I get more done when there’s no pressure

Thursday was one of those days. One of the wonderful, productive, exciting-in-all-the-oddest-ways days.  

We’ve been chasing around every day it seems and even though today could have been my first Tai Chi class I opted instead to go for wiping my to-do list clean!

On the way down to San Benito I found the right antenna clamp to use installing my cell phone antenna to the rear ladder — so today I mounted that.

I finally got our vinyl wheel covers in place, a job which I loathe.  There is no easy way to get them on without groveling around on the ground and snaking bungees behind those large tires.  In the process I also learned that I never checked the size of our new coach tires with the size on the old coach.  It turns out that these tires really should have wheel covers that are the next size larger…. but when these wear out, blow away, or get torn I’ll replace them.

Peggy has been without an overhead light in the kitchen for a few days — the over sink light was still working but the ones on the ceiling had a tired ballast.  Last trip to the flea market I bought two new LED replacements and today I installed those.  Two of the LED products produce as much light as 4 of the old florescent tubes so we also cut down on parts to replace.  The directions were simple. Essentially all that needs to be done is to remove the old ballast from the circuit and you’re done.  Attach the new leads to the old positive and ground wires and off the the races.  We have another fixture that has been getting wonky — so next trip to Donna TX and the flea market and we might fix that one too.  Currently we have replaced all our incandescent lights with LED’s and we still have some conventional florescent fixtures.

Even though we are not boondocking our solar panels are helping out.  Monthly rentals include water, sewer, and trash but the renter pays their own electric.  In a place where people are apt to be running their A/C quite a bit that’s a smart management decision but it seems to be common practice around the country as much as we have seen.  So, when we plug in our coach to shore power I go to the back of the coach where our control panel is and tell the system that the batteries are not to be charged from line voltage.  That original to the coach system does not know we have solar panels.  As soon as I turn that function off then the solar panels do all the battery charging and everything on the 12VDC side of the coach is powered by solar.  The only thing we use 110 VAC for is the furnace (which we rarely turn on), A/C, Microwave and Induction burner, and TV.  I walked with one of the year round residents here and last AUGUST his electric bill was about $278 — which for S. Texas is not a lot — many homes run bills upwards of $500 a month I’m lead to understand.  I expect that we’ll take a good deal of the normal monthly load off the system and that’s just fine with me.

I’ve been told that annual renters are able to contract their own electricity.  Texas is one of the states that allows individual customers to purchase electricity from any of several regional suppliers.  I’m told there is a difference between the direct billed rate and the renter rate but I haven’t gotten far enough into life here to know how all that works.  — in time. It’s hard to compare costs between S. Texas and Wisconsin.  WE Energies has off peak rates around $0.05 / kWh and ON peak rates in the $0.20-$0.27 / kWh range.  Here I believe we are paying a flat $0.14/kwh.  We’ll find out more as time goes on.

I’m sitting here in my shirt sleeves typing away.  In the distant West I see a lot of clouds — one thing I am discovering is that weather forecasting here — compared to weather forecasting in Milwaukee is very much a guesstimation.  Forecasts beyond the next day are rarely accurate.  The moderating effect of the Gulf must have a huge impact on what actually happens here.  We often see clouds, overcast, and distant gloom, but more often than not, the same clouds that would mean rain for sure in Milwaukee, here are nothing more than passing reminders of the fact that we are in S. Texas and not Wisconsin.

In 2 1/2 weeks we have already figured out that our social calendar is about 36 hours long.  We were supposed to have had rain three days out of the last 5.  We haven’t had any.  a week ago we were supposed to have had sun 3 out of 5 days and we got rained on.  Go Figure! If there’s something you want to do in the sun, or before it rains, you simply can’t plan much further than that.  which is fine with me.  I don’t need schedules at this point in life. 🙂  Better yet — forget planning — get up in the morning and do what the spirit moves you in the moment!

And… this morning we had the first instance since we’ve been here of emergency services called out for one of the residents.  I suspect that will be a periodic occurrence.  None of us is under 55; and that time of life comes to us all in one way or another.

Also I learned that on the side of the coach towards our friends the Ruff’s — that the trailer between us may not be occupied this year.  There are no arrival / departure dates and it’s possible they are just storing their pull behind trailer here rather than haul it north to Missouri.  So, we might have a quieter spot than otherwise.  🙂

Meet….XXXX. Well, there you go, we don’t know what his name is yet but we like our pelicans so much we decided to get one of these resin lawn statutes. I know it’s corny.  We could have bought a chainsaw carved real wooden one for 3 times as much money but then I’d have to keep painting and repainting him year after year.  This guy should be just fine for as long as it would take the termites to have eaten up the wooden one.  If you have a suggestion for our mascot — name away!  I’m open to all suggestions.

Well, there you have it.  No exploring, no trips, just a nice enjoyable day in the sun. 🙂 thanks for stopping by and I’ll talk with you tomorrow!