Rosa Linda Román (00:29): Hello, and welcome to New Mexi-castaways, the enchanting audio podcast, companion to New Mexicast. I'm Rosa Linda Román your host, and the person who basically shares my ramblings here on this podcast. My family and I moved on to a 45 foot sailing catamaran four months ago and we have had some crazy, amazing wild adventures! Not the kind of adventures we expected to have ,meaning going too far off land and meeting fascinating people, but adventures of the natural disaster and crazy scenario variety that we had not anticipated among them. We have been evacuated because of a hurricane. We have had a two near robberies, people who have boarded our boat to try to steal off of our boat with us onboard. We have had I'm trying to think of all of them. Well, there's been plenty. Oh, somebody hit us another boat hit our boat and did some damage while we were just sitting at the marina. Rosa Linda Román (01:51): And now finally we have been evacuated because the boat beside us burned to the water line and sank and damaged our boat in the process. This is all in the course of four months, not including the fact that we've had visitors and many other things going on. So it's been a very busy, crazy wild adventure. This morning right now, today, I'm recording this on my way back from one hotel to our new hotel, which is actually a vacation rental property through a vacation rental by owner, because we have not been able to get back into our home, the boat, because of the fact that the work has still not been done to repair to clean up the smoke and soot damage and to get everything back to normal. So we have been in a hotel. I, we being my three kids and myself, and sometimes my husband, although right now he's in India and he's been traveling most of the time that some of this drama has been happening, which has been making it even more interesting. Rosa Linda Román (03:02): But anyway, so I'm on my way back to this vacation rental property. And it's been very interesting to say the least. We havewe, so I was looking forward to trying to get this vacation rental property so we can get out of the hotel, which is really hard with a five-year-old son which is why I thought that we would get a vacation rental property and that should be that. I checked out of the hotel, having made the reservation at a three bedroom condo near the beach in Jupiter, Florida and feeling ready to go. We packed up the hotel, checked out. And then shortly after that, I received a refund notice from the renter, from the person who owned the property that we were supposed to be moving into. And so I checked with him and said, what, what happened? And he said, oh that I had made the reservation on the unit that wasn't the unit that we had been looking for. So I thought, okay, that's fine. And I resubmitted it and went to lunch, waiting for the, you know, the approval and the checking information. And we had everything like all of our belongings in our car and then in my,nd the babysitter, Ms. Allie's car. So we're sitting in the parking lot and waiting for word. And all of a sudden I get a notification that the owner canceled my reservation again and refunded my money. And I'm, I mean, this is hours that I've been sitting and by the way, my parents are visiting because my daughter had a meet this past weekend. And so my parents are visiting and,uthey are, you had to be sitting in the car with me, which has been insane, just like waiting and wondering, and trying to get into somewhere that we can feel some sense of normalcy and move on with our lives, because it has been really stressful for the kids and stressful for me. Rosa Linda Román (05:15): And just a lot of things in flux. And then add to that, the fact that today is the morning after election day or the day after election day. And the country is up in arms and freaking out because Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. And in the process of that many, many, many people feel like it's like the beginning of the end of America. So, and one of them that feels that way is my mom. So it's been a very emotional time for her. It's been emotional for my family because we've been living in a hotel. And we felt like we were finally gonna get to move into a place that would be somewhat normal. I was making the reservation for nine days so that we could get everything done that needs to be repaired on the boat, get it all cleaned, remove all the smoke and all that and get back on the boat and by next Friday, so basically nine days from now. Meanwhile, my son's birthday, Samuel's 6th birthday is this Friday. So there's that as well. And as I mentioned, my husband is in India, India right now. So I called the person who owns the vacation rental property and said, what the heck is going on. We were just waiting for the, like the key card code to get in the unit, and now you're canceling my reservation. Well, he said that HomeAway or vacation rental by owner which is the same company. Basically they canceled my, they said my credit card flagged as potentially fraud or fraudulent or whatever however they put it and that it was not, they shouldn't accept it because it was likely stolen. A stolen credit card. And I just was like, are you kidding me? This has been the craziest month. Rosa Linda Román (07:17): I promise we're good for it. I can give you another credit card, you know, please. And he said he didn't have control over it because it goes through their automated process. And so basically they flagged me as a questionable renter. And so there I am with my three kids and my parents sitting in the car with like a cooler full of all of our refrigerated stuff and all of our clothes, you know, in suitcases. And just, it just really was that kind of a day. Finally, I went to my bank and said, why are they rejecting my credit card? And they said, no, we have not. We have no problem. Because I thought the reason was because I had moved, we had moved and that my billing address had changed. And so, because I had put the new billing address, I thought that the, my credit card hadn't caught up or whatever. Rosa Linda Román (08:12): Well, it turned out according to my bank, that was not the case. It was, you know, just something on their end. So I called the guy back. I go through all this process, try to submit, try to submit. And finally, long story short, we do have this unit. I had to go take Allie had to go take Ahava to gymnastics and I had to meet her because she had half of our stuff in the car. So I haven't even really seen the unit that much. I went in, dropped off some of the refrigerated stuff. And so my parents are like moving our stuff in. Well, we you know, trying to get settled while I go get this stuff. So this, all of this to say, it has been a crazy time in our lives, and I got, I got to talk about something that I, my daughter and I have talked about a lot, and that's the law of attraction or The Secret. Rosa Linda Román (09:04): If you've ever read the book, The Secret, and talks about how you, everything in your life that is going on in your life, you drew to your life, you created somehow. And so by the, by the thoughts that you hold in your head, that, that you focus on the most. And so I was saying, you know, I've been saying that I wanted lots of adventures and that's what we were preparing for and looking forward to, by moving onto this boat. But I guess maybe I needed to be more specific that I didn't want adventures of the emergency service requiring variety and more of the kind of adventures like meeting interesting new people and seeing new lands. That's the kind of adventure that I'm looking for, not the kind that involves boats burning down and robberies and, you know, calling 9 1 1. So I'm going to just put that out there for the universe to hear me that I'm not interested in any more drama of the kind that we've been having lately, and I'm ready to move into the next phase. Rosa Linda Román (10:11): Now, a big part of the reason if you've listened to some of my past broadcasts or podcasts is that we've been sticking around where we are, is because my daughter Ahava is a competitive gymnast and we were, she was working hard to prepare for the state meet, which is the beginning of December. And so we stayed put here in this area for that reason so that she could pursue her gymnastics dreams. Well, she had her meet this past weekend, which is part of why my parents came to visit. And she, it was her last chance to qualify for the state meet. And she did not qualify. She did not make the score that she needed in order to qualify. So it was a really heartbreaking weekend. All of this happening with us, you know, being in limbo with our home, our boat home, and just really being uncertain about what is coming and frustrated she's felt about not making the state meet. Rosa Linda Román (11:23): So that kind of changes how things are proceeding for us, because we were really sticking around so that she could do the state meet. And now she didn't make it into the state meet so technically we could sail sooner, which is cool, but we have a lot of things that have to happen between now and when we were going to sail. We were planning to sail to The Bahamas on December 5th and at the time of this recording it is November 9th. So we probably can't get all of the stuff we need to get done before our planned sailing date anyway because we still have to do permits for The Bahamas and get our dog certified or whatever. You have to do papers for the dog. Speaking of the dog, we, you guys, I don't know how much I've talked about her on this podcast but we have a German shepherd puppy. Rosa Linda Román (12:23): Who's, I guess, about seven months old now and she is going to live with us on the boat, but we have, I have a friend Betsy Alvarez who is a professional dog trainer and so she has had Nala, our puppy, and has been training her. So, which worked out well because with all the crazy drama that we've had, we haven't really been in a position to have her with us because we've been living in hotels and now this vacation rental property. But we get Nala back tomorrow and our babysitter Allie is going to keep her and try to reinforce the training that she's had so far. And then we'll see what happens. It should be interesting to get her, we'll be very excited to get her back, but how to do all that and still living in a hotel and whatnot. That should be very interesting. All right. I am now back to the rental unit. I want to get all the stuff in from the car before it gets too dark. So I will continue this conversation later, but let me just tell you, I'm looking forward to a little normalcy, a little boring, a little doing nothing for a few days, trying to just settle in and figure out how we want to move forward from all of this crazy drama. All right. Thanks for listening. And I will be back in a little bit with some more to wrap it up. Rosa Linda Román (14:00): All right. I'm back. And I'm recording this the next day. As I am heading to Krav Maga, what is Krav Maga? Well, that's a subject for another episode. I don't know if I've gotten into this yet in the podcasts that I've recorded, but basically since all the drama that we've had, especially of the scary peoplevariety, mainly robberies. We have started self-defense classes as a family and I'm heading to one of those right now, but I wanted to kind of fill in the last 24 hours with the vacation rentals and how that whole thing has gone. As I was mentioning, when I was recording this yesterday, I was looking forward to some normalcy and some downtime. Now there's not, not going to be like normal people normalcy because we still have my family is coming in for my son's birthday is tomorrow. Rosa Linda Román (15:02): Samuel turned six and my sister, Sarah, is hopefully going to be coming in. My parents are here. And like I said, we're staying in this vacation rental property. But the good news is we are really in a home that feels much more normal. We have, everybody seems much more comfortable, myself included. I actually slept for the first time in, I don't even know how long. Last night I had a good night's sleep and the kids woke up with smiles on their faces. We have, you know, we we've gotten very good at bringing the essentials with us, even if we're just in a hotel room like we were. So we were easily able to unpack what we needed for the kids to feel like they fit right into this home. It's a three bedroom, three bathroom, two level space. Rosa Linda Román (16:05): That is exactly what we needed. The kids, they just fit right in. And what I love is that it's walking distance to the beach. Today, I kind of dragged my whole family, my parents, my kids, and dragged everybody over to the beach and you have to walk across a park and then you get to the beach and it was beautiful. And there was a lot of complaining and people did so begrudgingly, but in the end, I think everybody was glad that we went and it was nice to have a kitchen to have lunch in instead of eating fast food or something else. It just, it was a lot better than some of the other places that we've had to stay when we've been evacuated from our home. So I'm going to go into Krav Maga and I will wrap up a little more on the drive home. Bye. Rosa Linda Román (17:06): Well, I didn't wrap it up on the drive home, so I will now wrap it up on the next morning drive to the Fort Lauderdale airport. My niece Elizabeth is coming in to surprise usnot to surprise me, but to surprise my son for his sixth birthday. Today is Samuel's birthday. And I can wrap this episode up by telling you that I am really glad I'm in that house that we have rented because after I got back from Krav Maga last night, which by the way, if you ever want to get your butt kicked and be so sore you can barely move your arms and legs, you should do Krav Maga because that's how I am right now. I cannot even tell you how sore I am. And I have bruises over all of my arms, legs everywhere. But it's a good pain, right? Rosa Linda Román (18:03): I feel much more, I feel much less vulnerable than I did when we started this process. Anyway, I got back last night after Krav Maga and we had this yarn that we had used for Halloween, for a costume for Halloween or we were going to, we ended up using it as a spider web for decorations, which gave me the idea for Samuel's birthday, that I would take this yarn and string it attach an end of the yarn to a present and hide that, and then string the string throughout the house and all of the points. So all the presents are hidden in these different places. And then throughout the living, main living area, I weaved a web of yarn and brought it, all those, the ends of the strings, the yarn to a point on the front door knob and each one leads to one of the presents. Rosa Linda Román (19:07): So I think there's like eight of them and it looks like a spider web. And it's really cool cause Allie, our babysitter, and her cousin had wrapped the presents with like Spiderman wrapping paper which had webs on it. So and it, some of the presents are like hanging in the middle of the web and it's just perfect. He, Samuel woke up this morning and it was like, he just was so overjoyed. He's been singing. He's just so happy. And honestly, the presents are, all we got were like, they're like books and some Leapster little games. So he hasn't even opened the presence. In fact, he, I let him open one of them so far cause we had to, I had to take him to volleyball and he opened one present. And it was the thing that he wanted the most, which is going to make you laugh. We were at The Container Store a couple of weeks ago and he begged me to buy an egg micro, a microwave egg cooker, and he barely eats eggs anyway, but he just, he carried around the store. He wanted it like so much and begged me to buy it. And I said, no, I'm not buying that. I'm not buying that. But I did of course end up buying it, wrapped it up. And that was the first present he opened today. And that just goes to show when you live on a boat, your kids realize the little things are joy filling and the rest of it, you know, they can do without. So,it's just hilarious to think about that. He was so excited. Of course he was super excited about the spider web and when he finally got to open one present, before we headed to volleyball, he was so happy to find that egg cooker in there. That makes me laugh so muc!. Oh, well anyway, so I couldn't have done that if we weren't. I mean, I guess I could have in a hotel, but it would have been near impossible because then we would've all been in one common room and I would have had to do that while they were sleeping in the same room, which would have been really difficult. Rosa Linda Román (21:10): So it was fun to be able to have the kids asleep and then make this spider web that is full of gifts and sparked major joy this morning for Samuel and for the girls. And even my mom, I think was pretty impressed, which I have to tell you. That's where I got the idea from when we were little, when we would have a birthday party, she would make this spiderweb that people, our friends would go friends who came to our birthday party, each of us, it's like a game for the birthday party. Each person would grab an end of the yarn and follow that through the house to wherever a gift was or some surprise was for each, each guest. So I got this idea from my mom. She always was a very awesome, interactive mom and is now the same kind of Grammy. Rosa Linda Román (22:03): So it was fun to have her here seeing that her legacy lives on. But I, you know, I guess I could have, I would have done it on the boat. In fact, that's just goes to show you don't need a lot. Right. You just need to be a little creative and you can easily make the kids feel special, even when you don't have much, all it took was whatever presents I was already giving him and a spool of yarn. And that was it, that the right thing, a chord of yarn. What do you call a thing of yarn? A thing of yarn, you can tell, I don't knit. Anyway. I guess that's enough rambling for one episode. I have a lot that I want to talk about. I feel like I really need to kind of document some of these crazy adventures we've had. And I would love to hear from you what you would like to know about. So if you are so inclined, please do leave a comment somewhere on these episodes. Or you can send me a note rlr@newmexicast.com. And if you like this episode, or this podcast in general, please consider leaving a review on iTunes. That definitely helps out and gets the word out about New Mexi-castaways. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Rosa Linda Román.