Easter with Family

 Easter is traditionally a family affair with the Gulds. Jim's sister, Debbie has always put on a big spread and invited multiple generations over to get together and celebrate.

We didn't "do" Easter last year ... or Thanksgiving ... or Christmas. This year, since the 4 old folks have all been vaccinated - the meet up was ON. The 3 younger folks were also invited but told to keep their distance. It felt quite normal, and the food was awesome!

Even a homemade cake for family members with birthdays this month.

I was especially impressed with the orchids they had around their house. What a beautiful flower! And, nothing says spring, like beautiful flowers.

Thanks for being such a great host Debbie!

My contribution was making some fun JibJab videos:

Debbie, Jim, and 3 kids/cousins dancing

The 4 old folks dancing

HAPPY EASTER

Isolation elation

If this past year has taught me anything, it's how much I love our home. I thank my mom every day for finding and buying this place back in 1989. I'm also grateful that I didn't sell it back in 2010 when she moved into assisted living and Jim and I were still Fulltime RVers. It is a little piece of heavenly jungle in the middle of a big, busy city. 

Both Jim and I have separate office spaces and we've both used this year to improve our spaces to our liking. 

I've learned that I like to stay home!

Yesterday was the first time I ventured out on my own to do a little shopping. I was in for a rude awakening. Traffic was abysmal. The stores were busy. Wearing a mask is uncomfortable. And the stores  didn't even have what I wanted. I was so happy to get back home to the views of the trees and the sound of the birds. I'll stay content to get anything I need delivered from Amazon or Publix.

Is this how agoraphobia starts?

The world stops ... again

I get my regular mammograms--they say there may be something suspicious, keep a close watch.

Get your mammogram girls!

Bad News

Several months later I feel a lump and call the doctor to arrange a follow up mammogram and an ultrasound. They still come back inconclusive, so it's off to a biopsy. The doctor says, "it doesn't look like anything to worry about, probably just a cyst." So, I was surprised when it came back positive.

Yikes, what now? My personal doctor sets me up with appointments with a surgeon and an oncologist. She says treatment is usually several months of chemo and or radiation. That means we have to cancel all travel this year ... again. The world stops ... again. Luckily, we've gotten accustomed to staying home and we have a wonderful home. All is ok on that front.

Luckily I'm old enough to be on medicare, so at least we don't have to worry about the financial burden.  

I have several friends right now going thru breast cancer at various stages. It's not fun, but it's doable. It's definitely survivable. So I'm not worried. I go to the surgeon and arrange a date - April 8. Then I go to the oncologist ...

Good News!

The oncologist was happy to see me. He likes patient visits where he has good news! We chatted a bit, he looked at the biopsy results and tells me that the cancer is so tiny that the biopsy procedure got rid of most of it. The surgery will surely get the rest, and I won't need any chemo or radiation therapy. Travel should not be a problem!

What a relief. I can breathe again. I have a hard time believing it. We think about our summer travel plans again - put them back on the calendar. 

Bad News

Just as a precaution, since I have a history with asthma, I'm scheduled for a chest xray and visit with a pulmonologist. I breathe just fine - haven't had any bouts with asthma in many years. Should be smooth sailing. 

Not so fast. I'm told the Xray shows a spot on my lung. Once again inconclusive - don't know what it means - but I need a CT scan before they'll clear me for surgery.

stay tuned ...

RV Rally - old friends, new friends

We're so glad to have gotten our vaccines in February, that made us feel safe to attend the FMCA RV rally in Perry Georgia. On our way up, we stayed overnight at a Cracker Barrel - that's our favorite place when we're in "just-gotta-get-there" mode. You get dinner and breakfast - and a safe-feeling sleeping spot.

When we get to Perry we go straight to our spot. Most people attending a large RV rally like this are a little lost, but we've done this rally, in this location, at least 4 times: 2018, 2016, 2014, 2011 . It's beautiful weather and we are quite happy to be here.

We've intentionally lightened our schedule compared to last years, so we're feeling less stressed and can enjoy taking a bike ride around the fairgrounds.

The first day we presented 2 seminars, the second day 1, and the third day 1.  No printed materials this time, we just put everything online and told our audiences to go to a web page to get it. Easy peasy.

It was awkward for people to have to wear a mask, but everyone was a good sport and they set up way fewer chairs for social distancing, but I still think we had at least 100 folks in each seminar. I just love a live audience! We had a good time.

Jim brought 5 lobster from the freezer so we could invite some old friends, Mike and Darlene over for lobster dinner. We also invited a new friend, Meagan. She was parked right next to us in the seminar presenters parking area because she was giving seminars on solo RVing. Check out her cute little camper/trailer in the background.

Meagan also took a little video when she visited our seminar on Google Photos. Learn more about Meagan on her website: HerFineMess.com

On the way home we stopped at Alex's near Gainesville, and were treated with an outdoor music show by Mark Miale . Both Alex and Mark were in my High School graduating class.

What a nice getaway.

Getting our covid vaccines

We're in line at the parking lot of the Hard Rock stadium. I figure that someone from Disney world must have helped design this operation. One giant, empty parking lot is used. They set up big drive-thru tents where the shots are administered. Then lines of cars snake around the parking lot until they reach a tent. It's like the tent is a ride at Disney. The lanes to drive are designated by hundreds of orange traffic cones. It takes several hours to snake from the parking lot entrance to a tent.

We came here for our first shot 3 weeks ago. For several weeks before that we had been checking the website and calling every number we heard about in an attempt to snag an appointment. What finally did the trick was a viewer of our YouTube show. During the show we always spend a couple minutes saying what we are up to and we mentioned our failed attempts to get an appointment. A woman who was watching sent us an email with a new phone number that had worked for her. I immediately dialed the number, a person answered and gave us an appointment in 4 days time! We were thrilled and so thankful for the kindness of strangers.

We were in line about 3.5 hours on that first visit, but we drove the van so we had our own bathroom as well as some snacks. We got our shots and felt downright giddy we were so happy to believe there was a light at the end of the tunnel of this pandemic.

Now we're back in a similar line. We got here at 12:40.

Yay! We're done. We got our 2d shot. Two more weeks of waiting, and we're supposed to be 95% protected for COVID 19. 

We left at 3:20 - 2 hours 40 minutes. Such a small price to pay for a new lease on life.