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You're paying how much to rent that?!?!?

WOW! Sometimes I am amazed at what people pay for things. I follow a few bloggers, one that centers around "real food" living. The family eats stuff my family would never eat, but I do get a few ideas from them.

She recently rented an RV/Motor home. They are paying $241/night to rent this RV. She's a big blogger and gets sponsored, I really hope the RV company is sponsoring some, if not all of the rental fee for her. Her trip is 4 weeks in the RV. 28 nights x $241 =  $6,748. For that amount, I could have bought my RV twice, with two full tanks of gas!

If she's sponsored, yea, I'm jealous. If she's not sponsored and paying, yea, I'm jealous. We live comfortably, my husband has a good job and a small business, and there's no way he could take a month of off work.

We also have pets, the dog would go with us, but I don't know about two cats and a dog in an RV. I don't think they have pets.

The dog, CJ loves to play in the morning. Unfortunately, I like to work in the morning and he's a little distracting.

RV Packing List

Watch out world - we're on the way....

So my last post was my complaining about how I was stuck at home. The powers that be were in work and read that post! A friend of ours from the TRJC (Two Rivers Jeep Club) decided to put his motor home up for sale on facebook. I saw the post and moved on. I mean really, this is what was posted:

Dave asked me about it at 8pm the night it was posted. We decided maybe we should get it. We'd save $300 twice a year when we go to the public events the club holds. We also miss out on the club dinners because we never have a place to shower. We also have a dog with high anxiety so boarding him really isn't an issue and it we OK, not horrid, not good, the last time we left him at home and had someone stop by to take care of him.  Besides, who wouldn't want to bring this cutie along!?!?

So, in the end, we decided to buy it. The inside needs some attention (it's just old/out dated) 

We almost made it home before it died. Really, the trip home was not fun. The RV had little gas so Dave needed to stop a little earlier than planned. I was following behind in the Jeep. Dave had the GPS, I thought nothing of it when he said for me to go ahead and stop in Quincy to pick up Chinese food for dinner. I have google maps on my phone.................but it doesn't work in B.F.E........I missed a turn and ended up lost. I finally made my way back to the highway and called Dave, he was 15 miles ahead of me on the highway. Guess I should have waited for him at the gas station. 

I was about 10 miles from Quincy when all hell broke loose with the weather, full blown panic attack while I was driving. I took an earlier exit off the highway just so I could safely drive slower. I went to our favorite Chinese take out place. Chatted with the delivery driver that was at my house once a week when we lived in town for a bit. It's sad, they are putting in a Panda Express in a parking lot right next to them. I promised the driver that I would never go there!

While I was waiting on the food, Dave called. The RV died at an intersection about 12 miles from the house. So I waited for the food to finish, and then headed up to him and the kids stuck on the road in the pouring rain.  Luckily I had jumper cables in my Jeep and RV started back up with a jump start. I don't know what's wrong with it but Dave thinks it's a loose connection some where and hopefully it will be a cheap easy fix. 

Right now the plan is for our maiden voyage to be in mid-July because there is a Jeep club run. Hopefully the bugs will be ironed out and all will be well. Today's plan is clean the house, garage, and catch-up on laundry. As soon as the house is back in order, the RV will get some TLC.

My Bucket List

I'm sitting alone in my living room on a Friday night. There's TONS going on within 30 min of where I live, but we're home because of a few reasons. My husband is a work-a-holic. He's busy working in the shop.

I'm looking at all the fun places people are posting pictures of on Facebook.

This has inspired my bucket list creation. I'm 34, a mom of two. Life can be taken away at any moment.

Here's my list of what I want to do before I die:

• Go to Las Vegas
• Go back to Mrytle Beach and gorge myself at Crabby Mikes
• Go to Mardi Gras
• Stay in the luxury suite of a fancy hotel
• Get good seats at professional baseball game
• Get good seats at a professional hockey game
• Go fishing until the sun sets, lay in the bed of a pick-up truck and stare at the stars
• Buy a professional camera just to take random pictures
• Visit my father's grave site
• Have my husband do something so romantic I cry (dinner with suppliers just doesn't cut it)
• Have a wedding/vow renewal and wear a HUGE wedding dress
• Go to a nice resort in Mexico or Jamaica
• Learn to cook (I mean like just one gourmet meal)
• Attend the Olympics
• Watch my kids graduate from college

R.I.P. Summer Library Program

For years, I took my kids to the Quincy Public Library summer reading program. It kept us busy 3-4 days 1-3 hours at a time. It was great! There would be a free movie with popcorn one afternoon, a craft on another, and Friday mornings always held some sort of live performance. I also carried hefty fines because, I'm terrible at returning books. Seriously, never lend me a book you want back! Had we stayed in Quincy, we may have been able to squeak one more year out of the program. But alas, we moved. The new town has a library smaller than the children's depart of Quincy's. The staff is great, if they don't have a book we want, they get it for us. They do have a reading program, but not near what Quincy has. It makes me sad. I do think the kids miss it (even if they won't admit so).

At Home Date Night

When you're a parent, you don't get many date nights. Sure, there are those women that seem to get a date night out and about every single week. I'm not one of those. My summer date nights at home usually start off with dinner on the patio. This week was started with a nice cob salad, then surf & turf (steak/lobster), with fresh from the garden brussels sprouts  for the main course. Desert with free this week! The lovely folks at influenster sent me a #voxbox a few days ago, and in it was a coupon for free a free Breyers Gelato. OMG! The vanilla caramel was AWESOME!! After dessert, we open up a bottle of wine, plug the playlist in, and relax. Usually the kids are in bed (or at least in their rooms) by 9. That leaves Dave and I time to just dink some wine, listen to music, and talk. Great date nights don't have to cost a lot, check out my pinboard for date night! Date Night Pinboard

This post was inspired by Breyers Gelato. I received a coupon for a free a free container from Influenster.

Looks like fun!

We're having a HUGE open house/BBQ in a few weeks. I found this idea online and I think the kids will love it!

found at http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/71/c9/f8/71c9f898eb457ef8794e81b822d8cb84.jpg

 Here are some other great ideas I found:

Take that! cravings!

I have a little diner about 7 miles down the road (closest place to eat out around here). They have strawberry pie on the glowing menu board every time we are there. Every time, we say we're going to order some. Either we get too full or the waitress is too slow and we never get the pie. I found an easy recipe on pinterest Here's the original link. I don't bake too often so rather than risk a crust, I cheated and did a store bought graham cracker crust.
The original recipe makes too much for the graham cracker crust.

Here's my version:
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons corn starch
3oz box strawberry jello
1 pint fresh strawberries
1 graham cracker pie crust

Bring the water, sugar, and corn starch to a slow boil while stirring. This magic thing happens and it goes from liquidy to goopy and translucent.
Remove from heat, stir in the jello mix.
Let it cool for a couple of minutes (I used this time to cut the fresh strawberries).

Pour a little of the red mixture into the bottom of the pie plate.
Add a layer of strawberries.
Repeat until the pie plate is full.
Refrigerate until set firm.
Eat with some cool-whip or whipped topping and YUMMY!!!!

I feel like an old frumpy mom today. Today I'm headed to Emma's school to help with the fun day. That means standing in the sun for the next six hours or so. I have loose/ill fitted khaki shorts and a "teacher tank top" (meaning one that I wore when I taught, so it's overly modest for a tank top). I just feel like blahhhhhhhhhhh.................

So today has been a great day! Today my youngest child (Emma) earned the privilege of a special field trip. The top 5 readers in her school all got to go swimming and eat lunch at Taco Bell. It was nice to have kids recognized for performing well academically.
Funny part is that the kids were treated to Jeep rides.......we own like 6 Jeeps right now. If you check out the Taboo Customs link on the right, you will see that I own a business making custom Jeep parts. My kid rides in a Jeep daily. BUT this was fun and special for her because she was with her friends and going to a cool place. Way to go Emma!

Today was also cool because when I arrived home I checked the mail. Expecting bills, no bills today! We had our Jeep Club event registrations, a rebate check from Menards, as well as a VoxBox from influentster. They sent me some goodies to use & review. Being that I open the mail all of 10 minutes ago, I have not had time to test the stuff out, but it looks cool! In the box there was a Neosporin Neo To Go, Coupon for a free Bryers Gelato Indulgences, Ivory Bar Soap, Avon Anew REvesalist Express Wrinkle Smoother, Puffs to go, and Shell Fuel Rewards Network Card.

June Menu

So, I HATE cooking but I love to eat and my family seems to want to be fed multiple times a day. June starts summer vacation for the kids, so while I save a little in not buying school lunches, I do have to spend more at the store and cooking more.........blah!

Breakfasts tend to stay the same for the summer, we keep with the basics. Cereal, waffles, toast, and eggs. Not all in one day, but just those foods rotated out.

Let's also get real, I can afford to grocery shop at the name brand stores, and I do from time to time because there are just some things that Aldi's does not carry. For the most part though, I shop at Aldi's.

I suggest you take a look at my June Meals board on pinterest. I have linked all the foods that require more than a basic "I know how to cook hotdogs".


JUNE Pintrest Board

CLICK the menu to make it a bigger picture!

I'm also kinda lazy/smart, I hate the time it takes to meal plan so I have google calendar and I put my meals into it. Then in the following year, I can look back and see what we ate. Here's June 2014 so far: