When people buy an RV, they inevitably find things they don’t like.  No matter how much homework you have done, there are some things that don’t fit right or some things you don’t like.  When you change these things, they are modifications, or “mod” for short.

Because Tom and I designed our own RV and had it custom built, most everything is exactly the way we want it.  Or at least the way I want it.  Tom compromised what he wanted quite a bit, but he wanted stuff that was stupid difficult to design.  Tom likes little rooms – and by little I mean tiny.  Teeny tiny – just big enough for him.  Rooms so small I get claustrophobic.  I wasn’t willing to chop up our space.  Right now the RV feels spacious and open and I am very happy with it.

But we made our first mod a couple of days ago.  We hung up a picture frame.  Ta da!  I know this doesn’t seem like much – we must have had 100 things on the walls in our house, but you have to realize that there is basically no wall space in the rv.  We have lots of windows, plenty of storage, and only two places in the rv this picture frame could go.  We hung it in the kitchen, close (but not too close) to the sink, where it is visible from anywhere in the living space.

In preparation for moving into the rv, I spent lots of time scanning things into the computer.  And by lots I mean hours and hours.  We had lots of pictures, cards, wonderful letters, certificates, diplomas – all that stuff you have sitting all over a big house, never thinking how much space it is taking up.  So I scanned anything that we wanted to “keep,” stored it on the hard drive on the computer, and backed it up twice.  One backup we have with us and one is at John’s house.  My next project is arranging all the stuff by year, putting it in a category, and then putting it on thumb drives that I can stick into the digital picture frame.  In this way I will be able to enjoy our pictures and mementos without them taking up space and adding weight in the rv.

By doing this, I enjoyed our pictures and the cards and letters we saved over the years as I scanned them.  I sorted a lot of them and threw some out (did I really take 36 pictures of John eating rice cereal for the first time?).  Then I got to enjoy them by giving them to people – “Here is a Christmas card from 18 years ago that you sent us.  I thought you would enjoy seeing the picture again.”  “I found this picture of Amanda playing t-ball and thought you might like to have it.”  “Do you remember sending me this card?  It meant so much to me.”

Now I will enjoy these things again as I watch them on my picture frame.  Pictures are seeing the light of day for the first time in years, and I am enjoying them more by getting rid of them than I ever did as I hung on to them.

What do you keep and save – and never look at again?  What might you enjoy more by getting rid of it?  Our first “mod” has given me lots of enjoyment already, and it doesn’t even have any pictures on it yet!