My Boy Vinny

Temporarily, that is. Just until he hits neuter weight.

First Time Flyer Adventure

My husband used to read the blog when I was writing everyday but now that I'm more sporadic he doesn't visit it anymore. So tonight I was reading one of my recent blog posts to him and found several mistakes.

I've always tried to read and re-read the posts to cut down on those mistakes. But being that I find myself doing more of the writing during the middle of the night I am not nearly as cautious. Some of the mistakes are pretty stupid. It will be a surprise if I later don't find a few mistakes even in this post.  Another late middle-of-the night writing.

Actually, I haven't yet been to sleep.  An afternoon-evening-night of adventure for me.  An even bigger adventure for my son-in-law.

Two mechanical problems on two airplanes. Two delayed flights. A period of no working toilets while sitting on the plane waiting for repairs. Once off the ground, almost three straight hours of pretty nasty turbulence. A medical emergency onboard. A safe but late after midnight landing. A scarcity of cabs. A long line for hotel check in. Finally receiving our room key, putting it in the door, and finding it not to be working which then necessitated a trip back to the front desk at 1:30 in the morning.

For us, all part of the ups and downs of travel. While we have experienced each of those things in our travels, we have never had them all wind up happening in one trip. It has been quite the day for us all.

I'm not sure what our son-in-law is thinking right now. He is on this adventure and today was his first airplane ride ever. Poor guy. Sure hoping it hasn't scared him off.

Local time here is after 3:00 AM and all I can say is what an adventurous day we've had.
and
What an amazing picture of the Phoenix area from above. I think one of my best aerial pictures yet.

The Other One

Who or what is the other one? It's the other blog.

Last year when I finally published my book on cruising, I gave the whole social media presence a go. A halfhearted go, actually. Twitter, Instagram, and a blog dedicated to cruising. But it didn't last long. I was forcing myself to have this Internet thing going on. Except it wasn't me. I was trying to intertwine travel and cruising and gratitude. And I gave up on it.

So back to one blog. I'll gradually start moving things from the other one to this one. (But who knows? Maybe I'll change my mind again and go back to two. Why am I so indecisive???)

The first move-over is a post I wrote about gratitude from last year. Looking back it was more about money than gratitude:

Whenever I talk to people about cruising, I talk about the value. Compared to a night in a hotel, cruising can be downright cheap. A year ago we paid a total of $549 (not per person) for seven nights on a cruise ship. That ship took us to Belize, Cozumel, Mexico and Costa Maya, Mexico. With that price we received lodging, meals and snacks, entertainment, beautiful scenery, and transportation to three different ports. We also received $250 in credit to use on board. For one full week.

I'm wishing we were on a cruise right now. Because today I walked out of a hotel we just spent the last six nights in. In the city we live in. In a room with a king bed and a very limited breakfast. For a price of $1027.31.

Why in the heck would someone as smart as me pay such an outlandish rate at a hotel? And not even in a fun, new destination? We're just a few miles away from our own home. And we're doing it again, in a different hotel, in our same city. But this one is (thankfully) being paid by our insurance company. In fact, they will be paying for us to stay here for at least a couple more weeks. (They reimbursed us this afternoon for that $1027.31 bill. Whew.)

Let's get to the bottom of this with some more questions.

Ever heard of the word mitigation? According to FEMA, mitigation is the effort to reduce loss of life and property by lessening the impact of disasters. I hadn't heard the word until last week.

Did you know the bottom of a hot water heater can leak? Did you know it can flood the area around it? (In our case that area included the closet, the bedroom, and the bathroom.)

Did you know that manufactured home floors are made of pressed board? That if those pressed boards get really wet they don't dry well? In fact, in some cases they need to be pulled up?

Um, yeah.

Hello, bedroom floor.

Hello, living room/dining room/kitchen.

Hello, mitigation.

Wonder if I could convince the insurance company to send us on a cruise instead of paying for an overpriced hotel. I'm sure I could find us a voyage that will be cheaper than the payment they will be making to the hotel.

Yeah, probably not. Grateful for insurance anyway!

Productivity

Yesterday I was thinking the last month wasn't all that productive for me. I take that back.

I taught a dog to fetch. To sit. To stay. To walk on a leash. To shake his paw. Not bad for someone who doesn't like dogs. (Except for this one. He's a keeper.)

The Friday Five

With February here I was thinking about how I've spent my 2017 so far and have boiled it down to five photos.

#1 Snow, snow, and more snow. Thankfully after 54 straight days with snow on the ground it is finally starting to melt.

#2 Charity quilt making.

#3 Puppy dog and kitty cat babysitting.

#4 Ebay sell-off of some of my fabrics.
Dozens of boxes are now down to just a few packages.

#5 Protein shakes. I'm not sure how many cases we've been through in the past month but it has been more than one.

A sort of productive year so far.