Life in a Trailer Park

So I have been saying ever since we moved (starting week 3 today!!) that I need to start a blog about our move, life in a trailer, life in a super small town (makes Mitchell look big!!), etc. Now that I finally have all my progress notes done (boy does that feel good!!), I have time to pursue other things. Working two days a week is amazing, so much time for different things besides work!!! Too bad that will change soon. More about that later. 

I am going to go back a few months: Drew and I got married in Aug of 2011. He was working at Costco as a merchant (the job market was not good to him) and I was at Horizon Pediatric Therapy. He looked for jobs nearly everyday with no luck. One day his cousin-in-law (the same guy who got him a job at U of P said he needed to look into working at his new job: Freeport MacMoRan, a copper/gold mining company in eastern Arizona. After looking it up and applying, nothing really came of it as so many other applications before it. But then Drew got an email saying he had an interview!! We went up to Morenci, AZ (check it...on a map SUPER small, unincorporated town about 20 miles west of New Mexico) so I could see the place and Drew could interview. While there, we stayed with his cousins family and their two adorable boys. One of their boys actually gets occupational therapy in home, so I met with the lady who kinda runs the therapy for that area (birth to 3). She said an OT is so hard to come by in that area!!! I was sold after our visit. I was totally open to the change, moving, getting back into a more country lifestyle. Mesa was great for a while, but I was ready for the small town lifestyle. And Morenci is small town!! 

We waited to hear about back from the interview...and waited...and waited! While we were waiting, my grandfather got sick and passed away. So we flew back to Chicago to say our goodbyes. One day while we were up there and going to Target with Nicole, Drew got a call from some number he didn't know. IT WAS THE MINE!! However, his phone died about 30 seconds into the phone call. But finally we had word: WE WERE MOVING TO MORENCI!! It was truly a bittersweet realization. I had been working at Horizon for almost 2 years now and had made some amazing connections with families. It was going to be a tough week of telling people I was moving and having our last sessions together. I was emotionally exhausted at the end of the week!! It was so sad to say goodbye to my kiddos!!! (Thankfully we can still communicate through email, blogs, and messages.) 

Drew and I packed up our home in Mesa (with lots of help from friends!!), rented a UHaul, and moved to eastern Arizona. As previously mentioned, Morenci is an unincorporated town: the mine owns EVERYTHING...including all the housing. This presents with a small problem: where were we going to live??? When a person gets a job working for the mine, they are put on a waiting list to get a house. Our wait: 3-4 MONTHS! AAHHH. What were we going to do??? A few weeks before we were set to move (Drew started Feb 13), Drew drove the 4 hours to this area to try to find a solution to our problem. However, it wasn't so easy. There are very few apartments in small towns and even fewer places to rent. Thankfully we found our answer a few days later...a family friend has a 5th wheel trailer sitting on his property! We found a trailer park to put it in and a person willing to haul it for us. We were set!! Now going from a 4 bedroom house to a 35 foot trailer was (and still is) an adjustment!! 

There are several (more like hundreds probably) things that are different than a house when living in a trailer. One of the ones that sticks out the most is when opening a cabinet or drawer, they are latched. You either have to pull really hard on the handle or lift up on the drawer a little. I didn't think this would be a big deal until we went back to the valley our first weekend and stayed with my in laws. I went to open the trash which is in a drawer, and it nearly flew to the other side of the room because I was so use to pulling super hard on the drawers already.

Another adjustment is no tv. We have a tv but no type of reception (cable, dish, etc.) so we are limited to DVDs. A bigger adjustment than I thought it was going to be! More tough on Drew I think than me. 

Probably the hardest adjustment is the shower. Let me say that I CANNOT. stand. the. shower. I have only used it twice (now before you go judging me, I have taken showers at his cousins and when we were back in the valley). There is minimal water pressure at best. Washing my hair has become quite the chore. I am slowly getting use to it. The water pressure in general is rather low, but it is much better than none at all (there are people living out of their cars in Morenci). 

I could go on and on about the trailer and I'm sure I will in a later blog but for now I'm just waiting for Drew to get out of the shower to head up to Morenci so we can do laundry at his cousins house, cook a ham, and watch the Bachelor. 

I'll leave you with some pictures:

Last look at the house before departing. We'll be back...we are renting it for now.

The UHaul before departing on trip one. SHHH don't tell UHaul we made two trips.

My view for 4-5 hours. What fun.

Thank goodness he had to trim it down one day for work!!! It was getting out of control. 

 Have a super fantastic day everyone!!!