*S*N*O*W* and MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS *C* Compass, Cover and Containers

Oh my... 

Better Dig That Motorhome Out!!!!  

We FINALLY got some snow! 

At least more than dusting.  

Steve is out there snowblowing it away from the front of the motorhome. Ya never know when we just might want to hop in and escape the winter????  That is why we back it in during the last use in the fall. Easier to drive straight out if we do decide to go somewhere. It's not in the plans right now, but you never know......  I keep reading blogs of our RV friends off in the desert and it's making me get Hitch Itch! 

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled blog:

I am going to start off the new year with posting three of our motorhome modifications 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?

So here it goes, we are up to the letter C now!

MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS 

STARTING WITH THE LETTER C

Compass:

Compasses seem to have gone the way of the past, since GPS has come into our lives.  Older RVs do not have a GPS built in. A lot of people rely on the GPS on their cell phone. What if your cell phone battery goes dead, or your GPS unit in your rig keeps saying Rerouting... rerouting.... ??? 

Both Steve and I navigate and keep track better if we use a map and have a compass to glance at. In our car, one is built into the rear view mirror and I use it a lot to keep my bearings when I drive.  Same with Steve in our motorhome.  I found him this one years ago... and we keep it velcroed to the dash.

It is a digital one that runs on a few AAA batteries,

 and has a light to illuminate at night. 

I think I found it at an auto parts store. 

Containers:

When dealing with the smaller cabinets and lighter payloads in an RV, we try to find things that stack compactly and take up less space.  Instead of the full paper bag packages, or floppy bags that could leak, I only take along partial amounts of flour, sugar, rice, brown sugar etc. I put them into containers to seal out any critters when we travel in the south.  I used to have these round ones, but they took up a lot of room and wasted space with their cylindrical shapes.

Instead, I found these containers from our local Shopko chain of stores.  Here is a link and they are on sale right now.  Gourmet-Living-8-Piece-Square-Rectangle-Air-Tight-Canister-Set   You could google the brand Gourmet Living to find some online I am sure.  They are thick plastic and have a lever of top that vacuum seals the lids down tight.

The rectangular shapes help to stack them tight, 

and keep things from sliding around. 

Cover on Console Shifting Pad:

Our Cat Engine on our motorhome has an Allison Transmission with a push button keypad on the left side of the drivers seat for shifting.  With a simple push of the button, you can put our rig into gear!  Just imagine the horror of us being outside hooking up the Tracker Toad and having someone push a button... or a dog jump up on the seat to look out the window and push a paw onto the keypad?  Yes, we always try to pull the emergency brake when stopped... but things can happen.  I was always nervous about something or some pet pressing a key when we were doing the hookups. 

Steve eased my fears by making this heavy plexiglass cover for our shifting pad.  We flip it up out of the way to lean against the wall when we are driving, and we always flip it down flat over the keypad anytime we leave the drivers seat.  Even if it's just for a minute at a wayside to grab a drink from the fridge, or pulled over to do a potty break. Better safe than sorry!

~~~~~~~~

Attention for my quilting buddies!   I found a bargain on Amazon last month. I had to wait till they arrived and I tried them before putting on my stamp of approval. I ordered 2 at the bargain price of $1.99 each and free shipping.  I figured if they were junk, I would not be out too much money.

They arrived, and appear to be well made, strong, all metal and not cheap at all.  I put one on my machine yesterday and tested it out. IT WORKS GREAT!!!!

Link:

Free Motion Spring Foot (METAL)

Here I am comparing them side by side, the new metal ring foot on the right and my older plastic half ring foot on the left.  I think the new one has about 3 times the open area in the circle than the plastic one. I can see better where I am stopping and starting or moving during free motion quilting.

They took almost 3 weeks to arrive because they are shipped from China. PS I usually try to buy American, but the hopping feet for Janome are $39.00 here in the USA, and are not as nice as these.

Look at the nice space around the needle.  Now I can see where I stop and turn and move in another direction. Especially for the pointed parts of the thread pattern.

 This is a new-to-me free motion pattern 

called "Swirls with Hooks"  

 I practiced over and over on paper to get it down right,

and commit it to my "Motion Memory" 

before tackling it on the machine.

I am using a variegated thread on top that goes from cream to gold to brown....  

and solid brown on the back with the coffee bean printed fabric as backing.

Here is the first pass down the top edge of the quilt

while pinned onto my frame. 

I think I like this pattern,

and even moreso, having the right 

hopping quilting foot to make it easier! 

I liked it sooo much that I ordered ten more! That way I have extras for each of my three machines, plus I will have a few on hand if any of my quilting group ladies want to buy one. I figure at that price, they might not be around much longer.  Instead of spending $39.00 when I really need one in the future, I can just go to my little sewing box and grab another if I wear this one out. 

While I am inside quilting, Steve went back out to do some more snowblowing.  I was kinda under the weather last night and chilled this morning perhaps running a fever, so he told me to stay inside. He is braving the below zero wind chills to clean up the driveway and parking area, as well as the parking area for the elderly lady next door. What a guy! 

Last night our neighbor two houses down went up and down our front sidewalk with his snowblower, but the snow kept falling and the winds kept blowing. Yup... it finally looks like WINTER to me!

I take care of my snowy cold man by simmering up a pot of soup!  I buy these Bear Creek soup mixes (we like the Minestrone the best!)  I had a bag of shredded leftover roast beef in the freezer to add to the 8 cups of water and the mix. Then I toss in some chopped onion and garlic, some frozen peas and a couple extra handfuls of noodles.  Simmer for half an hour and it's totally done and delicious!

There is always enough to freeze afterwards for another day, 

because it makes a pretty full soup pot! 

Now I think we are both due for a little nap. 

MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS *C* and Three Dog Night

I am going to start off the new year with posting three of our motorhome modifications 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?

So here it goes, we are up to the letter C now!

MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS 

STARTING WITH THE LETTER C

Compass:

Compasses seem to have gone the way of the past, since GPS has come into our lives.  Older RVs do not have a GPS built in. A lot of people rely on the GPS on their cell phone. What if your cell phone battery goes dead, or your GPS unit in your rig keeps saying Rerouting... rerouting.... ???

Both Steve and I navigate and keep track better if we have a compass to glance at. In our car, one is built into the rear view mirror and I use it a lot to keep my bearings when I drive.  Same with Steve in our motorhome.  I found him this one years ago... and we keep it velcroed to the dash.

It is a digital one that runs on a few AAA batteries,

 and has a light to illuminate at night. 

I think I found it at an auto parts store. 

Containers:

When dealing with the smaller cabinets and lighter payloads in an RV, we try to find things that stack compactly and take up less space.  Instead of the full paper bag packages, I only take along partial amounts of flour, sugar, brown sugar etc. I put them into containers to seal out any critters when we travel in the south.  I used to have these round ones, but they took up a lot of room and wasted space with their cylindrical shapes.

Instead, I found these containers from our local Shopko chain of stores.  Here is a link and they are on sale right now.  Gourmet-Living-8-Piece-Square-Rectangle-Air-Tight-Canister-Set   You could google the brand Gourmet Living to find some online I am sure.  They are thick plastic and have a lever of top that vacuum seals the lids down tight.

The rectangular shapes help to stack them tight, 

and keep things from sliding around. 

Cover on Console Shifting Pad:

Our Cat Engine on our motorhome has an Allison Transmission with a push button keypad on the left side of the drivers seat for shifting.  With a simple push of the button, you can put our rig into gear!  Just imagine the horror of us being outside hooking up the Tracker Toad and having someone push a button... or a dog jump up on the seat to look out the window and push a paw onto the keypad?  Yes, we always try to pull the emergency brake when stopped... but things can happen.  I was always nervous about something or some pet pressing a key when we were doing the hookups.

Steve eased my fears by making this heavy plexiglass cover for our shifting pad.  We flip it up out of the way to lean against the wall when we are driving, and we always flip it down flat over the keypad anytime we leave the drivers seat.  Even if it's just for a minute at a wayside to grab a drink from the fridge, or pulled over to do a potty break. Better safe than sorry!

~~~~~~~~

I am sorry that I missed a couple days of blogging here.  Things have been a little up in the air.  Steve's dad, our wonderful Pa Pfundtner, leader of the clan, decided to have knee replacement surgery.  At 84 he is going strong, out and about and doing things, but his knee has been giving him grief.  So he scheduled a knee replacement for Friday.  He made arrangements to stay overnight at the hospital guest house the night before, because he was scheduled for the first surgery in the morning  and had to be there at 5:30 am.  We met up with him and big brother Mark on Thursday night for the great handoff of precious Millie... Dad's dog!  

She is his pride and joy and constant companion.  He adopted her from a rescue group and gave her a new lease on life. (and spoils her profoundly!) He has trained her for doing therapy dog visits to nursing homes and hospitals.  She is so well behaved and sweet.  Those eyes just melt into you....awwwwwwww

We took her back to our house, driving through horrible fog and rain that we have been having for days on end in Wisconsin.  Our snow is crusty and hard and melting fast....  It took us twice as long to get home as the fog was as thick as Sea Poop!  (pea soup?)

We got her to our house about 11 pm and although she has been here before she was so confused about not having her Daddy around.  She gets along well with Finney and Binney, and we made a little bed for her alongside of our bed on the floor.

We turned out the light.

ooooh 

the moans! 

the groans! 

the whines! 

the wimpers! 

She missed Paul so much.... and was miserable. 

After 20 minutes of listening to her little heart breaking, 

we let her up in our bed!   

Laying on top of my legs and sprawling out across the king sized bed suited her just fine. She konked out and slept peacefully for the rest of the night.  Each time we tried to move, she was a lump of doggie fur and not easy to roll over.

 Oh well, I guess it is a Three Dog Night! 

In the morning we popped up our two stinkers onto the bed. They had been sleeping nicely on their doggie beds on the floor.  I suppose for poor Millie who misses Paul so much, we can give her a bit of comfort for the time she is here.  Steve brought up coffee and we had a Three Dog Morning! 

We ran back to visit on Friday, and then again today to see how Pa is doing.  Therapy has started and they have him up and walking around multiple times a day. We will keep Millie with us until he is ready to go home and resume his spoiling of her. hahahha


Today Steve decided to teach these dogs about doing household tasks and projects.  As you can tell, they are not too impressed?   Since we put the new tv up on a wall bracket (see last blog)  I wanted to hide the coax antenna and the power cord in a trim strip.  Better than having those ugly wires hanging down loosely on the wall.

I painted the special metal trim strip the other day with the same color as the walls.  Then Steve measured for the brackets and spacing to put it on the wall alongside of the tv. We had to take the tv off the wall to re-route the two wires behind it, so they would come out on the far right side:

We tucked the coax and power cord into the trim strip and slid it down into place. A few taps of the hammer did the job.  It was just the right height to come out next to the tv and run down the wall to the baseboard.

As the dogs dozed on the bed, we worked around them, as they lost interest in our project.  The walls are a soft blue color. But on a dreary day, the colors do not show up so well.

And there it is.... 

all encased in the trim strip and I think it looks a lot better! 

Steve went downstairs to put away the tools and he shouted up for those three lazy dogs to get up and go outside.  ZOOOM they left the bed in a rush!

I was left alone to test out the tv and make sure it worked 

and that our connections did not come loose. 

Hmmmm I thought about taking a nap....

On a rainy icky afternoon,

 it seemed like just the thing to do. 

So I did. 

Motorhome Modifications - back to the letter C again

Yup, we got some snow, but not nearly as much as they predicted.  It was supposed to snow all day today too, but it looks like the storm moved on.  I think we got about 5-6 inches, but with all the blowing around, it's hard to tell.


Now back to the letter C....  

First on deck is a Collapsible Bucket.  We picked this up last year on a sale, and it sure is handy!  I think I paid $5 for it.  

The extending windshield squeegee fits inside it for washing the windows on the outside of the rig.  When dried out, it collapses down and slides into the little nylon sack for storage.  Takes up a lot less room than a five gallon bucket we used to use.  The only reason a five gallon bucket is nice to have along (if you have room)  is that it can do double duty as a step stool or a seat when turned upside down.

Good for Steve's s rig-washing brush, or even just a bucket to hand wash something with a rag. 
We have used it to soak sweet corn in before grilling. 
We have used it to haul water for filling my canning kettle. 
We have used it to haul apples picked off a tree on an abandoned farmstead. 
We have used it to scoop up dog food from a broken bag in the storage compartment. 

We have used to carry toddler toys to the beach, juice boxes and sunscreen too.

So that was a little handy hint for an easy RV accessory that has multiple uses.





Coleman lanterns, of course, are a staple among the camping crowd!  Especially when you camp in rustic campgrounds without hookups or boondocking out in the boonies. No streetlights for miles.   It is one of our favorite camping toys!

A small lantern from Coleman, SOOO much better than hauling around those bigger camping lanterns, breaking their glass lens, or their fragile mantles.  For many many years, since I was a child, we had those big white gas lanterns with the thin glass circular lens.  Can't tell you how many we broke, usually while in transit.  We even had the big maroon cases to help with breakage on the large propane versions.  But  we saw this one being used by our camping buddy, Bob Senior.  We had to go out and get one right away for ourselves. This one has kept the same mantle going all summer. 

I LOVE clearance Sales at our local Shopko store.  They had these neato containers that are rectangular in shape instead of circular.  Think... on a shelf... flat sides of containers stack next to each other better than cylindrical.  So we get more storage and less wasted space.    I bought a set of 8 of these great containers from Gourmet Living.

MY CABINET BEFORE                             MY NEW CONTAINERS 

They have vacuum seal lids by flipping down the little ring type levers on the lids, which create a suction.  We use the larger ones for flour, sugar, brown & powdered sugar etc.  The smaller ones for coffee, rice, pancake mix etc.  Less cardboard boxes and bags in the cabinets is good to avoid bugs when travelling in the southern states.   Here they are, all filled up and lined in a neat row. 

These are normally $15-20 a container ---  WHEW!  But they had a set of 8 pieces, all in the sizes I wanted for the mere price of $89.99  ... so that is down to $10 a container....  still a WHEW! --- You know me, a cheapie shopper.   Well, the set was on sale for only $39.99.  Plus I had a $10 gift card.  So $29.99 final price.  That comes out to less than $4 a container.  More in my budget range, teeeheeee  I just googled now and they are on sale again!   Here is a link to them:   Gourmet Living Containers at Shopko

Well, that is my three C's of Motorhome stuff for the blog post today.  

For a fourth C... Chelsea!   She is feeling better today, and has her 2 year old checkup this afternoon with the pediatrician.  Erin will get more reassurance from the doc that it will be okay to have the birthday party tomorrow.  She will be so happy to see all her cousins and little friends, and all the loving grandparents, aunts and uncles too.  

After her party, we are going to take the grandson, Jameson, back to our house for an overnight!   His mommy and daddy are having a romantic date night, so we are keeping him here.  Our Christmas gifts to all our kids/spouses were gift cards to a nice dinner out at a locally owned steak house called Mackinaws  http://www.mackinaws.com/   and then we included gift cards to a movie.  Of course, the gift also stipulated that they get free overnight babysitting too as part of their date. 

I am looking out at the snow, and yes, it looks nice to cover up all the yucky brown ground.  A few flakes are floating down here and there, but basically I think it's done for the day.  The river is starting to ice over again.  

Yes, Winter is here.    

Sigh.