Four Years

 

Four years is a relatively long time.  It’s enough time to graduate from college, or give birth to two separate elephants (although I would only recommend this if you were an actual elephant).  It is also the length of time I’ve lived in the pink trailer.  And that is the longest I have lived in any home, other than the one in which I grew up.

There have been ups and downs in my little portable palace, but overall, it’s been a good time.  And it has been a great life lesson.  Here is what I’ve learned:

Less is more.  Living in a tiny space forces you to keep only essentials.  This means I have fewer clothes, shoes, keepsakes, mementos, and furniture.  But it also means that the things I do have, I love!  It is very satisfying to love all the things you see in your home.  And when you fall out of love with a certain item, or curtain, or whatever it may be, then you can replace it with a new love.

Don’t always feel like you deserve better.  I’m not taking about sociological or psychological behavior – of course nobody deserves to be abused or anything like that.  What I’m talking about is the way advertisers love to tell you, “You deserve the best!”  “You’re worth it!”  “Get the ____________ that you deserve.”  These slogans are out there, not to remind you that as a human you should hold your head up high and realize you are special, but to sell you crap you don’t need.  To make you believe your life will be better if you have newer things, a faster car, a bigger house.  But all these things often just lead to a larger debt.  So if piles of bills is your thing, then by all means, you deserve to go and max out your credit cards.  But if a happy life is your thing, realize that the size or grandiosity of your home is no reflection of what is in your heart.

Contentment is key.  I have an uncle who is an atheist, and we were at lunch together a few years ago when the host prayed before the meal.  One of the things he prayed for was to be content with what he had.  Although he is non-religious, my uncle was very impressed with that thought, and decided to remind himself of that idea regularly.  To be content.  The desire to keep up materially and economically with those around you will literally drive you crazy.  Learn to accept what you have, as well as your situation.  Reuse your things, fix stuff that breaks, and feel the beauty that comes with feeling satisfied with what you have.

Keep your eye simple.  This means don’t complicate your life with acquisitions.  Yes, sometimes it would be really fun to own a boat and a quad and a dirt bike and a snowmobile and a….  But all those things need maintenance and time, and honestly, how much would I use them?  It’s the same with a home – a guest bedroom would be great, and an extra room for a ping pong table, and a space for a big dining room table for large formal dinner parties, and a separate living room and family room which would be great for entertaining….  But, honestly, would the number of times a year I would have an out-of-town guest or a formal dinner party really be worth all the extra money I would have to pay for a place big enough to support those moments?  For some people it would be worth it, but not for me.

Swallowing your pride isn’t as bad as you’d think.  My neighbor, Natasha, and I were roommates long ago – back in the 20th century – and we often laugh about how our 20something selves would be horrified that our 30-40something selves are living in a trailer park.  We were too proud.  And we were too worried about what others may think.  Now?  We realize that choosing to live the way we do has nothing to do with being “trailer trash,” but how we want to spend our time and money.  And it has a lot to do with our own creativity.  It’s much easier (and takes way less time, money, and effort) to renovate and re-renovate a trailer than it would a stick-built home.

Success in life has nothing to do with stuff.  I work at an estate planning law firm, and regularly meet with clients who have more stuff than they can list or remember.  They are busy trying to decide who will get the stuff they’ve forgotten they have when they die.  Sometimes they like to micro-manage their assets from the grave.  Often they have a larger retirement account than they do a measure of happiness.  And that is sad.  Focus on your quality of life, rather than your quantity of stuff, and when you die those around you will be so sorry to see you go, rather than kinda excited at the prospect of inheriting your junk.

So that’s some of the stuff I’ve learned.  A lot of it I knew, but putting it in action is much more monumental.  And most of those points are generally related.  Basically, be happy with what you have, don’t long for what you don’t.  Live small.

Puffins are happy just hanging out. I should be too.

Rebecca Knabe

Wood Floors and Fuzzy Socks

When I was young my grandma lived in an old house with a couple of stories and the original hard wood flooring on the stairs.  If you ran too quickly down the stairs in stocking feet, to answer the phone or get a fresh piece of grandma’s kougan, you invariably lost your footing, landed on the wood with your tailbone, and bump-bump-bumped on your butt down the remaining stairs.  Everyone in the family had done it, and most of my friends had done it too.  It’s just what happened at her house.

Grandma’s House

When I renovated my trailer, the first to go was the horrible flooring – ancient linoleum and well-used beige carpet.  I replaced it all with laminate beech wide-plank flooring, and I love it.  Clean, easy, bright.  Perfect.

My father refers to me as having “the worst balance in the world.”  I can (and have) fall over just standing there.  I fell over in my desk twice in elementary school.  I once fell onto a snowboard racecourse while standing at the starting line.  I got stitches in my hand from falling in the woods.  The wind blew me over twice in Iceland.  I was on crutches several times as a kid.  In Athens I couldn’t walk a block without wiping out on the marble sidewalks.  I have entered Safeway airborne, because of tripping on the door frame.  I’ve fallen down several flights of stairs, tripped up even more flights of stairs, and because of that, had recurring nightmares in high school about tumbling down those stairs, usually while naked ( 😦 ).

That’s me strolling around Athens, likely immediately prior to or preceding a nice fall.

So this last weekend, it should have come as no surprise when I found myself upside down in a corner of my trailer.  Here’s how it happened….  I was wearing my pajamas and fuzzy socks, and making breakfast.  Actually I was burning breakfast, and lunged to remove the pan from the heat, and in doing so flung my egg flipper thingy behind my infrared heater.  This heater is a large rolling wooden box; and as I leaned sideways over the box to retrieve my egg flipper it rolled, my feet slipped out from under me (you know, slippery floors and fuzzy socks, just like at grandma’s), and I teeter-tottered over the heater and onto my head.  I had wedged myself into the corner and bruised up my thigh, but all I could do was lay there laughing.

Ahhhhhh, if only someone else had been there to see it….  It would have been worth the humiliation.  It was pretty funny!  Funny enough to share.  I’m sure of it!

Rebecca Knabe

The Top 5 Things That Don’t Fit in My Trailer

1.  Secretariat.  Sure that Triple Crown Racehorse was only 5’6″, but he weighed nearly 1,200 lbs.  Sometimes during exceptionally vigorous P90X workouts, I worry that I will break through my floorboards.  And, thankfully, I weigh vastly less than that giant fella.  And horses smell bad.  And have freakishly large heads.  Terrifying.

2.  Shaquille O’Neal.  At 7’1″ he won’t fit.  An inch too tall for trailer living.  But it’s ok, because I don’t really know the rules of basketball, and I’m sure he doesn’t really know the rules of trailers, so it’s unlikely we have much in common.

(He’s the tall guy in the back)

3.  Thailand’s Largest Reclining Buddha, Phra Buddhasaiyas, at Wat Pho.  Not only would it be impossible to get the 150 foot long, 45 foot high statue inside my home, I think the multiple plane tickets needed to get that thing a flight from Bangkok to Reno would be pretty cost prohibitive….

(He’s the long guy in the back….)

Pretty hard to get a decent photo of this gigantor.

4.  The Duggar Family – Jim Bob and Michelle, and their 19 reality-TV-darling offspring.  Technically, they could probably fit.  I’ve had parties with more than 21 in attendance.  But why would anyone want 19 children in a single-wide trailer.  That would just be stupid.

5.  The Z Gallerie Conversation Pit.  9 1/2 feet wide, and 6 1/4 feet long.  Granted, my trailer is 10 feet wide.  But that is the outside measurement.  So if you factor in a few inches of non-existent insulation, baseboards, and the weird thingies that jut out from my windows, there’s no way you could squeeze in that couch.  It also costs nearly as much as I paid for my house, so there’s that.  However, it’s one of the most comfortable things I’ve ever set my tush on, so perhaps I should just sell my place and live on the Conversation Pit.

Rebecca Knabe

Living Someone Else’s Dream

A friend of mine told me not long ago that I was literally living her childhood dream.  She said that as a child she always pictured herself in her 30’s, unmarried, and happily living in a trailer.  She is currently in her 20’s, married, and happily living in a house.  And I really am living her dream.

This was never my dream.  I thought that by the time I was sneaking up on 40, I would be married and happily living in a house, or awesome urban loft, or rustic cozy cabin, or wandering nomadically through Europe or Asia, or pretty much anywhere but a trailer.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that….

It just had never even crossed my mind.  Not once did a trailer factor into my future.

And then I recently found my Grade 3 Creative Writing Journal, where I had carefully mapped out what I had believed to be my ideal future.  Here’s what 8-year-old Rebecca had to say:

My Day in the Year 2084

I would get home from work and press the com to my door:  R.M.H.4.8.0.2..  When I got in I would ask my robot if there were any phone calls, if there was I would phone them back.  After that I would go into my room to change, then I would go downstairs to have a swim in my swimming pool and go in the sauna.  After I was relaxed I would go upstairs and press in what I wanted for supper:  SALAD, STEAK, CORN, FRENCH BREAD, CHOCOLATE PUDDING.  My robot would make my supper.  Within fiffteen minits it would be ready.  After supper my robot would give me my remot control and I would watch T.V.  In two hours I would be done watching T.V., by this time it would be about 11:00 and I would go to bed.

In the morning I would get dressed and press in my breakfast: POCHED EGG, TOAST, ORANGE.  After I ate I would go to work as a cook at McDonald’s.  My day in the year 2084.

By Rebecca Harrap

So, as you can see, no mention of a trailer.  Just 110-year-old me living with a robot and working at McDonald’s.  I guess I’ve still got time to make that happen….  🙂

Rebecca Knabe

Where Have I Been?

I don’t really have a good answer.  The best I can come up with is that I’ve been tired….  I know, that’s a terrible response.  But I’m back, and have a bunch of pictures of the stuff that’s been keeping me busy (and tired) for the last 2 months.

I helped this wonderful couple, and two of my favorite friends, celebrate their 10th anniversary:

Then I watched the Sierra Nevada mountains go from this….

…to this:

I also had a myriad of visitors!  Some stayed with me in the pink trailer, and some did not.  Some were invited, and others, not so much….

Cassi’s best friend, Bella. Cassi and I, and Bella and her mama, Shawn, all lived together in Bend, Oregon in 2003/04.

A great night out with Shawn & Steve, visiting from Oregon.

Dannica (we have been best friends for nearly 40 – ugh! – years) visited from Kelowna, BC for our annual super-happy-fun-extra-long-weekend-and-Black-Friday-shopping-extravaganza.

Next, my sweet sister-in-law, Sierra, visited during the coldest few weeks of the year.

My favorite fella, John, visited from upstate New York for a few weeks.

And I can’t forget Joey, my frequent uninvited guest, who loves to rub his hairy butt all over my bedding. Good thing I’m allergic to cats….

With all the extra days off during the holidays, I had a few sleepovers at friends’ houses.  Conveniently also during some very cold days and nights.

Here, all are participating in a community napping session.

New Year’s Eve was spent trading makeup and falling asleep before 11:00 with these two beauties.

I nearly froze to death, on a couple of occasions.  On nights like this, living in an un-insulated trailer feels like barely a step up from being homeless.  But I’ve managed to figure out a system with my space heaters that prevents my pipes and I from freezing solid in the night (even when the temps hit 0F/-18C), without blowing a fuse, and while keeping my electric bill under $200.

Even on bright sunny days, the pink trailer was home to many icicles.

Beautiful icicles flanking the laundry room of a local trailer park.

Then my friends let me babysit.  Although “let me” doesn’t sound quite right.  I wasn’t exactly begging to do it….  But remember the 10th anniversary friends up above?  As part of my anniversary gift to them, I bought them a movie date and offered to babysit.  It was my first babysitting in a couple of decades.  No one died, no one pooped, and we only had one crier, so all in all, a pretty successful evening….

I have also been spending a little time at a great new local coffee shop, Coffee Bar….

…where Marty McFly’s De Lorean was recently parked:

And finally, I had a fantastic long weekend in Vegas (one of my favorite cities to visit), catching up with friends and family:

Wearing blue to Blue Man Group.

Enjoying The Strip at night.

Watching the Bellagio fountains, Ocean’s Eleven style.

Beautiful Red Rock Canyon.

The breathtaking Nevada desert.

So that’s a little of what I’ve been up to, while being the world’s most neglectful blogger.  I promise to be better.  I promise.  🙂

Rebecca Knabe

Supergirls

Do you have any friends that you feel like you’ve known forever?  I have a few.  They know me well, they’ve met my family,  they understand where I come from and where I want to go, they can read me like a book, we have history.

One of those friends is Natasha.  We met about a million years ago – ok maybe it was about 17 years ago – and we are still in each other’s lives.  We came to be roommates in Bend, Oregon in the late 90’s, and now, several years later, we’re trailer-park-mates.  She lives right next door to me.  It’s almost like living together, just without getting on each other’s nerves.  Perfect scenario.

That’s me in the center, on the chair. Natasha is on my right, holding the kid. The 5 of us lived in a small 2 bedroom house.

I’m the wench, Natasha is the gypsy. Renaissance Fair 1997.

That’s us strolling around Athens, Greece in 2000.

This past week, Natasha staked a claim in epic-friend status by helping me build a 242 square foot outdoor paver patio.  Neither of us have attempted this before, so I googled like mad, and with a ton of hard work and sweat, somehow we pulled it off.  I’m pretty sure I owe her a beer or two….

I’m pretty sure we’re Supergirls.  You can almost see our capes under our dresses….

Rebecca Knabe

Trailer Pick of the Day – Canadian Camper

The camping season in northern Canada is short, but if you have a cozy trailer to keep you warm at night, you can make it last a little longer.  This little 1965 Airstream Globetrotter recently took its family camping at Bakers Narrows in northern Manitoba.

Thanks to my friend, Kristy, for letting me share.

Rebecca Knabe

Living Comfortably in 400 (or less) Square Feet, According to Bob Vila

Posted by Rebecca

There’s a Bob Vila article buzzing around the internet today that has some great tips and photos to help you either make the leap to smaller-space living, or help you in your current small space home.  My little trailer is about 450 square feet of living space.  Here’s the gist of the article, but be sure to check out the full article for more information and a complete photo gallery.

–  Use a beautiful armoire as a home office.  The best part?  When guests arrive, just close the doors – no messy office to tidy.

–  Fill your tiny home with double-duty furniture, like ottomans or end tables that store clothing or blankets.

–  If you have higher ceilings, hang shelves up to 18 inches from the ceiling for extra decorative storage or for your books.

–  Glass, clear acrylic, or Lucite furniture can open up the space and add a modern touch.

–  Mount a shallow shelf above your kitchen or bathroom sink for pretty towels or bottles of soap and lotion.

–  Lighter colors give the illusion of space, so use them generously.

–  Make like Julia Child and hang your pots and pans on the wall or from the ceiling to free up some cupboard space.

–  Use mirrors behind sofas, beds or other large pieces of furniture to expand the visual boundaries of the room.

–  A strategically placed book shelf can serve as a room divider and a major storage unit, all in one.

–  Allow your tiny home to be flooded with natural light.  Keep windows clear, and if you must cover them, opt for sheer fabrics and shades to let in some beautiful filtered light.

Learning to live in a tiny place is challenging, but worth it.  Think of all the extra time, energy, and money you will save when you no longer have a large home to pay for and upkeep.

Rebecca Knabe

Stormy Sunday

Posted by Rebecca

We don’t get many thunder storms in Reno, but when we do, they can be a doozy.  The one we had last Sunday had lightning that lit up the menacing, swirling sky over and over again, before unleashing a downpour of flood-like proportions.

If you’ve never heard the rain from the inside of a trailer, it’s like a rhythmic fox-trot is unfolding on the roof with pitter-patter footsteps.  This storm was not fox-trotty or pitter-pattery.  It was more like plunking over Niagara Falls in a tin can.

I fear that being housed inside an aluminium tube with that weird antenna thingy strapped to the roof during a lightning show can’t be a good idea….

Rebecca Knabe

Decked Out

Posted by Rebecca

The pink trailer’s deck is up and running for the summer, and as of this week it looks a little like this….

Is your outdoor space ready for summer?  What are some of your favorite potted plants?

Rebecca Knabe