A Year Ago Today: Living in an RV

That was my house.

This is how this real American blogger started — my blog had technically existed prior to April 2013, but I hadn’t monetized it yet nor had I really started blogging consistently. It was very much a hobby to keep me busy until I arrived back in California. I’d been so busy selling my house, packing up and prepping for a cross-country move that I didn’t have time to write and promote as I should have but we’d had it as part of our Grand Master Plan 2013 when we arrived in California.

Little did we know, when this picture was taken, where our latest adventure would take us. Be careful what you wish for, because when I wished for more time to focus on my blog, I got it…via a layoff of my job of 16.5 years! While I had been planning a change, it certainly wasn’t going to be until after we’d completed the escrow process that we had started. This kick in the pants pushed our schedule forward a few months but…fast-forward a year, I can say: Best.Thing.Ever.

Honestly.

Not only did I have the time/money to get my blog off the ground, but I had time to re-focus on what I wanted to do in life and we chose a house in a neighborhood that actually turned out to be more suitable for our needs.

So this real American blogger started promoting her blog and working with PR companies in that sweet RV. See the turtle in the aquarium to the left of the door? That laundry rack to dry small loads of things I wouldn’t put in a dryer but had no real place to hang inside? Perks of the location, baby…

Thanks to our very generous friends, we didn’t have to stay in a high-priced RV park with limitations for our pets, but the husband did have to make special stairs for my son’s service dog, an 80-pound Labrador who didn’t like the regular stairs and refused to go up or down.

This real American blogger lived in that RV with two children, an 18-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son. They shared a room in the back, each taking a ‘floor’ in the bunkhouse. (Two-stories back there!) We had our private bedroom on the other end, with the dining table aka office and living room and kitchen in-between. The printer was housed on a bottom bunk and we paid $80 per month for a wi-fi hotspot. Sounds fancy, right? I know, I know, everyone tells me they wish they’d gotten to bake cupcakes in that small one six-cupcake pan oven and then do photo shoots for the blog on the tiny counter. I was living the dream!

Seriously though, while we had some miserable days due to the heat and pottying dogs in the rain was a pain, it could have been worse. I didn’t make any money on my blog while I was living there, but I did get to learn and network and build relationships. That’s invaluable. The family bonded and the husband didn’t have to worry about house maintenance (much? lol) and extra stuff while he was settling in at his new job. And we had a lot of fun with friends and family. We still love the jokes about our living situation and have so many stories to share at parties. Nothing breaks the ice like talking about how your RV sewer hose cap falls into a, ahem, pile and has to be retrieved or how pleasant it is emptying things when it’s 110 degrees outside. Good times, good times.

Real American bloggers have all sorts of starts and lifestyles and living situations. We’re all ages and sizes and shapes and colors and are too varied for any one description. I’m so thankful for the groups of blogger friends I have and for the friends I’ll make in the future because of blogging, and I hope people unfamiliar with blogging realize that we’re just like everyone else. Some of us live in RVs, some live in huge spotless homes, others on farms and apartments or condos. Some live with family. We’re female and male. Some make a little money, some make a lot. Not all bloggers are parents. Some real American bloggers are just out of high-school and others are grandmothers, or even grandfathers. If you want to work with a blogger, aka an influencer, you have the world of options to choose from, so you’ll find a fit for any demographic you could ever need. That’s what makes the real American blogger community so special! But it doesn’t stop there — the world is full of amazing bloggers. Jump in — read some new blogs today or maybe even start one!