Well we made it last Thursday to the RV dealer in PA – left at 8:30 am, arrived at noon – should have been 2 ½ hours was 3 ½. We were able to keep in sight of each other almost the entire trip – which kept husband happy. He was worried about traveling alone and we could not find anyone to go with him – the night before I had an idea (after he went to bed). I took 2 of the smaller stuffed teddy bears I have (under 6 inches tall), put them in a small box and sat the box on the passenger seat of our van which he was driving to the dealer (so we could come home after we left the RV) and seat belted the box in place – if he felt alone he could just glance down at them – don't laugh, it worked. We did have walkie talkies with us – which worked except for one spot that had static – so we could talk enroute. I was in front in our RV so he could see me ahead of him and I could also let him know what was happening on the road ahead. When we did this before (we had to drive the car and the RV both home from buying the RV) we would meet up at each rest area on the 2 turnpikes we drove on. This time there was only one of them available to us due to construction and closing of a rest area. As we approached it – he was maybe 2 -3 cars behind me – I told him that while we did not meet up, I did need to make a stop. No problem finding the RV dealer for either of us, which was good as they just got a new location for their service center. We left the RV and left in the van.
The RV dealer sales office was on one side of a road and the service center on the other. There is a shopping center a block from the dealer where we have spent many a day while having work done on the RV and were worried that with the new location we would not be able to do so. (Normally we just go in the RV and walk around the stores while they work on it, get the RV back and drive home or to Lancaster for a trip.) As we drove to the shopping center, we looked – it is less than half a mile further away and there is a safe place to walk the entire distance – sigh of relief. We went to the stores for lunch before starting home. Since it was only around 12:30 it was a bit early for us – who normally eat lunch at 2 pm, so we went to a small dollar store located in the shopping center. For some reason this dollar store always seems to have different things than other ones – found a small toy bear for the village. Lunch at Wendys. We then decided to visit a supermarket that was “sort of” on the way back to the turnpike. Then we started home. Boy, the rush hour traffic near Philadelphia is worse than that at home. We got home around 6:30 pm – ordered a pizza for dinner – something we rarely do as it is too high in carbs for our Diabetes. Husband went to bed right after dinner.
We had the weekend to recover.
Over the weekend we drove our van as we were concerned about the car and NEEDED IT to take mom to the doctor – she has trouble in getting into the car – the van would be impossible. Saturday night husband noticed the van was leaking “something”. Sunday we figured it was antifreeze.
Uh oh!! We needed the van to drop the car at the transmission shop Tuesday morning. We could not cancel taking mom to the doctor – her battery is running out – what could we do. Luckily our mechanic is 4 blocks from us and he – and his guys – are very nice and understanding. Husband was up first thing Monday morning, called him and we left the van with him right away, luckily mom was a 4 pm doctor's appointment. While at the doctor's office I called and the van was fixed, needed a new water pump, well $500 isn't $1,000 at least - we picked it up after we went home from mom's appointment and stopped in Tuesday to pay for it.
Monday we took mom to the doctor – this one is to change out her pacemaker for a new one – the battery had less than 2 months left on it when it was tested a week ago – and unlike cell phones and many other devices, there is no way to plug it in and recharge it. This doctor is from the hospital system with an office at the hospital itself, and we anticipated the same mess and confusion. We were happily surprised that it was not so. Mom was in the exam room just about the time of her appointment. They scanned into their computer the papers my mom and sister had filled in, which had been mailed to her in advance and handed the originals back to me. Doctor came in promptly – had a good, gentle personality. He agreed that she needed a new pacemaker (they do not change out the batteries). He also knew the doctor who had done the original procedure on mom 10 years ago. We were called the next morning as we had been told we would be to set up the appointments for the procedure (exam and surgery). We will take her for the exam – between driving out there in rush hour and needing about an hour and a half to get mom out and to a place 20 minutes from her we cannot get up early enough to get there for the surgery and my sister who lives near her will take her and we will meet her. Drove mom back – I had arranged for her to sandwich in room as she missed dinner (does anyone eat dinner at 4:45pm?) and we settled her back into room after going to the wellness office to let them what we did and what they should expect to be asked for from the doctor's office.
Dropped the car at the transmission place Tuesday morning. They could not find anything wrong – it is a little off, but not such that it can be fixed as it does not have “a code” yet. So we have it back, but are concerned about driving it.
So now it is Wednesday again. I did manage to scan some magazine articles I pulled out years to keep. I have not left anything undone that should have been done this past week. Laundry is in washing – the timer is about to go off for me to switch loads… there it goes, be right back.
Back again. I back up my computer each time I have a work session on same and then once a week I back it up onto another flash drive – monthly and quarterly on or about 15th of the following month I back up the computer again. I went to back it yesterday on the regular daily drive backup (alternate between two drives). It would not do so. I ended up copying my data drive over again new. I tried to delete the old backup which would not update – but could not. So I ended up copying everything else off that drive (flash/stick drive) to an external hard drive, then formatting the stick drive and then copying the data back to the stick drive – and we had terrible storms here that ended up with us losing our electricity mid copying back to the stick drive! I had managed to back up the computer, data, calendar, and client data for last month and last quarter before I went back to getting the daily (B) drive back for use. 2 posts about how, why and when I back up my computer - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2016/05/organizing-your-computer-data-to.html
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2016/06/organizing-computer-files.html
I think I also posted that husband is not as regular in backing up and this has led to problems – most recently when his hard drive died and then the new one did also. (He has had a lot of problems with his computer lately – all involved with electricity, so we just bought and installed a new surge protector for his computer – hope that resolves it all.
Oh, we were called by the nice lady in our RV service department – the new batteries we bought (elsewhere, our mistake, trying to travel not as far) for the RV are no good. Having read about the scam artists that the place we had them installed in is – we are not sure if there was a problem with the batteries or we were given bad batteries on purpose so that we would come back and give them more money. Our RV service department is seeing what they can do with the warranty on the batteries before we lay out another $1000 for new batteries again.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
As crazy as we both get – luckily generally not at the same time – everything works out somehow. One or the other of us will keep our head and get the other one/both of us through the problem. Husband figured out to drive mom to the doctor and take the car to have the transmission looked at the day after same instead of trying to squeeze it into last week and having the transmission place not getting it back to us in time. I figured out to put the little bears in the car to keep him company.
Let those around you help you when they can. Don't go crazy – look for alternative ways to solve a problem that seems too big to deal with.
Back up your computer – soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment