Randy worked today and I wasn’t feeling so great. Not because of partying the night before. It was a girl thing. Maybe that explains my previous post. Don’t get me wrong. I meant it. It’s a worrisome group.
Anyway, one of my resolutions for the past 10 plus years has been to learn and be fluent in Spanish. I’m from Texas and have always felt like I needed to learn it. So, I took 2 years in high school and then a semester in college. At that point it was like taking an English class. Thus, I can read Spanish better than speak it. I speak Spanish almost as good as Peggy Hill (King of The Hill). In my efforts in this endeavor, I’ve been watching Spanish television shows. It’s sad but true. It’s always been an aggravation that when I worked for the state (Texas) that I couldn’t get one of those bilingual jobs. Here it’s worse. Apparently you need only to speak Spanish and not so much the English. Oh, and by the way, our new minimum wage has gone up to somewhere qround $8.55. Yeah, those immigrants are doing the work we Americans don’t want to do. At least in Texas you had to be fluent in both. It seems my mood has not changed much. Maybe in the next couple of days it will improve. We'll see...don't take any bets yet. With things going the way they are it's hard to imagine anyone's moods getting better.

Food for thought

I’ve done a little research folks. I’ve been looking at survival sites for a couple of years now. What I have found interesting is the propensity for the favor of the Mormon sites. Oh sure, they are great for food storage advice. People need to understand that there is a reason behind that. It is not because they are just smart, good natured, and think it’s a good idea. It’s manly because they are just sure they are going to be the majority of people left after the apocalypse, or whatever you want to call it. Geeks, think Borg…
This is not a good thing. Look it up. Unless you want to assimilate, you may be right in keeping and stock piling your guns. And you thought the Government was after you...

Sunshine and some rain!
The sun has finally come out and is trying to melt the snow. Yea!
Christmas is over. It’s time to get back to thinking about what’s ahead. I find myself in a bit of a conundrum. I want to get serious about collecting and stock piling food, but I also have this constant nagging thought in my head. We are going to have to move sometime in the near future. Everyday I check the mail expecting there to be a letter giving us some number of days to get out of here. I’ve described our situation before and I’m not going to get into it again. Anyway, we’re going to be moving. I don’t know if it will be the big move to Texas, or if we’ll just move to a local RV park. Either way, we are not going to want to haul a bunch of extra stuff. I guess I just answered my own question. Bummer.
Now, I’m thinking we should focus efforts (and $) on the pod and the tow vehicle. Here’s what I think we’re looking at in that area.
First and foremost , put the suburban back together.
Tires for both
2 new batteries for the pod
Check and fill propane tanks
I need to sell some stuff to lighten the load as well as create another influx of cash for the move and the afore mentioned expenses. I really don’t care for trying to sell stuff on E-Bay, just haven‘t had much luck. Craig’s list isn’t much fun around here either. People in our area don’t want to pay anything for your crap, but want a butt load for theirs. I guess I’ll just have to change my attitude, and be as hard nosed as they are. Maybe, just maybe people are getting in the mood to buy used stuff. We’ll see. I’ve considered selling stuff on a new blog. I’m still working on that idea. Any suggestions on that idea would be great. Put them in the comments or send me an e-mail.

Merry Chiristmas

Merry Christmas! We made it!
I cooked a turkey last night. I don't normally eat meat, but Randy got a free turkey last week at the company Christmas party. It was my second time cooking a turkey. I'm telling you the only was to do it is in one of those cooking bags. I even made giblet gravy. It was my first time on that one. There are only two of us, so we've got left overs to last us a couple of weeks. Anyway, that was about all of our excitement yesterday, other than a little more snow.

Oh yeah, Randy's friend down in Hood River, WA gave Randy some brilliant advice. He suggested that maybe we should start stock piling food. Hmm... No, that just sounds crazy! I'm kidding. Randy let him know we had already started doing that. We need to keep stocking up though. I've been whittling away on the beans, rice, and a few other things. On that note, we really need to get appropriate storage containers. I've looked around a little locally with not much luck. Dog and cat food containers don't really excite me. I guess I'll have to get some on line.

Well, have a good Christmas!

Oh great, more snow...

Ok, we don’t have it as bad as Busted. However, we were without water today. Randy went back to work this morning. So, I had to wait for him to get home and help me figure out where the frozen spot was. He took off from work a little early and we found it. He had a pretty good idea of where it might be. Long, wet, dirty story short, we can flush the toilet, and I can wash dishes and clothes! We’ve got a pretty good supply of drinking water, Three 5 gallon jugs. Anyway, time to take my wet shoes off and change my socks. My feet are wet and cold!

Cabin Fever!
It has been just too damn cold to do anything outside. So much for getting the heads back in the truck. I've been writing stuff for this blog, but I didn't put it out there and now it's out dated. Maybe I should just write here, and post like everybody else seems to. Anyway, I wish I could say that we've been working on the truck. Although, I can say that we found a good use for the snow...

Holy crap! We got snow! yippee…?
And it’s friggin’ cold! Down in the teens during the day, single digits at night! It’s about the same as Busted knuckles. Romeo, our native Texan cat, is pissed! He likes to be outside and this weather is just not working for him. So, he’s in and out, and that’s not working for Randy and me. The other cats are smart enough to stay inside and only go out if necessary. We’ve got Thomas, the neighborhood cat, set up pretty sweet. He’s got an old couch cushion, w/ a heating pad, and an outside chair cushion on top of that. We also rigged up a little shelter for him with an old foldable lawn chair. It must be the best digs in the neighborhood, because he was in it all day. (He won’t come in the house and we don’t have a garage.) Warm, dry, shelter from the snow, and free food, now that’s surviving in style! Spoiled bastard (relatively).


This is Thomas yesterday afternoon. He bailed when it got dark. He must have another spot more secure with a wind block.

The Befores

This is the living area before.

The dinette before.

As you can see, by taking all of it out we gained quite a bit of space. We, however, lost most of our storage space. You might think that's bad. But, with more storage space comes more stuff, and more weight. I've mentioned weight before. It's a big deal. We also did not need the extra sleeping space. The little doors that open up from the outside can now be used as cat doors. We will most likely get a cage or something that they can open up to. That way the cats can go outside somewhat safely if we have to stop somewhere for a while(ie: an rv park). That plan is still in the idea stage. The openings are too small for the dog much less humans. So, no worry there. It will also be pretty easy to seal them up if we want to later.

The suburban heads are in the shop. We should get them back next week, and get started putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. Just one more exciting part of the adventure!

I know I promised pictures of the pod renovation some time ago (Oct.?). I kept waiting because I wanted to make everything perfect. I decided that was a dumb idea. I'm always changing stuff around, so I decided to just take some pics and post them.

This is the new pseudo couch with most of what is left of our christmas stuff.

Dining/sitting area with foldable table. That's a little heater on the floor.

Here with the half fold.

If you look real close you might see the pvc pipe curtain rods. We haven't fixed that yet. You get the idea though, that we were going for light weight. This is also stuff we can take out later when a cabin or something gets built. The table folds up all the way, but I figured that was enough of the dining area. The chairs were on sale(closeout), plus another 50% off for a little damage. They came out cheaper, lighter, more comfy,and nicer than foldable chairs we had looked at. The cushions were an Overstock.com puchase. Set of four for less than the cost two. So we've extra in case of spills. We didn't do so great on the couch thingy(double papazan sp?). But, we couldn't find anything light weight enough in a reasonble price range. Color was also a challenge for us, and limited our choices. I'll bring in some pillows or something to pull it all together, eventually. But, for now, that's what we've got. If it didn't take forever to upload pictures from our crappy dial up, I'd post before and afters. The befores are somewhere on a previous post. Check 'em out.

Productive day?

Wanna know what I did today? Sure you do. We’re all voyeurs in our own little ways. That’s why we blog, and that’s why we read blogs. That being said…(not necessary, I know.)
My day started off productive. I once again started with the second bedroom full of crap. It is mainly full of stuff to be sold and packing materials. Ahh, the best laid plans and such. It’s much easier to buy on the internet than sell. So anyway, I found myself gleaning through the cluster of crap, throwing out what wasn’t even worth giving away. I don’t really know how it manage to stay in there the first few times I went through it. Then I find yet another batch of video tapes I have to go through. Oh joy of joys. I get to watch Randy’s brother in law’s attempts at catching nature spirits on video tape. Hey now, I have no problem with nature spirits, fairies and the like. What I have a problem with is watching his videos of a whole bunch of nothing. Ok, I could go on and on about that, but I’m not. I also got the joy of watching more than one video my mother left with us of her husband singing country songs, via karaoke. Everybody wants to be superstar in one way or the other. Ya’ll know as well as I do, most of the real superstars are the ones we don’t hear about. So, there's still stuff I’ve got to go through. Most of it really is junk. I’ll figure out what to do with the rest.

Don’t judge me too harshly.

We joined the sheeple Friday, for some adventures in shopping. Randy had never done it before, and I thought he should experience it at least once (heh, heh, heh). We got up at 4:30 am and made it to our first store around 5:20. It opened at 5:00. We left the house with a plan. There were about 3 things we were looking for. Shopko was our first stop. This store is usually dead. Not Friday! It was packed! The check out lines snaked around to almost the back of the store. The stuff we were looking for was gone and the other things we might get (socks, t-shirts…) weren’t worth waiting in the lines. We had an hour to kill before the next store opened, so we stopped to get some breakfast. The next store was Office Max. No door busters there. Everything they had was also available on-line at the same price. So, it was much calmer. Remember, we were really just doing this for fun. (Seriously sick people, we are.) Since we were done, we checked out Target. Again looking for t-shirts and socks. It was slim pickins by the time we got there, and again not worth standing in the lines. The main thing that I noticed was that the prices really weren’t that great. Even the clearance stuff was only 50% off. Target has better sales throughout the year. I remember times when these sales were much better, with huge discounts. It was pretty disappointing. I kept threatening Randy with heading over to the mall, but that was just asking to much. Anyway, a fun time was had by all. And because we got up so early, we got a few things done around the house when we got home.

We got the other head off Saturday. Randy is going to take them in tomorrow. We're not in that big a hurry. We just need to get it done before it gets too icy. Only one busted knuckle. And that was on the first day. It should be good and calloused by the time we put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Meanwhile...
We cleaned up in the shop. I got sick of reading doom and gloom, and political crap, and added some gardening, cooking, and lighter blogs to my list of reading. I still read some of the ones I removed. I just make it harder on myself to get them. We''ll see what happens next...

Yippee!

One side off! It was a bitch. Next is the other side. I'm sure it will be just as much fun. Then, Randy goes back to work! He'll take the heads to be reconditioned next week. And then, we get to put it all back together! Oh wait, after that, we get to put the sway control and weight distribution crap on the trailer. If we're lucky it will be freezing f*cking cold with sleet and wind by then.
Sorry for my foul mood. I pretty tired.

As I had mentioned, Randy has been off the last few days. We actually started on getting the heads off the Suburban. This is not a job for the faint of heart. I had no idea what a serious pain in the ass this was going to be. I’ve taken my usual position as tool runner (I’m even getting better at it), medic, etc. This time however, I decided to bag and tag bolts and removed parts. I’ve also been writing down each step on a legal pad. I’m hoping this will make it faster and easier to put this jigsaw back together again. I’ve been taking a few pictures as well. And, of course, I’m going to share…

I don't know if you can see it in this picture, but there is this black carbon sludge in the oil galley. (I know it's there twice. I couldn't figure out how to get the small one off without starting over.)

And now for the money shot...

I'm also resident photographer, so no pics of me.

One Hell of a day!

It just keeps getting better and better. I didn’t mention why exactly I didn’t care for the nosey neighbors. I will now. This morning the meter reader was down the street on her way to our house. I put Ruby on a leash, opened the gate, and walked her out side the fence on the edge of the road. She likes to smell all the smells outside of her yard. Plus, we’d be out of the meter reader’s way. Seemed like a good idea at time. Before I could do anything, the neighbor’s two dogs (lab mix & ridgeback mix) were on top of us. Although I had seen them out earlier, I also heard the neighbor whistle to call them back. I didn‘t see them when we went out to wait for the meter reader. So, I thought it would be fine. Apparently, they had been following her while she made her rounds. Anyway, there I am in the damn street spinning around with Ruby on a leash and these two big fucking dogs growling and biting at her. During this fiasco, I’m forced to stick my hand in the middle and let Ruby off the leash so she could at least run away. I did, and she did exactly what I thought she would and ran back into her yard. These two pathetic dogs didn’t care about Ruby anymore. All they wanted was her out of the way so they could have the human’s attention all to themselves. So, as calmly as I could, I walked the two dogs back to their home and close the gate, which had been left wide open. One might ask why I didn’t knock on the door and speak to the neighbor about the dogs being out once again. There are two reasons for that. Number one, I didn’t want to go to jail for beating the shit out of the stupid, pill popping, pathological liar, bitch. The other? That’s how we ended up with Ruby in the first place. Ruby’s story is an interesting one. I should tell it sometime. This whole little street has many interesting stories. I fondly refer to this area as the “Hell mouth.” Yes, I got that from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it seems fitting.
Note: Although, the ridgeback did get purchase on her back end, Ruby is fine. Maybe a little bruised on the behind and ego, but no broken skin.

If that wasn’t enough, it was really windy today. The tarp came loose on the house side. So, I say to hell with it. I’m not going to waste another one of Randy’s days off to jack with a stupid tarp. Randy is going to be off next week. We’ll just hope for decent weather. I guess plan C is to just get the damn thing (heads off)done, so we can be ready to get the hell out of the hell mouth!

Plan B

It's a crappy picture because the truck was in the way. We haven't moved it under the tarp yet. We've had a pretty good rain, and it went pretty well. No real wind yet. It's actually not a tarp. It's some leftover construction stuff that goes on the walls when they build houses. (from Randy's former life) He knows what it's really called, but he's at work right now. (I wish I had remembered we had it before we bought the big tarp.) It's got a bear leaning on a house. So, it's cute and obnoxious. I've gotten to where I enjoy annoying the neighbors. It's really not as obnoxious as the big blue one. And, you can't see the bears from the road, but the nosey next door neighbors can! Plus, it blocks their view. Now we can work without as much of an audience and with some protection from rain and snow. The hard part is going to be getting Randy out there to get the heads off. He just loves working on cars. I don't blame him. He'll be glad though, when it starts getting icy on the roads.

On to plan B… The day after we put the big tarp up we had a light rain test that barely passed. The wind test did not go well. The tarp was just too big to pull and secure tight enough. So, we took it back down. We’ll use it for something else. That was a lot of work just to get some pictures of our cats. We’ve had nothing but rain or wind since. Winter around here is pretty yucky. Never fear! We’ve got another plan! We better get something done quick, because the really bad weather is coming. I’m hoping to get to it the next couple of days. Randy will be off. I’ll get the pics up as soon as we get plan B done.

One last inspection by the "big dog" Ruby.

Good enough. Bring in the truck.

That's it? I liked it better on the ground.

Now, I know it's not much, but it works for now. That is, as long as it doesn't rain too hard. We had a little rain last night. It's definitely not going to hold snow. We may work on it a little more. The thing to remember is that it's just temporary. If we don't damage it too much, I'd like to be able to use it for shade over the escape pod when it gets warm again. Anyway, Randy's going to have to take some more time off so we can get the heads off and take them in to be worked on. I don't quite get it yet. I'm sure I will when he starts on it. I'm just the tool runner, light holder, and resident medic on these jobs.

If you remember, one of our goals was to do the heads on the Suburban. So, Randy took off a couple of days, giving him a four day weekend. Sure, that would have given us enough time to get that done. However, there was some prep work to be done beforehand. In our part of Washington winter time mainly gives us rain, wind, and a little snow. So, we needed some sheltered area to do some work. Not an easy task on a small budget. The inspectors showed up while we were trying to figure out our plan of action with this huge tarp.

They did a very thorough inspection. So much so, they had to send one in and look for the lost crew member.

Don't worry! I got her!

Geeze! These guys worry way too much! Looks good to me. Carry on.

We did it!

We voted! Ok, it's not that exciting. Wanna know who we voted for??? Too bad. I'm not telling. I'll sure be glad when this whole thing is over and done with. I've always been told that you don't discuss politics or religion in polite society. It makes sense to me. You're not going to convince someone to change their mind on either one, in most cases. I can see how it's fun for some folks. It can be an entertaining brain exercise. Anyway, it's over for us. We did our part and voted.
Now it's time to move on. What's next for us? I don't know. I'll figure something out. There's plenty to do around here. I suppose I should pick something of the list and get to it!

Well, I'll be!!!

Isn't that somethin'! It's working as good as new now. Thanks for the mojo Busted!

Nerves!!!

This is really getting on my nerves. The stupid "update template" button doesn't come up. So, I still have no layout tab. I can change some stuff, but now I have to refer to my written list of blogs I read, and then type them in to get to them. I don't know what they were thinking. If you're going to make an upgrade for everyone, make it workable for everyone! It's not just me. I'm seeing the same question asked on the help forums with no real answer. The only band aid I've seen is some complicated computer language thing that you have to copy and paste somewhere. I picked this "blogger" thing because it seemed easy and user friendly. It's starting to look like I'm going to have to start over with a whole new blog. I've tested it. It looks user friendly enough. I just didn't want to have to start all over again. I'm still hoping, but hope hasn't been my friend lately.

Success!!!

The Honda is up and running again! It was the igniter. A little cheaper fix than a new computer.

Oh, that was after being awakened at 8:00 am by the police rousting some jackass behind us, banging on doors and such. We also had a lovely encounter with our neighbors across the street while Randy was working on the car. They were playing with a pump pellet gun. And joy of joys, right down their driveway in our direction. Man, I love this place! So, I say to hell with it. We'll sell our stuff for a few bucks, save our pennies, and get the hell out of Dodge. That's really been the plan all along. We fought the good fight. We didn't know the state was going to come down to $15,000. If we did, we would have done things a little differently. The real shame is that my mom and her husband chose not to help us get a little head start. That's alright, we'll keep on keeping on. That's what survival is all about.

The problems I'm running into with making changes on the blog are on Blogger's side. They wanted me to upgrade. Then I lost the layout button and all of my links and blog list. I'm still working on it. I don't do computer language, so I may just have to wait on them to fix it.

Under construction

I'm working on some changes on the blog.

FYI

To avoid finding yourself or someone you care about in the situation that Randy and I are in there are some things you should know and share with your loved ones. There is a federal mandate that states that every state has to have an estate recovery program. Just google “Medicaid estate recovery”. It’s a scary thing. It does not matter if there is a will or not. You could lose your inheritance, or your loved one could lose what you have willed to them. I know this is in the case of one having to go on Medicaid, but you never know what could happen. There are a few exceptions, but not many. Below is a snipit of something I found on an AARP website.
Protections in Medicaid Estate Recovery: Findings, Promising Practices, and Model Notices
Research Report
Erica F. Wood, American Bar Association
Ellen M. Klem, ABA Commission on Law and Aging
May 2007
“Estate recovery has been federally mandated since 1993 when Congress required states to recoup the costs of LTC and other related Medicaid services from recipients’ homes and bank accounts. This makes Medicaid for institutionalized and older people very different from most federal benefit programs. Requiring low-income Medicaid beneficiaries to reimburse the government for services received often stuns surviving spouses and family members of deceased Medicaid recipients.”
It will most likely cost the state more money to foreclose on this place than it’s worth. All I’m saying is do some research and be prepared. We haven’t given up yet. We’re just working on plan C now.
Because I came into this scene late in the game, one day I’ll let Randy tell the whole story.

Crunch time

It seems like everybody is feeling the crunch right now, in some form or another. It’s times like these that you find out who‘s with you and whose against you. Some of that has gotten straightened out for me these last couple of weeks. We got a breath away from saving Randy’s mom and dad’s place last week. Randy wrangled a hell of a deal with the AG’s office. A lot of options/promises were passed back and worth across the table between Randy and me and my mom and her husband. What it came down to was her husband wanted to buy it outright and give us the privilege of living here to clean up and take care of the place like share croppers. Well, my momma didn’t raise no fool! I suppose folks the likes of Randy and I don’t deserve a little place of their own. I even mentioned putting it in just mine and her names and leave the men (and their egos) out of it. The response was a firm insistence that it be put in their names. If she ok’ed this, it was most likely because she had thrown her hands up. She didn’t want this place. She said as much on more than one occasion. It was just too sweet a deal for her husband to allow anyone else to have, when he could just take it all for himself. Greed is an ugly thing. My mother is by no stretch of the imagination a greedy person. I know who was behind this cluster f*ck, as do the ones watching. She went above and beyond to not come between her husband and his kids. And now he’s created a riff between my mom and me that I don’t know if we can ever recover from. In the end, I may have been the one to cut the ties, but enough was enough. With his influence, it was a long time coming. At my mother’s request, I have tolerated his bullsh*t for over 12 years. This was just the straw.
The whole thing makes me sick. All I can do is remind him that karma is a bitch.

Just another little update. A settlement agreement was offered and paper work sent to us. The lawyer is looking it over and doing some research on the logistics. How and if we're going to be able to pay it is still up in the air. We've got until October 15 to send proof of availability of funds. Stress around here is pretty thick.

Randy got the katalytic converter on the Honda. No test run yet. He said he's got to loosen a couple of bolts on some springs (?). I didn't help on this one. Not much room under there, and not much I could have done anyway.

That's it for now. Maybe I'll have some news on Monday. Until then, I'll be reading Mayberry's (keep it simple...) blog. Even if I may not always agree with 100% of what he says, he still cracks me up. His rants are the best!

I haven’t written anything in a while because there seems to be so much going on here as well as other places, it‘s difficult for me to focus on one subject matter. Our friend in Houston has reported that he’s doing ok. The damage doesn’t look too bad where he is. This man taught my mom and me a lot about being prepared and keeping safe in dangerous situations. So, I know that he’s got it together and will be just fine.

Our situation here seems to always be in flux. I guess that’s just what life is about. There’s always something coming at you or falling out from under you. Every once in a while, the sun comes out and all is right in your little corner of the world.

Would I like to go back to Texas? Sure. Would I like to stay where I’m at? Sure. It would be a lot easier to stay here. I could do almost everything here that I wanted to do in Texas. Being off grid, water catchment, gardening, and all of the other stuff would be even easier to do here than it would be down there in the desert. Anyway, we’ll see if the woman from the AG’s office comes through with a settlement offer. That would be great.

Weekend

This weekend has had it's ups and downs. We started on the weight distribution hitch Friday. That's when things took a turn in a downward direction. "Where are the spring bars?" "I don't know. Where did you put them?" It was finally decided that they did not make it. The box was pretty torn up upon arrival. This is what happens when you don't go through and check to see if everything is there. In an effort to stop playing the blame game, and get something productive done, I put the stuff we took out of the trailer on Craig's list. It's gone now. We didn't get much for it, but at least we didn't have to throw it away. It inspired me to put more stuff on there. We also got the trans cooler on the suburban. So, the weekend wasn't a total bust.