RVing With a Purpose

Monday, April 16, 2018

We had a fairly heavy frost this morning, covering the roof of Mama Ruby’s house and the grass. It was 38 when we first checked the temperature this morning. With the wind still blowing it was cold. We pulled the heavy sweat shirts back out. It’s suppose to be even a little colder tonight with frost again but then a nice warming trend. Maybe this is finally the end of winter.

Today was really not a blog worthy day. We did lots of book work going through a lot of Aunt Jean’s records, working on some of Helen’s hospital bills that didn’t get filed on her insurance, and really boring stuff like that. We have so much more to do on the estates and all the family accounting. Anne also spent some time working in the house. Part of it was harder than expected. There are several bags of clothes, shoes etc ready for the mission store so we may try to take a load there tomorrow. We did get a nice walk done this afternoon. This evening we are enjoying some nice lemon ginger hot tea.

Four years ago yesterday was the first day of our new life. It was our first full day in FRED One on our journey to Alaska. Four years ago today was our first day to just relax and enjoy ourselves after Max’s retirement from his last paying job. We enjoyed going back and looking at our blog from that time period and thought you might like to do the same. (Click here for our Alaska 2014 blog) There are a lot of really nice wildlife pictures later in the blog if you choose to read further. We think everyone should go to Alaska and we are considering going back again next year. Nice to have something to dream about.

Sunday, April 15, 2018

It was still raining this morning. It was still raining when we went to church. It finally stopped raining sometime during Sunday School. And it got cold! The sun actually came out for a time early afternoon but by the time we got back to Tuscaloosa, the clouds were thick again and the wind was howling. As we unloaded the car back into FRED, it was so cold and windy. We immediately turned on the heat pump and fire place. Hope we didn’t leave too many cool weather clothes back to Blount County.

Max had to walk out the drive to check for downed limbs and to see how badly the drive had washed over night, before we got ready for church. We had a lot of rain and the drive will take some work but no large limbs or trees were down and we could still get out in the car so no major problems. It was so good to get to worship at Lester today. Barry’s message was from 1 John 3:1-10. He told us that John is clear, being a Christian is a matter of identity. We are Children of God! We were reminded that we must be careful not to trade our distinctiveness as God’s children for worldly applause. People should see the resemblance of our Father when they see us. We are so blessed to have a pastor who preaches the Word.

After church and Sunday school we had a fund raising dinner for the Philippine mission team.  Taco salad and it was good!  We have a great team going to minister in the Philippines and we will be continuing to pray for them as they prepare to leave next month.  It was then back to the rehab center to visit with Aunt Helen and Aunt Jean. Jean was still sleeping but we visited with Helen until she went to the dining hall for lunch. We then visited with Jean and helped her with her lunch. She is still very weak. We visited with Helen until time for her to go to church this afternoon and then headed home to load the car. We stopped by the assisted living and checked Jean’s mail and visited with some of the staff. They are all so concerned about Jean and really want her to return. The staff and residents sent Jean the sweetest card. Don’t think she realizes how many friends she has there. We had an uneventful drive back to Tuscaloosa and found no storm related problems with FRED or Mama Ruby’s house for which we are thankful. We had a quiet evening, watched a Christmas movie and enjoyed some hot chocolate. Thought we had enjoyed our last of that for this winter a few weeks ago but looks like we will have another night or two where the temperatures will be right for a few more cups. Low tonight in Tuscaloosa predicted to be 39 and 37 at home. Maybe this is blackberry winter. Are the blackberry’s blooming? Oh well, hope you have a good Monday. Stay warm.

Saturday, April 14, 2018

The forecasters were on target regarding the rain today. It rained and rained and is still raining. We did go under a tornado warning in Tuscaloosa, but by then we were in Blount County. Early this morning we turtled up FRED (brought in all the slides and awnings) and said goodbye to him, leaving him in Tuscaloosa. We headed for higher ground (Pine Mountain). FRED is courageous and braved the storms where he was. Hopefully he has weathered the storms unscathed. Actually, the tornado warning was brief because about the time it was issued the storms started falling apart and rather than the severe storms we have just gotten all the rain that was predicted.

We spent most of the day watching the weather (in “weather mode” as Anne says); on the road, on Pine Mountain and at the rehab center in Oneonta visiting with Aunt Helen and Aunt Jean. Aunt Helen seems to be doing well although the dementia is definitely advancing. Aunt Jean did not appear to have made much progress in regaining strength this week. We will need to talk to the therapists next week. So now we are back at the sticks and bricks for the night and are looking forward to worshiping with our friends at Lester Memorial UMC tomorrow. Please keep us in your prayers as we try to provide the best care for our LOLs.

Friday, April 13, 2018

It’s five days in a row of very nice weather. Tomorrow is suppose to be totally different but we enjoyed today. We got our walking in, a little over 3 miles, and sat outside just enjoying the evening for a while tonight.

We didn’t do anything very exciting today. We watched the Blue Angels again. We just love to see all they can make those planes do. Some people complain about the noise, but we just say it’s the sound of freedom. Love it!

Also worked some more in Mama Ruby’s house cleaning out some of her things. Still can only do that for relatively short periods of time then need to work on something else. Since we got the tax id number for the estate this week Anne and her brother Sonny went to the bank to open an estate checking account. We thought that would be a quick and painless process, but not so. It took over an hour to open a simple account and we didn’t even bother to count the number of pages of paper they handed us when we left with all the bank rules and regulations. Yep, more government requirements. Makes us glad we own pine trees. Use more paper. We will grow more trees. Rant over. Yes, we know part of the aggravation was probably related to grief.

Otherwise, we continued to work on accounting for all the LOLs and some of our own.  Also seems we have lots of filing to do right now. Too much paperwork! We continue to enjoy the irises we brought from the sticks and bricks. They have held up well and continue to bloom out. We are planning to go back to Blount County some time this weekend, so we can go to our church on Sunday. If they don’t get too damaged by the approaching storms we might bring some more back to FRED when we return. Hope you all have a great weekend. Stay safe and remember to be in prayer for Sunday services. Your pastors need your prayers.

In case you are interested in what is happening on the NOMADS Disaster Rebuild project in Baton Rouge, our friends who are now leading the project posted an update on the NOMADS website. Click here to read it.