The Unfinished Craft

I am great at starting things. I love the excitement of new crafts and projects! It is so fun to sit down with something new and a new idea. The trouble is, I have difficulty seeing them through to the end.

I had to semi-tidy my sewing table when we were having company earlier this week. There, I found the half-done projects I have thrown over there and promptly forgotten about. The felt sea animals based on the library book? I started that three months ago--and 2 seahorses and six jellyfish later, it languishes waiting for me to get a second wind and cut out more critters for embellishment with ribbons and beads. And look, here is the fabric I bought for the Roman blind in the guest bathroom, along with the plastic rings and cord to make it a blind. Hmmm. That one hasn't even been started--just the materials enthusiastically purchased a blue moon ago. And now I have my master bedroom blinds cut out and ready for the simple curtain loop and sewing on of beaded trim and ribbon for tying them up. Maybe that one will actually be DONE sometime soon, since we are going to be painting the bedroom.

I think what I will have to do is to take a whole year for "unfinished projects". This includes the yardwork, and finally finishing our shed...tons of stuff we've been meaning to do, but just haven't motivated ourselves to do. Then, every time we want to start something new, instead we pick something unfinished from our list and do that. I'm willing to bet that if we did that, we would have a much tidier house and yard. Now if I could only DO it and we could stick to it! Hehe. Always the problem of completion... :)

A Tidy House!

Well, our house is pretty much as clean as it gets unless parents are descending. Wahoo! By this I mean that our main living areas are 90% tidy (I admit to two clutter piles on the IKEA bookcase and kitchen counter) and I even mopped the floors in the dining room & kitchen yesterday. *gasp* Yes, I know...I am not a big fan of house cleaning, but the floors were crying out for a little love, so the Swiffer WetJet was employed to rid them of spills and some bird mess. All the bird-generated newspaper confetti is gone, and our bird even has a clean cage.

Yes, yes, your mother/wife does know how to clean. Hard to believe, after living with the detritus of vacation unpacking for a week, but there you are. All of which was prompted, btw, by DH inviting another out-of-town co-worker for dinner. I sent him with the urchins to pick up co-worker from the ferry, and finished up everything while they were gone. I even had time to have a quick shower and a cool drink in hand when they got home. Woohoo! DH created a yummy chicken tikka masala (mmmmmmmmm...) and we had lowfat lemon poundcake and fresh berries for dessert. What a great night!

Now if I could only get the rest of my life as neat and tidy. I have to finish paying hospital bills from DS' arrival, if I could only get the right person at the hospital on the phone to take my flexible spending account card number, #$%^ it! And I have to figure out how large a chunk I am taking off the CC debt this month, and schedule that payment. Wahoo! Love seeing that go back to zero where it belongs...we're getting there. I managed to switch my application at the community college to an application for an adjunct faculty position, which frankly suits me better right now and is more of what I had in mind from the get-go. I have to call and check on that next week...waiting to hear from them drives me nuts. Of course I could be rejected yet again, which would make me sad. Probably more so than before, because this is really only for a couple of classes at most and WOULD be entirely at night, so it would be perfect for us right now, as I said. We will see what comes of that.

I have to finish sorting through mail and come up with a better system than "throw it there and I'll get through it eventually". Hmmm. We will see what ideas perk through the brain over the next week or so.

Somewhat organized is better than totally disorganized...there is progress here, peeps!

Crappy Coffee Convictions

Yet another fun little remnant of our vacation is that we are now back on the caffeine. Sleep deprivation coupled with driving pushed us from caffeinated coffee into Starbucks DoubleShots and (for DH) Red Bull by the last day of our vacation. We were so desperate for coffee one morning that we assembled the beat up perk coffeemaker in the RV to make coffee, because we broke the SpaceMaker carafe while cleaning it (which we replaced, btw).

Anyhow, while on our trip we bought some Starbucks coffee at the "Food Round Up" or something equally cutesy in West Yellowstone, MT. They didn't have pre-ground coffee, though, so I had to use the store machine for grinding. That particular choice was a poor one, in hindsight, because clearly someone else had used the machine and hadn't ground up all their beans. I discovered this halfway through the bag, as the Starbucks house blend slowly gave way to the most vilely artificially raspberry flavored coffee I have ever tasted. It says something that we actually DRANK it while on vacation.

Now that we are back home however, it is squirreled away in the top of the coffee cupboard, to be reserved only for those times when we most desperately NEED COFFEE!! I hope we won't find ourselves needing it, because, dang, we are coffee SNOBS. No cheapy flavored robusta beans for us! Only good quality arabica that's well roasted, TYVM. Good coffee is like good wine--it spoils you for the cheap kind.

Of course, DH & I got into a great philosophical discussion last night sparked by the 100th episode of "Dirty Jobs". That show reminds me how darn blessed we are not to be the people who clean out septic tanks or pick up roadkill or do thousands of other nasty jobs. And of course we moved on to talk about third world countries and how dirty jobs are even more dangerous there because of the lax safety standards. I was reminded of a photoessay I saw in a magazine, about poverty around the world. One picture haunts me to this day, of a woman and her family (her children and her mother) who were living in a one room shack, I think in Bulgaria. And this woman used to be a prostitute until her kids begged her not to do it any more, and so she gave it up even though it meant that shack was all they could afford. They were so poor that they collected plastic bags and tied them up tightly to use as fuel for their fire, and they burned so dirtily that they were all covered (even the baby) in dark black soot. SO sad.

And here I sit, at my expensive laptop, complaining about cheap flavored coffee and putting out tons of cardboard for recycling when that woman and her family would be GRATEFUL to have cardboard to burn. Wow. The disparity is so incredible. I have a greater appreciation for what some friends of ours meant when they were saying they had a hard time supporting their church's multimillion dollar building campaign when a good friend of theirs was running an orphanage in Kenya on less than a thousand dollars a month. Their church has a perfectly good building, but they want to make some aesthetic changes, make it a little bigger, etc...and here their friend was paying a nurse $100 per month to come to the school & orphanage every day to check on the kids who were sick and provide care. Wow. That is a big difference...when literally pennies per day can feed someone, versus being a proverbial drop in the bucket for a comparatively wealthy church's building fund.

It does make me want to give more. I have a bunch of things for the food bank, but I just haven't bothered to put it all in the car and drop it off. Ditto some clothes for Goodwill. Hmmm. Talk about convicting! It's too easy to ignore the widows and orphans and complain about our own good fortune. I hope I can do a better job teaching our kids and reminding myself of our many blessings and sharing them with those in need. I suppose you could say that crappy coffee convicts hearts! Ha!

Hello?

So I am going to do something here, which is add a page counter to the blog. I get next to no comments on posts, so I would like to get some sense of whether anyone is actually, you know, READING this blog. As fun as it is to ramble to myself, it is not really a sanity saver so much as a time drain on some days.

I'm still trying to re-establish normalcy here since our little trip. DD is doing better with tantrums, and has gotten back into the swing of her normal routine. Of course, that means that DS is determined to change it up on me, and I think in addition to teething and starting solids, he is now trying to drop a nap. I was expecting it, he hung onto the 3 naps per day for longer than I thought he would. However, figuring out when his natural naptime is and then adjusting that to DD's schedule will take a few more weeks. Which means, in short order, I am cranky because DS is cranky.

He's a charming little bugger. I'm trying to get him to sleep in his swing now, and he looked over at me and gave me a huge smile and giggled. Cute kid. He's tired though, I am predicting a crash in about ten minutes.

We still have boxes all over the den. I still haven't found my cell phone. DH helpfully suggested checking it online to make sure no one is using it. Hmmmm. If I had known about that particular feature earlier this week I would have done that, TYVM. I'm pretty sure however that the battery is dead and it's hiding in some of the remaining stuff from the RV that I have yet to put away.

I'm also annoyed with myself for the state of the yard. More weeding needed! Veggie garden needs weeding! And fertilizing! Need to weed and feed back lawn! It never ends, people, I'm telling you. And I have a mountain of clean laundry which needs to be folded. It would probably help if, instead of putting folded clothes back on top of the mountain, DH actually took two minutes to put them away when we are getting ready for bed. Just a thought. Of course he is probably annoyed to come home to continual clutter.

Eyes drooping....closed...yep. He's out. DD is playing with PlayDoh and will probably do so for the next hour, so I'd better get to cleaning up our den. Oh joy. Give me a home improvement project any day over housecleaning. Yuck.

Blighted Idaho

We had a clear slate for the 3 day journey home. We could have gone back through Montana and eastern Washington, but we decided it would be more fun to loop south through Idaho and new countryside, then head north home. I wish DH had done then what he did while we were driving through Idaho yesterday, and already committed. He did a Google search for attractions or interesting things to see within a hundred mile radius of our location. His sole hit? An adult entertainment store. Uh-huh.

I am cursing my stupidity for acquiescing in this matter now, as we drive through southern Idaho. As far as I’m concerned, Idaho has mostly been one big black spot in our trip. The only nice thing I think I saw was a two second glimpse of an eaglet and parent bald eagle on a nest near the Snake River, and that was from binoculars as our RV whizzed by. And hey, I can see that at home, so it doesn’t really redeem the rest of Idaho for me. Sorry.

Why am I excoriating Idaho? Well, let me see. First off, when we crossed into Idaho from Wyoming, we spent nearly an hour cruising around a beautiful lake. How is that a bad thing? Well, there was not one single sign telling us the name of the lake! Even our maps had no name on it for the lake. Is it Palisades Lake, after the dam at one end? Calamity Lake, after a campground we passed? I haven’t a clue, and clearly Idaho has no intention of telling me. I’m going to have to look it up on Google Earth when I can get a decent signal just to satisfy our curiosity!

Which brings me to another point. All along the road, we see billboards advertising “CLR TLK”, aka Clear Talk, apparently a cellular service provider here in Idaho. And yet, I get about the worst, crappiest signal for my cell phone and the Sprint card I use to access the internet on the road. Which means, no contact with my peeps, or emailing more photos to the fam—nada. GRR. Yes, maybe it’s an addiction, but I like to let my friends and family know what’s going on and find out how they are doing. For all I know my sister could be in labor or have delivered our niece by now—I probably won’t get any signal until we cross the state line.

Adding to our frustration with the incredibly boring scenery was the fact that most of Idaho is a huge wind tunnel. We spent the better part of the afternoon wrestling the RV between the lane markings while forty mile an hour winds buffeted us. It gets pretty darn frustrating to be constantly fighting the wind, and seeing how it sucked the life out of the RV’s meager gas mileage just added to the irritation. There’s something else those “Go RVing” ads don’t tell you—an RV isn’t exactly windproof, and the door rattled so much I thought it was going to come off. The wind DID blow off one of the rear turn signal covers, so that’s something we are going to have to replace for our neighbors. Great. And I was mega-annoyed by the fact that every highway has about four or five different numbers attached to it, so figuring out if we are still on the right road can be a royal pain in the rear at times.

I mentioned the Snake River. It is very pretty, and we saw several whitewater rafting excursions out there yesterday. We will do that another time when the kids are older. However, what’s the next best thing? Staying next to the river, of course! So we booked into the Twin Falls KOA, right next to the Snake River. For some unfathomable reason (perhaps the lack of sleep referenced in my blog a few days ago), we miscalculated the number of miles between the Grand Tetons and Twin Falls, and so ended up on the road late. This meant that DS was screaming for the last half hour or so because he was just DONE being on the road. (As an aside, I think the road noise gets to him because when we’re on surface streets he’s fine again at the end of the day.) So we didn’t pull into the site until just after 8 pm. It was still light enough to see the pretty river, and we had eaten a fast food dinner to keep DD from going nuts, so we could just relax. I thought, “Ok, this is nice—I can settle for a nice night.” We even had cute little sparrows nesting in the tree next to our site. My birders heart went, “Awwwwwww.”
I’m just going to gloss over DD’s crying fit and time spent in bed with me and DS, and the hour or so it took to get both of them back to sleep at 2 am. It’s a time of my life I’d rather flush down the toilet, thanks. Anyway, we finally got back to sleep, and I was rudely jarred out of sleep in the middle of the night by a loud buzzing noise. A plane!! It kept coming back and buzzing the campsite, and I was getting seriously pissed off and ready to call the FAA with a noise complaint about this d@mn joyrider out at God-only-knew what hour of the night, when my sleep deprived brain figured out it was a crop duster. Sh!t. It finally left and I dozed back off, thanking God for the miracle that neither DS or DD woke up due to this. Then, it came BACK at 6 am. DH told me it came around the first time at 5 am. Of course, DS woke up the second time, and so did DD, and that was that.

So now here I am, at 7:40 am, sitting in the cab of the RV with DH driving as fast as he can to get the hell out of Idaho. I should have known what we were in for when we passed a Wal*Mart Supercenter-sized Army surplus store, whose signs boasted all manner of military supplies and even had old military vehicles for sale. Hmmmmmm. All that did was remind me of the newspaper stories about whacked out loners living in Idaho and separatist militias. Goody. That’s it Idaho—we’ve enjoyed looking at your potato fields (for about fifteen minutes, the rest of the eight hours of viewing were kind of dull) and we enjoy eating your spuds, but we won’t be hurrying back to be tourists in your state again.

Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons

As a note, we spent four days in Yellowstone National Park and one day in the Grand Tetons, so this is a highly condensed travelogue of our time there. Suffice it to say the wide open feel extends to time, which seems to slow down even more while you are there. We were sorry to leave it behind for the real world again!

Yellowstone was undoubtedly everything it was cracked up to be, and then some. I was not really prepared for the complete spaciousness that greets you. I loved the big, open feel of Montana, but this was different again. It was just completely wild. Montana is all ranchland, but Yellowstone is just open wilderness. You drive into the park and hit that first open vista, and feel like taking a big breath and letting it out slowly, along with all the stress of modern life. Seeing bison roaming and grazing adds to the “step back in time” feel, and you can almost picture yourself coming through as a settler in a covered wagon. It just seems so totally untouched, and we loved that.

The fires that raged through the park in 1988 completely changed the landscape. The old lodgepole pine forests are visible, the bare trunks of the burned trees standing as a stark testament to just how much of the park was ravaged by fire. However, there are healthy young trees that naturally reseeded, and a lot of the dead trees have fallen down now. It is fascinating to see the new trees and all the fallen dead trees—almost like someone scattered them with a gigantic bowling ball. The thermal features have their own unique signature on the landscape, too. Unexpectedly you come across pockets of steam coming up from the ground, the orange and white colors indicating geologic activity. The smelly springs and geysers hit you in the nose first, and then you turn a corner and see a massive white and orange outcropping with billowing steam at the top. We bought an audio guide and accompanying book about Yellowstone and it told several gruesome stories about unwise visitors who met untimely ends after walking on the crusts of thermal pools, or diving in to save their dog, or leaving food out for grizzlies (suffice it to say that fellow became food). Yuck. It reinforced our decision to visit only a few thermal geysers/pools with DD, and to always use her monkey backpack (with a convenient tail leash). Still we were not comfortable wandering around the areas with extensive thermal pools and boardwalks, so we only visited a few where she was easy to keep confined and the walks were short enough that she wasn’t likely to become bored and want to stray off. We had no interest in becoming a statistic.

We were fascinated and repelled by the tourists who seemed intent on becoming one, however. It was absolutely unbelievable how many people got out of their cars and were repeatedly violating the 25 yard minimum rule for distance from bison, elk, or deer. It is supposed to be a hundred yards away from a bear, and yet people were intent on violating that, too! HELLO??? The “get closer to get good photos” of the bison phenomenon was really the most common one, and we were just open-mouthed at the stupidity of it. They have horns, they run faster than you, and they have CALVES to protect, people!! Hello! Stay away! Get a better telephoto lens for your camera and please don’t check your brain at the door of your car. Unbelievable.

We saw a lot of wildlife there. It was always obvious when animals were close to the road because there would be a glut of cars stopped to view them and take pictures, and the inevitable stupid ones who were getting out of their cars to get up close and personal. We saw several bald eagles, osprey, and plenty of ravens. Lots of bison, lots of elk, some mule deer. Completely memorable was the herd of bison hoofing it down the road, right past our RV! We got some great video of that. DH was 2 feet away from bison calves as they loped by. SO COOL! And I saw coyote pups playing outside their den, and we saw 2 black bears foraging. On our last day in Yellowstone, as we were passing out of the park, we saw a grizzly sow and her two cubs! We are glad the rangers are aware of bear movements, apparently, as everywhere we saw bears there were two or three rangers directing traffic and keeping bears away from people seemingly intent on suffering the consequences of their own stupidity. Frankly we were happier that the bears and wildlife were being protected from the people than the other way around, which is a pretty miserable way to feel, but you get pretty tired of seeing folks doing exactly what they had been told explicitly not to do. We kept hoping to see a ranger pull up and start ticketing people!

The Grand Tetons were sparser on wildlife, but that was probably because we stayed away from the main drag around the lakes and instead stuck to the sagebrush flats on the east. Beautiful scenery, though, and of course the Tetons themselves are magnificent. No sightings of moose, which was a disappointment for me, nor of the rare trumpeter swan. However, when you are mainly sticking to the road it’s to be expected. The next time we come we will do some hiking and really get out there instead of doing mostly car sightseeing. With kids’ naps and stops, however, come limitations. It made me very happy we had the RV to be “at home” wherever we happened to be, and we certainly loved what we saw. We will be back, that’s for sure.

Decompression Days

Since returning from our little holiday, our DD has been the most disobedient, willfull, stubborn, and naughty child in recent memory. Yes, she was naughty on vacation, too, but the level didn't reach as high as it is now. Frankly it's more exhausting than all the unpacking and cleaning and laundry, and that's saying a lot.

I'm sure it's just the typical 2 and a half stage of temper tantrums and wanting things her way, all the time. The thing is, I am not willing to put up with it. DH was more willing to be accommodating on vacation, but even then there were times that I physically restrained her and took her back to the bedroom, and let her have her tantrum there while I ignored her. She pushed and pushed us, and I knew that limits had to be re-established. She cut out that little routine after three times of having enforced "time-outs" where she could have her tantrums in the bedroom and wasn't allowed back into the main part of the RV until she was calmed down, speaking with words instead of screaming, and behaving herself.

She had a tantrum this morning about having a pacifier. I am keen to re-establish the home routine of "pacifiers are for night-night and naptime only". DD wants to have one whenever she wants to have one, and she got to have one most of the time while we were away due to the road travel time. She got to do lots of things in the RV which we wouldn't allow at home. DH is thinking that gradually restoring the balance is the way to go, whereas I have to deal with her most of the week while he's working, and thus I want to re-establish the normal routine ASAP. I don't know which one of us is "right", probably both and neither. However, it is clear that we are going to have to pick our battles wisely with this little one as we re-adjust to home life.

I am having some moments myself. Confronting the few dirty dishes we had left and finding mold in some plastic glasses did not make my day (they had to be tossed after the dishwasher failed to remove it...ewwwww). Likewise having about a zillion loads of laundry to do, and rushing to get the RV back into immaculate condition, is a bit wearing. I spent time in a laundromat today, spending $7.25 to wash and dry the comforter from the bed in the RV, and doing ours too since I was going to the laundromat. That was fun--I brought no magazines, so I stood with DS in the baby carrier on my chest and just watched the comforters wash, and then dry. About as exciting as watching grass grow, and probably worse since my mind was zipping through all the things I had yet to do in order to make the RV A-OK to return to the neighbors. All while wondering if DH was having trouble with DD at home, since he was actually working from home today and I had forgotten my cell phone.

We have bags all over our den (again) and we also have IKEA furniture we purchased en-route home (since it's over an hour away and was on the way home, it made sense to stop for what we needed). Those boxes are under the coffee table and in our bedroom. DH has suggested we paint our bedroom this weekend, too, since we finally bought a bed for our bedroom (instead of using the rolling frame that has irreparably scarred the new hardwood floors). Hmmmm...I'll go for that if we get the rest of the crap stuff put away first.

*sigh* Remind me again how vacations leave you relaxed?

The Wide Montana Sky

Once we got through the noisy night in the Spokane KOA (let me just say, when the website warns you to ask for specific sites if you are "sensitive to train noise", that is a clue that there are NO sites appropriate for those "sensitive to train noise"), we headed straight into Idaho through Couer d'Alene and into Montana. Neither DH nor I had traveled through this part of the country before, so everything was new to us. The scenery was amazing--beautiful rivers, amazing mountains...and when we got into Montana, the SPACE was amazing! It was all flat, green grasslands as far as the eye could see, with mountain ranges dotted on the horizon. Absolutely, flat out gorgeous...no other way to describe it.

We really enjoyed Montana in general. It was spacious, not cluttered up with ugly buildings or subdivisions. Even the commercial areas were spread out and had plenty of green around them, which made them a tad more attractive to the eye. We had a great time wandering around downtown Bozeman, which is in the midst of lots of construction, which made navigating the RV challenging. However, it was a very nice town and we saw the Gallatin River preserve, complete with 3 American white pelicans who took off in flight when a cyclist rode by. Very pretty!

We stayed the night in 3 Forks, Montana, which was really pretty. We had a great time at the campgrounds--DD got to pet a baby chick, and she chased cottontail rabbits and robins all over the green campgrounds. She also had fun at the playground, and had to play with just about every piece of play equipment there. The rivers looked like a lot of fun--next time we go, we will try to go whitewater rafting with the kids. We visited Lewis & Clark Caverns but it was a 2 hour tour and we didn't think DD was up for that, so we just poked around the small exhibit area. Another one to save for next time.

Altogether we both thought it was a place where we could live during the summer, certainly...if the snow measuring sticks labeled in feet were a bit off-putting for wintertime visits!

Why We Buy the "Go RVing" Marketing

So today I have promised to give you the good points of RVing. And there are many. So many, in fact, that we are seriously thinking about saving up to buy one for ourselves. So if the quirks and annoyances from yesterday’s blog scared you a bit, I hope today will balance out the scales.

There is no way to beat the convenience of an RV. It is convenient for everything. Hungry? Go grab a snack from the fridge, freezer, or pantry. Want some microwave popcorn? Fire up the generator while you’re toodling down the road, and put that bag in the microwave! Ice cream? Sure! Have a hankering for your favorite cookies or muffins? Bake a batch in the oven. We have had all our favorite meals on the road. The gas stove is super easy to use and with three burners and the oven, we can cook or bake anything we have at home, and have done so. This is a HUGE plus for toddlers, because we’ve been able to give DD all the food she is used to eating at home. Compared to trying to get her to behave in a restaurant, where she won’t eat much anyway because of all the distractions, this alone makes it worthwhile when vacationing with young kids. And if you do eat out, you can take the leftovers with you and have a second meal out of them just like you would at home. And you really, really gotta love being able to pull over in the middle of Antelope Flats in the Grand Tetons, with a panoramic 360 degree view, and hang out and eat a nice hot lunch, and have your own toilet facilities available at any time. Try doing that in a car.

Likewise it is so nice to have the self-contained, self-sufficiency. If we were too tired to drive, we could pull over and set up for the night, no problem. No worrying about finding a motel and whether it will be clean or safe. We get to use our own pillows, our own sheets. We could bring DD’s whole assortment of sleeping stuffed animals and not worry about running out of space to put them. We brought DS’s exersaucer, and his playmat. We can set up the laptop so DD can watch Veggie Tales on the road, and we can plug it in without worry. We have our cable box for the laptop so we’ve been able to catch some of our favorite shows and have “normal” evenings. We’ve even had a Skype video chat with DH’s family in Ireland, in the wilds of the Grand Teton National Park!

You really can go wherever there is a road, and set up shop. In the national parks, this meant we could hang out wherever we had the urge to stop, and for a few or several hours it was our own little slice of the park. You really see a lot of animals being up high, too, and the ladder on the back hosted DH a couple of times when we wanted to get some photos of animals that were being crowded by stupid tourists (more on that another day). We got great shots when others weren’t able to see the animals, most noticeably one day when some bison were wandering behind some trees and weren’t clearly visible, except from the top of the ladder! Ha!
The RV parks are also great places for kids. We stuck to the KOA camps, but next time we will stay in the national parks and hang out there. It’s cheap camping as things go, although the fudge, ice cream, and restaurant offerings can be tempting at the KOAs. Every KOA had a playground, which DD loved, and they all had some other amenities (like an indoor pool at West Yellowstone KOA—loved it). Everything was super clean, and the employees were all very helpful and friendly. I loved all the trees at the sites, which hosted a variety of birds. We also saw cottontail rabbits and smelled skunk (okay, not so attractive). And the views were pretty spectacular at most of the sites. We had a great view of the Continental Divide at the West Yellowstone KOA, next to a barbed wire fence where I saw swallows, white capped sparrows, and robins. Watching the wind blow the grasses and the clouds across the landscape, with the sun dappling through the cloud cover—that was pretty, and it was right there out the bedroom window.

Needless to say, we were also favorably impressed with our RV park neighbors, who stopped by to let us know about the continual gushes of water out the side of the RV. I suppose we were a bit worried that we would encounter a family like the one portrayed in the movie, “RV”, but fortunately everyone pretty much kept to themselves and only stopped to knock if they saw a problem. It was our neighbor in West Yellowstone who told us that their hot water heater overflowed when it got too hot, like ours was doing, and that was probably the problem. Ah, we could at last stop worrying about that one! At least, the explanation made sense to us and when we started using the hot water as soon as it was ready, we had fewer issues. Apparently having a full and very hot hot water tank causing the pressure to relieve itself.

We browsed the used RV sales online when we had good signal at West Yellowstone. We could pick up a similar model to this one for $26,000, give or take a thousand or so. I’ll bet we can find some on craigslist for cheaper than that. Yep, I think we will do this again—probably in about five years so the kids get big enough to go for some hikes and maybe do the whitewater rafting thing. And they can sleep in their OWN beds. Yep, that would be ideal. I think I’m going to be setting up the RV savings fund on ING when we get home—and that’s a good thing. Yes, we like to go RVing.

Things to Know about RVing

So we are just finishing up our vacation--tonight is our last night on the road. I have been documenting some of our travels so I could blog them. I had hoped to do so on the road, but tonight is the first night I've had a decent enough signal to be able to do it, and had both children miraculously asleep at the same time. So here goes, the first in my 'travelogue' series. This was our first trip in an RV, so you could say this is the documentary about that experience. Here goes...

Ok, here’s the straight skinny on RVing. You’ve seen the “Go RVing” ads, so you see the pretty scenery and how RVing is portrayed to be the absolute bestest way to vacation ever ever EV-ER. Now I’m going to give you the real details about RVing that they don’t address in their marketing campaigns. You could say it’s full disclosure time. I’ll hit the highlights and good points about RVing tomorrow, but today is telling it like it is day.

First off, an RV is not exactly the ideal sleeping arrangement for preschoolers. Specifically, for preschool toddlers who are not used to sleeping in a real bed yet, but are too big for a pack and play. Our DD’s sleeping arrangement is in the over-the-cab bunk, which requires my DH to sleep with her so that she doesn’t fall out. There is the sofa, which folds flat into a bed, but it’s not long enough for DH, and she can’t sleep by herself without falling out of the bed. I have to sleep with DS, who still wakes up occasionally in the middle of the night because he needs to eat, so that leaves DH for DD guard rail duty.

The second reason it’s non-ideal is that there are just too many things for DD to use to distract herself instead of going to sleep. The windows all around the cab area are too tempting when she doesn’t want to go to sleep, and an RV campground provides ample distraction from the bedtime routine of stories and snuggling with her stuffed animals. This resulted in bedtime taking an hour or more for the first few nights, until she settled into the RV routine and got used to sleeping there.

And then there is the bathing issue. DD hates showers. There is only a shower in the RV. She point blank refuses to take a shower. Absolutely. Will. Not. So we have been sponge bathing her with wipes and washcloths, and she is due for a good soaking bath when we get home tomorrow. *shrug* Better that than have her damage the shower curtain trying to make her have a shower.

The RV plumbing and electrical systems are quite entertaining too. For novice RVers, especially us since we borrowed our neighbors’ RV, any time something seems to be going wrong has me having dollar signs flash in front of my eyes and gives DH heart palpitations. Thus far, we have had a turn signal cover blow off (see the “Blighted Idaho” blog later this week), we’ve damaged a window blind which we will have to repair ourselves or pay to have fixed, had the water pump spewing water out the tank at the side, the smoke/gas alarms beeping in the RV, and we’ve had the hot water heater boil over and spew hot water out the side of the RV (repeatedly). Now, none of these things are covered in the owners manual, just so you know. In fact, the owners manual is the most useless bunch of stapled together paper we have ever read. And you know it’s bad if we BOTH read the manual. The manual refers you to the “generator manual” or the “hot water heater manual” or “water pump manual”. You get the idea…suffice it to say that NONE of those manuals are actually IN the RV. So we have had to figure out what is normal and what is not normal from the helpful advice of other RVers in the RV parks, who come and knock on our door to let us know that water is spewing out the side. Thanks! (More on helpful fellow RVers tomorrow) Thank the Lord we haven’t had any issues with the toilet system, because I think that would be the last straw for us.

There are the things that are annoyances but you’re not quite sure if you could fix them. One of the side mirrors continually changes position, and just will not stay where we want it to. So the co-pilot usually has to do the checking on that side when lane changes are necessary. There are allen screws there, but we’re not sure if adjusting them would help, and we don’t want to break anything else so we’re just leaving it alone. And the water pump makes a very odd noise when it’s used sometimes, but again, we don’t have the manual, so we have no idea whether that is normal or not. It also doesn’t like it when we have the hot water running, and makes the same odd noise. We found out the day before we left that the water hook-up was broken by our neighbors’ brother-in-law, and the neighbors forgot about it and hadn’t fixed it. We asked if we could get it fixed for them, but they said that since it’s the busy season that most RV places wouldn’t be able to fix it on short notice, and they would fix it when we got back. Um, okay…but that meant we were restricted to the water tank. An annoyance, as it’s non-potable (supposedly) and so we’ve had to buy drinking water. Again, it’s the annoyance factor—and you’d like to fix it yourself, but when the neighbors sort of indicate not to bother, you can’t, because you don’t know what it’s supposed to look like and thus couldn’t even tell if an RV service center screwed up fixing it. So we have lived with it.

I’ve learned some important questions to ask about RV campsites, too. Such as, “Do you have busy train tracks right next to your campsite, where huge freight trains will buzz through all night long, blowing their horns and rattling your RV as they pass by?” Or, “Do you have crops planted in the field next door, where crop dusting planes will buzz the campsite repeatedly at 5 and then 6 am as they dust the crop?” These are important questions, you know. Ones I would have never thought of before we took this little vacation. Now I am extremely sleep-deprived, and I know better.

It also pays to be a bit skeptical about amenities advertised. One KOA campground advertised horses that the kids could feed and pet. Well we arrived, me having stupidly told DD repeatedly that there would be horses to pet, and after talking briefly with the owners I am told that “Well we don’t usually bring the horses out until later in the summer.” Grrrr. I politely mentioned how my DD was looking forward to seeing them, and they kindly offered to bring out some baby chicks for her to pet. Good enough, and she was happy with that. *Phew* Still, an important lesson to be learned there. Along the same lines, if they advertise an outdoor pool, it’s worth remembering that at higher elevations, it’s probably still frigidly cold and not likely to be something you’re interested in using unless it’s the height of August and it’s had time to bake and warm up for a few months. And from our experience, “WiFi internet access” probably means you will get two bars (max) of signal, which is utterly useless. If you want to use the internet, be prepared to go sit down at the store or restaurant, sucking in the cigarette fumes from smokers while you type (unless you have a wireless internet card which might work better at your own campsite).

And you know that RV gas mileage sucks. And I mean really sucks. That whole “9-10 miles per gallon” is if you have a level, straight, no-wind road. And that NEVER HAPPENS. Try 7 mpg, folks. Less if you are climbing up mountains. With gas at $3.15/gallon, that’s a big ouch.

Tomorrow, the good parts. But consider yourself adequately forewarned if you are contemplating an RV trip.

Procrastination Station!

So we leave tomorrow on our great road trip. And the kids are chilling out, and I'm chilling out. Except, we aren't packed. At all. Not one, single, solitary thing. Buwahahahahaha! Yep, I'm kind of losing it now. And DH has gone off to find some shoes for himself, so I'm not even able to get the RV into prime "dash out and shove stuff in and dash back before DD gets her shoes on" distance. Yep, well and truly stuck.

I don't blame DH buying shoes. The poor guy is down to his work shoes, or flip flops. That's it, unless you count the gardening shoes which have a long tear in the sole so big his feet can feel the gravel when he walks on the driveway. Yeah, not wearing THOSE outside of the house. And I, of course, qualify as the bad wife, because he actually has TWO pairs of work shoes, but the black ones have sole issues as well and I haven't taken them to the cobbler to get them repaired. Yes, I said "cobbler" and no I don't mean the dessert! Man, I miss some old words...

ANYWAY, I have a nice orderly list of things to pack, but I really really really don't want to start piling crap up in a random pattern in the den. Two problems with that approach: a) DD will want to "help" and make a HUUUUUUUUUGE mess before I can get everything put into the RV, when I actually get to move it to our driveway; and b) I just cleaned up the den, gosh darn it, and I don't want to litter it up again, however temporarily it may be!

DH is going to Starbucks on his way home, detouring out of his way to return a VeggieTales DVD to the library which would otherwise be overdue and fined by the time we return. Oh, there is nothing like procrastination. He asked me what I want and I said a triple venti iced latte. Give me caffeine, baby! Otherwise I fear for my sanity tomorrow morning. Oh, and we haven't gone to Petsmart yet either, to top up the bird food before we drop her off at the vet's for boarding in our absence. Great. Another "to do". And we have to return some containers to the neighbors. And give a watering instructions list to the neighbors who will be watering our veggie garden and other essentials. And...you get the idea.

IS THAT COFFEE HERE YET?? Hmmmmmmm.

"Breast is Best"

So I am currently breastfeeding our youngest, and I breastfed our daughter past the 2 year mark. I know that is not the prevalent thing to do in the U.S., but I know that the benefits of breastfeeding are great enough that it was worthwhile to continue nursing my daughter even when it wasn't for purely nutritive reasons. I think there is something to be said for the fact that the number of colds she's had can be counted on one hand, and that despite being well exposed to germs while I was working full-time.

I have discovered that I have a pet peeve when it comes to parenting boards and breastfeeding discussions. It really bothers me when people say to moms contemplating giving up breastfeeding, "Oh, it doesn't really matter. The formulas they have today are so good, they are just as good as breastmilk." I have italicized the part that really gets my goat, because IT ISN'T TRUE! I'm sorry, but formula is not just as good as breastmilk!

I know that there are cases where moms simply cannot breastfeed for multiple reasons--too many medications, complications post-birth, difficulty establishing a latch, premature babies whose suck reflex is not well developed, adoption...the list goes on and on. And I have no quarrel to pick with moms who choose to formula feed. Does it bother me when I have friends who are able to breastfeed, who establish good breastfeeding, and then choose to give it up for personal convenience? Yes, it does, and I would be lying if I said otherwise. However, I am not able to judge what mental weight that put on the mom, and so I am not negative about it and I encourage my friends to do what is right for them.

However, I don't think it is right to outright lie and say formula is just as good as breastmilk. It's not: it has no antibodies, the composition does not change as the child grows, it is not tailored to the specific child, it does not help promote a close attachment to the mother, it does not help to prevent allergies...there are so many things in breastmilk that are just NOT THERE in formula!

So please, people, stop the lying. Let's be supportive of women who cannot or choose not to breastfeed, but let's not lie to them and say that formula is just as good. It's not, and no amount of wanting to "feel good about it" is going to change that. I thank God every day for the chance to breastfeed my children, and I'm very blessed to have had relatively easy transitions into doing so with both my children. But to equate formula with breastmilk really denigrates the very real sacrifice, blood, sweat, and tears that some women put into making breastfeeding work: pumping for months until their preemie can finally nurse, or continuing to pump breastmilk if they can't; working with a series of lactation consultants to find a GOOD one who can help them finally correct the latch problems their child has had since birth; putting up with bouts of mastitis and sore/bloody nipples, etc. Let's not do that. Please.

Fitting the Pieces Together

There are days where everything in my life comes together in a neat little wholesome package and I can look back at my day and see a neatly compartmentalized, well carried-out day that included time with the kids, time for myself, some project work, some Bible study, some housework, and some gardening. They are the kinds of days I strive for every day, but they are not regular occurrences. I would not call them rare, but they aren't regular.

Today is emphatically NOT one of those days. Part of the problem with today is that I did not have a clear plan laid out in my head as to what I wanted to get done today, and how I was going to do it. I find that having a mental map of the day helps enormously when I really want to be productive--an old trick I learned about myself in grad school. However, I am doing my version of running around like a chicken with its head cut off, which is, I am ignoring the big Elephant in the Room...our vacation! Yes we leave in a week. No, I don't have any lists made. No, I haven't talked to the neighbors loaning us the RV to arrange when we will take it to get the oil changed, etc. Yes, I need to do all of those things!

The fundamental problem is that I don't want to do any of those things. I am not sure *what* I want to do, but it's definitely not that. No, no, ignoring the work required to get ready for our vacation is a much more appealing choice. Today is an overcast day, too, so that hasn't helped me feel oh-so-sunny and ready to tackle some projects. The only thing I've got a real yen to do is to get out and weed the veggie garden with the hula hoe, because now that things are sprouting I can see my rows again and I can clean it up a bit before we leave it for the week to the arbitrary nature of a neighbor's watering. It's okay, my garden, I will be back to love you and pamper you with fertilizer and pull those nasty weeds and keep the slugs off you, strawberries...yes I am not abandoning you, I promise!

Ok, so maybe I am getting a bit obssessive about the veggie garden. *LOL* Hey, I want to have produce coming out my ears, that is my goal. Instead I have a son with a red, red butt, which I have discovered is from our favorite brand of diaper rash cream. Not so favorite any more, I guess! And I have my DD, pouring her strawberry lemonade into her yogurt smoothie...how...appetizing... Hmmmm. And sticking the pretzel sticks from her trail mix into her mouth like teeth. I wonder where she gets that from?? (DH!)

And I am tired. I think dealing with the kids by myself non-stop for 48 hours is kind of wearing. I don't know how single moms do it. DH was a pet and brought me ice cream and french fries last night when he got home at 9:30...so what if I used up half my weekly WW points in one sitting?? I finally got to EAT something resembling dinner, that is good! DS was conked out on my lap at the time, so that makes 2 kids asleep and 0 face time with Daddy yesterday for either of them. Fun.

I hope tomorrow is a better day. I really do want to get some things done before we leave, and I've only got 4 more days to do it. On the plus side, we got our first mystery shopping assignment for a restaurant, so that's a meal out that is paid for by someone else. Woohoo! Criticizing or commenting on restaurant service is something we do for fun anyway, so we might as well let someone else pay for our meal for a change.

I really ought to do some more homework on our route, too, and start printing up maps or go to AAA to get free maps. Hmmmmm, I've just realized I don't even know where our local AAA office is...surely we should get some value out of that membership. I think I have a plan shaping up for tomorrow!

Memo to Clueless Bosses

I don't know exactly when it started--maybe the mid-80's? But somewhere along the line bosses got the brilliant idea that "team building" required the assembly of all workers and participation in various "team building" excursions, which are designed to foster a better camaraderie among co-workers. My DH is off on one of those fun 'excursions' this afternoon and evening--a tourist tour of their city followed by dinner 'on the company'.

Sounds innocuous enough, doesn't it? However, DH leaves for work before DD wakes up, and thus the only time he has to spend with her each day is in the evening. There is a reason he is the designated bather and evening put-to-bed person--that's quality time with a capital QT, and he needs every minute he can get during the week. So when his boss comes up with the brilliant idea to keep him away from her for the whole day, where she won't actually get to see her daddy until far into the afternoon of the next day, I am not best pleased.

It's not that I mind having the kids to myself--I have them all day, a few more hours isn't that big of a deal. Besides, I've got Mr. Starbucks venti iced coffee keeping me company here, TYVM, and if they are complete and utter terrors I am prepared to say hello to Mr. Cocktail later this evening!

I've been on these "team building" jaunts on my last job. Yeah, great fun--I trekked up to the mountains with my DH & DD, because it was "family friendly". We were supposed to spend only a few hours on work, with each person giving presentations of five minutes in length with only 5 minutes of questions.

Uh-huh. THREE HOURS LATER, we still had about ten people to go, and the kids were starving for lunch, which was in OUR BUILDING. The assorted spouses were steaming that what had been billed as 'family time in the mountains' had turned into a long, boring day away from home supervising kids who were all out of whack being away from the comforts of home. Finally my boss clued in and people ate, but as soon as we ate we headed back home, a two hour drive ahead, because my DD hadn't napped well and if we weren't home by her early bedtime there would be hell to pay. I even missed the 'group photo', but I was so livid as we headed home I swore never to attend another "voluntary" get-together such as that again.

Now my DH is probably finishing up their tourist tour, and they are heading to a chain restaurant better known for entertaining small kids & families than business power lunches or dinners. Great. So not only is he having to spend MORE time with his co-workers, but he's doing it at a restaurant that reminds him & me of all the times we've eaten there as a family and the fact that he won't see his daughter awake at all for more than 36 hours. Thanks, thanks a lot, boss!

Here's a hint for all the bosses out there: if you want to build a better team, do it by teaching the appropriate skillsets to the people on your team. Send them to the classes and training they need to do their jobs better and be more time-efficient and productive. Treat them to a nice lunch in the office. Ensure that good work is rewarded and poor work is punished. Don't subject them to these crappy "team building" excursions. All you do is earn the enmity of the families and tick off your employees. Period.