UFFDA! And Merry Christmas...

December is here and we are preparing to spend our first Christmas in our "little house on wheels."  The tree is decorated, the lights are on the bush outside and there is a wreath on the front of the trailer!  It has been fun and a lot less work to deck the halls this year which is a good thing since Randy is confined to the recliner with his knee up!

So I had better back up a little and explain ...  this is where the UFFDA part come in to play!  The day after Thanksgiving Randy had a total knee revision - a surgery that was supposed to take an hour and a half start to finish turned out to be five and a half hours in the operating room.  Bottom line is that he had lots of bone loss in the lower part of the leg that required lots of bone grafts!  He is doing well but is on crutches because he can't put any weight on the leg until the bone grafts heal.   There have been a few challenges  - he wears a brace that keeps him from bending his leg more that 60 degrees so wiggling into the small closet that houses the "john"  could have been an issue but we had an ample 17 inches from the wall to the front of the toilet!  With persistence and caution we have adapted and are doing quite well.  And feeling more like "true full time RVers!"

It is a funny thing - as I sit here looking out my window that is covered with 'bubble wrap" to keep some of the cold out - seems that most of our neighbors are packing up and moving on.  Either they are not so hardy or they know something that we don't know.  I like to believe that it the hardy part.  But we now occupy the corner all to ourselves which makes letting the dog out much easier!  And we have an unobstructed view diagonally across the campground to the office for whatever that is worth and parking is not a problem. What the heck - the hardy shall prevail! 

So with short ribs in the crock pot, a cup of hot tea and the Broncos game on I'll leave you with this...  "I'm dreaming of a green Christmas,  just like the ones I've heard about. Where the ocean sparkles and the palm trees sway ... and swimsuits abound upon the beach..."   Merry Christmas from snowy and cold Fort Collins! Stop by if you are in the area!

November Calm

Just two weeks ago we were digging out from under 10 inches of snow!  And today... we went for a walk around the lake at the campground.  Seriously!  I took this photo just an hour ago!  Absolutely the most miraculous day you could wish for in November in Colorado!

The sky is laced with wispy clouds, the geese are drifting peacefully on the water - calling out to one another, the leaves on the path are crunchy under our feet and the temp is a mild 50 degrees.  Really, I could get lost in a day like this!  And from the sounds of the weather forecast I think I had better enjoy it now!  Light snow and high wind warnings are on the horizon so they say - but for now, ah!  :)

We have had a couple weeks of ups and downs - Randy slipped on some plastic hidden under fresh snow two weeks ago and tweaked his artificial knee.  So he is off to therapy three times a week while we wait on the ortho doc to have an opening to see if the slip loosened his joint.  And workers comp has him on "light duty" work release... which is a bit of an oxymoron when you consider the type of work he does ... but he is getting along and is able to run the back hoe so at least the pay checks keep coming! 


Randy called me on the way out of the RV park this morning - it was a crisp 20 degrees - and let me know that a new camper had arrived during the night.  An event that is not uncommon even in the late fall at the KOA.  However, this guy must be a serious camper because he was in a tent!  Yup!  Life is never dull around here!


Oh yes!  Big news - they finally got the TV working again!  And non-to-soon!  We were starting to watch the movies we have on VHS and DVD for the second time around!  Just kidding!  However we did discovered that we didn't miss much - the same old news seems to be still in the news!  But now I can catch up on X-Factor and Dancing with the Stars! :)  And Randy can watch the football games!  Have you ever been in a 300 square foot room with a football fan who can't get the game on TV?  That my friends is a blog for a different time!  


Take care and stay warm!

Tuesday, October 26, Oh What a Night ...

The morning after the night of Oct 26

We worked hard this fall to get the 5th wheel "winterized" and were pretty sure we were on top of the game until a storm rolled in from the north! And roll in it did!  10+ inches of heavy wet snow on a landscape that had not yet shed it's fall foliage!  


The first sense of trouble was an abrupt awakening at 2am - something was wrong!  It seemed the water was not flowing as it normally did and because of the rapid drop in temperature (It was 80 degrees on Monday! Seriously!) our first reaction was that the water lines had frozen - a thought that sends shear panic into an RV dweller! So a midst much shuffling around to get our feet on the ground in proper order and get lights on we discovered that not only did we not have water we did not have electricity!  Discovering that you don't have electricity in an RV is a bit of task because so many of the lights and systems in the coach run off the battery.  Top that off with the confusion that ensues from "waking from deep sleep" and you have a total break down of any sense of logic and reasoning power!  But we managed to pull ourselves together, turn up the furnace, open all the cupboard doors and crawl back into bed assuming that this would be short lived and we had done all that we could to correct the situation.


Wrong!  We awakened at first daylight to discover that we had to push about 10 inches of snow off the steps to get the door open so we could take inventory of the havoc that Old Man Winter had left behind.  I don't think there was a tree in the RV park that had not lost a branch or two including the one just outside our home that had ever-so-gently deposited a hug branch on the top of our RV. ( Luckily I had insisted that Randy go the storage shed on Monday night to retrieve the snow shovel - a task that had been met with a bit a resistance I might add! ) We still did not have electricity and with a clearer mind we figured out the pipes had not frozen we just didn't have water. The RV Park is on a well and when there is no electricity the pump doesn't pump!  


I called my boss and told him I needed to stay home and monitor the water lines, etc until the power came back on just to make sure we didn't have any undetected leaks. (Randy had to go into work to pump tanks that had already been scheduled)  At that point I really thought I would be on my way in a couple hours! Not so!  As the day wore on the power remained off and keeping the trailer warm so we didn't freeze became a balancing act.  This isn't normally a problem the battery is recharged when we are plugged or the solar charger on the roof is not covered with 10 inches of snow.  By the time Randy got back mid-afternoon the situation looked bleak. Northern Colorado was hit hard and thousands of homes were without power!  


With the batteries seriously strained, Randy decided to hook the truck up to the trailer to recharge so we could keep the trailer heated. We didn't have a generator and there were none to be purchased within the immediate area - so we discovered after multiple calls!  Oh well, no worries - the batteries were recharged and we had heat and the ability to cook and bottled water to drink - surely they would get the power on before long and things would return to normal!  (A side note - did you know that a 9oz bottle of water is enough to flush an RV toilet! Just useful knowledge that I pass on to anyone that wants to store it in their memory!)  So we hunkered down for the night - set the furnace on a temp low enough so it wouldn't run continually but high enough to keep the place reasonably warm and crawled into bed after a warm bowl of soup. 


Thankfully we had decided to set the car in front of the trailer and have the jumper cables handy just in case the power didn't come back on in time.  (The diesel truck makes a lot of noise in the middle of the night!) An RV is equipped with all sorts of warning alarms for when any major system fails and let me tell you - they do work!  Around mid-night there were beeps and lights flashing and once again we experienced "mind-fog" as we scrambled to figure out what was wrong now.  Check the propane!  No it was burning fine.  Battery!  Yup! Our charge had only lasted four hours so Randy had to get dressed and trudge out into the night to hook up the car.  The Corolla idled for the next five hours so we could keep the heat on.  It was 17 degrees outside - burr!


Thursday morning the power was still out and after taking repeated turns cranking our lithium radio we learned that several thousand households were still out of power and the prognosis for getting power back on was bleak. We needed to find a generator! After another round of phone calls we finally located one in Longmont, CO, 50 miles down the interstate, at the Camping World store.  Randy made a fast trip to Longmont and I stayed home to keep "the car running"!   


Funny thing happened when I tried to call into work - my cell phone works on a hands-free Bluetooth connection when it is in the car.  So here I am sitting in the trailer trying to figure out what was wrong with the cell phone when it suddenly dawned on me that with the car running just outside the trailer the Bluetooth connection was over riding the cell phone and I was connecting to the call but the speaker was in the car.  Hopefully my boss didn't hear too many of my expletives of frustration regarding the non-functioning of my cell phone.  


Randy returned around noon with our shiney new - bright yellow generator, carefully read the instructions, got the oil and gas into it and was 2 minutes from pulling the rip cord  when I noticed that the power was back on!  Wouldn't you know it! But at least we now are a little more prepared for the next go around.  And being a full-time RVer in Colorado you can bet there will be a next time.  (Now the only problem is that we have a generator full of gas and need to run it for 4-5 hours to break it in and the campground doesn't allow generators to be run when they have electricity!  I wonder what it takes to apply for a temporary variance?) 


The bottom line is that we survived the first storm and are anxiously awaiting the day when these new "Snowbirds" can spread our wings and drive south ahead of the wrath of Old Man Winter.

Home Improvements/RV Style

We are finally "skirted and decked"!  I was amazed today at how colorful our little home looked  - the sky and the skirting  almost match!  I really didn't plan it that way but I believe it just might be God's way of putting His touch on our new home!  It reminds me of the blue that we chose for our wedding color so long ago!  

The deck is wonderful and I love being able to have a place to decorate just a little.  Makes it feel like home for sure! 

Can't wait to put some Christmas lights on the deck and the pine tree out behind our trailer!  Can't give up all the fun of "decking the halls" just because our home is on wheels. 

The next thing we need to do is finish insulating the water so it doesn't freeze. Kind of hard to think to much about it when it is 85+ degrees out but anyone who has lived in Montana, Wyoming and Colorado knows that Fall can bring pretty sudden changes in temps.  So as ridiculousness as it may seem today it would be easier to do it now and not wait until it is 20 degrees and snowing which could happen any day!

The space up under the hitch (front) of the trailer - now that it is enclosed - is like adding an extra room.  Now all we need to do is resist the inclination to fill it with "stuff" that we really don't need! The first thing to go in will be our freezer! Yep!  We bought 1/2 a beef in May not thinking that our house would sell so fast. After that - it is any ones guess what will end up under there! 

Another task we have discovered that we need to do is rearrange the storage shed!  Ugh!  Seems things that we had planned on being up front so we could get to them were quickly buried by all that "last minute - just put it in the shed because I'm to tired to deal with it" stuff.  I'm pretty sure we may have another load to go to the Good Will Store! 

43 Degrees! And Toasty Warm!

 This week we encountered the first cold temps of the season ... Jippers found a very creative way to stay warm at night!  The comforter on the bed hangs down over the foot of the bed and I guess he discovered that it was a nice cover for him also!  Smart dog - yup!


Now we are turning our thoughts to what we need to to do to get ready for fall and winter.  The skirting company was here today to measure and fit the new skirting and will be back at the end of the week to install it.  That should help a lot with the heat that is lost underneath besides giving us enclosed storage under the front part of the trailer and hiding stuff like our freezer and bikes and other misc stuff that there is no room inside for!


Randy made a pretty cool discovery this weekend - seems that he can come straight down out of the floor of compartment where the fresh water comes into the trailer and attach the hose under the trailer so we can avoid the problem that so many full-timers have during the winter with the water freezing at the inlet point.  So now all we have to insulate is the water hydrant and short piece of hose from the hydrant to the point it goes under the skirting!  Yahoo!  That guy of mine is so smart!  


Saturday we got confirmation that the porch/deck that we ordered was shipped and will arrive on Tuesday!  Yeah!  Getting up into the 5th wheel by three rather steep steps is for younger legs and knees than ours! And Jippers short legs will for sure appreciate the more gradual incline!


I'll post pix of all these "home improvements" that we are making.  I wonder if I can find RVGTV -  Recreation Vehicle & Garden TV!  :)

Settling in...

Saturday was the first day of the long Labor Day weekend - a weekend we normally would have been pulling the 5th wheel up the river to get in one last camping trip before the season ended.  Seemed a bit strange to wake up already in the camper and the campground! Why fight the traffic when we are already at a  campground?!  So here we are and here we enjoyed the weekend.

We walked the dog around the grounds, visited with folks from all around the state and the nation, enjoyed a camp hosted "Ice Cream Social" and went swimming!  Sounds like a vacation get away to me.  Now that it is Monday evening everyone is moving on and we get to stay.  :)

Saturday I cleaned and organized and rearranged the 'stuff' that we had yet to find places for and amazingly it all fits!  Even got my slow cooker tucked away and the DVD hooked up.  Experienced my first hour at the coin-op laundry - I thought I new how to do laundry but putting coins in a larger that large machine will take some resorting practices that I have yet to learn! 

We had the trailer washed and waxed this weekend - a different sort of home maintenance - and have ordered the porch/deck and the skirting.  Talked to the park manager and he will set us up with a bigger propane tank and redirect the sprinkler heads before the skirting is attached.  We are definitely getting settled in!  


Now I'm sitting at my desk ready to balance the checkbook and pay the bills - minus a large house payment, garbage payment, gas bill and electrical bill! And I have noticed our grocery bill has gone down... not because we are eating less but because I can't impulse shop any more ... no room for large size bottles, two for one or the 'just because it was on sale' items!  I do think we may see a bigger balance in the checkbook!  Our new rule - if you buy something new, something old has to go!  It is amazing how much you pick up at the store that you don't really need - even an extra bar of bath soap becomes a huge deal when space is limited.  And keeping a good shopping list is critical - no more off the top of my head shopping :) 

Our New Home!

All the boxes are moved and the storage shed is packed "artfully to the ceiling" without an inch to spare!  We thought we had done a good job downsizing but seems we are still attached to a lot of "stuff" :) Oh well it takes time and all we have now is time! And time is what we need to recover from the sore muscles and tired backs!  We both have vowed that the next move we make will backing the Dodge up to the 5th wheel and hooking up!  Think about it!  There is something to be said for ease of moving!


 Welcome to our new home - Space 42 at the Lakeside KOA Resort in Fort Collins, CO!  Swimming pool, laundry, exercise room, no lawn to mow and no long list of 'honey-does' (although Randy is sure that I will come up with something!) It feels like we are on vacation every time we come home!  And new neighbors all the time.  (If you don't like your neighbors just wait cuz they are moving soon!) What's not to like about this scenario?

If any of you are worried about our 'quality' of life - here is a view of our interior.  Wine rack is stocked, A/C is appreciated and my desk is set up!  And the best part - it only takes me the better part of an hour to 'deep' clean the whole place :)  Come on by if you are in the area! We are looking forward to seeing you and welcoming you to our new home!  And for those of you who don't live in Fort Collins - we have lakeside cabins/lodges at the KOA for you to stay in!  Let me know and we can make you a reservation!  What fun it would be to have you visit!

27 Days!

The garage sale is over! Yeah! Sold lots of "stuff" and still had lots of treasures left over!  Thankfully there is a new thrift store in Loveland that was more than willing to come pick up the rest! It is always a lot of work but we had fun and NO ONE left without something - even if it was 'free!'  The only problem is that now we have to start on the house and we are finding that there are more treasures that need to be put up for sale! 


Down-sizing is a progressive process driven by the size of the storage shed and ours is only 10 x 15!  A wee bit smaller than we would have liked but nothing else is available at this time! I'm thinking that the storage rental business is very profitable venture.  Do you think that maybe we all have too much "stuff"?  


27-days! Randy and I were trying to create a plan and we are realizing that of the 27 days left before we have vacate we are working 20 of those days so that only leaves 7 days to pack up, store stuff and clean up!  It seems a bit surreal and when I go into the house I get a bit overwhelmed.  But then, God is our strength and in Him we can do all things!  Talk about testing scripture!


We are almost completely moved into the 5th wheel and it is beginning to feel like home. I got my desk set up today!  Not having all of our paperwork in one spot made me on the edge of being somewhat dysfunctional! Setting up the computer has been a challenge and let me say that I'm a really big fan of wireless devices!  Cords and plugs are a pain in a huge space but you should try dealing with them in a very small space!   


And then there are the ice cube trays in the freezer - finally found some that actually fit in our trailer freezer.  Can anyone tell me why they only put one shelf in a cupboard or freezer so you have to deal with wasted space!  I found a wire shelf designed to stack plates in the cupboard and re purposed it to fit as shelves in the freezer!  Now we have lots of ice and much more available space in the freezer!  Feels so good to solve such simple problems!


Now on the the next space issue! Talk to you soon!

100 degrees and a few bumps on the way..

OMG!  Trying to set up a moving sale in the garage and it is 100 degrees and miserable!  Randy is burning all the old wood and branches back in the corral so he is really feeling the heat! 


And we are both beginning to feel like we are 100 years old - physically at least!  I never thought selling a house would be so much work! Didn't seem this hard when we moved from Jackson to Fort Collins 12 years ago.  Today I am ready for this to all be over - I'll be ready to take a long winters nap for sure!


Then there is the real estate game - inspections and demands - feeling a little like "come on people you are buying an older house!  Everything can't be perfect!"  So now we are on to getting estimates on replacing the roofing, inspecting the gas meter and moving all our "stuff."


Our pastor said in his sermon this weekend that when God closes a door, He always opens another one, but it is hell in the hallway!  I think we are for sure in the hallway!    Just need to keep focused and tell ourselves that it will be worth the effort of letting go and going on with our next season of life!

283 - 1280 = (1000)

(1000) that's the number that we are now missing!  In square feet that is!  And do you know how much "stuff" you can put in 1000 sq feet?  A LOT!


So let me catch you all up - we put our house on the market on the June 27th and seven days later after three showings, we had an offer on the table!  Unbelievable? We think so and we can only give the credit to God!  We prayed for Him to bless this decision and bring us a buyer - we just didn't expect an answer so quickly!


That is were the 1000 sq feet comes into the story!  We are now in the process of moving into our 5th wheel and trying to decide what is "important" or absolutely "have to have" which certainly takes on a whole new meaning when you look around the 283 sq feet of our new home! I tease Randy about going back to his roots - the Sweds are well know for their approach to living in small spaces - a fact that is demonstrated by their very successful and world-wide chain of IKEA stores - one of which is opening in the Denver area in just 11 days!  That coincidence alone is enough make me positive that this adventure is providential!  (Just kidding!)  And I won a $100 gift card in their pre-opening contest - Hum?!




Right now our very large shop/garage is piled high with "treasures" that we are sure someone will be excited to find at our upcoming garage sale. (Stop by next Saturday July 23rd if you are in the neighborhood - I'm sure we have something you need!) But deciding what is a "sale item" and a "to-be-stored item" is a bit of a challenge and not without some bantering between each other.  Randy's definition of "treasure" is not necessarily the same as mine and visa versa.  Then there is the question of "to store or not to store"?   Oh how do we get ourselves so encumbered by so much stuff?  Thankfully - at this point at least - our tentative closing on the house is August 27th so we do have some time to sort this all out.

The Journey Begins... Late June 2011

3104 Gold Charm Dr

Okay!  So what is going on with the Ballingers?  Many of our friends and family are asking this very question!

First, let me assure you that we haven't lost our minds  - although some days it feels like we are very close :) !!  We are still at least 4 years from being able to retire and we are relatively healthy!  Then how do we explain the seemingly radical and strange notion to sell our house and a good portions of our stuff and move into our 5th wheel trailer?  Like my Dad used to say, "It's just time!" 

We have been talking about going full time RVing for a long time now, so it just seems "like time" to make the transition.  No, we are not heading out on the road just quite yet!  We still have our jobs and in this economy a job in hand is worth alot!   What better time to begin the downsizing process and learn what we can live without  and what we really need. Better to find out before we hit the road if this is really something that we can do!  We will either just love it or kill each other within several months!  :)

And so our journey begins ...  we pray that you will enjoy reading our blog.  If not, no worries!  We're inviting you once and returning is your option!  Feel free to share it with others that might like to read along.  We would love to hear your comments and thoughts!

Randy and Tona