RV Blog--Life in a Box. This just ain't 'camping' any more....

Wednesday, December 20, 2006:

Dinah // Wednesday, December 20, 2006
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Friday, December 08, 2006:

Okay, I've gotten bored with this blog and started a new one--trying to catch up with my daughter, who got me started on this in the first place! SHE has at least 3, none of which has been posted to in ages! :)

Having to turn the furnace off and on all day, through this current cold snap has pretty much soured me on writing much about RV living--at least doing it in THIS brand of RV!

If you're interested, not to mention being somewhat befuddled at the idea of a furnace without a thermostat, I'll remind you of a previous rant in which I explained that, in the interest of saving a buck, our manufacturer left out the wall mounted thermostat for the furnace, and it is supposedly controlled by the thermostat in the AC/heat pump unit--on the ROOF! So, the furnace runs and runs and runs in really cold weather, until enough heat migrates through the unit to register 63 degrees (which is all the lower we can set it). By this time--it's HOT in here! At nite, we have been running an electric heater on the floor directly under the AC unit, which helps get the thermostat heated up. Sunday's project is to install a wall thermostat!!! Of course, you may remember that the manufacturer doesn't CARE about this aggrivation, since, buried deep in the owners manual is a sentence telling us that our 4 season RV is not intended for use in temperatures below 32 degrees.... ARRRRRRRGGGG! Ergo, it's a "4 season" unit if you live in CENTRAL FLORIDA!

Anyhow, here's the link:

The New Dog Blog

I don't guarantee that it'll be a bit more exciting than this blog, but it's there! :)

Dinah // Friday, December 08, 2006
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Tuesday, December 05, 2006:

We made the 'move' on Sunday, to Free Spirit Campground! Thll some Christmas dog collars... If you have friends with pampered pooches, please send them heree weather had, of course, turned COLD on us, but it was a short trip so nothing had time to freeze up in our 'home'. And it's still cold! You'd think it was WINTER or something! I spent the day yesterday working on a web page to (hopefully) sell a few dog collars for Christmas. If you have friends with pampered pooches, please send them here! So far, the online craft store I set up has netted me one lonely sale.... So much for making money! lol Today I have to walk 3 dogs (am I nuts???), rake leaves, unearth my Christmas decorations, string some lights (we're having a heat wave today--might get up in the 40s!), and, oh yes! Pay the rent! Once more, we are suffering from a bad case of "anti-Monoco". When the furnace runs in our house, it isn't controlled by a wall thermostat the way every other furnace in the world is. Oh, no! That little installation might have cost Monoco a buck or two on each unit. So, they assumed that the thermostat in the overhead AC/Heat pump unit would do. Uh, huh. Thermostat in that unit is located just under the roof shroud, and heat has to travel clear through the AC unit, up to the roof! Works okay when there is sun shining on the roof, but when that sun goes down, the furnace can't make enough heat to counter-act the cold coming from the outdoors. So it runs and runs and the house gets hotter and hotter. "Turn down the thermostat, you say?" Uh, huh. That would be remote controlled and set to go no lower than 63 degrees. WHAT A FARCE! So, come Sunday, Hubby gets to crawl back into the guts of the RV and connect thermostat wires and run them into the house and install a wall thermostat! By the time we've lived in this RV for 5 years, we won't dare trade it off because all the stupid stuff will finally be found and fixed! Arrrrrrggggggg! And that's my Rant for the day! Happy Tuesday!

Dinah // Tuesday, December 05, 2006
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Friday, December 01, 2006:

Moving back to Indiana! Only this time, we're going South! Bound to be warmer, right? At least I'll have time to get a few Christmas decorations up before New Years! I found a nice campground, http://www.freespiritcamp.com that looks pretty good, thanks to our old friends, Jack & Sue, who live near there. It's about 25 miles from the jobsite--but it's an easy drive. Well, okay, the middle part of the trip is through the Hoosier National Forest, with hills and hollers and curves.... Poor thing... So, my big Holiday dog collar & leash sets haven't been filling my inbox with orders, and the Craft store gets lots of 'lookers', but no buyers. Probably going to shut it down in a week or two. Meanwhile, we get to pack up the place tomorrow and then go hear Whisper Down perform tomorrow nite! :) This week, the new puppy is being called "Trouble", by me. Hubby is calling him "Willie"--as in willie poop here, willie poop there, where willie poop next? Ah, the joy of puppies..... House training should get easier, once we're settled in a real campground, taking regular walks and hanging out in a pen when the weather is nice. This little guy has very little experience with the great out-of-doors. Raised on concrete, I'm guessing... Now I need to go stow my craft supplies for the move....

Dinah // Friday, December 01, 2006
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Sunday, November 26, 2006:

Well, we managed a Thanksgiving with the kids! That was nice. :) The grand finale was the exploding Corelle bowl on the kitchen floor, tho! NOT nice. And now, on to the boring things like making money to pay the bills! My craft sales site is a bust--no surprise. Lots of hits, but since I'm not giving away those tiny, hand-pieced quilts, no one is buying! At the moment, I'm working on Christmas dog collars and leashes on a Rescue site... As for a REAL job...we're hoping tomorrow will be the day. There is some work south of Indy, if Hubby can wrangle one! Work in the SE has been at a standstill, just like here--too much rain! This just hasn't been the year for dirt work! I'm looking forward to getting my 'stuff' OUT of boxes so I don't feel like I'm living in a storage unit! It'd be nice to be able to drag out a few Christmas baubles! And the puppy (who remains "nameless") is hoping for a fenced yard of his very own... Plenty of yard here, but it's full of big dogs and has no fence! Time to go package some more of this winter's 'goat' meat.... Happy Holiday Season!

Dinah // Sunday, November 26, 2006
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Wednesday, November 08, 2006:

That would be "Life in a Very Small Box" these days....remember the scene in the Star Wars movie where they're in the garbage hold and it's shrinking? Or any other movie where the stars are in small rooms where the walls are slowly coming in on them? We're there. The dogs are frantically trying to keep from being touched by the puppy (they haven't made their peace with his existence, yet)... We have to move a basket of clothes off the toilet so it can be used as needed... The microwave is sitting on a board over the second sink. The car is packed to the roof, and the lid of the trunk. And the list goes on.... It doesn't help that somebody has misplaced the other dog leash.

If we are very, very lucky--this job will be done this week, and we'll find out that there's a new one starting up nearby in a few days so we can go bring our house back over here. OR, we'll be heading down to GA. At this point, whatever gets us out of this matchbox and back into our HUGE, 400 sq ft. RV is almost all good!

Page 2: If you do any online shopping, surf on over to http://www.bigcrumbs.com and check it out. If you decide to sign up, please put "NomadChick" down as the one who referred you....

We got to see the sunshine this afternoon! It got up to nearly 60 degrees! Now we'll see how long this lasts.... :) Opened the windows and aired out the "Box"!
"Lost" is nearly over, and bedtime beckons... Gotta be up at 5:30!

Dinah // Wednesday, November 08, 2006
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Monday, November 06, 2006:

Have you ever taken a tiny, bouncy black puppy out into the grass, in the dark? Said puppy (now known as Harpo), is determined to flit back and forth between the 2 big dogs--or just plain run around in circles, jump and play. Have you seen the toddler shoes with the blinky red lights on the heels? Well, I have this bright little red flashlight, about the size of my thumbnail--which I clipped to Harpo's collar tonite. We laughed and laughed!!! All we could see was the little red light, bouncing all over the yard. Sometimes he was chasing the other dogs and sometimes, I swear, he was chasing the red light dangling from his collar! What a hoot!

Meanwhile, here we (the dogs and I) in the familiar campground, in the 'incredible shrinking pickup camper' while Hubby goes off to fight the Bulldozer Wars--building a parking lot. Now, it was supposed to rain today, and the way the whole summer went, it would have! We were planning to make a run to IL and fetch our 'house'. But--no rain! It's now due in here tonite. But, even if it does...the job is supposedly going to be done this week. Which means, of course, that it isn't economically feasible (feasable?) to go get the 'house' tomorrow, in the rain. We'll be sitting here, waiting for the jobsite to dry, (not unlike watching paint dry), so they can finish the job and we can maybe go back to our house. Oh! I forgot to mention that we're sitting here with a change of clothes each! Period. What an adventure!

Dinah // Monday, November 06, 2006
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