The most amazing discovery so far about living in an RV full time? Life is the same in many ways as living in a house. I still misplace my reading glasses, even though I have at least 6 pairs laying around. I still hate doing dishes and they pile up sometimes. Housework and laundry never go away. Things break and need maintenance. Sheets need changed and blankets aired out. If I have access to TV, I will watch too much.Things accumulate and fill every inch of storage space. I still horde books and they lie around in piles just like before because not everything is on Kindle. I don’t eat enough veggies. Yes, we carry our good and bad habits into whatever living space we choose.
How can I lose reading glasses in a 21 foot RV? They slide into the space between my bed and the set of drawers that hold books (a plastic contraption I bought at Wal-Mart). They often find a home on the floor under the dinette where Tango hangs out ( I need to have his eyes checked). I leave 3 pairs in the van. One pair is squashed under all the stuff in my purse. Another is acting as a bookmark in a book of travel essays. Yesterday, I pushed two pairs onto my head, like sunglasses. I couldn’t find the first one up there so put on a second pair, then pushed it up. I discovered this in the bathroom mirror. Crazy. I spend as much time looking for glasses as I did in large homes and half the time they are on my own head. At least I don’t need to go up and down stairs to find them.
Those dishes! I made a vow to tackle them after every meal and to dry and put them away. With the sink cleared I can lay down the sink cover, which makes everything look so neat, like when I first saw it on the dealer lot. Sandy floors? I sweep every morning and end up with a at least a cup of sand in the dust pan. Dirty clothes? I wash them out by hand after my shower and hang them outside, at least until this week. The air is so saturated that clothes never dry, they just take on a moldy smell.
The junk room! We all have one. In a house it may be an actual room or the garage. I now have a junk storage cubby–one of the little RV storage places accessed from outside. This morning I stuffed in some old towels which I should have thrown away and 2 dorky plastic Christmas table cloths. The extra fan is in there, along with my Kitchen Aid and my food dehydrator. My designated sewing/craft closet is so full I am afraid to open the door. Things WILL fall out.
Of course, every housekeeping demand is scaled down a bit, and the actual time required is far less. So, I am not really complaining; instead, I am just marveling at how daily life doesn’t change all that much. We are who we are, the good, bad, and ugly, now matter where or how we live.
