I guess it was a good idea to come home from camping. Both mornings have been at 32 degrees with frost on the ground. It hasn't even gotten above 50 degrees during the day. I think we would rather be at home and work on projects and be comfy than trying to enjoy time in the woods when it's this cold. It has been raining almost constantly since we got home. With these kind of temps, it could easily turn into snow.
The other added plus for being home, our son-in-law Jesse asked if I could watch Whitney for Wednesday evening. We invited over her little cousin Claire as well. These two girls sure kept us busy!
Here they are pointing out their names on the "Grandchildren Sign" made by our daughter Erin and son-in-law Waylen.
We decided to bake some brownies. Whitney has a special way for breaking the eggs. Here is her first video she made with her mom, telling us how.
(It was on Facebook and I didn't know how to transfer it into the Blogger format. So I videoed it playing on Steve's phone so I could insert it here)
Here is the video that we made of our attempts on Wednesday. It works out pretty good and you don't get any little pieces of shells.
They helped follow the recipe and took turns adding each of the ingredients. They very carefully measured and poured everything into the bowl. Baking is wonderful when they can learn about things like math and also learning that things don't just come from a store. You can create them at home just as well.
Often homemade things taste better than store-bought. Plus, there are usually leftovers. We always leave more than enough batter in the bowl so they can enjoy the extra with the spatulas.
Isn't this the best part, being able to eat the leftover batter? I have fond memories doing it when we were kids, but we had to make a bowl stretch out among six kids!
While the brownies were in the oven baking, these two decided that they needed to be veterinarians and take care of all of the stuffed animals. They spread out all of their patients in the guest room and took out all of their doctoring tools. They were very concerned over each patient that came into their veterinarian office. Elaborate stories were made up about each case. But the brave veterinarians saved each and every one!
Next activity on their idea list was that they were going to write letters. We dug up a stack of odd-sized little envelope that I wasn't using for anything else. They took out the crayons and the colored pencils and started writing cards and letters for people that they know.
Whitney was delivering letters to Grandpa down in the she shed. He got a whole stack of wonderful envelopes and notes. He had to read each one, and then they took the notes back to re-deliver them all over again.
Claire was busy bringing all of the little cards and letters to each room of the house. Every place had a new address and she was being the mail lady. I am sure that I will find more letters throughout the week as I clean house from room to room.
Speaking of rooms, both girls love to play in this cute little Hideout. It is actually a built in cabinet for storing wood next to the fireplace. Because we no longer burn any wood in the fireplace, it's a great little hidey-hole room. They go in there with little blankets and pillows and flashlights. It's a wonderful little hiding spot and they also wrote their names and messages on the walls inside with magic markers. Kind of like a time capsule for kids to find in the future.
Little Binney got a lot of attention too. She came out to hang with the girls on the couch and to see if they had anything good to eat. The brownies were almost done baking, but dogs can't have chocolate. Both girls each have 2 dogs at home, and Whitney also has a kitty cat. Binney was checking that out, I am sure.
The brownies were done but we had to cool the pan quickly so we could get them frosted before the girls had to go home. I was able to stuff the whole pan into the freezer to cool it off. When it was sufficiently cold enough, we spread the frosting on top. We cheated and used a store bought can of frosting instead of mixing our own this time. I didn't have any chocolate powder to make it from scratch. The girls both took care of adding an abundance of sprinkles to the top of the brownies. What fun is it to bake at Grandma's, unless you can put sprinkles on top of it!
Soon it was almost bedtime, and both girls had to go home. There was school the next day. We cut up the pan of brownies and sent a container home with each girl to bring to their families. And there were a few left for Grandma and Grandpa as well. We will have to arrange a sleepover sometime on a Friday or Saturday where they can spend the night together. Their parents came and picked them up. It was quiet again in the house. Too quiet.
~~~~~~~~~
Thursday morning, Steve was anxious to get started on the interior trim for the new window that we put in last week. It was raining and miserable outside. Perfect for working indoors!
Last week, he had already cut the wood to length out in the garage for all of the window trim. I gave it a coat of primer and a couple coats of paint out there while laying flat on the sawhorses. It's much easier to work with pre-finished wood inside. I don't have to paint primer and two coats of paint all while positioned vertical on the wall. No runs or drips either. Then all he has to do later is fill in the nail holes with little dabs of caulk or spackling. I can give it a final touch-up once it's all done.
Using tiny finishing nails in the air powered nailing gun works really well to put up the trim. He has a portable air tank so he doesn't even have to haul in the big air compressor to do this type of trim work. I will have to paint the inside edge of the spacers he needed for around the window. Old houses are never perfect, so he needed spacers to get everything to meet up perfectly with the level of the plaster wall.
By afternoon, the sun started peeking out and we had some blue sky!!! The new window sure brings a lot of light into the bedroom. I still have to trim off the excess strings on the venetian blind where we removed the unneeded slats.
By trimming out the window all the way around it makes it appear even bigger than before. I really like the view into the backyard.
Now Steve will figure out the complex cuts to do the top crown moldings and the sections of egg and dart trim. Here are some of the vintage pieces throughout the house that we are going to match.
We are going to try to recreate the same thing for over the top of the big window as well as the top of the new double closet trim in the master bedroom. That was never done when the room was reconfigured by the previous owners. It will be nice to make it all match. But not doing anymore on Thursday, that was enough work for the day.
~~~~~~~~~
Friday morning, Steve decided to do one more little project in the master bedroom. We have this little section of short wall between the new window in the closet. It's just perfect for this narrow tall oak cabinet. But I needed an electrical outlet behind it instead of running an extension cord. Steve took care of measuring and figuring and started cutting the hole out with his plunge blade on his oscillating tool.
When he started fishing the wires up through the wall, little Binney got very concerned. She was pacing back and forth and sticking her nose by the vent trying to figure out what was in the basement coming up through the wall! She was absolutely sure it was burglars!
She fretted and fussed and whined and barked. Good dog Binney! You protected us from the burglars....
Soon he had the outlet all wired in and hooked up correctly. Now I could just run both cords directly to the outlet without using an extension cord. One is for our alarm clock in the other is for this pretty little stained glass lamp. I have it on a timer so it comes on in the early evening and shuts off at 11 p.m. after we go to sleep. It is just enough light in the room as we come and go, in and out, or get ready for bed without turning on the overhead light.
And there it is, set in place. The cabinet can't exactly be centered on the wall because we need clearance for the bi-fold closet door. But I think that it works well in that spot. Better than just leaving it blank. Once we finish the trim and I put up some lace valances on the window, it will kind of fill things in.
Now that project is done,
and this blog is complete,
it's time to make some late breakfast / early lunch.
I wonder what kind of trouble we can get into this afternoon?
I am going to start off the new year with posting some of our motorhome modifications, a few at a time. I will post repairs, modifications, or neato things we have found for RVing. I have lots of pics in my files so I will do them in alphabetical order.
Underneath that stuff, I will post my regular daily stuff..... kinda sorta fun, eh?
And to add to that, many household AC appliances still draw power even when not in operation (i.e. both tv's, the microwave, the dvd player, surround sound, CD player, and our RF modulator) so we plug all those items into household power strips. We can control them with a flick of a switch. Then we can decide if we want them on or not without having to plug and unplug them. Why have all of these things drawing power up in the front livingroom or kitchen if you are only using one tv in the bedroom when the inverter is on? We put power strips up inside the cabinet by the electronics, and one in the cabinet over the microwave.
Electrical 12 Volt Outlets:
I touched on this during my post last week when talking about the front dash area, but I will mention it again and add to it. Around our rig, Steve has added 12 volt outlets here and there. Ya know, those "cigarette lighter" outlets? Even though not as many folks smoke anymore, they are changing their names to "12 volt outlets" This one he added up front under the dash and it also has two USB ports to utilize power for charging cell phones, tablets and laptops.
We needed a 12 volt outlet in the rear of the coach to run our tire pressure monitor console. So Steveio decided to install a 12 volt outlet in the bedroom making a clearer path to pick up the sensors from the Tracker.
He snugged an outlet up in the corner of the valance, hidden out of sight, and ran the wires along the inside over to the wiring for the light. A few wire clips and wire nuts, it was Easy Peasy and no holes drilled!~
Plus, the outlet can be used once we are parked in place... for either charging up a cell phone or even plugging in my laptop. (I have both AC and DC cords for my laptop)
Electrical 120v AC Outlets: Safari makes a great motorhome, but they are really lacking in both 12v DC and 120v AC outlets throughout the rig. Sooooo we can fix that! Steveio is always up for a new project:
He decided to add one up by the dining table. Then if we want to run our TV on a small inverter we can do so by plugging into this DC outlet. He added a 120v AC outlet here too.... as often we sit at the table with electronic things (such as my sewing machine) and having an outlet close by the table makes sense.
On the driver's side of the rig, in the livingroom area, we were lacking in 120v AC outlets. Steve was able to tap into the power under the fridge and run a new outlet box to this little wooden panel. The panel also covers the vent hole and holds the new vent cover after we removed the couch there.
Electrical LED bulbs: Since we do a lot of boondocking and rely on the solar... we added some LED bulbs to some of the 12v DC light fixtures throughout the rig. I do not care for the light from these. I find it harsh and greenish. Steve is the one always using it, and moves the bulbs from light fixture to light fixture. Drives me nuts! I never know which fixtures the LED lights will show up in? Kinda like LED Roulette!
Electrical 12v DC Fixture Swap Out: See..... a while back we bought five of these brass 12 volt light fixtures to replace the *hockey puck* type halogen lights that were energy wasters. They are also too hot in operating temps where the glass lens would loosen up and fall down on your lap. It would burn you if you were sitting underneath it! A little camping friend, Autumn, got burnt on her leg one night. That was it, out they went----
Since we improved those light fixtures, the two front "map lights" needed to be updated to something more sensible too. The holes were square and the new lights were round.... so I came up with the idea of painting two old CD's black and using them as "backer plates" for the light fixtures!
Seeing as we rarely ever camp in campgrounds with electric hookups,
these measures really help us conserve battery power and propane usage.
Guess we are just being "Green" ----
These type of modifications allow us to boondock in areas that are more remote, more beautiful and less crowded than an RV park. We just don't care for rows and rows of tin cans crowded together when we are on a get-away weekend. Just one more modifications in Steveio's Bag of RV Tricks!
~~~~~~~~
We have another light dusting of snow coming down right now, only about an inch or so. It looks so pretty and winterlike. Glad to have it covering up the dull grey and bleak brown of winter we were seeing last month.
Sorry to say, I am suffering again from a flu or cold bug. I am struggling to stay healthy, but each bug that comes along gets me right down. My system is compromised as it is, and this rash of flu bugs has made me more susceptible to anything floating around. I am on another round of antibiotics but at least this time the lungs are not involved, thank goodness. Just head, ears, throat, belly and body aches.
Steve comes home from his driving job and immediately washes his hands and uses hand sanitizer and he is doing great. Not me. Sigh. So I will remain a recluse and stay inside and stay safe as well as I can. At least till flu season is over?
We are enjoying watching the Olympics on tv. Nick Baumgartner snowboarder is from my home town of Iron River, MI and also Nita Englund ski jumper is from nearby Florence, WI where my cousins grew up. Gotta root for the home town kids!
It's been so cold out that the dogs haven't been out for a walk in ages... Steve takes them out to the big backyard and tosses around a ball and gets them to run off some steam. I toss the toys up and down the long hallway upstairs each evening for them to fetch and chase. Just like kids, being cooped up too long makes them full of mischief.
Posts
