December - Week One

Monday - I spent the morning gathering cleaning supplies.  That afternoon, I cleaned a house for people that were returning to Saddlebrooke for the winter months.  Joe & Deb watch their house the months they are away and they asked Joe to find someone to clean it.  A good job for me!  A very nice home, I cleaned all afternoon.  It was a good workout.

Tuesday - a few more hours cleaning to finish the job.  Back home, I cleaned up for our day's adventure - going to Nogales, Mexico with Wally and Jan.  Wally had a dentist's appointment there, he has seen the same dentist for fourteen years.  The cost of dental work there is 1/2 to 2/3 the cost in the US.  That is great for those of us who are retired and do not have dental insurance. We shopped in the duty free shop before crossing the border.  There are some good buys there, to get the price you must buy it and take it across the border with you, then bring it back.  Jan, Gary and I walked through shops in Nogales and had lunch while we were waiting for Wally.  On the way home, we stopped and had supper at Guadalajara's, a great Mexican restaurant in Tucson.

Wednesday - a rainy day in the desert.  I spent the day putting up our Christmas decorations in the motorhome.  I had to make a new tree, I use hanger wires for the frame and then wrap green roping around it.  Now it felt like December.  Gary filled out some on line employment applications.  We were both looking for some part-time work for the month.  Thursday we worked on things at home, book work, laundry and correspondence.

Christmas tree 2014 - I had not kept the one from last year.

Friday -  we had breakfast and then Gary had an email from UPS about a job as a driver helper.  He responded and they asked him to come in right away that day for orientation.  After a few training videos and giving him a uniform shirt, pants and jacket, they put him to work that afternoon.  A driver helper rides along in the truck and runs the packages up to the houses or into the businesses, allowing the driver more time to pull the next orders in the truck.  The month of December is much busier, of course, so they wanted to hire 300+ helpers for the Tucson area.  That night, we went to Dan's with Wally and Jan to watch the Arizona football game.

Saturday - another long walk in the morning.  We went to Mass that evening in Oracle and then met the group, family and friends, for pizza at Nonna Maria's in Oracle.

Sunday - we did not try to go anywhere.  We had gone to church the night before, because the Tucson Marathon route was this day from Oracle in to Tucson, which blocked off lanes on the highway outside of our park.  All the  locals said it would be hard to get on the highway.  We sat outside in the sun, watched football and had fresh salsa, chips and margaritas with Wally and Jan.