Friday, November 26, 2010

Time With Family....

After a 5 hour drive, we arrived at Linda's daughter's house in time for Thanksgiving dinner. Great meal...all of Linda's kids, except for her oldest son, are here. Time well spent with her kids and the grand-kids.


This morning Teagan and his mom made blueberry pancakes for breakfast. They were scrumptious ! After breakfast we went to the aquarium where we had a great time looking at the seals, fish, sharks, etc.  The day started out warm and sunny but by the time we left to go to the aquarium, it had started to rain.

Tomorrow we had back to Winston Salem...

Friday, November 19, 2010

Promotion

Our work week was very busy. We went back to work last Sunday and had the big birthday celebration at our community. At some point I'll have to put some pictures on here but the wireless is so slow here at the campground, not gonna happen today. It was a busy day with about 125 people attending. We had a harpist perform for an hour and she was 14 yrs old ! Plays two other instruments besides the harp and started playing a musical instrument at the age of 5 ! Her harp is beautiful.....an ornate design all over it and she was amazing. Our hand bell choir played after her and then the last group to perform was the children from the local Baptist church. They were great ! The residents had a busy day and everyone was exhausted at the end of the day....the place was quiet as a church by 8:00 p.m. that night ! Everyone headed off to bed including Linda and I.


On Tuesday we got a call from some folks who said they were our new co-managers. Hmmm...Linda and I were confused since our boss had not said anything about another couple coming to work with us. We called him but were unable to connect with him till the next day. He came by our place to talk to us and told us that he wanted to promote us to be the Managers of our community. We did accept the offer... I think he expected us to be over the top with joy but we told him...."we've been doing this job for the last three months so now we have the title to go with the work we've been doing". Plus we'd had a trying day the previous day so we were a little beat up and not sure if we wanted to be managers. We discussed the problems at our community and our boss is totally behind us ! We felt a whole lot better after our meeting with him....we both had many sleepless nights over recent events but now we feel better. So, with the announcement that co-managers are arriving and knowing that we reside in the co-manager's apartment....the renovations needed to get started ASAP on the manager's apartment so we have a place to live. Thursday after work we moved our items two doors down to an empty resident apartment until the renovations are finished. The renovations require two coats of Kilz, due to smoke in the apartment, ripping up and replacing the carpet AND vinyl, throwing out everything like switchplates, ceiling fans etc. Everything is SO disgusting....nicotine was running down the walls. Need a new refrigerator too...Our maintenance guy, as well as one from another community are working full steam on the apartment....we won't be able to move into the space until everything is done (probably middle of next week. We've picked out our carpet color....need to figure out whether we'll have laminate or vinyl put in the kitchen and bath area, buy two fans, new switchplates, window treatments, etc. Moving into a new place on top of training a new couple plus all the other stuff that arises every day ! We'll have lots of space in the new apartment. There are two bedrooms, a full size laundry area, dining area, large living room, full kitchen and small outside patio area. It doesn't have the wonderful courtyard view like our old apartment....this one faces the front of the building but we are able to park closer and scoot right out the front door to get in our car and go somewhere.

The new co-managers will move into our old apartment on Saturday and Sunday, then start with us on Monday. The floating managers, that have been with us since September, will stay with us till beginning of December so we can work side by side with the new couple and train them. Dwight and Julie just finished their training in Denver, CO so they are brand spanking new to our company. We met them on Wednesday when they stopped by to look at the apartment. They stayed for lunch and we got to know them a little bit while we ate. They seem nice so we're looking forward to getting to know them better and having them as part of our team.

We will still be off Thursday - Saturday next week, as originally planned, for the Thanksgiving holiday. Will probably wind up being around the time we need to move into the new apartment. Whew....never any down time here. I go back for my final post-op appointment next Wednesday....should be released for full duties. I wasn't able to help Linda with any of the furniture moving yesterday..today I climbed up the ladder, on the rig, to check out things on the roof and my abdomen wasn't real happy about that for a while. It keeps improving but I know it will take a little while yet for things to be totally healed and for me to be able to lift things like I used to. Truly...Time heals all wounds....








 

Friday, November 12, 2010

Friday

It's Friday morning....the grass is crunchy with frost and the steam is rising off of the ponds here as the morning sun burns off the chill. The Wi-Fi and Verizon broadband reception is really unreliable here so makes it really tough to post to the blog. After trying or minutes on end to get something to upload, I give up so consequently I'm behind in giving news from our end.

Last weekend, here at the campground, it was camper appreciation weekend. Problem was it was really windy and really chilly. They brought in a large portable stage (tractor trailer with drop down platform)and folks used huge cast iron pots to cook up chicken stew and brunswick stew. Linda, Boomer and I went out for a walk and noticed the make shift wind breaks they had set around the base of the pots to try and keep the flame going. The wind was brutal and we cut our walk short cause it was so cold. Not sure how many people attended the event....we didn't go over. The campground was packed though. Seemed really weird to see a campground so full for the first weekend in November.

This weekend is quite different and more typical of what I would expect. We could shoot off a cannon through the campground and wouldn't hit anyone. Maybe about a dozen rigs here that are occupied. Starting off as a beautiful day so will be great to go out and walk around with it being quiet. The daytime temps have been great this week....high 60's, low 70's...perfect sweater weather.

This week, at work, was really long and we're exhausted. I was supposed to go to a 2 day training an hour away from us in Burlington, NC. Sunday is our long day at work and with this only being my second week back at work, by Monday I was hurting and not feeling real great so I didn't go to the training on Monday. I did go on Tuesday and got back to our place around 3:30 in the afternoon. Usually we'd get off work then but we had to drive to Mt Airy to check out something for work so off we went....a 2 hour trip. We stopped up here and got something to eat for supper but had to be back at work, by 7:30 for a training meeting with our servers. That went till 9....then back at it for a 14 hour day on Wednesday...Whew...we are pooped !

Sunday is a big event at work....our 9 year birthday celebration for the community ! We have great food planned....baked brie, beef roll ups with horseradish dipping sauce, baklava, spiced hot cider, huge punch fountain, a huge birthday cake with our facility's picture on it and a bunch of other items. We have a harpist kicking everything off at 2, our hand bell choir playing and then 50 children from the Calvary Baptist children's choir singing at 4:30. We're planning for about 200 people being there so we'll see what happens. A number of the original charter members, who were the first to move into our community, still live there so they will be recognized as well. Should be a great day !!