Schedule Concerns

First of all, a final word on what I thought was a disappointing Super Bowl - the way-overpriced TV ads all stunk! Especially Budweiser ads that lost their dominance in having the best ads each year. Enough on the Super Bowl.

It appears that we may have a slip in our schedule. The parts are not going to arrive at the dealership in time to meet our schedule for this month. That could cause some serious conflicts, namely with out Spring Training schedule. The latest word we have on the parts is that they will arrive next week. We currently have the 17th as our move-in date for the fifth wheel at Pioneer RV in Phoenix. We will not make that date. That, then, pushes back our move out date from the house to at least the 27th which is on top of our start for Spring Training. We will have to play it by ear from here on out. I also have to get the property manager started on evaluating the house and beginning the search for tenants. I was hoping to have the house turned over to the property manager no later than the 1st of March. That looks to be a long shot at this point. For the life of me, I cannot understand why it takes so long to have parts delivered from the RV manufacturer in Indiana to the dealer in Mesa. They must be coming by mule.

Some of the packing material that we ordered arrived yesterday and the rest will arrive today. Beginning today, we will be packing fools as we begin the real job of getting everything separated and packed for storage...

Ho-Hum Super Bowl

It was a typical game on Super Bowl Sunday as far as results - the best defense beat the best offense. I hear good things about the game, but I personally was disappointed. Oh, I'm glad the Broncos won, but, for me, there were too many punts and too many penalties. It was kind of boring watching all the running plays by both teams that only gained a yard or two. It is much more exciting when there are long gainers from rushing and passing plays. It was a good ending to Peyton Manning's career.

The other big event of the day - The Phoenix Open Golf Tournament - had a disappointing outcome. Rickie Fowler had the tournament won before he got sloppy, lost his concentration and let a Japanese golfer - Hideki Matsuyama - win the tournament in sudden death overtime after 4 playoff holes. The tournament was terrific though, and attendance records were set on a beautiful weekend weather wise.

We have to buckle down now and get lots of things done this week as our time is running out to get packed and moved before the end of the month...

Packing Progress

Our garage is beginning to fill up with boxes that we have already packed and are ready to take to storage. We have divided the garage into sections for different items - one for RV stuff that goes to the fifth wheel and not storage, one for Christmas stuff, and one for all other items for storage. There are more boxes coming tomorrow, so we should hit full stride this week with our packing. There remains a lot to be done.

We took a short drive to another local mall near us where we thought there was a Bed, Bath & Beyond store. We didn't find one there, but we stumbled on one of the many Farmer's Market's that are conducted in this area on the weekends. It was a pretty good size:

Josie isn't quite ready for extended periods in the sun with her eye being so sensitive to the light, so we didn't stay very long. She has a problem closing her right eyelid - and blinking is a problem, so it makes it tough to stay outside for extended periods of time. She is making progress though, and we see real improvement in her facial movements. It will still be awhile though before she can do more normal things.

It's Super Bowl Sunday today, so enjoy the game and all the festivities...

Myriad of Thoughts

Since it is very boring reading mostly the same kind of entries each day, I decided to just do a summary for days when there isn't much happening and publish the entry every several days. Maybe it won't be so boring that way. I will continue to do "more interesting" entries on a daily basis, but only when we can offer some interesting activities.

Wednesday 2/3

It was another day of recovery for Josie who is making slow progress so far from her bout with Bells Palsy. The left side of her mouth and her left eye are still without control and she is doing exercises to improve mobility.

We took a trip to the Surprise Stadium to complete our paperwork for Spring Training and to find a solution to the problem of obtaining our W-2's from last year. Mission accomplished. I only have to figure out how to get my 1099 from UBER and I'll be ready to do taxes.

Thursday 2/4

The word on our projected completion of work on the fifth wheel is still inconclusive. The parts should arrive in plenty of time to get the major work done, but we may have a problem getting the painting done within our timeframe.

We went to Extra Space Storage and completed our sign-up for our space. We have a 10x30 space that looks huge. It is much larger than our old space in Surprise where our space was 10x20. Our new space is also much cheaper than the one we had in Surprise - go figure.

Friday 2/5

I had to take one of my hearing aids to the Audiologist to have the same repair that my second one had just a few weeks ago. For some reason, the tiny plastic "chord" that connects the receiver to the earpiece keeps breaking. I try to be careful each time I take out the hearing aid or place it into my ear, so I don't know what else to do. It should be back before the end of next week.

Two of Josie's co-workers (Carmen and Mimi) stopped by after they finished work last night and visited for over an hour. They really miss Josie at work and want to make sure she is on the road to recovery. We don't think she will be back until April 1 at the shop. We will work the setup at the stadium store for the two weeks prior to the start of the Spring Training season and all of March at the games. She then will return to the shop and work through Mother's Day in May before we head out to Jackson. Time is racing by...

Schedule Concerns

We took a drive to visit our fifth wheel at the dealership yesterday. The service manager wanted to review the work that has to be done - particularly the rear slide adjustments - and to make sure we are in sync with the time frames. That may be a problem as we are hoping for all the work to be completed by February 17 so that we can place the unit in our space at Pioneer RV. I canceled our storage space at Lake Pleasant, so there is no returning there. The issue now is the timeframe for the dealer to receive the parts that he has ordered. Evidently, it is difficult getting body parts for the "blowout" repairs. We will know more today. If necessary, we can move back the time frame to move our goods into storage and to have the house ready to show to renters. The real problem we may run into is the Spring Training schedule which begins on March 1.

Josie is feeling better with all the medications she is taking. The biggest problem is with the distortions on her face that are causing issues with her eye and with her mouth. It will take awhile for those problems to disappear. We aren't sure how her work schedule will be impacted but the important thing is to get her back to normal as soon as possible. Missing work so close to Valentine's Day is tough, but she had no choice in the matter.

Today, we have to make a trip to the stadium where we will be working Spring Training. There is some paperwork that needs to be completed, and today is the day. After this appointment, we have one training session to take before the start of the season. In a lot of ways, we are looking forward to the change in our daily routine...

Josie Released

Josie was released from the hospital yesterday afternoon and after stopping at the Pharmacy to get a few prescriptions filled, made it home by 5 PM. We are still trying to figure out how she contracted the infections that caused the problems she has had. They could have been contracted anywhere we went during the time before and just after arriving in Seattle - the airport, the plane, a restaurant, the hotel - who knows. Wherever she got it, it spread rapidly. Of course, her resistance to any infections would have been low with her stress level and diet being at an unhealthy level leading up to the trip. She has lots of medication to take and I'm sure she will be back to normal soon.

There is so much work that needs to be done to get back on our schedule of getting the house ready to rent. The fact that Josie will not be working - at least the rest of this week - will give us a chance to catch up...

Another Hospital Visit

There was obviously a lot of stress associated with our activities over the last week. Josie had taken Tracy's loss very hard as you can imagine. Evidently, there has been some fallout from all the stress as she has been bothered by unusual pain and discomfort in areas she has never experienced before. She has an infection in her mouth that a visit to the Urgent Care on Thursday night had diagnosed as a case of Thrush. We filled a prescription to treat that. Yesterday, she awoke with a sign that she had possibly suffered a minor stroke as she had no control of movement on the left side of her face.

I immediately took her to the Banner-Boswell hospital emergency room and she has been diagnosed with Bells Palsy and possibly the early stages of Shingles. She was treated all day for those conditions and remained overnight for further observation:

The month of January was not very kind to us and we hope the rest of the year contains better news. You never know what life has in store for you so we all need to be prepared for all the bad news along with the good news. It has to be time now for some good news...