who reminds me a of a cross between my uncle and my dad, but with killer calve muscles) has taken it upon himself to try to find a way for me to exercise on a regular basis.  He has been really sweet about it, in a non-creepy way.  He is convinced that it will help release some stress in my life.  I know that it will, but getting my body to agree is another issue altogether.

Mentally, I am feeling great but my body not so much.  I have discovered that my body has a love/hate relationship with the rowing machine.

It all fits into my plan of becoming a better actress though.  If my body is more fit and flexible I will be able to create more variety into my roles, at least physically.  I think my life experiences are making up for the emotional growth and variety.

I wonder if I may be a little too honest at times. I don't feel the need to sugar coat anymore.  I am who I am. Rambling and all that jazz.  It feels liberating instead of feeling like I need to hide where we live.  I do still cringe every time a car comes up the driveway, worrying about if someone has decided to call CPS because of our "substandard" housing.

I took courage though, when last Saturday two people who had never been inside the RV came inside.  Their first reaction was, "Wow, this is really nice in here."  So, once again I am grateful for living where we live and that it really is nice in here.  After all, this is my castle.

Yours truly,
Queen of the Trailer Trash

Trailer Trash Tuesday

Trailer Trash Tuesday is to highlight the joys and nuances of living the trailer trash life. 

Don't I just look the part? 

No? I suppose I don't.  I guess I am a living breathing example of not judging a book by it's cover and if I am not a prime example, then my home is a textbook example:

While the outside isn't much to look at, we have made it a home.  It is our safe place from the outside world, a place to feel loved, a place to learn, and a place to have fun.

When me made the long move up from AZ to OR we joked around about being like the pioneers.  We even had one of the trailers we were pulling break an axle and had to stop for several days before we were able to continue on our journey. Like most things, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  We ended up having to sell our broken trailer and bought an enclosed one instead. This covered trailer ended up saving many of our possessions from the elements of OR.

So, when we were faced with needing to buy a trailer in which to live, we found it amusing that we ended up picking one with the name of Pilgrim.  The similarities of pioneers and pilgrims were not lost on us.  We both left our homelands in search of something better.  We seem to still be on that journey. We just got stuck for five years.

Our lovely Pilgrim home has many interesting features.  One that I was surprised about was our propane oven.  This little beauty measures in at 15 inches wide and from the rack to roof is about six inches.  It also hates cookies. Don't even think about trying to stuff a full sized chicken/turkey in there or a sheet cake pan.

Whenever I want to bake, I have to stoop down with a lighter, turn and push the knob on the farthest right and reach my arm way in the back to light the pilot light.  Then, I have to carefully turn the knob while pushing it in to light the rest of the element.  The propane element is located where you see the bluish light in the lower middle part of the oven.  The pilot light is way in the back.

Yesterday, I decided to roast some squash that we had gotten from DH's work and then cook a pizza.  The problem arose when we ran out of propane after the squash was done.  After changing the propane, the element and pilot light went out.  The oven was still super hot and we had to light it again.  It was quite amusing watching the hubs try to light the silly thing with an oven mitt on.  He eventually succeeded with my help. So, he was proclaimed hero of the day and made it so that the kiddos didn't just have to eat their veggies but got some pizza for dinner too.

While it is a pain in the butt to light my oven, I am still grateful for it.  I am sure that pioneers and pilgrims had a much harder time cooking and preparing dinner than I will ever have.  After all, it is still better than cooking like this:

Moral of the story; be grateful for what you have.  There is always someone who has or had it harder than you do.

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