Florida Bound

Panda and Seven:

Oh my gosh - it has been so long since we wrote!!!

We have had a rather uneventful summer.  Mom is working ALL the time and is doing school.  She never even goes in her chat room any more.  :(  But she is looking forward to more free time once she gets to Florida.  Jarod visits us almost every day and gives us water and plays with us. Seven is starting to like him more.  Ha ha.

We leave North Carolina on September 14th to go back to Silver Palms RV Resort in Okeechobee, FL.  Our mom and Jarod are really excited to see all their friends they met last year and to have a better schedule.  They also want to go to the beach (since we aren't dogs we will pass on that frivolity.)

We are looking forward to the door being open most of the day and being able to watch what's going on outside though.  It's been CRAZY hot here in NC this summer and we will all be glad to get out of the heat.

Mom got a new job here in Charlotte and the owner has been nice enough to let her work from home so she can go to Florida with Jarod.  She's really excited because she loves her new job but didn't want to lose Jarod, so everything is working out.

We (?) are trying to get a new house on wheels.  Mom wants a motor home so we can hang out when we ride down the road.  Well, we are sure there are more important reasons, but that's the only one we care about.   She's trying to get this done before we leave for Florida but not sure that will happen.

I think that is all we have for now.  Hopefully we can write more once we get to Florida!  There will be more stories, for sure!

Florida to North Carolina with a detour

Seven and Panda:

Well, we are back at Lake Norman RV Resort in Sherrill's Ford, NC.

The trip here was kind of weird....we did an 8 hour day to get from Okeechobee, FL to Waltersboro, SC.  We got in to SC early - thank goodness - and parked in the Walmart parking lot. There were about 20 other "houses on wheels" there when we got there and within an hour there were about 40 and no more places to park.  It was crazy!  Mom and Jarod cooked dinner and hung out with the slides out and everything right there in the parking lot.

We left there the next day and drove a few hours - back in the truck we went - and stopped at this thing called a "dealer."  We had all kinds of people in and out of the house fixing things.  We stayed one night there and then all the damn walls moved again and we did another three hour trip up to NC.  We really don't like having to ride in the back of the truck like prisoners.  But mom makes sure we are very comfortable with our cat bed, litter box, food and water back there.

We are all settled in here and we like the view of the lake we have.  Things have been rough for mom since we got here but she is hoping things get better soon.  Her and Jarod had a few rocky weeks but they are doing really well now. We are glad - we like him.

We don't know where we are off to next - we hope back to Silver Palms in Florida.  There was SO much going on there and we had lots of things to see out the windows and door.

Until we next have something to report.....we say adios.

Swamp Turtles and a return to NC

Panda and Seven:

Well, we have certainly enjoyed our time here in Florida.  We have LOTS of things to see out our patio door here.  The people here are always riding their bikes, walking, or walking their dogs (yuck!) in front of our house - lots of crazy behavior to watch.  We won't even get into our Mom and how nuts she is these days or Jarod - he is beyond description.

The other day we saw a turtle walking behind our house and returning to the swamp. I bet between the two of us we could have attacked him and had dinner!

Anyway....we leave here March 28th to head back to North Carolina - Lake Norman Motorcoach Resort.  We are stopping off in South Carolina for a couple of days so mom can get some things fixed on the RV.  Then she will be managing the bar at the resort again for the summer.  

Mom also just started a new online business.  She is only a day or two into it but she is really excited about it and has started some of her marketing for it.  Check it out at:  http://www.mybenefitsplus.com/sherritrimble

That is all we have to report for now.  We aren't looking forward to being in the truck again for multiple days, but we like it when our scenery changes.

Freezing Temps and How to Climb a Kennel Guard (un)Successfully

Panda:

We arrived safe and sound in sunny Florida on Tuesday.  But I am not sure I like this traveling thing.

First of all....it was really, really cold in Forsyth, GA where we stayed the night on Monday night.  And the wind was blowing so hard our house was moving all over the place!  It was really scary.  And then our Mom did something really dumb (unusual for her, but it happens) - she ran the furnace off the propane, which she had filled in Kentucky before we left,  but didn't run the generator.  Well....what the hell did she think was going to power the furnace?  Since she didn't use the generator it ran off the batteries and they went dead overnight.  So we woke up in the morning and our house was 40 degrees INSIDE.  Outside, with the wind chill, we heard Jarod say it was 18 degrees.  Ummm....yeah....we don't like that so much.  When we got carried outside and put in the truck it was really cold, even with all our fur.  And the truck wasn't even warmed up yet so it wasn't much better in there.  Ugh.

Anyway - with dead batteries the slides of our house (those things that we DO NOT like moving around) wouldn't go in.  So....Jarod had to disconnect the battery from his camper and hook it up to the generator in our house so mom could start the generator to put the slides in.  It was a big mess because it was so windy and cold and not one single one of us was very happy about any part of the situation.  And our Mom cranky in the morning is NOT GOOD.  At all.  And our Mom cranky around Jarod who was less than happy too was really not good.  Luckily they both got their heads out of their human butts rather quickly and all was fine.

We were really good kitties on the first day of traveling, but by  Tuesday I was pretty much over it.  Seven was laying on the floorboard sleeping and for once in his life he was the "good kitty" and I was the "bad kitty."  I don't like being in the truck and being able to SEE my Mom but not able to TOUCH my Mom.  So I meowed.  A lot.  For the entire 10 hours.  Mom thought I wanted food and water so she put that in the back seat with us.  Nope...that wasn't it.  Then she thought I needed the litter box so she stopped again to put that in the back seat.  Nope...that wasn't it.  (Jarod watched all this with the bemused expression of "there is the crazy cat lady at it again.")  Didn't she understand I was done with being locked up behind the "cat jail" - despite the cat bed and blanket and food/water and litterbox.  I wanted to be in her lap.  Helloooo????!!!!!  I even put my paws through the cat jail fence thingy and pawed on her arms but that didn't work either.  So I tried to climb the kennel guard/cat jail/evil metal thing that kept me from my mom.  I guess I'm too old or too fat or she had that thing in there just right because that didn't work either.  So...I just kept meowing.  And meowing.  Ha.  Revenge sucks, huh mom?

All in all we had another safe, basically uneventful, successful trip.  We went almost 900 miles so it is our longest trip yet.  Our patio door is open here all the time and the weather is much, much better.  It's really pretty outside and we have lots of things to watch going on out there.  We heard mom say we are getting a "cat tent" that we can go hang out in outside but we don't have it yet.

There are rumors that we may go to Yellowstone for the summer and that trip would be three or four days.  Mom sure isn't going to like listening to me meow for four days, is she?

Plans are Constantly Changing....

Seven and Panda:

I swear...these humans are complicated creatures.  First it was New Orleans, then Pensacola.  Now we are going to Okeechobee, FL instead.

On Christmas Day Jarod had a medical emergency that has us kind of grounded in Campbellsville until at least Friday.  (we really hope he's okay, we like him.)  But Mom says everything happens for a reason.

Because of that delay we were still here in Campbellsville when Mom got an email from someone offering Jarod a workamper job at the Silver Palms RV Resort in Okeechobee.  They talked to him Wednesday morning (they left us home ALL ALONE and stayed at Jarod's house so we did not get to listen in on that conversation...rude....) and made the decision to go there.  Jarod will be the chef/kitchen manager for the resort and gets a space plus a salary.  The job lasts from when we get there until the first or second week of April this year and then Oct 2012 to April 2013 next year.  It sounds like exactly the kind of job that he was looking for - he doesn't even have to work 40 hours a week!  They also are letting Mom and Jarod have two spaces instead of one and the manager there said Mom could pitch in and work whatever hours she could for her space but he wasn't that worried about it.  We're happy about that because Mom working 80-100 hours a week was just plain silly and she was never here.

Fate, destiny, karma - whatever you want to call it - sure has a funny way of stepping in and changing your plans around.  But what do we know, we're just a couple of fluffy, lovable cats.  We just want our Mom to be happy!

Silver Palms RV Resort - Okeechobee, FL

Where To Go? Where To Stay? Oh my....oh my....

Seven and Panda:

Mom (excuse the pun here) is having kittens!  Her free campground is up 12/24...her and Jarod were planning on going to Pensacola, FL.  But we overheard her talking to him today and all the campgrounds are booked or won't do a monthly rate (even though they advertise it on their website.)  So now they don't know what to do or where to go.  We don't understand any of this, of course.  We just know that we expect wherever we go to have a store where she can buy cat food and cat litter.  Can't be THAT hard.....geez.

New Orleans, Pascagoula, Pensacola, or Gulf Shores??????

Seven and Panda:

Okay - Mom's gone nuts again.  We finish up here right around Christmas time - of course we say "we" but realistically we ALL know it is our world and Mom just pays the bills and cleans up after us - and we really don't know where we are going.

BUT.....Mom has a new friend named Jarod and we heard them talking....it's not good.  They've gone nuts.  They have four cities - one in each gulf state - that they are thinking of going to from January to March.  They are even talking about putting each city on a piece of paper and throwing them in a hat and just pulling one out and going there.  WHAT???!!!!  I mean, really.  Is Mom not considering AT ALL where we want to go?  What if we want to go to Florida and not Louisiana?

The only good thing we see out of this crap is that there is lots of seafood in the gulf states and we might get some FRESH SEAFOOD LEFTOVERS!!!!  (hint, hint Mom)

Other than the seafood benefit - this means we have to have our house walls move again, house move, be shoved in cat jail in the back of the truck again, and drive around willy-nilly for 8 hours or more just to get to some place that we had no say-so in going to.

We are not taken seriously at all.  This must come to an end.  Or we will plot something evil to do to our Mom while she is sleeping.

This is what we expect for breakfast:

We Made it!

Seven and Panda:

Well, we made it to Campbellsville, KY last Friday.  It was a bit of an adventure, at least for us.

It started out Thursday night with mom packing up our house and then moving the walls inside.  We really don't like it when the walls move.  Then, she moved our house out of our spot in the RV resort up to the top of the hill.  We had to ride inside our house while it was moving up the hill and we didn't like that AT ALL.  Then we said goodbye to our dad, and that was kinda rough on everybody.  Then the walls moved AGAIN and we slept in the parking lot.  Mom said it was so we could pull right out the next morning??  We don't know what that was all about, but the next morning we got up really early and our mom put us in the cat carrier.  We knew something was up when we saw that out!  Then she put us in the back seat of the big red thing - we think it's called a truck - we had our food and water and litter box and fluffy cat bed and a blanket back there.  Panda rode in the litterbox the whole way - thank goodness it was clean - and I, Seven, slept on the floorboard the whole time.  The truck thing was pretty loud especially when we went up and down the hills and we could hear the house clanging around where it connected to the truck.  Mom said it was an "uneventful" trip and a really easy drive for her though, so that is good.

Then we got to our new campground in Campbellsville, KY and mom left us in the truck while she parked the house and got everything set up.  She turned the air conditioning on for us right away and we finally got to get out of the truck and back in our house.  We felt a LOT better then.

Mom had a hard time with the TV thing.  The thingy on the roof that gets our channels wasn't picking up all her channels and the cable/antenna switch wasn't working and she said a lot of bad words.  I guess that means she was mad.  Anyway...our mom is pretty smart and she finally got all that fixed and we are all settled in to the new place.

We have a big yard that we can look out at right out the window and we can see more people and stuff going on here so we kind of like it.  Mom said we are only staying here for a few months and then we will do that moving thing all over again.  Hopefully we will get used to riding in the truck and not be so scared and we can sit up on the seat and look out the windows.  We bet there is a lot of stuff to see on the road!

Mom is working at Amazon.com here and also working her normal job.  We don't mind the normal job because she does that here at home and we get to see her all day.  But now she leaves around 5:00 and won't be getting home until 4:30 in the morning so we won't get to sleep with her as much.  And we have to be really quiet on Saturdays so she can sleep - at least that's what she said.  I, Seven, am not very good at being quiet though.  :(

We think that is it for now.  We have to run...the neighbors are leaving today and we want to watch them unplug their house.

The Transient Lifestyle

Seven and Panda:

Our mom chose the "transient lifestyle" inherent with living in an RV.  We just realized what this really means.

Sherri made a lot of good friends and acquaintances at the first stop - Lake Norman RV Park.  Many she will see again next year.  Many will never cross her path again.  A select few have become closer than she ever imagined possible.  She leaves here with memories that will last forever.  She's had a lot of laughs, a lot of long nights at the bar (you know who you all are that are to be blamed for that!), a lot of crazy weather.  A lot of rough personal moments.  She wouldn't trade it for the world.

But now we all go on to our next stop - Green River Marina in Campbellsville, KY.  None of us know what that will be like.  We do know that upon arrival our mom will know no one.  At all.  She is entering an unknown second job.  She will spend Hallowe'en (her favorite holiday), her birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years in a strange town with no familiar faces.  We think she leaves here a little bit afraid, with a heavy heart leaving our Dad behind, but full of optimism for the first true step in her new life.

We also know that no matter what happens we will be there with her when she watches all those damn scary movies the entire month of October and runs like hell into the bedroom after she turns out the lights (even in our little house), we will be there on her birthday, we will share Thanksgiving dinner with her no matter what it is, Christmas dinner, too.  And we will bring in the new year with  her too.  We are always there, no matter what.  We always have been.

The Countdown Continues...

I decided to write this one myself.

In just 18 days I will be leaving North Carolina and heading for Kentucky.  It's kind of a bittersweet time for me.  I will most likely be back in NC April through September of 2012 but nothing in life is certain.  I could be back here as early as December 26th or never at all.

I've really been thinking of my times here in NC the last few days.  I've been here a little over 6 years and I have packed a LOT of things into the last six years.  I have made a lot of good friends here and I will miss you all (even though I rarely see any of you anymore.)  I leave behind two men who were/are very special in my life.

I leave here with memories that will last a lifetime.  I really feel like the next stage of my life starts here in a couple of weeks.  Although I may return here in a few short months, nothing will ever be the same.  All of this is a good thing!  :)

Suffice it to say that I am allowed to be an emotional female sometimes and as the next chapter in my life starts I am feeling slightly melancholy while ridiculously excited at the same time.  When one door closes another one opens but it still causes a little dent in your soul to close that door.

The cats will blog more often once we are on the road and there are stories to tell.  So check back often or sign up to "follow" us as we venture out into the great unknown.....