Our RV Adventures

Chris and I started back in on our trim replacement project about 10am this morning. And except for a somewhat balky nailgun, things went pretty quickly.

As far as what we’re doing, we making this,

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look like this.

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Chris ran a string along the trim level to give us a guide for the boards. After that it was merely a matter of holding them in place as Chris nailed them up.

This is the before:

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And this is the after:

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It took us about an hour and a half to do both ends of the house. For the second end, we didn’t use a string, but just got a good starting point and then used the 4ft long level to keep things on track.

Finishing up here, we knocked off for lunch at Hooters for hot wings. Hmmm, Good.

Back on the job, it took another 45 minutes to do the courtyard and finish up. I’ve still got some places to fill in some missing trim on a couple of other areas, and some touchup painting to fill in. But the hard work is done, and my son Chris did his usual great job helping me (or actually doing most of the work. I just held things in place.)

Leaving the house, I stopped off at a client’s to check out the new Cloud Print system I set up the other day, and so far it seems to be working fine.

BTW I started to install Cloud Print on my Kindle Fire and discovered that for some reason Google changed the name from Cloud Print to Easy Print for the Fire. But it works just fine.

On another subject, I had been looking to try a French Press system for making coffee since people say it’s the best way. And I was also interested in a Keurig or K-Cup coffee maker. That’s the system that uses the small 1 cup packages like this.

Sometimes in the evening I would like a cup of coffee, but it’s just too much work to set up the Mr. Coffee 12 cup machine for one or two cups. And we just don’t have the counter space to spare for another appliance like a Keurig.

Then last week I came across this on a TV infomercial. And it’s both a K-Cup brewer AND a French Press.

The basic model just does the K-Cups, and is $29.95. But for $10 more you get two extra adapters. One lets you use the round coffee pods that kind of look like large tea (coffee?) bags, and the other one lets you use your own loose ground coffee.

And it’s quick and simple to use. Your cold water goes in the blue container with the handle. This then goes in the microwave to heat up.

Your K-Cup/pod/loose coffee adapter fastens to the bottom, and then the clear plastic collection cup fastens over that.

When your water is heated, you pour it into the clear cylinder at the top. Then the blue container, which has an O-ring at the bottom, is inserted into the cylinder and pressed down. And your hot, fresh coffee comes out into the bottom cup. And you’re done.

It really takes longer to tell you about it than it does to just do it. Just what I was looking for.

I’ve used it a couple of times so far and it works just great. And it comes with three sample K-Cups to get you started, 1 tea and 2 different coffees.

You can get more info here – MyCoffeePress.

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Thought for the Day:

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." – George Bernard Shaw

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Jan and I left the rig about 9:30 this morning to head up to the house for more work on our trim job. What we’ve got planned today is to get the planks painted with two coats and ready to install tomorrow. Jan came with me because later this afternoon we’re going to pick up Landon at his daycare and spend some time with him.

I was a little worried about the cold temps today and how it would affect the paint, but as it turns out, according to the can label, you can use the paint down to 35 degrees. It just takes longer to dry.

After we laid the boards out, it only took us about 30 minutes to get them all painted.

By this time it was after 11 so we all headed out for lunch. I mean it’s got to be better than watching paint dry, right?

We ended up at Berryhill Baja Grill, a chain known for their fish and shrimp tacos, and a place we haven’t eaten at for a couple of years. But it was still good as ever.

After killing some time and getting back to the house, we found the boards ready for a second coat of paint. By the time we were finished, it was still only about 1pm, but since we needed to let the paint dry completely before we did anything else, we called it a day.

Tomorrow we’ll run a level line along the siding bottom edge and nail the planks along it.

The new trim boards will be nailed right above the brick to cover up the deteriorating bottom edge of the wooden (actually T-111) siding.

We will also do the courtyard entrance area the same way, for the same reason.

Then after we get the trim installed, we’ll run a bead of caulk all along the top edge of the boards to keep water from getting down behind the boards.

Don’t know if we’ll get this all done tomorrow, but by Thursday for sure. Then I just have a a little touchup painting to do and that will wrap it up.

My son Chris headed out, and I had time for a nap before Jan and I headed over to Landon’s daycare to pick him up for the rest of the afternoon and early evening.

By the time your youngest child is a mother herself, you forget what a logistical nightmare it is to travel with a 2 year old. It’s like a cross between maneuvering with Patton’s 3rd Army and herding ducks. And the ducks are winning.

Between the car seat, stroller, diaper bag, backup diaper bag, toys, sippy cup, and the many other accoutrements necessary for the moving of a small boy from one location to another, it’s a major undertaking. But finally we were on the road and heading down to the Ryan’s in Texas City for supper.

Landon was his usual sweet self and a good eater. As Brandi told us, he’s not real big on meat, but he loves vegetables and fruit. He ate corn, carrots, green beans, mac and cheese, and even BROCCOLI! The kid loves broccoli.

After getting Landon’s food, Jan went back to get hers, and came back with a small fried chicken leg for him. She took it off her plate and put it on his. He looked down at it and calmly picked it up and put it back on her plate, and then went back to his veggies. The kid knows what he likes. Then for dessert, he had fresh pineapple and cantaloupe, along with a cookie. Like I said, a good eater.

By now it was dark so we headed up to the Dickinson Festival of Lights to take Landon through it.

And like the one in Galveston last weekend, Landon had a blast.

He talked constantly, pointing things out and naming them. It’s amazing how many words he knows.

After we got back to the car, and Jan was taking off his jacket before I put him in his car seat, he pointed back at the lights and said, “Had fun. Come back”. And we probably will.

Like I said, the kid knows what he likes.

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Thought for the Day:

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." — Henry David Thoreau

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