“Every increased possession loads us with new weariness”
John Ruskin

Can we interest you in a pile of VCR tapes, John? True to Mr. Ruskin’s thoughts, we realized that fact the past few years, as our jobs consumed our time and our ability to enjoy the things we had accumulated over the decades. As so many people in our position have stated, purging the majority of our stuff to live our lives on the road in an RV ended up being a liberating experience. Letting go of the items we thought were so dear to us turned out to be quite a weight off of our shoulders.

With that being said, it was always our intention to keep one storage room. Not knowing how long we would be full timing, we decided to hold onto things we really did like. Also, we have envisioned that we may someday settle down south in the winter months, and have our RV kept in the northern tier of states for use in the summer. We would need to furnish our southern base, hence the need to store some things. Well, in the mad rush of moving, our one storage room filled up. We had a second small storage room that we had stored items while we fixed up the house for market. That ended up with quite a few boxes in it. At the last minute, we grabbed a THIRD storage room…a climate controlled space where we could actually sort out the stuff we had to pile in at the last moment. Well, by the time we were settled in at the campground and ready for winter, November hit with a vengeance. Our plans to get those boxes out of the small storage room had to be put on hold until the snow melted. Our fear was that we were going to be stuck until spring.

Last weekend saw heavy rain, which took care of the snow. We were fortunate enough this weekend to have decent weather, so we went after the small room.

The two of us made multiple trips for the better part of the afternoon.

Before the sun set, we had the small room empty and all of the boxes in a warm, accessible space. We can now tackle the job we had hoped to do in September before closing on the house. We are planning on being down to one room by April.

On another note, we have some numbers to update for November. We ended up using eight 30 lb cylinders of propane, and 1156 kilowatt hours of electricity. Pretty much the same expenditure, money wise, as our house last year. We are pretty happy with that, especially since 26 inches of snow fell on us this month, and the temperatures were often well below freezing. If we were in a different climate, those numbers would be much more favorable, but life doesn’t always allow for that. When the snow falls, make a snowman. 🙂

So, rounding out November, we have a lot to be thankful for. We were able to take Jenny to see Jim’s aunt and uncle, which was a truly wonderful day. We lost our puppy to cancer the very next week, but she had given us 10-1/2 years of pure love. The weekend before Thanksgiving, our friends Mike and Cindy stopped in for a visit with their son, Eric.

Mike and Cindy are dear friends of ours from WMU.

Eric is wearing his Batman shirt, as the three of them had just come from Grand Rapids Comic Con.

Following that, we were able to spend Thanksgiving with Jim’s sister and brother-in-law, along with a friend of theirs.

The meal and the company were outstanding.

Judy and Dale go all out on holiday decorating; even the duck decoys have scarves. 🙂 Their home is comfy and cozy.

It has indeed been a month to remember. And Mr. Ruskin would be proud of us, as we didn’t buy a single thing on Black Friday!