Category: Uncategorized

No product

Every time I have my hair cut the stylist wants to know if I need any “product” today. No, I don’t. The reason used to be because I have allergies so I didn’t want to buy anything that sets them off. Now it’s because I no longer need those things because the following people convinced me to try doing without them.

“I haven’t used soap or shampoo anyplace on my body for six months, save hand washing in advance of food prep.” Richard posted on December 28th, 2009, on freetheanimal.com

“Having no water hook-ups, I bath in the ocean, fully clothe[d], without soap/etc, using the mineral rich sand to wash my skin and hair. I live on the beach, obviously.” Eelkat posted August 6, 2011, on rvnetwork.com

“I haven’t used shampoo in over four years…Going shampoo free allows us to just rinse or dampen our hair daily to pull a brush through it, and then do our no-poo routine [baking soda and apple cider vinegar] a few times a month.  With no bubbles to rinse out, I use very little water even on my washing days.” Cherie posted on Jan 19, 2012, on Technomadia.com

I’m preparing to move back into a very tiny motorhome. It has not a lot of space nor a lot of weight capacity. My new motto is: Every ounce counts.

So I’ve been experimenting with using no soap or shampoo. I simply get in the shower and scrub myself with a soaking wet washcloth from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. No need to rinse and no old soap buildup turning pink along the edges of the shower.

Here’s my picture shortly after my shower from day one of this experiment, January 20, 2012:

I felt clean and I think I looked clean.

And here’s one from today, February 17, 2012.

Still using no soap or shampoo nearly a month later. I still feel clean and think I look clean.

I do wash my hands with soap several times a day. No point in taking a chance on making myself sick. And I do still use deodorant. No point making my friends and family sick. 🙂

It turns out that body soap and shampoo are things marketers have taught us we need. In the future I will be saving money as well as space and weight in my RV.

And for those of you who noticed, yes, my hair is longer than I normally wear it. No, I haven’t decided to grow it out. I just haven’t decided to get it cut either. Which means no one has been pushing product at me for quite a while now.

Another advantage of not getting it cut is that I can now tuck it behind my ears.

Look how much skinnier that makes me look! 🙂

TTYL,

Linda

 

I Want Out!

February in Minnesota, as in other cold climates, is cabin fever time. While the drought we are experiencing this year means we have no snow to speak of, it is cold. Todays high is predicted to be 15°F. That’s colder than the lows we tried to avoid when we were living in our RVs.

So, what do we do to cope with this desire to run away? We go to:

That’s right. We went to the RV, Camping, and Vacation show at the Minneapolis Convention Center. We’ve been going to this show off and on since we were backpack campers. As our style of camping has changed, so has the show. It has a much higher percentage of RVs now than it did back in the 1970s. Which is good for me since what I was doing was window shopping for my next RV. You know, getting answers to some of those pesky questions.

Like how far out into the slider door area can you put furniture and still feel like you have good access?

And how comfortable can I be if I turn the passenger seat around for daytime use when my feet don’t actually rest on the floor?

And, would a 15″ high footstool let me be comfortable with my feet up?

And, how deep do I want my cupboards to be vs. how wide I want my aisle to be?

 

If the bathroom is this size and has a sink in one corner, I will have how much knee room?!

Plus, how much do I want some of the other goodies that didn’t used to be available on a conversion van.

Like a screen door:

Look, Steve, a Hydro Hot type system!

And this one has room behind the sofa bed for my Travel Scoot!

Yes, we had to remove that shelf but I don’t need the extension that turns the sofa into a king-sized bed. Then by removing the seat from the Scoot it fit right under the bed and even my big basket cleared the door!

But, the Great West Van Sprinter Legend ex that had those last three features only has a 10 gallon black tank. Can I go back to coping with the frequent dumping required by having one that small?

Fortunately, I don’t have to make that decision today. But, it was good to have a day of virtual travel to help me get through this long winter.

Now back to my other coping with cabin fever technique: planning my custom conversion on Sportsmobile’s Design Your Own website, http://sportsmobiledyo.com/dyo/Public/Frames.php?client_id=&body_id=8&layout_id=,  where I can get a 20 gallon black tank if I put the bathroom at the back of the van.

TTYL,

Linda

Learning to cook

You’d think that a woman about to become eligible for Medicare would have learned how to cook by now, wouldn’t you? I present myself as the exception to the rule. Of course, there are a few dishes I can make to keep us from starving but I never really learned how to cook.

Until now. Meet my teacher.

This is so much more than a recipe book. It taught me how to prepare to cook. And it’s ready to teach me how to use spices to enhance the flavor of food. Yes, Dave is learning to eat spices beyond salt, pepper, chili powder, and those that go into his pumpkin pies. 🙂

Lesson one for me was “the cookup.” This is where you spend a block of time preparing foods in advance of the actual meal time to make the final preparations easy. Tuesday, Dave and I spent about an hour and a half in our kitchen preparing food for some time to come. At one point in time it looked like this:

The crockpot is full of vegetables with seasoned beef stew meat and a differently seasoned pork roast all being cooked without further assistance. The broiler pan sitting on the stove is full of bacon we just baked in the oven to a perfect level of crispiness. And the counter is being used to prepare a selection of meatzas

“Meatza?”, you ask. Yes, this is a wonderful way of fulfilling our cravings for pizza in a way that does not include the grains I have mostly eliminated from my life.

There are several recipes out on the internet for making meatza but I like Mel’s method best of what we’ve tried so far. You basically pat a half pound of lean ground beef into a pie plate and bake it 10 to 15 minutes.

Then you move it to a baking sheet, add your favorite pizza toppings,

and bake it another 10 to 15 minutes.

We made four of these at the same time. Dave’s is topped with ham, bacon, and pepperoni. Mine is topped with chicken and mushrooms. We will share the one topped with ham and pineapple. And my VERY experimental one is a bacon, ranch, cheddar burger with grape tomatoes. It turned out very well so will likely be a repeat.

In addition to all those cooked foods we have several containers of chopped meats, fruits, and vegetables ready to be used in salads and/or omelets.

So the rest of the week will be reheating, and/or assembling healthful foods whenever hunger strikes. I’m thrilled!

If you want to learn how to do all this go here, http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/wellfed/, and buy this book. Be aware that my meals don’t necessarily look like Mel’s meals. For instance, the cheese on our meatzas; you will find no dairy products in this cookbook. I’m OK with that because what you will find is tasty, real food from around the world made so simple even I can do it.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. In spite of skipping one weekly Weight Watcher’s meeting and not tracking everything I ate during the holidays I lost weight again. Down a total of 28.6 pounds so far and moving right along. All while eating things like meatza; yeah!

pps. No disclaimer needed. I bought my book and Mel doesn’t even know I’m writing this blog. I may send her a link to it, though. 🙂