To be… or not to be….. WARM!

So what is all this white stuff? I am told that, technically, it is called snow. However, if I learned anything in elementary school geography I learned that North Carolina is in the south and the only two white things that southerners have much of are cotton and dandruff.

Surely this can’t be dandruff on Clifford, can it?!

Seriously, this has been a good test of DakotR’s weather resistance because even though the temperatures have made it into the mid teens outside, we have stayed cozy inside on two 1500 watt electric heaters    and an occasional burst from the two 40k btu LP gas furnaces. I am sure that if I turned the electric heaters up just a bit more the furnaces would not kick on at all but the furnaces are what keep the basement spaces heated so their use is more for caution than for comfort.

For reference, It’s 5:25am and I just checked and the outside temperature is 19.6 degrees right now with an expected high of 36 today.

Other than having to dump the accumulating snow off of the big awning before it could freeze into ice, we could be in Miami Beach.

On other fronts, Katie, the Poo, was dropped off Tuesday at the NC State Veterinary school hospital for her liver shunt surgery planned for Wednesday morning. She was excited to see these people, again. She gets so spoiled when she goes there that she turns her nose up at us once she returns home and it takes a few days before she stops pacing around looking for the copious handouts, treats and loving she gets from the student vets in training.

Another big step that was taken the past few days was in organizing Merrily’s sister’s apartment contents for disposal. She and Carol Ann spent the better part of two days over there along with Shawna (Randy’s wife). They got about 2/3rds of the contents catalogued and grouped for various destinations. Help from the church has already been engaged for the muscle and transportation when the time is right but we are still waiting to see what Geri’s stroke residuals will dictate in the way of accommodations, personal assistance and functionality after her rehabilitation is completed.

Shawna fixed baked Ziti for dinner in “the big house” for the 6 of us last evening. Merrily and I sure appreciated that as I am sure Christi and Emery did, also. I am going to miss that flow of leftovers when they move out and into their own place in a couple of weeks.

More on a full-timing note, we signed up for the Workamper 101 webinar class that starts 1/24/2009 (Wow! That’s Saturday!). I understand that Jaimie Hall Bruzenak is a real resource for those getting onboard with workamping. We are really looking forward to this class.

As a sidenote, a webinar is a class that one can attend remotely via the internet and a telephone line. Just prior to the start time, one just logs their computer onto the specified website (in this case, delivered by Webex.com) and dials the supplied phone number to give us an easy way to ask questions and make comments in real-time.

I’ll let you know how this first class goes. Even though we are not anticipating workamping this year, a lot of the longer term plans will certainly involve finding jobs here and there to help support our cashflow needs. Knowing how to find and successfully get a satisfactory job will be vital to how we plan our travels. I expect that we will use our initial travel destinations to investigate future job opportunities in areas we are interested in future workamping positions. It is also for this reason that we signed up for the Workamper News and hotline resources a few months back. So far, we have learned a great deal just by investigating the various jobs that are posted daily on their Hotline service.

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Bad Dog Day

Katie the cockapoo, woke up at 8am on Wednesday and proceeded to go into a seizure that did not stop. At the 10 minute point, I rushed her to the vet (fortunately, just a few blocks away) and they started working on her but it took another 3 hours before they had them stopped.

By this time, she was in la-la land from the meds. They watched her all day, called me with updates and arranged for her to go to the NCSU vet school emergency room for the coming night so that she would be under full observation.

We picked her up at 6pm, drove her to the school emergency room and finally left her there about 8pm. She was resting when we left but very drugged. We should know more sometime Thursday about whether she will go into surgery for the liver shunt.

The liver shunt problem is thought to be at the bottom of her seizures. Of course, no one can give us a 100% guarantee that fixing the shunt will fix the seizures, too, but all the doctors have been very confident that it will and that the seizures will stop once she has recovered from the surgery.

We are facing a very challenging set of problems, here. Our travel plans for at least the next few years include a lot of time "off the grid" and away from civilization. Vets are not going to be available in many of these places and should she still be having seizures, even occasionally, there is always the possibility that she will go into another unstoppable one that will kill her or leave her with permanent liver and even brain damage.

At the very least, if she is still having seizures she will have to be on meds the rest of her life and that will require regular monitoring by doctors to make sure she is not going into liver or kidney failure territory with the side effects that these meds cause. Again, this will be something that will not be possible with her traveling with us on the road. So I see some hard choices looming on the horizon and I don't like the list of actions we will have to choose from.

On a more (or less) positive note, on my rush to get Katie to the vet this morning, I blew some hose or fitting under the hood of the Aerostar and lost the power steering just as I had to make a sharp tight u turn into the doctor's parking lot. Boy! That is a really small steering wheel when the power is off. Unfortunately, traffic was coming and I thought the engine had died so I had to take it hard and sharp to coast out of the way of oncoming rush hour traffic and that tossed the still seizing Katie off the seat and onto the floor of the van.

She was not hurt but in her condition she could not right herself and it just added to the severity of her struggles.

The vet took Katie back right away and started working on her problem and eventually said she should stay there for the day so I left for home. The van ran but had no power steering. It turns out that it was losing fluid somewhere and the belts had all gotten coated and slick. Once back home I was not able to see where it was coming from but it did not smell like coolant. This may be the last straw for the 93 van. It has served us well but is so decrepit now, that running to the grocery store in it is a little scary.

The more positive side of this was that now, I had to get Clifford running in order to get around town on other errands of the day. I have been wanting to take him out for a nice drive for a few weeks now, but just never could get around to it because of more pressing business.

As soon as I got him started, I felt better. And once warmed up and checked over for problems before pulling out (I always do a pre trip inspection (PTI) before moving him, even if its only been sitting unattended for a short while in a public parking lot. It is surprising the pranks that some people think are funny.

I drove Clifford to have lunch with Merrily, Randy (#3 son) and a friend of his, Ryan. By the time I had gone 2 blocks from the house, I felt a lot better and a lot more in control. Folks can say what they want about driving a HDT for a tow vehicle and daily driver but it always makes me feel back in control no matter what else is going on in my life. It has a theraputic value to me that even Sigmund Freud could not connect to my mother or penis envy. It just feels RIGHT!

Merrily has known how much I have been wanting to get out in Clifford and she suggested that I go home "the long way" which was just what I needed to hear. I had planned to check out a place that had cheap diesel fuel on Gasbuddy.com and it was kind of out of the way home, anyway. At current fuel prices, $2.21/gallon for diesel would save $10 per 100 gals over the next best price in the area and more than pay for a slight detour on the way back home.

The short story is that the price had jumped to $2.39/gallon so I did not buy any but it gave me a chance to take the really "long way" back home... and I did.

By the time I reached home, all was right with the world again and the day of Katie was just a small speed bump and not a show stopper. We will deal with whatever needs to be done next.

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Details, Details, Details

Sunday Night's dinner was great and we both enjoyed the positive time putting it together and eating it. I postponed cleanup until the next day and Merrily's Christmas Present (big, new single bowl stainless steel sink) made that possible. Everything from cooking to eating was in there and still not in the way of using the sink. I'll have to tell you about this project sometime.

Katie goes in to the vet in the morning for her re-evaluation to see if she is ready for surgery to correct her liver shunt. I had my annual visit to my cardiologist this afternoon and that was good, too. He is quite pleased that I have been able to start walking again. A mile a day is not much but it is more than I have been able to do for 5 years or more. Thank you prestiq!

The auto insurance is squared away, now, and so is my medicare stuff. That was one that was worrying me just because there are so many choices that have to be made by specific dates. Thank you Carol Ann (daughter).

I spoke with Merrily's brother, RWJ, about helping with his other sister's stuff and he seems very positive and has already been a lot of help in guiding us through this unfamiliar territory. He has had to do similar things with several deteriorating family members so he helped us work up a todo list. Thank You, RWJ.

My birthday present this year is a copy of the 2009 Big Rigs Best Bets - RV parks info for us folks with the big dogs. Unfortunately, they are not planning to put out a CD version this year so I will have to settle for the paper version.

More to tell, tomorrow.

Ah! Sunday.... a day of rest..????

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today... because you may end up having to get it done on Sunday. Some of the back burner stuff has suddenly appeared up front so we have to deal with them now.

The first list item was to get the current auto registrations renewed. This one has been simmering back there for several weeks but now must be finished. Same with the Auto insurance renewal which I spoke of earlier. At least it has now been decided that #2 son is moving to his own family policy tomorrow so its just Merrily and Me and I am hoping that will cut a little more off of the premiums.

Also, its time to start dealing with Merrily's Sister's two story apartment contents. It is not probable that she will be able to move back into it when she gets out of the rehabilitation facility for her right side stroke. It is also not likely that she will be able to even participate in the decision process of disposing of the present contents. We went over and spent about an hour surveying the task and talking about possible means of managing to empty the place without upsetting relatives or ourselves too much.

This is the sort of work that one usually has to perform after a relative has crossed over. While that is always very difficult it seems to be even harder when they are still here but unable to participate or guide the process a little. Much of this struggle is just identifying what will still be needed or wanted.

The rest is mostly a parallel to what Full Timers go through to pare down their life's collections to what will go on the road with them, what will be stored and what must be disposed of or distributed to friends, relatives or ebay. The sheer number of memories one encounters shaped into jewelry, kitchen, bath, bedroom or living room accessories and fixtures is quickly overwhelming. The strongest resolve to "just do it" and get out, quickly withers in the brilliant light of a fading past. It makes me think of Chevy Chase wrapped in old clothes and watching old home movies while trapped in the cold attic in Christmas Vacation.

I will say that there are benefits to being able to take time to do the job but it eats more of one's life than could ever be expected. Every little thing becomes bigger and bigger the longer one has to contemplate its history and dispensation.

We did come away with some ideas and rudimentary plans for our next attack on it and possibly even reduce our own angst by involving certain others in limited parts of the process. I may have more in this in a later post.

Another of those hard to start tasks involves food and weight and the reduction, thereof. Yeah, I know, I should just call it a broken New Year's resolution and ease back into the comfort food zone, again. But Merrily and I want to be able to fully enjoy these next years and experiences and I have to say that the plight of her sister has had a sombering affect on our commitments to better health. Her age is right between Merrily's and mine and that is definitly a wake up call to stop postponing and waiting for "the right time". "Just Do It!" really does apply to this one.

To this end, we decided to take baby steps by starting with one or two meals a week that we can gradually build into a better set of eating habits than we now have. Intellectually, this will let us develop some skills at planning meals instead of waiting until we are hungry to decide what and where to eat. The reality is that it is a very small step and to many would seem laughable but our 30 years together has clearly shown us to be chronic avoiders. Much of what we do together is out of long life habits and even when we may be aware of it at a moment we are not prone to disrupting the comfort and security of the habit at that time.

Tonight's dinner will be George Foreman grilled chicken breasts with brussel sprouts and green beans with a few raw carrots and a dip for an appetizer. George does a great job with chicken breasts and the cleanup is easy. Its the 1 ton crane you need to get the darn grill up on the counter and then later to put it away.

I will let you know how this all turns out, tomorrow. Meanwhile, I need to get cooking.

Chow, as they say.

A fire full of Irons.

Busy, Busy, Busy.. is the only way I can describe the past few days. Between refilling propane tanks, heavily discussing future RVing issues (insurance, $$$$$, education, Post-Disney World plans), wrapping up once a year records and money movements, medical transition to medicare issues and cocka-poo coddling, a couple of days have just slipped away somewhere.

I am very glad that I bought 2 extra 40lb propane tanks a couple of months ago for about $75@. Taking 3 empty tanks in at one time got me a per gallon price of $61.20 for the 27.2 gallons it took to fill them. That's about $2.26/gal. The price would have been $22 per tank at the same place for less than 3 tanks. I periodically check LP prices around town and the next cheapest place was $2.99/gal so I figure I saved more than enough ($20 appx) to cover the cost of the gasoline to get there and back here. With that kind of savings I will have the 2 new tanks reimbursed in less than a year and I don't have to make the trip nearly as often, either.

BTW, a 40lb tank's capacity is 10 gallons (appx) but the OPD (Overfill Protection Device) only lets it fill to about 9.1 gallons when empty. In 2007 I had the 2 original (1999 vintage) tanks refurbished and recertified by having the complete OPD valve assembly replaced. The original valve stems were leaking and that was a lot worse than just a nuisance. It only cost me $18 per tank so it was cheap insurance against a more lethal nusiance.

Katie is back to her old self and doing well. We go back for a blood check next wednesday to see if she is ready for the surgery to fix her liver shunt. It sure is a relief to see her feeling better.

We are definitely heading down to SW florida after we leave Disney World in November. In searching for some satisfactory spots to stay it is turning out to be a lot more difficult than we originally expected. There are a lot more RV areas down there but a very large percentage of them are mobile home parks that accept RVs, too. This makes the pricing really skewed in most of them for the winter months (not that I expected anything different) and the RV sites are very often small with overgrown trees, low clearances and tight turns. Finding the right needle in that sewing box is going to take a lot more deep research than I was planning to spend right now to be sure we can get in during the "high season".

I was hoping to find a lot of personal references from fellow Escapees and the like but that is going to just take a lot of time reading individual posts in the appropriate forums.

Katie - the cocka-poo has a good prognosis!

Katie had her battery of tests yesterday and its now proven that she has a single liver shunt external to her liver so it will be easy to fix. The blood tests they did confirm that she was deteriorating rapidly from the same tests done in October. Many of her key factors were now seriously out of the normal range due to the failure of her liver and kidneys to function properly.

We have been assured that one the shunt is fixed she will stop having seizures because they are being caused by the abnormal buildup of ammonia in her bloodstream.

They gave us (well, we actually had to pay for them) 3 meds to start her on to prepare her for the surgery in two weeks. If all goes properly, she should have no more seizures nor have bladder control problems which has plagued us off and on.

My daughter, Carol, came over today to help me finish up translating my life to the 65 and older crowd. So much to do to get social security setup correctly and make the transition to a retirement pension from my company. Lots of T's and I's to be done correctly and still, they got my name wrong on the medicare card. Guess where they have been trying to save money has been on training of SS processors.

.. But I won't go there! Just suffice it to say that after 4 months of working on all of this, we are 2/3 of the way to completion.

I will say that one thing that caught me by surprise was when I found out that my $83,000 life insurance coverage from my company gets reduced to just $5,000 when I turn 65. That blindsided me, completely. Sure, they have a rollover program so I can pick the difference back up without having to take a medical exam but it will cost me $384 per month just to keep my life insurance. I have to explore other options... maybe AARP. I have heard that they have a fairly good program.

Merrily is out with the girls tonight to see a chick flick at the $1.50 theater over by the NCSU campus. I am very glad to go with her anytime she really wants to see something but our tastes in certain areas don't line up perfectly and its great that she is ok with not inviting me to certain events but goes with friends.

I, on the other hand, get leftover chinese sweet and sour shrimp (or something) for dinner. Yummo!

The initial Florida plans

Dates have been picked for our launch into full timing. Our intent is to be in Disney World for Merrily's birthday and get that free entrance ticket for the day. It's worth $75 in today's money. Of course, it means that actually being in the park for our anniversary and her birthday will not work..(well, it would work if we were willing to spend the money for an additional 6 days stay in Fort Wilderness Campground.)

Save a buck no matter how much it costs!!!????

Getting down there from Raleigh is what we are working on, now. We will probably swing through Jacksonville and St Augustine and see her brother and his family for a few days before getting to Disney. But there is some possibility that they might actually come down there and spend a few days in which case we may just go straight there from Raleigh. Meeting family is always more complicated for some reason but the payoffs are usually the best.We always have such a good time when we get together and laugh so much that our sides ache by the time we part company.

Next, is nailing down where we would like to go after Disney. Independently, we preferred to go down near Ft Myers area for awhile so we were in perfect accord when it was first mentioned (have I mentioned that I LOVE this woman?). How long? Who knows... who cares....? It's just that we have heard that going there in the December - February time frame usually needs some solid reservations if we are going to be particular about where we stay.

For quite a long time I have suspected that this planning process is a lot easier for those with some experience in full timing, at least it sounds like that from the many forum posts I have read. I can only surmise that it must be due to how much the lack of personal experience on our part causes a lot of "over-think" in the planning stages.

Merrily is still thinking about getting her Commercial Driver License so we will have the option of making a little money on the road if the circumstances permit. The classes here are a very tough 8 weeks at the NC Truck Driver Training Class but one leaves it with a confidence and capability only matched by a few of the best schools in the country.

Katie the "poo" had another seizure this afternoon. It's a good thing we are taking her in to be evaluated tomorrow at the NCSU Vet School. I sure hope they can quickly find exactly what is wrong and fix it permanently. She is so pathetic when struggling just to breathe and I am sure that the intense muscle spasms must hurt, too.