Friday, July 27, 2007

Plugging Along

I'm not even half-way through recovering the seats. But here's a sample:

Before:
"Before" Bench Seat

After:
"After" Bench Seat

My only regret is that denim was out of the budget. Other than that, I'm pleased at how it's turning out. Tortured by the amount I still have left to do, and tormented by a plague of dogs and cats who SIT (and lie down) in the middle of 58" wide fabric I'm trying to spread out to measure and cut, but pleased with the results (so far.)

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Travel Trailer in Progress

Part of the reason I haven't been out to buy a new memory card for the camera (or much of anything else) is that my van has been hooked up to the trailer since we picked it up on Saturday. Parking is only allowed on one side of the street, so it's across the street (that's the house with the three legged dog.)
Travel Trailer and Van
Sunday we gave the outside a good scrubbing, and repainted the stripes with spray paint. The stripes don't appear to be original, but someone else added them at some time in the trailer's history, and they needed touching up. We also did all the grates and vent covers. I tape, John paints, he has a much better hand with a spray can than I do.
16' 1975 Fleetwood Prowler
The kids and I stripped some late '80's or early '90's baby blue floral striped Contact paper off the kitchen walls to reveal the original wall paper (now seen only on the backs of the cupboards:)
Original Wallpaper
The new wall paper is a slighty boring, but easy to live with beige with navy stars:
New Wallpaper
We took the molding off to put the wall paper up, and it's missing the range hood and a light fixture.
Kitchen
The two biggest windows have the new curtains on them already, and I'm almost done with the rest of them. But it's easy to see why new seat covers are the next thing on the "To Do" list:
Couch w/ New Curtain

Dining Table w/ New Curtain
To the right of the dinette is a piece of plywood for the last owner's TV. It will go at some point. Above the dinette is a bunk that pulls down.
Here's Audrey's beloved Pooh faucet and the not-so beloved herb print Contact Paper wall covering in the bathroom:
Pooh Faucet
There is a small shower (with a new white shower curtain) and a commode in the bathroom, and it's not the type where you sit on the commode to shower, which is appreciated. Audrey is still pushing to do the bathroom up all Pooh.

For an initial investment of $500 for the trailer bought off Craigs List, I think it's got a fair amount of potential. It's CLEAN, has good bones, and the last owner did some of the mechanical stuff like new tail lights and new plumbing. The trailer we had looked at before this belonged to an unshaven chain-smoking guy wearing camoflage who used it as his hunting trailer. It had a lot more yuck-factor. And speaking of yuck-factor, I need to get off the computer and on the sewing machine. I have work to do:
Worst of the Seats

Monday, July 23, 2007

Guest Blogger

Audrey wrote a great e-mail to one of her friends about the travel trailer. Since a couple of the relatives are regular blog readers (if not commenters,) I'm lifting it and using it as blog fodder.

"My family got a travel trailer for our big three week car trip that we are going on very soon. I think in a little more than a week. Something like a week and a half maybe. Anyway we are fixing up our cute little trailer. The outside was pretty dirty so my parents cleaned it. Then we went and redid the stripes on the paint job. After that we got rid of the ugly and dirty purple chenille pillows that I hated not to mention the stapled, (not sewed), towel curtains. I think the towel curtains were the worst because they didn't let any light in and were just awful. (Dark green terry cloth is NOT ideal window treatment.) Also the seats need some work. They have that horrid, heavy, tweed, striped green and yellow, circa 1975 seat covers. So my mom and I are going to sew some nice white muslin curtains with navy blue binding. The binding is to match the seat covers we are going to be sewing, (probably forever, we have 18 YARDS of fabric!), they are going to made of this gorgeous navy blue damask material. It is absolutely fabulous and like I said before GORGEOUS!

The trailer is pretty small but it's just about the perfect size for my family. The couch folds out into a double bed for my parents. The table drops down and the seat cushions from the little table nook cover the table to make a bed for me. James gets to sleep in the bunk/loft that folds down above my bed. Suddenly there is only enough room on the floor for the dogs and a way into the bathroom.

I love that bathroom. Well not the bathroom, just the Winnie The Pooh faucet that the trailer came with! I thought that we should redo the bathroom completely Winnie The Pooh but let's just say my parents weren't completely sold on the idea. I personally think it would be perfect. I mean, SERIOUSLY, a POOH themed bathroom! How perfect is THAT?!? I absolutely love the idea. Plus then we could put eore and piglet and roo and all the other characters up on the walls. Still my parents refuse. But I'll get them. I'll get my portable pooh bathroom. Much better than Barbie's Malibu dream house if you ask me.

So far this trailer has been work but I think it's coming along nicely. The outside is looking pretty good. And when the inside comes completely together it will be very pretty. The little kitchen area had ugly flower wall paper that my mom and I took down. It was so disgusting because it was oily from people cooking. The stove and oven are super cute though. Our little magic chef oven is so super mini cute. But taking down wall paper and putting up navy blue star wall paper was no easy task. I'm going to take lots of pictures of our cute little trailer for my summer scrapbook. "

I've started turning the 5 yards of bleached muslin into 10 yards of curtains. After thinking about it, I realized that we are also going to need light-blocking curtains to protect the interior, since the vast majority of the time it's just going to be parked in a storage yard across town. I don't want to talk about a second set of 10 yards of curtains (stapled towels, maybe?) I'm also currently ignoring that roll of 18 yards of navy blue upholstry fabric I'm supposed to make seat covers out of.

Best Wishes for a Speedy Recovery

The neighbors' dog was hit by a pick-up truck last week. Ella Mae is a year old Humane Society dog who looks like a black lab/whippit mix. Her primary owner is the neighbors' 15 year-old daughter, who was right there with her mom when it happened. They were getting the dog out of the car when she saw a cat across the street (probably one of mine) and ran after it. That kind of stuff happens. I keep my dogs on-leash getting out of the car, and we still have the occasional mishap.

Today is Ella's first day home after having one of her legs amputated. She came to the door herself when I brought over her "get well" gift. Despite being pretty dopey, she was wagging her tail so hard she just about knocked herself off her feet.

Get Well Soon for Dog

In other news, we bought a 1975 Fleetwood Prowler 16' Travel Trailer over the weekend. Pictures to follow. My memory card, which has over a year's worth of pictures on it, is finally full.

We spent all day yesterday washing the moss and grime off the outside and starting on the inside. It seems like the perfect trailer for us. The previous owner was a home remodeling contractor, and his wife didn't sew. So despite new plumbing and some other nifty structural/mechanical things, the seat-covers are original 1975 green stripes and the curtains were towels folded over the rods and stapled, so the price was right. I'm already in possession of 5 yards of white muslin for curtains and 18 yards of upholstry fabric. Whine . Is it too late to pretend that I don't sew??

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Finishing Something I Started

I'd gotten out of the habit of having busy hands while I am watching TV. Actually, I was watching considerably less TV, but replacing it with time-wasting computer games. If I make something while I'm watching TV it's not 100% time wasted, but several hours of word or puzzle games produce nothing (other than perhaps a little brain exercise I could get elsewhere.)

I started this potholder in preparation for a cupcake-themed swap. Then when I was assigned my partner she didn't want anything remotely domestic. So the potholder was put away with the binding half-pinned, and I ordered a stuffed bunny holding a cupcake from an eBay seller in Australia. This pink and brown potholder does nothing for my pine, gold and white kitchen-in-progress, but just on its own, I'm quite pleased with it:
Cupcake Completed
It's all hand done, and I even made a batch of cupcakes to coordinate with it (though James did ask me why they were pink.)

In other news, Audrey is coming home late tonight from her trip to Maui. John is also vigorously planning our upcoming family vacation. I seriously doubted the fun of a 2 1/2 week family road trip the first time we did it two years ago, and it ended up being great---one of the best vacations ever. This year he wants to add the two dogs and a 30 year old travel trailer, and I have my doubts. I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I really, truly, sincerely hope I'm wrong.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Sewing

The last thing I sewed was a costume. The thing before that was a costume. The thing before that, and the thing before that and the thing before that, all costumes.

There is nothing more boring to sew than curtains, but that's what I broke my long run of costumes with. The play/guest room needed new curtains; the ones that were up there came with the house and were pretty ratty. They were especially ratty after Audrey discovered the joy of commercial chain stitch and ripped the bottom lace edge off, leaving me wondering why the curtains were worse than I remembered and suddenly too short. I realized what had happened when I found the ripped off bits stuffed in the back of the armoire while I was cleaning---no loss though, they were due to be replaced.

James has been my partner on the back room project. He's considerably more conservative than I might be, and he said "white curtains." I looked all over town for a cheap, coarse white sheet. Sleepers everywhere will be glad to know that thread counts have soared in the last several years, and the coarse percale sheet is an endangered species. Not needing something upwards of 200 threads per inch, or modal, or bamboo, or organic for this project, just a plain coarse sheet, I was not so lucky. James said "why don't you go to the fabric store." That's where I found clearanced linen, and bought all that was left of the white, for a whopping $3.16. There was nothing left over, but curtains were made.

Curtain

Since I had the sewing machine out and all loaded with white thread, I got out some of the flannel Audrey and I had picked out to make receiving blankets for Katy's baby. We picked out coordinating prints for 3 or 4 of these, and here's the first one finished, with a matching burp pad. Ducks on the outside, polka dots on the lining:

Duck Blanket and Burp Pad

James approved of the blankets, though he doesn't like that marble tile.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Deceptive

Callie Napping
See how peaceful and good this dog looks? HA! I walked about 10 miles today (about 4 miles more than planned,) part of it getting dragged painfully through the underbrush by this dog. This dog here, who's sleeping so angelically and looks like she wouldn't even think of yanking the leash out my hands and taking off into the woods after who-knows-what, getting tangled around a tree, and after being rescued, dragging me out through dense brush that included wild roses and blackberry vines. Ouch!

Part of that whole misadventure is that I dropped my cell phone, the one I've had for two weeks that I'm planning to have for the next two years. So I had to take the dogs home, enlist the help of the son (who was only sleeping and therefore glad to come to my aid,) and get another cell phone so I could call the one I had lost in the woods. Fortunately, except for the round trip to the logging roads (20 miles or so), the extra walk, and the fact that it made me late meeting my husband for lunch, that part was really easy. I hadn't dropped it while I was crashing through the bushes, I dropped it tying my shoe or something right out in the middle of the path.

I haven't been blogging every day while Audrey has been gone. I've been working on a project. With that stretch of hot weather we had, and the only air conditioning in the house being the small window unit John put up last weekend in the weird little room at the back of the house, I was spending a fair amount of time back there. The room is about 10' x 14' and is off both the kids' bedrooms. We called it the playroom, but really it was more of a closet. We put a futon mattress (and later a futon) back there and called it a guest room, but it was still more of a closet. Well, it's looking a lot less like a closet these days, with the fresh paint, and the brand new sticks from Pier 1 (the irony of someone who walks the dogs in the woods every day buying a bunch of sticks from China at Pier 1 is not lost on me.)

New Corner of My Home

Yeah, it's looking a little monochromatic. I was too tired after this morning's adventure to get the blue denim sheets out of the basement and put them in the basket of guest bedding for the picture. And there's not only sticks and potpourri in there, there's also satellite TV, the fore-mentioned air conditioning, and FLOOR.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Puppies Grow Into Dogs

The dogs turned one this week. They are officially "dogs" and not "puppies."

To commemorate the occasion, I give you James' feet age 13 and Callie age 3 months or so (we didn't get them until they were 8 weeks old:)

James' Feet and Baby Callie

And James' feet age 14 and Callie age 1 year:

James' Feet and Callie

According to James, I am writing entirely too much about the dogs and I need to make something.

Walking the Dogs

My neighbor Donna (West, to the South) says I shouldn't walk the dogs on the logging roads. She wasn't too happy when I told her I was walking the dogs up there by myself to begin with, and doubly so after yesterday. She says I have my children to think of, and what would become of them if their mother were to be killed by a bear?

My friend Missy, in Maui, the one Audrey is visiting, says maybe I should find someplace less rural to walk the dogs.

I asked myself if I wanted to go back to the logging roads KNOWING there is a bear up there. The answer is that I enjoy walking the dogs there, and I am in the habit of walking the dogs there, and until I find someplace better to walk the dogs, it works for me----but maybe I'll go later in the day, when it's too warm to go running around in a bear skin coat.

It was 74 degrees when we left town at 11:30. The dogs seemed to think it was plenty warm by the end of our walk.

Dog Walk July 8

I walked up the road that we call the one to the "viewpoint," which is near the top of a hill. About half-way up the freeway noise fades into the background, kind of like running water, and the birds are the loudest thing around us. The view off over the freeway looks a like this:

View w/Cellphone tower

I intentionally put the cell phone tower in the picture, because it's an important part of my walk. I start walking level with the tower (which is enormous but the depth and scale of the picture aren't the best,) and about 1/2 a mile on the other side of it. Because of the tower I have perfect cell phone reception, better than I do within the concrete walls of our house. That's commercial forest on the hills in the background, and the bald spots are where they've harvested the trees but haven't replanted yet. All the green in the foreground of the picture is also trees, some older ones poking up above the younger ones.

We rarely, rarely see another person. It's scenic. There are extravagant amounts of wildflowers. The daisies are finishing up, since it's been so warm and dry, and I'll miss them.

Daisies and Dandelions

Of course, one of the main reasons I like to walk up there is that we can go for miles and miles, which the dogs need.

Dogs walking July 8

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Wildlife

I realized later I had a camera on me. Much later. Even if I had remembered at the time, I wouldn't have stopped to take a picture.

I took the dogs out for a hike on the logging roads this morning. It's been so hot that other than a hectic little walk near the lake late last night they haven't been out in a couple of days. Since they were kind of antsy I took them north on a short piece of road that isn't particularly scenic, and is noisy because it's next to the freeway, but has the advantage of being somewhere I've never seen wildlife (like deer, elk, coyotes or porcupines.) Well, we came around a curve, and there was something big and brown in the middle of the road. Cozy saw it too. Callie was sniffing off behind us, and oblivious. I distinctly remember what went through my head:

"Oh no, what's that? That's a bear."

And I turned around and walked (briskly) back the other way, and didn't look back (Cozy did.)

We continued our walk in another direction, doing an hour and half, which is about 6 miles by my estimates. And didn't see the bear again.

Note: I've been Google-ing and Wiki-ing and the only brown bear native to this part of the country is the grizzly bear. I ran into a grizzly bear when I was out walking the dogs.

Friday, July 06, 2007

Five Friday Things

I told Audrey I would try to post every day while she was gone. I'm getting a migraine, though. . .I can tell. . .it just has that feel to it, so I'm going to try to post quickly, take an Imitrex and go lie down. So I give you: Five Things About My Friday:

1) I took the cats to the vet today, for flea medication and vaccinations. They wouldn't do Smokey's regular vaccinations because they want him to have a proper exam, so it's back to the vet on Monday for him (I'm sure he'll be thrilled.)

2) I went to the grocery store. There was a guy there trying to pick up women. I was observing him with mild amusement. We left about the same time, and even though he was 3 parking places from the cart-return, he left his cart in an empty parking place (two parking spaces from the cart-return.) And THAT would be one of the reasons the man is still single.

3) The neighbors (the Wests, to the South) are having a yard sale, doing brisk business, and my dogs have been quite good, considering. That man they barked at had a very loud voice.

4) My husband is going to a youth soccer coaching seminar tonight, all day tomorrow, and all day Sunday. I am rather jealous of losing the weekend with him.

5) After I see if the migraine will pass, I am going drag a couple of area rugs out to the drive way to try to hose them down. If it's going to insist on being hot and dry, I may as well see if I can put it to good use. At times like this I wish I owned a clothesline.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

INTENSE Heatwave Bakes Western U.S.

AOL updated their headline on the heat. Just thought I should reflect that.

I got the chicken grilled with no mishaps, and really no adventure:
Chicken on the Grill

I dragged the little roaster oven out of the basement, and it's plugged in outside the kitchen door with potatoes baking in foil with butter and sea salt. I don't use the roaster oven very often, but when I do I'm glad to have it. James and I are headed out to Fred Meyer for salad stuff.

The raspberries are still coming, the blackberries are going to be abundant, and I'm even going to have a precious few of these:
Blueberries Coming

I promised Audrey more frequent blogging so she could know what we are up to while she's away. Right now we're up to about 88 degrees in the house. We don't have that thin Southern blood anymore. It's WARM in here.

Heat Wave Bakes Western States

Yep. Heat wave. My family in Arizona are having about 116 degrees, I think. More actually, because I happen to know that the official temperature is taken in the middle of a grassy field at the airport, and the city and suburbs are mostly black-top and concrete and are hotter. Ewwww. Yuck. Can I even complain about almost 90??? I have no air conditioning in the house, surely I can whine a little bit. Just a little bit. John's Dad's family in Texas got more than a year's worth of rain last month. What's a little ol' heat wave compared to that? (Insert very small whine here.)

Audrey is in Maui, and was suffering from a little homesickness last night (and got stung by a bee out on the lanai while blowing bubbles with the boys.) Hopefully she's having a good day today.

Okay, so I have this cute little stucco Tudor cottage, which really likes to stay the temperature it is. It takes several hours for it to heat up to the outside temperature early in the day, but then it holds the heat for hours after it cools off again at night. That means I'm not cooking dinner in the house. So I'm off to clean the charcoal grill. The new one that I DON'T LIKE, the one that DUMPED the steaks in the coals the last (and only) time I used it. More about adventures in grilling later, I'm sure.

Monday, July 02, 2007

Come On Over!

I need some help eating that tart, I'll put some coffee on, or maybe some iced tea. It's not meant for long-term storage and I'm having trouble giving it away to my kids, who prefer chemical-laden, cellophane wrapped things.



Raspberry Tart Cut


Can you believe Scooter Libby's sentence was COMMUTED?

We are packing up the daughter-child for a babysitting stint on Maui. She's going over to stay with our friend Missy and her husband Buzz (a few hundred yards from the Big Beach state park!) and hopefully be a credit to her parents and the Red Cross babysitting certification program by being the best mother's helper ever.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Raspberries in Season

It's been busy here. I think there's a lot of that being busy stuff going around though, there seems to be a lot of sporadic posting and blog-breaks happening. We had an extra kid to entertain for a few days before sending him to join his family in Utah, which was kind of fun. John and I spent most of this weekend doing a much needed clean-up in the back yard. We pulled the grass out of the flower beds, raked up a lot of bark chips, retrieved all the things the dogs had taken out the dog door to play with, and trimmed back a lot of plants that were escaping their accepted boundaries (though I still don't approve of John pulling up half the "Seattle" dahlia clump just because he thought it was being unruly.)

I also found myself in possession of these, from our very own (thornless) bushes:

Raspberries

I had a goodly amount of raspberries, and I had been reading these:

Culinary Reading

That's Julie Powell's Julie and Julia (yes, I'm one of the last people to read this, but I also haven't seen "Titanic" yet,) and a combined edition of Christopher Kimball's The Cook's Bible and The Dessert Bible. So at 1:30 this morning Audrey and I finished placing the berries on this:

Raspberry Tart

Audrey was an enthusiastic helper. We just saw "Ratatouille" and she's wildly interested in cooking and baking---this week.

I probably could have found my own copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but I'd recently rediscovered the Kimball, and it was both convenient and comprehensive. (Christopher Kimball, founder and editor of Cook's Illustrated, is the sort of person I would fear being married to, him seeming to be a very methodical "Type A" personality, and me so much of a "Type B" that I'm actually more of a "C" or maybe a "G.") I used his Master Recipe for Food Processor Tart Pastry, which worked very well--no complaints, even when I used all butter because I was out of Crisco after that cake making bout a few weeks ago. I followed the directions for Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream, and ran into a couple of minor problems. One was that the recommended recipe for pastry cream uses egg yolks and flour, later I was reading the "Puddings" section of the book, and he says vanilla pudding made with egg yolks and flour has a "texture like congealed gravy," and the flavor is "too eggy." WELL, if I'd read that first I would have just followed the vanilla pudding recipe, because my pastry cream looked like beige congealed gravy and was strongly "eggy." Phooey. Fortunately a good remedy for congealed gravy pastry cream is to cover it with beautiful ripe raspberries. I also had a hard time glazing the berries with the melted apricot jam. . .the slightest touch with the pastry brush sent those raspberries rolling right out of formation. I ended up just dabbing the tops, and I think the little gobs of apricot jelly are just a teensy bit unattractive. But, oh well, together it's all highly edible, and I would say worthy of the homegrown fruit.

In other news, we broke down and got a high speed internet connection, no more dial-up for us. So it's all YouTube all the time around here now. I'm posting from the lap top because since the installation of the broadband competition for the primary computer has been fierce. The satellite TV is supposed to be installed tomorrow, ending a more than six-year break from pay-TV (and over a year of that was network TV-free as well.) Part of me is sad, and part of me is thinking "Whoo Hoo! HGTV! Food Network! Discovery Channel! BBC!" and I would love to say no more watching Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars through the snow, but they won't be back next year. : ( But I've managed to live in a world without new episodes of Buffy, I imagine I'll adjust to this loss too, in time.