Category: Uncategorized

As I age my fingers appear to be getting more stupid. This becomes evident as I read my own writings. This leads me to the urge to write this preface to my future blogs:

“There are no errors in this writing. If you find what appears to you to be a mistake in spelling, punctuation, or grammar be assured it was intentionally put there so there is no need to notify the author of your find.”

Of course, if I do that my fingers’ stupidity will stay out there for all the world to continue reading. Is that what they really want? I’d ask them but I don’t trust their answer to make sense.

TTYL,

Linda

We used to be soccer fans. We even had season tickets to the Minnesota Kicks professional soccer team. In soccer one of the most exciting things is a free kick. One guy gets to kick the ball towards the net while the opposing team’s goalie tries to guess which way to jump to block the ball. From the sidelines, it is sometimes hard to see if the ball went into the net or not. So we wait for the call: goal or no goal?

In life we were taught to set goals and to make specific plans for reaching those goals. I was never very good at this. I always wanted to do whatever I felt like doing not what I “should” be doing.

Now we are retired and traveling across the USA. Our friends say we write our goals in chalk so they can easily be changed. Others write theirs in Jell-O since the plans wriggle around so much, sometimes melting altogether.

I’m still making lots of plans that I’m not very good at following.

Today, I read a blog that said in effect, “Good for me.”

Check it out: http://zenhabits.net/no-goal/#more-6667

TTYL,

Linda

Our communication styles have certainly changed over the years.

Back when our daughter was young she and I used to read rebus stories together. You know, the ones where pictures substitute for some of the words. One year we found a greeting card that had a picture of a hippopotamus, a bluebird, and two female sheep. It tickled us so much we’ve been using that greeting ever since.

So today I got a text message from her that said, “Hippo birdie two ewes.”

And I got an email from my Dad to let me know he is thinking of me today.

And I got a card from a weight loss program reminding me they would love for me to spend lots of money letting them help me live a healthier life.

Instead, I’m reminding myself my diabetic education team is asking for “progress, not perfection” as we plan to go to my favorite steakhouse for dinner. Yes, I could start with a tossed salad instead of Minnesota wild rice soup, but how often do I get to eat wild rice soup?

And I’m bringing a cooler with us to put my leftovers in because we are going from the restaurant to a model railroad operating session where we will spend the evening with friends we have known for many years doing something fun.

Today is a good day.

TTYL,

Linda

When we first started this “living full time in a motor home” adventure the home we moved into looked like this.

Not much would fit in it. We were able to sell or donate nearly everything we owned but how do you part with the photographs, legal papers, sentimental stuff, and irreplaceables? So we rented a storeroom for those things we just couldn’t part with. And some other stuff we could probably have parted with but as long as we had the storeroom anyway…

Several months later we moved into a slightly bigger RV.

More would fit but still not everything we owned.

Now we live in this one.

Can we, at last, put all our remaining stuff into our home and stop paying rent on a storeroom?

We started by selling the tire chains for the second RV to a friend who has a similar RV. Then we sent all the pieces parts for that RV, like hubcaps and privacy curtains, we found in the storeroom to the dealer who still has it on his lot.

We also spent most of the last month hauling stuff out of the storeroom bit by bit and trying to put it into our RV. Some of it got unpacked and put inside cupboards.

Some of it didn’t get unpacked but got put into cupboards.

Some of it got put into the basement.

Yes, those are sheets I’m saving but more importantly, inside those sheets are my touch lamps: 3-way lights you turn on by just touching the lamps anywhere which is wonderful when you are awakened out of a sound sleep. And, yes, those are bar stools. But they have square tops instead of round ones which means they make good tables for holding up my touch lamps. I consider both of those things irreplaceable since I have never been able to buy any more in spite of having tried for years to do so.

So, we have not much more than this space still available.

And this much stuff still in the storeroom.

Are we going to make it?

I think so. It may take another round of donating and selling but I’ve always liked working puzzles so I think I can rearrange enough stuff to do this. We’re certainly not going to continue to pay to store the little bit that’s left.

Anyone want to buy a Progressive Industries 30 amp Power Management System or a Scangauge?

TTYL,

Linda

For some reason I got the idea into my head that I needed to more or less finish my research on each state before I posted it here in my Public Park Camping section. I finally decided that’s silly. There is no reason why you should not have the benefit of the research I HAVE done just because I’m NOT done. So, if you like camping in national, state, regional and city parks and forests check out the bottom of the right hand column on this page for data I’ve collected over the last couple of years. Some of it is not current and there are lots of pieces missing but, hey, it’s better than nothing, right?

Oh yeah, you won’t find New Jersey listed yet. So far my spreadsheet for it only has one county park in it so I think I’ll work on that one next.

TTYL,

Linda