Now that I'm baking our own bread and making gluten free everything, I decided I needed better tools. Thank goodness for online shopping and Amazon making it so easy to indulge in these endeavors.
After holding the hand mixer for long periods of time to mix the batter for our bread, I decided enough was enough and ordered a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I thought about getting the yellow one, but since I don't know what our future decor might look like I opted for silver. It is a joy to dump in my ingredients and walk away while I let it mix and stir for the six minutes required.
I opted for this Artisan Series because the bowl has a handle on it and a nice deep bowl that is narrow at the bottom. The mixing attachments get to the sides with no problem. It also came with the pour in splash guard. This makes it a snap to have it mix the dry ingredients and then pour in the liquid portion.
I no sooner had cleared a space for it than I started to order accessories for it. Now I have a cool attachment that slices and grates.
My other toy is the spiralizer. Yeah, I know...I purchased the other one that has a manual crank, but I figured this will take up even less space and should be easier to use. Supposedly it will core, peel and spiralize all at the same time.
Long Live the Queen of the Kitchen
On July 31st I turned the magical age of 65. Now I qualify for any "senior discount" out there. I also now have Medicare. Getting old is so fun!
That morning I couldn't figure what the cats were so excited about outside. It was probably just a squirrel or the neighbor cat, Lucky, coming to visit. But curiosity got the best of me so I peeked out to see what was causing the commotion.
I jumped back when I sensed movement, but then realized it was nothing to fear. Someone had bestowed birthday balloons on me. Based on the green cactus holding it down, I figured it must be my Arizona neighbors next door.
After Left Brain came back from his bike ride I announced he was taking me out for BBQ for lunch. At first he protested, but I pulled the birthday card and he relented. Then I yelled through the window to the neighbors to join us. It's a pretty handy system having RV's close enough to yell at each other, better than using the phone.
The four of us headed out to Dixie Blue BBQ for lunch and had a great time visiting and laughing.
Later that day we went over to the kid's house for my birthday supper. Steph purchased some tasty bacon wrapped chicken and served it up with sweet corn....yum. After a couple rounds of cribbage and our food had settled she served up a beautiful small chocolate torte cake. Could this day get any better?
I was bestowed with coupons from the family for sessions of pickleball, a girls day out and a photography adventure. This is my favorite kind of gift, one that takes up no space except in my heart and memory.
We went home later that night and had some nice snuggling with the cats and it made the day complete.
I'm liking this aging thing.
Long Live the Old Queen
The previous storm apparently blew enough wind and rain through the vent into the back of the fridge, even with the awning covering it.
I woke about 3:30 am to a persistent beep beep sound and had to get up and take a look. This early morning waking seems to becoming a habit.
Nothing was working, so I dug out the manual and it showed this was something that needed professional assistance.
I started a barrage of calls and there seemed to be nobody that could come out to take a look at it before sometime the first week of August. Yikes. The service calls seemed to be about $110 just to take a peek at the problem.
Then I started to consider replacing the fridge since it's never done a good job anyway. Double yikes. The fridges in RV's run about $3000 to $50o0. Not good.
Maybe we could just replace it with a residential model for a lot less money. But the RV fridges are odd sizes and none of the residential ones appeared to be a good fit.
Finally, during one of my calls to yet another service person who wasn't able to come out I got the name for Vern's Service & Supply.
Eventually I was able to make phone contact with him and he said he didn't do any calls to RV's unless they were in Ham Lake Campground. Well...finally things are looking up.
He wasn't able to come up for at least a day or two, so Left Brain took the initiative and picked up a small fridge to plug in outside. Say hello to my little friend....
This will come in handy for beverages and additional storage while we are parked here.
Vern, who's real name was Ben, came out on Friday and took care of things quickly and charged us $20. What? Left Brain handed him a $50 bill and I added a couple of freshly baked blueberry muffins.
So,. now we have two fridges.
Long Live the Queen of Chill
It's hard to find countertop space in a tiny home so sometimes you need to be creative.
We always have fresh fruit on hand, but I felt it was always in my way.
So what's a girl to do? Look up!
We have a satellite control that is not being used, but it would be sturdy enough to hold a small amount of fruit. Hmmm.
I found this fruit basket at TJ Maxx and it would work perfectly. The basket could be hung from the upper part that holds the bananas.
There. Fruit available but out of the way. I didn't realize this at first, but Left Brain may be having a Carmen Miranda thing going with his hat.
Long Live the Queen of Fruit Baskets
It was one of those nights when I couldn't sleep, so was sitting in my recliner reading when out of nowhere the wind began to howl. It was as if someone flipped the switch on a huge fan.
I kept waiting for warning sirens to begin blaring, or the phone to come to live with weather warnings, but there was nothing.
I put on the porch light and peeked outside just in time to see the cat tunnel and tent go flying into my garden.
Then there was a snapping noise and I braced myself for whatever tree broke off to come crashing through the roof, but there was nothing after that. So I did what anyone in an RV would do. I went back to bed, ready to be transported to the Land of Oz.
You can see the top of the tree in the back of the photo. Thankfully it didn't come down on anything or anyone.
Long Live the Windy Queen
