Sneak Peek at the Camper

Everywhere I look...snow. Huge piles of it. Last night it was too cold to work on the camper...the shed door is frozen shut by 3 inches of ice and the kerosene can is in there. We can't run the heater in the "Shasta shanty" if we have no kerosene...So we made an igloo instead. More on that later. A few of you may be curious at to what we are up to with this camper...the reason I haven't called you back, answered your e-mails or returned that toy you loaned us for Ava...Let me tell you, it isn't pretty right now, but oh how it will be. Right now it is awful. Really ugly to look at, work on and be in and around, in every sense. And all consuming. Really. I dare say that we may, (just a little bit), be way (entirely) over our heads with this project.

Since October, after we gutted the ruin to the outer walls, my husband and a rotating cast of helpers, have been rebuilding the floor, the frame, and everything structural and I have tended to other departments in our life together. Now I have appointed myself the new project forewoman, as the pace has been, well, um-slow. Too slow for me anyway-I do realize my dear husband has been just toiling away when he works out there...I want this baby to be done and on the road come spring. And I think it will be my wedding planning office when we aren't actually using it for a trip.

Okay, so here is what is going on in our backyard- ugliness abounds-we burn the mid- night oil out here, with Christmas lights and shop lights, in the sub zero temps every night until we can't even move our fingers. We are making considerable progress though, in what has become a complete and total frustration, I mean restoration.

It started a bit like this.

This fall we had to shanty the camper in for the winter or we would not be able to work on it. Thanks to our industrious friend and neighbor for making this plastic workshop possible! Hideous? Yes. Useful? I admit it is.

Inside the staging, it really is a construction zone. I have to keep a picture in my mind of just how cute this thing will be when we are all done and it has a new coat of paint and sweet little curtains...and an interior with cabinets, seating and electricity.

Yes, that is me, hanging off of the roof, installing a sky light at oh, about 10 p.m. one frosty night this week. Look closely, you can see my furry little boots dangling. I have the bruises on my thighs to prove I was up there! The pictures are all terrible as it is very dark and late at night when we are able to clock in at the labor camp(er)-bear with me, better photos will follow on the camper's very own blog...yes another little project that is underway...stay tuned.

And so it goes. I am trying to get myself mentally and physically prepared to go out there tonight. I have a comprehensive construction schedule to follow here. With the baby monitor in my pocket, and the kerosene heater billowing warm air into our shanty, working on this wreck with my husband has become almost romantic...I'll try to remember that as we suit up and trudge out there in the 8 degree frigid air tonight to put in another wee hour work night.