Weighed and found wanting...but not too badly

Today marks our final "work week" before we head to Wisconsin on our long, long vacation (i.e. retirement). We're back in Dakota Meadows until Friday morning. I'm very happy to be here. Even though I really enjoyed the ambiance at Lebanon Hills, I came away from it with a dozen or so very torturous mosquito bites...the kind that "keep on giving," flaring up over and over for days. Dakota Meadows is more like a city environment than a country one. We're parked next to the pond, but I hope there's enough of a blacktop barrier to keep those villainous bugs at bay.

One of the things on our agenda, before we hit the road, was to get our rig weighed. We did that on Sunday at a local truck stop. Mark calculated our maximum weight to be 30,000 pounds. We came out at 30,040. This was great news, considering we're hauling around an extra mattress and about a hundred pounds of family stuff, "out for delivery."

Once I let go of some of my iron and glassware and we lose the excess stuff that doesn't belong to us, we should have a pretty comfortable buffer between our actual weight and our maximum weight.

The new mattress is out of its constraints and expanding nicely. Tonight it will go on the bed and the old mattress will take its place in the middle of the floor until it finds a new home at the Bridging charity. We'll be dropping it off tomorrow. (Last chance to speak up if anybody needs a very, very firm queen size mattress. It's in excellent condition.)

Foam mattresses are notoriously stinky, a fact I had forgotten from the last time. The information sheet that came with it assures us that the acrid, nearly overpowering...I mean "slight 'fresh foam' odor" will disappear in a couple days. Hopefully I won't choke to death tonight while I'm waiting for it to disappear. Mark is safe at least, because he can't smell anything. It is comforting to know that the mattress is not "toxic"...aside from potential asphyxiation, that is. Anyway, provided I can breathe, I should be sleeping much better after tonight.

Tomorrow morning, we pack up for the day and deliver the motor home to Noble RV, where the leveling jack and the slide-outs will be repaired as needed and resealed. I will be tooling around town in the car with the cat for the day while that work is done.

Then on Thursday, the "new" A/C unit is installed. Please pray with us that that goes well, because we're heading out of town on Friday morning and don't have time for unexpected delays. Cutting things that close is never a wise idea, but in this case, we didn't have too much of a choice.

That's our RV work week. Now Mark's employment work week is going to look less like a work week and more like a party week! ;-) He's getting three out of five days of "fond farewells" from his company and coworkers, and is not likely to do much in the way of actual work. I'm very excited for him. It's certainly well-deserved.

In all, it will be a good week...for us.

I would be remiss not to mention the hardships of everyone in dread Harvey's path suffering from the ongoing rainstorms and flooding. Our prayers are with them all as they deal with this tragic event. It will take a long time to dry out and put their lives back together. May they turn their eyes to God, who is the only hope and help in this life and the life to come.

    "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling." Psalm 46:1-3