Hold on, you're still alive??

Ok, yes, I do still exist. Of course you’d never know it by the number of times I’ve updated in the last couple of months. So I offer into evidence an effort to dispel the rumors of my falling off the side of the earth, an update!

House Renovation

Believe it or not I’m going back to the original plan. I’m finding that I just don’t want to wait another 3+ years. It’s just that simple.

I’m at the point now where I’m only going to do minimal work in the kitchen just to get it over with. I’m really very tired of spending every spare minute working on house crap. So there it is. I’m going to sell the house in the not too distant future and jump off and I have no idea on earth where I will end up.

Other than that the house is about done. I FINALLY finished the hall bathroom! It only took me something like a year to finally finish it. But at least it’s done now. I’ll put a few pics of it shortly so you can see the final product.

Fifth Wheel Search

There haven’t been any RV shows in the last few months as it has been too hot. I think the next one of any size is in November in Tampa. I am still watching websites and have even gone a couple of times to a dealership but I tend to not like doing that as I really don’t like pushy salespeople.

I have found a brand new model that checks off almost every box on my list. I was over at Lazy Days looking at units and just stumbled across this one. I hadn’t seen it on their website before so it was a total surprise. I knew it the instant I walked in that this one was going to rate extremely highly. It just felt right from square one. I’ll put some pictures up in the next post. Here’s the floorplan for it:

There is another new floorplan that I like very much but haven’t been able to actually find one yet to walk through. It’s very similar to the original 293RK that I liked so much way back when.  I like this variation so much more than the 293rk mainly because they moved that stupid tiny little excuse for a desk over to the back wall and made it much bigger and moved the pantry over into the kitchen. So far I’ve only gotten to see floorplans and pictures so seeing one in person is extremely high on my list of things at the next few RV shows. Here’s a link to the floorplan if you’re interested: http://www.keystonerv.com/alpine/models/3300gr-new/model-mobile

Jumping Off

I have set a hard date that is moved way up. I thought it would make a huge difference financially to hang on for two or three more years. Because I want the truck and fifth wheel within this next year, I would then be making payments on both along with all the current normal expenses. So the actual saved money worked out to be somewhere just under minimum wage. Yeah, that’s worth it, not. The other problem is that the longer I wait, the more the renovations become dated and that equates to lower sale price.

Second, I want to go now when doing things like hiking, biking, kayaking, etc are still viable options. The longer it takes to jump off and go, the more difficult all of those and more become. Three years may not sound like a whole lot, but I believe it is.

The funny part is that this plan is the very first plan I had back over two years ago (has this goofy RV’ing idea been going on that long now?). This may be a prime example of me overthinking everything.

Ah yes, that reminds me. I had said that I was going to buy a used truck instead of a new one based on savings, depreciation, blah, blah, blah. Well that plan got scrapped. I found that after it was all said and done that I would only save a thousand or two and then I would end up with a truck with no warranty. What’s the old saying, Penny wise, pound foolish? Yeah, so I’m now getting ready to order (yes order) my new truck. I found out that it doesn’t cost one penny extra to order exactly what I want from the factory. I should take delivery right around Christmas time.

One other little tidbit. Quite some time ago I promised that I would type up my whole thought & preparation process about going RV’ing. I’ve gotten the first four posts done and I’ll be putting them up shortly.

Me

Yeah, here’s a new category that I’ve never commented on before. Me! Soooo, what’s new with me?

Let’s see, I’ve managed to pack on far too much weight in the last couple of years. So I’ve joined a gym and overhauled my eating habits. I’ve never gone to a gym before. It’s kind of interesting at first, but now it’s just something I do three or four times a week.

I’ve also found out that I really love to cook! I’m finding that the tougher the dish, the better I like it! I’m working right now on whole weekly menu of dinners that start from scratch ingredients. No processed food is my new mantra! This is a bumper sticker on the side of the fridge:

The gym and new eating habits seem to be working as I’ve lost right around 15 pounds so far and my 34” waist jeans are now getting pretty loose. My goal is to get back to my high school weight and stay there. It also couldn’t hurt if I were to put a little shape back into this lump (and no, in this case round is not an acceptable shape).

So what else? Well, I’ve met this lady but I’ll introduce her in a separate post.