Think I Know Why I Am Feeling a Little Funky

I have been feeling a little funky the last couple of days and so I have been taking it easy.  This afternoon I went and laid down to take a nap and woke up with tears streaming down my face ~ I woke from a dream about my Dad.  And then I remembered...

10 years ago today he passed away.  I have been told I have a gift of being able to remember dates and events but sometimes I think it can be a curse.  I remember the morning I heard so vividly.  I had been at work about 15 minutes when I got a call from Ron asking if I had any meetings or anything this morning.  I told him no, he said well don't go run any errands.  He would be there in a few.  Now I am thinking why would I go run errands at 8:00 in the morning.  And then my mind started racing...what is wrong?  what happened to the boys?  did something happen to his Mom?  my Mom?    I didn't have to wait long.

Ron walked into my office and shut the door.  And then he told me my sister, Kathy, had called him and told him my Dad had died that morning.  I stood there and in walked Charles U. and Darlene E. (later I found out I had let out a blood curdling scream) and Ron was hugging me and I was crying.  Ron told them what happened.  Charles told me I could go home.  I just sat there dazed not knowing what to do.  After about 10 minutes I said I would go home after I got all the paychecks organized and distributed ~ it was pay day and I couldn't let the employees not get paid.  And straighten a few things in the office. 

I also called Kathy and told her I would call her back in a couple of hours to see what was going to happen ~ you know arrangements and stuff.

I worked till about 10:30 telling Charles I would call him to let him know what was going on and then drove home.  I remember crying and praying and wondering what was I supposed to do.  After arriving home Ron and I talked then called Kathy back.  There would be no service but if I wanted to come and see him I could.  We were in WA state and they were in Sacramento, CA.  So phone calls were made along with arrangements to have Brandon fly from Idaho to CA and for Ron, Jamie and I to drive down.  We left Ferndale about noonish and arrived at my sister's in Sacramento at 6:00 the next morning.

I wish I could say the next few days were a blur but they are clearly etched in my mind ~ seeing my dad with his stomach bloated and extended.  And replaying something he said many years prior to me "that he would always have us girls but not his friends."  (That is another post ~ it had to do with the accident where I lost my eye and the following lawsuit.)  And that is who was there ~ us three girls, George, Kathy's husband, her daughter Christi and Ron and our boys.  After seeing my Dad at the mortuary we drove over and saw my Mom.  Even though they had been divorced and remarried a couple of times each, Mom was dealing with her own grief and sadness related to my Dad.  We stayed in CA for a few days and then made our way home. 

Saying good-bye to my Dad was bittersweet.  We were saying good-bye to him and yet we had done that five years prior when he had tried to commit suicide in summer of 1995.  After that he was moved to a locked care facility.  He didn't always know who his kids were or how long time had passed.  Sometimes he knew us and other times we met him in the moment of where he was.  In his last 10 years of life he dealt with Parkinson's Disease and Dementia due to alcoholism.  The last few years of his life we enjoyed short fun visits with him ~ bringing him chocolate or strawberry milkshakes and sending him small packages of M&M's and at Christmas time sending him Aplets & Cotlets from Liberty Orchards...he found those candies on one of his trips to our home in WA.  To this day we buy little packages of Aplets & Cotlets and put them in the kids and grands Christmas stocking's as a way of remembering my Dad.

All these thoughts have been running through my head since I woke up from my nap.  Also probably why I am missing Jamie & Suzanne & Opal and Brandon & Danalyn, Max, Christopher & Treyson...missing my family and being reminded that family is the most important thing we have.  So hug your kids and grands extra hard today and let those close to you know how much they mean to you.

Love and miss you Dad!!!

Thinking about the tomorrow's in our life.

As we were heading home today from a weekend with blogger I asked Ron what one thing would he like to do before he dies...and he said go to Alaska by driving there and then working up there for a summer season.  So we had a long conversation and have come to the conclusion to do that we would definitely need a different rig and to do that we definitely need to refine our budget to build our savings up and think how we can do this. So keep us in your prayers as we work through all this thinking and planning.

Sunday Evening 10/9/11

We are home now...sounds funny since our home always travels with us :)  We had a good time with Cindy & Walker Brewer.  And the rain last night and today was refreshing even with the leak around the window.

And of course no trip with The Wandering Workentins is ever uneventful.  Hubby pulled into the HEB in Hondo to get gas before we returned to the Lone Star Corral.  While waiting for a pump to empty I decided to go into HEB and get some bananas for smoothies in the morning.  Just as I started to step out of the motor home there was a huge bang and jolt and I said SH...!  And quickly stepped out of the rig to see a lady in a pickup towing a horse trailer hooked onto our motor home.  Yes, we had been hit.  Ron told her to back up a little and let's see what the damage was.  Fortunately she only pulled the metal and rubber end off the rig!!  And Ron put it all back together.  Not her trailer though - she had to take a hammer to get it pulled away from the tire. 

As we were driving home (before the little incident at HEB) we were talking about maybe looking for a new motor home to purchase as we continue to plan for where we go after we are done in Texas...on Ron's bucket list is to drive to Alaska and work up there for a summer...so the wheels are turning....and then after the incident we both commented if the gal had ripped off the back end of the motor home it would have been totaled...hmm can we go back and have her hit us a little harder :)  just kidding we really are glad the damage was little and no one was hurt.

Now to start thinking/planning/figuring for the future!.

On a sad note, we got word this morning that Ed, the previous Assistant Manager died of a massive heart attack late last night...please keep Jeannette and their kids in your prayers.

6 AM on Sunday, October 9, 2011

Got woken up at 4:21 a.m. due to the door slamming shut from the wind.  Laid in bed and watched the lightening, listening to the thunder and then hearing a drip, drip, drip on the bedroom window.  We haven't had much rain here in drought stricken Texas but this morning is different.  It is coming down and hard at that.  Just checked radar and there are flash flood warnings in Bexar and Guadalupe County (where we currently are visiting friends).  I do love the sound of the rain though (can you believe this Washington transplant girl is saying that?)

Anyway, thought I would just check in and let y'all know we are fine.  Hope to be able to update more tonight once we are back in D'Hanis.  Have a great day today!!

Opinions & Comments

I am a bit perplexed.  Someone posted on Facebook a comment about abortion "it should be totally abolished and anyone who performs an abortion or has one should be charged with murder."  Definitely a hot topic and I hesitated before responding but I did.  I replied "I don't think we can make blanket statements about such personal things.  As a 17 year old who was raped by my step dad on numerous occasions I KNOW without a shadow of a doubt had I gotten pregnant due to those rapes I would have had an abortion."

And boy did I get a response "murder is murder and anyone who commits murder should be punished.  Abortion is murder!"  and then she quoted scripture upon scripture.  I told her I didn't want to argue.  She would never change my mind and I would never change hers.  She came back two more times saying how wrong my thinking was, that I needed to forgive my step dad and move on.  Now nowhere in that dialog did I say I had or had not forgiven my step dad (and I have but that is a post for another day).  I replied for the final time "I hope you are never faced with the situation of being raped ~ and till you are you really don't know what you would do."  She then replied "what about this scenario: a man & woman are married, they have a child.  3 years later he becomes abusive to the mother and she decides to kill the child."  Now what do you say to that.  I did not respond.  I don't believe the two scenarios are any where near the same. 

So then I started thinking ~ I sure hope I have never tried to force my opinion/beliefs on someone especially  if I have never walked in their shoes.  If I have, I am sorry.  And I hope I never do that in the future.

Ramblin'

Thought I would just write about what we have been doing and what is on the horizon ~ hopefully not too boring for y'all.

Work is going well.  New Assistant Managers, Gordon & Diana arrived on Friday, September 16th and started working on Monday, September 19th.  They seem to be catching on pretty well.  Training has been very uneventful.  Tomorrow and Friday we are going to be hanging in the motor home and let them do their jobs without us hovering.  We will be close by though in case they have problems.  Then next week they are working on Wednesday as I have a doctor's appointment with the cardiologist ~ Dr. Emily, here in Hondo is concerned about my high pulse rate - it is beating between 100 & 144 beats pretty consistently.  And then they start working on Saturday & Sunday's, October 8th &  9th so the office will be open 7 days a week ~ the start of our winter hours.


We have good friends arriving on Friday. They are going to stay in the little B&B about a mile from us here in the park. I am looking forward to seeing the inside ~ have thought of doing a weekend retreat there all by myself so I can take a couple of long hot baths ~ sure miss my tub and a long soak with a good book and a glass of wine

Patrick & Patricia will be here till Monday morning. On Saturday we are going into San Antonio. Will go to the Alamo and the Riverwalk. When we took our grandson to the Alamo he was not interested in reading all the history and stuff. We know we can do that with P&P. And of course we will go for some BBQ somewhere. Any of you who have visited San Antonio know of a good BBQ place?

I am going to use Thursday as a day to do some cleaning and sorting of the rig. They (the park) have a big flea market/yard sale on the 12th of November so I am want to see if I can gather enough stuff to have a table or else I will donate it to the park table. I have also decided to go through all my clothes that I have in the rig and also in two big totes in the storage shed here - I don't need to keep carrying all these clothes that I don't wear very often or at all any more. And then I need to get busy and clean out all the cupboards in the rig. Feel free to ask me how the cleaning/purging/sorting is going - a little accountability never hurt!!

And of course pictures are always fun to show.  Sure hope you enjoy them.

Opal - she looks so much like her daddy!

Grandpa asked to be slapped when he said "just like a typical woman - yakking on the phone"

Danayln, Max, Brandon, Treyson and Christopher - we love how Danalyn always coordinates their clothes for family pictures.  Grandpa thought she should have picked something besides Carolina Blue.

Brandon with Treyson.  I took this picture while we were on Skype together just a couple of weeks ago.

Well I guess that's all for now.  Hope you enjoyed catching up with us.  Take care and have a great day!!!

A Productive Weekend

We have had a good and productive weekend.

Saturday found us going to San Antonio for a Costco run.  We had not been since the end of June.  Usually when we go we only buy bottled water like Propel or Gatorade, toilet paper, paper towels, dry goods and of course, Ron's beer.  But this time was different.  A couple here at the Lone Star Corral have offered us the use of their side by side fridge/freezer so this time we were able to buy some meat and frozen fruit & vegi's.  This will help me so much with meal planning and saving money. 

One of my goals for the month of September is for us NOT to go out to eat unless it is a special occasion.  We ate out way too much in July & August.  Like last week I went out Friday night with a group of gals from here in the park.  And this next week, we are taking Jared out for dinner to say thank you for all his hard work this summer and for covering while Ron was in Idaho & Oregon.  So far we are up to 16 of us going to H.ermann's & Sons.  It should be a good time.  But I digress - so after grocery shopping and figuring what all we had in the shed, the storage bins and added what we bought I am now planning our meals for the month.  After all that shopping we had a quiet evening at home.

Today was a busy day.  After sleeping till about 8:30 I got up and decided to do some cleaning today.  I did some deep cleaning of the kitchen and bathroom, and organizing my books and cleaning off my nightstand I tackled the dining room table, benches and underneath the table.  And swept the motor home - I can't believe how dusty things get even with the windows closed up - with running the air conditioner 24/7 for almost three months straight I was really surprised but the dust bunnies are all gone now - at least for a little while.  I then went and did six loads of laundry - usually we have two loads.  Thank goodness for  having six washer & dryers in the laundry room - took me just over 2 hours but it is done for now.

I then spent a few hours on the computer before Ron started scrounging around for something to eat.  It was after 5:00 p.m.  So I put together dinner - roasted chicken with green beans w/mushrooms, fried potatoes with onions and something new.  Hank & Euona Rathjen had made us a plate of okra w/onions and bacon.  Ron and I had never had it - we were pleasantly surprised - it tasted really good.  Definitely going to add that to our menu. 

We ended the evening watching John Wayne in McClintock.  So fun to see a well made movie and so many famous actors. 

So as  Ron's mom used to say - "we had a perfect day."  Hope you did too.