Cleaning house...

Due to some family issues, we had to return to Hemet California and remove our belongings from a condo that was jointly left to my sister, brother and myself and put them in a storage unit so the condo can be sold.  When we decided to become "full-timers" over two years ago, we sold most of our belongings, keeping only the things that really mattered to us, leaving them in the empty condo unit, thinking we were only going to travel for a year "or so" then find a place to settle down again.  Well now it's been over two years, and we are still loving this life-style, and haven't seem to have found a place we want to settle down to yet, so the stuff just has to continue to wait for us I guess!

Living anywhere, you seem to accumulate things, so we decided this was a good time to do some cleaning and reorganizing of the rig while we were at it as well!  The age old saying of "if you haven't used it in a year, get rid of it" really applies in a limited space of an RV, that's for sure!  When we packed it for the first time, I wasn't sure what we would need, so I took one of everything!  I thought I would cook like I did at home - ha!  So, in went all the various pots, pans, cookers, baking pans, etc.  Nope, haven't used them!  Out they went now!  Really wanted my pretty Fiesta Ware dishes, no matter what my friends advised, well, they were right, to heavy & not practical, so, into storage they go too.  And all those projects I thought I was going to get to!  Ha!  Not!  Files of  them, that I was going to spend at the computer...no, I'd rather be outside, enjoying the outdoors, not sitting at my computer, so back into my desk in storage for when I retire from this life!  I also took down the (ugly) art piece that came with the rig.  No offense Tiffin, but it's just not me, it's time that something that's us, is mounted on our wall, so we found a poster I had made of some of my photos, and it fits great!  I don't know why it took us so long to do it...

We took "re-inventory" of our stuff again too.  First to go was my excessive clothes.  No, I'm not going to go back to work, and won't need those types of clothes again...better to pass them on to someone who can put them to better use than in my "limited space storage unit"!  We had already paired down when we sold the house, so there really wasn't to much more we could get rid of, just a little here and there, but every bit helped.

It turned out that this trip was far more taxing than I had imagined it would be...and I had imagined it wouldn't be a good one at all.  One and half days with two powerful hard working young men moving all the heavy stuff into a 10 X 30 unit (yea it ALL fit!), many days & many trips of us moving smaller stuff from the condo into the garage, into the storage unit, onto the patio for Salvation Army to pick up, off to Goodwill, into the trash,  or into the rig...all up and down stairs!  Frustrations abound.  Scheduling people here is like playing the game of Pick-Up-Sticks.  Sometimes it works & they are great, and sometimes they say they will be there at 11:30 and show up at 10:00 (and you are not there, so they just keep on going!).   People stop by the condo and tell me how interested they are in buying it, go on & on about it...only later in the (long) conversation do they share that they (currently) don't have the credit, or the cash (but will have)! Meetings with the lawyer that turn into more meetings that delayed our exit out of town, again.  Winds that never seemed to stop, blowing dirt and sand and leaves and trees everywhere, in everything. It was like a bad movie that just wouldn't end!  I was SO READY to leave this place, and NEVER return!!

A day later than planned, exhausted (mentally and physically), we finally pulled out and headed, happily to Santa Maria where the sun was shining, the wind was softly blowing and I could even smell the the light salt air (or was it freedom?)...

...on the road in California,  Marie