Hello subscribers and friends! A surprise in your box from these weary travelers. Though our travels have been suspended for the time being, it doesn't mean that we have nothing to blog about. Certainly no! There won't be much writing on exploring new areas, but there are definitely things going on that require some reporting.
We are still in New York. Our hometown does make it easy to find the things we need and brings us closer to the family we both adore. Christmas was especially satisfying for Tez as her son, Ryan, and his wife, Jami, made their way up from Dallas/Fort Worth to spend the week that indeed added holiday cheer. It was a cold Christmas with little to no snow, but not to worry, snow has finally made it here and has reminded a certain somebody why she was so keen on chasing 70 in the RV.
She didn't get the job. Though Tez was curbing her anticipation, there was a small rumbling that the job she had hoped for was being reconsidered, but that ember of hope quietly burned out and has been all but forgotten. She looks on the bright side and maintains that perhaps switching jobs while we shore up our finances would have been counter productive. So, we continue the long journey that will be required to bring our debt to income ratio into a more positive light.
Another fortunate result of our paused travel has been in the form of help from our family while a surprise visit to the emergency room landed me in the hospital for 12 days. Two weeks before Christmas I was having severe abdominal pain and after a day and a half of, "We don't know what the problem could be", I was hauled into surgery where an abscess was discovered on my small intestine and maybe a perforated large intestine. I'm still looking for clarification on that "maybe a perforation". None the less, once they scrambled my insides and disconnected some pipe work, I was given an ostomy bag and the prospect of recovering for 3 or 4 months and returning to have the pipes put back together. So it is fortunate that we were with family and didn't have to deal with this while on the road. We would have been somewhere in Texas when this all went down and Tez would have been on her own, for the most part. The first couple of weeks out of the hospital were rough and exhausting and painful. Again, we were fortunate to be parked in the apartment above my Mom's place. Along with the help she gives me while I change my ostomy bag every week, she looks after Chase and gets him outside to play often.
So perhaps it is fate that we made the decision to put our travels on hold. We do feel lucky to have family nearby to help us forget about life's little hiccups. We have been talking about the future of our travels and where we might settle down. Unfortunately, that is the most we can do until we have reached the shallow end of the debt pool. For now, the talk is mostly about the eastern states. I think we have been firmly reminded that New York is not one of them.
We hope you enjoyed the quick update. Rest assured, we'll keep posting them periodically. Take care everyone and enjoy the new year.