Using Up Our Free Time

It was a bit overcast and a little cool yesterday so our planned trip to the beach was put on hold for a better day. We did take a trip to the fifth wheel so that Josie could pick up some cookie-making items such as cookie sheets, cooling rack, cupcake sheet plus a small frying pan to use in the apartment. She was going to make cookies and/or cupcakes while I did more shredding. It was time to eliminate all the files from Redmond Floral yesterday and everything was shredded to eliminate all evidence of those 5 years of our working lives. That was a wonderful time but ended on a sour note with the problems that the new owners created for us regarding the website. Also eliminated were files from the homes and properties we owned over the years between 2000 and 2008. We are getting down to a manageable number of boxes to shred. It was interesting to relive those experiences for a short time yesterday.

This morning I have an appointment with the Audiologist to re-program my new hearing aids. So far, they are not operating much better than my old ones and that needs to change or I'm sending them back. That should fill up the morning until we start work again at 11 AM. We aren't looking forward to going into the office to hear about the new pressure that the Regional Director has placed on Terri and Charlie, and to some extent, on us.

Vista, CA, is a small community that is kind of like a "pocket" of older buildings and mobile home parks, among the higher-end communities of Carlsbad, Oceanside and San Marcos. We feel that the nature of Vista, along with the older (acquired) building we have, has made it more difficult to attract the kind of retirees we are looking for to fill the community to capacity. As a result, we have built a community of mostly older people with lower incomes and having more physically challenging needs. That is just our observation, but upper management doesn't care. For example, the community that is near Santa Barbara is, and has been, a 100% occupied community for a long time. That community draws from a base of retirees that have more financial stability and the building is fairly new and one of Holiday Retirement's own design. It's interesting to see which communities have the higher occupancy rates by looking at their locations. Right now it doesn't matter to us as we are gaining the same kind of experience we would gain at any of the locations and it is building a knowledge that we can use anywhere within the network of communities. We'll stay the course, no matter what, and as long as we can...