Maggie

It is with an unbelievably heavy heart that I have to update our overdue blog with the news that our wonderful furry companion, Maggie, has passed away. She was "a grand old lady" in the words of our good friend Michael, and although her passing was unexpected (I think deep down we pretended she'd live forever), it must have been her time to leave us. Maggers was such a big presence in our little home, and she's left us with some emptiness, both physically and emotionally. It's been a week now, and there are still times when sadness overtakes us and all we can do is sit there and cry and give little Agnes lots of snuggles. Maggie was 13.5 years old, and Michael reminded me that when Mags turned 13, I had said that each day since then was a gift. Really, all the time we had with her was such a gift, and she will be missed and reminisced of often. I still like to think of her nestled in down there at the end of the Airstream underneath the fireplace, comfy as can be. The Airstream was definitely home for Maggie, and I think she might have liked it in her older years more than any other place we've lived because it required no great effort on her part to keep an eye on her humans, thanks to our one-room concept, so to speak. Our hearts are full of memories of her over the years, from Colorado hiking trips to sleeping in late all piled in our bed - Maggie having stolen most of the covers. As nearly every one of our blog posts proves through photographs, Maggie was with us every step of the way through our Airstream shenanigans, and we will miss her supervisory skills and her time-to-stop-working-on-that-aluminum-trailer because it's-4pm-and-i'm-starving(again) dancing jig. Here's to our Magoo, a truly great dog!

It's 2014, and We Still Live in an Airstream!

Happy New Year! We've made it six months living full-time in our 180sq ft. Airstream. We got to have an island Christmas this year with J's parental units! Jan and Lyle visited us and we spent a fun week with them on SJI and on Orcas island. We got to show them our little Airstream during our first snowstorm on the island in two years. Since we're up on the mountain, we got quite a bit more snow than town did. It was an adventure getting up and down our steep road. Blue Moon survived the heavy wet snow without a problem though - some trees nearby were not as lucky. The snow was gone within a few days - replaced by rain and then finally some sunshine.

After family left, we got back to work on our never-ending list of improvements to make to Blue Moon. We'd ordered a 12v kitchen exhaust fan to go above our cooktop about a month ago but just hadn't had the chance to install it. The goal is to try and reduce some of the condensation in our trailer by being able to vent out the steam created by all of the delicious meals J cooks. So once the rainclouds cleared, J dove right in and cut a hole in our roof, which always makes both of us very nervous.

Ah, just another day in the Airstream life.

But the hole was quickly covered up with the new fan, with the wires back in the wall where they belong! The vent fan works very nicely and moves quite a bit of air. It has a cap on the outside that can be closed from the inside using the white handle when the fan is not in use. Of course as soon as the fan was installed, it promptly rained very hard and we were glad to be all sealed up again!

For my birthday, J surprised me with something I had been eyeing purchasing for awhile. He built a food/water station for our pups from beautiful pine, that fits their bowls and their tub of food underneath perfectly. The dogs took to it immediately and I am a big fan of how much space it saves! Thanks hubby :)

Blue Moon's Christmas present, courtesy of a few family members who gave us Amazon gift cards, was a flat screen TV! We felt pretty techy installing the first TV we've ever bought -holy smokes, having a remote is so convenient - now we know what we've been missing, having to reach over and press pause on the laptop, plug in the power cord when the battery is low etc. We put the TV on an articulating wall mount at the end of our bed. (Note that our window has a red frame around it and is not the TV! The TV is on the left at the end of the bed. I learned there is absolutely no great way to photograph a television).When we initially designed our trailer we thought we'd watch movies from our sofa, but it turns out we always just end up propping the laptop up on a pillow at the foot of the bed and watching it there. So we opted for the totally lazy-look and put our flatscreen there too :) We kicked things off by piling 3 people and one dog into our bed and watching Julie & Julia. "Bon appétit!"

Happy Christmas

From our tiny house to yours...

Don't forget to call your loved ones this holiday! :)