I Wore Only One Layer of Clothes Last Night!

Yes folks, it was a balmy 9C last night and that meant that I was able to treat myself to turning up the thermostat to 20C  . . . oooh having a heat wave! Seriously, it was nice to be warm in my house and not have to dress up in so many clothes. 

While it is possible to get my plumbing going in this warm weather, to do so would be silly. This warm weather will not last and I would have to winterize in a few days, inside of a week, so the plumbing stays deactivated until at least April. 

I was able to get some dishes and cleaning done last night as I puttered around Wanda. Yes, I did plug in again last night. I will not be near work tomorrow night and wanted to see if an extra night’s charge would last me two days. I hope to stay in my “western home” until Sunday afternoon.  I figure that I can run Jenny to keep things going until then. 

I am eager to get my paycheque today, even though I can’t cash it till tomorrow. I will see if I have enough to pay first card paid off again, stay out of overdraft and pay the second card down to $4000.00. It is now somewhere around $4600.00.

It would be nice to pay it down to a nice round thousand digit number, just a thing I like to do. That way I can easily see and figure out how many lump payments of a thousand dollars it will take to get this card done. Yet still there is that balancing act I need to do of keeping out of the overdraft, so I may not quite be able to do so, we shall see, but any large chunk is progress. 

This card should go quicker as there is the absence of the minimum payment for the first card. The final card should go even quicker with two lump payments per month on it, totalling $1500.00. This will be that as a result of all of the money I have allocated for “minimum payments” will now be going to one card.

As eager as I can get to pay these cards down I need to keep in mind to stay above zero at all times in my main account. That is vitally important, just like keeping the cards I have paid off at a zero balance. Using them for convenience is one thing, like when Wanda needed to be repaired, that is okay. Using one of my cards to buy a nifty new toy, like a new laptop, is not acceptable and how I got into this mess.

As far as the writing goes, I still say that I struggle with determining where my story is. What I mean is where does my story start, and what needs to be in it? What is important to tell and what isn’t? When you know your characters and the world you have created as extensively as I do, this is a problem. I know them too well. 

I have come to realize that a good tool to discover this is to just determine where the most fun for you to write is. For me, the most fun and interesting parts are in Tanea, not England (no offense England). So I will be returning to the storyline of starting in Tanea and have a more compact “Brian flashback” drowned in a longer and enhanced Tanea storyline.   

I never regret these detours and trying new literary things, as it allows you to experiment and see what works and what doesn’t. I find that allowing me to take these detours and experiments encourages new ideas to freely flow. Not every idea is good, but every idea needs to be explored as long as it needs to be explored.

(On a personal Woo-Hoo, note, my little blog has just broke 6000 views!)

I Did My Michelin Man Impression Last Night

Okay, since I didn’t plug in the night before, I knew that I would have to plug in last night. Unfortunately I needed to plug in a few hours before I could. 

After work I got into Wanda and turned the furnace on and I could tell by the way that the fan was running that the battery was low. I let it run for a bit and decided it would be best to not try, so I turned the furnace off. 

Now, inside Wanda, even without being heated all day was still at just about zero, even though it was -7 outside and had been so most of the day. So I put all of my warm clothes on and decided to hunker down for the two hours before I could plug in. 

(yet with hat, gloves and neckwarmer)

I have decided to wait until 8:00 pm before plugging in, that way to allow anyone who may need access to behind the shop to do so before I park and plug in for the night (till 4 am). So there I was waiting in my warm clothes and in a sleeping bag and mostly warm and fine. (Mental note to self, need warmer socks).

Why did I do this you ask? Why didn’t I run Jenny and be warm? Good question. Well, for one, I didn’t want to run Jenny in the area near where I work or bother to move a block to run Jenny for an hour or two. 

The other reason was I wanted to see how I would do in that cold. I know that cold weather is coming and I need to be ready to face it when it comes.  Wanda may not always be as toasty as I would like her to be and I have to be ready. 

I started to doze off due to the inactivity and cold so I went for a walk around the block. That woke me up and got me nice and warm. (Still need those warmer socks though. Hmm . . . then I will need bigger shoes to wear while wearing those pillows on my feet.)

I will say this that for some reason my fridge/freezer does not work as well in the cold. I seem to need to leave it running 24/7 for it to freeze anything or keep it cold. I really don’t want to leave my food in the back of Trea for stuff to keep cold. Besides, we have not hit the permanent freeze where it makes sense to do so yet. 

I did plug in (a little early at 7:30 pm) and by the time I did I noticed that my humidity (the thermometer I recently bought measures humidity as well) was getting closer to “Humid” in Wanda. It seems that electric heater I bought doubles as a de-humidifier, as it was back to “normal” not long after the heater had been running. 

This morning I did more reading and research on the Wars of The Roses and am working on tweaking Brian’s backstory to suit what actually happened. It is a slow process but I feel that I am making some headway.

With each challenge that I meet, with each test that I face, with each hardship (however small) that I endure, my resolve and confidence in myself and my abilities goes up. I now firmly believe that I can not only survive this winter, but thrive. 

Know this: success breeds success; overcoming little challenges empowers you to try and overcome larger ones. This pattern will elevate you to greater and greater things. Even if the only thing you gain is improved self-confidence and a few new skills, isn’t that reward enough for you to try to better yourself?

Spread Out and Cooked Last Night

Okay I decided to do a bit of cooking last night and make a bunch of meals to freeze. This is a little trick that I have done many times before, it worked great when I had a deep freeze . . . sigh. 

Hmm maybe I can put a deep freeze on a trailer behind Wanda . . . . or fasten it to her rear bumper, that can’t possible go bad, right? I digress. 

To do this I needed some groceries, so I went to the grocery store and even put the slide out out, it is a wonder what a difference those few feet make to the interior space and comfortability in there. 

Okay so what I do is essentially cook a pot of a stew/goulash/something creation and freeze it into meal sized portions. Then later I would take one out, tear the plastic off, put in on a plate and microwave it for five minutes. 

Since I don’t have a microwave that will work unless I am plugged into a 120 Vac/ 30 Amp service, I can’t do that. What I figured was I would just take the meal out of the fridge, tear the plastic off and heat it up in a frying pan . . . voila . . . dinner.

Okay so first of all, I start with a pound of ground beef, I fry it up, drain the fat and grease, then stir in a package of taco seasoning (trust me). Once that is all cooked up, I then stuff in two boxes of hamburger helper (add extra egg noodles) I typically go with the lasagna variety or but any kind will work.

Then add the water (be liberal with the water a few handfuls of frozen veg, frozen hash browns (in other words, frozen diced potatoes) a can of chilly is always good, a can of tomato paste wouldn’t hurt. You can see how this can easily get larger and larger as you add more stuff. I have filled a stock pot and made up to 75 meals in one pot at one time (as in 75 half pounds servings). 

Okay so cook the stuff up, then once it is all nice and cooked, let it sit overnight to blend together. Then in the morning start scooping it out into sandwich Ziploc bags, like this. 

I have used a scale to measure out exactly half a pound, this time I just winged it with two scoop (of goodness in every Geoffie’s dinner bag!) . . . couldn’t resist. Then you seal the bag but leave one corner open. Then you smush the dinner flat and move all the air to the one open corner. Once all the air is out seal the bag and lay it flat. Like this. 

The reason I do this is because a half pound is about enough for dinner but also when it is flat like this it takes less time to defrost and heat than a solid ball or lump of something. (Yes I have used this trick to keep uncooked ground beef in the deep freeze and at the ready).

Keep doing this until you have emptied your pot and have a stack of meals in a bag. I would ordinarily do a few different varieties up and have a choice in the freezer of meals ready to eat. This way I have my own ‘convenience food’ waiting for me for when I don’t feel like cooking. 

This was a small batch so only 11 meals out of it all for a cost of about 15 bucks. If you do a larger batch the cost per meal drops considerably, usually under a buck a meal.  

Now that we are finished our stack of meals we put them into the freezer. It is important that while they are freezing that first time that they are kept flat. In the past I have put them on stacks on cookie sheets. Once they are frozen they can then be stacked vertically for easier storage and ease of selection.  I just used a box of hamburgers. 

I am doing this so I have some meals conveniently ready for me, and hopefully be less likely to eat out. I finally had to fill up my five gallon jug of water, and now devised a better system to refill it. Each day I will take home 2 – 4 litres of water (aka one or two 2 Lt pop bottles filled with water). This way I can keep it topped up but not lug that thing back and forth.

I also had to water a tree with my graywater, as that bucket got full.  Don’t worry about the tree, this was just dishwater so it was soapy water and whatever else is left from washing dishes. 

For doing my “business” I usually find a toilet for “number two” or I find a thirsty tree for “number one.” I do have that “backup toilet” yet I have only used it once, as even my body seems to tell me “no, it’s all good, I’ll wait till we find a real toilet, thanks. 

I only mention this next part for practical reasons if someone actually does do what I do and live in an RV in winter.  Putting on clothes to go outside and find a tree to pee on in the middle of the cold night sucks, it really does. I will admit that this next tip is more for the guys and the skilled/well-aimed ladies.

So I decided to get myself a “temporary urinal” . . . AKA a jar with a sealable lid (Don’t worry, no pictures). That way I don’t have to leave the RV to pee but I don’t: 1) smell up the place and 2) risk kicking the jar over and spilling its contents that next morning. Once again I go out in the morning with my jar and find a thirsty tree. Gotta help the environment, you know.

Well, I really don’t know how to follow that, so I won’t even try. Just take this as a measure of my determination to make this work, get through winter and on to the home stretch of just that last card to pay off.

Adjusting Well

Life is made up of all kinds of little patterns and limits we place on ourselves. Often times we try something and only go so far. We look at something and say “that’s too hard, I can’t do that.” Or even worse we listen to others and “conventional wisdom” and never stray from the expected and typical. 

Now there are some nuggets of conventional wisdom which should be adhered to. Some examples are: not licking a frosted metal pole in winter, or not trying to fly like superman from a tall building. Yet when it comes to pushing your limits and stepping out of your comfort zone, I say, go nuts. 

For the past week, and on into the second week, I have been living in Wanda in sub-zero temperatures. It has gotten below -20C and I am still here with all of my fingers, toes and other appendages attached.  I have gotten used to how to live in these conditions. I have adapted and know that I can survive. 

While I do not particularly enjoy it, I can do it, and in so doing, save money. I had previously thought that living in an RV at all (even in warm temperatures) was impossible. Then I thought that just living in one in winter was impossible.  Then I thought that if it got too cold, that was impossible. I have proven all of them wrong, that I can do this.

I have found that first of all bundling yourself up in layers of clothing is key. The second thing to remember is to have lots of quilts on the bed. Thirdly is to have a hat like mine so that it stays on your head as you sleep and your head stays warm. 

Next is to get yourself used to a colder house by starting (before the cold really arrives) to turn down your thermostat, a bit at a time. If you get yourself used to a colder house you will not be so shocked by the cold when it comes.  

This also means that you will not be overtaxing your furnace/heater by trying to keep your trailer heated to 25C when it is -30C outside (good luck with that one). I have my thermostat set to 15C but when it gets really cold I have turned it down to 10C so as to not have it running constantly. 

Also, if you are or can plug in I highly recommend getting an electric heater.  Make sure to get one that provides steady, constant heat so as to help out and augment the heat coming from the furnace. In so doing, your furnace doesn’t have to work so hard to keep your trailer warm. I don’t recommend using a kerosene or propane heater inside as it may be not only be a carbon monoxide poisoning danger but a fire/explosion hazard as well. 

Last but not least is the simple truth that you can kiss your indoor plumbing goodbye in winter. Trust me, don’t even try to keep it going beyond -5C. I should have winterized earlier and it cost me a water pump.  I was lucky that my pipes did burst, but they could have, and that would have caused much more extensive damage. 

To winterize your trailer you essentially drain your tanks and fill the fresh water tank part way with antifreeze. Then you turn the pump on and run each tap until antifreeze comes out of them. In spring there is a procedure to sanitize the lines again. I recommend having the RV dealer to both winterizing and “de-winterizing” as the cost is not that much and it is worth it to get it done properly.   

On the book front, I have begun to research The Wars of The Roses in greater detail so as to be able to better tell Brian’s side of the story in the war. This is from The First Battle of St Albans to Towton, after that he goes to Egypt then ends up in Tanea. 

I am trying to get inspired and past this bit of a dry patch in the writing of this book. I do believe in this particular version of the novel as it tells two great stories at once and gives us insight into the backstories of two main characters. 

I am also looking forward to payday this Saturday, as I will be able to make my first serious payment on that second card.  My progress on the path do Debt Freedom must continue, or I have been chilly for nothing.

Didn’t Plug in, Made it Okay

I didn’t plug in last night and made it through the night. I have decided to only plug in when I absolutely need to. Why? Well, when I plugged in on Saturday night one of those “white vans” I love so much gave me the hint.

The van pulled up to access their shop at 7:00pm on a Saturday night but didn’t talk to me at all. It seems they work all hours, as I figured that that late on a Saturday I would be safe and not bothering anyone. Had they needed to access the shop I would have happily moved to allow them to do so.

They stayed for fifteen minutes or so and then drove off, the next morning I found that my hitch light was on. I have a light on Wanda’s “leg pole” it is the pole which lowers down and has a foot on it. That foot is used to support the weight of the trailer when you disconnect it from the truck. Well, on there, there is a light which shines on the hitch and my truck’s license plate.

It is possible (but unlikely) that I have inadvertently switched it on and didn’t notice it until that next morning. It is also possible that this person driving the white van wondered who I was and wanted to report me (and subtly let me know this). I have, as yet, not been talked to at all about parking there, we shall see what develops.  It is also possible that I am just being a bit paranoid.

Once again if I get the official “don’t park there” I won’t, until then I will park there so I don’t freeze. But with Jenny and that new adaptor I will be fine, it may cost me more fuel but I could run Jenny, heat the trailer up, turn Jenny off and run the furnace and be fine all night.

I do need to get back on track with my spending and park my card again. I took it out for that Wanda repairs thing and haven’t quite put it away again. It is funny how convenient and dependant on those little plastic cards we are. I have also seen how easy it is to trickle spend and just buy this handy item or that interesting item.

I am determined to stick this out and pay off that second card by April. Yet at the same time I will keep out of the overdraft and keep that first card paid off. As with Wanda’ repairs it was needed, but I will pay it completely off on this payday.

That is the deal, that has to be the deal, or I get back into the mess that I was in in the first place. It is easy not to spend when you have every source of credit maxed out. Changing your thinking so that you don’t spend when you have available credit is harder than it seems.

There are always tempting things that you could want to get, yet in the end, don’t need. My last extravagant expense was a necessity (Jenny) but there have been other temptations, such as a new laptop.  

This process is a learning process and is more valuable than if I had just won a lot of money. If I had just won a lotto or inherited a bunch of money, I would have been cheated this learning experience. Struggling to slowly pay these debts off is teaching the value of paying this down.

I am earning my financial freedom by doing this and slowly learning how to handle money and credit. In so doing, I will be setting myself up to not get in this mess again. Changing my attitude about money and credit is vital in the success of this project. What is the point to pay all of these cards off if I run them up again?

My Overpriced Backup-Plan

Last night showed me that I needed a better plan to deal with a loss of power in Wanda. Okay, so what do I do if I am out of power and/or out of Propane? As it stands I freeze or sit in Trea with the heater on max as she idles. I knew that I needed a better plan. 

Simply to be able to do this, cost me almost seventy bucks!

Why? This little guy cost that much, that’s why.

Okay, let’s start from the beginning. Wanda takes 120 VAC / 30 Amp, which is twice as much current as your typical house line. Her outlet looks like this.

The cord that plugs into her looks like this

The other end of that cord looks like this

Now to plug into a regular outlet I put on an adaptor 

As long as I don’t draw too much power this is fine, as remember a typical line of power is only 15 Amps. I have tried to do this with Jenny’s other plug but she her breaker keeps tripping.  So I can only run the furnace and the battery charger, and maybe a few lights; any more than that and I risk tripping the breaker. When I am plugged into a regular outlet I seem to be okay, but Jenny’s outlets are not geared to give as much power as I need. 

The solution is Jenny’s 120 VAC/ 30 amp plug, but it looks like this

Yet Wanda’s cord looks like this, remember.

That is where this little adaptor comes in, 

That means I can do this

This means that I can run jenny and run that electric heater inside Wanda, thus being able to augment Wanda’s furnace, and even run the microwave (but probably not at the same time). This is important as it means that I am using Jenny at her full capacity and my independence is assured. 

If I ever find myself out and about without access to a power outlet I can now rely on myself to give me the power I need to not only recharge Wanda’s batteries but also run the heater inside. I tested this yesterday and everything ran fine, but I didn’t run the microwave. 

I did plug in and get with the electric heater Wanda’s furnace barely came on. The weather was warm enough that I was even able to put the slide out out for the evening, it was a nice treat. 

We are due for warmer weather with it staying somewhere between -10 and just above 0 C. I know that the really cold weather will return soon but at least for now, it is warmer. When the really cold weather returns, I know that I will be fine, I will survive. 

This month’s paycheque, I am planning to put it to that second credit card, as well as paying off Wanda’s repairs on the first card. It is progress and moving forward and it is important for me to actually make a payment on that second card. I need to see that I am not enduring this for no reason. 

My goal is that by April 1, (okay at latest the end of April) that my second card will be done. That will have been done during the time that I should have put that money towards renting a room. Once that is done, I will be positioned well to get that last and final card done on or before the end of August 2015. 

Then and only then will I start to write a book about this experience. When I am done, when I am successful, and in my saving phase, then and only then will I write the book about what I have learned during this process and journey.

The Flower-Pot Heater Experiment

I always like to try different things. Being that I need to keep warm and want to do so in as efficient and economical a manner, experimentation is key. 

I bought another set of thermal undies and another pair of sweatpants. So now I feel like I am wearing the twelve days of Christmas: two pairs of socks, three pairs of thermal undies, one pair of undies, Two pairs of sweatpants, one sweatshirt, one sweater, and a faux-fur hat on my head! 

I am warm though, and that is key. 

So a friend of mine told me about a nifty little heater you can build from a pair of candles and a couple of clay flowerpots. I decided, why not, it’s worth checking out.  I bought the materials from the hardware store and brought them home. 

I set up the ingredients in a flash, essentially bolting the two pots together with washers on either side of the clay pot hole entrances, and a nut in between the two pots. 

The four little clay dishes were supposed to be the feet for the clay pots, but the candles were too big, thus the coffee mugs. 

This contraption is supposed to trap the heat from the candles and warm the pots which capture and radiate that heat. What I found was that it just gets warm so if you need a coffee warmer or just want to warm your tootsies, this is fine. For what I need, this does not give off enough heat. 

I will try again with a number of tealights underneath it with the little clay dishes as feet and see if that makes a difference.

The effort is more important than the results. Don’t get me wrong I am still working towards a portable heater which can help augment Wanda’s furnace. To try, to be willing to try and not beat yourself up if things don’t work is the most important trait needed to improve: yourself, your situation and your life.  

If you want to do something, just follow my simple plan: 

1. Set a goal

2. Make a plan to achieve that goal

3. Give it your best shot (work the plan)

4. Observe the results (be honest and objective)

5. If it worked, great, see if it can be improved and go back to step 2.

6. If it didn’t work out how you planned, just figure out what went wrong and go back to step 2

7. Repeat as necessary until you determine this is as good as it is going to get or this plan won’t work.  

See how simple that is? Nowhere is there a “scream, yell and berate yourself” step.

I have used this plan and trust me it takes practice not to beat yourself up when things go wrong. I have had successes on this journey and made mistakes. Unfortunately for me, my mistakes are out there for everyone to: read, laugh at, and hopefully learn from. 

That is after all the purpose of this blog, to help others learn from my mistakes so you don’t do what I did wrong. Then again, what didn’t work for me, may work for you as you might have made a few key changes to make it work. I will also admit that by blogging about it, it forces me to keep going and not back out until I have achieved my goal of debt freedom. 

 This winter stint in Wanda is to prove to me that I can live in her in winter and in so doing eliminate my fear of winter. One of the reasons I didn’t move into Wanda years ago was the fear of what I would do when winter came. If I smash that fear by doing it, I won’t ever fear winter again. 

By the end of this winter I will have living in an RV in winter down to a science. Don’t get me wrong, it will never be delightful as you can kiss indoor plumbing goodbye when things get down below -5 C. Again, keep your mind on your goal and not the current struggle you are going through. Don’t ignore the struggle, fight it, face it and do what you need to do, but keep your mind focussed on that end goal.  

Keeping positive is another struggle that I am going through.  More than a few times in recent days I have caught myself berating myself for my past mistakes and my decision to stay in Wanda. I now have decided to stop myself and at that moment force myself to say something positive instead. It may seem silly but it is interrupting my negative pattern and installing a new positive pattern. 

There are a lot of things to get angry and agitated about, but getting angry and focussing on those negative things will not help me. I need to keep positive as this winter living has been my greatest challenge yet, yet it is a challenge that I shall meet and beat.  

I know that I need to plug in each night not just so I can use my electric heater, but so I can charge Wanda’s batteries. I decided to park in my Western home and not plug in as it is closer to the library I go in the weekends. When that furnace is running that draws some power. It was almost morning when Wanda’s batteries ran dry and the furnace quit. 

I now have learned that I need a backup heater solution for just such an occurrence, such as an small propane heater. I have plenty of ventilation in Wanda as my stove is an open burner propane stove. I will check into this today but plug in tonight. 

Each time something like this happens I ask myself two questions:  1) What happened? 2) How can I avoid this in the future? In asking myself those two questions right as soon as whatever it is that has happened, happened, it focuses myself on solving the problem rather than the problem itself.