"Burn Baby Burn" or "North to Alaska"?

There comes a time in life when things just don't work the way they always have. I think we are facing one of those. You know how as you age parts and pieces slow down and get sluggish? Yeah well that has started happening at our house. I know, I know you say that it's only to be expected. Well damnit that is not acceptable to my husband of 44 years. He expects everything to last indefinately. Bless his heart he is exactly like his father(God rest his soul). 


Most of the time he can fix anything and will. But there are some things that he won't  even attempt. However, you would like to believe that everything won't slow down, break, need repair or need replacement at the same time. But as the saying goes "when it rains it floods". (that's my version of the saying)


In the last year we have replaced the roof, redone both bathrooms to aleviate missing grout, water leaks from toilets and faucets, and have kept our fingers crossed while the dishwasher makes noises like a dragon digesting a knight in a full suit of armor.


Along with all that we kept our fingers crossed that the air conditioner wouldn't go during one of our 100++++ degree heat waves. And the old gal didn't let us down. She kept us nice and cool. As the weather got steadily cooler we didn't have to think about the heat. That is until last week when we got our first cold snap. Turn on the heater and cross those fingers again. Will she work for another season? Yea!! she came on and warmed everything up quite nicely. Whew!!! Another reprieve. or so we thought until...
Yep, got up this am and the poor old thing can make her fan work but she just can't heat things up like she has done for the last 20 something years.

We are getting all the last minute details taken care of before we leave on our next reventure (as my "great niece" Ally used to call adventures :}).  It may be that one of those last minute details could be figuring out how to have a new heater installed in the house while we are gone. We have Jack here now looking things over. So we'll see what happens. And of course today is Sunday so it costs extra for a service call on a weekend. Stay tuned for the conclusion of  "Burn Baby Burn" or "North to Alaska".

We leave at 6am tomorrow for a long 9 hour wait in San Francisco before heading to London and on to Rome where we will spend a week and see things we missed in 2009 on our first international trip. On November 20 we board Crown Princess and set sail once again to the Greek Isles, Turkey, and Croatia ending up in Venice. We will continue our trip from Venice across the Atlantic to Galveston, Texas making stops in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and the Azores.

We will be out of touch except for Facebook and email until after December 22 when we get back into Galveston and fly home just in time for Christmas. I will try to post for the different ports since our tour schedule is not so intense as it was last year with Dominick. That was impossible to keep up with, so I didn't even try.