The Truth Will Be Known...

There is a local TV station that allows viewers to choose the story for the evening through their facebook page.

Last week one of the choices was the anticipated winter weather--and it won!

So, they did the story.

One meteorologist says that since we are still under the effects of La Nina, we will have another winter of heavy snow.  In fact, he is saying that it will be worse than last year! 

Oh Rats!

Last year was the worst year in years!!!  And, it sucked!!!!

The second meteorologist said that while we are still feeling the effects of La Nina, the jet stream will be north most of the winter and so we will not see a lot of snow from the system down here.

I like him better!

The third meteorologist said that la Nina has weakened and the effects of the weakened systems along with the jet stream means that we will have a mild winter.

I like him BEST!!!!

So then, I am told the Farmer's Almanac is predicting a terrible winter. 

Booo!!!!!

A few weeks ago, Kathy was playing Tom Sawyer and somehow another guy and myself found ourselves helping her gather the recycleables from around the trash area and then cleaning up the trash area.

We pulled out a barrel and what did I see?

Not one but TWO BLACK WOOLY CATERPILLARS!!!

Ack!

Just in case you are not familiar with our little insect weather predictors, the picture at the left tells the story.

All Black--Harsh!

So now, I am interested to see what the plant world has to say.

Last year one of the guys staying at the campground took a persimon and cut the seed open and said he found a fork!!!!  OH YEAH!!!!!  This is mild...

However, all the local news stations said the Persimmon predictor said Spoon--which is snow....

Thank goodness none of them found a knife--which is ICE!!!!

It seemed that the persimmons were correct last year because we got SNOW, SNOW, SNOW clear through April!  Man!

So, I wait with bated breath to see what the persimmons have to say this year.

Has anyone heard yet?

And as always happens in life, the truth will come out in the end...

(Please be a fork, please be a fork, PLEASE BE A FORK!!!!)

Changes...Spicey Dicey...

I opened the cabinet door and  2 things fell on me!  Time to get busy on this thing! 

As usual, I forgot to take the before picture BEFORE removing part of the stuff!  Just imagine the two tiered lazy susan full to overflowing with spices that were falling off each time I turned it--K?

Suffice it to say I had to accommodated all of these spices...

I had the perfect dish holder for the camper, though. 

I took this type dish organizer that I found at Wal-Mart and turned it on the back so that the dishes stood up and the wire back was in the front to keep the dishes from rolling out.  Works great!

I first decided to try the Slide and Swivel. 

It touts holding up to 20 bottles of spices in 4 inches of space!  Now, I thought that would be great use of the vertical space in the cabinet and hold plenty of spices, so I bought 2 and scurried home to organize everything in 8 inches of space!  Yay!

Unfortunately, the way that the cabinets are set up, they have the locks for the doors right in the middle where I wanted the Swivel Store to go.  Darn! 

So, being the resourceful and clever person that I am, I put the dishes in the middle and a swivel store on either side.  Okay--pat me on the back! 

Uh, or not!

Turns out that there is a little lip on either side of the cabinet that kept the swivels from opening and swiveling.  On top of that, the left one had to swivel to the right and the right one had to swivel to the left which It could not do because the door doesn't open fully due to the microwave next to it.  Also, many of my spices would not fit in the swivel store because it is made for only the McCormack size bottles and many of mine were bigger.  Darn!

So, the Swivel Stores went back.  I might add that in a normal situation I think they would work really well!

Back to the drawing board...

I saw a great kitchen makeover here at Sunla Designs...she gave me a great idea for using one of those step organizers and a metal shelf, so I ordered each of those things plus spice jars from Specialty Bottle and made labels on my printer using the Avery Dennison Design Pro 5 free program which were printed on standard mailing labels.  I used a distressed blotchy brown background that looks like water marks on old paper (from my electronic scrapbooking backgrounds) and two red borders.  I figured that they would be perfect!  I mean, it worked great over at Sunla...

So, here is what it looked like.  The cabinet is up so high that I couldn't see the labels on the jars in the back.  I thought about putting a label around each lid with my label maker but then I realized that I would have to take the ones in the front out to get to the ones in the back and blah blah...

And what about when we moved the camper?  What would happen to those bottles all sitting on their little stairs?

Time to rethink...

So, I started looking around the kitchen.  As I was cleaning, I needed a dish towel that I kept in the bottom drawer (the tallest drawer).

Ah HAH!!!!

I had an idea!

I made extra labels for each jar and put them on the top of the lids and into the drawer they went!   Easy to see what is in the jar, they are safe when we move the camper and the towels you ask?

Well I did find a way to use the metal shelf.  The dish towels are under it and the larger spices are on top of the shelf and everything has a happy home!!!!  :)

Changes...And Help Needed...

I gave you a little sneak peek here...

Now, let me show you why it looked like a scene from Hoarders...

This is what the slide looked like before I started.  Yeah, I know!  It kinda looks like a scene from Hoarders right there.

Note that you can see the carpet under the chair at my desk.  It is seafoam green.  I am not saying that is BAD--but with 4 dogs and us living in the Mother Ship, it is light and hard to keep clean.  Really, any carpet would be!

So, I moved everything out of the slide and into the living room.

Let me just say at this point that no animals or children were harmed or lost in here!  LOL

I began by ripping up the carpet.  I had been dreading this.  The slide out is 12'x4' and when you slide it into the camper to move, it has to roll above the flooring in the living room so I wondered exactly what I was going to find under that carpet.

And here it is--red padding and if you look at the bottom of the picture you can see that there is a metal plate with a white edge.

Not the worst thing I could have found!

Now to get to the subflooring...

I found plywood.  I didn't expect that AT ALL!  I was impressed!  It was in good shape so I pulled out the staples, put on the special sealer made for the vinyl planks and it was ready to go.

I had decided to use Novalis vinyl planks that look like wood for the floor.  They sell it at Lowes.  It is fairly impervious to water and other dirt and mud that will end up on it and doesn't mold.  It is self stick and can be scored and snapped or cut with those shears that you use for vinyl siding.  Yay!

Now, back to that metal plate that runs across the front of the slide.  I had some hammered metal spray paint in bronze that I used to paint the white strip so the white wouldn't stick out.

 I found that it takes 2 layers of the flooring to be level to the metal plate. 

So I had a decision to make.  I could get some thin luan and lay another subfloor.  That is kind of expensive.

Or I could level it off to a slight rise and lay the flooring--which I did.

Of course, you remember that I have 4 dogs.  3 pugs and a 160 lb mastiff/newfoundland mix.  So, I came back to my work to find this...

And one of the culprits...

Check out that little black, uh white, paw...

Anywho, the leveling didn't work too well, so I decided to simply run two layers of the flooring which was less expensive than actually laying another subfloor.

It really goes down quickly and easily and Tank gave his approval of the floor...

This is what it looks like now.  I like it a lot!

Now to move on to more of the floor...

Gman and I have decided that we will change out the sectional (seen here with Tank demonstrating the need for the sectional!) when we replace the carpet. 



Ray

 I have found a place, called Home Reserve, that ships the furniture in boxes which you then put together.  Believe me, putting it together is MUCH better than trying to get the furniture pieces in the door of the 5th wheel and around the kitchen cabinets!  The added bonus is that it also has storage in each piece--a real plus in a 5th wheel!  AND it comes in LEATHER!!!  YAY!!!!  (dog hair...dust...mud...you get the picture...)



Laney



If you watch HGTV you have probably seen this furniture when they are decorating small spaces.  You order the specific pieces you need to make the size sectional you want in the end so I can match exactly the dimensions needed for the space alotted in the camper...YAY!  It also has pretty good reviews and is MUCH more economical than the true RV furniture available.  Plus, we have never used the sleeper sofa which is really UNCOMFORTABLE!  We have Little Blue for company and if needed, we would air up an air mattress rather than subject the human body to the torture of the sleeper provided by RV sofas!



 Our leather recliner is taupe as you can see in the picture above.  The leather comes in 4 colors--Coffee, Black, White and Saddle. 





Saddle



I really like the saddle color,



Coffee

but I also like the coffee and I think the taupe of the recliner will be fine with either of the colors. 

So now for the question:  Which sectional style?  And Which Color?  I have it narrowed down to the two pictured here.  I like them both.  Help!  Give me your opinion...

Thursday's Things In A Row...Let's Go Racing Boys!

This crazy fun Thursday's Things In A Row was started by Pat over at A View From the Edge...

Gman and I went to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Race at the Kansas Speedway last Sunday.  I never realized until Pat came along, how many things in a row there are at a Sprint Cup Race!  So with that, Boogety, Boogety, Boogety, let's go racing...

Numbers in a row...

Cones in a row with police motorcycles in a row...

Grills in a row with rows of burgers and brats...Yum!

Kybos in a row with rows of people waiting...

Does that one on the left look a little scary to anyone but me???

Show your colors with rows of flags...everything from American Flags to driver flags!  Rows and rows of rows!

Rows of stairs to the roof of the clubhouse...

Rows of cars in front of rows of pits in front of rows of Haulers (semis) in front of rows of RV's on the hill--can you see them?  They look like little boxes on the hill up there...

Row of race cars--The #88 Dale Earnhardt Jr is OUR car!  A row of 8's--coincidence???



 A row of nails--with rows of crackles.  Blue on the bottom with silver crackle.  Note the #88 on the thumb!  Do I know how to show my colors or WHAT????


 Rows of people making rows...

By this time Gman was pointing out rows for me and enjoying the game!!!!

A row of jets doing the flyover...

A row of cars racing.  Note the 88 (3rd in line) and the #16 is right behind.  I had to get this one in because Biffle was running the Sherwin Williams #16 at Kansas and Gman Jr works for Sherwin Williams at the paint plant.  G-jr this is for you!  :)

This is the #99 car.  Another number that is a row.  This one is for my brother Tom--HIS favorite driver, Carl Edwards.  Quack!

A row of light poles with the American Flag in the middle...

A row of spotters on top of the clubhouse with many rows of windows.  See the spotters up there on top?  The blue arrows are pointing to them lined up...

A row of people watching the winning burnout (#48 Jimmie Johnson...)

Row of cars on pit road with the tower in the background showing the row of car numbers as they finished...

A row of police...
I like to call this one "It's all fun until someone ends up in cuffs!"

Actually, those guys were so drunk they looked like they were rolling around loving each other more than fighting!  LOL

A row of lines on the road as we headed home following the #39 Ryan Newman Army hauler.

We saw the hauler as we were coming onto I-70 at KC along with the #42 Montoya Target hauler.  We were rooting for the Newman hauler to win the race between the two haulers and it did!

I decided to Go Army! and followed the hauler all they way home, exploring parts of my speedometer which I normally don't use...  ;-D

We weren't going all that fast because we were getting passed all they way by the driver's RV's.  Man!  Those Marathons can sure displace air when they go whizzing past!

When we got home, Gman had a row of hats on his head...

Here's another shot...

Hope you had fun at the races with us!  We had a GREAT time!

For more row fun, check out Pat's blog...She has her eyes on you this week!  LOL  There are also links to other Row fans at the bottom of her blog!  It's crazy and fun but beware!  Once you begin--you will see ROWS EVERYWHERE!!!!!  Bwwaaaaaahhahaha!