Mmmmm........PIE.

Today has been full of mostly knitting stuff, cooking stuff, and waiting impatiently for tomorrow's impending snow.

SNOW!

I know, I'm apparently a 12 year old. But I LOVE snow. (Please forget that I lived in Colorado for over 3 years and was so ready to leave, primarily because of the same snow that I now am so impatient to see. Yes, there is much irony here at Chez RV.)

The snow's supposed to move in tomorrow morning. I will be poised for photography and also to run around outside like a moron.

Anyway. Here's a secret: I might not actually be as red-headed as some people may be led to believe. I may in fact not be naturally red-headed at all (shhhh!). However, thanks to the miracles of modern chemistry and Clairol, I can be the feisty flame-haired woman that I want! And today, I did my hair.

Normally dying one's hair isn't really that big of a deal, if you have a big bathroom. When you live in an RV, however, it takes some special consideration. Normally I try to color my hair in the campground bathrooms, but this particular campground doesn't actually have showering facilities. So! I have to be a bit more careful, since Red Dye + Teensy RV Bathroom + Beige Carpet = Potential CSI Investigation Into The Murder That Surely Took Place Because Why Otherwise Is There Blood-Red Spatter Everywhere Including The Ceiling?

I have to use several red towels - one for my head, and one to spread out on the floor by the bahtroom sink, so that anything that spills will go on the towel. It's a bit challenging to smear the dye all through long hair without it flinging on the walls. When I rinse it out, seeing as we have only a fairly narrow shower stall, I duck my head down so it doesn't spatter upwards and out of the shower. It still looks like a crime scene, but at least it can rinse off the shower stalls.

Also, very importantly, you have to keep the cats out of the sink while you're dyeing said hair. For some reason, Loki MUST be in the middle of everything, particularly when you're: (1) sleeping, (2) in the toilet, or (3) doing anything in the bathroom sink. He loves to help me with brushing my teeth, taking out my contacts, and apparently, coloring my hair too. He's such an enabler.

This evening, I felt the need to make us fat, so I baked an apple pie. And Martha Stewart is having an effect, because it wasn't enough to slap a top crust on there and poke some holes in it, like the recipe says. Oh no. I had to do a lattice top. AND little pinwheels to decorate it. It made me proud, and Noel described it as "supercalifragilistically good." Heh.

YUM. And the best thing? There's enough left over to eat tomorrow while watching the snow.

Goin' to the Big D, and DO mean Dallas (this time!)

Hi everyone! You may notice a bit of a change to the blog. On the side I've got ads running now. They shouldn't pop up or anything, but please let me know if they ever do, and I can get them changed.

Also, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who leaves comments! I love getting them, even if I don't necessarily respond back. It makes me feel good to know that people are reading! :)

Noel and I have been enjoying the little bit of time he has off lately, mostly exploring the area. We found a junk shop (excuse me, an Antiques Store) that had some really interesting pieces of Texicana (is that a word? It is now!) You could buy anything there, from sombreros:

To something I never thought in a million years I'd be typing:

Leather fringe short-shorts. OH the HORROR!

We've also seen quite a bit of this:

Pretty scenery! Isn't it nice here? Not pictured - big cows. (Speaking of, some ranchers have these weird lumpy cows here called Brahman cattle. I'll try to get a picture of some of them, but for now, check out this wikipedia article. WEIRD, no?):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brahman_(Bos_indicus).jpg

Today, we got up early to head into Dallas for some education and learning and such. As we drove up, I snapped a picture of the skyline, but you can't see it very well because IT WAS SNOWING. (Not much, but a little!)

The place we went was a living history museum with various buildings from Dallas's history and culture. They had some lovely homes there:

We got to tour through almost all of the buildings, and it was really quite fascinating! Noel liked the general store, particularly for the items on the shelves from companies that are still in existence. Look carefully on the middle shelf in this picture for the old Quaker Oats container!):

I found it amusing that the general store sold just about everything, including a casket:

This museum is located right smack in the middle of Dallas. You can see the skyline behind the old schoolhouse:

The inside of the school house is cool too. When we walked in, I said "HEY! It's just like Little House on the Prairie!":

Inside the homes lived some gorgeous furniture (I took so many pictures of sofas!):

COVET COVET COVET.

The wallpaper in this Victorian home is also fabulous. They had even wallpapered the ceiling.

One funny thing is that they had light fixtures shaped like chandeliers, but they had 4 sconces facing up and 4 facing down. The reason? The 4 upper ones ran on gas, the bottom 4 ran on electricity. At the time the home was built, neither utility was really dependable, so they hedged their bets. :)

Check out this stroller! Can't fold this one into the trunk!

The living areas in the larger homes were very extravagant for their time. This is a picture of one of the more casual parlors (sorry it's so dark - I wasn't allowed to use a flash):

(See why I was in heaven? Old dresses, treadle sewing machines, antique furniture.....sigh).

Noel warned me to compose myself before peeking into this room. For good reason:

I squealed. Spinning wheels, sewing machines in almost every room, a loom, yarn, quilts.....it was great.

Check out this dressmaker form. (In particular, the waist!). How tiny were these people!?!? Of course, women would've worn corsets to get that particular shape, but still! (The sepia seemed like a nice touch, don't you think?)

We also passed by this sign / wanted poster, offering a Grand Neck-Tie Party (ie. hanging!) for troublemakers. Look out, Chalk Dust Dan! :)

In case you didn't know, Dr. Pepper was invented in Waco, TX. It's big here. This advertising mural is fun:

The snow and clouds had cleared out by the time we left, and Dallas was a bit more photogenic.

We stopped on the way back at Bubba's BBQ and Steaks. TASTY! I've never had beef bbq before, and Noel got ribs that literally fell off the bone. Incredibly good!

YUM!

Happy December!

Oh, how I love winter! Granted, we don't generally seem to have a lot of it here in Texas...that is, until today. It's colder today, about 45 degrees out right now (at about 7 pm) and rainy. More rain tonight, and possibly some tomorrow. But the most exciting news? For Friday, they're calling for the possibility of

SNOW.

Well, rain and snow mixed. But! Still, maybe snow! Very exciting!

I've been busy doing my Christmas knitting and crocheting. Again, no pictures (yet) because most of the recipients read this blog. :)

We've spent some of the last few days driving around, visiting new places. We found a town yesterday called Calvert, TX that has a cute and artsy little downtown, and GORGEOUS houses. We were so intrigued by the fact that this tiny town had so many impressive old homes, that we came home and googled it. Apparently it was a trading town, based on a cotton economy and the railroads. Huh. The funny thing was, unlike some of the other towns we've seen with up and coming downtown development and refurbishment of old (currently inexpensive) homes, this place was very tiny, but the houses were seriously pricey! We found several in the million dollar range. Gulp.

Example: (This one is small by comparison to some that were there)

www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/207-E-Texas_Calvert_TX_77837_1107740707

I was so awed by the prettiness that I forgot to take pictures. Sorry!

We tried to go to the state park today to go on another hike, and were turned away at the gate by a sign that warned us of a public hunt. No, it's not people hunting other people out in public. Look out, Bambi! I'm squeamish about hunting. I know it's really probably necessary for population control in a large area where hunting is prohibited 51 weeks of the year, but still. I get nervous flipping past the outdoor channel that they're going to show something I really don't want to see. Noel finds this terribly amusing and ironic, considering that I can watch CSI and History Channel shows about torture with absolutely no problem at all. But toss an animal into the mix, and it's all over but the cryin'.

Also ironic? We're having deer burgers tonight. (More meat from Noel's coworkers - ground venison). Yes, I am a hypocrite. But a well-fed hypocrite.

The hunt should be done by this weekend, and we can go hiking again. We had decided it might be better not to press our luck, especially in a state known for shooting stuff. Giddyup, y'all!

A (Celtic) Knotty Situation

For those of you who've never met Bertha, she's Noel's motorcycle. Bertha and I are on somewhat friendly terms - I don't really like to ride, but she doesn't care.

Noel decided that this weekend was the perfect opportunity to give Bertha a major makeover. Faaaaabulous! Pass the mascara!

This is Bertha before. Note the green & white paint job. (Also, that's Noel's daughter Lauren on the back).



Yesterday, Noel painted Bertha black. Honestly, I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out. I had fears it would look like she was covered in either tar or primer.

He wanted to do some kind of cool decoration on her, and I suggested celtic knots (we both love them so much!) He loved the idea, so he got some silver pinstriping (basically a stretchy sticker that usually you use to make the long stripes on the sides of cars) and I got to work.

Here I am, measuring out the knots and drawing them on the front fender. They're basically done on a grid of dots, so it does take some measuring.



Once everything's marked out and drawn on, I started putting on the pinstriping.

Here's the fender afterwards:



And here are several side pieces with a circular design:



And here's the top of the tank. This is the same design I painted on the bedroom walls.



It connects on the sides of the tank to another knot:



So here she is....MacBertha, the Celtic Cycle! :)



Fabulous, no? I'm quite pleased, if I do say so myself. Awesome!

Post Stuffing Stuff

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We certainly did.

The feast turned out quite well, if I do say so myself, after we had to mitigate one issue with the turkey, namely that it wouldn't fit in the oven. OOPS.

We only had a turkey breast, so I had to cut away some of the ribs to make it fit.



We had to shove several pans in the oven at the same time, and had lots of stuff going on top of the oven too. I managed to make a HUGE mess while cooking.

The turkey came out great though:



And the side dishes turned out very well too!



So see? You CAN make a full thanksgiving dinner in an RV kitchen! Take THAT, Martha Stewart!

We have a lot to be thankful for this year. Here are my top 5:

(1) a wonderful friend to spend my days with (and who's also willing to get rid of spiders for me)

(2) the kitties. This was our first Thanksgiving together. They make me so happy, even when they destroy my stuff.

(3) a cute little house. It my not be large, but it's cozy and safe and homey.

(4) life adventures. I had no idea a year ago I'd be having Thanksgiving in Texas!

(5) a supportive family. It means so much more than you ever think it would.

(6) my eyes and hands, which give me the opportunity to do all the crafty stuff I love so much.

(7) that there is no List Police to tell me I went over my Top 5. Oops.

Hope everyone has a nice list of their own! Happy Thanksgiving!

Close Quarters Cuisine (aka How To Cook In An RV)

One question we get on a fairly regular basis is about cooking and eating in an RV. These questions generally can be summed up by the following:

(1) Do you have a kitchen in the RV?

Answer: Why yes, we do. We have a gas oven with gas burners on top (3 of them), a microwave, a fridge, and a double sink.

(2) Do you cook in the RV?

Answer: Yes! We both enjoy cooking, and I do lots of baking as well.

(3) How do you cook in such a small space?

AH HA! THAT, my friends, is the trick question! The one thing missing in our kitchen is that: space. Cooking can be a bit challenging for that simple reason.

Generally, I cope with it by making only 1 or 2 things at once, and making sure to put away the ingredients as I use them. Or I use the crockpot, since it's 1 pot cooking.

However, sometimes a feast is called for! In those cases, you end up juggling a lot of stuff. Every year on the first day of fall, I like to make an Autumn Feast. This year was no different. I made marinated pork loin, dressing, roasted root vegetables, and a cobbler. As you can imagine, my work space (the new desk Noel installed) was absolutely overflowing with cooking stuff:

I decided to try cooking all of it at once (except for the cobbler), since it could all be cooked at roughly the same temperature. But! My oven isn't very big - it's much smaller than a normal oven - closer to the size of a microwave on the inside. So I got practical and started shoving:

It worked! The feast was great. It just took a little piling of pans in the oven.

One other thing to consider when cooking in an RV, however, is whether or not your RV is level. Usually when you stay in a campground, they try to keep the sites nice and even, so you don't have to use your levelers, jacks, or pieces of wood to try to make the RV level. Sometimes, however, you just can't get it exactly right. Normally it isn't very noticeable. Until you bake a cake:

Um....guess we needed to lift the RV a little more on the right. Oops.

But you know what? It still tasted just fine! And that's the important thing.

We're planning a big feast for tomorrow too. I've never made a turkey in this oven, so this might be interesting. Honestly, I don't even know if it'll fit! We got just a turkey breast, so we wouldn't have 6 months of leftovers. Here's our Thanksgiving menu:

Turkey breast

dressing

mashed sweet pototatoes with brown sugar & cinnamon

green beans

parmesan walnut salad

homemade bread with honey butter

pumpkin pie

The kitties will be having their favorite: chicken & salmon in sauce, courtesy of Nine Lives. They're already excited.

I'd better go check the bread now.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Hiking & Boots (yes, more boots!)

Noel and I have had a great time over the last few days. Yesterday I made some venison stew in the crockpot, and while that was cooking, we decided to go for a walk at the local state park, Fairfield Lake.

It was so pretty!



Except some of the plant life looked a little vicious:



There was supposedly lots of wildlife there, but we only saw birds. Noel found some evidence of beaver activity though:



The other wildlife we saw was....not my favorite kind. As some of you might know, I'm slightly afraid of spiders. Ahem. So Noel, being the kind guy that he is, ran Spider Interference:



(Thankfully they don't have those gargantuan yellow spiders around here that they have in Savannah!)

One of my favorite photography subjects, the mossy fallen log:



We had a great time, walked about 6 miles, and really enjoyed the sunshine.



When we got back to the house, the venison stew was cooking away, and was quite tasty if I do say so myself! The crockpot (named Davy Crockpot) is great for RV living, since it takes up very little room and you can cook a meal in 1 pot (without having to sit there cooking all day either!).

Quick venison stew recipe:

2-3 lb. tenderloin (or pork or beef or whatever)
2 peeled & cubed potatoes
1 chopped onion
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can of water (use soup can)
1 pkg of beef stew flavoring
1 tsp of balsamic vinegar
1 tsp (or more) of minced garlic

Put the potatoes and onions in the bottom of the crock pot, then put the meat on top. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a small bowl, then pour over meat & veggies. Stir to cover everything with the sauce. You can also prick the meat with a fork or knife to help season the meat better. Cook on high for 6 hours.

Enjoy! The cream of mushroom soup makes the jucies in the crockpot turn out like a thick gravy. Very tasty!

Today we went to Dallas to see a movie (Boondock Saints 2 - very good). After the movie, we decided to check out a new western store. It had quite a bit of really fun stuff (I'm really surprised nobody's asked me to stop or leave the store or anything when I'm standing there taking pictures of stuff.)

Texans are very proud of their Texas-ness. We've all seen the bumper stickers, right? Don't Mess With Texas, etc. Anyway, they're serious! This store has something for every Texan on your list!

Kitchen looking a little too non-Texan?



Need something snazzy for the front of your car?



Pint-sized bronco-buster of the house needing more training?



Want to embrace the life philosophies of The Duke at each meal?



Man in your life who wants to smell more like burning tires and gasoline?



Let me know if you want me to pick up any of this stuff for you next time we go out shopping. Heh.

We then went to another western wear shop so Noel could check out some boots he'd been coveting. They looked so nice and were so comfortable, he went ahead and got them! He's well on his way to a full Cowboy Conversion. (Next up, a cowboy hat. Or spurs.)



Detail shot! They are pretty - you have to admit.



Yeehaw!