Cry baby and something cool 😁

So right off the bat let me say that I  am not posting this seeking sympathy. This is strictly to explain why the infrequent posts.

To base line it, I am rapidly getting old. Over the past couple of years I have developed a couple of health issues. 

The first is what we believe to be BPPV which is an ear issue that causes extreme vertigo. 

I have had this for probably 2+ years but until recently it only affected me when I would try to lay flat on my back. Typically I would experience it when attempting to do work on one of our vehicles which required me to be on my back under it.  Recently it has become significantly worse, lasting for several days after an attack. 

I have been working through several well published manuvers which are touted to have great success, but so far have seen only mild improvement.

The second is an issue with my left shoulder. 

About 2 years ago I had surgery for a torn rotator and nerve issue in my right shoulder. Now it seems I have the exact same thing in my left. Were it not for Covid I would have already had this looked at and likely have had surgery. But with my high risk profile, I can't imagine walking into a hospital today. I deal with the pain during the day, but it gets worse at night and keeps me awake. I don't think I have had a full night's sleep in 6 months.

So not to belabor the subject, between being extremely tired with a hurting shoulder and a spinning head, I just haven't felt up to blogging much. But that's enough of the downer stuff.

We are still in Texas, currently up near lake Texoma. We are in a beautiful park here and the weather has been pretty nice.  I am writing this while sitting outside under the RV awning with blue skies and temps in the mid 80s. It's pretty hard to top that for an August day in Texas.

We are still discussing where we go from here. We had contemplated going North, perhaps into Colorado, or west into New Mexico. But honestly, given the continued Coronavirus issues, we will probably stay in Texas for the rest of the summer. That would have us here at Texoma for 1 or 2 more weeks before begining our migration south again.

Regardless, we are both healthy, eating right and exercising daily, doing our best to keep the corona beast at bay.

I promised something "cool", so let me tell you about this week's shopping trip to Walmart in Sherman TX.

We have been posting on the incredible curbside pickup service at most Walmart stores. You order on the Walmart app, the store picks your items an hour before your pickup time, and loads them into your car when you arrive at the store. 100% touch free from begining to end. And if you haven tried it, you should. 

The veggies they pick for us are the absolute best, the meats are amazing, and if they substitute something, they upgrade it at the original price. So I order Great Value Oatmeal and if they are out, I get Quaker Oats at the Great Value price. We have not been disappointed even once. And the service is free. 

So on to this week's experience. The way the program works is that you go into the app and select the store you want to pick up from.  Not all stores have this service but the vast majority do. Then you shop using the app which has everything grocery in your selected store as well as most of the non grocery items in the store. The app works from the real store inventory so you won't be shown items your selected store doesn't carry.

When I selected the Sherman TX store there was a notation beside the address that said "Automated Pick Up". Not knowing what that was, we called the store to find out.

It turns out it is something akin to a giant vending machine with individual kiosks and elevator looking doors that you back your car up to. You simply go up to the kiosk and scan a barcode that has been emailed to you, and then step back.

Inside this machine there are two areas, one refrigerated and one frozen.  Everything you have ordered is inside, in plastic bins, and when you scan your barcode, they are shuffled to the doors you are parked at. We had a relatively small order this week so we had a total of 6 bins. We unloaded the first 3 and then clicked "Next" on the kiosk and the next 3 bins were delivered.

This is pure Jetson's stuff. 

We don't even see a person in the entire process. I'm sure there were real humans doing the shopping for us in the store, but we didn't have to see or talk to anyone. This was an incredible experience.

As we drove away, Cindy commented that this could be the way we all shop in the future. They could have a big warehouse on the back side of this where no customers actually go inside. How cool!

Oh and yes, the success rate continued. There was nothing missed, nothing picked incorrectly, and the meats and veggies were excellent. It may have taken corona to get us to try this, but I doubt we will ever go back to in-store shopping unless we just want entertainment.

That's it for now. I hope you are doing well, staying safe and making the best of this situation.

Thanks for reading! 

_______________________________________

Cindy and Terry

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