2 Adults 2 Kids » Brooklyn

RV Virgins No More (KJ)

KJ — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:14:34 +0000

I am writing you from the top bunk of our RV. It’s a little after midnight, but I can’t get to sleep.

It probably has something to do with our neighbors across the street sitting on their stoop listening to music. Or maybe it’s because two police cars have zoomed by with their sirens blaring. Perhaps it was the ambulance, or the motorcycles, or the person who is shuffling his/her feet as they walk past the RV.

This is crazy to me. We are sleeping in our RV parked in front of our apartment in Brooklyn. I know it might sound like I was complaining during my description, but only half of me was. The other half is fascinated by how much activity there is at this time of night. I guess they don’t call it “the city that never sleeps” for nothing.

It took Midget and Widget a while to get to sleep. Every time they heard a noise they asked, “What was that?” CM is tossing and turning next to me. He always has a hard time sleeping when he’s hot. We chose to open a lot of windows rather than turn on the AC because we won’t always have the AC option. Besides, it’s summer and it’s only going to get hotter as we head south and eventually west.

Well, I’m signing off. My eyes are getting heavy so I’m gonna try and get some sleep. My biggest fear is that I will forget where I’m at in the middle of the night and roll off the bed. It’s at least a 4′ drop.

I’ll let you know how it all turned out in the morning.

The Antagonist In Our Story (KJ)

KJ — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:13:52 +0000

We have just about sold all of our electronics. I’ve sent hundreds of emails and we’ve burned through nearly all of our AT&T rollover minutes trying to give people directions to our house, so they can pick stuff up. During these last couple of weeks, I’ve seen electronics that cost us $2000+ sell for less than $600. I was so fed up with all of it! Then today “he” spoke to us. He whispered voodoo into our ears and we were instantly hypnotized. “He” doesn’t want us to show our kids the world. He wants to throw us off our path of conservation and adventure.

“He” is Steve Jobs. It’s true. He unveiled the new iPhone today in his keynote speech and I just drooled the entire time. I have to be cool and uninterested when CM is raving about the latest and greatest product from Apple, but as soon as he turns his back I’m trying to figure out how we can fit it into our budget! Yesterday my phone was fine, but today it’s grossly deficient and I need a new one. Or so I think. To make matters worse, the new iPhone costs half of what we paid for ours in December. This is a prime example for why we need to buckle down and buy used.

What scares me is how will I be able to convince my children that new isn’t always better if I don’t practice it myself? Living in an RV will definitely keep us from buying a lot of new stuff. It will hopefully make us, as one fellow Craigslister put it, “aware of what we bring into our space”. So much of product marketing is built around making you feel like you’re missing something and then selling you a product that will fill that void and thus make you whole. That pattern/cycle has been etched into my brain. My hope is that this time in the RV will help me create new patterns that don’t involve buying things to make me feel better.

Darkness (CM)

CM — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:09:07 +0000

So this is difficult. How can we go back? It will be empty, a failure to not follow through on this. I have to say that I feel slightly desperate right now. A 4 figure amount was denied us, and we were counting on it.

So how stupid were we to count on something we didn’t have? Obviously VERY! It puts us in a position that we now have most of our possessions gone, and not enough money to go either way. If we extend our credit to it’s fullest amount, we can get the RV. But can we move it? We can go re-accomplish buying some of the items we have sold. But how empty and pointless would that be?

I believe we are going forward! We are young and can get out of this hole.

I was about to say something about how I was not looking forward to being so broke…

Then I looked around my neighborhood (Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn) and thought… I really am not that bad off. My family is blessed that we don’t have to skip meals, we live with power and gas, and we are even in a position to try and do this RV thing.

Keep your fingers crossed that we can pull it off.