Gold Canyon, Arizonak

Our RV neighbors have decided to make this area their permanent home.

Wayne and Jan have been full timers for three years since moving from their home in Illinois. Wayne has been recently diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and he feels much better in the dry Arizona heat. So they are selling their rig and looking into park models.

Jan’ s sister Linda and her husband recently decided to make the Phoenix area their only residence, so they have to pare down two residences into one.

Linda’s Michigan residence has all her special and memory filled items, and her Scottsdale residence has all southwestern-themed furniture and decorations.

While Linda likes southwestern decor, it doesn’t feel like HER home. She wants to redo this house with her things from her formerly permanent home to make it HERS.

Jan doesn’t understand Linda’s feelings; she says home is in your heart and it shouldn’t matter what you’re surrounded by.

Who’s right? Jan who lives in her heart and mind? Linda who is affected by her surroundings?

Both. Each is honoring her own wants and needs. (We’re all just different and thank goodness for that! Wouldn’t life be boring if we all wanted the same thing. 🙂 )

I’m similar to,Linda. I’m greatly affected by the colors, textures, and shapes I’m surrounded by.

For example, given a choice between these two colors, I’ll take the sage even if it costs 1000 times more. Mauve makes me physically ill, literally.

Jan’s sentimental about family photos and only packed photos and other keepsakes when they moved out of their house three years ago.

I’m like Jan, too. I packed photos. But once we move back into a house, I’m scanning them into a digital scrapbook before I toss them. I know that neither of my kids want to deal with the actual photos, but if they are available in electronic file they can peruse them when they want from the comfort of their own couches on whatever electronic wizard contraption comes down the technological highway in the next 30 years… The actual photos don’t mean anything to me; it’s more about the feelings and the memories looking at them elicit.

What brings me comfort are the textures and the colors of my surroundings combined with the ambiance of the situation, the people,  and the music that surrounds me…

I’m not overly sentimental about keepsakes, but there are a few I treasure like the Getto brand that belongs to Rich’s dad.

How about you? What brings you comfort?

Gold Canyon, Arizona

While I was in Boise, I went to our storage sheds to look for and hopefully find some things to take back to Phoenix with me.

A few of the items were for Rich, and I’m always amazed at how well be remembers where each thing is. “It’s on the third shelf on the left hand side of .   .  . and the box has green writing.”

So I found all of his items right away.

My items? Not so easy to find. We moved so fast and expected to be unpacking in a new home right away that we didn’t even label most boxes. That still works for Rich, but not so much for me.

Luckily I did eventually find my stuff.

Then it was time to lock up both storage units and drive away.

That might seem like an easy task to most people, but to those of us with OCD and CRS it’s torture.

OCD is obsessive compulsive disorder which for me manifests as checking to make sure I did something like closing and locking a door at least ten times.

Combine that with CRS, can’t remember sh*t, and you have a recipe for disaster!

But I think I found a solution! I took pictures of the closed doors with the locks in place.

Genius! Now I can confirm that all is done by looking at my phone (at least ten times).

Take that OCD and CRS!

Boise, Idaho

So Melissa picks up our mail at least once a week at the post office. Then she calls me and we determine what’s junk and what’s important.

I pay most of our bills online but occasionally there’s a bill (or two) that needs to be paid the old fashioned way–via snail mail.

That was the case last week. So Melissa kindly boxed up a bit of mail and mailed it to us in Phoenix via Priority Mail.

We got it on Wednesday morning. I didn’t get the bills paid right away. Later Wednesday night I was booking my flight to Boise to stay with Melissa after surgery.

I made sure to pack the bills so that I could pay them while I was here in Boise.

Melissa mailed the box to us on Monday. We got it on Wednesday. It flew back with me on Thursday.

So in the course of three days, those bills traveled at least 1500 miles to get paid.

Not the most effective way to pay bills, but they are finally paid…

Gold Canyon, Arizona

I went to an introductory meeting yesterday for all pickleball players at our RV Park.

There were about 40 people there including one woman who commandeered the entire meeting.

Nope, she wasn’t the president of the group. She was a past president who, apparently, didn’t like the way the current president has been doing things.

“Debbie” was unbelievable. She criticized things ad nauseum, she kept rehashing things that happened last year, and she monopolized the entire meeting.

Greg, the current president, did a great job of trying to corral Debbie, but by the end of the meeting there were nearly 40 people who wanted to strangle her.

During the meeting I leaned over to Kim (who had also had enough) and said, “I worked with Debbie’s sister at my last job…” I was kidding, of course, but I think all of us have either worked with a Debbie or been related to one usually as an in-law.  🙂

I later found out and wasn’t surprised that Debbie is a retired school teacher.

There’s something about bad teachers that stays with them throughout their lives. They don’t try to empower others; they try to micromanage them.

And Debbie was the quintessential retired bad teacher.

So where do bad teachers go after they retire? They move on to ungreener pastures to try to micromanage new faces.

Moab, Utah

We traveled from Green River to Moab yesterday. Only drove about 60 miles, so I don’t have much to blog about.

The amazing thing was the number of people exiting north from Moab. On a short 30 mile stretch of two lane road we passed at least 1000 vehicles. Most were towing Jeeps, hauling bicycles, and/or pulling travel trailers…

Here are a few random thoughts for a Monday pot luck post.

Long Term Full Timers

Rich talked with a ‘neighbor’ the other day and found out that he and his wife have been full-time RVers for 22 years!

That’s a whole lot of togetherness…

Here’s what is printed on the back of their contact card:

Too old to work.
Too young to die.
Just breezing along.
My sweetie and I.

Look Who’s Getting Tattoos!

I’ve been amazed at how many baby boomers are just getting tattoos now.

Recently I overheard two early seventy somethings talking about and showing each other their new tats.

He had just gotten three across the upper portion of his chest: one for each daughter. A pumpkin, a butterfly, and a daisy.

She had just gotten a bracelet tattoo of flowers around her wrist.

She confided that she saved some of her pain pills from a recent dental procedure specifically for getting her tattoo. The next time she saw her dentist, she asked him to guess what she used her leftover pain meds for. He smiled at her and said, “I don’t even want to know…”

What the Heck is That?

Many of the areas outside of the national parks we have visited are range lands.

People visiting from other parts of the USA have never been near cattle let alone barbed wire fence and cattle guards.

Outside of Capitol Reef National Park, one gal from Massachusettes was so proud that she was the only one in her group that new a cattle guard’s function.

She was stumped when someone asked her how it worked. But she was still the queen of knowledge in her group for the moment…

Boise, Idaho

Yesterday I saw my endocrinologist for my twice yearly checkup. Now we can travel for six months… 🙂 And we are starting today, taking off from Boise.

I had blood drawn for tests before I saw him, and I can view the results online before I go in. (Isn’t technology wonderful?) Anyway, I knew pretty much what we were going to discuss before I went in.

Dr. C. asked me how I was feeling, and I gave him a quick run down of some things that have changed and other doctors I had seen since my last visit.

Then he asked, “OK, but how ARE you feeling? On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being terrible and 10 being fantastic.”

I thought a second and answered, “8.75.” (Everything’s evaluated precisely when when you’re surrounded by three engineers: Dad=electrical engineer, husband=residential engineer, son=chemical engineer).

Dr. C. laughed and said, “I’m sorry we couldn’t get you to a 10.”

I told him I was greedy and wanted the very best. 🙂

He then challenged me by asking, “What are YOU doing to make yourself as well as possible?”

His expertise could only take me so far. I am an active partner with him.

I told him that I’m finally able to exercise again because of the cocktail of meds I’m on. I’m eating better, and I’m working hard to stay as healthy physically, emotionally, and spiritually as I can.

But his challenge made me think about how often we expect complete results from a medication without putting forth effort on our own, particularly for medications that often help correct poor choices we make…

Fallon, Nevada

Yesterday we drove from Boise to Fallon and borrowed Melissa’s new car.

It’s way more comfortable than our Jeep and gets much better fuel mileage than the motor home.

Melissa was happy to lend it to us, but there were a few rules…

We can eat in it, but we can’t leave stinky food wrappers in it.

That would erase the new car smell.

Confession time: We split a Subway sandwich in Winnemucca yesterday. I made sure to order it without any sauces and no onions. We ate it really fast and I tied the baggy up multiple times…

But I’m still afraid that it left a smell residue, so I think I’ll order one of these for Misslissa…

Love you, Misslissa! 🙂

Boise, Idaho

For me the best season of all is fall. (And that is the extent of my poetry abilities. 🙂 )

Bar none, there’s nothing like the vibrant colors and rich textures that come to life each autumn…

Here are a few of the colors and textures that I saw on my walk yesterday…

And a lovely poem to welcome fall in:

BY EMILY BRONTË