Off the Wheel

I finished spinning my Harley colored roving and knit it up into a cowl!  This cowl is perfect for the crisp mornings we have been having here.  By midday I can take it off and I dont have to worry about changing clothes.  I love how the stripes worked out when it knit up.  I just love finishing projects!

Thrifty Thursday- 5 ways I saved money this week

Thrifty Thursdays are a new segment I am starting to show how we save money.  I want to start this week by showing 5 ways we saved money in the past week.  This past week was Thanksgiving and we had a pretty low key holiday.  Hubby had to work all day and had a pot luck there.  We sat down to a celebratory dinner of chicken, green bean casserole and an apple crisp when he got home.  We watched a movie and then he went to bed.  Which leads me to my first way I saved money...

1. Make Money- I babysat on Thanksgiving/Black Friday so another family could go face the crowds.  While they were out shopping in the freezing weather, I was inside, warm and enjoying a rare night of cable.  I told them I couldnt babysit until after Tim went to bed so that we wouldnt miss out on any holiday time together.  Pretty easy way to earn some dough.

2. Stay Away from Sales- Just because there are crazy sales on Black Friday does not mean I need to take advantage of them. One way I saved money was to NOT go shopping on Black Friday.  I am always a sucker for a sale and if I went out, I am sure I would come back with "deals too good to be true".  I have to limit my shopping exposure because I have horribly bad willpower, so I stayed in (and babysat) instead of hitting the shops.

3. Bringing Home the Bacon...errr Ham.  I mentioned earlier that Hubby had a pot luck at work on Thanksgiving.  They served a huge ham alongside a turkey.  Hubby, being the thrifty guy he is, brought me back the ham bone with meat still on it.  This next week we will make split pea soup using the ham from his potluck.  Thats one less meal we have to buy and I love stretching something that would normally have been thrown out.

4. Drink Free Coffee- I love Starbucks.  I am kind of ashamed to admit that I have a gold card with my name on it because that shows how I cant stay away.  I know I can make coffee at home (and I have really been trying to make cafe like drinks at home so I dont have to pay the high prices at Starbucks).  Our RV park has a keurig machine stocked with free kcups in the laundry room.  When I went to the office to pay rent for December, I swung by the laundry room and made myself a free cup of coffee.  Its not nearly the Peppermint Mocha I love from Starbucks, but it was warm and free and kept me from going out to Starbucks. 

5. Swagbucks- I have really been trying to maximize my earnings on Swagbucks to earn Amazon giftcards.  Swagbucks is a website where you earn points by watching videos, taking surveys, etc.  If I make it a daily habit to earn 90 points, I can earn a $5 Amazon gift card every 5 days.  It usually evens out to $5 a week.  But hey, thats $20 a month in Amazon credits for not having to ever leave the RV.  Did I mention the RV Park has free wifi?  You could earn way more than 90 points a day but I dont want to be a slave to the computer so I feel like that is a good compromise. 

On My Wheel

Along with the knitting bug, I have also been bitten by the spinning bug.  There is not a lot of room in the RV to spin, so I have been taking my wheel to work.  Since I work over night and most of the time the boys are sleeping, I have plenty of time for spinning, knitting or napping.  I am able to spin pretty consistently, but really need to work on my plying.  For those non fiber readers, first you spin whats considered a single.  Once the fiber is spun, you spin two singles together (called plying) which makes a stronger yarn.  You could knit with singles, but your knitting will be slanted and more likely to break.  You can also spin three singles together for an even stronger but also way stiffer yarn.  The most common is a 2-ply yarn.  I look forward to practicing more until I can get my plying consistent. 

This is considered a good ply... so its not all bad!

Can you see how some are twisted together well and others are definitely NOT?

Family Cloth... Again

     Living in the RV poses a lot of challenges.  We are constantly learning and adapting!  We had been having issues with our black tank (aka the poop tank) getting clogged and stinking to high heaven!  Talk about gross!  We have found that even 1 ply toilet paper can clog our tank.  Maybe our tank is extra sensitive.  In order to keep the tank working as it should (and not smelling too bad) I don't use toilet paper at all.  I am back to the "family cloth".  I ordered flannel cloths from FamilyClothWipes on etsy and love them!  They feel so much softer on your bum than normal tp.  We have a small trash can for dirty wipes and wash them in hot water when we get near to running out.  

    What would you do to save your black tank?  Is this too extreme?

The cloths live on a little shelf next to the toilet.

On My Needles

 

My fingers have been flying lately as I have been in the mood to knit!  My current big project is a cardigan for me.  I am using a lace weight yarn and holding it two strands at a time to make it thicker.  I love this yarn!  I wasnt sure if I would have enough to do the entire sweater in pink, so I just did the top lace part and sleeves in pink, and the rest in an off white.  Can't wait to be able to wear it!

The pink is more true in these two photos, the first one seems too bright.

kayaks

      Last week hubby and I bought two kayaks! And of course this week we have sub freezing temperatures and will not be taking them out anywhere. We had been debating about getting them for a while, and finally the sports store had a huge sale on them!  Hubby got a fancier one then mine so he can take it fishing.  I got the cheapest one they had.  No bells and whistles for this girl!  We can see the river from our RV so we dont have to go too far to put in.  When the river is up we can go for a good while.  We now have a "loop" we do.  We can only go up to the rapids (hubby tried going up the rapids but they are too shallow and he had to get out and walk) and back.  Doing this 3 times takes maybe 30 minutes.  I like to take my time on the way back since it is going with the current and I can watch the wildlife on the banks.  There has never been anyone else on the river with us and it feels like a magical place of our own.  

      What is my favorite part of my kayak you might ask?  The coffee cup holder!  I have yet to take coffee.  I did try taking a water bottle and I kinda mighta tipped the kayak and the bottle fell out.  I didnt want to drink it after it went in the river so I just threw it out.  Might have to practice so I dont waste good coffee!

Of course I had to get the hot pink paddles and hubby got the cammo ones.  Those fish sure wont see HIM coming.  haha.

How We Got Rid of the Dog Crate

Living in an RV means that space is at a premium!  Having two large dogs means that space is extra precious.  Our RV is broken up into three main rooms.  The bedroom, the living/dining/kitchen, and the back room.  The back room used to be the bunk room, but we took out the bunks to make room for us to live here.  RVs are definitely not intended for full time living, but thats another post... In the back room we had set up the dogs crate.  They share a crate and its huge!  I was constantly frustrated with the dead space for the crate.  We tried not crating the dogs when we are gone or sleeping but they are too destructive without us, so a crate is necessary.  I turned to good old Pinterest for some ideas on how to save space with a dog crate.  There were so many gorgeous built in dog crates, or dog rooms but nothing would work for us.  

Finally I had the idea to repurpose the cabinet under the kitchen sink.  Its the largest cabinet in the RV and is just big enough for the dogs.  I took out the shelves in the cabinet and took off one of the cabinet doors.  I was going to build a cute barn door style cabinet door, but then found this gate thing at Hobby Lobby.  I attached the gate to the side of the cabinet so it doesnt open.  On the other side of the cabinet is another door (right under the sink) that they use for an entrance.  Thankfully our dogs do not challenge doors, so I just added two hook and eyes to close the cabinet door.  I put their dog beds in the cabinet and after luring them in with treats they now know this as their new "bed" and run right in when we say "go to bed".  

I couldnt get the old crate out of the back room soon enough.  Now we can arrange the back room to be more livable and useable.  What do you think?  Would you remodel a cabinet for a dog room?

 

Jack loves the new house and has a front row view of our comings and goings in the front door.  

 

This "Love You" sign is perfect to cover up the fire extinguisher hole, and it adds more ventilation with the holes in the letters.  

 This was the half wall before we started remodeling.

In progress... the fire extinguisher we have doesnt even fit in the hole for it, so we had to mount it on the wall.