NEW TIRES AND WHO NEEDS A DISHWASHER?

It has been a fairly uninteresting week, but kind of costly. I noticed as I was driving to the cursed place (sometimes known as workplace), that my truck was riding quite a bit more roughly than usual. Once I had "Big Red" parked I took a look at the tires to see what was different. Of course, being the picture of fitness, limberness and good health that I am, I could only see the portion of the tires that did not require crawling beneath the truck to see.   The tires didn't look that bad to me, but I did notice that one of them seemed to look as though it bulged a little in the middle of the tread. I decided it was best to take them to a tire shop to have them checked out. As it turns out that was a good decision! The belt had seperated in the tire and the steel from the belt was starting to wear through on the inside edge where I failed to inspect. It would have been easy if I had a lift like the tire shop! I ended up having to buy two new tires for the rear, the two on the front still looked good. Anyway the total cost was $449.64!!

On a brighter note and maybe the only interesting part of the week, my granddaughter was in a school play.   She is my little princess!

From 2010-10-19

From 2010-10-19

She did really well in her role and even had some speaking parts. We were all really proud of her.

So much for the best part of the week, now let me tell you some more of the uninteresting stuff. We have been having problems with our dishwasher and no, I don't mean Cheryl, the automatic dishwasher!    We spent a portion of our free time shopping for a new dishwasher, wow, those are expensive too!  We considered doing without one since we are planning our fulltime dream anyway and that may include selling the house. We have decided however that the house will sell better with a dishwasher. Ok, maybe we are just too lazy to wash our dished by hand? I guess we will have to do that anyway when we are living in our RV!! Anyone out in RV fulltime dreamland have an automatic dishwasher (dh does not count!)??

Well so much for another boring week in the life of Cheryl and Don. I will give you time to recover (or wake up) from this post, then I will try and post again next week. Until then, May God bless us all...........

PLENTY OF FRIENDLY HELP

WOW…..a big thanks to everyone who offered insight and advice by commenting on last week’s post concerning our indecision in choosing a fulltime rig! A special thanks to Donna for putting a “special” shout out on her blog, 2takinga5th,  and got us plenty of responses :).

The advice and experiences of those that have “been there, done that” is always invaluable. I see that there are pros and cons to buying a fifth wheel; then there are about the same number of pros and cons to buying a motorhome! When it comes right down to it, personal preference and lifestyle seems to be the main driver of the decision. Cheryl and I are going to eliminate the stress involved in the decision making process and just buy one of each! :). Anyone know where I can get a loan for a new Phaeton motorhome, a new 38ft Mobile Suites and a new Ford 450 Super Duty truck? Hope my kids don’t read this, they will have to pay off the loan after I’m gone!! :).

This past week I actually took some steps to further our dream along. I began the daunting task of sorting, filing and disposing of years of saved paperwork. The shredder got a good work out , as did the scanner. I scanned a lot of important documents and keepsakes into files for the computer. I have been working on this task all week and I am not nearly finished.


I have also joined Escapees RV Club in order to start “networking” with the experienced fulltimers out there. :)  I discovered the magazine and newsletter the club provides has a lot of useful information also. I signed up for the discussion forum and although it is not as friendly as the RV Dreams forum, it was still a good one. I found out on their website that there is a “Boot Camp” coming up soon at the Rainbow Park in Livingston Texas. I would love to attend and meet some fellow RVers, plus attend some useful classes on fulltime related subjects. However, we have reservations to stay at a COE park in Texarkana that same week. Oh well maybe there will be another one soon. :) Well that is about all the ramblin’ I can do at one time without getting a headache :) . Until next time.., God bless us all…

REFLECTIONS

It has been a while I know, we have been working hard and long. Hopefully all that hard work is going to pay off soon and we will being buying our fulltime RV! I have been so busy that I have become "unplugged" with my RV Dreams and the planning process. I hope to remedy that situation and lunge forward with my plans!

I am wondering if I have become greedy, you know the old addage, "How much is enough? Just a little more!". Well maybe I have become caught up in that mindset. I keep re-hashing budgets and excel "what if " sheets, but cannot decide, "How much is enough".

Cheryl and I have been shopping, researching and attended the Dallas RV Supershow last month. We have been thinking we are set on a Mobile Suites fifth wheel, but still have thoughts towards the Winnebago Journey motorhome. If there is anyone left out there that still reads this blog (after months of inactivity I understand if there is not) any advice is appreciated. I am going to try and post my thoughts more often!