Category: Uncategorized

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. 🙂

It’s Official!

Today is the start of a new year!

So?

What does that really mean? Are our day to day lives suddenly supposed to be magically different? I grew up in a family of magicians but none of them were able to make our lives magically different just by specifying a day on which it would happen.

If you are unhappy about some part of your life, figure out what change you want to see and what you need to do to make it happen. But, please, don’t make it dependent on a magic day. I know too much about the reality behind magic to buy into that.

TTYL,

Linda