When The Fun Runs Out…Make More!

 

We left on Thurs. June 26th for a 9 day vacation to Green Bay, WI. I had hoped to escape my day to day life & problems and come back refreshed like you’re supposed to after a vacation. Alas, that was not meant to be. The trip to GB was only a 3 1/2 hr. drive and we were lucky enough to find an open RV spot behind the casino. They charge $15 a night and for that all you get is electricity. It used to be free but they had people living there for over a year and never leaving so I can see why they had to make some changes to the rules. We took things very easy due to Mom’s limitations. We took her with us to gamble once a day for a few hours. When we did other things like go to the cheese factory, meat market and antique mall, she wanted to stay in the RV and rest. So she played games on the ipad and the dogs kept her company. We made sure we were never gone for too long. We cooked all our meals except one in the cabin (what I call the RV). The 3 of us went out for a fish fry at a bar in DePere the day after we got there and it was pretty flavorless. Since we knew we’d be there over a week, we only bought a small amount of cheese and meat that would last us through the weekend. We had plans of going back to the meat market and getting a bunch of meat to take home the next week. We also were counting on hitting the bigger cheese factory for some cheese to take home. Not to mention we had hopes of going strawberry picking while up there. Even a return visit to the antique mall whose prices were so much cheaper than where we live was on my mind.

None of this came to pass. The first 4 days were pretty uneventful. When Monday came we knew the end of the week would be super busy everywhere due to the July 4th holiday. There’s a ton of construction going on in GB now. Trying to save ourselves some grief later in the week, we looked up a place to dump the RV’s waste tanks. We knew we had a couple days before it was full but didn’t want to find out the hard way that they’re full. One trip we had stayed in an RV park in Michigan and they had everything at the site but a dump. That time, we thought we could wait until the day we left to dump (which would have been convenient). Instead the night before, water from the grey line (not the toilet, the sinks) came backing up in the bathtub. From washing dishes too much! Not a lot of water, just enough to let us know we had to empty it immediately. Anyway, this trip, the dump site was not on the property and quite a distance away across town. With the construction, it took us about 20 minutes to get there. It was actually an RV dealer and there was a line. We had to wait about half an hour for the folks ahead of us to use it first. While we were there, we decided to get propane. We had probably 2/3 of a tank already but figured if we ran the refrig. on the way home with a lot of food in it, we didn’t want to take the chance of it running out. So we got that filled. Things went better than we expected since we’d been dreading it. It was great to have it over with and know we wouldn’t have to leave our site from Monday afternoon until Sat. when we left to come home.

Or so we thought. We got back to our site and hubby plugged in the electrical and only a few things worked. The microwave and outlets worked but the slideout (which is the room that expands to make way for a bed in the LR area), the jacks and the refrig. didn’t. This made NO sense. Everything had been in working order when we left earlier that day. We were in the same site with the same plugin and yet: nothing. The refrig. works off of either propane gas or electricity. When we’re driving, we run it on propane, when in a campsite, we run it on electricity. Now it wouldn’t run at all on either one! It boggles the mind. Hubby looked and saw one of the fuses was blown. He tried putting in one from a different area and blew that. Then he went to an auto parts store and bought extra fuses and came back and started blowing those. It’s some electrical problem that can’t be fixed by mere mortals. It has to be something more complicated that someone who went to weeks or months of schooling on RV repairs has to deal with.

Hubby was so mad, I couldn’t even talk to him. We had to regroup and come up with a new strategy. We called the RV dealer we got the propane at first to see if they could take a quick look at it and help us out so we could stay the week. They said they were booked up until July 14th! There was no way we could stay since all our food would spoil if we didn’t go home immediately. Hubby had to go in to the casino and see if he could get a refund for the unused nights we’d paid for. They usually don’t give refunds but said they would take care of it the next day. I’ve had an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since then that nothing will come of it. I’m having hubby call the credit card co. tomorrow to see if they ever did credit us the $75.

It was lunch time so we quick ate some cottage cheese and headed on our way home. We had no bread and our first stop that day was going to be a bake shoppe. We scrapped that idea and left in time to get home about 6:30 pm. Ok, so our vacation was cut short. We won’t even talk about how we wouldn’t have had to go to the RV dealer to dump or get propane if we knew we were leaving. Or that if we’d stayed plugged in all along, it may not have happened at all. Here we were trying to save ourselves grief by taking care of things early and then it backfires. There’s nothing like packing a ton of extra clothes when you think you’re packing for 9 days when it’s really only 4! I kept telling myself that we can adjust and make the rest of it a “staycation”. Just be at home and do some fun things we don’t normally do. We took both weekends off from going to estate sales so we were looking to do something else exciting.

We were lucky that the spot in front of our house was open to park and unload the RV. I wouldn’t want to cart everything from around the block (which we’ve had to do before). It was super hot and muggy and then it started to rain. Rain is no big deal for people who’ve never had their basement flood. When I heard how hard it was raining, I started to panic. I was on edge and checking the basement every 10 minutes for water coming in. Hubby was checking the street and saw it flood all the way across. That’s always disturbing. One of the sewer drains by the curb (not at the intersection but a bit away) is clogged. We’ve tried opening it ourselves with a rake handle but it won’t work. We’ve also both called the city more than once about it and they’ve never done anything. About 10 pm, I was down checking the basement when I literally saw the water coming in by the standpipe, up the drains of the laundry tub and near the foundation. It comes in incredibly fast and I called to Greg to come down and start the sump pump immediately. Meanwhile, I picked up everything I could that was on the floor and carried it upstairs. I know most people think “just don’t put anything on the floor if you know this happens”. Well, that’s just not an option. We just don’t have room. Maybe we have to buy some baker’s racks to put everything on. We were up until almost 2 am waiting for the rain to stop. When the road went down some, we were able to open the standpipe and the water drained out. It was all clean rain water. No garbage or dirt or sewage like we’ve had happen before. Things could have been a lot worse. If I subscribed to “everything happens for a reason”, I’d think that’s why we had to come home early, to be there in time to catch the flood before anything was ruined. But I don’t believe in that at all. If I did, what, pray tell, would be the reason we needed to flood in the first place?! 😦

No one needs that kind of excitement. Especially us on the very same day we came home early from vacation due to an emergency. The next day, hubby took the RV back to the storage place in Elgin since we can’t it in to our dealer for repair unitl the 10th. Then we spent the day sucking the water up with our rug cleaner. We tried to get as much up before we shampooed the carpet. You can imagine it takes forever for a damp basement to dry out. We’ve got a dehumidifier down there and it runs constantly. We used to run a large box fan down there which helped get some air circulating to dry it out but it got wet in one of the past few floods and quit working. Yesterday we were finally able to put everything back downstairs and resume living.

As you can imagine, I was beyond depressed after what transpired. Other bad things kept happening as the days went by too. Including but not limited to: a charming ceramic teapot clock I bought from someone on Instagram came broken beyond repair, our new furnace rebate from Nicor Gas was rejected again (it’s $300), our Postal claim for the lost package was denied with no reason why again.($50), our 2nd half of last year’s property taxes came in the mail due Aug. 1 ($3645) and we’ve been getting a ridiculous amount of spoofing phone calls. I can’t even keep track of all the bad things that have been happening. I have to believe it’s NORMAL to be down after an avalanche of bad things happening. I honestly can’t remember being THAT down for awhile though. Not since the last time our basement flooded June 25th, 2013. Any of the things I mentioned would be enough to go wrong at one time but to be inundated with THAT MANY in such a short time, is a real test of strength and fortitude. I allowed myself 2 or 3 days to sulk and feel sorry for myself and then I started to gather my bearings and start over again at life.

When I say that I’m starting over, I don’t mean with gung ho or gusto. I’m slowly lifting myself back up to my usual positive self. I can’t live life negatively for too long or the outcome would be nothing short of tragic. I’m not the most resilient person in the world but I like to think I can bounce back with a little time and effort. Obviously, things are never as grim as they seem or as I make them out to be. Believe it or not, it was hard to think of anything to be grateful for for a few days there. Now I can be thankful that: no one died, no one is in physical pain, we still have a roof over our heads, something to eat, etc They come easily to me now but maybe that’s the blessing of time and perspective.

Needless to say, our staycation was NOT stress-free. We were drowning in stress. But we lived to face another day FILLED WITH PROBLEMS. Just kidding (I think). Our fun was cut short and none was readily available so we made our own. Yesterday, we worked outside, trimming all the bushes and trees in our front and backyard. We weeded the veggie gardens and the potted herbs. We got busy cleaning up the mess that is our lives and tried to find order where there was none. After we were done, we were exhausted but had a sense of pride and accomplishment that only hard work you do yourself can bring. It may not sound like fun but it was. We had the dogs in back with us while we were working and we got to watch them playing together. We got sunshine and fresh air and exercise that wasn’t scheduled. Hard work clears the mind, strengthens the body and frees the soul. I also realized that when I’m depressed, the best medicine is hugging the dogs. 🙂 My advice for the week is if there’s no fun to be had…go make some!