Numbering My Days

So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.--Psalm 90:12

Three years ago this week, I was released from hospital after nearly two months, facing 4 months of physical therapy and rehab to learn to walk again.

I had just been told that I was permanently disabled, and would never work again.

I was struggling with who I am now, since I am not at all who I was. For months, I struggled with physical limitations, and loss of identity. I didn't know myself any more.

I could not understand why God had not taken me home, when I begged for death. Why was I still here? What was I supposed to do, when I couldn't teach any more?

I still don't have a definitive answer to those questions. I have, however, learned that even though I don't understand, I accept His wisdom. I may never know for sure the reason, if there is just one.

I am learning to see the humor in my life again. I have regained most of my mental acuity. I have been given opportunities to use my teaching skills in small, less-taxing situations other than the classroom.

My grandchildren have availed themselves of my sewing, crochet and knitting skills. My children have told me that I am an important resource for them, because of things I remember, and abilities I have taught them.

Now that Wick is retired too, we are finding new depths of our relationship, new ways to express what has been there all along, but we were sometimes too busy to notice.

We are living full-time at the lake. We have found a new church home. Our relationship with our Lord is growing deeper and broader each day.

Only God the Father knows when our days on this earth shall end. I am satisfied that He knows the number of hairs on my head, the number of beats of my heart, the path that He would have me follow.

He has remodeled my heart from four times its normal size to the size it is supposed to be.
And He has remodeled my spirit to accept whatever may come, because He holds me safe under His wings.

I don't know where I will be a year from now; I just know that wherever it is, He will be with me.

Winnebago: Journey Through Hell From Day One. Chapter One

Wick and I have been full-timing for about 8 years now. Full time RVers, to be more precise. We started out with an Alfa Gold, which was about 12 years old when we bought it.

Gold is the top of the line Alfa travel trailer. So even though it was an older model, it had some very nice features, such as a ceramic tile counter top, and a stackable washer and dryer. We sold our house, gave most of our furniture to our kids, and moved in.

Living in a 36 foot travel trailer is a big adjustment, after living in a three-bedroom, two bath brick home. You not only have to love your spouse, you also have to like him. There isn't room to get away and sulk, if you are unhappy about something. RV living requires the ability to talk things out, and come to a compromise quickly.

About 2 years into our RV life, we were staying at an RV park in southeast Oklahoma, which is next door to an RV dealer. One rainy Saturday, for lack of anything better to do, we went over to the RV dealer and walked through some fifth wheels. We were impressed with the improvements in features in the new RVs, compared to our older model.

A salesman began to shadow us, pointing out the various features of each model. We were most impressed with a Big Sky Montana, which had 8 ft. ceilings, lots of windows, even a skylight. The salesman insisted on making us a deal, including a trade-in on our Alfa. We agreed to see what he could come up with. But we went back to our Alfa thinking that there was no way he was going to come up with a suitable deal.

He did. It was such a good deal that we moved from the Alfa into the Big Sky that weekend.

For another couple of years, we were happy with our fifth wheel. Then we started looking at motor homes.

Motor homes are those huge, buslike vehicles you see going down the road, often pulling a "toad"--a towed car for use when the RV is parked. They have all kinds of gadgets and features that are usually unavailable in fifth wheels.

We went to a couple of RV shows. We researched on line. We talked to other RVers. We read RV message boards.

Our conclusion was that if we were going to make such an investment, we wanted to go with the best. Winnebago is the original, and advertises itself as "the industry standard", with the "best customer service record" in the industry.

We planned to pay off the RV before we retired, and then to travel at least half the year every year.

What a huge mistake.

From day one, this Winnebago Journey has been one problem after another.

We ordered the coach from the factory, with all the features exactly as we wanted. We were so excited that we could hardly wait for delivery.

The day we went to pick up the Winnebago Journey, we were told that one of McClain's qualified agents would demonstrate how everything worked.

"Qualified agent." Not hardly. This poor guy was almost as clueless as we were, having to look in the literature for instructions for almost everything we asked about. Wick is pretty good with mechanical issues, so we believed that he would be able to figure things out as we went along.

We immediately planned a trip to San Antonio, from Dallas. On the way, we discovered that one of the tires was out of round.

Someone drove that Winnebago Journey from the factory in Indiana to McClain's RV dealership in Alvarado, TX, with a tire out of round.

We should have seen that as the bad omen it was. It was just the beginning of our problems with McClain's, and Winnebago.

Starting Over Again

Two years ago, Wick and I started teaching in Dallas ISD. He went to the lowest performing middle school in Dallas. I went to the lowest performing high school in Dallas. Not surprisingly, his middle school feeds into my high school.

We thought that we would stay in these jobs until we retire. I was wrong.

In Texas, educational effectiveness is measured by the TAKS test--the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. Wick's school achieved acceptable status this past year.

Unfortunately, after four years of low performance, my school suffered a drastic reconstruction.

All incoming ninth graders will be accepted. All sophomores and juniors will be sent to other high schools. Only seniors with no deficiencies in their graduation plans will be allowed to return and graduate.

Only a handful of teachers were retained. The vast majority, of which I am a member, were released from our contracts two weeks after school was out in June.

We were informed by voice mail of our fate. Suddenly, all the plans for the new school year melted away. We had to look for new jobs. Since we had no idea what was in store, none of us had requested transfers to other schools, so we had missed the prime season for transferring elsewhere.

We were eventually instructed to attend a job fair on July 31st. Just about 2 weeks from the first day to report for the new school year.

The job fair was a nightmare of noise, confusion, heat, and key people out of pocket. I interviewed with a number of schools, but received no firm offers.

Just as I was about to give up and go home, a principal called and asked me to come back to his table. He told me he wanted to offer me a job, but he couldn't unless a teacher was willing to move from English to French. She wasn't willing.

Several days later, he called again, saying he was now able to offer me a position. I had no idea what I would be teaching, but said yes, I wanted to work there.

Whenever Wick and I change jobs, we pray to be placed where God wants us to be. So I believe that this placement is where He means for me to be, at least for now.

I would like to think that I will be able to stay here, since everyone has been so supportive and welcoming. But if God moves me elsewhere, I will be content to go, since I know that He purposes good and not evil, and will use me to bless the children entrusted to my care.

I found out today that instead of teaching Advanced Placement seniors, as was planned at my former school, I will be teaching 3 sections of sophomore classes, and three sections of pre-AP sophomore classes.

I have 6 days in which to plan lessons, type up a syllabus, and prepare for my students.

I am sad for my former students, scattered to other schools.

I am sad for my friends, displaced as I was, some of whom still have not found permanent placement.

Struggling to learn the names, faces, and teaching assignments of a whole new staff.

Searching for one familiar face in a sea of strangers.

Praying for guidance as I meet new students next week.

Rejoicing that God has provided a place for me to use the gifts He has given me.

Saving Money at CVS

Saving money at CVS has become one of my hobbies. Daughter Jeana (daystocome) piqued my interest, and then I discovered moneysavingmom.com, where you can find weekly scenarios for saving lots of money.

Wick is fascinated with CVS sales and Extra Care Bucks (aka ECBs), and how much stuff I bring home, with so little out of pocket. ECBs can be spent like cash in any CVS. In order to get them, you will need to fill out a form at the store or on line, and get a loyalty card.

Yesterday I had a list, some coupons, about $7 in ECBs, and a $3 off $15 purchase coupon, so I was ready to prowl the aisles at our local CVS.

Here's what happened when I went to CVS yesterday:

1. I had a rain check from last month, when Soft Soap Spa body wash was $4.99, with $4.99 Extra care Bucks (ECBs), for 4 bottles. CVS was out every time I went in last month, so I got two rain checks, for a total of 8 bottles. (Their rain checks are available for any product they run a sale on, and do not expire.) Instead of the ECBs, which were for last month, I got 4 bottles of body wash for free, a 19.96 value.

2. I had a coupon for Tums 3 pack, plus ECBs equal to the purchase price--meaning I actually made money on that deal.

3. Same with Rolaids.

4. Tide $5.99, with $1 coupon, plus $2 ECBs on each, and I bought 2 bottles.

5. Aquafresh toothpaste, $2 ECBs, plus a $1 coupon, so I got overage (more in return than I spent) on that.

6. I had a $3 off $15 purchase coupon from CVS (sign up to receive e-mails from them), and my total of merchandise was over $15.

7. Allergy meds CVS brand, received ECBs equal to the purchase price.

8. Excedrin, received ECBs equal to purchase price of $1.99, plus had a $2 off coupon--in effect, they paid me to take the product home.

9. I bought bandaids on sale, even though I didn't have a coupon, because I was out of them, and didn't get them when they were an ECB item.

I walked out with a total of almost $45 in products, paid $11.76 out of pocket, and received $11.78 in ECBs to use next week, so I "made" two cents for shopping at CVS this week.

If you get serious about doing this, buy the Sunday paper in the double bundle (two papers for $2), and start clipping coupons (I learned that from Jeana). Usually the best deals will be a couple of weeks after the coupon comes out, so hang on to it. I have a little coupon file with dividers to keep things organized--a tab for health and beauty, a tab for paper goods, a tab for dairy, a tab for canned/frozen, etc. Keep it in your car, so you always have access to it when you are out and about.

Kroger will double coupons on certain days, so watch the sales, match the coupons with the sales, and shop on double coupon days.

One thing I have learned is that I can not be "brand loyal" if I want the best deals. Another thing is that we now get better quality stuff (brand name shampoos, toothpastes, and so forth) for less money than the generic. And by stocking up when stuff is free, I have an abundance to share with those in need.

On the moneysaving mom blog site, she has a CVS 101 and Walgreens 101, to help people get started, and to explain how each store's system works. Look in the left hand list of previous posts.

CVS, to me, is simpler than Walgreens; many of Walgreens' best deals involve rebates, which I am bad about filing and mailing for, but some people really like getting that check in the mail periodically. Or you can now have the rebates loaded onto your Walgreens saver card, to use like cash at any Walgreens store. They also have what they call Register Rewards, similar to the ECBs at CVS.

In addition to saving money, shopping this way has become a game. If I walk out with at least as much in ECBs as I walked into the store with, I feel as if I "won" this week. I'm no expert, but I am learning to play the game, save some money, and enjoy the process.

Also, learning to shop this way is a sort of dress rehearsal for retirement, when it will be even more vital to make every penny count.

Nesting

Our last night at the lake, Wick and I were sitting in the cabin, looking out through the back glass wall, watching the sun go down, and talking about what is next on our list of stuff to do to get the cabin to the point that we can actually stay in it, instead of having to bring the RV whenever we come (could that sentence have been any longer?)
While we were talking about insulation and window units, he stood up to show me approximately where on the wall he was talking about, and discovered a bird's nest behind one of the insulation bats.
He pulled it down carefully, and we looked inside. There were five little eggs, about the size of jelly beans, pale pink mottled with a darker pink. Since the cabin has been closed in for almost a year, it had to be a last-year's nest, and an unsuccessful one at that.
I felt kind of sad for that little bird, working so hard to build a nest, and then finding that her eggs were duds.
On the other hand, I took it as a hopeful omen: we too are building a nest, in this little cabin on the water, and like the tiny eggs, some of our ideas are duds.
But also like the little bird, we keep working, tearing out, rebuilding, trying again to get it just right.
The Lord God knows every sparrow that flies, and He dresses the lilies of the field, and I know He is watching as we feather our little nest.

Heartbeat of the House

When I was a very little girl, my daddy brought home a clock for my mama. It was a chiming mantel clock, about a foot and a half tall, with wide carved "wings" around the clock face, and a gilded pendulum swinging back and forth behind a little glass door that had curlycue designs in gold leaf.
In a house with four children, there are few quiet moments, but occasionally in a lull in the chaos the tick-tock-tick of the clock could be heard. The chime sounded once one the half-hour, and chimed the time on the hour. It was so much a part of our home that we rarely noticed it except when it ran down. It had to be wound every eight days. Daddy wound the clock on Sunday nights, setting the hands carefully, and dusting the heavily carved case. No one else ever touched the clock.
The chimes sounded day and night, and during the night, if I woke up, the clock told me if it was middle of the night, or nearly time to get up. If for some reason it wound down and stopped, I had trouble getting back to sleep.

When I married and left home, my darlin husband bought a chiming clock for our house. It wasn't an antique, but it did have a swinging pendulum, and it chimed on the hour and half hour, and its tick-tock-tick measured our nights and days, keeping me company when I was up late rocking a sick baby, and tracking the minutes when one of our teenagers was late coming home.

When our house burned, the clock was one of the things we lost. We replaced it with a pendulum clock that hangs on the wall. Since we currently live in our RV, the clock is in storage. I miss the ticking and the chiming.

When our little cabin is finished, when we are retired and living there, one of the first things I plan to do is hang the clock, and set our home's heart ticking again.

Cabin of Our Dreams

My husband and I are building a cabin at our lake place in East Texas. This is where we plan to retire, so we are thinking ahead, including some modifications such as 36" wide doors, so that even if we become less nimble as we age, we can continue to live here for as long as possible.
We are also paying for the costs as we go along, spending what we can afford each month, so that when it is finished, we won't owe anything on it. Wick is doing most of the work himself, with help from our son Scott, who is devoting a lot of his summer to working on the cabin.
In our campaign to save money as we build, we decided to avail ourselves of the refurbished appliances at a small appliance store in a Dallas suburb.
The owner's son is a former student of Wick's, from when he was teaching shop classes some years ago. The father and son have been very good to us, searching out appropriate appliances, and reconditioning them.
So far, we have bought a wall oven, a dish washer, and an ice maker from them, at a total cost of approximately $500. In addition, we lucked out and found a cook top for $15 at a local church rummage sale--and it not only matches the wall oven, it actually works!
Since we are going for a rustic look, we are not overly concerned with buying the flashiest or most currently stylish materials. Most of the money has gone into the structural integrity of the cabin, for a sturdy foundation, strong beams, appropriate wiring. Cost saving materials include corrugated metal, weathered wood, recycled cabinets, and shopping clearance or surplus sales.
We want a sturdy, low maintenance home, economical to heat and cool, and easy to keep clean. The downstairs is about the size of a one bedroom apartment--bedroom, bath/laundry room, and a combined kitchen/living area. The upstairs is one big open room, with a bath, for the use of our children and grandchildren. They will be encouraged to furnish and decorate the space to suit their needs and tastes.
The staircase is enclosed, with a door downstairs. This enables us to heat and cool only the downstairs, when no one else is visiting, and also provides a rainy-day play area for the grandchildren, insulated from the downstairs area where adults may be trying to have a quiet conversation or take a nap.
Roughly 1200 square feet, it will not be the large, spacious, palatial house many people dream of. It will, however, be a refuge for us as we age, a welcoming space for our family to gather, and we hope it will provide the backdrop for many precious memories over the years.

Moving Misadventures Redux

The agony of moving continues. We ordered a washer and dryer. The store advertised free delivery. However, what the ad didn't say was that it would be 3 weeks until delivery, and someone would have to take off work to be there to accept delivery.
So Wick said he would pick it up himself.
But the store said it would take a couple of days to get the washer and dryer from wherever it was stored.
So we waited.
sigh.
Then when he went to pick them up, the store still had not brought the washer and dryer down from wherever, so we waited for it to be brought down to the pick-up area.
He brought them back to the apartment, brought them inside, and discovered, once the box was removed, that the front of the washer was caved in.
So back to the store went the washer, another wait for one to be brought down to the pick-up area, and another trip to bring the washer into the apartment.
Sigh.

Next on our list of misadventures is the tv cable situation. Cable service is supposed to be included in our rent. It was supposed to be functioning when we moved in, last week.
It's not working.
So we called the office.
The manager said to call the cable company.
The cable company said this address was not on record.
We called the office again.
The manager called the cable company.
The cable company said oh, yes, that address is good, and the service is operating.
But it is not.
So we called the office again.
The manager sent a maintenance person to our apartment with a list of things for us to do:
things like, turn on the tv.
Put the tv on cable settings.
Set up the menu functions.
All the stuff we have already done.
So we called the cable company again.
They are going to send someone out right away.
Well, not right away.
In three days.
And someone has to be here, or the guy won't come in.
Sigh.
I'm beginning to think that staying in an apartment, which was supposed to make our life easier, is not such a good idea after all.
But the RV still has major problems, like no working refrigerator.

And it may be another couple of months before the RV service center has all the parts, all the permissions from all the warranty companies, and someone available to fix everything.
SIGH.

That "to-do" list seems to be getting longer, instead of shorter.

Moving Misadventures

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When we started looking at apartments, we thought we knew what we wanted, and how much we wanted to spend.
We found out pretty fast that we didn't want to live anywhere that was available for what we wanted to spend. So...we expanded our search.
We found two different places that we were really interested in, and talked to the managers at both places. We didn't want to sign a lease until we were certain about our job situation--as in signed contracts. Last Thursday we got assurance that we do indeed have jobs, so we called our first choice.
Unfortunately, the apartment we wanted would not be ready for 6-8 weeks.
So we went with second choice, and got to move in the next day.
We had a kitchen table and chairs, a small tv, two chairs, and an old dresser.
Didn't take long to load it up, or unload it at the other end.
Then we went shopping.
We decided we would buy an air mattress to sleep on for the first month, and each month make a major purchase when we get paid.
We bought the air mattress.
Unfortunately, it was not as much fun as it appears in the picture.
It was sort of like sleeping in jello.
Bouncy.
Difficult to roll over without rolling over each other.
And once I got rolling, I rolled right off the edge onto the floor.
So the air mattress went back to Wal-mart.
The we bought a futon.
We brought it home and assembled it.
The mattress was about an inch thick.
The frame was so flimsy that the back sagged when one of us sat down on it.
We returned the futon.
We bought another futon.
This time, we asked for one that was already assembled, so we could see what would happen when we sat on it. It seemed much sturdier.
So we bought it, and took it back to the apartment.
When we cut open the plastic and clipped the strapping that had the mattress rolled up, it was much thicker, and much more comfortable.
Unfortunately, where the zipper was sewn into the cover, about two feet of it had come unsewn.
We looked at each other for several minutes, debating whether to load it up again and return it. We had already waited three days.
I got out my sewing kit and hand sewed it up again.
Then we went to Penney's to buy a set of pots and pans which was advertised for $24.00.
But that price was after the mail-in rebate
and I am prone to lose the coupon,
or forget to mail it,
or mail it and not get it,
but lose the address,
so I can't follow up on why I didn't get it.
so we went to another store, and got almost the same thing, for even less.
Between the shopping, and the assembling, and the taking back, and shopping again,
I think it will be more restful once we start back to work.
I hate moving.
I hate shopping.
I really hate returning stuff.
So the past few days have been more misadventure than adventure.
Friday we start new teacher training.
I just hope it doesn't involve shopping.

TGIF # 1

TGI Friday was suggested by Katoushka, whose blog is passworded, so no I can't give you the link, but I will say it is hilarious, and yes I am bragging on my granddaughter.

Why TGI Friday this week? Because it is my birthday! No I won't say how old. But since I have already admitted to being married for 36 years, having three kids and seven grandbabies, I'm sure you have a pretty good guess. Oh, and yes, I was a "child bride" (well, not exactly...).

How are we celebrating? We are moving from our RV into an apartment. The RV is staying at the lake, and we will be staying in it on weekends. During the work week, we will be living in a tiny little apartment near the schools where we will be teaching.

The apartment manager has put down new flooring (looks like hardwood), new carpet in the living room and bedroom, and painted one wall in the dining room a deep red, which will be lovely with the red plaid cushions on my kitchen chairs.

I hate moving, but can't wait to get settled. Y'all have a great Friday!