beyond cinderella

In my last post, I wrote about taking our motorhome into the shop to have carpet replaced in the bedroom and on one of the slide-outs (dining area). The rest of our rig has tile. We were told when we first made the arrangements to have this project done that it would take two days to complete the job. However, as with most home improvement projects, we’ve learned to hope for the best, and expect the worst… While it wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened with our home improvement projects, our two-day commitment to complete the job, quickly started turning into three days. I thought this posting would be a good time to let you know what we did for two and a half days without our home, after we spent the first trying to get our laundry done.

On day two, we decided we would go see the movie The Mule, staring Clint Eastwood. Both Bill and I enjoyed the movie and it gave us a couple of hours to sit and relax, and it took our minds off of thinking about when we were going to get our motor home back. We really were not too worried at that point because we knew we still had another day  off before we need to go back to our hosting jobs at the Visitor Center at McDowell Mountain Regional Park. After the movie, we enjoyed a lovely lunch at PF Chang’s. Then off we went back to our room at the hotel still thinking all is going well with our carpet replacement project. We decided we would make a call to get a status on where they are in regards to getting our carpet replacement completed. That’s when we were told that it was not going to be ready until Thursday,  the day we needed to go back to work.  That was NOT the answer we wanted to hear. If we would have been able to get our motor home back on Wednesday, it would have given us time to get it set up, and put back all of our belongings that we had to store in order for them to take the bed and dining area booths out to replace the carpet. In addition, we had to get our bed made up again, and get groceries for the upcoming week. We were both scheduled to work our half shift day Thursday. Now, this put us into putting the plan (B) in place. I am a big believer in always having a plan (B). Plan (B) was that I would drop Bill off at RV Renovators the next morning at 7 A.M. and I would go on to open the Visitor Center at 8:00. We were hoping  that Bill would be able to take possession of our home first thing that morning, get it back to the park and set up, and come to relieve me from the Visitor Center by 12:00 noon so I could go get the groceries (we had to really limit, and store the few groceries we had, because we knew we would be unplugged for the time our motorhome was in the shop) and try to put our home back together again so we can live comfortably once again…

On the morning of day three, we notified the morning desk clerk, at La Quinta Inn, of our situation and asked if we reserve our room for another night, and we get notified our motor home is ready, can we cancel without fees. She assured us we had until 6:00 P.M. to cancel without a fee. Good news to us. So in an effort to pass more time, and take our minds off our current situation, we went back to the movies, and saw Ben Is Back staring Julia Roberts. Seems like we had a little drug theme movie thing going on… Again, we both thought that was a good movie. Julia Roberts always delivers a great performance in my opinion.

When we returned to our hotel around 2:00 that afternoon, and were “patiently” waiting in the lobby of our hotel for our room to be cleaned, we received a call from RV Renovators letting us know our motorhome was ready. We were very excited to know we would be back in our home that day, but as a result, it cost us $50.00 to cancel the room we reserved earlier in the day. We would not have had a problem with that except for the fact that in the morning, before we went out to the movie, we told the girl at the front desk about our situation. We  explained that we are full-time RV, that we were having our motorhome carpet replaced, and that we were not sure if it would be done later that day or if we would need to stay another night. She assured us if we reserved our room that morning , for another night, we would have until 6:00 P.M. to cancel without any cancellation fees…However, when the call came in at about 2::00 p.m.  (check-in is 3:00 P.M.) and we told by the new, change of shift person at the front desk, that we needed to cancel our room for that night, we were told it was too late to cancel ,and we needed to pay for the night. We explained what the morning person told us, and were told to wait while this afternoon person checked with her manager… Finally, she came back and told us we wound need to pay $50.00 even though we never even stayed in that room at all… We just chalked it up to another case of the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing…

In the end, both Bill and I are very happy with how our carpet replacement looks, and we are VERY happy to have our home back, because there really is no place like home…

As a final thought, I have to say, through all of this home improvement “adventure”, both Bill and I were able to laugh, and keep our spirits up. Bill and I contribute that to some very positive changes we’ve made in our lives this year that are working very well for us.

Stay Tuned!

On Monday, January 7, 2019, we took our motorhome in to have carpet replaced in the bedroom and dining area slide out. In order to do that, we had to pack up everything that was stored under our bed because they had to take the bed out in order to replace the carpet, and everything in the storage under the dining area booths had to be removed because the booths had to be removed to replace the carpet there. Then, we were told to have our motorhome at the renovations company by 7:A.M. so they could begin the work. We arrived promptly at 7:00 A.M. only to find the service manager that took our order and told us to be there by 7:00 A.M didn’t show up until 8:00 and no one else knew anything about why we were there or what we needed… this was not a good sign to us that we were going to have a positive experience from the get go… But, we wanted to stay positive in our thinking as it was too late to back out at that time. Finally, the service manager arrives and tells us we are free to go as we leave our home in their good hands, and that we had a three-day promise of delivery back to us…

We left the RV shop and drove to a coinless laundromat, something we have never used before. We went in thinking we would need to use our credit card to operate the machines. Sounded easy, and like the only way we were going to do it without coins, and since no one was working in the facility to ask, we set out to buy laundry soap (ours was back in our motorhome at the shop). We put our bank credit card into the slot and pushed the appropriate button. Nothing came out. So we tried again, and again, and again thinking we were doing something wrong because the message going across the screen kept saying “insert card correctly”. Finally, we asked the only other person in there if she knew how to get soap out of the machine. She didn’t speak English very well, but was more than willing to try to help us. She didn’t notice we were trying to use our bank credit card, so between Bill and this woman, they figured out we could use coins on this machine.

Now that we had our soap, we quickly put the correct amount of soap into the regular washers, sorted and put our clothes into the regular size washers, put our bank credit card into the slot, pushed start, and got the message “insert card correctly”. We tried this again and again until we finally decided the washers we picked must not be working…

So we quickly went back and bought more soap (we already put all our previously purchased soap into the regular washers), and we removed our clothes from the regular washers and put one load into the bigger washer directly behind us thinking surely these washers will work… But still nothing happened when we put our bank credit card into the slot. We still got the message “insert card correctly”…. What to do? What could we do but go and ask the nice lady that helped us get our soap if she used her “card” on the washes. She said she did, so we told her we are trying to use ours but it isn’t working.

She came over, looked at the card we were using, and told us “that’s a bank card”, we asked what she used and she directed us to the machine where we needed to use our bank card to purchase the Easy Card that operates the machines.

I can’t even say “who knew”, because apparently everyone that came in there before, while, and after we were there all know…

Once we understood the right card to use, we put all our clothes back into the regular washes we had already put or laundry soap in except for the one bigger washer we had already put bleach in to wash our whites. We didn’t realize that the bigger washers were a LOT more expensive than the regular washers. As a result of our lack of knowledge of coinless washers/dryers, it coast us over $4.00 to wash this tiny load of whites instead of $2.00 in the regular washers… But hey, the bleach we fought hard to buy was already in that washer… Ha! :):) We are so thankful, and grateful, to the woman that helped us learn how to use these washers/dryers and soap machine. I didn’t take her picture, and we didn’t get her name, as she seemed focused on getting her own laundry done, and we had already interrrupted her enough.

After a long, hard morning, of learning the world of coinless laundromats, we went out to lunch, and visited the local mall to walk around and get our exercise in while waiting for our room at La Quinta inns & Suites to be ready. We were surprised when we received an email saying our room was ready 3 hours earlier than we expected. We’ve stayed at La Quinta several times before in Arizona, and other states, and we are never disappointed.

We are enjoying a beautiful, spacious room, while we wait for our home on wheels.

While we wait for our motorhome repairs to be completed, Bill and I are thankful, and grateful, that we have the means to stay in a beautiful place while we are temporally without our home. That said, we also pray for those that are truly homeless, some of their own making, but many through no fault of their own. It’s hard to tell the difference, but I pray for them all, that they find food, water, shelter, and a way to get their lives back on track.

Stay Tuned!