Catching Up

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to post. Honestly, it’s been a while since I really had time to do much writing.

Life has been crazy.

Our granddaughter, Squishy, was born on March 5th, 4 days after my 39th birthday. Witchlet popped her out in about 20 minutes like it was nothing and I watched the whole thing.

Squishy is amazing and Draco and I are completely in love with her.

We are finally living in our RV and it’s been a massive adjustment for both of us.

The amount of room available had been its own adjustment, but it hasn’t been the only one.

If, like us, you’d never really spent time in a camper, you might not be aware of the fact that day to day living is a bit different as well.

While we’ve work endlessly on the plumbing, we’ve come to realize what a commodity fresh water can be.

Propane is our only way to heat the camper and our main way of cooking. It has become another commodity that I watch closely after spending a few barely over 20 degree nights without it.

Cooking takes more planning than it once did because of space. Prep-work really does need to be done in advance so you have room for the actual cooking process.

There are also various buttons and switches to become familiar with. A whole set of them tells us how our holding tanks are fairing, another turns on the water pump, a crank on the ceiling raises and lowers an outdoor antenna…it’s a lot to learn.

I’ve also learned some about our plumbing, gas lines and hook-ups and holding tanks.

It is a simpler life in some ways, but vastly different than anything I’ve done before.

As for right now, I’m going to enjoy the fruits of Draco’s labor and soak in a rare hot bath.

Blessings,

Fae Moon

Cause I’m a problem solver…

This whole thing with the RV has had me nervous.  Yes, we’ve been making the payments and we’ve now filed our taxes, but we were still unsure about a lot of things, like how the hell we were going to get it moved from where it is to where we are so that we can do the work we need to do to it.

The search for a truck big enough to haul the camper within our price range has not gone so great.  I’ve been worried about gas mileage in a truck as well since it’s already costing me an arm and a leg to get Draco back and forth to work in my car.  I’ve also been concerned about the safety of having Wee Witch’s car-seat in a truck.  Would our insurance go up?  Do we even have to cover it?  All that and more.

I’ve managed to find solutions to most of the questions this morning, and I’m thankful that it seems like everything is working out well.

I found out that our local Home Depot rents trucks, so I will simply rent a truck from them to move the camper when I need to move it.  That means that I can find a car, which will be cheaper, better on gas and will have a true backseat for the car-seat.

Although I will need to register and tag it through the DMV, I won’t have to have separate coverage on it on my

insurance because my liability insurance should extend to cover the camper when we’re moving it.  All of this is great news to me.

Also, this past weekend was Tiger’s birthday party and we went down the day before and spent the night.  While we were there, conversation eventually turned to the camper and our plans for that.  We got to talking about me wanting to learn to can and all of that.  Tiger, apparently, has canned before and knows at least SOME of what she’s doing and said that she wants to start doing it again, too and suggested I come to her house to do my canning and we’ll do it together!  That means I may have to transport stuff back and forth to her house when we’re doing it, but I won’t have worry about how to set it up in my limited space in the RV!

I guess this is what the Goddess means for us to do.  Every time I think there is a road block we can’t get around with it, a solution presents itself to whatever the problem is (so far anyway).

The tax check should be here by the end of the week, so by next weekend, I should have the RV sitting in the back yard with us living in it while we get it ready to go to the park.

Also, I made arrangements last night for 2 mopeds.  One belongs to Chicklet, who has been trying to figure out how to buy my car from me when we get ready to buy something else, so I made arrangements last night for her to use her moped as a down payment.  Then A brought home an E-Bicycle, which is basically an electric moped, and we’re

Electric Moped 06 (Photo credit: FastOlly)

 

going to buy it from him until we can find a decent gas-powered one.  That will give us 3 vehicles.  A car for shopping and spending time with the grand-baby and a moped each for day to day stuff, which will save us on gas but

keep us from feeling trapped at home all the time.

It looks like this is really going to happen (although I’m a little worried about the weather at the moment and how that’s going to effect us getting the camper over here…they say a major winter storm is supposed to hit us tomorrow and it’s going to get bad from then till Thursday).  I’m nervous and excited all at the same time and wishing like crazy that the check would hit before the weather does so I’d at least have my house here before it starts.

So, that’s what’s going on in the Tiny Hearth at the moment.

Are you being impacted by the weather where you live?

Why we chose a small space

Draco and I have been together for nearly 18 years.  One day soon, I intend to start working on the series included under the About Us page called Our Story, but for now, let me explain why we are choosing to move into such a small space.

Over the years, I think Draco and I have lived in just about every living situation you can imagine.  The only thing we haven’t done, is bought something of our own.  We’ve rented, lived with roommates, lived with family, and at one time, we even shared a home with 2 other families.

For some, sharing space is a wonderful and economic idea.  Shared housing expenses (if everyone pays like they’re supposed to) means more money in your pocket, but, sharing space with other people, no matter how much you may like or love them, is never easy.  There will often be conflict or drama of some sort, no matter how hard you try not to get on each others nerves.

Draco and I both have very dominant personalities.  We’re used to ruling our own roost (although we have lived with others over the years, more often than not, we’ve rented a place just for our little family).  We’re both 40-ish and becoming set in our ways.  It’s not as hard to get under our skin as it once was.

We’ve been living with a girl who we’ve known since she was 16.  She’s now in her 20’s, and a mother, with a live-in boyfriend.  Our niece, Chicklet, also lives here and currently, her wife, Miss Nasty (a running family joke said lovingly), live here too.  That’s a lot of people, and a lot of personalities in one space.

We decided when B’s boyfriend moved in that we needed to get our own place, our own space, once again.  The shiny of living with others has worn off and we’re ready, but let’s face it, Draco just changed jobs (and took a $2/hr pay cut ~ even though we consider it worth the cut), and renting a place is expensive these days.

Chicklet happens to have some friends that were living in a camper out of necessity a few years ago.  Since then, their situation has changed and now the camper sits defunct in their front yard gathering dirt and dead leaves.  I approached them a few months ago about their willingness to sell.  They quickly agreed, quoting a price that Draco and I felt was worth it and the deal was made.

Now, as tax season quickly approaches, we’ll be paying off the camper and begin the process of remodeling it (most of which will occur while we live in it).  We will be moving into it as soon as we’re certain that things are “fixed-enough” for it to be livable.  We will be moving it about 20 minutes down the road to an RV park in the town where we lived with my parents when my mother was dying.

In all honesty, living with my parents while my mother was passing was one of the hardest living situations we’ve ever experienced, but, we actually liked the town we lived in at the time and the thought of moving back there stirs something akin to a feeling of “going home” in both of us.

The camper will be ours, free and clear after we get our tax money, so we will have a home that no one can take away from us.  It will be ours.  No payments, no debt.  Every penny we put into it will be an investment in ourselves and not someone else.  The expenses of living in a camper are going to run us about what we pay here, sharing space with two other families, except we’ll have our own space and we’ll be about 10 minutes from Draco’s new job.

I know that we will face challenges as we adjust to living in a small space, which is partly why I decided to make this blog.  Now, I have somewhere to talk about the challenges, and how we over-come them, or somewhere to vent if I get frustrated.

Over-all, Draco and I are both very excited about moving into our small space and we will most likely call it the same thing we call the blog.  Our “Tiny Hearth”.

Have you ever lived in a home with multiple families or in a “tiny hearth” of your own?

Blessings,

Welcome to The Tiny Hearth

My name is Fae Moon and I am the resident blogger here at The Tiny Hearth.  Let me start off by telling you a little bit about who I am and what you’ll find here at TTH.

I am a wife, mother, and soon-to-be grandmother (our little bundle of Wee Witchy joy is due on March 2, 2014 ~ which happens to be the day after my birthday, too).

I have been blogging off and on, it seems, since blogging began, but didn’t begin to take it seriously until about 3 years ago when I found myself caring for my dying mother and her husband that was slowly going insane.  That blog, unfortunately, disappeared in a maintenance mishap and even the techy guys where I was hosting at the time couldn’t make it come back.  Since then, I have floated around from place to place, never quite feeling at home anywhere else and too disheartened to try to revamp my lost blog (let me tell you, that was over a year of hard work, writing, socializing and making a name for myself).

Now, after nearly 20 years together, Draco (my husband and the love of my life) and I, find ourselves on the brink of a completely different life.

Witchlet is our only child and she has been gone from home for years now, and suddenly we find ourselves about to be grandparents!  That means that the pitter-patter of Wee Witchy Feet will once again return to our hearth.

Draco has frequently worked jobs with unpredictable hours, and for the last 2 years, it seems he has spent more time out of town than at home and he has just changed jobs to one with a set schedule and days that is local.

In addition to all of that, for the last 4 years, we have mostly lived with other people.  We gave up our place nearly 4 years ago to care for my parents and then we moved in with a friend of ours and our lives have been reduced to a bedroom for those 4 years.

Within the next month or so, we will find ourselves moving into a camper and putting it on a semi-permanent site about 15 minutes from Draco’s new job.

I have to admit, I have teetered between excited and nervous, but I have found a number of sites recently about living in small spaces and making it work, so now I am filled with confidence and excitement over this next phase of our lives.

In The Tiny Hearth, you will find stories about our lives and our family, recipes, tips for living and growing plants in small spaces, and frugal living.  You will also hear a lot about my favorite little 4-legged baby, my Pug, who is also my familiar.

It also just so happens that Draco and I consider ourselves Pagans.  Now don’t get all nervous.  It’s most likely not what you think (it’s not what most non-pagans think it is).  Our practice is really very different from what I think most Pagans do.  I am what I consider a Hearth Witch, or Kitchen Witch, when means that my focus is on my home, my family, cooking and cleaning.

I also do a handful of crafts and I intend to start doing a few more that I may share from time to time.

I’m very excited to have this chance to spend some time with all of you and I look forward to growing a community of people around this blog!  I hope you come to enjoy your time here as much as I do!

Don’t forget to check out the links on the side-bar to find me on places like Facebook and Twitter!

Blessings!

Fae Moon