Mortaine’s Blog

One of the things that we decided before moving into the RV was to go completely “paperless” with regards to bank statements, bills, receipts, and all manner of paper clutter. For most bills it was easy as we have been using a bill-pay service for the last 10 years. MYEZBills.com, previously known as Status Factory, is not the usual free bill-pay service you get with your bank account but rather a full-service bill pay that costs about $20/mo. Basically you change your billing address to their address, they open your bills, scan them, and the best part: they pay your bills using rules you set! For example, I set the electric bill to be automatically paid 10 days before it is due, as long as it’s under $150. All your bills are paid on-time, every time, with no effort. This is especially important now that we are traveling full-time with mail being forwarded once per week at best. You can set fixed amounts or you can have them pay the minimum payment or you can have them send you an email to manually intervene. And you can view and download all your bills as PDFs on their secure web server and even order an annual CD-ROM for archival purposes. It’s the bomb! All payments are made directly out of your bank account and most of the time it even has the full description of the bill payment on your bank statement, unlike cashed checks which simply show the check number and amount. The only caveat with a service like this is you must maintain an adequate balance in your back account.
In my next post I’ll detail how we went paperless with everything else, including scanning, shredding, online storage, and the all-important regular backup.

For the self-employed, one is never technically “unemployed,” one just has varying degrees of availability. As of this Friday, my availability goes way up. Last week, my largest client informed me that they don’t have enough work to keep me on for the time being.

Therefore, I am looking for another writing contract. If you or someone you know is looking for a senior-level software technical writer on a contract basis, I’m available. Check out my LinkedIn profile if you want to know my qualifications. I’m currently in Florida, and I can take remote-work contracts only. I can travel to client sites anywhere for the ramp-up phase. I speak French and some Spanish and am proficient in Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. I bring my own tools to the relationship, so clients don’t need to supply me with expensive hardware or software.

While I look for another job, I’ll be working on my new novel, a historical romance set in the Regency era. No derogatory remarks, please. You all know I enjoy romance novels, and good storytelling knows no genres.

So our refrigerator has been shutting itself off randomly so getting it repaired was a major priority. I found a repair shop nearby and we took the RV there yesterday. It’s inside an RV resort called “The Great Outdoors” or “TGO” for short. While the refer was being worked on, we toured the resort. It was unbelievably huge! (2,400 acres — I looked it up later.) They had a golf course, of course, lake fishing, tennis, swimming pool, etc. but apparently most of it that isn’t sites, is wilderness preserve. The “sites” are really private deeded property in a planned community and range from simple concrete pads, to ones with storage, Florida rooms, covered parking (for up to 60′ of RV!), small houses all the way up to huge homes with RV-sized full garages. Property owners put their spaces into the rental pool when they are away. Everything else is professionally managed like in most planned communities. It is so big they have their own Post Office, bank, library, RV dealership, RV repair shop, and golf cart dealer. Anyway, it’s the biggest RV “park” we’ve ever seen so I thought I’d mention it. And the refrigerator is working perfectly, so far.

Yes, I am like a binge crafter, I know!

First, I decided to do an extended tatted piece. This is a simple traditional edging, worked from the ball (every tatter recognizes this piece– it’s the one they all do). This is needle tatted in size 8 cotton thread, color is peach (same as the previous little practice piece I did before). I think it’s just under 2 feet long. I sent it to my friend Inga in a letter.

A close-up:

The second “complete” piece I did was for a handmade-items swap on swap-bot. It’s a medallion, also worked in the same #8 peach thread and also needle tatted, from the ball:

The pattern is from the Priscilla Tatting book #3, which was published in 1924 and is available online through the antiquepatternlibrary.com in PDF format. I didn’t starch-block this, just wet and ironed it. I wanted the recipient to be able to use it as an applique on a quilt– she’s a quilt-maker, so I thought she might enjoy this bit to use as a motif somewhere.

Because ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) are a very popular “extra” to include in a swap on swap-bot, I made a small ATC with the pattern and a tiny motif from the medallion.

I posted in the Ravelry L.A.C.E. group about starting a tat-along after finishing this medallion, and the first reply I got pointed me towards Tat it and See which is a mystery tat-along by designer Jane Eborall. I’ve worked up through Day 3. The pattern is challenging for me, because I’m shuttle tatting it, and it uses chains and split rings. I’ve only done chains on a needle, and never done split rings before. I learned both for this pattern (the chains are in Day 4, coming soon!)

I’m especially delighted, because in my “research phase,” I had found Ms. Eborall’s patterns page, loved it, but forgot to bookmark it and couldn’t find it later. Now I have it, and shall make many geckos and probably a few flamingos.

In visiting her blog, I also found the 25 Motif Challenge which I may or may not complete. In any case, consider the first three little bits to be the first three out of 25.

I am also working on a wrist cuff bracelet in #12 thread (thread gets more and more fine the higher the number, like wire gauge). Since I’m not really happy with how it turned out so far, I’m not going to post a picture of it just yet. Stay tuned. Watch the blog.

Ok, so the RV requires a bit more maintenance than I am willing to admit. Today [hopefully] the Mobile RV Repair guy is coming by to fix a couple not-serious-yet leaks, mount our LCD TV wall bracket, and some other tasks. Now, I’m a moderately handy guy but I do not yet fully understand the nuances RV construction and repair. I hope to learn a thing or two from the repair guy. I still have to determine which part to replace in the diesel burner head to restore the Aqua-Hot to full operation. For now, being that we are in Florida, electric water and space heating has been more than sufficient.
Last week we did get Dish Network installed. So now we have High-Def on the front TV and we can record two shows at once, while watching a third. It is nice not to have to watch commercials again!
NASA has moved the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis to Feb 7+. One way or another, we want to see a launch while we are here! We will either return to this park or just drive the Jeep up from wherever we are at launch time.
I guess that’s all for now.
-JohnnyB