Shakedown Cruise, Part 2

Camping Trip 1

Cold Water, Open Flames, and Blocked Arteries

See part 1 before continuing with my husband’s version of our first camping trip.

*This post contains affiliate links.

OK… so, despite the fact that camper was not properly supported (though I did not know it at the time), we were able to get it completely set up and ready for use. My wife began her list of things we completely forgot and things we wanted for our next trip, and I began my mental list of things I did not like about the camper. Yep, we had a brand new camper, and I was already complaining. However, it was not about the camper per se, but the camper filled with 5 people.

I am not a small person, and I am not a thin person. So, I like a lot of room. Thus, as my wife unpacked, I began to find myself crowded by everything. I think it was extremely psychological, but it was there nonetheless. As things kept appearing, the first thought in my head was that I needed to design and build some form of shelving that would be reasonably priced and easy to put up and put down. As the unpacking continued, the second thought was to run home, stretch out in the luxurious space of my workshop, and build shelves. I eventually pushed the desire to scream and run home down and
ran outside to hook up water and sewage.

Reveling in the open space of the campsite, I had the electricity and water hooked up very quickly. Some advice I can offer is that you should buy a new hose for use with your camper. It allows you to have new washers in the hose and to be sure that the water coming in is not tainted by water from your home lawn and garden taps. Also, it just looks spiffy!

Side note from Mona – you also need a pressure regulator although we didn’t know that yet.

Anyway,I digress. So, I hooked up the water and electricity, and I hooked up our temporary gray water tank… ahem… which was, believe it or not, a giant kitty litter bucket… which brings us to

New Camper Lesson #2 – C’mon Scrooge Buy the Freaking Tank!

OK… so we did indeed use a kitty litter bucket for a gray water tank on that first trip, and let me just put a plug in for the kitty litter bucket. Those little gems can hold everything from tools, to water, to ash from a fire place. I really like them for carrying things in box-like containers with handles. However, there are many reasons that you should simply spring for a good quality gray water tank. Gaining that tank made a lot of things easier, and I will talk about it in future posts. However, from the get go, do yourself a favor and buy a sizable, portable, and tow-able tank!

End of Lesson

Continue reading here.

This post contains affiliate links. See my disclosure policy.

Shakedown Cruise, Part 1

Camping Trip 1

Cold Water, Open Flames, and Blocked Arteries

I love the way my husband writes and so I’ve asked him to share some of our camping adventures. This is from my old camping bog.

The concept of blogging (is that a word?) sets me on edge as I feel it will eventually be the downfall of printed books in general. I have a Ph.D. in English, and I have old fashioned ideas about the fact that I think the written word should be just that or, at least, printed. Regardless, my wife asked me to work cooperatively with her on this electronic brainchild, and I plan to jump in with both feet, or a mouse and keyboard as the case may be.

So, on with motley…

As our blog indicates, we decided to play it safe by taking our new pop-up camper for a shakedown cruise to a local campground with which we were very familiar and which was within an easy driving range of our home. Our goal was to gain the experience of a weekend of camping with the safety net of familiar surroundings. I am extremely glad we made that choice.

At the outset, everything was going according to plan. The hook up of the camper to the truck went well, although it was touch and go for our marriage for a while as we tried to decide who would do the “backing up” and who would do the “directing.” Eventually, our love for each other won out, and I let her drive as I am horrible at taking directions. We hooked up, after a surprisingly small amount of trial and error, and drove to the campground with our excitement riding high.

The campground was no disappointment either. We were assigned a great spot by the showers and playground, and the kids could play while we set up. Then, as we pulled into the spot, and the truck listed to one side, the first complication hit. The ground was not level.

Now, you might think that such a thing would be obvious, and I had prepared for some unevenness, but this was truly mountainous in proportion to the very level yard we had at home. Also, I sort of misunderstood the concept of the stabilizer feet on the camper, and we ended up using them as the means by which to level and support the camper… which brought us to

NEW CAMPER
LESSON #1 – Bring Leveling Boards!

Yep… I did not bring a single leveling board. Despite the fact that I watched my father-in-law unload his leveling boards on repeated occasions, it never occurred to me to pack my own. I literally thought that the stabilizing feet were for leveling the camper and supporting its weight. Thank God that no permanent damage to the camper was done and that it supported itself throughout the weekend. Now, we take a number of boards with us, and I constructed wooden shoes for the stabilizing feet. They no longer take the weight of the camper as supports but function correctly as stabilizers.

End of Lesson

Continue reading here.

John blogs sporadically at The Crabby Wizard.

Extending Clothing Life – Making Pants & Sleeves Longer

I talked about how to make jammie pants into shorts and how to make long sleeve T’s into short sleeves. However, sometimes clothing is too short and needs to have something added to it.

My daughter (like most girls I’m sure) has certain items of clothing that she loves to wear. When they get too small, she hates to see them go and on occasion will try to convince me that they really aren’t too small. Sometimes, I can fix them. One of my favorite fixes is sewing ruffles on shorts, skirts, or pants that have gotten too short.

These shorts were just too short. So, I found some material that coordinated and sewed a band on each leg. Presto, decent length shorts again.Another favorite outfit is her fleece set made with kitty material. I think I made it in 2010 so it’s getting short again!

It was a little long when I made it, but after a couple years, they were getting short. So I had some of the material leftover, but anything that coordinates would work. Cut pieces long enough to make the sleeves or legs the right length and then add an inch and a half to allow for seams and hems.

Because fleece doesn’t unravel and fray, I just zig zagged the edges rather than doing an actual hem. If you wanted to do a hem, you can just turn the edges under and sew it with a straight stitch.

When Life Throws You a Curve

I sat down to do some sewing this afternoon. I was moving right along when suddenly there was a funny clunk and my machine made a strange whirring sound. Not a big problem, I always have spare needles. A quick change and I’m on my way again.
Except that my machine still doesn’t sound quite right and then the thread breaks. *sigh* When I take my material out to see what’s going on, this is what I see – a mess of thread.

*sigh* Long ago, I made a rule that I would not put my sewing down when I had to rip something out to go on. I would just dread going back to work on it and end up putting it off. So, I dig out my trusty seam ripper and rip out the seam. While I’m rethreading my machine, I notice that it’s pretty fuzzy inside from sewing a lot of fleece so I clean it out. Finally, I finish sewing the seam and quit. I can come back to it later and it’s ready to go on to the next step.

Life can be like that. You think you have something planned out – you know how you’re going to handle a challenge that you know is coming and then WHAM life throws you a curve. Something you didn’t see coming, something you don’t know how to handle and your plan seems so small now. But, you can’t quit. Life goes on and you need a new plan. Maybe you can revise your original plan and maybe you need a whole new plan. Regardless, you need to check in with the ultimate planner first! Sometimes we make plans and never pray about them first. We just figure out the best way to do something and go with it. What if God has a much better way? After all his ways are not our ways and experience says that God’s way is always better!

Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV

⁸For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,
declares the Lord.
⁹As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Fostering Kittens

For two weeks in December, we fostered five kittens from our local humane society. They were six weeks old and basically just needed some socialization (kind of like homeschoolers?) and some medicine (easy, right?).

Could they be any cuter?

Let’s back up a little. We have four cats (only one of them was really planned) and are definitely not interested in adding to our collection. Our kids, however, would love a kitten! If I’m honest with myself, I would too, but I know that it’s not feasible at this point. One day I saw an ad in the paper that our local humane society was looking for foster families. I called and asked about it. There wasn’t much to it – fill out an application and then the coordinator would visit our home to make sure we had a safe place for small animals. That was in August. I made the mistake of telling the kids (honestly the way the ad made it sound I thought we’d be getting kittens very soon). Every other day they asked if I had heard anything. Finally they seemed to forget (or maybe give up!). Then, one day I got an e-mail saying they had five kittens. I e-mailed them back and said we were definitely interested, but I didn’t say a word to the kids. A couple hours later I got a phone call saying I could pick them up.

I decided to keep it a secret (I did tell hubby) and have a little fun with it. I told my daughter I had to run an errand and I wanted her to come with me. Hubby took our boys geocaching. My daughter was totally clueless. Even when we pulled into the humane society she wasn’t quite sure why we were there. I loved watching her expression when she realized why we were there!

We had agreed that her room would be the safe room for foster animals. She was so excited to get the kittens home and into her room for the next two weeks! They were a little scared at first, but very quickly warmed up to us. Even the boys who are not nearly as quiet didn’t scare them after the first day.

They loved knocking this poor tree over and then curling up on it.

Those little kittens wiggled and squirmed their way into our hearts! There’s nothing more adorable than a little ball of fuzz that purrs.
There were a couple sad days when we had to take someone back because they weren’t eating despite being given their daily antibiotic.

But there were mostly happy days where my kids and I loved playing with the little fur balls (hubby isn’t a cat person, but he totally humors me and agreed to this fostering thing). I had forgotten how much fun kittens are! They want to play ’til they drop!

At the end of two weeks, it was time to take the remaining three kittens back. I watched the kittens go from scattering to the far corners of the room when someone opened the door and then cautiously peeking out to charging at the person coming in ready to play and be loved. They were ready to go to their new forever homes. As hard as it was for us to let them go, it was time. The night before there were plenty of tears and why can’t we keep one questions. Our kids knew from the start exactly when they would be going back, but it was still hard (excuse me, I have something in my eye). On Saturday morning, hubby took the kids on a geocaching adventure and I returned the kittens.
After a couple sad days, the kids recovered and resumed their asking when we would be getting kittens again. So, the next time I get an e-mail asking for a kitten foster, we’ll do it again. It’s a great learning experience and it’s just plain fun!