A Benefit to Being Fulltime Rvers

We've been here two weeks and had not yet been down to Cincinnati to see Denny's dad and step-mother, so yesterday we made the 50 mile trek south. After a nice lunch of hot chicken salad and fresh fruit, Denny and his step-mother, Jean walked around the exterior of the house looking for items that needed to be repaired or repainted. The list of things to do is going to be much shorter as Jean has decided that if and when (!) they put the house on the market she'll just make an allowance for interior paint and carpet. Of course, the exterior painting isn't easy as the entire rear of the house is two stories high which means Denny will have a lot of climbing up and down on a tall ladder to paint. I don't know if my knee is going to be up for that anytime soon.

While we were discussing their preparations for selling the house, Jean mentioned that the other day they had a man come over to burn the contents of the two filing cabinets we gave them when we sold our house. It seems that Dad and Jean had kept thirty-four years of paperwork and forms that took five hours to burn in a barrel in the yard. And sitting here beside me as I type is a large box filled with envelopes that are stuffed with receipts that they managed to overlook that I volunteered to shred. Which will take me two weeks to do with our little desktop shredder. Denny also emptied one corner of the garage that was filled with metal rods that used to be used for tomato stakes and bean poles that are no longer needed due to his dad's garden being much smaller, but there was a big fight over that. It seems Denny's dad feels that anything and everything in that garage (three lawn tractors, a trailer, heating and cooling tools and equipment, several sets of tools, vises, etc.) might come in handy for something he might do at some time in the future. Sigh. When the day comes that the two of them do put the house up for sale we are going to have to rip each item from Dad's hands. Or drag him kicking and screaming from the garage to have a moving sale.

All I can say is, our two sons really ought to appreciate the fact that we downsized and eliminated tons of "stuff" from our life when we sold the house and moved into our rig. Selling the rig and its contents should be a snap, which is good because as the bumper sticker says "We're spending our kids' inheritance now". Heh.