My head is aswirl

Is "aswirl" a word? If not, I'm voting to make it one. Cuz my head is definitely aswirl today. So much going on in there, even while most all of what appears out here is quiet and appears calm.

Bob's been having a rough couple of daysnwhile he comes off one medication and starts another. He doesn't see anyone until next month so sometimes I feel like we're riding this out alone, even though I know that isn't true. Tommy & Carrie have been here through this with us, and the ARNP we saw said we could call at any time if we had questions. It's just that most of the time it's just him and me at the coach, and he's so unhappy here that it just compounds everything.

Add to that the fact that my knee has blown up and I'm seeing an orthopedic specialist tomorrow. It's been a while since I've walked with a cane or worn a knee brace and sometimes the pain is off the charts. Which really reduces the amount of energy I have to give to Bob. He hates that, too. He hates that he takes any of my energy. He feels like such a wimp, like he should be able to handle this all on his own. But isn't that what partners do for each other? Isn't that the "in sickness and in health" part of the vows?

Plus I'm feeling sad for a Yorkie friend of mine who lost her husband. He turned off his oxygen (but not all the way, obviously), lit a cigarette & sat on the sofa to smoke it. She was asleep in the bedroom when it exploded. He tried crawling to the kitchen to dial 911; she was successful dialing 911 as she climbed out the bedroom window. She was a breeder of the most beautiful dogs. I believe six of seven made it out alive. They had homeowners insurance, but I'm wondering if it will cover his negligence. Plus she has fibromyalgia and no healh insurance for any of the medical bills she's incurred as a result of all this. It's such a sad situation.

And there is the ongoing family dramas that I find myself getting sucked into. I was sitting here on the iPad while Bob napped having a conversation in my head with one of the participants when I remembered something a wise friend told me. She says she tries not to have conversations with people unless they're in the room with her. I loved that. I don't know how often I've caught myself having a long, drawn-out discussion (monologue is more like it) about something in my head in response to some off-hand snipe or cut that I didn't respond to at the time but really wanted to get my two cents worth in on. So I stopped myself from that discussion in my head and said a quick prayer for the person and our relationship. I'll probably have to pull myself back from it a few more times, but I'll let it go eventually.

Guaranteed Craziness!

Today Bob and I are in Chesapeake at our granddaughter Rachel's tenth birthday party, theme Halloween party. I'm dressed in a poodle skirt, hair in ponytail, wearing pearls & Bob's high school pin (the real one), Keds & Bobby socks and an imitation letter sweater (looks like a letter sweater without a letter - yet). Bob's in his "Generic Halloween Costume" t-shirt that he's been wearing for twenty-plus years, plus blue jeans, a leather jacket, sunglasses, with his hair brylcreamed in a pseudo-ducktail (pseudo cuz it's not really long enuf for a real duck tail). It's as dressed up as he's let me get him in many years!

The craziness part is that in 45 minutes about 22 tween-age girls are going to be descending on this home! Fortunately Rachel has three older siblings to help her parents with the mayhem! Maybe grandpa will join in. Me, I'm pretty much out of commission.

My knee has blown up again. When we were in Illinois I wrenched it and it never got unwrenched. In fact, the past three weeks or so it has gotten progressively worse to the point now that I can't lift my leg or bend it or put any weight on it when I'm in bed, etc. I'm wearing the knee brace I wore before surgery back in 1993 (I don't even remember it hurting this bad back then). I think I'll be calling the HMO for urgent care authorization on Monday so I can see a doctor out here.

So that's what is happening today. Oh, that, plus we moved to a new campground closer to the kids. We drove the coach with toad onto this teeny tiny ferry this morning and made the crossing from Knotts Island to Currituck, then drove to Bells Island, NC. They sure like their islands out here. look for the pictures on Facebook later today.

Me, I got a birthday party to get to...bye for now...

Backstory, part zvei

First I would like to apologize for all the typos in previous posts. I'm typing on an iPad instead of a keyboard, & mysterious characters & words have a way of inserting them regardless of what I think I typed. And there's no spell-check available, so if I don't re-read each post mystery typos show up, like the word veer for verb - what's with that?

So back to the backstory...after our ten days (books recommend at least three weeks, but we couldn't afford to rent a coach for three weeks, so we figured that money would be better spent on a downpayment anyway, right? Besides, what do books know? As it turns out, maybe a lot...) in the coach the end of October/the first of November we started spending weekends looking at various motorhomes in the area. The other thing we did was to make a list of our ideal motor coach. We knew by this time that we didn't want a trailer (commonly called a camper) because we didn't want to have to buy a gas-guzzling truck to haul it. What, you might ask incredulously. A motor coach is a gas-guzzler. Yes, but as our mode of transportation in-between moves we didn't want to be driving around town in a huge pick-up truck. We also didn't want a fifth-wheel trailer for the same reason. Also, I don't remember where I heard it, but this is the quote that says it best, "A motorhome is meant to be driven, fifth-wheels/trailers are meant to be parked." And since we planned to be traveling around instead of snowbirding or homesteading, a coach seemed like the way to go for us.

As we looked at various motorcoaches and continued to read about RV living, we kept refining our Ideal RV list. One day we'd driven way north to Mount Vernon to see if their dealers had anything different than the Seattle area dealers. The first dealer we pulled into looked like there wasn't much on the lot, but the last RV we looked at was a 2007 Alfa See Ya coach. It had almost every single thing on our Ideal List.

This Alfa was beautiful. It had three slides, Corian countertops in the kitchen and bath, as well as granite tile throughout, oak cabinetry, three TVs inside and had more storage space

than we'd seen in any other Coach. We were hooked. Only problem was Alfa Leisure, the maker of Alfa See Yas was one of the scores of RV makers which had gone out of business as a result of the recession. The good part of that is that their prices might be lower. Only problem with this coach was it was being sold on consignment, and there would be no support from this dealer after the sale which was unacceptable to Bob.

So on our way out of Mount Vernon we stopped at Poulsbo RV. We were wandering around their sales lot looking at most of the same RVs we'd seen in the Seattle area when we started talking about the Alfa we'd seen and our Ideal RV list. This inexperienced salesman (good man!) took us inside & introduced us to Mike, who said he'd look around & see what he could find. Within 24 hours he'd found 3 Alfas in the Poulsbo RV inventory (they've got several showrooms in the Pacific Northwest) & arranged to have two of the ones we thought we might like to the Everett dealership so we wouldn't have to drive all the way back up to Mount Vernon again (we looked at all three on their website & choose the two we liked most based on their interior & exterior amenities).

Both of the Alfas were new (not used like the 2007 we'd looked at) 2008s, one with the light oak cabinetry we liked in the other coach and one with a darker cabinetry. With my Seasonal Affective Disorder (winter depression) we wanted to stay away from anything dark, so that was one strike against the other coach.  They were pretty much the same in most ways, so we went with the light oak selection. 

Wait, isn't this moving awfully fast you might ask? Well, yes, in hindsight maybe it did. But remember, if it weren't for hindsight there wouldn't be any sight at all, in many cases.

So we talked to both USAA bank & Navy Federal credit Union (both of whom we'd been with for years) and both denied the loan on "our" coach. We started to worry. Was this a sign from God to slow down? No, we got a call from Mike at the dealership, they've found us financing through one of their lenders who do RV loans all the time & understand the intricacies of RV financing (unlike USAA & NFCU) and the loan is at an even lower rate. Hallelujah! All systems are go again!

TBC...

Backstory #1

Because I didn't start this blOg at the beginning of our journey I'm going to have to backstory many of you (bet you didn't know backstory was a verb, huh?). Much has happened in the past twelve months (gee, has it only been that long?), and it's been difficult to keep all the people in my life caught up on all the facets of what's going on. In hindsight, if we'd known then what we know now, we might have done many things differently, but I personally think things were done the way they were for a reason. But you know what they say about hindsight...if it weren't for hindsight we wouldn't have any sight at all.

Be that as it may, in Sept. last year my Social Security Disability was finally approved after a seven year fight. At that point I told Bob that he could start thinking about retirement if he wanted to, because I knew he'd been unhappy with a lot of things that were going on at work for quite some time. I knew how much he loved what he did, though, so I didn't expect him to take me seriously quite as soon as he did. He'd often said he couldn't believe they paid him to go to work on computers every day, but that was before many machinations had taken place in the hierarchy, including downsizing, etc. So we began to brainstorm what retirement might look like for us. For an ADD (adult Attention Deficit Disorder(ed) like Bob, retirement couldn't just be sitting around in a lawn chair somewhere.

At some point I indicated that my fall-back position if anything were to ever happen to him was to buy an RV & live in it full-time, traveling around the U.S., visiting family & friends, following the sun. Because he'd always pooh-poohed RVs on principle I expected him to discard the idea out of hand, but he gave it serious consideration. The more he thought about it and the more we talked about it, the more it seemed like a great idea to both of us. So I started doing my research, reading all the books I could get from the Seattle & King County libraries on RV living. Looking back his was probably one of our first mistakes, even though it was he way we'd always approached projects before. Because Bob didn't learn the INS and outs from the beginning, he didn't know what to expect from the outset. I read & took notes & gave him information, which with his ADD he didn't fully pay attention to or absorb, I now believe. Even the books I chose for him to read were barely skimmed because he's just not a self-help book reader. If it doesn't grab his interest he can't get excited about reading about it.

But one thing I did read & share with him that we took to heart was to try out the lifestyle before buying. So again I did some research, found an 37' RV to rent for 10 days and off we went to Pacific Beach, WA with our three dogs (we still had Brandi at that time). It rained 9 out of the ten days we were there, stormed really, and we had a glorious time. We made friends whom we still keep in contact with on Facebook, we enjoyed being together despite the close quarters (we always have enjoyed each others company 24/7, so that helps immensely), and driving the coach was no problem, especially for me since I'd been a Teamster in a former life.

I guess that's enough for one days blogging. I'll pick up the rest of this, hopefully tomorrow.

How much sense does this make?

Ok, I just need to vent here, so bear with me.

We stayed at a city of Chesapeake campground for 14 days. Their rules say that you can stay for 14 days then must leave for 7 days before then staying for another 14, ad infinitum, or until they close for the winther 11/1. I understand their rationale for this. It's to keep campers from homesteading there. Ok, I get that part.

So here's our dilemma. We left last Thursday, and could go back in this Thursday. However, this Thursday there are thunderstorms predicted. Plus, we are having to put the coach & toad (towed vehicle) on a little bitty ferry (just long enough to accommodate our length plus one more car, basically) on Wednesday to leave Knott's Island, NC to return to Chesapeake.

We really don't want to pull the coach into a muddy campground, try to set up leveling blocks & levelers in the mud (into which they're likely to sink), plus do all the other connecting of electrical & water during thunderstorms on Thursday. If they could see their way clear to give us a waiver under the circumstances, but no.

And here's the kicker. The campground is basically empty. When we left last week there was one fifth-wheel there. When we asked if we could have a waiver given that their campground was empty the woman ranger we were speaking to said, "that's why we have that rule." What? WTFO? If your campground is empty and has been since Labor Day, you justify NOT granting a waiver by saying, "That's why we have that rule"? You'd think they'd want the revenue. But no, we'll turn you away so you can stay in a Wal-Mart parking lot rather than grant a one day waiver? WTF? I'm just a little hot under the collar about this one.

So Bob is quietly spinning in his corner trying not to flip out about what we're going to do about this. So far he's doing ok, but as the time grows near for us to leave without a satisfactory resolution I expect that it could get dicier. This panic disorder sucks for him (& me, too).

Right now how I see it playing out is we get on the ferry tomorrow morning & drive up to the Wal-Mart in Chesapeake. We'd like to stay in one of the parking lots on Tommy's base, but we're not real hopeful that that will happen. So we'll dry-camp (boondock) at the Wal-Mart for the night then try to beat the storm into he campground. Not too sure how successful we'll be, but we'll just make the best of a bad situation. Too bad there aren't more choices for campsites around here. You'd think there would be.

Best thing about being retired?

I gotta tell you, one of the best things for me about this retired business is being able to turn off the alarm and go back to sleep. No really, waking up on my body's own schedule is such a gift. Some days six hours is enough, other days it seems like I need ten hours of sleep. On days when we need to get up we'll each set an alarm, which I will of course forget to turn off the next day. Then, what a luxury to turn it off that next morning and roll back over and go back to sleep!

Next of course is the coffee in bed. Not every morning, because then it would seem old. But many mornings, just enough so that we can continue to enjoy it. There's always a tussle over who is going to get the coffee, because that person generally also has to clean up after the dogs nighttime messes (yes, we've gotten lazy & don't get up to take them out to wander around strange campgrounds at night so make do with cleaning up after them in the morning. TMI? Sorry.). Sometimes we split the difference, but usually Bob will do it because he knows how much pain I'm in & how much of an effort it is for me to get up first. What a sweetie, right? That's why I keep him around!