#223 Nomad Diary. 25-31 January 2025. Athens, Alabama Airbnb Week 1 of 5. Grandkids Owen and Esther. Back to Familiar Church Friends and Location.

Stunning View From Our Airbnb Near Athens, Alabama.


Our Airbnb House Living Area. Master Bedroom is Off the Living Room. Gorgeous Pond View.

Airbnb Kitchen and Front Hallway with Three Bedrooms, Bathroom, Laundry Room and Garage Entry.

 
Darrell on Whatsapp Call with His Mom. Trying Out the New Chromebook PC for Calling.

Picture of Grandson Quinn in Brazil. First Big Playground Injury. He's Doing Well.

Enjoying Sunday Time in Our Airbnb House.

Our Oldest Son's Family. Eric, Erin, Owen and Esther.

Owen and Esther at Their Home Near Our Airbnb.

Eric Having Breakfast with Esther.

Darrell Working to Learn His New Chromebook Computer

My Place in Our Airbnb House to Use My New Chromebook, Do Watercolors and Afternoon Exercises


Saturday. 25. We wake up before 6am and do our DDP stand-up routine. Afterwards we get the coffee brewed and make breakfast together. We enjoy our time in the morning. After breakfast we each go about our tasks of cleaning up and packing up for our 10am check-out. During this time Darrell as usual gets his suitcase packed and ready to go long before I get mine complete! He is stacking items near the door and begins to carry them down the outdoor flight of stairs to the truck. The truck has frost on all the windows and he also scrapes the frost while he’s there. I get a call from our son Jeremy and grandson Quinn in Brazil. Quinn is speaking understandably and his speech coach said that he no longer needs the extra time on his s sounds. He’s doing that well since his adenoid surgery. He’s also stopped snoring. He was very happy to talk about his school and his friends. He also knows that we are going to his cousin Owen’s house. He has great memories of his last visit and is counting the days to go again. Darrell comes in from the cold and we talk a little more and then say goodbye as we complete our check-out. We drive through the winter mountains and across the country on good roads. There are no leaves on the trees and there’s no snow today. We drive through many small towns. Around 11:30 am we stop at a Mexican restaurant for lunch. It’s amazing that we can get a full lunch for less than $10 each. I take a turn to drive for a couple of hours. We cross the time zone line and it’s magically an hour earlier. We make one more stop for gas in Scottsboro, Alabama and then for groceries in Madison, AL. We are close to our house, but the traffic is a bit heavy. We get our groceries put away and then drive the 3 minutes to Eric and Erin’s house. Owen and Esther are so excited to see us! There’s another couple from their church there and we are all together at Eric’s for his monthly singing. He had a friend who died in his 40’s and this friend had put all of the Psalms to music using familiar hymn tunes. Eric has been singing through these a few each month. During this hour we sang Psalm 100! It was very enjoyable. We stayed for dinner too and played with the kids while their parents cooked. After dinner Owen asked to go back and play again, but we said we were leaving. He buried his sad face in his mom’s lap. Awww. We hugged him and said we’ll see you tomorrow and we love you. We spent the rest of our evening opening our new Chrome books that we ordered to replace our old computers. I’m typing on it now and hoping to learn and grow with this device. It reminds me of using my phone! Lol. With this we are not renewing our microsoft products and we are switching to using google products. I already had switched to using google doc’s and other apps. Hopefully it all goes well. I like having my own smaller computer and not having to share! Speaking of sharing, our current airbnb has 2 bathrooms and that means we each have our own and we both like this extra room! 

Sunday. 26. Worship at Capshaw church of Christ. We are members here when we are in this area a few weeks each year. When we lived here we were members here for several years. The congregation is larger now. I know many of the people, but there are loads of people new to me, and I’m meeting and learning about!

Monday. 27.

Tuesday. 28. Today I had 3 appointments! Woohoo. I had a call with my friend Laura in Tennessee. I went and got my sleep study package to use tonight at home and then return in the morning. And we had our afternoon online Bible class with our English friends. I made flax meal crackers. Eric invited us to dinner. We have some babysitting to do there too while he goes to the airport to get Erin back from her biz trip. Our toilet clogged up today and I had to buy a plunger as the last one apparently went missing. It’s a beautiful sunny day about 45-50 degrees.

Wednesday. 29. Our host had a plumber come today as the drain on the toilet is still very slow. They cleared the line really fast.

Thursday. 30. I went over to babysit for an hour or two with Owen and Esther in the afternoon. These two love to play and read books and be together with family. They are super sweet and active. 

Friday. 31. We did the DDP ‘Strength Builder’ exercise routine this morning. It is 40 minutes and fairly challenging. We are both eating consciously. We both have increased our protein since August. We are able to track more accurately since cooking for ourselves most of the time now. Darrell has lost about 15+ pounds. I’ve lost 5-10 pounds. My weight is lower than my old ‘normal’. I used to hang out in the 140’s and now I’m in the 130’s. I go over to spend the morning with Owen and Esther. Darrell says that the master bath toilet is draining slowly again. We will see how the weekend goes before we let the host know.

Nomad Notes. We are completing our first week of five weeks. This is quite a long stay for us. I will do some weekly housekeeping while here. Since becoming a nomad, I don’t do the same amount of housework as when we owned a house. There are no more seasonal chores as renters. When we stay longer than a week, then I have weekly chores of cleaning bathrooms and washing the sheets and towels. I also try to keep the floors swept and do any obvious cleaning that needs to happen.

This airbnb is one of the largest houses we have rented during our Nomad life (beginning in Sept 2020). It’s close enough to walk to Eric’s house. It’s enjoyable with the view. Overall I’m loving it, the comfort and quiet of it!

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