May 2009

Who mentioned this week that she’s been missing my “so regular updates that she knows whenever I sneeze” posts.

Yeah, I haven’t been writing much.

There’s a pile of excuses reasons that’s been going on. And I’m not sure which is more the cause then any other.

- The blood pressure/heart stuff kind of took a lot out of me this spring.  And now the new med that the cardiologist put me on saps my energy.  The first few days I was on it I was napping off and on any time from noon on and it took about 4 or 5 days to get past that (which was exaggerated because I had the Dr. increase the dosage when the “pre-mature” beats didn’t go away completely.) Now that I’m acclimated to it, I’m still finding that come about 9 PM I’m useless for much of anything that takes more than 2 brain cells to complete.  Given that my past “normal” functioning had me being productive until about midnight, losing those hours has made a HUGE impact in what I’m finding time to do.

- Having three teens at home is keeping me running like crazy.  Boy is summer job hunting and since he never finished getting his license, I’ve been driving him around to put in applications.   I wish I had good news to share, but the economy seems to have dried up anything for summer temp workers who aren’t physically up to being outside doing lawn care all day.  Girl is finishing up her seatwork and that leaves me trying to juggle when she needs me available and when I need to be out for hours with Boy.  Datter’s time here is starting to run down (she leaves June 9), but that just means that she is going non-stop spending time with her boyfriend and friends before she leaves all of them – and she’s not the best at sharing when her plans need us to drive and when she has a ride. I’ve been left hanging waiting for a text on when she wants to be picked up and given 2 mins. warning of when she needs a ride too many times.

- And Hubby has been talking of moving, so we’ve been looking at houses and talking to banks and having discussions (both between ourselves and with the kids) about where, what, and how.  The current plan has us renting this place out until the housing market comes back and buying something newer ( this place was built in ‘53), a little smaller (or at least compact, not the long skinny ranch we have currently), with a garage (no more scrapping ice and snow!!), and no pool (it’s great when we want it, but we don’t use that much any more and it’s a CONSTANT drain of time and energy.)

We have found a place, but we’re still working out the details and hope to make an offer early next week.  Keep your fingers crossed for us and I’ll post pictures once we make the offer.   And yeah, I’m nervous as hell about carrying 2 mortgages and finding a tenant for this place.

- the result of the first two points is that I’m doing a LOT of reading – both in the evenings and while I wait for Boy to fill out applications.  Add to that, in one week I had two friends recommend Jim Butcher to me (and it was a good choice) so I’ve been reading through the 15 books he’s written. (Hey, I have been being good about keeping my list updated!)

And now I need to get going.  The kids have a bunch coming over shortly to spend the afternoon playing D&D and they keep distracting me from writing, so I’ll stop.

and now today (at home) it’s in the mid 60s – talk about a change.

Loading also took us about 4 hours with a break for lunch, while unloading yesterday only took an hour – of course we now have box, suitcases, and piles of dirty laundry all over the house to still deal with.  A lot of the time there was spend walking up and down and from one side of his dorm to the other.

It would have been nice to have left most of his stuff in Texas and flying him home, but it just would have been a hassle with him not having a means to get it into storage, and still wanting some things back here.

The trip took all or parts of 6 days and I was dodging rainy weather all the way, though it seems to have missed us.  But it did mean staying in hotels for 5 nights.

I have some very definite ideas about hotels at this point.

First off, I like places that include breakfast in the morning.  It’s not such a big deal when I’m traveling by myself, but especially when there’s a bunch of us, it’s a saving as compared to grabbing something at a convenience store, and faster than actually sitting down some place – including that some people can go eat while others are still washing up.  (of course when the kids were real little we used to buy breakfast from a grocery store the night before and then eat in the room -which is cheap and convenient.)

But I have some clear thoughts anymore about what “breakfast” should or shouldn’t be.

• I’d much rather have some fresh donuts from the local donut place than just about anything in individual packages of donuts, muffins, or danish.
• Cereal is a great idea – but these should be the individual packages – the big cereal containers go stale.
• Someone decided a few years ago that hot, made on the spot, waffles were a great way to change a “continental” breakfast spread into something more.  It was neat at the first dozen or so hotels we stayed at.  At this point, it’s become a way to push a “deluxe” breakfast that ends up being only the waffle maker and some stale cereal -  NO THANKS!
• Make sure that your staff understands the terms they throw around.  The clerk that checked me in one night (blanking which one) tried to tell me that they had a continental breakfast the next morning.  When I asked what it included she started naming off all sorts of hot items – waffles, eggs, sausage.  I decided not to correct her use of the term.

Next, finding a place to stay can be an adventure in itself.  One of the best ways to save money is with the discount hotel fliers that you can pick up at selected spots – usually truck stops and fast food restaurants.

But the adventure part comes from FINDING the fool things in the first place.  I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve stopped some place just to pick up a flier – only to have them out…or only carrying expired issues….or only carrying issues that cover the state you are just leaving, not the next state where you expect to be looking for a motel.  It’s gets annoying, to say the least.

OTH,  if you can plan ahead, some of the bigger flyers now have websites.

Room Saver has the green books and I think one of the oldest and largest, but I often end up using coupons from Hotel Coupons.  And so using the web sites you can search for the best deals where ever and then print off the coupons you might need.

Which is great if you know where you might be staying, but neither site will let you generate your own list of hotels along a route that you are traveling – something I want since when I drive, I might have estimated goals, but not a firm stopping point.  Or worst yet, I may not know the cities along the route I’m taking and so I have no idea what cities I should look for hotels in.

So, out of my 5 nights, I spent two at one of my favorite chain hotels, I used the online discount listing for the night in San Antonio, and the discount books for the other two nights – and in all of that I ended up trying two chains that I hadn’t ever stayed in before.

Generally, they were all fine.  Though I did like that they all had a “business center” available for guests – basically a PC with a printer that was hooked up to the internet.  Nice, since of all my family I’m the only one without a laptop to bring with me.

And with that, I have piles of laundry calling my name.

And I haven’t seen my family all day!

Though I’ve spoken to Hubby and Girl today and Boy last night.

So, I’m sitting in a hotel in eastern Dallas tonight after covering about 500 miles today.  I probably could have gone farther but when I head south, it gets pretty empty and I really don’t need to be in San Antonio until the evening on Monday anyway. 

Today was suppose to be through pouring rain and flash floods based on what I saw on the weather channel, but I only saw some heavy drizzle so I have no complaints.

OTH, my 8 year old mini-van decided to develop a new problem today and had me very worried for awhile.  Luckily T’s husband is a car mechanic and he didn’t mind fielding my phone car and doing a little research on a Sunday evening.  Thank you, Thank you.

Mid-afternoon I noticed that the clock on my dash wasn’t working – okay – then when I stopped later, I realized that neither the remote lock/unlock on my keyfob nor the key in the door was working (except in that case, it worked on the door it was in, but not all of them).  I figured it was an electrical problem, but had no idea if it was a “urgent, when you run down the battery the car won’t start” problem or something minor that could wait until I was home. 

After talking to T (the husband in this case) he was able to determine it was the integration relay (I think he called it) and while annoying, it won’t leave me stranded somewhere with a dead car.  With my father’s tendency to buy old clunkers, I have a deep seated dislike of being stranded with a dead car in the middle of nowhere.  (The other reason I was happy to stop in Dallas for the night – since at that point I didn’t know what the problem was and figured if I was spending tomorrow morning getting it fixed, it would be easier here.)

I checked a few books on tape out of our library before this trip and finished Water for Elephants today – They are working, at least that one did.  (I then started Bolyen Inheritance and I’m giving up on that one.)  Anyway, I really enjoyed Water for Elephants.  It’s the third book by that author I’ve read – the other two are very horsey books about Olympic level showing.  My sister had gotten me the first two books and I went looking for more.  I’ve got two more books on tape left, but I don’t know if I’ll try one tomorrow or wait until Boy and I am driving back to start another one. 

And in the tone of Mother’s Day I have to share this quote of my son’s (the lover of all things Star Wars, who couldn’t understand his mother’s love of Star Trek): “….has discovered that being away from his Mother makes things she likes more cool. (Star Trek)”

Happy Mother’s Day!