Weekly Mileage #170 and Our First Camping Trip of the Year

Monday I did some more alcohol ink experimentation. I'm getting closer to the look I'm after, but still not quite there. After a bit of research I decided to order a few more supplies to see if they help me achieve the look I want.

Tuesday I voted. We had online music lessons, and I went for a bike ride in the basement.

Then I worked on a new bag pattern- a smaller version of the tote bag I previously made. I like it, but sometimes you want something a little smaller.

Wednesday I went for a super hot and humid trail run. I found some cool fauna, but I am sooo glad I didn't do my 50k on this day as I'd originally planned. It would not have gone nearly as well as it did.

We did a couple ground firecrackers in the driveway that evening. Ocean was worried about the noise, so he went and grabbed a pair of earmuffs 😂

Thursday I went to the chiropractor and ran a couple errands, which were mostly prep for our camping trip. But further packing and preparation didn't happen as a migraine came on in the afternoon.

Friday we went on our first camping trip of the year. We spent the morning packing and loading the RV.  Not optimal from a stress point of view, but we only left about an hour later than planned, so it could have been worse.

This little guy was super happy to leave the house. He doesn't get to very often these days....

One of the boys took a picture of me and daddy's leg 😂

We drove about an hour and a half south and camped on the edge of a field, next to a river.

We played in the river.

This is very representative of Ocean. Dirty, but happy. Though frequently he's even dirtier.

 

This was pretty neat:

The glowing orange specks on the log are smoldering moss.

There was lots of room for the boys to run around- always a drawback of crowded campgrounds.

This was the view from the edge of the river, looking up the bank.

There was some really cute little piglets in the field next to us. Super tame and if you started scratching their tummy, they'd do these cute little grunts, fall down, and roll over onto their tummies so they could get even more scratches.

The view from where the piggies were. The river was at our backs.

There were a couple tent campers, but they were far enough away they couldn't hear our generator and we couldn't hear or see them. It was a great spot! I found it using HipCamp, which was a new-to-us app for people to list their property for tent camping or RV camping, like AirBnB, but strictly for campsites.

We had thought about visiting the local sights, but decided against it- Ocean is not the best at following directions and still puts his hands in his mouth all the time, so better not to. So we just hung around our campsite, played in the river, and relaxed.

Sunday we drove back home, and that evening Jeremy and I had our temple recommend interviews via zoom.

Weekly Mileage
Tuesday- 10.0 miles biked
Wednesday- 3.50 miles run and walked
total- 13.50 miles

2020 totals

24 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

157.49 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
11.00 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
170.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
338.49 miles total

Sunday Funny

Sunshine and River have assigned each other different elements that they have portals in, and they'll talk about their portals. Only River can't quite say portal. It comes out purtle (rhymes with turtle).

So, purtle this and purtle that....
I'm going to make a purtle to the nether! (that's a Minecraft reference)

Weekly Mileage #169 and the New Pantry

Monday I did the full grocery shopping for the first time since March 13. Just as tiring as I remember it. Weird empty spaces on the shelves as some items are out of stock and others aren't.

Last week I did the above acrylic logo stamps, and this week I did ones with both the logo and the name. There are instances where I'll use one over the other, so I wanted to see how both look.

Doing this round of stamps helped me decide on my logo. The winner:

Tuesday was a busy day. After music lessons River and I went to the trails park and did a virtual 5k race. I did a couple virtual races back when I did my 40 by 40 goal and I wasn't super impressed with them then. This time around, I've recognized some of the benefits. In this case, I've been keeping an eye on the weather forecast and picked the coolest day in the midst of a stretch of hot and humid days. This particular race is one that I've done the first weekend of June for the last 8 years I think, and invariable it is super hot and super humid. Not this year, since I got to pick the date!

I was a bit creaky in my knees and ankles and I can feel the muscle fatigue still, even with a solid two weeks off. Once I warmed up I felt a bit better. Despite the lingering muscle fatigue, I felt stronger on the uphills than I have in a long time, which is encouraging. I do need to work on my speed, though. River doesn't have my endurance, but he can sprint faster than me.

After we got home from our race, I demo'd the pantry. We thought we had till the first week of July to get the pantry done because that's when the extra shelf we need was supposed to be back in stock. The day after we went to Ikea, we got an email saying it was back in stock and needed to be picked up by 6/22. After that, it would go back into general inventory and who knows if it would be in stock when we go back. So rather than taking our time to get this done, it was full speed ahead.

The original pantry in all it's non-useful glory.

Emptied out. Years ago I had added extra shelves, but it was super hard to find anything, especially if it was shoved to the back.

Once I emptied the pantry and removed the shelves, trim, and doorframe, the kiddos helped take down drywall. They loved it, the destructive little things ;)

River watched me remove some of the trim, then told me "I can do it!" and did the last piece

I love his look of concentration here. And yes, I forgot to put protective gear on the kiddos :(

Sunshine's turn.

Ocean had a blast, but wasn't nearly as careful swinging that hammer as I'd like. No accidents, but he sure made me nervous.

As we pulled down the drywall, some of the nails had to be pulled out separately. River also told me he could do that part. Once I showed him how to properly use the hammer to remove them, he did great.

By dinner time we had the pantry gutted, but Jeremy had to run to Lowes to get a Sawzall to cut the header for the doorframe. We ended up using it a few other places and I'm sure we'll be getting more use out of it as we do more work around the house.

Wednesday I moved the chicks out to the brooder in the chicken coop. It was past time and they were starting to get stinky.

I used the Sawzall to finish removing the door frame. Then I did a test fit of the cupboard pieces, only to find that we needed about half an inch more width. This wasn't a complete surprise- I knew going into this that it was going to be a tight fit, but I wasn't sure of the exact dimensions of the cupboard and the pantry space. Because we needed a bit more space, we had to cut down that weird divider wall between the pantry and the fridge so we could turn the 2x4s and give us the extra room we needed.

Notice the protective gear in the following pics :)

Jeremy was at work on Tuesday, so didn't help then, but he was able to help a bit after work on Wednesday.

Once we turned the two 2x4s on the right side of the pantry (they're not load bearing), we had the space we needed. I built a base for the cabinet to sit on out of scrap 2x4s we'd pulled out of the pantry. 

That night I put together the five drawers and the main cupboard. Jeremy helped me get the pantry in place (we had to lift it up on the 2x4 base, which was harder than it sounds), then I secured it in place so it won't tip out. I put the drawers and center shelf in place, then discovered the door we'd been told was the right one was too short.

I'd stayed up putting it all together just to make sure we didn't need anything else from Ikea when Jeremy went back to pick up the shelf. So when he went on Thursday, he also returned that door and got the proper size. He also got some pullout basket shelf things for the upper reaches of the cupboard.

That afternoon he also had a telehealth appointment for a tick bite he got last week that had developed into a nice sore on his leg. The tick was a lone star tick, not a deer tick, so it's probably ehrlichiosis or southern tick-associated rash illness (STARI) rather than lyme disease. Either way, the treatment is doxycycline and he was given a couple extra doxycycline to take next time he gets bit while he's waiting to get into the doctor.

I still need to put drawer pulls and a door knob on (they're currently sitting on the counter), shove some wood in between the cupboard and the studs on either side, and trim down the drywall next to the fridge. Eventually we'll put trim around the whole cupboard, but since we need to add drywall on the right side, and possibly the top and left as well to bring that whole wall to the same depth, it's not at the top of our to-do list. The crown moulding will also have to be re-done at that point.

In the meantime, it's nice to be able to actually reach stuff, even though we're always pulling out multiple drawers to find what we're looking for since everything got moved around.

I've been feeling crummy the last few days, a combo of insomnia and breathing in drywall dust (which always makes me ill). It's frustrating to be dragging and feeling so fuzzy again.

Saturday morning I went for a walk/run with my running buddy C in the first time in forever. It was so good to get out of the house and talk with a friend in person. We did 4.5 miles, of which we ran about a mile. She hasn't run in months and I'm still creaky, but it was more about the camaraderie than the workout.

Jeremy did a dump run (had to get rid of all that drywall we pulled out of the pantry) and power washed the RV. It was so gross after sitting all winter and spring. We have the annual inspection and oil change on Monday and then we're going on our first camping trip of the year on Friday!

While he was doing that, I experimented with alcohol inks on leather. I haven't been productive with leather projects this week because of the pantry, and I was still feeling a bit off, but I wanted to get something done. It didn't turn out quite like I wanted, though after trying a couple things I did find a way that got me closer to the look I was going for. On Sunday I had another thought of something to try, which if it works the way I think it will, will get me even closer to the look I'm hoping to achieve.

I want a swirly, watercolor look, but the alcohol ink soaks into the leather too fast. I've seen it done on leather, so I know it's possible, but there's definitely a lot of trial and error going on. From what I can determine, the issue is how porous the leather is versus how non-porous the paper usually used for alcohol inks is.

After realizing that, I tried painting a layer of white paint on first, then putting the blue and green on, and that worked better. The gold is just for fun :)

It's still not quite what I'm going for, but I think I'm close.

Weekly Mileage
Tuesday- 3.07 miles run and hiked
Saturday- 4.51 miles run and walked
total- 7.58 miles

2020 totals

23 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

153.99 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
11.00 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
160.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
324.99 miles total

Sunday Funny

It's time for a new round of funny sleeping pictures. I think the last one was a few years ago- maybe this one?

River seems to like sleeping with his back arched.

I went in to check on the boys one night and found both beds empty and Ocean on the floor between the beds.

River was scrunched in between the wall and his bed.

More pictures of River sprawled in uncomfortable-looking positions.

Ocean gets in on the uncomfortable position train as well. Here he was smushed up against the wall.

Nothing to see here, just chillin' and relaxin'....

For all that River likes to sprawl off the bed, I don't think he's fallen off the bed more than once or twice. Must be a kiddo thing, like walking with untied shoelaces and not tripping.

Not to be outdone, Ocean also likes to sprawl off the bed. And he actually has rolled off his bed several times.

Our kiddos generally don't fall asleep wherever. Sometimes in the car they'll fall asleep, but usually they have to be in their own bed. Ocean is proving to be the occasional exception to this rule. He's an early riser (regardless of when he went to sleep the night before) who gave up naps at a much younger age than his brother and sister did. This has resulted in a child who never gets enough sleep. So on occasion he will just lay down and take a nap. Sometimes he'll take himself to bed, but other times he'll lay on the floor and wrap up in a blanket.

that's not just a blanket, there's an Ocean in there

Couch cushion fort building is exhausting.

I think this one cracks me up the most. There have been a couple occasions where he's fallen asleep at the table because he's just so exhausted.