Photos

 A quick note for those working to downsize photos: I found this: Memory Box  and plan to send what photos we're keeping to them for digitizing.  Then I'll either send the photos to the kids, or toss them.  Yes, that's hard, but we have promised ourselves a fun RV life, unhampered by physical things.  Can't do that if we're lugging around boxes of pictures we never really look at.  (Note to self: go over the photos we uploaded from Gabe's discs--there are some jewels in there!)

Downsizing, Part I

 Maybe this should be Part Ia, but we'll just start here. 

In 2010, I began a fledgling folk art business.  At the time, I called the space where I made the folk art The Craft Room.  But the name changed along the way, and I began calling it The Studio.  It seemed like a more suitable name, since it was the seat of my business, not just a hobby.  I never made enough to pay the mortgage, but I did send us on a few trips around the states to see the kids. 

All four walls  looked like this (only messier).

That room was full.  Between the hubby who could give me floor-to-ceiling storage, and my penchant for thrift shopping?  Hoo-boy, could I fill shelves. 

That room was also was the place to start clearing, when we decided on our journey to RV life.  Do you have a craft room, hobby room, Man-cave, or similar?  They get pretty crammed, even if you clean them out periodically.  We had a "Craft Supplies Sale" this last September, and I cleared out a lot.  A LOT.  But there is so much left to clear, and I will do it in increments.  We have about six months before we list the house, and I have time.

But yesterday was cold and blustery, and I wanted a sitting-down chore, so I tackled photographs. 

It's hard to throw away photographs, even if you ARE going to scan them.

Remember back before we had digital cameras, and got double prints of everything?  Nowadays, you can take twenty, then delete all but one or two.  We had decades of photos--each of us had a lot from before we met, then we finished raising four kids together--you get the idea.

It was a fun afternoon, all those memories.  And I threw out so many!  The boring, the doubles, and the ones that make you go "where WAS this?"  Ended up with maybe 1/8 of what I began with.  Maybe less.  Now to find a scanning service, buy a photo digitizer, or do it all on our scanner/copier (which is not a job for the faint of heart).   

It hurt--throwing away photos.  Those are photos of my BABIES!  My advice to those who are facing this?  Just do it.  Then physically throw them out before you can start sorting through again.  Because you will second-guess yourself.  Just Do It. Nike was not wrong about this.

If you're really sentimental, this is going to be hard.  But scanning the very best of them will make the ones you keep more meaningful in the long run.  And now...to go make more memories! 

We Did It!

We told Phil's folks our Full Time RV plans.  Maybe you won't get how scary that was.  Why?  Because we care what they think of us, and we're telling them about our "flaky, hair-brained, ridiculous" idea.  We don't think our idea is all those things, but I've heard it described that way by some.  And his parents have supported us through all the planning, designing, and building of the custom home we currently live in.  You know, the house we JUST built, and are now planning to sell.  Along with all those danged chickens I just thought I had to have. 

I have the best in-laws in the world.

But you know what's funny?  Mary Jo already suspected it, just a little.  Apparently I had said something a month or so ago about moving our mattress "to the new RV".  That's it.  Anybody less intuitive would have just assumed we'd buy a new mattress for the house, and then press on.  Not MJ.  No, she knows her son, and her daughter in law, and...well, we are NOT flaky, but we have moved.  A lot.  All over. 

So anyway, they don't think we're out of our minds.  Or if they do, they are generously not offering that opinion aloud.  And it felt good to clear it all up, describe our plans, and get their feedback.  First thing Gabe did was go dig up a booklet of parks and destinations!  Gabe doesn't say much, but his eyes were twinkling--he would make a great Camp Host, because he knows all things RV, has every tool under the sun, and has a heart as big as Dallas.

Maybe it weighed on us, what they would think, more than we knew.  Ever do something you've been working up to for a long time, and then after the doing of it, you relax so much you're useless for awhile?  Yeah, we were pretty useless when we got back up on the mountain.  But everybody knows our plans, at least the ones who care to hear it.  And the ones we care about telling.

Now if we can just get through one more winter up here, retire from the hubs' job, and hit the road.
  Cheers, y'all.  

In Defense of Blogger

After 12 years of using Blogger for my business web-hub, I thought I'd change it over to a Travel Log.  I wanted to document our efforts and processes to clear out, down-size, and--by next spring--sell our house.  All with the ultimate goal to live in our motor home full time. 

The Doll Shop has closed. 

I posted a link to the previous post on a Facebook group that I really like.  One gentleman asked me if I could tell him how to "subscribe" to the blog--yay!  Then I discovered that Google, in it's monetary driven wisdom, had deep-sixed the subscription tool, never to return it.  No more support.  I'm pretty sure nobody gets any SEO (search engine optimization) since Blogger is free.  I don't even know how much longer Blogger will last, if Google doesn't turn it into some kind of "website builder" machine, like Wix and Weebly, etc.  If that's the case, I'll deal with it when I get there.

There is no longer a need to have a "brand", get custom commission work, or have an online store. (Can we all say hallelujah?)  So I went on a search to find another way to blog--without having to pay for a domain name or hosting.  It's not that I'm cheap--I'll definitely pay for a good product when I need it.  I just don't need it anymore.

Well, no such luck.  There are very few places where you can get a "free" website.  Picture me yelling at my monitor during this search; "But I don't want one!  Just a blog!"  Even those few that are "free" will blast their own advertisements all over your site, and they're so limited in function as to be almost useless if you did want a website.  Then your introductory time is up, and it's not even free anymore.

Well, I found a reasonable thing on Wordpress.com (as opposed to Wordpress.org, which took a while to wade through) and decided, what the hell.  So I paid my subscription for a year of domain & hosting. And then...I started trying to put together a blog.  The minute I started trying to use templates and thing-a-ma-jigs to make it a little more serviceable, I bogged down. 

A friend suggested I do the You-Tube thing.  No thank you.  There are enough "stars" in the You-Tubiverse.  I don't want to be another one.  As annoying as Blogger is, with its ever-decreasing support and functionality, at least I know how to use it without a computer programming degree.  I'm not a stupid woman, (no matter what they say).  But this Wordpress thing was useless to me.  So I canceled my page, got my refund, and came back to blogger.  Just not worth it. 

So we're down to this.  If you want to subscribe (and after this cheerful little story, how could you not?), use the "subscribe here for updates" on the left sidebar.  It's really a contact form, but I'll use it as a mailing list to notify anybody who wants notifying of new posts.  If you have questions, it still works for that, too.  I'll put links to interesting RV-related persons, places, and things over there, too.  First I have to discover them.  See?  Isn't this fun?  Y'all get to be in on the ground floor of a new thing!  Bear in mind, the whole reason I want to blog is for family and friends, to keep them updated without ginormous Facebook posts. 

Someday, Google will deep-six Blogger entirely.  At that point, I may just blow up my Facebook page with the Hermitarium posts.  All Hermits, All The Time!  But until then, we'll see y'all here when there's something to say.

Time To Face The Change...

BIG changes coming up for us.  A whole new way of living. 

If you're new to this blog, let me introduce us.  We are Phil and Jan Conwell, currently living in the mountains of eastern Arizona, in a tiny town called Lakeside.  We've been together for (almost) thirty years, have four grown kids and nine grandkids scattered across the US.  Phil retired from the Air Force in 2007, then began a new career managing Air Force construction data.  I was a civilian Air Force instructor for ten years, then spent the last twelve on a folk art business, making art dolls and such.  We are getting ready to retire from all that. 

Now--you're mostly caught up.

I am really not sure if it's just Phil and I, or if many people really want a big change to shake them up in their lives.  He wanted to live in the White Mountains all his life, and had fond memories of boyhood summers spent running through pine forests.  Jan always wanted to live among trees and raise chickens.

When we got to the point where it was financially viable for us to do so, we moved here and built a house.  If you've read posts from 2018 to now, you know the story (aside from all the doll stuff).  The house has been finished for quite some time.  The chicken coop and run finished.  Got chicks in April, and they were laying by late September.  So Phil had his pine forest, and Jan had her chickens. 

  All was right with the world.  Wasn't it?

But here we were, in our happy place, discovering it was NOT all happy forest dwelling.  Why were we still antsy to DO something?  Go somewhere?  So we bought an RV (ahem, he corrects me: it's a Motor Home). It's huge--36 ft long.  It has a bath and a half!  Two slides to make for more room. Why not just get a camper?  You'll see in a minute.

Riggs is a 2016 Fleetwood Bounder 35K

Right after Phil retired from the Air Force, we lived at an RV park in White Sands, New Mexico, while we put together a small homestead at the foot of the Organ Mountains.  Three months in a 19 foot camper with no slides.  And we enjoyed it!  The only hardship I remember was RV Toilet Paper.  Ugh.  I'm grateful to learn as long as we use "septic safe" and plenty of water, our black tank will be fine.

Life in a camper was fun, but we missed having a couch or recliner.

 

I don't remember what our 2007 camper was.  Why is that?  Why don't I have pictures of it?

Some other catching up on us: we have moved 18 times in our (almost) 30 years together.  I have the list of addresses.  Each time we moved, we enjoyed learning a new place.  In some cases, we were in one spot six months.  Our record so far is five years.  Five years!  Seemed like forever.  We need travel!

We've been here in our newly built, custom-designed home for...well, it'll be two years this Christmas.  And we're antsy again.  Great little town, but this will be our third winter here and--guess what?  We're not truly "mountain".  That's a derogatory thing to say to someone up here, but we'll admit it right out loud.  The whole John Denver-Rocky Mountain High thing?  Over rated.  We officially hate winter.

However, it's more than just a need to travel and escape the cold.  We don't want to be "vacationing" all the time, coming back to a town we know.  A town we're already bored with.  But we're too old to keep moving!  I have had my fill of packing and loading a U-haul.  I've had my fill of all this STUFF.

The solution?  Riggs.  I realize this is not the solution for everyone, but it is for us.  This spring...we're going to have an estate sale, clear this house, and sell it.  Then we're going to hit the road for real.  I haven't told his Mom and Dad yet but I expect they already sensed it.  Their son and his wife are true nomads.  (And apparently have the attention spans of goldfish). 

But with Riggs as our home, and nothing to tie us down, we'll go see ALL the towns.  And state parks, beaches, national monuments, and Vermont when the leaves change.  We'll be full timers on the road, and snow birds in the winter. 

Did I mention I'm through with winters here?

I'll keep a couple bins of creative supplies--that will never change.  But I'm over worrying about selling stuff.  I'll be happy the day I can tell Etsy to get lost. My creative nature will thrive as it should.   

From this point forward, this blog is about life on the road.  I will post about our upcoming endeavor, the changes it will bring.  Later, once we're on the road full time, I'll post things of interest to other Full Timers (there are more of us than you'd think!).  So...big changes coming.  Between now and late spring of '23, we will divest ourselves of everything.  Except a new Jeep to tow behind Riggs.  I will name our Jeep "Toad".  It's not original, but it will make Phil twitchy, which is always fun.

  One more winter here.  We can do that. 

Then maybe we'll see y'all on the road!

Mother May I?

 Well, it's Mother's Day weekend, it's May, and I am woefully neglectful of this blog.  Stuff's happening!

I finally, finally, finally got my baby chicks.

I ordered 15 females, three of five different breeds.  Cackle Hatchery sent four of each.  Twenty!  What do I do with all those eggs!?  One little Speckled Sussex didn't make it, but the rest are fine.

Oh, the fluffy sweetness was overwhelming that first week.  They spent three nights in the house, and that time was great, because they were handy to go visit and watch.  But. The. DOG!!!  We're still not sure if she suffered under a denied prey drive or a denied mothering/guarding instinct, but either way, we couldn't take it anymore and moved the chicks to the coop where she could no longer hear them.  She must have lost five pounds in those few days to the panting, pacing, and whining.  Tough week for the Gypsy girl. 

So the chicks will be three weeks old Monday the 9th...and they're flying!  I mean; "I want to go over THERE!" and they fly over.  They fly up to my lap sitting on a chair, and they would fly to my shoulder, but I draw the line at poop on my shoulders or head.  I have a first person understanding of what a Pirate's back must look like if he really totes a Parrot around all day on his shoulder.  Birds poop.  A lot.

Maybe half of them or more are tame enough to hang out "on me" when I sit on the floor.  And maybe a quarter are so tame they'll come running, or climb the ladders to get to me.  Silly, tiny raptors.  Feathering out soooo fast--they'll likely be off the heat entirely in another week or so.  I made them a heating pad "cave" or Mama Heating Pad, and they have the entire 8 x 10 coop to rampage through.

I still have some finishing to do on the run.  We fenced off a separate pen so that future littles can integrate with bigs and get to know one another without risk of bullying.  They have their own pop door and ramp.  So I still need to affix hardware cloth at the ends of the roosts to foil the reaching-through kinds of predators, and string cables and netting to deter flying-in predators.  We're finally having good weather so I hope to get that done this weekend. 

I hope to be more regular about posting here, and soon I'll have dolls stuff to post about.  But right now, it's all chickens, all the time.  Ha!

See y'all around.  Here are some pictures of the coop and run.  Cheers!