Gaven's Entrance - Santee Lakes, CA

Kashmere (our oldest grand-daughter) and her partner Sonny Nelson had a baby boy, Gaven David Nelson. He arrived at 5:05pm local time (AK), weighed in at 7 lbs 7.2 oz and is 20.5 inches long.

MAI - Santee Lakes, CA

Muffler and Associates, Inc. (MAI), Ruthi’s project management consulting company is a Registered Education Provider (R.E.P. – which is a Project Management Institute designation for training project management classes). As a result, Ruthi has access to a lot of RFPs (Requests for Proposals) for trainers. With the end of her DoD contract, Ruthi has been responding to some of them (12 last Fall and 4 so far this year). Even though there aren’t any contracts yet, she has established some contacts here in the lower 48 states and is hopeful of work coming down the path.

Ruthi with the able assistance from an old Alaskan friend’s audio/video company (Perfectly Made, Inc.) is creating a web-based class to sell to individuals (or companies) from the MAI web site (MAI-PMC.COM). Just the process with the engineer helps Ruthi to better organize the delivery of the material. Once the practice runs are completed, the voice recording will be accomplished in a “real” studio to avoid the sounds associated with the RV location (Karma barking, Boots’ phone ringing, etc.). So, Ruthi is busy writing the script to minimize the “ums” and “duhs” breaks in the delivery.

Early Medicare - Santee Lakes, CA

Just a note for those others turning 65 in the near future - The new Health Care legislation seems to have added a benefit that Ruthi just sort of fell into – A sister-in-law of hers turned 65 last year but couldn’t get Medicare until the month of her 65th birthday; just like for Boots a couple of years ago. But when Ruthi started her Social Security application in the Fall of 2009 for a January 2011 start (her 65th birthday is this month), they told her she could sign up for Medicare up to 6 months early with no pre-conditions, etc. etc. etc. So, you might keep that in mind for all of you others reaching 65 in the near future. If you aren’t insured now you can get Medicare early. And some people want to repeal the Health Care Reform Act!

Remodel Complete - Santee Lakes, CA

Here are the finished products!!!

Remodel - Santee Lakes, CA

We are still here but thought you might want an update of our location and situation. For 2 ½ years, we have been on the road making minor adjustments to the interior of the RV – giving away the convertible-couch, recliners (2), replacing the mattress with a Sleep Number bed and removing carpeting for floor covering of Marmoleum. While traveling we have had to manually store the dining table and desk to accommodate the inside position of the living room slide and the movements of a moving RV down the road. While none of the preparations before and after trips really took a lot of time it was just more of a bother and the arrangement didn’t meet our needs. Last winter, we talked with an RV interior expert and got ideas of what could be done with our situation. So, over the summer tour of the Pacific coast of California, Oregon and Washington, we began to draw up our remodeling request. We sent the drawings and measurements to our guy in the Santee area. When we got here he came over and took his own measurements and talked about what we wanted overall.

Then he sent an estimate that was much higher and more complex solution than we were interested in. So, we asked him to come back and work with us to get simpler and simpler to meet our wants and our budget. So, we worked it out again and agreed to a bottom line for the desk and dining room areas. We had wanted the hardware (door and desk pulls) to match as close as possible to what we currently have. Since “brass” is not in fashion, we knew that we’d probably need to buy “brushed nickel” or “wood” for some of the back bedroom hardware. Then we’d more the original hardware to the new front cabinets. Off he went with half down, one of the cabinet doors for stain matching and an open time line.

Tuesday (04 January 2011), Rich and his handiwork showed up for the installations. The woodwork stain matched exactly the current cabinetry. The quality of the workmanship was excellent and the pieces all fit into the allotted space and met our needs. The trickiest piece was the desk; which required locking drawers and everything (drawer pulls, desk surface) needed to clear the edge of the living room slide when it was drawn in for travel and moved back out when setting up in a new location.

Working While Retired - Santee Lakes, CA

Now, that Ruthi’s DoD contract has come to an end, she can focus her efforts on MAI business: updating the web site, marketing PM classes, making contacts at local PMI chapters, etc. etc. etc. But she wants to remember that she is semi-retired and there’s no need to go overboard. Having moved from a “Type A” personality to an idle-lay-about “Type B”, there is little chance of over-working. But Ruthi needs to work out a plan of attack or nothing ever gets done.

We have been reading a series of books that started with the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. These books have been turned into a TV series on HBO. They are fun and informative about Botswana - the country/culture. Ruthi has decided on going back to work on Tuesdays that we are not traveling because . . .

“A Tuesday morning, thought Mma Ramotswe, is a good day on which to start work on a case. This is largely because of the positioning of Tuesday. Monday was a difficult day for no other reason than that it was Monday, the start of another week, with the prospect of another weekend as distant as it ever could be. Wednesday was half way through the week, and a day on which, for some reason, there always seemed to be rather too much to do. By Thursday one was getting tired, and then on Friday, with the end in sight, one was in no mood to begin anything. That left Tuesday, which it now was . . .” from Alexander McCall Smith’s Tea Time for The Traditionally Built.

This is exactly how Ruthi feels about doing any work for MAI, tasks around the RIG or moving to a new camp ground OR for that matter anything in retirement – Tuesday is a good day!!

Living Room Remodel - Santee Lakes, CA

These are the pictures of the desk and dining room table before our remodeling.