Okay. The title is disingenuous. We are NOT doing away with DIY… Carl would have a fit and wouldn’t know what to do with himself. What “Ending with DIY” means, in this case, is that we (or rather, Carl) ended 2025 by doing MANY different DIY projects around our house.
Let me go back a few months…
We initially planned to spend the 2025-2026 winter in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. But our main reason to go to Texas—to spend time with some friends—disappeared when our friends decided to stay in Ohio to take care of their grandchildren and enjoy the holidays with family. So, we pivoted, deciding to spend the winter in North Carolina and travel up the East Coast in the Spring.
Then, we found out our renter was moving out at the end of his lease (end of October), and Carl, with his infinite wisdom, suggested we temporarily move back into our house during the winter months instead of bouncing around North Carolina in the Airstream. The carrot he dangled was the dishwasher, the NUMBER ONE appliance I miss. Since we have no furniture, I informed him that I would NOT move back into the house, even for a few months, without some comfortable pieces of furniture. Our renter gladly accommodated us, leaving behind a sectional sofa, his large TV, a kitchen table and chairs, and some bedroom furniture. It was exactly what we needed to make moving into a huge, empty house bearable.
No worries, people! He will come get the furniture when we move back into the Airstream at the end of March.
AND I have been using the dishwasher as much as possible. If the dish fits in there, it gets washed in there!
Moving back into the house temporarily turned out to be a really good idea. For some reason, just about every appliance realized Carl was present and decided to give up working to get some much-needed attention, apparently!
The water heater stopped heating water, and the issue turned out to be a control panel problem that Carl repaired. Then the dishwasher stopped working properly and needed a new part. He had to do a minor repair to the washing machine and replace part of a drain pipe in the ceiling that had been slowly leaking for over a year, finally making itself known with water marks. The dryer quit heating one day recently (between two loads), and Carl replaced the heating element.
The switch for the light above the stove doesn’t work, but the light does, so we have been screwing in and unscrewing the bulb to turn it on and off. The main kitchen light is flickering and needs new tube lighting, and the smoke detectors needed new batteries. And the ceiling still needs to be patched and painted after the drain pipe repair.
Other items still need to be done as well:
- Wash windows (Karen, most likely)
- Clean gutters (outside service company)
- Repair window screens (Carl)
- Touch up paint on walls and baseboards (Carl, most definitely! Karen HATES to paint.)
This doesn’t even include the axle maintenance work Carl wants to do on the Airstream before we leave this Spring.
Needless to say, I am not the DIYer in the family when it comes to repairs and painting. I’ll clean the baseboards for Carl to paint, and I’ll wash the windows. I’ve started planning our 2026 travel agenda, up the East Coast into Canada, dropping back into the U.S., and moving toward Minnesota for Carl’s farm job at the beginning of September.
I promise that’s not all I’m doing! I’m still providing services to self-publishing authors, including helping one update his website (a fun challenge!). I’m reading, crocheting, and visiting with family and friends.
And Carl isn’t just tootling around fixing our wayward appliances. He got himself a part-time job at Walmart to keep busy since we are “sitting still” for 5 months. He’s also preparing screening documents for rental applicants, as we will put the house back on the market for rent in February. And he’s figuring out how best to store our 2006 Hyundai Elantra since we don’t plan to be back in North Carolina until the end of 2027, but he loves that little car and does not want to sell it.
Last year, 2025, had us traveling from Florida to Washington to Minnesota to North Carolina to Cancun. We are happy and proud to announce that we have acquired a daughter-in-law (Carl’s son, Eric, married in March) and a son-in-law (our daughter, Madeline, married in November).
Our full-time RV travel adventure is far from over. The blueprint for the next two years has us traveling North starting in April, spending next winter in the southwest, and revisiting Alaska in 2027 before wending our way back to North Carolina.
As always, enjoy your days, and keep them riveting (in a good way)!
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