Is Dozer unimpressed with my shoveling or is he just stabilizing the pile for more snow?
Either way, our guests are welcomed with golden decorations.
Interpretation
Monthly Archives: February 2019
Mend me two times baby…
I’m gonna fray. (Original darning is in gray.)
Snow challenges
We’ve had almost all of the weather that winter has to offer from balmy days to rain to freezing rain to dense and chubby snow flakes to dry and fluffy snow flakes to significant wind chills to blizzards. Astoundingly, I’ve been able to keep the driveway clear with a shovel (and a little help from George and the snow blower). It’s a good challenge to keep up with the county snow plow that keeps our road open and a ridge of snow at the end of the driveway. #shovelvsplow #mailcarrierlove #thankslinemen #electricitykeepsourLPburning
Getting to Puerto Rico
This is going to be the worst blog post ever. Because who really wants to know the mechanics of our flights?
You are still reading. Wow. Our airline, United, strongly suggested that we postpone our travel for a day because of the bad weather in Chicago. We did and I added a day to our itinerary. The next day our flight was cancelled because of the bad weather in Chicago. We re-booked our flights again. The United website and app were equally unhelpful in these changes. For example, I re-booked part of our trip through Madison without realizing the process was complete because the app just stopped working. While I was on hold for one-half of eternity, speaking directly with an airline representative was the most useful.
There were lots of phone calls because I had scheduled parking at the airport, a rental car, places to stay, and volunteer work. Each change required a call to each vendor, in part because we were so close to our planned travels.
We traveled from Milwaukee to Houston to San Juan. We arrived at the Milwaukee airport very early because of the weather and federal government shutdown. The shutdown required that TSA employees were required to work, but would not be paid until an unknown date. We didn’t know if this would result in long lines or not. In this case it did not. I very much appreciated TSA employees that came to work. The news was noting that passengers were more patient and kinder, knowing the struggles of the security staff. I think this is awesome. I also think that we can be more patient and kind every day.
I used credit card “points” to pay for the car rental. This was great! Extending the car rental for a day (even though I was giving up a day at the time of the change) required actual money. It still was a good value.
Our volunteer site was in the center of Puerto Rico, about 50 miles and 1.5 hours from San Juan. Because of our early arrival in Milwaukee and long layover in Houston, it took us 24 hours to go from home to the worksite.
Our trip home was more compact, but longer than planned because of several delays in the flight from Chicago to Milwaukee, again attributed to the weather. (Our route was San Juan to Chicago to Milwaukee). We arrived in Milwaukee late at night and thankfully spent the night with family before driving home.
Oh, are you still here? My goodness. Find something good to read now.
Random places
First-grader Nola Mae was clearing toys, games, pencils and more off the coffee table to make room for block building yesterday. “I don’t know where these things belong, so I am just putting them in random places” she declared as she put stuff in boxes and pushed things off the table.
Is it nature or nurture that forms our behaviors?
Planning for Puerto Rico
I love to travel. George loves his dog, his farm animals, the farm and the garden. We’ve taken road trips together and try to get to southwestern North Dakota once a year for about a week. The North Dakota trips are great and take 14 hours of travel time one way. We’ve taken other road trips too. George likes to drive and doesn’t think twice about driving from Wisconsin to Atlanta, Georgia straight through, staying for a night, and turning around and coming home. Unfortunately this has left me feeling like our vacations were mostly driving with only a little exploring or visiting. George seems antsy too, with his mind on the farm.
Day 1 “I wonder how the dog is.”
Day 2 Perhaps arrive at destination late in the day. “I hope the cattle and sheep are liking the hay I left for them.”
Day 3 Explore and/or visit. Start to head home. “I hope the [whatever] is working for [the super kind neighbor who is taking care of the farm].”
Day 4 [more specific concern about home/animals/farm] continued until home.
I heavily encouraged George to get a passport when one was required to enter Canada. I want to be prepared for travel when the opportunity knocks, not when the process of getting a passport is complete. George eventually decided it was in his best interest to get a passport rather than listen to my pleas.
The next step was to decide on a destination. George had an answer, “the jungle.” No further details were provided. Anywhere with a jungle would work.
We decided that we needed a vacation with some sort of project. George needs to keep busy. I’ve traveled to work with Habitat for Humanity and volunteered for Caretta Research Project and loved the experiences.
The trip had to be fairly short. At least short enough that we would still be married even if our plans flopped.
About a month before Hurricane Maria in September 2017, I tried to contact a farmer about working on his farm in exchange for housing. Hurricane Maria then decimated Puerto Rico. Wanting to be a help rather than a hindrance, we set the plans aside.
This winter I we were ready to go! With help from Rotary connections, we were able to plan to volunteer with HEART 9/11 in their Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico Response Project.
In summary, our travel plans included 1) the jungle 2) a short time span and 3) a project. Look out word!
The best time in a long time
George cheerfully came into the house with a huge smile and exclaimed “That is the best time I’ve had in a long time!”
I’m for taking joy anytime and anywhere you can find it, but we were just in Puerto Rico last week. Yes, the travel was hard. Yes, we worked on replacing a roof. Yes, it was hot and humid, one of my least favorite combinations. But it was a really, really good time for both of us. So I had to question him on his claim.
“Yeah but this was even better! I drove [the neighbor’s] tractor and it was great!”
A little background on the tractor situation. None of our tractors is running. George has been trying to repair one in very cool temperatures the past few days. Yesterday’s low temperature was -26F and the high was -5F. Wind gusts were measured up to 20 mph. [As reported at http://www.weather.gov for Green Bay, Wisconsin.] This can equate to a windchill as low as -56F. The repair has not worked. The cattle and sheep need to be fed round bales weighing about 900 lbs each, requiring a tractor.
“The heater in the cab was too hot and I had to turn it down! The hydraulics work great!”
May you take joy anytime and anywhere you can find it.
samplingitall 