A Very Sweet Kind of Valentines Day

I'm just wondering how many people buy Valentine's Day presents that say THIS on the bottom of the box??

Lol lol lol

I thought that was so absolutely funny!!! Steve and I decided to buy each other a Valentine's Day present. We needed a new mattress for our bed. Vodeeohdodo! (In honor of Shirley Williams who passed away last week).

We decided that our memory foam mattress was going on 8 years and could probably stand an upgrade. It was getting a little too soft and too saggy.  So we decided to pick up another 12 inch thick memory foam mattress, this time made by Nectar. The reviews were good and we decided this would be our gift to each other. This sucker is really heavy!!!  A king size in the box weighs 90 lb. We had to use the dolly cart to get it into the house and up the steps to the bedroom.

Once we got the old mattress lifted up and off the bed and hauled out into the dining room, then we were able to open up this one. The very explicit instructions also came with a little cutting device, similar to a letter opener. It's to make sure you don't cut into the mattress when cutting off the plastic. This thing is shrink wrapped and compressed into a wrapped up tube. I made a video of us unboxing it:

It worked out wonderfully and our other mattress got a new home with someone who really needed one. It is better than filling up a landfill. A single mom who works hard at two jobs needed an upgrade. She lives nearby and we even hauled it over to her house for her on our flat trailer. She was quite grateful, and we were happy to pass it on.

Also on Valentine's Day, my darling Steveio surprised me with some beautiful flowers and a heartfelt message in a thoughtful card. I love the pussywillows in the top as accents.

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What would be a more fitting thing to do on Valentine's Day then attend an event called "Stitches of Love"??

I belong to the Oconto County HCE Homemakers, HCE stands for Home and Community Education. It is a division of the UW Extension Office from the University of Wisconsin. It's origins were a rural gathering of farmer's wives who meet regularly. They share educational skills, tidbits of hints and helpful information, homemaking and gardening skills, recipes and usually a nice lunch. I have belonged to them since 1997 when we lived out in the country on the river.  We get together on a monthly basis, but also we gather with a larger group from other areas as well. 

Two or three times a year we have a gathering called "Stitches of Love". We create fleece tied charity blankets that are given to hospice and cancer patients. We also sew book bags for a program called BooksR4U. This program supplies small rural schools that maybe don't have a lot of funding with extra educational materials for the children. They are given these book bags that are chock full of things like their own very own set of 2 hardcovered reading books, coloring books, notebooks, crayons, rulers, pencils etc. The little schools that are short on funding really appreciate when we bring these in to their students. It's a lot of fun making these and all of the materials are donated.

I bring a sewing machine and work on the book bags. Usually there are three or four other ladies that sew with me, but their main driver lady from their district had a medical emergency and couldn't come. So I was the only one with a sewing machine this time, kept busy working on the book bags.

The ladies spread out, putting groups of two tables together and work on double layers of fleece fabric. They cut slits into the edges all of the way around into tabs that are then slowly and carefully tied into knots.

There's a lot of chitter chatter and laughter going on, while we work on the fleece blankets or cut out fabric for more of the book bags. We take a break for lunch... someone makes a pot of soup, and everyone brings a sandwich cut in half.  We put all the sandwiches on a platter and we all take different ones than what we brought.  Someone also brings desserts and we have coffee and tea. 

There is always something to keep everyone busy.

I managed to get eight fabric book bags completed before lunch time. I hope the children that get these enjoy the treats inside and read their books over and over again.  Some of the rural schools up on the reservation land say some of these kids never owned a book of their very own until they get these from our program. They get to take the books home and they are able to get 2 new books for each child every year.  This is in addition to all of the other supplies that are included too. 

Most of the blankets have one side that is brightly colored printed fleece and the other side is usually a coordinating solid color. This one is so cute with the kitty cats scattered all over the front of it.

On my way home, I dropped off some little Valentine's treats to our kids and grandkids. Who wouldn't love a chocolate brownie adorned with a great big Reese's peanut butter heart and little jelly beans? 

With the leftover frosting I made a special treat for my darling Steve. He likes the leftover frosting spread between graham crackers. It was a fond memory of a childhood treat when he was little. His mom would make them for him and his siblings as a snack. On top of each graham cracker sandwich I stuck in extra jelly bean with a dab of frosting!

So that was how we spent our wonderful Valentine's Day together. And the big bed with it's new mattress in place is going to be a wonderful treat to sleep on each night.

Vodeeohdodo!

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We finished painting the living room and the dining room as I mentioned in my last blog. I still had some trim paint left over so I decided to give a fresh coat to all of our kitchen cabinet doors.  

The first step is that Steve needs to remove every single door handle and drawer pull so I can neatly roll a new layer of fresh paint over the top surface of the doors.

 

I was not about to paint inside and around every cabinet. Just painting the front surface of the doors where the grimy little handprints land. That's what happens when grandchildren and a certain husband who don't use the handles and drawer pulls. They shut cabinets and drawers with the flat palm of the hand, usually wet or full of food!   LOL  When you have white cabinets, this is kind of a yearly event!

After they dry,

then Steve puts all of the

handles and pulls back on.

I did manage to pick up two little sample jars of two different colors of a soft sage or mossy green color. I chose a lighter tone and a darker tone. I want to get rid of the same beige mauve color that was in the dining room and living room. It's also in our kitchen and the upper portion in our master bathroom.  

So I painted both samples onto this extra hunk of wood and set it up above the beadboard in the kitchen. I think the darker looks better. I was worried the lighter might be too light.

I also set it over on top of the wine cabinet by the coffee bar. I think the darker color harmonizes quite well with the counter-tops. So the winner is the darker color called Mossy Meadow.

During the next few days I will work on one little portion of a wall at a time. Everything will require two coats and some taping off around the cabinetry. But it will be nice to brighten it up and get a fresh color there. Kind of like we're doing spring cleaning before spring has sprung?

But amazingly, all of our snow is melted with this warm weather the last few days. There were a few flakes floating down today but everything on the ground has now melted away. This is so absolutely unusual for February in Wisconsin!

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On the quilting side, I have been working on this really bright fun multi-colored quilt. I think I'm going to call it something like Summertime Picnic in America or something like that or Picnic in July? It has such fun colors. These are fabrics from The Pioneer Woman series.

I put together 20 large blocks and actually I did 21 by accident. So there's one left over. Then I flip-flopped and switched around and arranged the blocks on my bed until I made sure there were absolutely no two pieces touching that were of the same fabric.

I think it's going to be a really cute quilt, and it will go up for sale later in my Etsy store. So keep tuned in to my blog to see when it is completed if you are interested.

Once I got the quilt all laid out, then I had to mark each 16" section with a number and a letter so I knew the order in which they needed to be joined together. 1a, 1b, 1c, and then 2a, 2b, 2c etc.

Then I take them back down to my sewing desk in the She Shed and work on my cute little antique Singer Featherweight machine. I put together all of the blocks into rows. Then I join the rows into one large quilt top. I will go around with a couple border pieces to set it off with an accent color and make it into a queen size quilt.

See my helper???

Well, that's about it now on my blog today. Just as I was finishing this up the mailman came with a big box for me????

One of my wonderful blog readers by the name of Linda, (you know who you are!) sent this beautiful box full of very interesting historic quilting and needlework books. What a delightful thing to read by the fireplace in the evenings as we finish out the rest of winter and wait for spring.

On a health update,

our family member is doing as well as can be expected, 

and we are doing what we can to help. 

Change of Plans

So here we are.

We made what Steve calls an "executive decision" to remain home for a couple months. Some family situations have occurred that should keep us closer to home for now.  Plus our Saturn started making funny sounds around the fan or fan belt or timing chain.  Time to look at that before ANY big trip. Easier to repair at home, for sure.

Also we are considering that the expense of driving the rig south and then finding ourselves on a return path too quickly doesn't make sense.  When we go, the cost of our trips is dependent on the amount of diesel to go long distances. Then spreading that cost out over the length of stay lowers the cost per day on our trips.  

The motorhome is unpacked and parked back in it's berth in the yard next to the garage.  Items that could freeze are stowed away back in the house. Other items will be left inside to make our escape later this spring or into early summer. 

Instead--- we are going to focus on heading out in spring towards going "out west" to Yellowstone and Glacier. It's about the same distance to travel as to what we planned for Texas. We've been to Texas before (maybe not all of it but at least some of it). Going "out west"  is an area that's been on our "bucket list" for quite a while.

So that is that. 

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This whole winter has been very strange weather. We were looking to escape the snow and cold. But it looks like the snow and cold are escaping us! 

Usually, our average snowfall here is 36 inches a year. Well well, just look out of our windows right now! Yes, that is a lot of grass showing through.

Yesterday was amazingly warm. We were up to 45° with sunshine. The snow melted rapidly and we even heard spring birds calling through the air. 

So maybe we didn't have to go south to escape winter after all? Spring is finding us.

One of our winter projects was going to be perhaps painting the dining room and living room in the house. The previous owners had painted this heavy beige-ish mauve color and it was okay but it really seems to suck the light out of the rooms. Especially on dreary Winter days, we had been contemplating on brightening it up.

We grabbed a couple samples from the hardware store and decided to paint them in a few areas around the house to see how it would turn out. We really didn't want to paint a lot of the trim, just the walls.  Our trim is already a color called "String of Pearls". Kind of a light creamy color, not blazing white. We were looking for a good color that would coordinate with it. 

We decided to paint the walls with the same "String of Pearls"  to match all of the trim. Off we went to Menards for a couple gallons and some extra drop cloths.

I really enjoy painting, (Steve doesn't)  and Steve helps with the cutting in and the moving of furniture. We quickly got everything covered up and went to work.

The first coat went on quite well. Although the paint says it only is one coat coverage, we knew covering over such a dark color it would probably take two.

You can see the difference in contrast of the light color versus the dark beige mauve. What a transition!  Painting is such a satisfying project because you get immediate gratification. It is so transforming... seeing what you covered up verses seeing what you will finishing with. 

So right after lunch, I am busy painting away. Steve was examining some repair YouTube's on maybe replacing the fan on our Saturn. The phone rang--- and it was an emergency from our grandson at the middle school.

We needed to get him over to urgent care 

to see about X-rays and stitches! 

Oh my! 

All the drama

 all the tragedy

 all the traumatic experience!!!

No. Not really. 

He is teasing.

See? 

Can you believe this????  It seems that he was out on the playground and a soccer ball bent his finger over backwards! The skin on the inside of the finger split right at the crease on the backside of a knuckle. I guess it created quite a scene on the playground with all of the other boys so excited about the blood. LOL. The poor janitor had to go out and clean up the biohazard. The school nurse got him cleaned up pretty good and decided that she better call to get him in to see about stitches and the possibility of a broken finger.

Clayton was quite the trooper. Even if he wanted to cry, he didn't. I told him it was okay if he did. But he held on and listened to everything that the staff at Urgent Care told him they were going to do. They numbed him up and stitched him up with six stitches!

If you think this next picture is gory, don't look and scroll past

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They ran him over to x-ray, and fortunately nothing is broken. He's going to be sore for a while. He gets the stitches out in 8 to 10 days. They wrapped him up good and sent him on his way. We took pictures to send to his parents at work and they gave us permission to get him a treat on the ride home. 

Ice cream always makes everything feel better. 

The added bonus is now he can stick his middle finger up at people and not get in trouble for it. LOL

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We settled him in on a comfy chair and let him watch some YouTubes. We got back to our painting because of course, I was standing in the Urgent Care facility in painting clothes and hair up in clips out of the way. Might as well finish what I started, hey??

We worked our way around the room from the fireplace across the back up the side and around the front. It sure was making a nice transition. The ceiling looks shiny in this picture but that's just because the paint was wet. It dried to a nice soft eggshell finish like the walls.

We got the rest of the second coat on after breakfast this morning. Now we moved all the furniture back and it looks pretty nice. The room looks larger and doesn't seem to soak up all of the daylight the way it used to. 

Next, we are moving on to the living room. There really isn't a lot of wall space because there are a lot of windows and doors in there. The fireplace will get a new coat to freshen it up as well.

We started the center beam and now it's time for lunch. The ceiling in the livingroom is 9 ft but the diningroom is only 8 ft. Quite a transition, and the beam helps to define the separation. 

In between this painting project I have been working on some practice swatches on my big new-to-me quilting frame. I will do a post about that later and the next quilt that's going to be ready soon. These were going to be projects I was setting aside for a while but now I'm able to get back to them. Pretty exciting.

Trip delay

Due to a family medical situation, we have postponed our winter escape. 

Family comes first. 

Time to Escape! We've Had It With Wisconsin Winter

Sunday, February 5, 2023

Trip delay

Due to a family medical situation, we have postponed our winter escape. 

Family comes first. 

(Sorry I haven't been blogging, been having a lot of difficulties with Blogger uploads. I totally deleted and reinstalled everything and also did an upgrade on my laptop. Now it works!)

Well folks, I think we've been suffering through this cold long enough. Here in Wisconsin we are in the deep dregs of winter with cold weather sub-zero wind chills. We just finished our yearly physicals and med checks with the doc, finished our taxes and handled a few other family details.  Time to hit the road!  We think it's time to seek a little warmth. Although we don't have a lot of snow this year, we DO have the wind and the cold. This is what we drove through to get up to the Walmart in Marinette to get our prescriptions last week.  ugh.....

And if a picture isn't enough

here is a video clip! 

Our temps, like the rest of the country

 are COLD!!!  

Even with the sun out, 

it's pretty much a big BRRRRRRRR!!!

We are considering heading south and getting down through Arkansas and maybe Northern Texas. From there maybe we'll head over near the Gulf and explore some on a couple day trips. Not sure how or where or what. We know it's frozen down there too right now, but by the time we get there, the temps will be back up in the 70's again. 

We checked on a couple Corps of Engineer and National Forest and State Parks that have plenty of openings.  Reservations are not ever part of our plans. We like to go on the fly and we usually find interesting places to park.  We don't go to resorts or long term rv parks.  Just wander and find interesting things and move along when we get restless.

We are also good boondockers and can do that quite easily. We really don't need RV parks and hookups. We are considering going for a couple months and not to come back to Wisconsin until the snow is melted! 

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On Wednesday, it was about 20° so that was considered a heatwave for us. Steve decided to fire up the motorhome and let it come up to running temperature.  It took a while to warm up. Then he slowly pulled it forward out of it's winter parking berth alongside of the garage.

He brought it forward into the main part of the driveway so it can sit in the sunshine. Here is a video clip I shot while I was standing near the corner of the garage to watch the overhang. That roof overhang is hard for Steve to see from his side view mirrors.  I am the "watch guard" and slap my hand on the rig if he gets to close.

(just listen to that Cat Diesel PURRRRRR)

Those seats look so inviting, 

wanting us to hop in and go go go. 

We turned on the furnace to help warm it up and started loading up anything that would not freeze. All of our clothing, dry goods, odds and end supplies and anything on the list that can't freeze. I have been loading up a basket and each time Steve goes out the door, he carries it to the rig and sets it on the table for me.  Then I go out and stow things away.  I find other things in the cabinets and cupboards that we haven't used for a long time, and toss them in the basket to haul back inside, or donate to Goodwill.

Everything else we have pre-packed in bins in the house, all ready to be carried out on our launch day. These are all of the things that could freeze, and of course we will unload the house fridge and freezer to take the groceries along.  Yes, got my Two Buck Chuck Wine! 

 And we can NOT forget my sewing and knitting supplies.  My precious antique Singer Featherweight sewing machine will be one of the last things to load, and even things like the iron can crack because there is distilled water in the chamber. 

We are hoping to take off on Sunday and get through the busy Chicago area with lighter Sunday traffic and head south.  Tentatively...   

We don't like to travel far each day, but sometimes for the first day it's good to push it and get as far south as we can. The rig is fully winterized and we don't want to deal with filling the water or have freezing lines. We bring along a 5 gallon jug of bottled water with a little battery pump on top. We let that set right in the shower stall to ride for the first day or two. We can use the toilet but we keep a jug of pink RV antifreeze nearby to use for flushing. It's good enough for the first day and into the second day. After that we should be far enough South to not need that. Then we will look for somewhere that we can de-winterize and fill up with fresh water.

In the meantime, I am making lists and checking them twice. We have everything set up at home with our security cameras and house alarms, as well as all of our neighbors notified. Including the chief of police right around the corner! The sheriff's office is just down the street too so there's a constant stream of police presence in front of our home at any given time. Our neighbors are set up for helping with the snow removal, and our grandchildren are on plant watering detail and mail retrieval. 

We put all of the house plants down in the basement by my precious coleus that I winter over each year in the south facing windows.  The reason for putting the house plants down there is two fold.  First, it keeps the plants all in one spot for easy watering.  And it helps the grandkids not spill water on my hardwood floors inside the house if they get too over-zealous. 

We set up two large rain barrels full of water for them to dip watering cans into. We will be turning off and draining the water lines to the house. That way in the event of a power failure, absence of heat will not cause devastating burst pipes.

We even set up one of our security cameras in the basement so we can watch the kids and talk to them while they are watering our plants. And the added benefit is we can be sure that they shut and lock the door as they go back outside again.  Steve even put a big thermometer in the view of the screen, so we can monitor the temps in the basement.  Our security system also notifies us of power outage or furnace malfunction.  It makes it a lot easier to leave than in the old days when we first started going south in the winter. Peace of mind.

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Now today.... speaking of Peace of Mind:  Steve decided we should have two new driving batteries on the motorhome. He is so meticulous when it comes to the maintenance and upkeep of our rig. I love him for that! 

We looked it up in our motorhome maintenance records and the existing ones are now 10 years old! So better to be safe than sorry.  Steve takes very good care of the two 12 volt driving chassis batteries, so we get a lot of years out of them, and also from our four deep cycle 6-volt coach batteries too.

They're on sale right now at Batteries Plus and an extra 10% off if you order online and then pick up at the store in Marinette. Got them on sale from $159.99 down to $129.99 each, plus an extra $12.99 off each one.  Technical information: Duracell 12V 31S Ultra 18 1131PMF 116.99 each on sale. Warrantied for 18 months.

Now he's out there installing the batteries. I tried to help, but there is not much that I can do this time.  He was very careful to take photos and drawings of each connection before removing the old batteries.  He took the old ones along to Marinette, so he could get back the core charge right away and not make a second trip back to return them later. 

It's quite a reach back in there, 

the pull out tray is too cold to move. 

But he's getting it done.

Too bad that side of the rig 

isn't parked in the sun.

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We usually go away for large spans of time in the winter and have done so far many years--- we kind of know the drill. We know what we need to get out of town, and what to take along for a few months on the road. Plus I have lists to my lists and more of my lists. 

It's just that with Covid in 2020 and leading into more Covid health problems in 2021 ... plus not having enough facilities or campgrounds open during those years. We haven't gotten out as much as we used to. And we bought a house in 2019 that we were busy updating. It has actually been 6 years since we have gone South in the winter. We usually alternate between going to Florida, or the Gulf around Mississippi Alabama and Louisiana or we have enjoyed going out to the desert of Arizona and New Mexico, or down into Texas. We've already explored Western Texas around Big Bend and also Northern Texas. So this year we thought maybe we would check a little more to the Eastern side of Texas and check out more along the Gulf???

But our plans are made in sand, easy to change and drift in another direction if we feel like it. We do know about the horrible ice storms down in Texas this week. But we won't even be down in that area until later next week. We usually only travel 200 to 300 miles a day, and take a break. 

I think our first stop will be to central Illinois by the exit for a small town of Wenona. That is 315 miles for the first day. 

There's a wonderful little Shell gas station with a Burger King next to it that has five or six RV slots in their lot with electric hookups. They keep them plowed and are open year round. It's a nice spot to get off the road and hole up for the night. It was $15 last time we were there. (On edit- I just checked with them via phone, they are now $20 a night).

(this is a pic of us in one of their 

pull-thru slots from another year)

We can plug in and run a couple supplemental space heaters as well as our much appreciated electric mattress pad heater at night! LOL. After that, who knows? We will see and you will have to stay tuned as well to see where we end up.

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In the meantime, now that I have everything planned and packed... I am playing with a NEW TOY!  It's a bugger to have to leave now that I just upgraded to a long arm sewing machine on a longer frame than I had before.  I actually ended with two of the same machines and same frames, so I sold one set last week to someone else.  Now I am playing around with this one. I used to have a similar frame and a mid-arm machine on it with speed control.  Now this one is much longer and can do a wider swath, plus also has stitch regulation.  For those of you who do not know, it's like going from riding a tricycle to riding a HARLEY!  LOL   

I will have lots of time while camping to work on more pieced quilt tops to bring home and load up on this machine and frame.  So much fun, I hate to leave it behind.  But the road is beckoning and the temps are going to warm up just enough on this weekend to ESCAPE WISCONSIN! 

Stay tuned