Pinterest Project #6

You can't really tell so much what these are as is.  They are actually firewood carriers. You take an existing canvas bag and cut the sides out and shorten the handles basically. Makes it easy for the kids to gather fuel when you camp. If you do these make sure you find bags with no seams anywhere in the bottom or it becomes and hot mess in a hurry.  Otherwise it is a quick and easy project.  About thirty minutes tops.

Spring Break Camping

With the girls having Spring Break, and us having little income, we needed to get a little creative to keep them busy this year.

Luckily we had a brand new RV to break in.  And we were a little nervous.  All our previous family camping had been with a tent.  This was a whole new world.  With sewage.  Ewww.

But we put our big girl and boy panties on and made reservations at one of the State parks.  I know I've mentioned about a million times how great Ohio state parks are.  I am so not kidding.

We went mid week to avoid the weekend crowd and get a decent spot that would be easy to back the trailer into.  That had us pretty nervous also.  But it was really not that bad at all.

We managed to get the trailer into its spot - straight even. Hah. That means I wasn't driving. But newbie mistake number 1? Picking a pad with a tree over the awning.  We didn't hit the tree but it dropped all kinds of crap all over the awning which we watched get rolled right up into it when we were prepping to leave.  Note to self.....

In no time at all we were exploring the woods behind our site.  Of course Mouse found herself a big stick right away.  That is some unwritten rule with kids, isn't it?

Cinder was less than thrilled.  I already suspected that she is slightly claustrophobic - and she cried and barked the whole ride.  She has been banned riding free due to her inability to obey commands and climbing all over my girls and trying to climb into the front.  She is a crazy spaz in the car.  So, she now must ride in her crate for everyone's safety - including her own.  She hates it.  And she is very verbal about it.  I see sedatives in her near future.

We also learned this trip that she REALLY does not like change.  She cried every time Hubs was out of sight.  Not very impressive from a guard dog point of view.  She does like being outside though. And will happily stay out all day as long as Hubs is out there too.

Of course its hot dogs and hamburgers cooked over the camp fire for dinner.

Mouse will eat her weight in hot dogs she roasts herself over the fire.  Its the best we ever see her eat.  That alone makes camping worth it.

We really roughed it that next morning.  Poptarts, hot chocolate, cartoons.  Man that camping stuff is rough. (Why yes, Hubs did steal the tv from my mom cave/sewing room.)

We had a busy day.  We found lots of foraged firewood for the fire.  Because camping is ALL about the fire, right? I mean, why else would you even go?  Who doesn't love playing with fire? And Mouse has been well trained in fire-making and wood gathering through Girl Scouts.

The firewood carriers I made from tote bags weren't as great as I hoped.  It was nice to be able to carry that much wood, but I actually think it would have been better to just use them as they were and not alter them. Mouse got the most use out of them.

This is Hubs and his face full of hair.  I don't like it.  Seems like almost everyone else does.  The funny from the trip was when I called him Mr. Crocodile Dundee.  Mouse thought I said Mr. Un-Done-Dee.  Yep. A new nickname.

We went for a hike and then a walk.  We ended up down by the lake.

What is it about throwing rocks into water? Its almost as mandatory as making a fire.

And speaking of rocks, what is it with girls and "collecting" rocks? Songbird drove us nuts with this and now Mouse is following in her footsteps.  These were in her pockets from the lake.

Hubs and I collected something else: wild garlic (sometimes called wild onions).  This stuff is everywhere in Ohio.  Hubs cleaned a bunch up and we put it in our (mine and hubs) foil dinners that night.  Oh my goodness! Talk about making the meal.  Hubs even brought some home.

Some of our other adventures from the day were the chicken hawk that wanted Songbirds Chihuahua and the Dobbie pushing me down the steps of the trailer and taking off to parts unknown....twice.  Luckily she came back both times.  She is faster than any other dog we have owned or even seen so there is no chasing her down.  Luckily she really doesn't want to be separated from us, she just wants to stretch her legs...so she comes back.  But its not good to have a 70 pound doberman running loose where people have their children because they tend to think she will eat them.  Even though she won't.

Mandatory s'mores.

MMMMmmmmmmm. Hah! Caught the teen eating!

Hubs kept rather busy keeping the firewood stocked.

I tried out the fire starters I made.  They worked so good.  The toilet paper roll ones were easy to light with the wax dipped fabric strips I left hanging out.  And the muffin shaped ones with the wicks I pushed down in the were also great.  The brownie shaped ones had to way to light so I threw them on top of something I had started to keep it going and that worked well.

In the evening it got too cold for me and Bogart.  We wimped out and went inside the trailer and kicked back and read a book.  The rest of the clan stayed out until well after dark.

We were having so much fun that we actually paid for another night and extended our stay.  Unfortunately I had a hole in my pants.  Right.  You might be a redneck if....you use duct tape to fix your pants while you are camping.  Well.  The pants from the day before got ripped in the seat when I was shoved out the trailer by monster dog.  I had to make do.

And just to prove that it really was cold enough for me to be indoors wimping out..... This is what greeted us in the mornings.  No way I would have tent camped this week.  LOVE the heater and the air conditioner in the RV. Both work excellently.

And then we loaded up and came home- after dumping the black and grey water. Wasn't bad like I expected.

It was a really great time and reminded everyone (except the dogs) why we love camping so much.  No phones.  Minimal electronics. Lots of fresh air and exercise.  Fire.

Can't wait to do it again.

Too Important...

..to post on my blog today.

But you can find me at Embrace Your Life on Embracing Life Quietly

and

At Preparedness Pro on Great...We're Trendy Now.

Pinterest Project #5

If you have ever used a travel trailer, you are probably aware that the mattresses are not really standard sized.

In the master there is a queen...but it is a "short" queen.  If you have some older sheets you might find some that fit okay, but the newer sheets are usually deeper so they don't fit as well.  Luckily I found an older sheet that looks like it will work just fine.

For the bottom bunk the mattress is a twin but it is really thin.  Again, with an older sheet or one with lots of elastic you might be in luck on fitting it.  Again, we found an older sheet at Goodwill for pennies that fit just fine.

But that crazy top bunk? Narrower than a twin and thin.  That had to be a custom job.

If you have ever looked to buy RV sheets, you know that means a starting price of about $60.

And since we could very well end up living in the RV for a bit, sheets are necessary.

So again, I found a sheet at Goodwill for pennies to alter using a pinterest pin on my camping board.

 I didn't have a large enough work surface so I had to pull out the sofa bed.  I tried the floor but monster dog thought that was an open invitation to use it herself.  Anyways, I followed the directions and cut down to the size I needed and then sewed it all up.

And it worked perfectly.  So glad someone pinned that picture and then I actually saw it.

Love it!

Murphy Takes a Break

Although the missing paycheck is still, well...missing...

things have settled down a bit around here.

We went on a Spring Break Camping Trip to break in the new trailer.  But that is a whole 'nother post.

Hubs at least had a phone screening with a company....which is more than we can say about the prior months since losing out on the government jobs.

Everybody is healthy.

Today is Cinders Gottcha Day with us.  She had her annual vet visit. With that and a years worth of heartworm and flea control, along with 6 month of the same for Bogart, I dropped over $400 on the fur kids. Completely out of savings. Ouch.

Mouse celebrated her 8th birthday with a big pan of Mac N Cheese -- her request for dinner, and cupcakes with light blue frosting - also her request.  Bones also celebrated his birthday yesterday. It stinks being so far away from him.

And the days blend one into another with no answers or progress.  Have I mentioned how much I hate waiting? Patience is not my thing.

Yet, we wait.

Pinterest Project 3 and 4

Since camping was in the cards for Spring Break, I have been doing projects for that with supplies already on hand.  Although for this one I did go pick up some candles at Goodwill because I had just thrown out all of my candle ends and pieces.  Most moving companies wont pack candles so there was no need to keep them. Or so I thought at the time.

All good camping has a campfire.  Its my favorite part of camping.  But not getting a fire started quickly makes me mad.  And I don't use flammables or cheat.  I'm a Girl Scout, remember. Lol!

But I'm not above making some of my own firestarters!

I had just purged all the files of the things we keep for a year.  After shredding all of that I had a whole bag full of shredded paper.  I had recently pinned some tutorials on pinterest on how to make these so I gave it a shot.

I did some of the empty toilet paper rolls stuffed with lint and paper.  Since I did these last I went ahead and dipped them in my leftover wax also.  I took scraps of fabric from the sewing room and twisted them and dipped them in wax also and then put them in the tube with an end hanging out for a fuse. I think these will work well.

I also did the most popular kind I've seen....in the muffin tins. I also used some disposable plastic containers from lunch meat to make some bricks.  These I cut into 6 pieces each after removing from the container.

When I had an wick I could salvage I stuck them down into the muffin ones to make them easy to light also.

This was time consuming but not hard. I wouldn't do it with younger kids simply because of the mess involved -- but that is a personal thing. It would not be hard to do with kids as long as they obeyed basic safety rules.

I will let ya'll know how they worked after our Spring Break Camping!

Where We Go From Here

...is a big mystery.


We cannot stay where we are because there just isn't enough money.  The rent here is way too high for us to keep paying.  Yet, if we move into another rental here it would be in an unsafe neighborhood for my girls. And the military will only move us once.  So that option is off.


We could pick a place in Texas and move on faith.  But that is crazy. 


Luckily we CAN move out of this house and have up to a year for the military to store our stuff until we have an address for them to bring it to.  That frees us up a little.  To be stuffless anyways.


We also have to think about the dogs. They complicate absolutely everything.  


So after going over all different kinds of possibilities and scenarios and our finances,etc., we made a decision that is actually rather nuts.  Or unconventional anyways.


At this point if Hubs got a job the girls and I would stay behind so they could finish school. Its just too late to move Songbird.  So that is two rents (which is fine with another paycheck).


And when we do move we have the pet deposits at each hotel. With two dogs that is $100 extra, non-refundable.  And if its Texas we get back to it will be at least a three day trip as Cinder does not travel well.  That's three nights in hotels while traveling and then whatever time while we try to find a place to live where ever we end up. If we can find a place that will let us have a dobbie.  


So we started throwing around ideals.  You know we've always wanted a camping trailer.  With Hubs back surgery tent camping is just not that easy for him.  And hey, if he has to leave us behind, instead of staying in a hotel he could stay at a RV park much cheaper.  It's cheaper than renting an apartment also. 


Then there is the travel whenever we do move.  In an RV we have cheaper stays nightly without that pet deposit.  Plus I wont be so worried about the dogs barking in a hotel room or having an accident or whatever.  We find an rv park that allows pets and then we can even stake them out while we chill outside with them.  So much better for them. 


It all makes sense.  And on top of that we end up with a RV to camp.  And say we decided to never to \camp again.  Well then we sell it.  There is at least some kind of return-- which is more than you can say about a hotel room stay.  


Of course we went through all kinds of pro/cons lists.  Its a thing with us.  


And in the end the pros won.  


The only downside of the whole thing is the money.  We had the rv place run the numbers and I just did not like the %rate we were given.  Being jobless we are a risk so we didn't get a great rate.  And I'm used to getting a great rate.  So I said no.  Plus, the last thing we need is another bill.


So, we robbed the bank.  


Our retirement bank that is. We cashed in an investment we had..


And paid cash for our new RV.  No bank note. No bills. Free and clear.  


Say hello to our new home:

At this point we plan on staying in the rental until the girls finish school.  We can handle the financial strain until then. After that we are free to pull up stakes.  We will have our belongings packed up and stored by the government.  Then we are free to travel where ever Hubs wants to job search.  And we have until next March before we will need to worry about our stored belongings.  

Not that this will be easy. How could it be without our belongings, with two dogs and two girls that love to pick at each other and fight?  But our housing expenses will go from about $1550 to just under $600 (ipad internet, monthly rental at rv site and laundry costs). We can live on that.

So there you have our biggest news.

Its definitely going to be an adventure.

Monday with Murphy

And here we go again with another week of things going any way except for as expected. We are sure kept too busy to be bored!

1. A lovely person decided to door ding my van. It's very ugly. White on dark blue so very visible. Not a big deal in the big picture of life, but it really sucks when you can't have nice things because jerks destroy your property. Thanks friend.

2. Still no sign of the missing paycheck from March 1. BUT  the retirement check showed up exactly on time on April 1.

3. Sadly the amount of the check wasn't as good as I expected. After bills we will have $52 for food and gas and everything else we might need.  Not sustainable at all.  So we have back-up plans in the works.

4. We did get a bill from the hospital. BUT its for $30. It was all processed right for once and that is a civilian ER visit co-pay.  I can handle that.  Well -- not on $52 a month (lol) but I am ecstatic that we are only paying $30 on a $3000 bill.

5. Both the girls are over the top BABY'S lately!!!! I know things are out of wack....but is that any excuse for trying to send your parents over the edge????

6. Dion and I both got hit with scams that added charges to our phones. Luckily I called ATT after I found the problem on his phone...which resulted in finding 2 on my phone. The charged on my phone were taken  off since I caught them so quick.

So that's my week. A little better in some ways but we are still operating in the red. No real progress on the job front.  And right now I'm just looking forward to the school year being over.

Currently

I've run across a few blogs out there that are doing a monthly "Currently" post. It's a neat idea...especially since I have not been taking any pictures to document the days as they go by. So if I can remember, I am going to start ending the month with a "Currently" post also.

Right now they will be rather depressing, but I hope there will soon be a time when I can look back and see how it all worked for the good.

So - my March Currently

relieved - that we have the retirement check numbers and I think we can keep our heads just above water. We might not thrive...but we will survive.

running - on faith alone

determined - to make ends meet on the retirement check

addicted -  to soda and wishing I wasn't

loving - not much of anything at the moment

making - things for camping season

noticing - that my youngest needs some tough love about being where she has been given permission to be, and nowhere else

thankful - that we got help with the girls lunches at school

proud  - of the things we did prior to retirement that are helping us keep afloat now

watching - nothing!!!! My Walking Dead is over for the season. Arghh!

anxious - for the paycheck that is 28 days late to show up

happy - to have made a big purchase that you will hear more about later

ready - to see my husband find work and to move on into a new life.

working - on downsizing our belongings

marveling - at the mild winter and early spring. LOVE IT!.

wondering - when we will get the missing check, when there will be a job, where we will end up next and how much longer it will take

So what is your life currently like?

Cheap Eats

With grocery money coming out of the savings account at this time, we have had to make our food stretch as much as possible.  Its back to coupons, sale flyers and making double sure we use up all those leftovers.

One cheap food that we all can find in our grocery stores is cabbage.

But its CABBAGE.  How boring.  And it has a tendency to make everything its paired with taste like cabbage also.  How boring.  And its a boring color.  And sometimes it smells depending on how you cook it.

I don't dislike cabbage luckily.  Its just not in my top ten veggies.  Or even top 20....

But its cheap.  And it is really really healthy.

While digging through my "to try" recipe binder, I ran across a recipe with cabbage that I have been holding on to for years. Because lets face it, its cabbage.  The recipe was rather inexpensive for us as we always have rice and we had some Rotel in the pantry already that needed to be used.

So we tried this recipe, which I had clipped out of a Taste Of Home magazine years upon years ago.

And when we sat down to eat we had a surprise.  We all liked it.  And Songbird isn't big on cabbage at all. But in this casserole the cabbage doesn't take over.  As a matter of fact, the cabbage didn't really taste at all.

It was actually a little funny how surprised we all were and looked.

So anyways, I'm going to share this recipe with you. It is directly from Taste Of Home magazine and the link to it on their site is HERE.

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 medium green pepper, chopped
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 can (10 ounces) diced tomatoes and green chilies
• 1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup uncooked long grain rice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon each white, black and cayenne pepper
• 4 to 6 drops hot pepper sauce
• 1 small head cabbage, chopped
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Colby cheese

Directions

• In a skillet, cook the beef, green pepper, onion and garlic over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Stir in tomatoes, tomato sauce, rice and seasonings.
• Spread into an ungreased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish. Top with the cabbage and cheese. Cover and bake at 350° for 65-75 minutes or until the rice is tender. Yield: 6-8 servings.

One recommendation - if you have kids or anyone that doesn't like spicy, make sure and taste your Rotel first. You might not need those extra drops of hot sauce if the tomatoes and chili's are hot enough for you.

So who has some other cheap meals they can share?

Pinterest Project #2

I found an actual sewing project that I had the stuff for. Its actually been sitting there waiting to be done for months upon months. I needed a sewing break after the amount of quilting I did last year.

But I was itching to get back into the sewing room.  Sewing is  de-stressing for me. Except when I mess up. Then I get all kinds of cross. LOL.

Knowing camping season is upon us, I thought I would do a project related to that.  I pulled the box of already waiting supplies out and went to work. I LOVE it when its all there and ready and I don't have to go buy anything.

This project is a dish mat tutorial for a absorbent dish towel to drain your dishes on after washing.  Takes up much less space when packing for camping that a traditional dish drying rack and is very light weight also. Actually I used heavy bath towels from the rag bin so its not a light as all that.

I used an internet tutorial that can be found at Fly Through Our Window.  I like it better than some of the other tutorials because it had a little extra touch of piecing the top and doing some triple stitching to make it look fancier.

So my two mats:

A vegetable print and a honeycomb print. I'm not big on yellow but I had a hard time matching the vegetable print from fabrics I already had on hand.

This one reminds me of the 50's. It doesn't come across well. The pink has tomatoes in dark and light pink and aqua. The plain strips are aqua.  Very retro.

I decided to make two so one could be hanging up drying while the other is in use.

Start to finish these took about 2 hours each.  It could be done quicker but I cut each strip one at a time instead of layering and I was watching movies while I did it.

I altered the pattern a bit.  It called for 5 of the larger strips and 4 of the smaller.  This was too large for camping. It also started with the smaller strips on the outside and I changed it to the larger.  This left me with a size I liked.   The pattern also called for the strips to be longer than I made them.  I went with the measurement of the shortest material I had - which ended up being 19 inches and I am happy I did.  Somebody must have some huge counter space to work with to use the original dimensions.  

Easy project with clear instructions. The possibilities are endless on your fabric choices. I beginner sewer could do this.  The hardest thing is the hand sewing from where you pull it all to the right side after stitching.  I just did a temp stitch and when I top-stitched over the whole thing I pulled my hand stitches out.

So what have you done from Pinterest lately?

Pinterest Project #1

Like many people I have a Pinterest account.  I use it mostly to store sites that I want to return to -- tutorials or idea's I am interested in.

Since I am pretty much stuck in limbo I thought I would check out my links and see if there was anything I could do that I already had the supplies for. After all, using the info is supposed to be why I have this Pinterest account, right??

I knew I had to go through the file cabinet and purge. We keep most bill statements and banking stuff for a certain amount of time. With a move coming up I knew it was time for a major paper purge.  After going through the various files and making a mountain in front of the shredder, I looked at my ever growing warrantee and owners manual files.  I was up to about ten.

I though I remembered tagging something to help organize these better so I checked my Pinterest and sure enough, there was an idea.  And all I needed were empty three ring binders and plastic sleeves.  I had both of these since I recently went through all my scrapbook stuff and got rid of many things.

The finished result is that my 10 sloppy file folders taking up too much space in the file cabinet turned into three binders on the cookbook bookshelf. Nice, neat and tidy.  And oh so easy to find what you are looking for.

I ended up separating into kitchen, garage tools/bikes and everything else.

The booklets that are no longer needed due to broken or given away products have been purged now and that will be much easier to keep up with.

Project number one was a definite help. If you don't have a good system for your booklets I would highly recommend it.

Just Sitting Here

Living in limbo is not fun.

I don't even know what to do with myself half the time.

Things are still a mess.  Our 1st of the month paycheck is still not here on the 21st.  Really people? It's reached the point of "you must be making this up".

We were turned down on the replacement life insurance.  Well - not exactly. They wanted a few more tests but we weren't going to be able to get it all done before the official retirement date so we ended up saying never mind and taking the military survivors benefit.  Which we found out yesterday is twice as much as expected per month. But that is still $50 under what we thought the civilian insurance would be so we still come out ahead for now. We can revisit all of this in two years and get it fixed like we want. No biggie.

We finally have our numbers on what the pension check will be each month.  I'm happy to say that it was almost $200 more than expected.  When Hubs hears back from the disability board it could be even more...but that will take until like July or something. Stupid amount of time. But again, its government. It couldn't go any other way. For now we have our numbers and we can live until school is out on them.  But that's with hitting our savings.  June will bring big changes with our without a job. Without a job we can't sustain the rent/electric and will have to move out. We are working on that eventuality right now.

With the numbers we were able to apply for the kids to get reduced lunches. They were approved yesterday and that is actually a huge thing. It was costing me $25 a week for school lunches for both girls. Even with them packing on days they didn't like the food it was still about the same with groceries.  The reduced lunches ensure the girls will get to eat on school days -- occasionally a decent meal. Not that the school lunches are great.

I do a whole lot of nothing. We don't have the money or the gas to even go do something free. That leaves me here at home.  And there is no money for little projects or anything so I have the internet (thank goodness for a high school student and a man using the internet as a job hunt tool) and plenty of books.

I always feel like there is something I should be doing and find myself wandering the house or just taking a nap out of boredom.

Songbird does not appear to have walking pneumonia like her sister. Just a virus.  This is good.

The truck is acting up and needs to go back to the transmission place. This is warranted work.

So day-by-day things tend to balance out.  We keep our heads above water anyways.  We don't have it bad -- we just don't have it good.  But we have it.  LOL.

So keep us in your prayers. And if you need some extra prayers out your way let me know. One thing I've got is plenty of time on my hands for extra prayer time. LOL.  And that can't be bad, right?

Monday Murphy Update

Wouldn't it be sad if this became a regular Monday post? Although as my wonderful friend Amy points out -- God is bigger than Murphy -- apparently Murphy has been given permission to have his way with us for an unknown amount of time.

So...an update.

1.  Still no job. Nice emails telling Hubs he has an impressive resume and passing it around...but no jobs. The job search has now been widened to anywhere instead of just Texas.

2. Mouse went in for a follow up (5 days after we were supposed to as we are retired and don't get timely appointments now because of that fact) and it turned out she now had pneumonia in both lungs and needed yet a different antibiotic.  So the delay in getting an appointment was actually a good thing as I don't think they would have caught it just 2 days after being released from the hospital.

3. Songbird is now coughing, has a sore chest, fever and aches and pains. Afraid she might have the same thing as Mouse. Tomorrow looks like another try to get an appointment.

4. Paycheck has been missing 18 days now. And a call resulted in being told that they TOLD us it would be 7-10 days from normal time. Umm.  17 is more than 10.  Even if you count the weekends.  That must be some new government math I'm not familiar with.

5. Truck had to be taken back to the transmission place (from a new transmission 10 months ago),   BUT it was under warrantee so they fixed a seal and made sure it was good to go for hauling.  So really this worked out in our favor also.

Seems I'm missing a few things. But that's enough misery for one post. LOL!!

Let's see what this week brings!