March Ramblings

Wow, I cannot believe how warm it has been here.  My lilac tree has buds on it and the grass is starting to grow.  I fear for the trees and flowers when we inevitably end up having another snow storm.  Every year we've been here we've had a snow storm the end of April. We've had record highs this weekend with temps in the 60's and it was absolutely beautiful.

CAMPER UPDATE:

Matt brought the camper home this weekend to start working on it since the weather was so nice.  He went through and got all the junk that had been left in it out.  He pulled up the carpeting and got rid of that mess.  He then cleaned and repacked the tire bearings and checked the brakes, which are good thankfully.  He's going to have to rewire everything though.  He started tearing out the cabinets.  It's a good thing we planned a total tear out because the ceiling is rotted and water has gotten behind the walls and rotted it also. Nothing we weren't expecting though for a camper over 20 years old.

Our new remodeling adventure

water damage in back corner

Ugly orange shag carpet he pulled out

SPRING CLEAN: 

The warm weather has triggered my spring cleaning gene so this weekend I started on that major project.  I've been needing to get some cabinets in the kitchen cleaned out and sorted so I knocked two of the upper cabinets out and a large pantry cabinet that I store overflow and all the pet treats and food in.  I washed the shelves as I emptied them but did not wash the doors as I will do all the cabinets in the kitchen at the same time.  And yes I know I have an issue with Mason jars, Matt tells me all the time I need to get over using them for everything but they're awesome and so versatile.

Before 1

After 1

After 2

Before 2

I was hoping the can organizer I bought would be wider or expand.  I think once I get rid of some of the beans on that shelf I might put another one on that shelf for more soups.  I'll see how it works.  I'll be putting my home canned beans on the mudroom shelves with the rest of my canned goods so that will open a good portion of that shelf.

Before 3

After 3

I still have a bit more work on them but it's a definite improvement.  I have way too many jars of rice and need to use some of them up. I also found three half bags of noodles that I need to use.  I'm still not totally happy with these cabinets but I'll give it some time and figure out how to change up the organizers to make it more functional.

I still have two shelves of pet items but at this point I'm not sure how to reduce it.  I also want to get a container to put on the bottom to put the dog food in instead of leaving it in the bag. I'm also thinking of replacing these shelves with pullout ones to make it easier to find what's in that back. The back of this cabinet is like a black hole due to it being so deep.  I'd love to find those vertical pull outs to put in it so I could store more pantry items in it and be able to see what I have easier.  I did buy a couple metal baskets and put cat treats in one and dog treats in the other.  I took the organizer I had in cabinet 2 above and put it on the third shelf to organize the canned cat food so I don't have to pull out a bunch of stuff to get a can.  

CRAFTS:

I was able to work on my rug last weekend for about 90 minutes and have only about 8" left on it now. Hopefully this week since I have several nights off.  I need to cut some more strips of the brown to be able to continue and I measured and it will fit in the camper!

READING:  

I've been reading more of the Bromade Home books by Alison May.  I finished up The Winter Home and all the journal suggestions and have started The Spring Home.  I've also read The Slow Scrub - A 90 Day Journey to a Cleaner house, which is a way to do Spring or Seasonal Cleaning over 90 days instead of in one rush. It's great for those of us that work a lot and can't devote several days or an entire week to doing nothing but spring cleaning.  I'm currently printing The Seasonal Scrub for further Spring Cleaning ideas.  These are downloadable ebooks that are only found on her webpage.

                             

PETS:

I've been having issues with Oreo for quite some time now and with her whining so much.  I've been worried it was from pain but have come to the conclusion that it's probably boredom.  She only does it at night and it typically starts when we're eating.  I feel bad for her as she's losing what little eye sight she has left and she doesn't hear well either.  Life is rough being a 16 year old dog. Matt's been complaining a lot about it so I needed to do something.  For the last couple days I've been making up Kongs and giving all the dogs one when we eat supper. I need to remember to do them up and freeze them so they last longer but they've been keeping them busy for about an hour or more and it's stopped a lot of evening whining.  If this continues to work well I'm going to need to buy a lot more Kongs so I can rotate them in and out of the dishwasher to keep them clean. I'm crossing my fingers this continues to work.

Ramblings - Mother's Day Weekend

It's hard to get into Mother's Day when none of my kids are in the area.  I did get a wonderful phone call from my youngest son.  I'm sure my oldest son was with his mother-in-law celebrating.  Otherwise it was pretty much another Sunday.

It's been a wet and rainy weekend.  I had hoped to take the dogs for a short hike but the weather wasn't cooperating.  Yesterday I sat curled up in my chair wrapped in a blanket most of the day.  I just couldn't seem to get the chill out of my bones.  For supper I made up a batch of my Sausage Tortellini Chowder and we ate the last of the french bread with it.  Wednesday I was in the mood for some fresh bread so I baked 2 loafs of French bread.  We've been munching on the first loaf since.  I used the second loaf yesterday to make Italian sandwiches for lunch.  We finished off the last of the chowder today for a late lunch.

Saturday I did manage to get a few things done.  I ripped up 2 more sheets for the next rug project.  I also started cleaning out the fridge.  I took out the fruit and veggie drawers and let them soak in the bathtub while I washed down the inside of the fridge.  Hopefully I'll get to the shelves this week.  I plan on ordering a lazy Susan for the top shelve that we keep a lot of jarred items on so it will be easier to find things. I was out of laundry soap so I made a double batch this time.  The house smelled wonderfully peppermint-y afterwards.  I also took the Jeep through the car wash and gave her a bath!

Matt finally decided to upgrade his phone and get a smart phone.  We decided to bundle our phones instead of keeping separate accounts.  I guess it's about time.  Hopefully we'll have our new phones by Wednesday.  I've been needing to switch phone carriers but hadn't decided on which one or what type of phone I wanted.  Sprint service in our area is horrible!  Verizon and AT&T are considered the best in the area.  Matt has AT&T already so we just added me and upgraded him.  As much as I liked the idea of downgrading my phone and saving money, the reality is I'm use to all those extras and they do come in handy when we go into the larger cities.  Coming back from Minnesota last weekend I used the internet search to find a home brewing store to stop at to pick up supplies.

To end our evening we made up 2 batches of mead, a 6 gallon carboy and a 3 gallon carboy.  Matt had been able to get some local honey recently for us to use.  We're excited to see how this batch turns out but won't know for months.  We used a different yeast for these batches and I'm a bit concerned how it's going to work.  It didn't seem to activate like I thought it would.  If it's not performing like I want I'll order another type and add it in.  We will wait until we rack it to add anything to it.  We plan to do the 3 gallon as a blackberry mead from the blackberries I got from the Bountiful Basket and froze several months ago.  I'll probably buy some more from the store to give it a nice flavor.  I may get some vanilla beans and do a vanilla mead with the 6 gallon.  I have a couple months to figure it out though.