Long Time No Post

I'd love to say that I've been too busy at work to post, but I'm still out of work. I've had a few good leads and a few good disappointments. Overall though, I'm trusting God has a place for me and I'm still excited about where that may be. Lately I've been out of routine, spending more time with my family and loving every minute of it.

Last week we went to Gatlinburg for a few days. It was great. The hotel/timeshare place was an experience. We booked this place on Hotels.com, but when we got there figured out it was a timeshare. Well, first they didn't have our reservation, even though I called before I left to confirm everything. Then after calling Hotels.com and waiting 10-15 minutes with an increasingly hungrier and angrier family, the reservation clerk slowly takes us through the check in process. She then picks up the phone to call Guest Relations, who were 20 feet away. Seeing everything unfold would be more hilarious, but the scene reminded me of an 80s comedy.

After guest relations was summoned, they made their way over and were introduced. We were then escorted to their desk and introduced to Shorty. We were instructed to get in our car and follow Shorty in his golf cart up to our room. Directions to the room would have been more appropriate in my mind, but pointing to the building 100 feet away must not be timeshare style.
Upon arriving at our "home away from home" Shorty came up the 3 flights of stairs with us to show us how the key worked. And then he showed us the refrigerator, the contents of every cabinet, the bed, the sheets, the bathroom. I'm not sure there was anything that Shorty didn't show us. We're about 45 minutes into our adventure now, having carried the boys up three flights of steps and the family increasingly hungry and angry. By this point, I was very ready for Shorty to leave.

But leave he did not. He began to open a packet entitled, "Welcome Home." I expected a speech about timeshares now, nope. Just a bunch of information about Gatlinburg, rules for the pool, tv channels, etc. And Shorty thoroughly read in detail everything in that thick envelope. Not taking my obvious cues that he was not Welcome in our "Home", he continued on. The highlight was when he told us that the refreshments stand had Pepsi products for drinking purposes. Lucky for Shorty that made me laugh and I didn't throw him down the 3 flights of steps back to his golf cart.

Shorty did finally leave. He asked if I needed help with the bags, and although I did, I exclaimed, "NO!" I was afraid to let him stay any longer. So, once I lugged our car full of goods up to the room, me and the hungry, angry family went out to eat. We were saluted at the guard station on the way out and the vacation progressively recovered. Though it started bad, it ended well. We had a great time.