A Possible Reprieve?

I'm hoping that in a few days I'll be blogging from the air conditioned comfort of our very own travel trailer!!

We put in an offer yesterday, we should hear back by Monday or Tuesday. If we get it, we'll be able to move into an RV park and get some permanence in our lives.

The dust has settled a bit, tonight is our last night at Lake Whitney, tomorrow (Saturday) we are going into a motel in Tyler Texas, as we have eliminated the Corsicana/Lake Whitney area from further consideration (permanent living) and the kids want to go to church in Tyler, so rather than wait until Sunday to move out (which is what our schedule originally called for) we are going to go there early and check in to air conditioning. My youngest made a friend at church a few weeks ago who invited him to 6Flags tomorrow so after checking in at Tyler, we'll go there for a few hours. Lots of driving. In air conditioning (ha ha ha.)

Overall things are going well. My friend Wendi let me vent to her today. I am a person with a plan, so all this uncertainty drives me a little bit cray-cray. But we are here in the clubhouse in air conditioning, (we've been here all day), and I realized we had a microwave at our disposal, so we went into town and got some frozen foods since town is only 3 miles away. It's too bad there's such a distance to town with the other TT campsites, we could go back to juicing. Oh wait. Didn't bring that. I actually forgot for a minute.

We've settled on bouncing between Bridgeport TX and and Lake Tawakoni TX. Those are the two closest to Dallas, and we start that bounce pattern this Sunday after church. We'll do four days at one, and four days at the other, and then just go back and forth in a four day pattern between the two. It sure would be nice to find work in Dallas metro, both locales would be about a 60-75 minute commute.

Lake Whitney as a site is pretty nice, actually one of the nicest ones, and the fact that it is only three miles to the town of Whitney would make it perfect. There's just nothing around here and it is a solid 90 minute drive minimum, to Dallas. 

The kids spent the day watching movies on their devices (free WiFi, electricity), I spent the whole day applying for jobs. They met some new kids and introduced them to Bang! (yes Eldred, it's the wild west one) and they played some chess as well. We are the only tent campers in the entire campground, so by dinnertime (7ish) the clubhouse is vacant as the RVers go home, and we have it all to ourselves. 

This has pretty much been the pattern at every campsite we have been at. It's nice for us, gives us a place to go and pretty much lets us relax and have a sense of brick and mortar normalcy. But I would really love it if we could move in to our own travel trailer.

I ran the numbers in our budget, and realistically unless we get the travel trailer (in which case I will find the money) we can't really afford to live anywhere other than camping for free until the middle of September. Lest you think we're destitute we're not, but I really want to get back on track financially. I paid the bills which were due two weeks ago today, so technically they were all late. That means I need to pay bills due about August 10 on the 14th, (so they'll be slightly late too), and then again on August 28th but that will catch us up completely. All that means is that we need to watch our pennies, which is hard to do on the road bouncing around like we have been. 

Even if we are in a tent, being solid between two sites will allow us to develop a routine, and knowing the clubhouse set ups now, we can plan meals accordingly. Whitney for example, has a refrigerator we can use during the day...how cool is that? Bridgeport doesn't unfortunately, neither does Tawakoni. Whitney really does have the best set up (fridge, microwave, exercise floor, free WiFi.) But all of them have electricity, so we can do what we did today, which is bring our food in with us and just park it for the day.

Living wise, we've got the routine down solid. I've seen multiple people have these water filters they attach to spigots. I think I need to get us one of those, and if we get the trailer, I definitely need to get a Berkey filter set up. Right now, we just buy bottled water, which works too...and not too expensive.

Those fans are a godsend!! The kids have actually laughed that they are COLD at night (this, after 104 degree F days!) But it's nice to be able to sleep in until about 730am and have it still be a bit "cool" (that would be about 82F, geez I'm starting to sound like a Texan.)

I'm grateful the Lord is watching out for us. We are mindful of our finances, and like all good preppers, are planning for "what if." I didn't receive a job offer like I thought I would this week. I really need to rethink the one at the pre-school which is only 3 hours a day. The problem with it is, it is only 3 hours a day, and I will spend about that much time on the road commuting to and from....hours I could be working somewhere else. I keep feeling like I need to re-start developing apps, but I need some solid internet access in order to do that. I think next week I will start exploring libraries in Bridgeport or Decatur, and Wills Point or Terrell (or even Tyler.)

Alrighty. Whined enough. I know The Secret is to express gratitude for all that I have. We have shelter, we have food, we have funds, we have transportation, we have friends, and we have the Love of the Lord. 

We look forward to tomorrow.