Archive for February, 2010

Hello! Today I didn’t do too much. It rained the first half of the day but it was cold all day long – sweat shirt weather. I had bought four books yesterday at Barnes and Nobles and after reading 38 pages of one of them, two books went back today. Two of the four books I bought weren’t what I expected them to be. I was disappointed, but I cut my losses and got my money back. The other two were fiction, so I’ll keep those and see how those are over the next few days. I plan on keeping those. This is the second time in my life I’ve returned a book to the bookstore.
After the bookstore we stopped at a tourist shop and I picked up some postcards and looked around for other souvenirs that might catch my eye. I ended up just buying three postcards. And let me tell you, postcards aren’t cheap in Kissimmee! When I was in Las Vegas, I could easily get postcards 12 postcards for a dollars and here in Kissimmee I can’t find a postcard under 40 cents each! After shopping and buying only my postcards I stopped at Dunkin Donuts and got my weekly hot tea……okay, okay, daily hot tea. Boy, tough audience today!
Anyways, the remainder of the day I took Jake for a walk when the rain let up and watched TV for the rest of the night. I also watched the status of Hawaii throughout the day and caught the last 80 laps of the NNS race that was in Las Vegas today. I will be watching Nascar tomorrow and I’m already predicting a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch! Yummy! Everything is great here, just waiting for better weather so I can sit outside and read my new books! Have a great night and I’ll be back tomorrow, oh, and thanks for checking on me!

Hello! Hey, the weekend is here! Yippee! Today was a simple day and I don’t have much to report except that we are loving the new tire pressure monitoring system so far (keyword: so far). I want to fool around with it a little bit more tomorrow to see what else I can get out of it, but so far so good. This thing (and I’ll have to get the make and model for you tomorrow), but this thing is 1) user friendly, 2) tells you the tire pressure AND the temperature of the tire, and 3) has a back up battery with an automatic back light for those dark moments!!! Oh, and 4) it took me less than 5 minutes to set up and the monitor is so light that it comes with a clip that locks the monitor to your dashboard vent! I will complete my reviews of these two tire pressure monitoring systems soon. But, like I said, I want to fiddle with it a little more tomorrow too.
So, we test drove the tire pressure monitoring system today by going to my second home – Barnes and Nobles! On our way to Barnes and Nobles which is 10 miles away and mostly highway and I can see on the tire pressure monitoring system that as the temperature on rear tires on the pickup rose, the tire pressure went up 2psi. Not bad for accuracy. This system comes with 6 sensors, we put 4 on the Montana and two on the rear tires of the pickup. And this is not one of those that if your tire pressure drops a certain “percentage” (if you lose 12% of your tire pressure the alarm will go off like the first one we bought that we returned), this particular one we have now you set a specific psi amount (like 65 psi) and if it drops below that number the alarm will buzz. Two entirely different gadgets that does the same thing in two entirely different ways. Anyways, more about that later….
So, we went to Barnes and Nobles which I can get lost in there for hours easily and I bought four books to keep me from clawing at my laptop because of the bad internet signal we have at this RV park. Speaking of claws….Jake’s face is healing super nicely. Poor guy had only one bad dream since the clawing incident with the cat next door. He’s doing great though. It’s been chilly the last few days and it’s suppose to be cold out tomorrow but after that it should get back up into the 70′s again and I’m looking forward to putting Jake in the basket on the front of the bicycle for a spin around the RV park and go over to Dunkin Donuts across the street! (I just re-read that run-on sentence! Ha! I’m not fixing it!)
Soooo, tonight we ate dinner at Denny’s across the street here. Ha! When you live on US-192 everything “right across the street”. It was good. Predictable food, predictable service, and predictable prices! Now, I’m watching the Olympics and relaxing on the couch with Jake. Have a great night and have a super weekend. Stay warm to my friends and family in New England, I did hear about the 65 mph winds and the lengthy power outages. You are on my mind!

Hi! Well today was a simple day. This morning we returned the tire monitoring system we bought from Campers World and bought the other brand of tire pressure monitoring system they had in stock. They had two devices, different makes and models. The new one we picked up today we didn’t get a chance to try out because when we got back to the RV with the new tire pressure monitoring system I got a phone call from my aunt and cousin. My cousin was on her way up to visit my aunt and my aunt wants us to come up to visit her too. Hey, I don’t care how much I’m a tech geek, family comes first. So the new tire pressure monitoring device was tossed in the back seat for a day of visiting with family up in Groveland, Florida. We had a great time talking and laughing and having lunch together. Nothing makes me more happy than getting a chance to visit with family and friends.
After we left my aunts home, we came back down to Kissimmee and stopped by “Old Town” and gave Jake a chance to walk around town. It was a tad chilly tonight so I put a jacket on him and we wore him out. Temperature dropped to 55 degrees by 7pm.
Back at the RV, I fed Jake and he quickly fell asleep in his little bed, I settled in to watch American Idol, and pretty much watched TV for the rest of the night.
So it looks like we have a project tomorrow with the new tire pressure monitoring system and when it is all said and done I will be happy to go into detail about brand names of which one was user-friendly and which one was not and why. I got a comment that said it was not brand bashing if I was giving my honest opinion about a product. So, when we get it all installed, you’ll be hearing about our installation experience with it.
Well, I think I’ll call it a night as I finish this TV show and go to bed. If you are wondering about pictures, I have enough internet signal to get online with my laptop but not enough internet signal to upload pictures….sorry I’ll try again with uploading pictures tomorrow!
Have a great night!

Hello! Well, I have to say that today was a fast day and the weather didn’t help at all. It rained most of the day today which, don’t get me wrong, I can’t complain. I was standing under the RV awning in 77 degree weather watching the rain pour down around me. I thought it would be cooler out, but it surprisingly wasn’t. So what else did we do today…..
I called a local veterinarian today because I had to buy more canned food for Jake. He is just plowing thru the Prescription Diet food. I’m keeping an eye on how much he takes in, and I’m sure if I didn’t, he would wayyy over eat. So I’m down to 6 cans left of the case I got in Arizona. Today, we stopped by an Animal Hospital over here off Vine Street in Kissimmee and picked up a 12 can case (13oz cans). I know that will last him for the duration of this trip. I’m so so happy to see him eating healthy again. As for the cat scratch mark on his face. This scar will stay with him for a while, but it doesn’t seem to be bothering him at all. It is looking better than yesterday, but I’ll keep an eye on that too.
This afternoon, for a late lunch, we went to Denny’s. Hey, you can’t go wrong with Denny’s. Predictable food with predictable service. Nothing to brag about and predictably satisfying After lunch we stopped by Campers World for two more stakes to keep the mesh screen straight that goes from the end of the awning to the ground. The two stakes were added to each end of the bottom of the mesh screen to keep it more secure.
I’m having a hard time uploading pictures to this blog on the laptop. I do have internet service but not strong enough to upload a picture online…..I’m still working to fix that if possible. I stopped by to see our neighbor here from Michigan. I’ve never met him before but he’s been so nice to us since we backed into our spot, letting us use a ladder to get the bikes off the Montana and told us not to return it until we leave. He’s got 14 more ladders under the porch! So anyways, I asked him how his internet was and he just said one word to me…”Sucks”. Ohhhhkay….got it and I agreed with him there.
Also at Campers World, Dad also inquired about a tire pressure monitoring system. Campers World had two different models from different companies on hand so we purchased one of them to try out. Now, I’m pretty good with the tech gadgets and I got this thing figured out pretty easily, but there’s were two things about this particular device I didn’t like. First, everytime you turn the vehicle off and on, it would shut down the monitoring system and it would go into a reboot mode to boot back up. There’s no battery back up. I’m sure there is some sort of battery inside of it, but nothing held the power to it when the power to the Dodge was cut. Our GPS has a battery back up that you can choose to keep it on when the truck is shut off, why not this thing? Very annoying and odd. And secondly, when waiting for a pressure reading from a specific tire….well, that’s all I did was wait. It took at least over a couple of minutes for a tire pressure reading. And if it doesn’t read it (during a few minutes) the system will default to a “low pressure” reading, even when it’s waiting for a reading or can’t find a reading at all. Very disappointing. So, I hate to admit it, but I suggested that we bring it back and try the other make and model that they had on hand, but today’s experience really leaves me with no choice but to trade it in. I’m not going to name bash on here. It’s not my nature and I’m looking forward to trying the other device out. If the other device works better, I will name drop it to ya! We shall see…. I did have a couple of suggestions come in from fellow readers of tire pressure monitoring systems…..I’ll flip thru those again and see what I can dig up for a good deal.
Lastly, I want to hit on a topic that has been brought up to me numerous times since I’ve started blogging…..this topic I have just snickered, blushed, and dismissed it. I’m not the greatest writer, but I have been told that my writing style is different and unique. I’ve always been told that we write in the same writing format of that writing style we enjoy reading. I totally believe that! It makes sense. I like to read and I think my writing style has changed after I’ve read many books in the same writing tone that matches this blog’s tone. Books that I have been thru years ago such as the “Confessions of a Shopaholic” series and other books that was written in email format. Gosh, it been awhile since I’ve read these books. But there was two or three books that I’ve read that actually was written in style of emails. I can easily look online to find the name of the books, but these books were strickly writing in email format. Like a story created from emails. Crazy as it may sound, I followed the story easily and I liked that first person story format. These are all books (including the series I’ve mentioned above) that I got so hung up on and involved in that the writing style made it easy for me to follow the characters and the stories. Direct first person interaction books is still what I look for at a bookstore today. Anyways, I just wanted to mention that because that’s where my writing style comes from. I will never be a professional writer, but I will always write what is exactly on my mind at that given moment, even if it’s funny, stupid, or irrelevant…..you are still going to know about it whether you want to or not.
Well, I’ve kept you long enough for today and we are always up to something so check on me tomorrow as I have no idea what we are doing tomorrow at all. Have a great night too! And don’t be shy….leave a comment….tell me what you are up to!

Hi! I’m typing this blog post from outside the RV! I’m sitting in the lawn chair outside looking at the blue sky and it’s 77 degrees out. Where’s my freeze time button?? If I could stop time right now…..
This is perfect weather and I have friends that are texting me from New Hampshire saying that there is a foot of snow on the way. I said, “Where?? I don’t see any snow.” They said, “Here in New Hampshire, Dummy.” I said, “Ohhhhhh.” Heehee…..I wonder if they will text me anymore??
Well, my cousin and her husband stopped by. It was so nice to see them. We sat around and chit chatted for a while and then we went out to eat at Applebee’s for lunch. I wish I had their luck! They fly into Orlando and had an economy car reservation waiting for them. They get to the rental car counter and they don’t have any economy cars available to give them, so they give them a convertible corvette…….some people have all the luck! So, it was so nice for them to stop by. I hope to see them again soon. So now I are sitting outside at the RV and I have to tell you what happened this morning. I, certainly, wasn’t impressed at all……
My little Maltese is a curious little bugger. And he’s been looking out the window at the cat next door. Well, he went out this morning to do his duties and found the cat under our pickup truck. Jake got a little too close to the cat and the cat turned and scratched his face. Yep, scratched my little puppy’s face. Well, he’s got a scratch mark between his eyes and nose and I stopped the bleeding and he lost fur around that area and now it’s getting a little swollen. I will monitor the damage thru the night and see how Jake does. He’ll be fine and I think he learned his lesson. Well, I’m not sure about learning his lesson, but we shall see. I really think his pride got the worst of it! He didn’t even cry, I think he was in too much shock to cry.
Other than that, everything else is quiet. We are just going to relax tonight. Have a good night!

Hello, I’ve made some progress on our internet connection here. We are in an area that is pretty far away from the RV Park’s wireless router so we purchased a wireless signal booster. Don’t ask me if I’m impressed with it yet, but so far so good….I’ll give it a few more days to see it in long term action. Tonight’s internet experience was a tad bumpy, I’m going to try again tomorrow. I really appreciate everyone’s emails and comments on how to handle a weak wireless signal – you all made my work on solving this issue very easy!
Sooo, I’ve been taking some local pictures here, and I’m hoping to post them tomorrow if the wireless signal wind is blowing my way! Today, we went to Walmart and got some errands done. Simple day, but people are everywhere….the Kissimmee tourists are everywhere. License plates from every state but Florida are around us! I’ve got a guy from Maine on one side of us and another guy from Michigan on the other side of us here at the RV park. But, no complains, everything is good here. Tonight we skipped dinner and punched “Dairy Queen” into the GPS. You have got to try the Chocolate Covered Cherry Blizzard….sooooo good….I can’t wait to go back and get another one! As Mickey would put it “Magically Delicious!”……no wait!! “Magically Delicious”??, why does sound so familiar??? Hmmmmm…wait, isn’t that from some cereal commercial…..Trix?? Nooo, that’s for kids…….it doesn’t go back to the 80′s with the Pac Man cereal, does it?? I’ll have to think about that one….but, anyways…..go to Dairy Queen!!!
Okay, moving on from my derailment back there….today, we put the awning out and the mesh screen that goes from the outer side of the awning to the ground – looks great, I got pictures of it, I’ll try to post them tomorrow. But, we really made ourselves at home here…the grill is out, all the lawn chairs are out, the bicycles are down from the RV….we will be staying here a whole month – I’m so happy!!
So, my cousin is here! Yep, she flew in today with her husband and she called me up tonight. We are going to catch up with her tomorrow. So I gave her our address here and she’s going to stop by tomorrow morning and we are all going to hang out. If my family back home is keeping up with this blog, this is my cousin from Oklahoma. Yeah, you know which one now! So I’m looking forward to that tomorrow!
Jake is doing great, but boy, has that little dog been plowing thru his canned food! Got to look around this week for a vet that sells that type of Science Diet food….he loves his food and he’s doing super! The temperature here is in the 70′s so I decided to give Jake a haircut…..I just can’t bring myself to drop him off at a doggie spa here and leave him there. He’s only been to one groomer back home, so he’ll have to live with the bald spots all over his body until Kim from Angel Paws can get her hands on him again…..sorry buddy!
As for me, I’m doing great, but somehow suffering from allergies. I’m taking my allergy meds everyday now to see if I can clear up the sniffs and sneezing. Hey, you take the good with the bad and right everything is awesome! Magically awesome!! Have a great night and I’ll be back tomorrow!

Hi! Well, we made the 68 mile trek from the Tampa area to Kissimmee! Everything is great and I’m super happy to be staying here a whole month! Yep, a whole month!! Surprised you too, huh?
You want to laugh?? We exited the highway here in Kissimmee at exit 64 (the exit to the RV park here) and we pulled over on the side of the road in a completely safe area and we all looked at each other and we all said the same thing “We are here, now how long are we staying??” We are 4 miles from the RV park parked on the side of the road trying to decide if we are staying a day, a week, or a month. Now That’s the lifestyle of an RVer!!
So, I called up the RV park here and they had an opening (whew!) and I asked how much it would cost to stay at their RV park. They told us the price and we checked in and we got a great site with a great monthly rate and we are staying a whole month!!! A whole month here in central Florida! I’m so excited! My cousin and her husband is flying in tomorrow and my aunt is 45 minutes away!
But it was a last second decision on how long we were staying here and I’m not sure what that’s going to do to the rest of this snowbird trip….will we hit Key West? Will be go to Miami? Will we visit other areas of Florida or just head north in a month?? I’m not sure….all I’m sure of now is that we paid for one month to sit 4 miles from Disney World!! Andddd (no I’m not done yettt) ….and, we took the bicycles down off the RV and there’s a Dunkin Donuts across the street (a bike ride away!) and we are sitting right on US 192 where all the action is!!
The only thing that is super lousy right now is the internet connection here at the RV park. Soooo terrible, I’m going to try to shop around for a wireless signal boost adapter of some sort. But, I’m hoping to fix the internet problem sometime this week.
So, that’s the update for now….I’ll be taking picture around and hopefully can post pictures later this week. I’ll be back tomorrow! Have a super night!!

Hello! Well, we decided to leave tomorrow morning for Kissimmee. Not too early in the morning as it’s only a whopping 68 mile trip. Today was a nice day spending time with our friends here. We spent some time at the Hard Rock Casino and I won some money, and I was sure surprised I won money at a casino on a weekend, but there were a lot of winners today, even a jackpot of $6000 was paid out on a dollar machine by the front door (of course not my jackpot). After that we came back to the RV and since Jake had been inside all day, we took him for a walk down the street to the next intersection where Checker’s Restaurant is. I ordered an ice tea, Mom got a Pepsi, and Jake got ice water. We walked back to the RV and after I fed Jake, he fell asleep on the couch as I watched the Olympics.
It was a nice day today, beautiful weather. I have a cousin from Oklahoma who will be in Kissimmee next week with her husband and I can’t wait to see them! We will be spending time with her and my aunt that lives in Groveland (I think it’s Groveland, I’ll have to check on that town name again). So as we make our way around Florida visiting friends and family, visiting friends and family is the highlight of this trip for me. I have always loved visiting others that we hardly see, spending time with them as we go along. I’m not sure how long we will be in Kissimmee, but I think it will be for at least a week.
So, that’s what I did today and I hope you all had a nice weekend also. I’ll be back tomorrow night blogging from Kissimmee!

Hi! Today was a simple day! We visited a friend of ours that use to live next to us back home in New Hampshire. She and her husband come to Florida in the winter and they own a park home in a senior community area. Unfortunately they were not home, but we visited around and looked at some of the lots for sale and talked to some of the local residence. My parents always keep an eye open for a good deal. We took some information from the community office and went back home. I gave Jake a bath this afternoon and now he’s white and fluffy again. Let’s see how long he stays that way as I can see outside that it is raining right now. This evening, we hung out with friends – nothing too exciting and then watched TV the rest of the night. I didn’t even take any pictures today, nothing really worth snapping at. Tomorrow morning we will try to hit a flea market and, again, look for a good deal. Well. I wish I had more news on my simple day. Thanks for checking on me and have a good night!

Hello! Wow, what a day of traveling. We stayed over night at an RV park in Lake City and woke up to 29 degrees – very cold. We left Lake City very early and landed in Bradenton at around 2pm. We got settled in and couldn’t wait to visit our friends here in Bradenton. All 7 of us went to dinner at the Golden Corral – not a bad place either. After dinner we headed back to the RV and fed Jake and relaxed. I’m a tad tired of all the traveling today, so I’m going to call it an early night tonight. We have a lot to do this weekend (including a visit to the Hard Rock Casino near here). I will have internet service here and I will bring my camera with me tomorrow. Check on me tomorrow as I will be posting pictures of beautiful Florida. Oh, the temperature here today was 59 degrees. Nite Nite. *yawn*