Lovin Life

Lovin Life
Chasity, Napoleon, Christian & Cleopatra

Friday, August 9, 2013

A blast from the past? I think not...

This blog, a day in the life well it is just that... I can hope one day the children will relive our adventures to our grandchildren and great grands when we are no longer available too. My hopes that my grands will know the real us, and not  some elaborate made up story from someone whom really didn't.
First off today, my faith in huminity was restored for a brief moment as we are considered "professional drivers", although I am not officially, I still place myself in this category as I am living the lifestyle at present. I will get back to that story in a minute. As we had another late nite, meaning no sleep til 0430 due to a late load out of hotlanta to Jersey, we of course called it a nite somewhere in North Carolina, so after noon thirty today we decided it was time to rise and shine, go get some coffee and a shower. On our way in a trucker stopped us, as we was carrying our shower bags and evidenced we may be heading in to do something other than buy coffee, he stops us in the parking lot and tells us not to use our shower points, as it turns out he works local and used to work OTR and tells us when he sees OTR drivers he tries to gives his showers away because he remembers what it was like. How awesome, he is trying to pay it forward,  and this day we was blessed. He too will receive blessings, I am sure! That is my restoration of hope in humanity...I need explain about the shower thing, all big truck stops like Loves, Travel Centers of America and Pilot give a free shower to every 50 gallons of fuel purchased, so we of course have all of the cards and rewards cards to where we are allowed to fuel and we utilize those free showers as I used to enjoy at least 2 showers a day, I have since been downgraded to a daily shower.

Back to the 0430 mornings, so it seems we are cursed in this area at the moment. We are very much in hopes this too will pass. It started last week but it seemed to have subsided a bit, until I of course opened my big mouth, as last week I was fussing about our new dispatcher and how we had gotten shafted to some late pick up and drop off loads, well he at least got us "home" on time this time for the hubbys appointment with the VA and the pups had to go in for their annual check up and shots too. Every one got a clean bill of health for another year, yahoo..But, the drive in for the second week was equally hell as the appointment s are in Valdosta and our quote home is in Albany which a 2 hour drive, that requires someone... namely April to come and meet us so I can pick up a car and then go meet my hubby where everhe drops the load. Drop truck and then drive back to Albany, yeeeaa so 0430 we crawl into bed so we can sleep fast and hurry up and get things done in order to make those appointments. Which brings me to the next greatest adventure we have mutually agreed to headfast and feet into. Since the last child has decided to move out and head out into the real world, we have decided there is no real substantial reason to maintain a quote home, so that day we decided to be home-less and so here it is all pistons firing as we would say to one another,  lets pack up and put everything in storage, yea sure sounds like  a great idea! HAA, we at least opted to take a nap that rainy afternoon before setting out on the latest greatest adventure... after our nap,  it was well into 8pm, we loaded the trailer, the Smart and Camry to as full as we could possibly stuff them and headed southeast to a place I had never hoped to call home again,  Waycross, Georgia, I had lived here many years ago as a newly wed and a new nurse just getting out of school.  I honestly had hoped to never return to this aweful town, I say its aweful for my own personal reasons, but my only brother and mother and now youngest child consider this place home,  so I will hang our hats in storage here for a little while. At the time of this writing, we are expecting Trenton in about 7 weeks give or take, so this movement will help when I need to go "home" for his birth. With the trailer finally packed at about 1130pm, it looked like we may make some good time to Waycross seeing it is about a 3 hour drive. No lie, I was following my hubby as I was in the Smartand he was pulling the trailer, we knew we needed tires and needed them pretty bad but we had put it off even since our last trip when we took the motorcycle to Nic in New York, back in April, we was going to press our luck as we usually have to, we had looked at Walmart the previous day and no one had the tires we needed. So, we pushed forward on a hope and a prayer. I honestly think we would have made it, until I opened my mouth and posted on Facebook how tired I was of these 0430 mornings and no sleep. Guess what, no joke it no more than posted and boom, a tire blew. Literally, the middle of no where AKA Axson, Georgia. I set out to Waycross to find tires, due to the one driving the Smart would be the goffer in the event anything happened, I am sure the hubby wanted it that way. So 30 miles one way to Walmart get tires, to which are not the suggested size but will get us back rolling,  back to the trailer and well you guessed it, another 0430 morning after it was all said and done. Wheeww, so glad that adventure was short lived!
So fast forward to today, which is officially tomorrow now and back to my blast from the past, usually the past is well in the past where it should be. But I guess I should elaborate a bit on some past aggravations as the go with the story, my reasoning for not caring for Waycross, I once upon a time left the biggest - well one of the many biggest aggravations in my life there, my ex husband. You know they called ex's for a reason, to my thought process is DO NOT bother me for whatever reason, I think this should go for all ex's, all they do when they show up is cause drama and then make light of it. I have my life and you should have yours.  Long story short, they no longer are connected.  But obviously someone felt the need to aggravate me today about some issues that are years old. I won't bore you with the details, until next time..
We are in hopes to make it to the family reunion before Saturday in Manchester,  as it is now Saturday and we are heading to New Jersey, it isn't looking very promising, but we remain hopeful to see some family. So as we head north boundand the wheels go round and round we are heading in the right direction.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

And the adventure, by way of aggravation, continues...

So my last update was about my newby experience on the truck, the hubby getting his new truck and the joys associated with all of that!
Well our last dispatcher had a way of "taking care of us". Rude awakening to us on the following Monday morning after getting our new truck, you have a new message... this means someone from dispatch is making contact.. So long story and email short, we have a new dispatch... well thats just fucking great... I will save all the in between drama, hubby has a VA appointment, which consists of a 2 week process the first week you go get labs, pee in a cup and then wait a week for results and the following week the doctor will see you and then interpret those results to you. It is a pretty important deal, since you only have to do this once a year..Not this year it seems our new dispatcher has no idea what is going on, whether it be with his fleet or whatever.. as you may notice my tone with him is less than pleasant, I haven't enjoyed talking with him, but the husband says he is probably about 20 years old and arrogant as____-you can fill in the blank with any appropriate word.. Had I spoken with him, we probably would be shopping for a new company to drive for, as I do not hold my tongue well especially when it comes to blatant stupidity. The VA appt has been on the board for notice ever since the hubbys date of hire,  so why in the hell was we still driving at 2am on the day that we were supposed to be home AND why was we routed 2 hours away from home. See what this dumbass fails to realize, if there is no one at home to drive 2 hours to get you, how are you supposed to get home. ? Hhmm, well long story short the husband was able to route us through our "hometown" and luckily April was there to pick me so I was able to get the car and of course drive the 2 hours were the husband had to drop a load on the second day of his 3 days he requested off. So I drove to pick him up because once he dropped the load, we had to have a way home. In between dropping me off and dropping his load he made his first appointment,  although he had to drive through Valdosta and park in a no semi lot to run and get his stuff done. Hubby delivers on time and I am there to pick him up and drive home another 2 hours northwest.. So we are supposed to have 3 days off and be back to the truck for Thursday,  by my calculations driving all nite on Tuesday and delivering a load on Wednesday and reporting back to truck on Thursday is NOT HAVING 3 DAYS OFF? So we return to truck on late Thursday nite after having less than 24 hours "off" to find the quallcom has been sending tons of messages, to include a loads we was expected to be at by 1am. Really? How can you assign us a load if we are technically off the truck. Let me explain, if you log off the truck it is like normal people clocking out and going home for the end of their day has come. So how do you/ canyou expect someone to work,  by taking a shift when they are not even there.  Well just like most normal people dispatch only works 8 or 10 hours and then they get to go home totheir husband and wife, kiss the baby and the dog. Unlike us Iif you don't take a load, it is considered refusing a load and that my dear is occupational suicide. ?. So fear of being labeled as refusing a load- because we wasn't even in the truck, we sent a message to nite dispatch who is sometimes wayy worse that your best frenemy, to tell them what the misunderstanding was on "their part" of course in a nicer way than I would have put it, my husband has a was with nice words... We had only hope we hadn't committed suicide,  as the weekend is now passing... it doesn't look real good we have been officially screwed at least twice in the last 2 days, so the odds are not looking like they are in our favor.  So as the new week approaches we are hopeful for some good loads after the second of 2 scheduled appointments.
Which brings me to some maybe good news after all of that bad.. April and Dom, well thats a mouthful its just they had been holding down the homefront, butwith all of the new changes that the husband and I have making, they of course are involved. With the upcoming birth of the third grand, I felt like April needed to be closer to some family, so I suggested she move closer to my mother and brother, especially since we are on the road more often than not. So she did, and Dom was at the house, but he has since decided tomove back to his mothers too. So all is well,  there is no since in paying for an apartment that has little furniture in it and no one living there. We have given most of our worldly possessions away, and what it left at this moment willbe given away too. We have 2 cars to place in storage and whatever fits in our cars, I feel like is all we will keep. I plan to return to school sooner I originally planned,  but it is so I can hurry up and get trained, and we can get on with our future and doing whatever we want to. Midlife crisis- this screams at you.. haa I know, considering we are willing to be home-less, hell most people go spend money on a new home or car... not us I guess we have really never been what they call typical...