I AM that little old lady....

I came to Florida right after high school graduation, at age 17. Everywhere I looked there were the old people. Of course at my age, anyone over 40 was old, including my parents.

I spent over thirty years in Florida, not all at one time, but interspersed with job related moves to other states. But there were always the old people. Shuffling and hobbling along, wearing outdated clothes, buried under big hats and in many layers of clothing.

I sat and watched them, especially the women, comfortable in my cut-off denim shorts, tank top and flip-flops, vowing I would never be that little old lady. The one who always seemed to be wearing a sweater, often a not so flattering one. Crocheted or knit, buttons up to the neck, swaddled in scarves. No, I would never be that little old lady.

Fast forward to my fifties and my last move to Florida. I was semi-retired, learning to ride a motorcycle and hoping my husband could beat cancer. We ate out a lot and I always had a sweatshirt with me to fight off the cold air conditioning. I wondered how anyone could sit there in shorts and tank tops - they obviously kept the AC set too low! I could still ride my motorcycle in short sleeves if the temperature was 70 and rising for the day. In my late fifties, I toured the country on my Harley, riding in all kinds of weather including snow and ice. I wasn't that little old lady.

Moving into my sixties, still riding motorcycles but finding I was a fair weather rider. First came the heated gear, then not riding if it was below 70 outside, then it was wearing a leather jacket until temps broke well into the 80's.

As a full-time RVer, I try to stay where it's relatively warm, negating the need for dressing in layers. Of course there are still THOSE days, the ones where it never gets out of the sixties, the sun is obscured by clouds and the drizzle makes it colder and damper.

Heading out to eat one day, I realized I never left the house without a sweatshirt or jacket. In fact, I have one sweatshirt stored on the motorcycle and one stored in our truck, just in case. I always wore it in restaurants and movie theaters.

It finally hit me. I don't know when or how but I AM that little old lady!

Ciao for now!

Getting old....

Not us, well yes, us too, but our rig is what I was referring to. Stu and his late wife, Lin, bought the RV in 2007 before heading out full-time. In the last eight years, it has seen a lot of use and been driven over a lot of miles.

That means things start to degrade - this is our home and the only time it was unused daily was during our time in Ecuador.

Last year we replaced the very old double reclining loveseat with a new one from La-Z-Boy. We pulled out the strip of carpeting that run from just under the slide into part of the main walkway through the rig. Unfortunately, the vinyl flooring (you know, that old stuff we called linoleum) wasn't cut evenly. So until we replace that (and hopefully the carpet on the slide-out), we have an unsightly main living area floor. LOL!

The first major thing this year was replacing the stack washer/dryer. The dryer had been serviced a couple of times under our extended warranty and it was probably repairable but with the amount of use (and the bounce down the road factor), we opted to replace it. Needless to say, it made sense to replace the washer at the same time. Otherwise, I was sure it would die within 90 days of installing the new dryer.

Then there was the surprise repair, I won't go back into the gory details, just suffice it to say we needed to replace both front jacks and the motors. If you haven't followed us, you can read all about it here and see the fix here.

Now we are working on all the little things: re-screening the front door, replacing the outside dryer vent, fixing the Fantastic Vent fan motor, recaulking the kitchen sink, getting the new pop-in/pop-out Fantastic Vent screens, and that sort of thing. The things you need to keep up with, just like in a sticks and bricks home.

I follow several Facebook groups about redoing/redecorating/recycling your RV. Some are things I would never consider doing, others are things I wish I could do, and then there are the really clever things that I hope to do. Not everyone is full-timing, some aren't even traveling and they tend to decorate strictly for their functionality. We have to consider weight (would love to get a build-in desk/dining table combo but concerned about the weight in our main slide) as well as functionality (would be much nicer than the side turned dining table, next to a wooden two drawer file cabinet with our printer on top, next to my portable computer desk and would have built-in storage). If you are just living in your rig and not moving, you don't have to think about how you will anchor things when going down the road.

I was sent a link to a great article this morning and thought it was quite appropriate to share it here. It's written in three parts, each about renovating one part of your rig. There are great links on how to actually accomplish the renovations as well. Too much to absorb in one reading, I hope you will save the link and visit it as needed. Thank you, George, for sending it to me!

The Ultimate RV Remodel:
26 Changes That Will Rock Your Ride

The closing to the article says it all:

"After all that, you’ve practically got a brand new RV on your hands. Don’t let it sit in the driveway. Get out there and see our great country. That’s the beauty of RVing—going where your heart takes you and seeing the incredible landscapes of America. You’ve invested in your RV. Now enjoy it!"

Our next project? Refurbishing our porcelain toilet that isn't flushing properly. I'll be booking a hotel room. LOL!


Ciao for now!

Same old, same old....

When we are sitting in one spot for a while, it's hard to find things to write about. No, not really. It's easy to write but it's hard to find things of interest to others to write about.

We have been busy doing chores, going to the movies, ordering a few things for the rig and us, doing laundry, cleaning, etc, etc, etc. Same old stuff we'd be doing if we were in a sticks & brick (ie; a house).

We made a trip to the Apple store in Orlando, thinking we needed to exchange some adapters. We didn't but we enjoyed visiting the mall (very upscale) and trying Firehouse Subs for the first time (yummy).

Free wifi, always a good thing when you are killing time.

Projector screens showing various scenes while music plays. Very nice!

This beautiful Harley-Davidson motorcycle was inside a health store. 

Stu spent a couple of days enjoying his former co-workers, attending the annual retired firefighter reunion. I went for one evening but otherwise stayed busy working on my computers and writing (okay, and shopping and laundry, etc, etc, etc). No photos but you can see some in past posts (always in February). It's always fun to see everyone and I enjoyed my evening and he really enjoyed his couple of days.

We have had to make some cruise changes, dropping our trip to Europe (for several personal reasons) and hopefully moving our May 28th cruise to one in March (we really don't want to be in Florida in June...ugh!). Europe will always be there but family has to come first.

So we may be headed out of Florida by the end of March, time will tell. That would allow us to visit our property for a couple of weeks before moving on to Maryland and Stu's possible cataract surgery.

We are still trying to walk a couple miles each day, around the park here. We need to work up to two trips around at least 5 days a week. We also talked about needing to slow down on the snicky-snacky stuff and stick to more meat and veggies (less carbs). Wish us luck!

Ciao for now!

STOP! Door stops, that is - a little fun for everyone.

Thought I'd share a couple of "fun" things I came across recently.

The first are these fun food door stops: melted ice cream cone, melted chocolate bar and banana peel. Made me laugh!

Then we have the animals: cat paw and dead mouse.

There is also a more traditional mouse, traditional cat and traditional dog.

High heels for the fashionistas and then, for the minimalist there is STOP!

Of course, we can't forget the Wicked Witch door stop.

But for me, it would have to be the frog door stop! Might have to get one to save for our future cabin. ;)

Ciao for now!

All jacked up?

Some of you remember our little (okay, not so little) whoops when we parked the rig last October. If not, you can read about it here. We had used the mobile tech service just down the road from us in past years and rather than go through the hassle of trying to get the trailer back onto the Freightliner, move up to Wildwood and wait for repairs there, we called to see if they could replace/repair them for us.

No problem, they said. We ordered the parts before we left on our cruise and they were here when we got home. We made an appointment for them to come out and voila! New jacks with new motors, installed and good to go. Thank you, Pro-Tech! Here are a couple of pics.

Stu got to use one of his new toys, err, tools.

This is what it looks like now, later this week we will hook back up to Freddie (the Freightliner) and re-level the rig, getting us back to where we should have been in October. LOL!

When we returned from our cruise, we knew it was time to replace the batteries in Freddie. Nothing Stu did worked and they were completely dead. They've given us a good six years of service and I know we have drained them at least 3-4 times (never a good thing). Off to Sam's Club and we're good to go again.

We have been trying to walk around the park most days, getting around 3500 steps when we do (we are both using fitness trackers). On a walk last week, we ran into a gentleman wearing a 'particular' shirt. He was quite impressed when I told Stu that I needed that shirt. Thanks to ebay, I now have one!

Ciao for now!