December 2017 – Sweet Home Alabama

We always go into our time in Mobile thinking it will be such a laid back and relaxing one where we are going to get so much done.  Somehow, this never happens.  Our 6-7 weeks at “home” flies by and we never get what we wanted to do done.  This year’s big plans?  Clean out our storage unit, do some RV purging and reorganization, explore some new places in Mobile, hang out with friends we rarely see, and do some long term planning for TechnoRV.  Well, the month is up and let’s see what we can check off our list.  Did we even VISIT our storage unit?  That’s a big NO.  Did we work in the RV to be more organized?  If moving a chair out and giving our daughter some clothes counts, then yes.  If it means emptying and reorganizing cabinets, the closet, and bays?  NOPE.  We went to only a few restaurants while in town, and all were our favorites – nothing new.  We went to eat with one couple, and I went to lunch with one friend.  FAIL.  Now, where our time really went….TechnoRV.  No shocker there, since we spend most of our time focused on our business.  Owning our own business is so rewarding, but because we run it from home, it’s hard to separate work from free time.  We have been lucky to see a lot of growth this year in TechnoRV (although Eric says it’s a result of hard work and not luck), and there are so many other things we could be doing to help grow the business even more in 2018.  It’s fun to work on them and plan and make changes. I really enjoy having more control over my income and love having the freedom that owning our own business gives us.

So, back to December.  We started the month by flying to Arizona to work with a marketing company Sixth Division so we can get more use out of our automated marketing program InfusionSoft.  We flew first class since we have so many points from our business credit card, and Eric was in heaven.  We ate and drank more on that flight than I’d like to admit, and Eric said he never wants to fly any other way going forward.  I told him that TechnoRV would have to grow a lot more to ensure first class for the rest of his life.  He said he was up for the challenge.  🙂  Overall, it was a great trip and we were able to get a lot of things nailed down for the new year in only 3 days that would have taken us months to do, if not more, on our own.    Paying other people to do work for the business has been a hurdle for me to overcome. I feel like if I can figure it out, I should spend the time to do so and save the money.  Problem is that these things that I’m supposed to learn begin to add up while the time we have doesn’t.  I have started to choose things that take too much of my time that others could do much quicker and let them go.  Could I save the money and do it myself?  Yes, eventually.  Is it worth the stress and time?  Nope.  I didn’t choose this lifestyle to be stressed, and as long as we can afford it, I’m going to learn to let it go.

     

After Arizona, we returned to Mobile and that’s where we stayed the rest of the month.   We spent time with family and a couple of friends, and traveled to Tuscaloosa for a few days to visit our oldest who couldn’t come home for Christmas.  Now that the kids are all out of college and working on their own, it’s harder and harder to get them all together.  I imagine we are going to have to plan some great trip way in advance to lure them from their schedules.  Until then, we settle with spending time with them separately, and they know we are always willing to fly them out to visit us on the road.  We feel very blessed to have family that supports our travel lifestyle.  We hear from so many people that have families that don’t.  That would really suck.

 

Speaking of family, I have the most talented mom!  Her house at Christmas was gorgeous and so festive!  I don’t really decorate for holidays anymore, and it really helps get into the holiday spirit when you get to hang out at her house all month long.  She does it all by herself and claims to enjoy it.  This is not a gift I have, and I’m pretty sure my sister didn’t either.  Maybe it skips generations.  Check out just a few rooms in the house.  Decorations were everywhere!

   

Before the year ended, we had our annual TechnoRV holiday party, which means we take Mom and Dad out to eat to a nice restaurant.  They do so much to help us throughout the year while we are on the road.  In addition to mom working for us daily to ship our orders (she was employee of the year for a second year in a row), Dad keeps our RV site all up and running for when we come back.  He even put city water in this year for us instead of the well water we were using prior.  They receive our mail for us and ship it to us occasionally when we are on the road.  They really make everything easier and we are happy to spend a fancy evening out with them every once in a while.  This year, we took them to Dauphin’s, a restaurant located at the top of the RSA tower with great views of Mobile and a fabulous menu.  We especially liked the chocolate truffles they serve as an after dinner mint.  It ooked like something out of a Bill Nye the Science Guy episode!

 

So. 2018 looks like it will be a great one.  We are planning more RV shows this year since we played so much visiting National Parks last year.  One year playing hard, one year working hard.  Sounds like a good balance, right?  We have several destinations planned just for fun, but we will be doing about 14 shows which is more than double than we did last year.  Alaska is planned for 2019, and Eric wants that to be the 50th state, so we are even tossing the idea around to get to Hawaii some time in 2018, but that all depends on Lincoln and how he is doing.  We will be visiting several of our RV friends this year and will be traveling to 8 new states (not including Hawaii) so we can round out the 48 contiguous states this year.  The states we have left are North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, and Kansas.  If you have any suggestions on what to do in these states. we’d love to hear them!

-Tami

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