Temecula (01/23/2005)

Thought I'd start this blog with 'A Day in Our Life'.
Rich gets up about 7:00am. He drinks coffee, eats breakfast, reads the morning paper, and watches the morning news (This is all guesswork on my part as I am still asleep). About 8:00am he wakes me and Max up to see if we want to take a morning walk. Max is always interested, I am occasionally interested (bed feels so good at this time of day). The walk takes about 30-45 minutes. I eat breakfast and take my shower either while they are walking or as soon as we return. What happens next depends on what kind of day it is: Travel, Tourist, Taking care of business, or Rest.
On travel days we then start getting the RV ready to move. Rich hitches the RV to the truck, empties the holding tanks, disconnects sewer, water, power, TV and otherwise takes care of the outside stuff. Meanwhile I take care of the inside, putting away the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and computer stuff, clearing the counters, closing windows & vents and tying down anything that might move or fall. We have individual lists for departing (inside & outside) and arriving (inside & outside). On travel days we try to travel for less than 300 miles a day. (Driving is very tiring for Rich). When we arrive at the new Park, we each perform our arrival tasks. It takes about an hour to hitch and unhitch. This works OK when we are staying in one place for several days, but we are worried about when we want to move more frequently. We are planning to take 6 weeks driving to and through Alaska next summer and are concerned about our ability to travel and tour fast enough.
On tourist days we then take off for whatever we are touring. We generally leave Max in the RV. He is pretty good by himself if we pay attention to what he can reach. When we return, we take Max for another walk. I usually spend some time entering our expenses into Quicken.
On taking care of business days, we pay bills, do banking, make phone calls, go shopping, do laundry, bathe Max, file, etc..
On rest days (something we have just started), we put out the awning, the chairs, and sit and read in the sun. We frequently mix rest and business days.
In the evenings, Rich cooks dinner and I do the dishes. Max gets another walk. I usually talk to my sister Sandy in the evening and we talk to Rich's mom some time during the day. We watch TV, read, catch up on emails, blog. Rich usually goes to bed around 10:00pm while I stay up until 12:00am-3:00am.
We generally eat out for lunch, in for breakfast and dinner (except when we are near family). I generally do dishes and clean things up 2-3 times a day. In this small space, things can get messy pretty fast. I do laundry once a week at a Laundromat (so far most parks have one on site). We try to do most business on the computer or by phone. Rich gets his medicine at Rite Aid (his prescriptions are on their national computer). Since I have so many, I get mine via an on-line system which has been problematic for us since we do not have a consistent address and planning where we will be weeks in advance has not been easy for us (we change plans frequently). We use a mail forwarding service (once again dependent on our planning our future location, so I expect we will have to get better at this).
This week we had 3 rest days, 2 taking care of business days (on one we went to visit my parent's graves), and 2 tourist days. Our 2 tourist days were spent in San Diego: 1 day visiting the maritime museum and old San Diego, and 1 day taking a harbor tour and visiting the Seaport Village. At the maritime museum we toured the Surprise (the ship from Master and Commander). After touring the ship in person, we came home and watched the DVD again. Kind of cool remembering the actual size and shape of the ship as we watched the movie. The museum also had lots of miniatures of naval ships from submarines to aircraft carriers. The weather here has been lovely, warm and clear especially nice for the harbor tour.
Some thoughts:
I watched a TV program this week that talked about happiness and our 'happiness set point'. One of the theories presented was that one way to increase your personal happiness set point was to practice random acts of kindness. I have noticed that it easier to perform random acts of kindness when I am feeling good. Question.. Which comes first: happiness or performing random acts of kindness.
They also spoke of reverse paranoia 'Expecting the world to do something good to you'. It sounds a little like Pollyanna. On the other hand if you get what you expect from life, why not expect something nice?