Merry Christmas from Indiana….

It’s Christmas eve and it’s very quiet in the convent. The other two interns left on Friday to spend time with their families. Linda was hoping to come out here right after Christmas to spend some time with me but couldn’t find anyone to watch Boomer. It’s tough enough to be apart for the holidays but now she is sick with something that resembles the flu. She has body aches, a high temperature, and a sore throat but decided to go to her son’s house anyway so she can spend time with them over Christmas. It would really suck to be home for the first time in the seven years, that we’ve been on the road full-timing, and not be able to spend it with family. Should make her feel better.
I work with Ann in the morning, on alpaca duty, so it will help her get out of here sooner. I’m on alpaca close all week (takes me about an hour each afternoon at 3 p.m.) and watering the new seedlings in the greenhouse. Somehow all of these critters and plants don’t understand that it’s a holiday for people….they just know that they need to eat and be taken care of and those activities don’t take a day off. Tomorrow, after I do the close routine, I’ll go to Sister Maureen’s house to have dinner with her and Sister PB.
Last week we moved thirteen alpacas to their new home, about 30 minutes from here. It wasn’t too bad to halter that many animals and load them up. Two of the thirteen were put in the mini van for the ride to their new home and the rest were loaded into a horse trailer. There is a large lake near their new pasture. When we got them into the new area, they took off for the fence and just stood there looking at the frozen lake. I don’t think they’ve ever seen a body of water like that before. I don’t know if it was either the smell or sight of it that intrigued them so much but they thought it was the coolest thing. There are several more crias to be moved but they won’t go until they’ve been weaned from their moms. Peanut is one of the crias that will go to a new owner. That will be a sad day….I’m hoping that it will be after I’ve left in February.
Yesterday I finished skirting the last blanket of fleeces from our alpacas. Wahoo ! Sister Mo thinks that this is the earliest that they’ve ever finished with the skirting. Now we will start in on some of the fiber that another alpaca farmer gave us from his farm. The goal always is to get each year’s fiber processed before it’s time to shear again. The fiber that has been skirted can now be shipped to the New England Alpaca Fiber Pool to get processed into hats, gloves, scarves, boot inserts, etc. for our store in the White Violet Center. I’m still hoping to learn how to spin and weave before I leave here in eight weeks. There are some workshops coming up in January and February that I should be able to take that will teach me those things.
I’m putting the finishing touches on my project for my internship. Each intern is required to do a project while they are here. My project is on how the dining units can benefit more from the produce raised in the gardens here as it ties into the land ethic that the sisters have created. It’s a twenty page report that I’ve been working on for the last three months so it will be great to see that done and turned in.
It was really cold here this morning. With the wind chill, it was –5 degrees. Once the sun comes out, the temps in the greenhouse really heat up. When I went to water the seedlings at 3, it was 80 degrees in there. Everything is covered in the high tunnel….nice and comfy. The thing that we have to watch is that when the sun comes out, it can create a lot of condensation on the roof of the high tunnel.

If it gets too drippy in there, the plants will start to rot so that is when we need to open the sides or ends to ventilate it and get the condensation out of there. We haven’t had to do that in quite a while because it’s either been really cloudy or cold. We keep an eye on it though.
Guess that’s all that’s going on here. We’ve missed some of the recent snow and ice storms, which is fine by me. Hoping everyone has a blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Until next year, be safe and have fun with friends and family this holiday season.

A Day of Snow

Wow, this has been a really busy week. On Tuesday night we went to Robyn’s house to learn how to butcher (is that a nicer word than slaughter ?) two chickens. When you buy baby chicks, you don’t necessarily know what their sex is. There are actually professional “sex-ers” that can tell what the sex is of the little ones but apparently Robyn didn’t have that done to hers cause three of what she thought were hens were roosters. Darcy’s life was spared and came to live at White Violet Center and is doing wonderfully with his new harem. Since Robyn lives in the city, the other two roosters needed to take a trip to her freezer. She had sent us video links that we were required to watch before coming to her house. I did that and it all seemed to make sense but the actual killing didn’t go as smoothly as we all would have liked. I thanked each rooster for his service on earth before she took their lives and some valuable lessons were learned. First and foremost, your knives should be really sharp. I won’t go into any of the gory details on the whole process. If you want any specifics cause you have chicken butchering on this week’s to-do list, shoot me an e-mail. It was an educational day for sure.
Wednesday was CSA day (just one more week to go !) and my turn to hand out the bags to customers as they stopped in. Everything went super smooth and I was done an hour early. Wahoo !
Thursday night was our staff Christmas party. We started off with a number of different games. We played the card game “Blink” in groups of three and the winner from each group played each other in the playoff game to crown the champion. What a hoot that was ! It’s such a fast paced game and we were all hooting and hollering at the last three people…..I think they were all holding their breath trying to discard all of the cards in their hand. After all of the games and frivolity, we ate lots of yummy food. Sister Ruth brought apple pies, made from White Violet apples…so yummy ! Then we had the gift exchange and I got a beautiful piece of pottery made by a local artist. It was a super fun night with all of the White Violet staff.
On Friday I worked all day, wet felting bars of soap for orders that have come in. Sister Mo has been doing some awesome marketing of our wares cause she took orders for a total of 43 bars of soap. Holy Cow ! One lady wanted regular soap and home-made soap so I made a trip Thursday afternoon to pick up some Earth Drop soap, which is made in Bloomington, IN (I think). They make some amazing scents like Minty Swirl, Gently Rosemary, Sweet Olive, etc. We work in natural colors because they don’t dye any of the fiber here but when you mix different fibers, you get some beautiful combinations. I don’t consider myself a very artsy person, nor am I crafty but I can do this really well and I enjoy it. I started in at 9 Friday morning and worked till 3 (took time off for lunch) but didn’t get everything done. So I went in this morning and finished up. When I looked outside this morning I thought the weatherman goofed again with his prediction for 5-7 inches of snow but once I got outside, I could see that we had gotten a lot of snow. I tromped over to the center and got done with my project. I put the bars on a sweater drying rack so the air can get under the bars to get them dry. Sister Mo will wrap them in pretty ribbon and get them ready to be picked up. Another woman ordered 12 of the nesting cages, which are the suet cake holders packed full of alpaca fiber for the birds to use in building their nests. So cute and an inexpensive gift for someone !

This is my little work area, near the big sink in the back of White Violet Center. After two days of felting soap, I have the cleanest hands in Terre Haute (and have also used the most hand lotion in Terra Haute).
While I worked away out back, the annual Christmas open house was going on out front, in the center. It was just like Santa’s workshop…working behind the scenes. I have close to 50 bars done so Sister Mo can pack the order. She’s going to pick up some more soap and some more suet cages, cause there’s still 10 days till Christmas ! We have really gotten wiped out of a lot of things in the store. It’s been a busy Christmas season for alpaca items.
Oh, I forgot to tell you about going with Tracy to pick up a new alpaca last Sunday. She and I took the center’s mini van and drove to Effingham, Illinois to meet an alpaca owner at a Cracker Barrel. The deal went down in the RV parking area of Cracker Barrel. There were multiple alpaca farms there with horse trailers to pick up or trade animals with this woman. I bet customers were surprised to see alpacas all over the place in that end of the parking lot when they pulled in for blueberry pancakes that morning. Probably had to do a double take.
White Violet traded a couple of breedings from their sires for a young female alpaca, named Esperanza. Oh, what a cutie she is ! She is so sweet. She rode the whole way home, standing up (usually they cush (sit) while riding) but she was curious and looked out the window, poked her head up through the barrier to say hello to Tracy, etc. Once we arrived and she saw the horses, at the equestrian center, she started humming….she was excited to see other animals. Then we got her out and introduced her to the herd, through the fence. Everyone came over to sniff her and say hello. Then Tracy took her into the pasture and let her loose.

Within 15 minutes she was eating hay with everyone and was fitting right in. Yesterday Bree put a halter on her and she came up to the center to greet the guests coming to the open house. They all loved her and she was photographed and filmed for the 6:00 news. What a sweetie she is and a nice addition to the herd.
So that brings us to today….I finished up the soap and have been relaxing since then and enjoying the beauty of the snow. It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas around here…












Until next week….May the peace of the season fill your hearts with joy !

Holiday Christmas Party and Grapevine

Saturday night was our boss’ Christmas party at his house. We were able to meet several of the other  couples that sell for AGS or Texas Advertising. It’s great to put faces with the voices/names of people we’ve talked to but hadn’t met yet. Brian and Debra have a great house and it’s decorated beautifully for Christmas. We got to meet Rick, who will be the person taking care of scheduling and other duties for Brian. He’s from Maine and is excited to start his new duties after some training with one of the trainers that we started out with. There were a lot of people there…probably around 35 or so. There was a Chinese gift exchange, where people can steal a present that someone else has already gotten and then that person gets another present. It was fun…Linda got a new back massager that I’m currently sitting on. It’s great !
Today we drove to Grapevine, Texas which is only about 30 minutes away. One of the other RV parks that our  company does is Vineyards RV Resort and we have heard that it’s a gorgeous park and that the town of Grapevine is really cute so off we went to check it all out. The resort is situated around a lake and the layout of the park is awesome. They took advantage of every view for RV site placement and it’s gorgeous. There is a view of the marina and I can only imagine how spectacular the view is on a sunny, warm day when the lake has more water in it (remember there’s a bad drought going on here. Look at where the water level should be in the pictures.) There was a storm coming in so it was really overcast and windy but still a perfect setting to put an RV. Many of the sites had little decks, large fire rings with a grilling grate and nice picnic table. Some even had little pergolas over the deck area.


A short distance from the RV park is the historic downtown area, which is really cute. Lots of great shops and decorations for Christmas too. We had heard that Grapevine is the Christmas capital of Texas with all of the events and decorating and I can see why. We walked up and down the streets, checking out all of the shops and restaurants. We really enjoyed the town and would definitely go back again.
Tomorrow we leave for the Escapees park in Livingston, until after the first of the year. Anxious to get on the road and see some different sights out our picture window. Will post again once we get there and get settled in.

Dollywood

We got an assignment ! Our company has picked up a new park in Mocksville, NC and the other team in that  area can’t squeeze it into their schedule so we will add it to our schedule. Sure beats sitting around and we like North Carolina….this way we’ll be able to see our friends in North Carolina each year if we keep this job in our schedule. Since we’re leaving in the morning and don’t know if we’ll ever get back this way again, we figured we might as well bite the bullet and go to Dollywood. Our friends, Hugh and Dianne have never been to Dollywood to see the holiday lights so we knew that we wanted to do that. Dollywood is running a special till the end of the year that if you get a day ticket, after 6 p.m., you can get in free the next day. The four of us went Friday night and then Linda and I went back today to take in more of the park that we couldn’t cover in just three hours Friday night. Dollywood boasts having four million lights up for the holidays….wow, is it gorgeous at night !
The blue tree above had what looked like white shooting stars throughout the tree…really neat. A beautiful array of lights AND a full moon made for some nice pictures. We were able to get in three of the shows while we were there Friday evening. They have a “Christmas on ice” show, which combined singing with ice skating, and lots of other shows….everything from the southern Gospel group, “Kingdom Heir” to An Appalachian Christmas. Seems odd to hear Christmas music and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet but it sure starts to get you in the mood for the holidays.
Today, we went back and everything sure looks different in the daylight. Linda and I rode the carousel, the scrambler (after the ride got cranked up and my head was spinning, I remembered why I don’t do those twirly rides anymore :(   We enjoy the carousel at a Pennsylvania amusement park, called Knoebels, cause you can reach out and try to get the brass ring. It’s alot of fun but we have since to find another carousel that has it. The “southern” tradition must be yelling “Yahoo” at the top of your lungs when you go by the ride operator’s booth cause everyone was doing it. Twice the operator would return the southern holler…not sure if it was truly him or a recording. Note to self: rebel yell when riding carousel in the south next time
Speaking of surprises, I have to tell you about one we had Friday when we were out and about. We were approaching an intersection, in our  car, and we hear this scraping noise. In unison with the lady in the car next to us, I turn and look at her and she at me. The look on her face was priceless….as if to say: “It ain’t us so it’s got to be you”. I wasn’t sure where the sound was coming from but once they pulled away and it isolated the noise to us,… yep it was us. I pulled off into a gas station parking lot and get under the car. A big chunk of metal was hanging, by a thread, from under the car and dragging on the ground. After kicking it for a bit, I got it off and threw it in the back of the car. I think it’s the heat shield that covers the muffler….I kept thinking about the look on that lady’s face and it made me chuckle all afternoon.
We got to tour Dolly’s old tour bus. It cost her $750,000 back in 1994 and is a Prevost bus.It’s 45 feet  long, 9’ wide and 13.5 feet high. They got 7 m.p.g with it and had enough fuel on board to be able to go non-stop from Nashville, TN to Las Angeles, CA…2050 miles in 32 hours. They made more than 100 of these non-stop trips. The bus was retired with over 600,000 miles on it. She bought a new bus in the last year or so at a cost of 2.2 million. There were three bunks on board, in addition to her bedroom and two bathrooms. Good darn thing there’s two bathrooms on board with all those non-stop trips. There’s bound to be a potty stop needed over all those miles !





Had lunch at Red’s Drive In….not really a drive in, more like a diner. This restaurant is in an area of the park that’s set up like an old town. Remember these old metal type Christmas trees. One of my favorite childhood memories is of the red cellophane wreaths, with a light in the middle of them, that my mom used to put in the windows. I always thought they were so pretty and I’ve never seen them again. Nothing like smothering your burger with sautéed mushrooms and onions, pickle and the works. Wow !

Had a great day….so glad we took advantage of the opportunity to hang out with our friends until we got a new job assigned to us. Had a great time visiting Dollywood and other area attractions. Got to meet up with Froggi Donna and Stu and get to know them better. One the things that we heard said today, in the museum on Dolly Parton’s career, is that “life is about the experiences we have in our life”. That is so true and we’ve been really blessed to be able to travel and gather lots of these experiences.
Dolly seems like such a neat lady, very insightful and generous. Some of the information we put in our campground guides, for filler space, is on the Imagination Library (set up by her foundation). Dolly feels that all young children learn so much from reading and being read to and that they deserve to have books,  in their developmental years. Her foundation gives one book a month, from the day the child is born up until their fifth birthday. The child will receive 50 books ! She started this here in Sevier county for the children and it has caught in various communities across the country. What a great cause and one that our company helps to promote by putting information in vacant spots in the guides. Click the link above for more information.
That’s all from Pigeon Forge…heading out in the morning for Mocksville, NC. Back to work we go….

Pigeon Forge

We arrived in Pigeon Forge on Friday afternoon. The trip through the mountains, from North Carolina to Tennessee, on Interstate 40 was really pretty. The foliage was still very colorful and the trees were holding their leaves. Quite a winding road but nothing compared to 411 south that leads into Pigeon Forge. Holy Mackeral….the first 11 miles were pretty wicked. We came by the Bush’s Beans plant…very large plant in the middle of no where. We got to Eagles’s Nest campground and got set up. They are a Passport America park…so half off for the length of our stay. We’re not sure how long we’ll be here so paid till Monday ($66). We have a phone meeting with our boss this evening and will get our schedule.

Hanging out with Hugh and Dianne, our trainers with AGS. They are here working 14 parks over a three month period. They will finish up end of November and then go back to their condo in North Carolina. This is the only assignment they do every year (but heck what a big job it is). Dianne has been dying to see our trike so she tried it out by sitting on it. Last night we went to see Country Tonite, a country show in Pigeon Forge. They’ve started their Christmas show so the first hour was the regular country show and the second hour was the Christmas show.

It was very good and the comedian in the show, Bubba was hilarious. He did this one spoof on the song, “Jesus Take The Wheel” but instead it was Cletus Take The Reel….oh my, it was funny. Had a really good time and it was a fun night out. Today Hugh and Dianne are coming over to watch the race with us and grill out. Tomorrow we might take the trike out and get some riding in before we leave this beautiful area. Would hate to leave and not see any of the back country roads. We hear the rumble of bikes on the road, that goes past the campground, and know this area is a favorite for bikers. The Dragon Tail, an 11 mile stretch with 318 twists and turns is something we might tackle….stay tuned to see if we take on the Dragon !

Button It Up....

Got to the campground to find that there is still snow on the ground, it's bitter cold and the water is frozen up at the spigot. We've decided rather than blow through propane the next couple of months and be worrying about the rig while we're at work...we're just gonna winterize it for a couple of months till the temps get a little better. I hate being cold and I'd have another full-time job tending to everything on our two days off to keep things thawed out, filled up and running smoothly. Not gonna do it....Would rather take the money we'd spend on the rig the next couple of months and dump it on our loan and pay it off quicker. So today I've spent time winterizing the rig....we'll go back to Winston tomorrow after I've dumped the tanks and finished up a few other things around here. Not sure if they'll pull it off the site or not. Hoping not..would be nice to have it in this spot when we come back in March or April. We'll see....

In work news, our boss got fired on Wednesday. Not surprising.... given the track record for regional directors (at least in our region). Linda and I gave him till the end of December. Turned out to be a little sooner than that. So that makes him the 8th one to bite the dust in the last year. The guy who has taken his spot is the east coast director of operations, which would seem to be a position higher up the ladder (as our boss used to be) so not sure that this is a good direction for his career to go in. Seems to be a challenging position that the last eight people haven't been successful at. (I give him till March)

 Linda and I got moved into the manager's apartment on Wednesday night, after finishing our work day. We'll work at getting things organized over the coming weeks. It's very nice and feels even more homey than our co-manager apartment. It is in the opposite direction of the dining room so we don't walk out our door directly into the dining room. We walk out into a hallway that is around the corner from the office. Our front door exits right into the front parking area, although we do have a corner patio area. In other words, we can duck out on our days off without getting cornered by too many people.

The community is starting to look a lot like Christmas. We had to order a tree stand for our 12' tree, as the previous one disappeared. That came in on Tuesday and the tree went up. It should be all decorated by the time we get back there Sunday. Lots of pretty decorations all around the community. We had a large choral group in this week to sing Christmas carols. It was nice but the management team didn't get to enjoy it much as we were tending to one of our residents who had fallen in the dining room. Turns out she broke her femur...Ouch !! She had surgery and will be out for a while, with rehab and such. My son, Jay broke his femur when he was 10 and talk about a painful recovery. After the surgery, where they pound 2 rods up the length of your femur, his poor little knee was the size of small basketball. Lots of morphine, TLC and another surgery to remove the rods and all was well. I feel bad for this lady....she has a long road ahead of her.

Next weekend we travel to Linda B's family Christmas gathering in Chambersburg, PA. We're hoping the weather cooperates since it will be a long road trip. The weekend of Christmas we're hoping to go to Philly to see my son and daughter (she's taking a bus from Boston to Philly) and then take my daughter up to my mom's. We have to be back to work on Monday so will spend Sunday on the road driving. If the weather is bad, all traveling plans are off and the tidings and good cheer will come in a Kahlua bottle and over the phone. We're wishing all of our friends, that we haven't seen in a while, a joyous and refreshing holiday. Some of you are finishing up your stint at Amazon and we've thought of you often, as you play "Santa's helper" this shopping season. Rest your weary bodies in a warm and sunny place this winter and get energized to work once again next spring !! Happy Holidays to you all!!

Holidays Just Around the Corner....

We're trying to finish up projects around the site before the new managers arrive so they can start with a clean slate. I had to work at the North Bergen site yesterday for a while (about 3 hours) and then returned to our site. Today I was playing catch up to try and get the place looking great for us being closed for 1.5 days. Tomorrow we work till noon and then we're closed (the office is closed tenants can still access their units) until Saturday. Saturday I have to return to North Bergen for a while and that will be my last stint there. Once we finish work tomorrow, we need to buy some groceries for a dish Linda is making at her brother's house. We'll go there for supper tomorrow night...Linda will spend the night and I'll return home to hang out with Boomer. At some point Christmas day I'll go back to get her. Linda hasn't seen her niece and her partner for quite some time as she is currently living in Greece.

We are anxious to leave and go to a warmer area for a little while. I contacted the RV Doctor in Inverness, FL today to see if they are able to work on the issues we have and if they deal with extended service contracts. Yes, they are very familiar with extended service plans and I'm awaiting a call about whether they can do all of our repairs. I'm guessing they can do at least two of the three things we need to have done. Seeing how they are a mobile RV repair service, they may not be able to adjust the bedroom slide while sitting on a RV site and not being in a garage. We'll see....we had the RV Doctor do some work for us last year and he does good work. It would be a benefit to us to be able to go directly to a park and have him come to us rather than schedule an appt at a garage somewhere.

For now we are thankful to have two days of rest. I don't know about Linda but I feel exhausted...I need some serious "down time" to rest, do nothing and watch football. Anything that would represent mindless entertainment...not having to think about repairs or cleaning. Sigh....can't wait...Here's hoping that all of our friends and family have the same relaxing experience wherever you are !

Just When We Thought We Had It Figured Out....

Well...seems that the couple who came to check out our site isn't going to take the job so the job has been offered to the couple I interviewed and chose. They will start January 5th...we'll train them for five days and then we are done here. Yay !! We've also been told that we should have some time off, once we finish here, so we want to head to Florida, see our friend Jan and get some work done on our rig before we get another assignment.

Our North Bergen location is really shorthanded so I've been asked to help them out this weekend. I will be going there tomorrow to work. It's about a 30 minute drive to get there so not too bad. I've been to the site before...it's huge....over 1000 units. I haven't worked there...just visited. They also want me to go there on Sunday but it will depend on whether Linda takes the car to go home on Sunday. Ordinarily I wouldn't mind driving Bertha (our second vehicle) to another site but we have a HUGE Nor'easter comin our way and they are calling for 8-12" of snow here. Supposed to start around 9 a.m. tomorrow and snow till Sunday morning, which is when Linda wants to head out for Pennsylvania. I won't try to drive Bertha in a snowstorm, especially when they say we might get 30-50 m.p.h. winds with whiteout conditions. Nope, not gonna do it....and it will probably prevent Linda from going home too for her family Christmas gathering. Tomorrow I will drive our 4 wheel drive car (the Xterra) and I'll be fine getting to North Bergen and back. You can be assured that this storm is something we'll be keeping our eye on. Linda will be working here tomorrow by herself so hopefully it will be a quiet day for her.

Week is Winding Down...

Glad tomorrow is Friday although it doesn't really make much of a difference as I'll be working straight through now till Thanksgiving day. I'm tired....we've been working pretty much seven days a week since one of our assistants quit so it will be nice now that we've hired a new one and he's trained, we can actually have our two days off again. Linda left last night after work to start making her way down to her daughter's place in Virginia Beach. She arrived there this afternoon, safe and sound and she'll stay until Sunday. She'll get to spend time with three of her kids and her one grandson while she is there.

Kind of a slow day at work today as far as customers goes but there is always lots to do. We did have a little bit of excitement....I went home to get some lunch and had just started cooking something when our assistant manager called me and said there was a state policeman in the office. I went over and it turns out they had arrested one of our tenants last night and needed to conduct a search of his storage unit. Luckily they had keys to it so I didn't have to drill the lock out but it didn't turn up any illegal items in it so didn't have a dramatic outcome. Just was interesting to see what happens under circumstances like this. There were a total of four officers that came to conduct the search. They said that it might be a long time before the tenant comes back to make anymore payments on his unit and to keep that in mind as time goes by....

Weather is turning rainy tonight but temps are staying in the mid 50's which is awesome for this time of year. I need to go out and buy some white Christmas lights to hang up outside the office. Might do that tomorrow if it's not busy. Will also need to get a ladder as we don't have anything here other than a step stool. Maybe that will put me in the mood to get out some of our Christmas decorations. We are usually on the go around Christmas time so we don't mess with many decorations around the rig. Last year we did put up a mini Christmas tree which was really cute. I'll have to look for it and get it out. Put a little bit of Christmas spirit in our home.

Sunday

We had a gorgeous day today ! Temps hit 70 degrees, sunny, very little wind. Was a really enjoyable fall day. We went grocery shopping and got supplies for the week. Takes alot of food when we prepare three meals a day here....We'll start out with the pantry full today but come next weekend, it will look like old Mother Hubbard's cupboard. Also got our propane tank filled while we were over that way at the grocery store. It's $33 for a 30# tank....ordinarily I'd hate paying that much for propane but since we get reimbursed by the company..it doesn't sting so bad. Washed up the Xterra before the sun went down so it's been a good day. The NASCAR race is winding down on TV....

We can tell that it's getting close to the holidays cause when we went to Sam's Club, they are now carrying the white stilton cheese with cranberries that we love so much. We first tried this when we went to our friend's Carolyn and Elliot's for dinner and they had this as an appetizer with crackers...it's delicious but you can only find it at holiday time. We've been watching for it and today was the special day when it showed up in the display case.

Well, the drilling of the locks took a total of three days. The assistant and I worked on them two different days and after having two of them be real son-of-a guns and not being able to get them out, I decided to call in the "big guns" to finish up...got our friend Roger to come over from the Hanover site to tackle the last six (and 2 partial ones). He made it look easy but at last we are done. Also had an interview Saturday morning that went well...I think we will have a couple picked very soon. Have another interview on Wednesday and I think at the completion of that, we will be ready to make our final pick. I have a couple in mind...need to see how they make out in their second interview with Peggy. I'm ready to move on...

Prep Time

Well tomorrow we start prepping for next week's auction. We have 25 locks to drill out tomorrow. One of us drills while the other video tapes the drilling, then we photograph the contents with a Polaroid camera (yes, they still have those things around), then tag and lock the unit.That way it's all ready for auction day. We started out with 56 units on the list so not bad to wind up with only 25 that might go. Folks have right up till the time of the auction to pay their balance and get it off the auction list. That is a very real possibility for several more units. If someone pays the balance on any of the units we've already drilled out, then they will need to purchase a new lock to put on their unit. I will work with the assistant manager tomorrow doing the locks so we can share the workload. That way it won't kill my wrists so bad as it would if I had to do it all by myself. Whew !!

Watching the World Series game and holding my breath that the Phillies might pull off tonight's game (not looking good at this point). Another hour will tell but I won't be up to see.

Turning colder here....supposed to be in the high 40's on Friday but then rebounding for the weekend. Rain overnight and tomorrow.

Keep telling myself that I need to get moving and start Christmas shopping but can't get motivated to get started with it. Guess it might help to start making lists of who I might need to buy for and what I might want to buy. Ugggg...

KIVA

For Christmas my daughter had given me a Kiva gift certificate. If you're like me, I had never heard of Kiva. Here is some info from their website on how it works:

Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.
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The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.

Kiva partners with existing expert microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified entrepreneurs. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva, our partners upload their entrepreneur profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them. When you do, not only do you get a unique experience connecting to a specific entrepreneur on the other side of the planet, but our microfinance partners can do more of what they do, more efficiently.

Kiva provides a data-rich, transparent lending platform. We are constantly working to make the system more transparent to show how money flows throughout the entire cycle, and what effect it has on the people and institutions lending it, borrowing it, and managing it along the way. To do this, we are using the power of the internet to facilitate one-to-one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive. Child sponsorship has always been a high overhead business. Kiva creates a similar interpersonal connection at much lower costs due to the instant, inexpensive nature of internet delivery. The individuals featured on our website are real people who need a loan and are waiting for socially-minded individuals like you to lend them money.

Isn't that cool ? I think our government and lending institutions could take notes from KIVA on "transparency of lending". After looking at many profiles, here is who I chose to support with my gift certificate:

Beatrice Etrue is the 40-year-old divorced mother of four children, two currently in senior high school, one in junior high and one in primary school. She lives with her children in a rented apartment in the fishing community of Elmina, one of the country’s tourist attraction centres, near Cape Coast in the Central Region of Ghana. For the past ten years, Beatrice has worked hard as a trader to earn some income to support the family. She deals in all kinds of drinks – malt, fan milk, fan ice, etc., procuring them from wholesale dealers in the regional capital, Cape Coast, and selling in the community market. Beatrice also distributes to other retailers in her community and nearby communities. She is now requesting a loan to procure the products in bulk.

When Beatrice repays my loan, I can then loan it out again to someone else. It is such a neat organization with 100% of the loans going to the loan recipients. People helping people....the way it should be. I was so touched when my daughter gave me this...I have always emphasized with my kids that Christmas is not about presents and monetary things. I feel most holidays have gotten way too commercialized but if we want it to change, it has to begin with us.

Since my 83 yr. old mom has her own candy and jelly making business, my daughter loaned a woman bakery entrepreneur money, in my mom's name, through the KIVA organization. What a wonderful legacy ......to fulfill someone's dreams of owning a business. ...the same kind of business we have been fortunate to own.

I encourage you to check out their web site and see what a positive impact you can make on someone's life....http://www.kiva.org