End of First Week....

Today was our last day of work for the week....off till 6:30 a.m. Sunday morning. We will now open and close on our own. Have learned how to lock/unlock doors, where all the light switches are, make the morning coffee, etc. Today Linda and I helped run the crossword puzzle activity due to the other co-manager needing to give a tour. We had a great time with the ladies....they are sharp as a tack at completing the puzzles. Yesterday was Cinco De Mayo so a group of the folks in our Spanish club (led by their amazing 94 year old teacher who speaks fluent Spanish)sang a cute little song during lunch. You would never, in a million years, guess that the instructor is 94. She is very youthful looking and has no impairment whatsoever with walking. You would swear that she is in her sixties or seventies but certainly not in her nineties.

Nice breeze blowing this evening. I shut the air conditioning off and opened all the windows and the door to the patio. Boomer likes to walk out there and look through the railing to see what might be going on down below us. Tomorrow we're going to search for the local dog park so Boomer can get some exercise.

BEEP BEEP Bingo.....

View from our living room here in Virginia....

Training is going well. We watched a whole lot of videos, have helped serve lunch, bussed tables and today I worked with one of the managers waiting on a group of 18 women there for a business lunch. One of the residents passed away on Thursday so this afternoon was the service, which took the managers out of the building. That left us with the co-managers and they were tied up with other things so we had to oversee the bingo game. The bingo game was in the same room where the business luncheon was so we had to bus the tables, tear down...reset the room in time for the game at 2:00. Just as we started the game, (I called the numbers and Linda sat with the residents, poised to jump up and check the winning card)the fire alarm went off. These are really loud alarms with strobe lights. Do you know how hard it is to call out bingo numbers when these are going off every minute or two ? I-24...BEEP BEEP BEEP....O-75...BEEP BEEP BEEP....Turns out the fire department was there to check the alarm system which entails checking that the alarm, in every single room (we have 115 of them) activates when set off. Oh brother !! So for an hour and a half, the alarms were going off. Linda and I had a great time with the ladies though.....first time we've ever called a bingo game. This time they were playing for "funny money". There are all different types of bingo that are played here.

We're really enjoying the residents and the info we're learning. The residents are so great and just hearing them saying "thank you" after the game was worth a million bucks. They knew that everyone else was busy and couldn't run their game but they were so appreciative that Linda and I made it happen for them. We were happy to do it !

Today our day started at 6:30. We learned how to open the building and get the coffee ready for the early birds. Then we went back to our room till the day really starts at 7:30....just before breakfast. We finished up at 3:30 and now we don't go in until 11:30 tomorrow. We'll work till close tomorrow (around 7:30 or so) and lock up the building at 9. The days go by so quickly....so much of the day is spent eating and being in the dining room with the residents...LOL..We'll get into more of the administrative work over the coming weeks. We're excited to learn all of it !

First Day of Training.....

Today was our first official day of training. We spent the bulk of it watching videos on a variety of subjects. Holiday has a very extensive training program with excellent information. They have gotten everything down to a science with operational issues. We really like Paul and Rosemary, the managers here....they are great teachers. They are originally from Pittsburgh so native Pennsylvanians like us. We have another day of watching videos tomorrow and then on Tuesday we'll start learning the operational side of things.

It was so hot here yesterday and even worse today. High 90's and very high humidity. I think someone forgot to tell Mother Nature that spring comes in before summer. I think they skipped it altogether....It's only the beginning of May. Not the time to have temps in the 90's just yet. Right now....at 9:30 at night it's 85 degrees. How's that for hot ?!?! Yikes !

My daughter Becky flew to Nashville Saturday morning to visit with some friends from the Recording Academy office down there. She got there in time for all the serious flooding that has been taking place. A state of emergency has been declared. Opryland hotel was evacuated today. She said it is so bad down there....roads all around where she is staying have been closed. Poor kid can't even get out to sightsee.....many of the streets are under water and things are closed. She's not even sure if her flight will get out of there....all flights today were cancelled. :(

Tonight Linda's daughter Stephanie came over, after work, and they shot some pool after supper. Linda got her butt whooped so then the three of us sat down and played a game of scrabble. A good time...

Training in Virginia..

We left Winston-Salem after breakfast on Friday to make the drive to Chesapeake, VA to Lighthouse Point for our management training. We have been told we'll be here for six weeks. We arrived here a little before 3 p.m. and got our stuff moved up to the room. This facility is almost completely occupied so I think we are in the last room they have left to rent. It's a large room on the front corner of the property...overlooking the entrance. Weather getting here yesterday was gorgeous. We had all the windows down so the warm breezes could blow through the car.

Last night we went out to dinner with Linda's daughters Laurie and Stephanie and Laurie's husband and two kids. We went to a great Mexican restaurant...the food was very good.

After dinner we went to a frozen yogurt bar where they had a kazillion different toppings to put on the yogurt. Linda and I shared strawberry yogurt that I had topped with fresh strawberries, chocolate chips, hot fudge and hot caramel. Yum !! Went back to Laurie's house long enough to see the kids off to bed and then we returned to our facility. (We are only 10 miles from their house)

This morning we had breakfast in the dining room with the residents. We met Helen and Rudy, the co-managers here. They seem like super nice people and I'm sure we'll be working with them quite a bit while we are here. We're still not sure if we start our training tomorrow or Monday. Rudy is going to try and find that out and let us know. More later....

Pictures

 On our way south to our new home in North Carolina, we stopped at Cracker Barrel, near Winchester,VA to have coffee with Linda's best friend Susie (also her sister-in-law).

Linda's sister Carol and her boyfriend Barry. We visited with them during our overnight stay in Greencastle, PA.



Packed and ready to go to Virginia for our training...

The Winston-Salem Visitors Bureau....It's an old cotton mill.

The inside of the visitors bureau....gorgeous old building.

Out back of the bureau...

The Cure...

Isak Dinesen said that "The cure for anything is salt water -- sweat, tears, or the sea." Today has been a day for remembering and "curing". We got a call this morning, from our friend Jan's doctor in Florida, that she passed away the other day. Apparently the landlady, where she lives, had not seen her out in a couple of days so she called the police. The police found her in the bathroom. She had fallen and hit her head. We're not sure if the fall killed her or if she had a heart attack. We only hope that she did not suffer and passed quickly.

We had just spent seven weeks with Jan and had last seen her in mid February. We were at Jan's place visiting when I used her computer and found out that we needed to report to our last assignment in North Brunswick, NJ. We went back to our campsite, packed up and left Florida the next day. That was the last time we saw Jan.

Jan was one of the first RV'ing friends we made when we went on the road in 2007. When we started out in our rig we went to Texas and worked at the Escapees Care Center. Jan was staying there and we became friends with her. She had come off the road, after RV'ing for many years in a motorhome. Jan had applied to a housing complex in Florida and was hoping to relocate in the near future. She was so happy when she got the call that they had an opening and that she could now move. We were also happy that she would be on the east coast where it would be easier for us to see her.

Looking back, we are so glad that we got the break in our jobs that allowed us to go to Florida and spend that time with her. She had a wonderful sense of humor and loved to sit and watch the birds at the feeder outside her window. When we were down there we gave her a suet cake holder that attached with a suction cup to her window so she could see the birds even closer. We will miss her dearly. We stayed in touch on the phone and by e-mail. In her e-mail, around Easter time, she had asked us if we had bought a new Easter bonnet. Yeah...right. That was Jan.....a great sense of humor and a great friend. Happy trails, Jan !

More Pics...

Today was our first official day of work. We did a lot of paperwork, watched a couple of videos and poured coffee during the meals. The residents are great !..They are always laughing and having a good time. They have gotten a big kick out of both of us being named Linda...We've told them to call us by the nickname that stuck at our last job...."B" & "S"..that makes them giggle. We can't be BS because there is a gentleman here who goes by that. He's a Yankees fanatic !! Last night he gave us Yankees pencils and told us that we can't ever sharpen them. The door to his apartment is covered in Yankees stuff...his car too. He's a character !

Here are some pictures of the dining room. The entrance to our apartment is right off of the dining room. We use the back door, that exits onto the patio, to leave by each morning. That way Boomer thinks we are leaving for work and doesn't see people or activity and he is nice and calm throughout the day. We just tell him that it's "time to go to work"...give him a treat (that he has started to snub us on) and then we leave by the back door. Tricky, eh ? With a Border Collie, you have to be sneakier than they are. Sometimes they are just too smart for their own good.

Well, change of plans for our upcoming training. We got to meet our boss, Sam , this afternoon. He informed us that we will now be in Chesapeake, VA for six weeks of training instead of two. And probably not go to Charlotte at all for the last bit of training. So we'll be in one spot for all the training and it will last two more weeks than we anticipated. In several regards it will be better to have all on-site training instead of classroom role playing, etc. but it means 2 more weeks that our managers will have to work without us. They are exhausted and they only have floaters committed to help them for just this week. Yikes....Hope they can hold out for six weeks till we get back.

We are off tomorrow. Going to try and find a dog park and see the area before we head out Friday for Virginia.

Our New Home....

The back of our apartment...that's our patio where the brick columns are and the large overhang.

The view from our living room and bedroom windows....

The walking path behind the building...it goes all the way around the facility.

View of the front of the facility..

The parking lot that leads to the back where we parked Bertha and the rig....

Bertha and the rig in their new home...

An herb garden that someone has out back by our patio...

We spent today getting the rig squared away. Emptied and cleaned the frig...moved more items in and got them settled and have met some of the residents. Our apartment is bigger than I thought it would be. The kitchen is galley style with a full size frig (all the items from our RV frig fit on one shelf IN THE DOOR), dishwasher, garbage disposal, bunches of cupboards, electric stove and sink area. The living room/dining room kitchen area probably measures 12' x 30'. The bedroom/bathroom area is the same size...it's huge. At this point it appears that the furniture here will remain. There is a sofa, chair, TV and stand, 2 end tables, table and floor lamps, queen size bed (that is so comfy), 2 dressers and 3 large closets. Lots of storage space ! We're very happy with everything.

Our bedroom with a view of the grounds out back...

Whew....based on the three meals we had today, we're going to need to hit the exercise equipment upstairs if we don't want to pack on the pounds. For breakfast we had juice, coffee/tea, scrambled eggs and french toast casserole. At lunch, we had shrimp creole over rice, fresh baked roll, salad, broccoli spears and cake for dessert. Dinner consisted of home-made soup, egg salad sandwich with lettuce and tomato, french fries and dessert. Yumm !! It was all wonderful. I keep thinking that we need to leave a tip when we get up from the table since we've been waited on by servers. All of the staff members that we've met seem super. We are really enjoying getting to know Rick and Susan. I think we are going to have a great time working with them....it seems like we will work really well together.

We've met several of the residents already and they are all super nice, funny and very anxious to have us come on board. There are lots of great activities here. Our room is right next door to the activity room so we got to listen and watch some of the bell ringer group when they met today (they're called the ding-a-lings - how cute). It was cool to watch how they played these tunes by using color coded bells and flash cards with the corresponding colors. You see your bells color on the card when she holds it up, you ring your bell. And all the various size and type of bells ringing made for some beautiful music. It was really cool to watch. Tonight there are groups playing dominoes (Hey Bobbie and Jim - it's Mexican train!). There are some guys shooting pool. There are some others having a wine tasting party....Lots of neat stuff going on ! Linda has already spied several areas where there are big puzzles being put together - I think if she disappears some days I might find her in these little alcoves working on them. :)

We're trying to get permission to do our paperwork and start work tomorrow but no word yet. If not, then we're going to go out and explore the area to see what is nearby. I had a good feeling about this place when I drove through from the highway to here and passed Robin Hood Road, Guinevere Lane and Sherwood Forest. I love anything to do with Robin Hood....I'll save that story for another time. Stay tuned....

We Arrived....

On Saturday I had dumped and flushed all the tanks, emptied the hot water heater and got more stuff packed up. The weather prediction was for a lot of rain from Saturday night on so I really wanted to get all the outside stuff done. Saturday, after work, we went out to Omega Diner with Linda's brother and his wife for a great meal. It was a great way to spend our last night in Jersey....food was great and the company superb !

As I predicted, Sunday was a whirlwind kind of day. It started out slow in the office but there were plenty of last minute things for us to do with the rig. We stripped the bed and washed up all the sheets and the last of our laundry. It had started raining Saturday evening, as expected, so I was so thankful that all the outside stuff was done. Tried to get to the point where we could get hooked on and pull the rig out of its spot, around the corner to the back of the property so we could get turned around for a straight shot out the gate. That didn't happen....The new roving managers arrived to take over for us and there was all the transitioning of money and information that took place from 1:30 to 3, when we closed. We finished explaining everything to them about 2:45 and then started to get off the site. By the time we got the GPS fired up and got the rig turned around, it was 3:30 when we left the property. I followed Linda in the car and off we went...headed to Greencastle, PA for our first stop. Arrived at the truck stop in Greencastle around 8 p.m. and locked the rig up. We jumped in the car and went to spend the night at Linda's sister's house. Got to see her sisters Kay and Carol and their family....had a good time since it had been a while since we last saw them.

Left Greencastle, PA at 8:30 this morning...bound for North Carolina. Stopped in Virginia, at a Cracker Barrel so we could visit with Linda's sister-in-law who is also her best friend since high school. Had a great time catching up with her, while nibbling on some blueberry pancakes. Yum !! Got back on the road and made it here to our new home about 5:30 p.m. I had driven ahead to check out the entrance to the property and how best for Linda to get in here with the rig. I was worried when I saw the area where we were supposed to park the rig. It looked like we'd have to back the whole length of the parking lot, around one bend and then another sharper bend to get to the desired spot. Eeekk !! I made Linda stop at the entrance and we walked back to assess the situation. She said, "Oh, I'm just gonna drive back here and pull in there...straighten it up and back in there." Wow...and she did just that ! It was awesome !! She is turning into a super duper backer upper !!What a woman !!

So we have unloaded some of our stuff..Have to get the frig unloaded and more things in here but we are tuckered out. Rick and Susan are the couple we'll be working with and he asked what we're doing until we leave for training on Friday. Asked him why and he said that our boss figured we'd start work here tomorrow and learn about this property. Holy smokes...the engine isn't even cold yet in either vehicle and they want us to start work. Not seeing that happen tomorrow....lots to do yet with the rig to get it ready to store..so to speak...then we can start work. Maybe Wednesday....

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of our apartment. We have a wonderful patio in the back with a peaceful and beautiful view of the lush grass and landscaping. See ya tomorrow....

Yes, The Blog Will Go On....

Friends have asked and I keep forgetting to address it here. Yes, even though we are coming off the road, the blog will continue ! You're not off the hook that easy...LOL..Where else can I rant..a.k.a vent and feel so much better when I'm done ? There should be lots to talk about in North Carolina. A new state...new town....new job...and lots of residents with awesome stories to tell. Of course, the show will go on....Stay tuned...