Sunday Sunshine: Family Time & Early Spring

Practicing Contentment by remembering the graces in the week and practicing gratitude by giving.

This morning, while I am going to miss my after church quiet time at home, taking a moment this morning to write while rain pitter-patters outside and I can listen to HandyMan play with a happy GBaby - it's just as good!

This week we took a break from our normal and spent a week with family in Arizona.  This first taste of spring warmth will hopefully pull us through the last weeks of winter back home.  It was such fun watching GBaby grow closer to her grandparents, aunt and uncles.  She has explored the outdoors on her two little feet barefoot and now with sneakers and is getting the walking thing down pat! She continues to hold her record as a great traveler as she played happily throughout all our flights on Monday.

One of the biggest bright spots of last week came on Monday when we were traveling.  We placed the "amen" at the end of a a prayer for smooth travels and an on-time or miraculous early arrival.  It was almost like God was sitting up in heaven, scratching his beard saying, "yeah, ok".  Not 2 minutes later, my cell phone rang with an alert that our first flight was delayed by 2 hours.  A quick schedule review in my head told me that we would miss our connection which was the last flight of the day to our destination.

So I sent HandyMan and GBaby to drop the dog off with friends and I went inside to call the airline.  After navigating the goofy voice prompt system, I finally got a helpful reservations agent on the line.  I quickly explained the situation and no sooner did I finish explaining than he offered to re-route us on another airline which would have us arriving at our destination an hour earlier than scheduled.  He put me on hold to finalize the plan with the other airline.  Holding...holding...holding...holding.  Finally he came back, gave me a confirmation number and we were ready to go.  We made our connections with plenty of time and arrived an hour earlier than originally planned.  Direct answers to the small prayers are great!

It has been a good week, full of brightness and family.  May your week be blessed!

Sunday Sunshine: Craft Fair Calm, Beef Barley Soup and Good Days

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week.

I have some grace-hangovers from last week to start off this week.  If you've been following you know that I had a craft fair last Saturday.  I'm generally a little "type A" if you know what I mean.  When I started setting up and realized a good portion of my display materials had not made it into the car, and I calmly went about creating a different display with what I had and my blood pressure didn't even bump.  Applefest was an outdoor fair and it was grey all day long, but the rain waited until the end of the day to start.  Since it poured at this event the entire day last year, this was indeed a grace.

On Sunday, I was craving beef-barley soup and trying to squeeze the ingredients out of my remaining grocery budget for the month.  Finally I decided that I'd wait and it could be an October meal.  Later Sunday evening I was making plans with a friend to get together on Tuesday and double-team our kids and get some kitchen projects done.  She says - I can bring beef barley soup, I'm making it for dinner monday and we'll have leftovers.  And the heavens opened and a light shone down and the angels sang.  Well not really but it was a pretty cool moment.

This week I also managed to stay on top of my chores and tasks and Gbaby and I had a great drive to NH where I am hanging out for the week.  It's always fun to spend time with my folks and to see friends. I am again so thankful that we were able to settle down within a reasonable driving distance of so much of our family.

So, what has brightened your week?

Travelling Reviews: Thrifty Car Rental (LAX)

In the seven years that HandyMan and I have been married, we have travelled extensively.  On occasion we come across service providers that are excellent.  In other cases we come across those who we can’t recommend as wholeheartedly and some with whom we just have weird experiences.  Thrifty Rental Car at LAX was one of these providers. Because Thrifty rental locations are locally operated, this review references the LAX facility only.

After eight hours of travelling we arrived at LAX bright and early at 10am.  I consulted our rental car reservation which said to call the office upon arrival then meet the shuttle at the designated curb.  Easy enough – we’ve received and followed such instructions on many occasions.  What the reservation didn’t tell us is that when you call the number, or use the convenience phones to contact the LAX Thrifty office your really get the phone bank automated maze that can tell you nothing about the local rental car site.  (Thrifty, if you’re reading this – it’s time for you to revise the directions that come with reservation e-mails).

Once in baggage claim we discovered that our luggage had taken an alternate route and had not yet arrived in LA and the convenience phones were not so convenient, we gave up and went to the curb, where we waited.  Other, less thrifty, rental car companies had shuttles pulling to the curb about every 2 to 3 minutes.  Our Thrifty bus pulled up after about ten minutes.

By the time we arrived at the rental car terminal, GBaby was hungry go HandyMan went to get the paperwork done while I fed her.  Long line and lots of paperwork later, G’s fed and we’re instructed to go pick a car from Section 6.  Ok.  We go out into the blazing southern California sun and see three vehicles parked in section 6: a minivan, a 4-door-hatchback and a midsized car.  We had reserved a compact.  So we loaded up the minivan, before someone realized they were giving away free upgrades, and got ready too take off.  I picked up the contract and almost choked on my trail mix.  The total was more than double what our reservation was.  We stopped and looked it over and through some misunderstanding we had been given their full, top of the line insurance coverage, even though HandyMan had declined it.  HandyMan headed back inside to get this fixed before we left.  I sat in the van and watched two equally confused customers come out with their contracts in hand and try to figure out what car they were supposed to leave with, while three other multi-sized vehicles – fresh with water droplets from the car wash, were added to the selection at Section 6.

Ten minutes later, with the paperwork corrected we took off to face the highways of Los Angeles.  One week later when it was time to return the car, I planned extra time, just knowing there would be a delay of some sort when returning the rental car.  We had prepaid the gas tank so we didn’t have to fill it up (and for those who know our history, we were in no danger of running out of gas).  Arriving at the rental car return, we unload all our stuff, the customer service rep looks over the car and hands us a receipt.  I look at it and it’s about $40 more than our contract.  I politely ask if she can explain why it’s more than the contract.  She says, we didn’t fill up the gas tank.  Ugh.  I point out on the contract that we had pre-paid for the gas, she sends us inside to get it corrected.  While another agent is fixing our charges, we watch our shuttle bus leave.  We catch the next one, with corrected receipt in hand.

So, this experience is what it is: our encounters with disorganization for the good and the inconvenient at Thrifty Car Rental at LAX.  What’s your latest travel adventure?

Bags are Packed... or Not

Today I have to pack and I am not a fan of packing.  Especially since the airlines have now added fees for checking bags.  So my mission is to get a week's worth of stuff for two adults and one infant packed into one duffle bag, a carry-on bag and a diaper bag.  I'm really glad that it is still summer and we're heading to a warm destination!

There was a time, in the very recent past when HandyMan and I spent seven weeks roaming around Europe with just our backpacks.  For this trip we will need a few things that we didn't need then - like diapers, stroller, wipes, car seat, binkies, teddy-bears, toys, blankets.  The new challenges of  travelling with an infant.

So our first "big trip"  with GBaby earlier this summer and she did great.  It went very well and were blessed to be staying with friends so anything we needed we borrowed.  This time we're staying at a retreat center that's not equipped for infants.  So, fortunately we still have friends that live nearby that are loaning us a couple important things -like a Pack 'n Play.  Next week will be an adventure.  I will have posts scheduled so you will have fun things to read while I'm away (like the promised Three Bean Chili recipe and yummy Zucchini Sweet Bread and ideas for your summer tomato crops).  Replies on comments will probably be delayed since I'll be working off my phone.

Here's my strategy for packing.  Do you have any tips for me?