Thursday, November 7 - Saturday, November 9, 2019

Thursday, November 7, 2019 - Possible Hack?; It's Cold Outside; Park is Filling Up; Property Info; Apple Butter has Disappeared

I was working on the blog trying to get caught up from the past few days, when I received a text message from a friend with only a ? mark.  I thought she was wondering if all was well since I had not posted in several days, so I let her know I would be posting an update today.  Then she sent a copy of a text message she had just received from me - only I had sent it to her on Feb 14 of this year.  I looked back in my text messages and found it, but when she looked in her messages, it appeared she had never received it.  I was a little concerned - was this just a random text message that got hung up somewhere or was something else going on?  I spent the next hour or more looking at possible ways I might have been hacked.  Almost two hours prior to the first message I received a text message from another friend responding to an email I sent her earlier this year asking her how she was feeling?  She had an upper respiratory infection the first part of the year, but since she is fine now, she wasn't sure why I was asking her how she felt.  Both messages were sent while we were in Texas.  This really raised some concerns so at this point I googled to see if your text messages can be hacked, and found they could be.  My next step was to call Verizon to seek their help.  While the person I talked with thought it was probably just a random thing she first had me restart my phone, then she had me change the settings to the way the phone was originally programmed.  I did not lose any of my information - just the settings were changed, such as the print size had changed, and things like notifications I wanted to receive were no longer working, etc.  I've not had anymore problem but it took a good three hours out of my morning.  Ugh.  I have triple verification on everything so I've always felt pretty protected, but my passwords have now been changed.  What a pain that is when logging in every day - sometimes more than once a day as I get used to a new one.  However, it is worth it to protect yourself.

It has been cold.  I've been uncomfortable, especially mornings - and today even more so.  Dean went to the garage to get the silver reflective insulation sheets we cut for all of the windows two winters ago.  We've put them in all the windows, except the two large ones.  When the sun is up we like it shining in - but next week, they may go up too, with the expected lower temps they are calling for.  In addition, we took one of our fans that tilts and placed it in a corner of the room to blow air straight up, to keep the heat moving around instead of it sitting above us.  Between the two, it made a significant difference.

We've seen a lot of RV's pull in this week.  There were only 5 or 6 when we returned in September and it has almost doubled.  Some are working here in the area and some are just passing through as they move south.

We were hoping to get our property surveyed this fall or in the spring, so we could plant some trees and be sure they are within the property boundaries.  I called my niece last fall, who works at the abstract office to get the names of surveyors.  She told me before doing that, give them some time to go through surveys they had to see if they might have one for our property.  She called me a day or two ago to let me know they had found one.  After lunch, we stopped by to get a copy of it.  There are pins on the property, so we'll see about getting a metal detector and locating those.  We are so thankful they had one.

My sister Cindy called me a short time later.  Her voice sounded terrible.  I could hardly hear her it was so hoarse and weak.  She works at the school and it's that time of year!  We won't be getting together for dinner and cards tomorrow night. 😢

I am still looking for that Apple Butter we won at the Treasure Lake Annual Meeting.  I have looked in every nook and cranny and I cannot find it.  I even went through all of my clothing drawers - although I was sure I didn't put it there.  I sure missed having it on my cornbread yesterday and for leftovers tonight! 


Friday, November 8, 2019 - Senior Day at LCC; Chiropractor Visit; Full-Time Freedom Week and Thoughts on Our Travels

Today I visited the campus of Labette Community College for Senior Day, but it's not for my kind of seniors (citizens); it's to accompany my granddaughter Haleigh.  As you know, Misti passed her Physical Therapy Assistant state test and she is now getting calls for PRN (as needed) work at various locations.  She has to work today, so I'm privileged to fill in for her.  Never having attended a Senior Day before, I was looking forward to seeing what it was all about.  We arrived shortly before 10, and joined many other High School Seniors from the surrounding area in the college's theater at the Main building.  

While we waited for the presentations to start - checking things out on her phone.

The President of the College was the first to speak to the students and then a number of faculty and administrative personnel talked about specific items, such as Financial Aid, Support Services, Resources Available to students through the College, Student Life and the new Campus Villas if they need a place to stay during college.  It was very informative.  This took approximately an hour, and then they broke the Students up into smaller groups - based on their chosen field.  Haleigh plans to go into Psychology.  Her group was small, with only two other young people joining her.  Their group leader took us on a tour of the college, which I enjoyed.  While I've been on the campus numerous times for meetings and some classes, I've never had a full tour.  I thought they did an excellent job of covering issues and giving a good overview of what the students can expect as a college student at the LCC campus.  Many of the kids, including Haleigh, are already taking dual classes while in High School, which will result in shortening her college time by a year.

Afterwards, we headed to Walmart - not to shop - but to eat at Subway.  It's one of Haleigh's favorite fast foods restaurants.  The two of us are creatures of habit, I guess.  We always order the same sandwich every time we visit.  She likes chicken, bacon, ranch, and I prefer the Subway Club with LOTS of condiments.  We enjoyed visiting with the young lady that made our sandwiches who we found out is a Junior at a local high school, but they were out of school today. 

We drove back to Oswego where I dropped Haleigh off at school, and then I returned to Bentley.  I have an appointment with the chiropractor at 3.  In the meantime I watched a video of Howard and Linda Payne of RV-Dreams on Full-Time Freedom Week (FTFW).  FTFW was a four day event with videos that discussed many RVing topics.  I signed up under the email that Howard and Linda sent to their blog followers (of which I am one).  Dean and I talked about buying an RV that we could travel in after we retired many years prior to retirement.  When I first started reading RV-Dreams' blog, neither of us knew there were so many people who full-timed in their RV's.  I was researching what to look for in an RV when I ran across RV-Dreams, Howard and Linda's blog about six months prior to our retirement.  At that point they had been RVing full time for eight years.  They were in their 40's when they quit their corporate jobs (he was an attorney and an accountant), bought an RV and started the full-time life.  I was hooked on their website and had the entire daily blog of almost eight years read in a matter of a week or two.   They did a variety of things to earn money during those first few years and over time they started holding three rallies a year as a way to teach others about a full-time RV lifestyale, as well as working RV shows, workcamping, and advertisements on their blog page.  At the RV shows they offered classes to potential RVer's covering a number of topics.  Shortly before we retired I read they were going to present classes in Sevierville, TN the first full week of January 2014 at a large RV show there.  We retired the end of December and I suggested to Dean that we take a week to get away, to Sevierville so we could attend their seminars.  At the time I was concerned about not having anything to do would impact us, especially during the winter months.  He agreed and it was a great trip.  It was one of the best things we ever did.  One of the sessions was how to choose your first RV and that proved to be well worth the entire trip.  We loved the RV we purchased and still love it today.  Our floorplan is the best one we've found that fits us, for the size of our rig.  It has the wide open windows we love when we are in a beautiful setting and also great storage options.  From all of the information they provided us, it made our selection so much easier and I appreciate that God directed us to them when he did.  It's not unusual for people to have gone through at least two and maybe three RV's in the time we've had Bentley because they didn't know exactly what they wanted before making their first purchase.  Howard and Linda covered everything and in detail.  From that seminar we made our wish list - things we had to have, and things we wanted but could live without them until we could add them later, and things that would just be a plus if they happened to be on the rig but we would be okay without them.  We were able to look at that list as we toured many, many RV's during January and February - good months to attend RV Shows.

After listening to them talk about RV life, one of the things that really spoke to me was how people find themselves not always doing what they set out to do in their full-time travels.  I realized that is somewhat the case for Dean and I.  The whole point of full-timing was to see as much of the US, and possibly some of Canada as we could.  Life gets in the way sometimes as it did the past two years when Dean had some medical issues that kept us from traveling during some peak periods, but that's okay.  He's well and that matters more than anything.  However, it reminded me that we only plan to full-time for two or three more years.  Once we build our home, we will still travel but with a house to take care of it, it will be limited compared to now.  One of the things that hit me, is our decision to spend approximately three months in Texas.  While we love it there and all of the people we knew that encouraged us to join them there, plus all the people we have met, I realized that we were losing some good travel time.  The best time to visit the southern states is in the winter months we go to Texas. If we really want to head west into New Mexico, Arizona and southern California - we should really give thought to it now.  We talked about it over dinner.  We will go to Texas, but we may not stay the full 2.5-3 months we originally planned.  

Dean spent most of the afternoon at the garage.  He cut boards for the file drawer to go in the desk today. He's decided before he goes any further he needs to get the tools back that we stored at Brett's.  Dean sent a text to see if he would be home tomorrow, and if so, we'll be making a road trip.



Saturday, November 9, 2019 - Early Morning Phone Visit; Jaxson's Last Soccer Game; Picking Up Tools; Back to Oswego; Pizza Hut Meal; Hallmark Christmas Movie - It's That Time of the Year

My sister Cindy and I often talk early in the morning between 5-6 on the weekends.  Through the week, she's already headed to work at this time.  This morning she told me she was able to get in to see the doctor yesterday.  They gave her a shot and some steroids to take.  Her voice was still strained but it had more strength to it today.  

Dean heard from Brett and we'll head that way after Jaxson's soccer game, stopping to spend a little time in Pittsburg (that means Home Depot).  Grandson Tucker is playing at District Band Auditions in Ft. Scott this morning.  He plays tuba, although he originally played trombone.  They expect to be back by 1.

Today is grandson Jaxson's last soccer game of the season.  Hopefully it will be a little warmer with the sun out than it was earlier this week when the sun was waning fast soon after we arrived.  We were not sure when we would get back from Brett's today, so we took my car to the lot and left it.  If it's too late and already dark, we do not want to unload things from the truck, so we can leave it in the garage for the night.

From there we headed to Parsons.  Jaxson's game is at 10:00.  We were running a little later than we had planned but still had enough time to make it on time.  However, a short distance from Parsons, I told Dean we'll have to make a pit stop.  I can't set through a game without finding a restroom first.  Those darn water pills!!!  Fortunately, there is a convenience store not far from the school grounds where they play.  We made it just as they were getting ready to go on the field!  Marc, Jen and Kamron were already there.  Today we brought our bleacher seats (the ones we bought in Hutchinson earlier this year).  They are perfect for short sports events like this one.  If we had realized they had bleachers earlier this week that's what we would have used rather than hauling our chairs to and from the car.  (We couldn't see the field from the parking lot - it was about a block away).  I was hoping for a warmer day....and it was....if the wind had not been blowing.  Unfortunately, it was blowing more than not!  I kept Kamron's ears warm with my jacket sleeves as she leaned back against me through the game.  It was good to have a chance to spend some time visiting with her.  She told me it was time to do another shopping trip - and I think one will happen soon!

This is Jax's first year playing soccer.  I think he had more fun just running up and down the field than really playing the game.  It's good for him to be outside and enjoying himself.  I'm sure next year he'll understand a little more about it.

Shortly before we left Parsons (fortunately), Brett sent a text asking if he could borrow one of Dean's tools (I don't remember what it was, just some kind of drill).  If so, could we bring it with us.  We detoured back to Oswego to pick it up.  Since we were here, we just had a quick bite to eat at home before we headed to Brett's.

We still needed to stop in Pittsburg to pick up our mail.  I was surprised we still had so much coming in.  Almost every piece of mail we received here has had the address changed for well over a month or more now, yet we are still getting several at the Pittsburg address.  UPS will hold our mail for three months, so hopefully by the end of that time frame (Feb 7, 2020), the addresses will all be changed.  I'm keeping everything so I can monitor them so I can follow up if needed.  However, even with the hassle, I love our new mail service.  They scan the front of each envelope we receive and send it to me in an email every day we receive mail. 

Brett purchased a pre-constructed building that he is converting to a tiny house/apartment for his daughter, Dacy.  With a baby on the way, and a 5 year old step-daughter who needs a room full-time this works out well for Dacy when she is there.  She graduates from High School this spring.  Dacy is looking forward to having the space for herself.  We went out to take a look and it's going to be small, but perfect for Dacy.  It has a bedroom area, a bathroom (no shower, but it's just a short walk to the house for that - and she told me she doesn't mind), with a small living area.  There is storage above.  It's really cute and I think Dacy will have a great time just fixing it up to suit her once it is done.  Done the road it might also work well when family is in the area (all three of his brothers are a distance away), as it would be a great place for them to sleep too. 

While the guys were loading Dean's tools in the back of the truck, I went inside to visit with Emilee and Dacy.  Emilee was napping, so Dacy and I visited for 30 minutes or so.  Her birthday is coming up in just a few weeks.  I usually take her, Haleigh and Kamron shopping in the fall (kind of a birthday trip but most of all to spend time with them).  Dacy is going to check her calendar to see what dates would work for her - and we talked about a few that might work.  Hopefully, we'll get that set in the next few days and on the calendar.  We just have to pray the weather cooperates for us.  You never know this time of year.

After our visit, I went back out to see how things were going.  Dacy reminded me to get my "blue and gold" sausage that I bought from a fund raiser Tucker was involved in.  We've been buying this sausage from Dacy/Tucker for several years now.  Each sausage roll is 2.5 pounds each.  I love the sausage and it helps the kids, so we try to buy some every year.  I'd buy more if I had the room.  I almost exclusively use it for our sausage pizzas, cooking one roll at a time, then dividing each roll into about 10 small bags to be frozen.  It's great to pull out a bag and in no time have a nice hot pizza waiting for us.

Speaking of pizza, when we returned to Oswego, I called Pizza Hut and ordered a pizza for dinner.  They had a special for a two topping pizza for slightly over $8 with tax, so we "splurged" tonight.  It has been a long day and I was too tired to cook.  After our dinner, we settled in to watch a Hallmark Christmas Movie.  

A great day, visiting with a few of the grandkids, and getting things done!