Has to be said

Have you ever been with your dear husband with your children in tow behind you in a grocery store or a department store and you hear this sweet, feminine voice call out, "Well, hello (put your DH's name here)"? The voice belongs to an old schoolmate or co-worker.

I have and it happened to be the grocery store we always shopped in so it happened nearly every shopping day. Well, it made me angry because to this obnoxious woman, my children and I were invisible. Of course, as most DHs, mine was oblivious. After incident two I told him next time she does it, you are introducing your wife and your two children.

Well, come shopping day, I again hear that sickening, overly sweet voice holler out across the deli section. My blood starts to boil and I start counting. I look at Allen, his face has gone a shade of gray that isn't healthy. Nevertheless, he looks at the woman and smiles, dragging me and the kids along behind him and saying under his breath, "Be nice, she's just being friendly." Of course, all of us wives know she isn't!

I am seething, oh, did I mention that I tend to be a little jealous, I don't like women flirting with my husband. Anyway, here we are standing in front of this woman who I don't fail to notice is older than I am (so is my husband), this woman is an ex-classmate. I smile and try to be friendly. As we walk away, while I'm wondering if this woman is as ugly as I think she is, my youngest daughter pipes up and says, "Momma, that lady looks like Miss Piggy."

I squeeze her hand in appreciation, but tell her we really shouldn't say things like that about other people, but I just can't erase the smile on my face.

This happened years ago, but I never quite convinced my husband that this woman has a crush on him that won't stop. He tells me I'm crazy and I find another store to shop in.

Well, today, I get a call from my dear husband and he tells me that he's been in class all day. I ask him how it went and he tells me about it and then casually asks if I remember dear Debby. I say, you mean Miss Piggy? And he kind of laughs, but he sounds a little nervous. I ask him what's wrong and he says she is now working where he does and she was in the class with him today.

All I say is, "Oh?" The blood is starting to simmer here, but I'm cautious, I want to hear the rest of the story. He starts in, yes she sat one person away from me. Again, I say, "Oh?", then I slip in, "Who sat down first?"
He answers that her stuff was on the table, but no one was sitting there when he sat down. So far he's safe!

He continues by telling me that she kept talking to him and then asked if he remembered the candle he made for her in the eleventh grade to which he answers, "No". She tells him that she kept it until just a few years ago when she finally let her granddaughter burn it.

"She freaks me out," he says. "I don't remember any stupid candle and I now realize you were right, this woman likes me or something because she won't leave me alone through the entire class and she's mooned over that stupid candle that I think someone else must have given her. I'm just praying I don't ever see her at work again. I don't want to talk to her."

The blood is cooling off and I tell him it will be okay. I know that now he will never speak to her again if at all possible and I know she better not speak to him with me around or I know where she'll find that candle the next time she's looking for it!

AC

The air conditioning is still not right. Allen has cleaned the coil, which seemed to help, but the breaker is still tripping infrequently. This means that I am still stuck here unless I take the cats with me, which isn't always possible. The next step is to change the capacitors in the AC since we've changed the breaker and cleaned the AC. If that doesn't help, we don't know what to do. The technician at the Airstream dealership has been very helpful and says he could do no more than we have done with the exception that he would charge us $90.00 per hour!

I'm at a crossroads in this lifestyle. Our coach is small, but we were willing to work with it until we decided definitely what type of RV we wanted when Allen retires or if we even wanted to continue this lifestyle at all. It does have its drawbacks, so far the benefits have far outweighed the minor drawbacks we've encountered.

Friends in the park tell us to go ahead and buy a fifth wheel, there is more room, that will make all the difference. We don't see it that way. We don't have the resources to make big purchase mistakes, if we did, we wouldn't still be in our small motorhome!

We now have to make some hard decisions. Do we repair this RV? Buy another RV while still this far out from Allen retiring? or Do we give up and go buy a house? I don't want to put a huge amount of money into repairing an RV that I know I don't want to keep for an extended period of time but on the other hand, I don't want to purchase a fifth wheel and then decide I'd rather have a motorhome or vice versa. When it comes time to sell or trade in a RV it is just the same as a car, it is never worth what you paid for it no matter how "good" the deal was!

Well, we can procrastinate a little while longer. We're changing both capacitors in the AC tonight. Now I am keeping my fingers crossed that this will solve our problem and postpone major decisions for a little further down the road!

Until next time...here's wishing ya'll a peaceful journey down your highway!

Issues

I have been away from Peaceful Highways for far too long. A lot has happened. I started making my hats for kids. I have a small bag full of hats and toys in several different sizes and styles. I try to make them interesting and fun for kids to wear. I sure wish there was no need for hats like these and children everywhere could be healthy, happy and taken care of. In a perfect world...

We went to St. Augustine for the July 4th weekend and had a wonderful time. We spent all of it with our older daughter and her husband. We went out to dinner, kayaked and swam in the ocean. My younger daughter also got to come for one night, which made it even more special. I sure didn't want to come home, I wanted the fun to continue and the wheels to keep on turning!

For the past week my parents have been sick. It started with my mom being hospitalized for stomach pains, which turned out to be diverticulitis. While my dad was visiting her, he went to grab lunch in the hospital cafeteria and within 20 minutes of finishing his lunch; he was vomiting, having uncontrollable diarrhea, and profuse sweating.

The nursing staff rushed him downstairs to the ER where his condition continued to worsen until his blood pressure completely bottomed out and the doctors thought they were going to lose him. Finally, he was stabilized and testing to find out just what was wrong was totally inconclusive. Doctors thought he had a ruptured aortic aneurism, but finally the cardiologist said it was just a very bad case of food poisoning. If that's how bad food poisoning can get, it doesn't inspire one to eat out very often. If a hospital cafeteria isn't safe, where is safe?

It's starting to slow down finally and my parents are on the mend. Thank you Lord! But we are having trouble with the RV, the AC keeps turning off due to popping the breaker and it has been a real chore trying to track down the cause-no definite answers yet. It means I am stuck here pretty much 24/7 unless I want to take the cats with me because the heat is unbearable in here when the AC is off for more than 20 minutes.

Here's to hoping the highway gets peaceful again very soon! Until next time....

Tammie