Saturday, December 31, 2011—The Last Day of the Year of New Beginnings
Our blogs posts are going to come in spurts for at least the next week. The internet here is the worst we’ve had yet. Barry will have to go to McDonald’s to work every morning. We may have to post 2 or 3 days worth of blogs at a time.
We didn’t do much today. It was in the 70s but very humid.
I wanted to do laundry on the day we moved. Because we had to find a new park, I didn’t get a chance. We were near a desperate situation so today was the day. I told myself that the laundry-mat wouldn’t be too crowded with it being a holiday. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It took a little longer than usual but fortunately for me, the bigger machines were available sooner than the smaller ones. (I had a lot of laundry!) I couldn’t help but feel very sorry for those around me. It was so miserably hot inside the laundry-mat. I can’t imagine doing laundry there on a 100+ degree day!
I learned some lessons today about doing laundry:
- Don’t go to a laundry-mat on the weekend. Weekday mornings are the best way to avoid the crowds.
- Don’t go at the end of a school break when the moms are trying to get clothes washed before school.
- If you enter the laundry mat and everything is dirty, only 7 out of 9 candy machines have candy because the rest are broken to pieces, and you feel the urge to grab a bottle of fantastic and start cleaning, know this: the inside of the dryers are not any better!
Still we got our clothes washed, talked to some very nice people and enjoyed watching a beautiful little girl who had a smile for everyone.
After our laundry was put away, we went to the pier at the campground. Barry and Eva put a line in but didn’t catch anything. We saw more egrets and jellyfish. We hoped to see some sharks but didn’t.
Mikayla and Eva were the next to fall victim to the fire ants. Eva woke up with some nasty mosquito bites as well. Later in the day I found some very tiny mosquitoes that must have come through the screen. Hopefully, the spray we used on the screens will keep them out tonight.
We always stay in to celebrate New Years. I make appetizers and a couple of desserts. We watch movies and play games. Traditionally, we have a very yummy grasshopper dessert but this year I had a hard time finding some of the g-free ingredients that are needed. We had chocolate fondue instead. The girls like to stay up until mid-night to watch the ball drop but that won’t be possible this year due to our internet connection. It’s not quite the New Year’s Eve we are used to and yet we are learning to break from tradition a bit and to be thankful for all that we have.
As I look back on the last year it has been a dream come true and yet it has not been without many bumps in the road. We had to learn a lot about RVing. It seems we learned everything the hard way but every lesson learned helped us in another area down the road (sometimes literally). All of us have had to learn to do things that we never thought we would do or ever want to do. We’ve had to learn how to make do and become pretty inventive when a trip to the store isn’t feasible because of distance or because we just don’t have room for a needed item. Living in a 270 square foot camper with 5 people and 2 cats has made togetherness take on a whole new meaning. We’ve had to learn how to deal with minor and major inconveniences in the most inconvenient situations.
Dealing with the unexpected has stretched us all and yet we never expected to meet so many amazing people. People from all walks of life have crossed our path. We’ve learned so much from each one and have felt our lives enriched. As a family, we’ve had to learn to be a little more patient and a little more giving with each other. There are times when we’ve spent way too much time together and times when we are thankful for all the time. We’ve had to trust God more than ever before for our safety and have become more thankful for His beautiful creation. It’s been the year of new beginnings in so many ways for all of us. We weren’t really expecting that. We were just expecting an adventure.