Let's talk bathrooms

 I measured my bathroom today.  3 feet by 4.5 feet.  That is all for the entire bathroom including a toilet, bathtub/shower sink and counter.  Our whole standing room is 1 foot by 1½ feet.  It is small. If I needed to I could use the shower but so far it has been used for storage.  I can also put my feet in the tub while I pee.  Upside pedicure while you wait.

But let’s talk about what happens in the bathroom.  When you need to go you go to your 36-46 square foot bathroom away from your family and you let go the largest fart of your life followed by explosive diarrhea. Ok all done then you flush and realize you got some on you.  No big deal you jump in your shower and take a 20-min shower.  And your family is none the wiser.

Take that same scenario, but your entire home is 8 feet by 31 feet. Here you squeeze into your bathroom.  Put your feet up on the tub and let one rip.  You now hear from anyone in the trailer “Damn” that was a good one.  Explosive diarrhea, Not only can they hear it, you will now hear “You better have turned on the fart fan.”  To top it all off later that week you will be outside dumping it yourself. Got some on you?  You have 2 choices: 

Admit you shit on yourself, grab your bathroom gear and head off to the showers or;

Admit you shit on yourself, and ask for help getting everything out of the tub to take a shower.

At least when you pee, no one can hear.  Nope not true.  You hear everything, you no longer have any mystery left at that point.  Your partner will know that sound came out of you and damn, that smell too.

You may not know that you have to use special toilet paper that runs about 7-8 dollars for 6 rolls oh yeah and that is only for 2 ply.  It also breaks down a lot faster, sometimes in your hands. So how do you keep down there clean?  We purchased individual portable bidets.  These things are the best! You point shoot and you get a baby bath for your special area pat dry and you are done.  It works so well, I will not go back to TP except in emergency situations.

Shower’s you ask?  Our bathtub is the size of a bathtub you put in your tub for an infant.  So imagine standing in the baby's tub trying not to fall and top it all off you get a whole 6 gallons of hot water.  This is why we have not used it.  So far we have been lucky and have had clean bathrooms at our campgrounds but I know that will not last.  We will see how long my husband will use campground showers.  How dirty does it need to be?  Stay tuned to find out.

Just remember, when your wife leaves her makeup everywhere, or your husband leaves hair in the sink.  At least you can turn around in your bathroom.

Please let me know if you have any questions :) Talk to you soon.

Our Home

Our home.

I thought that you may want to see our new home. We purchased a 2021 Sundance ultra -light 291qb travel trailer (Serenity), 33 feet long and weighs 8,000 pounds all full. We also purchased a 2021 Ford F150 (Martha) with a 3.6 liter engine. Our towing capacity is 12,500. Below are some pictures of the inside and outside space. Please be kind. We are not messy people but we have clutter. Imagine going from your 1800 - 2500 square foot home into this. Our whole lives are here. While we have downsized we are still learning what will go where and what we really need to make this work.

This is Serenity and Martha together as you can see they are BFF’s.  You can see Serenity has blue highlights to match Martha. 

This is our outdoor kitchen. Since our inside kitchen is used mostly for storage, this and our BBQ is our way of cooking for now. We have yet to use our inside stove at all.

This is the pop out our trailer has.  It may not seem like much but it holds our entire living and dining room.

Back of our trailer.  This shows the true width of our trailer.

This is our truck Martha, damn she is a sexy bitch and with her coloring everyone sees us coming.

Our living room sofa. Out of the picture is our TV on the wall. It swivels so it serves as the living and bedroom. The shades are closed because it is 100+ degrees outside, and we are trying to keep it cool. Also, the view out the window is our neighbors and I am not a peeping Tom. Our dishes are stored in the cabinets above the sofa and our winter blankets are stored under the sofa.

This is our dining room. You can see the clutter. We also have a fan to help our air conditioner out. It was not built for 100+ degrees. We have 2 dogs, so they got to bring the most stuff with them so you can see their toys. They account for 50% of our daily clutter. The dogs did not have to downsize; they got to bring all their items with us. We also have storage under the seats of the dining room table. This is where the Instapot lives and other items we do not use every day. There is a cabinet behind the table for storage. We now use one cabinet to store all the kitchen stuff you need but not every day.

Our kitchen. So much prep and storage room (I am sure you would love to have this much space to create your meals.) This looks like a mess but if you look closely this only shows our cleaning supplies cleaning everything top to bottom is about 45 minutes), and our breakfast dishes.

 

This is our bed and our closet. Our room is just large enough to hold our full queen size bed and about 2 feet on each side for our closet and walking area. Our largest room in the trailer. We insisted on having our bed, just more comfortable.

The TV!!!!! OK size, once again it swivels for living room viewing.  We do not have satellite so we have to rely on cable from the RV park.  If no cable then we rely on streaming, if there is a good signal or local antenna tv.   

This is the bathroom sink and medicine cabinet. Jealous of all my space to get ready? Good thing I do not have much hair and makeup stuff.

Our spacious bathroom area.  We have about a foot of space to move around.

Just a picture of our shower. I think it works but so far have not used it.

This is our bathtub.  We now use it as storage, and we use the campgrounds showers.  Once we have scary or dirty bathrooms at our campsite we will use this.  We will get a whole six gallons of hot water.

We are really lucky. This is our cluttered but organized bunk house. Right now, as we learn what we will need and what we will not need on our travels it is used for storage. But as our travels continue, we start to downsize even more. This will be my work area and a sleeping area for our grandkids when they come to visit.

This shows the left side of the bunkhouse.

Remember we live here full time.  We have no other home.  It is harder than I thought but I do like the feeling that we are downsizing our life and learning what is really important to a home.  We do have to be more disciplined then we were in an apartment.  If dishes are not done daily then things like no coffee cups happen or no way to eat cereal in the morning.  We also learned the hard way that ants will not wait for you to clean up.  They find a way in and bring all the friends to party.  Try living with a germaphobe and have your home invaded by ants.  That was a cleaning day for sure.

Please comment any questions or suggestions.  

Full-Time Camping with a Germaphobe

 First let me introduce myself.  I am Lisa, 47 and along for this ride is my husband Raider now 46.  We went to school with each other for 4th through 8th grade. We then went separate ways until 2016 when we reconnected on Facebook.  I asked if he wanted to go to coffee, and he said yes and canceled about 2 times.  He explained what was going on and I understood.  Imagine my surprise when he messaged me for coffee about a year later.  We met at Starbucks and spent 6 hours talking.  We have not been apart for more than 5 days since that day, and we were married in 2019.

In January 2021, we decided to give full time camper living a try.  What better way to see this country than to travel around in a camper.  We can stay or go depending on if we like the area.  My job was remote so why not.  In February, we bought a 33 ft trailer brand-new. In March a 2021 Ford F-150 was purchased.  In April, I had a mental breakdown.  My job is now gone, but we are still going to try to live this life.

My wonderful husband is a germaphobe.  He wears gloves to take the trash out.  He washed his hands about 100 times a day and always used hand sanitizer before it was “cool”.  So how in the world will we ever do this, I mean we dump our own POOP!

In the coming months I will have funny stories and great pictures and videos.  Please like, and follow as I take you all along on this crazy adventure.