Best News

Haven’t written in so long. I kept thinking I need to write, I need to write, but there was so much to do. First the very best news was that Gary is done with his radiation! YAHOOOOO. He just needs to heal and get his hair growing back. There is a little fuzz on the top, so it hopefully won’t be too long before we see long glossy hair. (not) We have decided on a name for our new home: BELLA. It’s maybe a southeastern morph of Texas Belle. Anyhow, I keep looking at all the photos I took of her inside and out and can’t believe she’s ours. I sent a group e-mail to all our friends and relatives, and I love reading the responses we are getting about how BIG she is. A lot of our relatives have revised their invitations of parking in their driveway after viewing the photo of us standing in front of her. Stewart, at Motorhomes of Texas, was so great, taking so much of his weekend with us knowing that he didn’t really need to convince us that she was for us. Since then, I’ve emailed and called him and he’s always there to answer our questions and give us advice. Gary and I drove to Camping World in Seffner this morning to make an appointment for installing a tow bar on Mesa and Bella. Well, talk about sticker shock! Mesa is currently at Bradenton Jeep getting her oil leak fixed and other little things spiffed up for the road, then she will go to Convertible Tops for a beautiful new top, then we will take her to get her tow bar. It’s a good thing we’re selling the Escape, because it will take all of that money and a little more to get all this stuff put on. We’re spending money like we have it. We were talking to Martha, a fulltimer, who works for Camping World all over the US along with her husband, who is a technician, to pay the bills. We are SO going to have to work. I would love to have a job that I can do daily a little at a time on the internet, or something that I can mail back and forth to someone. We’ll see what I can come up with. Meanwhile, we’ll just keep forking it out. On March 16 we’ll run over to Casting and apply for jobs in the winter. But right now, I am preparing for launch just to go get our Bella and bring her home. We’ve rented two spaces at Compass Storage, and a RV space for the 13th. Saturday we hauled down the Christmas stuff and drove over to the storage space and unloaded that and the boat. Everyday it is something – actually a lot of somethings – but I am so excited about our new life that it's fun. It’s also a big unknown – we’re hurtling towards this big giant door that, just as we almost crash into it, will open and we will fly into another world. It is so inconceivable to me how we’re going to make this work. Will we be able to afford to maintain this lifestyle for years? Will we want to crisscross America to see everything we can and experience all the fabulous things we can? What about accidents or health issues? Who knows? I shrug and think about the reason we are doing this. Life is short and sometimes it gives you a knock upside the head to remind you. I've never worried about the future before, and I'm not going to start now. We will manage, and probably have a ball doing it!
Anyway, back to the present – the Olympics have begun and I love hearing the words United States of America. Evan Lysacek just won a silver on short skating program (possibly) and Jeremy Abbott is up next. He is a contender for second place, but just did a single instead of a triple. Ugh oh. Even though he is skating to the Beatles, he looks defeated. But I give them so much credit. I love skating, but I have never believed that I could ever even do one spin (I'm dizzy, remember). But I love watching them and I can’t wait for the woman’s free skate long program. The effort and strain they put on their bodies is tremendous. They're doing what they love, and that makes it worth it.