Month: February 2010

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Moving Stuff Around

It’s funny how one organizing solution can snowball into a massive reorganization project.

No, I’m not talking about the new dresser. I’m talking about the pocket organizer!

As I suspected, I have way more pockets than I have stuff to put into the pockets. So, I decided to move the cleaning supplies from under the sink to the pocket organizer to make the laundry supplies more accessible by putting them under the sink. They were previously in the cabinet under the wardrobe. This frees up the cabinet under the wardrobe for shoes, which are currently piled on my lounge floor, after being pulled out of their very unuseful spot in a basement storage bin.

(Are you yet as exhausted as I am?! 😀 )

While I’m moving all this stuff around, I’m also gathering clothes from the far reaches of the rig and either putting it into the new drawers, in a pile for laundry, or in a pile for donation. Ms. Tabitha felt a need to help, of course:

I’m at one of those points where I’m trying to decide who I am now. For all but, oh, two or three years, of my life I didn’t really care about clothes or how I looked. Then, I started to get disposable income and that all changed. The house I rented before moving into Miranda was huge, I had money to spend, I had girlfriends to go shopping with, and my favourite store was on the ground floor of my office building. I had a whole closet devoted to skirts, one to tops, two coat closets, a shoe closet, and several dressers for accessories. And, yes, I wore everything! It was so easy to see what I had and when I started to run out of room, I’d donate the least favourite pieces.

Now, I have a wardrobe that’s half the size of the smallest closet I had in that house, plus the cloth dresser, the drawer under the wardrobe, and the cupboard under the drawer. I started RVing by rotating my clothing seasonally, but that just didn’t work out. I’d find myself in places where the weather turned rapidly and without easy access to the right clothes.

I decided that the only stuff that was going under the rig was the truly cold weather exterior gear and everything else had to fit inside. The wardrobe at present is divided into thirds and I’m using every trick I can to maximize space, like putting more than one thing on a hanger.

So, who am I now? The slob who doesn’t care what she looks like or the clotheshorse? I’m, unfortunately, a clotheshorse who cares what she looks like who is dressed like slob. It’s just so much easier to pull out a pair of sneakers, jeans, and top than it is to find tights and nice shoes. I’m therefore working very hard at getting as much of the ‘slob’ clothes and footwear out of here and making the ‘nice’ stuff more accessible.  It’s still hard to distill my wardrobe down to just a few outfits because of the variety of things that I do. If I ever manage to work 100% for myself, then it will be much easier to really reduce how many clothes I need.

Well, back to work!

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Dressing Room Resolution

While I pondered the bucket chair problem, I decided to make a run into Courtney, a decent-sized community size between Campbell River and Nanaimo. Courtney has something that I miss a lot when I don’t have access to it: Walmart. For someone who used to be 100% anti-Walmart, I am now incredibly reliant on them. Where else can you go for a good quality selection of household goods at such fair prices? Canadian Tire and Sears, and sometimes Zellers, have the same stuff, but for about 30% more. There’s no date yet for the opening of the Campbell River Super Walmart and I got sick of waiting since I found on the walmart.ca website the solution to my dressing room problem.

I have mentioned that I wanted to put a lingerie chest next to the shower but was having a problem finding one the right size. As I searched, I tried to figure out how the heck I was going to secure something that massive and heavy. I thought of just sticking with my super ugly plastic tower, but that’s not securable, either, and it always crashes down at some point during my travels.

The solution isn’t as nice as a wooden dresser, but it looks a heck of a lot better than does plastic. It’s lightweight, durable, and flexible, and I have at least five ideas of how I can secure it for travel:

I bought two of these ‘ClosetMax 3 drawer storage units‘ and stacked them one on top of the other (so, no casters). The frame is metal and the drawers glide much better than I would have expected. They fit perfectly width and depthwise into the corner by the shower and there’s a couple of feet between the top of the second one and the ceiling.

Now comes the best part; getting my wardrobe organized once and for all. I’ve said that a few times, but I think that this might finally be the big IT. Except for my wardrobe needing new doors… There are not enough hours in a day. 😀

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Bucket Chair Dilemma

I put an ad out on Craigslist offering my bucket chairs free and, to my surprise, I got a few responses, with one being serious. Okay, now I need to get the bucket chairs out of the lounge, and fast!

I thought the chair nearest to the cab would be easy to pull out since I was pretty sure the bolts were accessible from the battery compartment. Ha ha ha ha ha.

As you can see in this picture, two of the bolts are hidden behind the compartment wall. I pulled as much of the wall as I could and was able to remove the nut on the bolt closest to the door. The fourth though, is a nightmare. I’m not a small gal and I simply cannot get both arms in there, one to hold the wall down and one to loosen the nut.

And let’s not get into the other chair. The bolts are hidden behind the fresh water tank.

Croft’s suggestion was to remove the bolts from above by grinding them. Nice in theory, but I tried that today and am certain that it will result in my burning my house down. I really don’t know if I should be doing anything that shoots hot metal sparks in all directions in such a small space.

The only good that came of this part of today is that I discovered that the top portion of my narrow pass-through is practically empty. I have space to put patio furniture!

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Visitors

Norma’s worst nemeses were wandering around the front yard when I stepped out of the rig this afternoon.

Don’t worry, Norma, there’s plenty of green stuff left! Pictures of said green stuff is forthcoming. I just forgot to snap some so in awe of the deer was I. 🙂

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I frequently see these two wandering around the grounds of the gas station. They lived up the hill that climbs behind the property.

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Still Shopping for Internet

Part of the agreement for this upcoming season in Dawson is that my wages will be adjusted for the fact that I am going to be responsible for providing my own internet connection. My idea was to have the local ISP hard wire me. Thing is, I’m only going to be there for four months this year, and I don’t know if that will be cost effective. If I knew for sure I’d be coming back for a third summer, I wouldn’t hesitate to run the lines to my spot, but for four months it doesn’t seem to be the best option. I’d be better off investing in a mobile solution that could serve me in other locations.

Mobile internet options are slowly increasing in this country as cell phone service expands. Rates are, of course, usurious and coverage spotty soon as you head away from the US border. I don’t begrudge this last part; most of our country is wilderness! That said, I’ve been watching coverage maps increase along major highways and I’m pretty sure that this year I could get cell coverage for at least 60 to 75% of my trip to Dawson, provided I stick to the Alaska highway rather than the Cassiar, and that I’d be able to map out my trip to have internet service nine nights out of ten.

My cell phone is with Virgin Mobile. When we last spoke about coverage, they said they had no coverage in Yukon and were surprised that I had some in Whitehorse. I’m really happy with Virgin, feeling that it provides me with the cheapest and most flexible pre-paid options, so having to change carrier for my time in Dawson when I barely use a phone to begin with would be really disappointing.

Looking at their silly and almost illegible coverage map this week, it seems that they now do officially cover Whitehorse and maybe even Dawson City.

This is apparently due to a buy out by the biggest devil of ’em all, my nemesis, the evil Bell Canada. Crap. So long as Virgin can remain the company it has been the last year and a half while taking advantage of the far reaching Bell network, I will be okay with this merger, but if there is even an iota of Bellishness to Virgin, then I will have no choice but to take my business elsewhere. I meant it when I said that I will never again do business directly with Bell Canada. I still haven’t forgiven them for making me climb up the telephone pole in the dark in minus twenty weather because their technician was (apparently) colour blind (and that wasn’t their most major crime against me).

But I digress.

If Virgin’s coverage map has increased, and I’m hoping they will reply with a definite answer for me, then I will be able to get something called a ‘Mifi‘ that would let me create my own internet hot spot. Of course, the device is incredibly pricey and the monthly plans are expensive for the amount of bandwidth you get, but it would be enough for work purposes and focused surfing. There are cheaper devices that seem to offer comparable service, but they are for PCs only. The device doesn’t work in Manitoba or Saskatchewan, either, but at this point it seems like the best and most affordable solution to me.

I’m at a crossroads right now, business-wise. I can’t afford to seriously invest in the internet solution I need (ie. satellite), but I require reliable internet service to grow my business. A loan is most definitely not an option. I’m also not certain of just where the next year is going to take me. If I do manage to get to the US next winter and do that every winter from now on, then satellite wouldn’t be as necessary. I could do like my friend Donna and use a cell phone as a modem, an inexpensive option that is just taking off in Canada (at much higher rates, of course), while in the US, and then plan my time in Canada around locations where a device like the mi-fi works. This uncertainty is one of the main reasons why I would never lock myself into any sort of multi-year agreement for cell or internet coverage!

Even if I don’t have an internet solution by the time I head north, I do have a plan in place that will enable me to update the blog, to a certain extent, when I’m in cell phone range. I hope that I won’t have to put that plan into motion, but it’s there. I am nothing if not resourceful! 😀