“Trust me…I did NOT look this peaceful and serene this week working on my banking!”

I looked for a photo of someone working on her computer looking so peaceful and serene. Because, that has definitely NOT been me this week! Ok, seriously…I feel like I could reach back in the archives of any of the past six years, pull out a post for the week before taxes are due, and it would be the same darned story. Over and over and over. I wait till the last minute to reconcile my bank account. Yes…in the good old days when I didn’t have grief brain, I balanced it every month…to the penny. Now? Well, lets just say this year was better. I balanced it up till the end of July. The rest I had to download. And…my bank only keeps three months worth of statements in the accessible pipeline. Anything before that and you have to do a manual download which I have discovered may or may not be totally accurate. Not the program’s fault…it’s the operator. 

“Photos of childhood memories can bridge the miles between you and your children.”

Sometimes it’s hard to reach my kids, both literally and figuratively. They have busy lives. Jobs, families, houses…they don’t have a lot of time to visit with their mom. I get that. I was in their shoes. So, instead of whining about it and pulling more than a nominal guilt trip, I have taken to sending them pictures of things I find on Pinterest. Not just any old thing. Things that will stir a memory of their childhoods and make them smile whether they have time to talk or not.

“Resist the devil and he will flee.”

I remember back in the first two to three years of my grief, I often had what I referred to as “bad nights”. Nights were especially difficult from the beginning. Too many hours stretched ahead with too much time to think…especially since I had such a hard time sleeping. It didn’t take much to send my mind chasing rabbits and soon a thought would have me in a tailspin. I spent SO many nights alternating between gripping the mattress and throwing up. All. Night. Long. It was brutal.

“On a road trip to pick up an old camper…the flowering trees were stunning!”

Last week, my friend Barb was visiting from Alaska. A bunch of our classmates got together for coffee. Barb had the sniffles and said she thought she was allergic to the cat and the dust from having her house closed up for so many months. But, it turns out, our poor friend had Influenza A. So far, we are all fine. She is a nurse and was quite careful in how she interacted with people.

“This was the biggest selling point on this camper.”

I could hardly wait to get home yesterday afternoon. We had a beautiful day….the baby dedication at church was lovely and we had a family breakfast afterwards. Then we ran errands. It rained while we were in church and again while we were eating breakfast. Then it was dark and cloudy all afternoon. We got home about 4:00 and I made a bee line for TOW-Wanda III and a much anticipated Sunday afternoon nap. I was no sooner tucked in till the sky opened and the sound of rain on the camper roof lulled me quickly into a deep sleep.

“The first thing that had to go was the bunk bed over the main bed.”

The first thing I did yesterday…after coffee, of course…was head out to the new camper. I could hardly sleep the night before, I was so excited. I didn’t realize how very much I missed my first camper till I got a load of this one! I hooked it up to electric and checked out the systems again. The air conditioning worked fine. I cleaned the filter screen in the AC unit so it works more efficiently. The fan, lights, and microwave. I haven’t checked the refrigerator yet.

“The perfect little camper!”

When I started out this week, I never dreamed I’d be the owner of SIX campers by the weekend!!! What??? Yes, that’s right…S-I-X campers! Ok, when Mr. FixIt and I started dating, he had two campers (a hybrid and a 27 foot Jayco) and I had one (a 30’ Starcraft). Then, by fall I bought our fourth camper…a 1967 Franklin I named “Joy”. She is still out at the farm and I need to get her over to the Ponderosa so I can work on her some more. 

“Introducing TOW-Wanda III”

I’ve spent a lot of time in my big camper so far this year. She has been my office and sanctuary where I sequester myself and write. And lately, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about how she came into my life. It was the year after Mr. Virgo died. I sold my house and traded in Little TOW-Wanda for TOW-Wanda Grande. She was fancy-schmancy, let me tell you. When things didn’t work out on the farm like I thought they would, I lit out with this behemoth and hauled her all over the country…writing about it all the way. I lived for months at a time on a hill overlooking the beautiful Ohio River. I camped in my son-in-law’s parents’ driveway in Denver and on my friend Sue’s property overlooking Mesa Verde. I towed her from South Dakota to South Carolina and all points in between. But to just hop in and take her camping spontaneously became a chore. A major chore. It was literally like pulling a house and I didn’t go camping nearly as often as I would have liked.

“There’s something about vintage kitchens that speaks to my heart.”

I came across this picture on Pinterest the other day. I don’t…CAN’T…spend as much time on Pinterest as I would like to. I have too many irons in the fire right now and I know what a black hole Pinterest is. It’s a candy store for creatives and I get SO lost. I pop in there every day because I get notifications. Almost always, there’s something on my landing page that I might pin if it’s an idea I’m working on, thinking maybe there WILL be a time when I can be a bit more leisurely. I look at my notifications, then I’m out of there…1-2 minutes, tops.

“The eye roll…reserved for those moments when a whop over the head with a frying pan might be overkill.”

I posted a request on four different Facebook pages on Monday. Here…I’ll just cut and paste it so you can see what I’m talking about.

“Ok…I have a 30’ camper. The reason I went big was because I traveled FT and lived in it for most of three years. My original truck was an F-150 V6 EcoBoost with a 3.73 rear axle ratio. It would pull that camper up the passes of Colorado like nobody’s business. Two years ago, my truck was totaled in an accident. The replacement truck was identical in every way save for a 3.31 rear axle ratio. In my defense, I had a head injury and wasn’t thinking straight when I bought it. Needless to say, pulling on the flat is ok, but the mountain passes were crazy. I couldn’t get up to 20mph and had to stop several times to let the transmission cool down. I am now in a position to buy a new truck. Here is my dilemma. Finding an F-150 with a rear axle ratio of 3.73 is turning out to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. I have several options. I have settled down in WV and remarried and I don’t need such a big camper. I can downsize the camper. Then I don’t need as powerful a truck. Or, I can get out of my lane and buy a different truck. I really have to watch my mpg because this is my primary vehicle. Thanks in advance for your input…I appreciate it!”