Time and Money

When I teach the unit on conflict to my Oral Interpersonal Communication students, we note that the definition of conflict includes an expressed struggle between two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals in obtaining scarce resources.  The students learn that the two most scarce resources are what the title to this blog alludes to: time and money.

Although Rick and I are NOT having a conflict, we do find ourselves concerned about both of these resources.  The most urgent right now is time.  My darling husband, the super-planner, had our U-Haul trailer that we were going to load with goodies and pull to Gladys set for pick-up at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, June 7. (Side note: Happy Birthday, nephew Steven!) He has had this trailer reserved for June 7 since last October.  Did I mention he was a super-planner? On Tuesday of this week, Mr. Ants-in-His-Pants gets the great idea that we should get the trailer on Wednesday (since he did a drive-by of the U-Haul place and saw that they were loaded with trailers) and then we could get an early start on driving south on Thursday.

He went in Tuesday afternoon to talk to the woman behind the U-Haul counter who plugged his request into the computer.  Yup, he could have the trailer on Wednesday, and the computer said that it would only cost us $400 MORE to get it early.  Ha!  Note from the blog title that the other scarce resource is money. Thankfully, the U-Haul woman called her dispatcher, pulled some stings, and got us the trailer a day early at the agreed-upon October price. Rick's time-urgency was briefly satiated.

We spent all of Wednesday loading the trailer and setting the Green Bay household into "hibernation" mode.  As much as I tried to eat out the refrigerator, Lindsay and Chris still went home with a cooler full of food with our blessings. (I hate to waste food except for the mysterious bottle of something that expired in 2010 that Lindsay found lurking in the refrigerator door.  Thank heavens today was garbage pick-up day at our house!)

This morning (Thursday), we were up with the birds and on the road by 4:45 a.m.  We found that if we take three-hour driving shifts, we can make it to our destination without undo fatigue on any one driver's part. For those of you who have never done so, please note that Illinois seems to go on forever when one tries to drive it all in one day.  I swear that if a woman gave birth to a child in northern Illinois, the kid would be ready for kindergarten by the time she drove to the southern tip of the state.

Thankfully, we are now in Clarksville, TN.  We drove approximately 12 hours today with no problems.  The sun is shining, the birds are singing, but my butt may never recover from sitting in the truck that long.

The good news is that although we saw 7 dead deer, none of them died from direct contact with our truck.  We passed more police officers than I cared to count, but we did not make anyone's personal acquaintance on the way.  We changed drivers and took bathroom breaks every three hours, and (knock on cement) all of the tires on all of the vehicles are still inflated. We actually made good time in getting to our hotel for the evening, and although filling the truck with diesel always gives me heart palpitations, we actually could fill up for $3.69 gallon.  Putting in the charge card twice because the gas station had a maximum $95.00 charge limit nearly killed us, but then we reasoned that it could have been much worse had diesel remained above $4.00 a gallon.

Our hotel is conveniently located near the highway, gas stations, and blissfully, several restaurants within WALKING distance.  I think I would have rather starved than to climb back into that truck tonight.  We spent a little more money than we would have liked on dinner, but I have half of mine in a styrofoam box in the refrigerator for lunch on the road tomorrow.

Clarksville, TN, is next door to Fort Campbell, home of the 101st Airborne Division.  Helicopters, uniforms, and lots of people. There is more traffic here than in downtown Manhattan.  When we asked about the traffic, we were informed that one of the major events in the area this weekend was the Country Music Awards in Nashville.  Timing is everything!  We know that traffic is miserable in Nashville even on the weekends, so we had to come up with alternate plans.

We have agreed to get up tomorrow by 3:30 so we can be on the road by 4:00 a.m.  We have an hour's drive to Nashville which we want to traverse before the Friday morning rush hour. The last time we drove through Nashville, we almost drowned in a terrible downpour, so at least the weather is supposed to cooperate tomorrow.  Driving through Nashville will probably take an hour and a half, so we hope to get there by 5:00 and through the area by 6:30 at the latest.  Barring any major construction or major accidents, we should be on our way in reasonable good time.

Rick just said that with bathroom and lunch breaks, we will ONLY put in about 9 - 9 1/2 hours in the truck tomorrow.  Our destination is Lake City, FL, which will leave us with just a short jaunt to Gladys on Saturday.

So far... so good.  The timing worked in our favor so far, the money is slipping out of our accounts at an expected rate, and we are looking forward to a good summer in Gladys.  Our plans are ambitious... removal of eight trees in the back yard, all new windows and doors, a remodeled master bathroom, new paint in the kitchen, Florida room, master bath, master bedroom, and guest room, and (if the money holds out) perhaps new kitchen cabinets before we leave. We have nine weeks to make these transformations, so the question is what will disappear first: time or money?