Getting Settled In... What I Missed Most

Now that we are back home, it's time to get back into the swing of things.

The house was in perfect shape, the housesitter did a great job, my plants are thriving and the house was nice and warm when we got to the door.  We have a wifi controlled thermostat so I could turn up the heat an hour or so before we pulled in the yard.  How nice is that?  Also with it, I was able to monitor the heat each day with my smart phone to make sure the furnace was working.  It enables us to get an alarm notification if there was anything wrong with the heat system.  Remember, we did replace a furnace component on our aging furnace before we left. We wanted to be sure it was still functioning while we were gone or when the house sitter wasn't here.

The dogs were absolutely NUTSO when we got into the house!  They rammed around like two crazy insane nutcases, rediscovering toys and up and down the stairs.  Once I carried in their two bed pads and put them at the foot of our bed, they raced upstairs at least ten times to be sure their bed pads were there where they belonged!

Don't they look happy to be home? 

Then Steve and I got to work and unloaded of most of the gear and freezable things.  Trip after trip we went, from the motorhome into the house to bring back everything we loaded up 6 weeks before! LOL  I have to work my way through the piles of things laying all over, now to put them all away.  arggghhhhhh

Steve got the air compressor and blew out all the lines and then winterized the water system and the washing machine on the motorhome.  The temps during the night are in the low 20's so we had to winterize.

Sooooo now that I am back in Wisconsin

 and in my house, 

what did I miss most? 

• First and foremost, the grandchildren!!  We will be seeing them all soon. 
• Second, REAL toiletpaper!!!!  Steve bought some really thin rough stuff for the motorhome and I will be soooo happy when it's gone. He bought a LOT of it.  Take note- he will never be in charge of buying toilet paper again. 
• Third, my big thick thirsty plush bath towels! The ones in the motorhome are just okay.
• Fourth, my comfy front porch which we went and sat out there for a while, reconnecting with our home.  The dogs were so excited to be in the house, they kept making laps to reconnect too.
• Fifth, UNLIMTED internet!   While we travel, we have only 4GB of data to share each month, and I had to call Verizon to add 2GB more to the plan for the month to get by. At home, we have Frontier with unlimted data.  Now I could catch up on the videos, missed tv shows and also do updates for our laptops and tablets. 

One bad thing we came home to was a car with a dead battery.  Well, that's not so bad in itself, BUT when the battery is dead, the power door locks didn't work so we couldn't get INTO the car to release the hood latch to get to the battery!  The keypad on the door didn't operate either.  The key was have on our ring seems to be an "ignition only" key and won't work in the door lock or trunk lock! We have always used the key fob button or the keypad on the door to get into the car. Ever since we bought the car two years ago, we never tried the key in the lock itself.  Fine time to find that out, eh?

We googled a few options. One was to jack up the car and apply power through a battery charger clamp to the positive post on the starter, hoping to get enough juice flowing through the system to make the door lock work.  But you also run a risk of damaging the electronics on board by doing that, possibly even the whole car computer system.  No thanks.   Another was to break a tail light lens and power the system through a hot wire at the light the same way. No thanks.  So Steve said to wait until he can bring home some car door lock opening devices they keep on hand at work for lockout situations. (Steve used to be the campus locksmith at UWGB when these kind of things happened)


Sunday night we cooked our dinner and ate in our dining room. It was so nice to sit in there again and sip wine and eat our dinner together.  Later, we started a fire in the fireplace and the dogs found their comfy spots just like before.

I still wasn't feeling too good, and probably overdid it unloading the motorhome so fast. I was exhausted and all I could think of was MY BATH!  I filled up my big tub and took a long soaking bath, and used those plush towels and felt so wrapped in comfort with unlimited water. The motorhome only has a 10 gallon hot water tank, so you have to take quick showers and turn it off between soaping, shampooing and rinsing.

On another note, it takes a few days to stop trying to flush the household toilets with our imaginary foot pedal!  Any RVer will laugh at that, because it takes some time to drop the habit.


Monday morning, Steveio was bright eyed and bushy tailed to head into work!  He donned his work uniform and headed out the door with a smile on his face. I know he missed his work and enjoys the park so much.  But on the other hand, these six weeks of vacation gave him a good taste of retirement that he can choose to do if he wants to.  He drove to work in the Tracker, and I was home because I didn't have a car!~

I spent most of Monday catching up with some laundry, putting away things, and just sitting in my loom room while touching my fiber toys I had left behind.  Of my special pleasures I covet my big weaving looms, my elegant 100 year old treadle sewing machine, and my three spinning wheels. I put away the sock machine, quilting stuff and electric sewing machine that I had brought along on the vacation. I started planning my next few projects after I sat down with a stack of quilting magazines and catalogs.

I walked to the post office to pick up our mail and packages, and ship out some things I had to send. It was a pleasant walk, but the temps were dropping fast and bad weather was on it's way.

Monday afternoon, my friend Lisa Martin put this adorable outdoor patio set on our local Facebook Buy Sell Trade list....   I had seen her post it last fall, but I thought it had sold back then.  It turns out that none of the promised buyers had shown up so she still had it in storage!  I said PLEEEEESSSEEE and when Steve got off work, we drove over and picked it up.  How cute is this???

I can just see the grandkids sitting around on this eating watermelon, can't you?  I am going to shop for either a brightly colored umbrella or even a watermelon printed one to put on it!  I saw a few online and might order one.   Our soninlaw Jesse made us a neato lazer cut metal campfire ring to put in our backyard this summer. This will be so cute out there with it, we will have to make a little back yard patio area now. Maybe lay some paving stones or do some crushed gravel in an area to set up the fire ring and arrange these benches and table around it.  hmmmmm new project! 

Steve made it home from his first day at work and got the car door open!  Yayyyy my hero! 

As I said, there was bad weather on it's way.  This one blew in overnight with sleet, ice, snow and freezing rain. Not fun.  I woke up, pulled back the curtains and looked out the window.  ARRGGGHHH

Just think, five days ago I was sitting in the desert, in 75 degrees, enjoying the sunshine and warmth.  And now... well....  let's just say I am thankful to have had the best of both worlds and can have the opportunity to go south for some sunshine, but come home and bask in the warmth of our home.

 Look---  it's only noon and the snow is melting!