Feeling "scattered"

[steamjam1]

The G/F and I have been discussing how "scattered" she's been feeling. I completely understand this. Before I bought Big-Blue and was limited to a shorty Dodge I also felt this way. Most of my belongings, like clothes, important documents, tools and things were in several different places. And over time not being able to keep track of where anything is and losing track of tax documents, etc really started to effect my mental well being. The G/f is feeling pretty much the same way now trying to live in Big-Blue with me, and her little Jeep Cherokee at the same time. Some of her important stuff is here, some of it there, still other stuff way over there... She can't remember which box anything is in... Everything feels like clutter... stuff strewn everywhere. No real order. chaos...etc etc etc...... Its starting to drive her bat-sh*t like it drove me.

I feel much more "together", and am generally alot happier now that all my "stuff" is in one spot. I know where most things are, and rather then drive 40 miles to get whatever I need, I can just get up off my bed, reach up, and grab it....

We talked about getting a small storage unit so that atleast everything will be in one place, but decided that it would be better to keep us mobile, and not stuck to a place just because of another bill we have to attend to just for a space to stack things, as important as those things may be. Neither of us own any furniture, or large things.

So we came to the discussion of buying her an RV/campervan so she can have a sense of "home". 

I would just give her the Dodge RV I already own, but its needs so much work I feel that it would be better if I just bought her a nice one to start off. I don't really want to spend any money, but to help out with her mental well being, I will. She's been looking at this 1973 Class-C Dodge that I am on-the-fence with because its so old, but she likes old things.. (Like me..) and I have enough left over parts to rebuild it three times over at this point. There is also this high-top 1969 Econoline-100 Camper-van she's into. I'd like to get her into a late 1990's >insert make model here< if I can talk her into it, even if it means I gotta go back into some debt and live on "famine-mode" for a while paying it off as fast as I can. (ugh not again.)

Anyone else feel scattered like she is, and I was? How do you deal with it? I didn't cope with this well at all. It's put alot of strain on my relationship with the G/F.

 

[AngryVanMan]

What would you two do if you were in a sticks and bricks and it burnt to the ground tomorrow?  Spend your lives lamenting all your irreplaceable lost possessions and the wooden box it was in, or move on?  When people invoke the oft-quoted Fight Club, that's what they're getting at.  We spend our lives scraping, groveling, sacrificing, and shoveling sh** to buy and keep things we don't need to impress people we don't like.   You both have spent valuable time keeping track of items you own, but aren't really using, and losing sleep over it.  Imagine the absurdity if you went up to someone who just lost everything in a disaster, or had to make peace with a terminal diagnosis, and told them a story like the one in your post.

I think learning to let go is the hardest thing most people will ever learn to do, and the easiest thing to put into practice once it's been learned.  The main problem is nothing but psychological.  Get past that, and then decide what effort and amount of your short time here you will dedicate to keeping track of and storing all those "essentials and important stuff."

If you feel like you'd like to dedicate more time and space in your lives together to some of this stuff that can't fit in Big Blue, why not a little cargo trailer or a tear drop out back?  Why do you need two full size vehicles, for work?  That's a lot more gas and maintenance for two people.  If it's just a security blanket, sell it and realize either of you could buy a similar vehicle tomorrow anywhere in the country with the proceeds.  Maybe a scooter, motorcycle, or bike would work.  Tax returns, documents, books, pictures?  Scan 'em in or get digital versions - I can fit the Library of Alexandria on a device the size of my fingernail for goodness sake - and store backups for free on all sorts of Internet services.  Tools? Maybe you can join a makerspace or hackerspace and use the 'passport' all across the country when needed.  Or sell the rarely used stuff and buy used or borrow when the need arises in the future. Just figure out what is really important to you guys, and the rest will follow.  Scatter all that unnecessary stuff in the wind and take those mill stones off your neck, if you can.

 

[Every Road Leads Home]

Oh man, welcome to my world at the moment. I'm living in a house in Mass that I have my everyday stuff at, own 24% of a summer family home about 45 min away that has half my tools, a few boats, all my outdoor gear, paperwork from my entire life, some furniture, a half remodeled house in Maine that has another pile of crap, and if all that wasn't enough a storage unit in Maine I keep tools at that I work on the house with! It's killing me mentally this year.

Good news is the summer house is getting sold this year and i've been condensing down, getting rid of, selling stuff there so that will be one off my plate. The place I live just has my clothes and computer and a few electronics so that's easy enough to deal with when the time comes, then from here I plan to live in Maine and i'll be down to just one house and one pile of stuff. Then i'll decide what to do with the Maine place once I get all these other loose ends gone first.

Tell your gf I certainly empathize with her situation. I don't think owning all this stuff can be healthy for me, or anyone really. Weird how it can consume you. I had never planned on letting it get this out of hand, but I got disabled and couldn't do anything with anything and it all sort of snowballed over the years.

I gotta take some of Angryvan's advice in the post above. Years ago I was moving and wanted to just be free of all my crap i had acquired, two months later everything I owned fit into the back of a two door jeep wrangler and I never felt better and I haven't missed or remembered a thing i got rid of. Time for a take 2 and do it again.

 

[steamjam1]

It's not that we own alot. We don't. Just the clothes wear everyday, hygiene stuff, food and grooming stuff for our dog, and the tools we use for our respective professions. Yeah. welders take up a ton of room... Its just that collectively, it turns into "alot" of stuff.

 

[LadyJo]

Just from a woman's point of view - does she have any place or spot for just her stuff or her self? Maybe it's time to do some "spring cleaning" and get things uncluttered. As I don't know either of you, I'm just guessing.

 

[steamjam1]

The center of the issue is that although Big-Blue is large enough for two and a dog, our careers separate us two to four days a week where I am 180 miles away and she has to live out of her Jeep Cherokee for that time attending to her career which is stationary. Between trying to stay organized in the RV where everything gets jumbled because of the limited space and there is no "Her stuff" drawers or cabinets, and constantly moving in, and out of her Jeep I can see why this starts to get to her.

So we have been shopping around for a moderately priced little Toyota Chinook. She doesn't need much room. She just needs room. I'd get her a class-b of her own, but I think that would be overkill. Also, I have more Toyota truck parts laying around the ranch ONTOP of my pile of Dodge van parts it would be silly not to go old Toyota....

 

[jimindenver]

What about a small trailer or hitch rack to make space in either Big Blue or the Jeep?

 

[MrNoodly]

It took me about a year to figure out which stuff I needed to have readily at hand and which stuff could be buried away. Then over the next year I realized which things I just didn't need at all. It's so much easier to find things when you have less stuff.

 

[Theadyn]

I've felt that way for months!!

First at my daughters house, then having to get stuff out of the van for myself to use in her house, then having the house rent, loading up stuff in her house, moving to my mom n dad's and using their camper in the driveway to help with the heat, and then again having to get stuff out of the van to keep in the camper. Then, getting this new place and still not having the van unloaded yet.

Hate having stuff strung all over.

 

[SoulRaven]

I think CRVL is the only place a post like yours would result in a resounding chorus of "learn to live with less stuff".

I can totally relate to your GF. I have stuff in a storage unit, slowly moving the stuff from there to BF's closet (at his family's place) but can only take one load down at a time due to the house-sitting job and needing enough room to live in and navigating around rush hour, not enough time to drop a load off before dark. So that's already spread out to three different locations. And I have no cooking, but if anything is borrowed from my van when using someone else's kitchen, and doesn't make it back into my van, then I have even less to work with.

I'm honestly kinda shocked at some of the responses. Everyone's needs are different. I have to keep around bins of food and medications. They're absolutely essential. When I run out of mayo, I can't just pick some up at the nearest grocery store--it's an hour drive, without rush hour. Same with any sort of meat. The medications are needed--yes, all of them. Some people don't believe that, but those people are not medical professionals entrusted with my care. My point is, people who think "oh you don't need all that stuff" aren't in your shoes and aren't in your life.

I'm currently aiming for a Lazy Daze class C, but will probably end up with a camper van out of sheer desperation. It's funny to me, on other RV forums the advice is typically to go bigger than what you think you'll need. Me mentioning I was looking for a 22-footer raised a chorus of "You don't want to go that small! Trust me! You need more room for stuff!" And I was just smiling and thinking to myself how I knew any mention of it here would bring responses of the exact opposite.

My point is, you know what you want. Go for it.

 

[rvpopeye]

I suffered the scattered stuff syndrome when I was in the misic biz , never knew exactly where something was. Then I got the big class A and moved it all in and downsized the rest . Then that rig burned and I really got downsized !!! Now I keep it all with me and go by the rule..."If I bring anything in , something has to go out !"

(Bitty ,,Lazy Daze ....nice rigs !)


I've been on the "big RV " forums , it's actually kind of comic entertainment sometimes.
People giving advice on budgeting and how big a rig someone they don't even know needs.
There's one (KIA) that spends more to stock the WINE fridge in her diesel pusher MH than I spend in a whole year on everything !

The best advice is within yourself , ask there for the right answers (OK we can help too , but you can also ignore us )!

 

[AngryVanMan]

I think the extreme downsizing sentiment is driven in large part by the fact that we live in the most epicurean, wasteful and excessive society that has ever existed on this planet.  The amount of things people need to bring with them as popeye alludes to in his "big RV world" example is quite frankly astonishing.

Each person must decide what is important for them, of course.  With a post like steamjam1's, we'll never get the whole story - it usually trickles out in bits and pieces, we're not likely get all of anyone's situation summed up objectively.  There is too much cognitive dissonance in the world to accurately judge the facts presented when we receive them, people lie to themselves more than they lie to others. We can only provide a lever with which to pry against the reality we can see and understand.

I am not a strict minimalist, but I do try to push back against the power possessions wield over us.  I try to think in terms of capabilities, rather than simply having the least amount of things for the sake of stoic existence.  Maximize the capability, minimize the mess.  Organization is also key when you start trying to pack a lot of capability into small packages, and something else we should probably talk about in a thread about being scattered.  Just like something as simple as a tool belt makes doing a workman's job more efficient and faster - freeing up the mind to think about the task at hand without worrying if tool x, y, or z was left in the truck, or back at the shop.

 

[MrNoodly]

No matter how much stuff you have, things can still be grouped into the stuff you use daily and the stuff you need only occasionally or seasonally. It's called organization. It's an amazing thing.

 

[steamjam1]

Well, after I failed to talk the G/F into a Toyota Chinook, we went and bought her a truck-camper:

[img=307x247]http://oi68.tinypic.com/2akvua.jpg[/img]

It's a 1980 F350 with a Pilgrim cab over. It's got the 2-v 400M engine, C6, and runs absolutely wonderful with only 100K on the clock. We bought it from the original owners and it rolls down the freeway like a TANK with appliances. (which all work.) It's not perfect. Its got some minor body damage, but zero rust, and the camper bit is in decent shape. The G/F and I will have to put some hours into the trim, and interior details like worn cabinet door hinges, etc. The usual stuff for a camper thats getting close to 40 years old.

The first thing we did after plucking down the money and getting the title before we even got it home to clean it and move her in was upgrading the 16.5 wheels and 31" tires to Ford Econoline 16" and new tires.

So anyways, I'll post updates regularly here as *she* does a semi-restoration-as-she-lives-in-it.

 

[steamjam1]

It's been a week since we bought it, and all is well. We got the camper bit all cleaned up and moved her in. We replaced the bed mattress with an Ikea futon, and I replaced the 12v florescent l ceiling light with an old round BNSF caboose light I converted to 12v LED. It looks really cool, and throws out plenty of light.

We also discovered why the frig didn't work. Its a cooler that looks like a frig. Your supposed to put ice on the middle shelf where there is a drain that leads to the outside. We didn't think much of that and went to Home Depot and bought a 2.4cu-ft mini frig. It fit in the hole the cooler left perfectly. It almost looks like it was meant to be there. We connected the frig to my kill-a-watt and from start up it uses .6A at 110v. We plugged it into the invertor and away it went. Tonight I am going to upgrade her camper battery to 100AH (She has 35AH right now) so that should give her plenty of power. I'm going to ahead and do a front brake and bearing job as well. I also replaced both of the vents on the roof. We still have to replace the escape hatch one that's above the bed, but for now the old one still works although not in great condition.

The camper needs abit more work. There is some rot in the rear driver side corner, and front corner next to the bed I'll have to address. Some of the aluminum extrusions that trim the roof, and corners are in pretty bad shape, and some of the aluminum paneling near the roof is torn up some. Other then that its in good shape.

I bought the replacement rear driver quarter panel. I'll be welding that in and painting it over the next few weeks. While we are at it, I'll touch up the rest of the bodywork and paint.

I think buying this and letting her have her own space was a good idea. I feel better and I know why feels better. I worry less about it when I'm away and she worries less about it when I am gone. Its working out.

 

[steamjam1]

The G/F and I installed a second house battery, 100W solar panel, and a 1000W inverter. So far the cheap Home Depot fridge she got can run all day on solar. In fact its been on for the last three days straight and when the sun goes down, the volt meter says 13V on the battery. Not bad. We also did a complete front brake job last night before she packed up and went to Kings Canyon, Ca for a couple days R and R.

 

[Gary68]

looks like things are falling in to place nicely,is the truck 2wd or 4x4?

 

[Queen]

Looks like a cool set up, glad it's working out.

 

[steamjam1]

Its a 2wd right now. The G/F and I talked about converting it to 4wd maybe this winter.

Its been a complete success. She so much happier. I am alot happier. The dog is alot happier. She gets to tool around and take her own little adventure trips without me. Its been nothing but good. So good its been, I'm actually shopping around for an F350 for myself with a cab over. I want an IDI diesel with 4 speed 4wd tho...

 

[highdesertranger]

no, no, no not another 4x4 conversion. just sell the 2wd and buy a 4x4. the 350 idi would be a great choice. in a 2 vehicle caravan one 4x4 should be enough. highdesertranger