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Living small

Posted by on December 19, 2012

We are now settling into Patience for full-time, everyday living (as opposed to traveling across the country living).  It is mostly ok, but is very different than living in a four-bedroom house.  Some things we miss:

  • The yard.  Strange though it may seem, the thing I miss most is the yard.  Not so much for me as for the dogs.  They are rarely off their leases now and Grace is going stir-crazy.  She needs to let loose every now and then.  Our yard in Medford was large enough to let her reach warp speed.  She would do a couple of loops at full throttle, then fall over, panting, with a smile on her face.  Of course it was also nice for me as I didn’t have to walk them three or four times a day.
  • Comcast.  As much as I disliked dealing with Comcast and paying that exorbitant bill every month, it was WAY better than the cable service that we get now at the RV park.  There are only about 20 channels and the picture is fuzzy.  I have to think about getting a dish.
  • The washer and dryer.  Going to the laundromat every week is still not fun, just as it wasn’t fun when I was a student.
  • Our bed.  The mattress that came with the RV was too hard and too thin, so we added 3″ of memory foam.  Now it is too soft.  Neither of us sleeps well.  I thought we would get used to it, but I’m not so sure anymore.
  • The dishwasher.  I am adding this for Jett because she does all the dishes (hey, I have offered but she is particular about how they are done).
  • The cooktop.  The 3-burner propane stove in the RV cooks ok, but one of the burners doesn’t light automatically and the top is slippery, so pans have a tendency to slide.
  • Extra storage space.  Living small means that we can’t buy the 24-roll paper towel or the 48-roll toilet paper packages at Costco.  Actually, we pretty much can’t buy ANYTHING at Costco because there just isn’t any room.  This is compounded by our inability to find a supermarket that we like.  Safeway sucks and the prices at Nob Hill are ridiculous (12-pack Coke on sale for $5.50? Who are they kidding?)
  • The softball.  It isn’t softball season yet, but I know when it comes I will miss it terribly.  This will be the first year since college when I didn’t play softball.

Some things we don’t miss:

  • The weather.  I can’t say that we have seen much good weather in California (we have frost on our windows this morning and it is supposed to be mostly rainy for the next week), but it is still better than the weather in Massachusetts.  Snow here is rare (it hasn’t snowed a measurable amount in 10 years).  And I trust that it will improve soon.
  • The home expenses in Medford.  Living small means living less expensively.  Now that I am working I should be able to save quite a bit each month because I don’t have that huge mortgage to pay.  Rent and utilities at the RV park will be less than half of what we spent in Medford.  While we have to buy propane during this current cold weather, it is nothing compared to what we spent on natural gas to heat the house.  And how much electricity can we use when we rarely exceed 30 amps total consumption?

I can’t say we like the current RV park (Coyote Valley RV Resort) very much. We haven’t made any friends yet. The weather hasn’t helped as very few people are outdoors doing anything, but there haven’t been a lot of activities and the staff hasn’t been very friendly. The biggest negative, however, is its location on a divided highway.  We have to do a long U-turn (about 2.5 miles extra) if we want to go south.  And the trip home from my office is 2 miles longer than the trip to the office because I have to go a mile past the park and make a very tight U-turn.  Very annoying.

But we will be here until Jett gets her cataract surgery and fully recovers from that.  Probably 3 months, at least.  So we still have time to settle in more and learn how to live small better.

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