Up until just a couple of days ago, we were still experiencing daytime temps up in the 80-90's(F).
I usually like to talk about/notate weather we've had, for comparison of years past and future, but at this point it would probably take a whole post, so I won't go all into it except to mention Hurricane Michael a few days ago, blew away Panama City, Florida. Did lots of damage to the Gulf Coast area, and South Georgia.
My parents' place got flooded from high tide/storm surge down in Steinhatchee again, but they were better prepared this time.
We just got a really good soaking rain here, which wouldn't be a biggie if my roof didn't STILL leak.
Where I left off in my Good Ol' Summertime post, we had plans to go Tubing the 'Hooch, which we did on Monday, July 30th.
Crazy to say, but I think it's been something like 18 years - holy moly - since we last did this. If I'm remembering correctly I believe Kev was like 5 years old the last time. Now he's...um, 23, I think. (Edit: 24! WTH?!)
I don't know why it has taken us so long to go back and do this again. It's (fairly) local, and I have good memories from the first time we went, so it's not like something we never wanted to try again.
True, the crowds have gotten insane over the past however many years, but with our work schedules, we have weekdays we can go, which are slightly less insane than weekends.
At any rate, we had a blast. We had so much fun, we went back and did it again two weeks later, which was on a Tuesday, August 14th, after most of the schools around here had started back, and there were very few other Tubers there that day.
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| #Pooch on the Hooch |
Hot, gorgeous, Sunny days. Cool, clean, flowing mountain water.
After tubing, we picnicked by the River, then headed up to Chattahoochee WMA for John-the-husband to do some fishing.
A week later, we loaded the camper and headed to Jekyll Island for a week.
It was a great trip.
I had concerns, because I usually go on vacays with an itinerary, each day planned out, but this time, I didn't. I had a few ideas of things to do, but we were going to have to figure it out on our own (something that has not worked well in the past).
Turned out we had a really good time.
I took our bicycles and we rode miles and miles. John-the-husband fished. Spent some time at the beach. One day we went thrift store shopping in Brunswick. Me and the boys kayak'd.
This blog isn't my Travel blog, so I'm trying to not post everything about our travels and adventures here (maybe make me update my Family Travel Blog sooner than later).
But this trip leads to another something.
Truth is, I'm not a camping person.
I love to go and do and see, but given my druthers, I'd rather be staying in a hotel room.
Problem being, spending the money on a hotel room cuts my go and do and see budget to half or less. So I'd rather spend less on accommodations, and more on adventures.
For instance, for the cost of a week at Jekyll Island campground, we could have spent at most 3 nights in a lower-rated hotel there.
Also, because I have stove/sink/fridge in the camper I was able to bring food from home and saved a lot not eating out so much.
Tent camping is even cheaper, but no way, no how, no sir.
I like being able to use the potty at night without having to cross the dark, scary campground, I like having walls so raccoons can't get me, I like having a real roof when it rains.
I like having the kitchen, bathroom, a closet, beds.
That said, I don't need a house on wheels.
Yes, our little camper is rather...um, cozy, but it has what we need, and we don't go on trips to spend a whole lot of time sitting inside the camper anyway.
The thing I like best about it is, we didn't go into debt to buy it.
At campgrounds, we're usually surrounded by big, nice, new RVs (which makes John-the-husband jealous), and supposedly all those people are "looking at us like" (sneering or scornful), because our camper is small/ugly/lame.
I don't notice if they do, because I don't give a hoot what people think.
I had had plans all along to paint the camper, not because it actually was pretty ugly, but as more of a artsy/personalization thing.
The only thing holding me up was I couldn't decide on what I wanted to paint it. What colors, or design, or theme, or whatever.
Well, after we got back from this trip....I don't exactly remember how it went, but I think maybe Ryan wanted me to paint it. Or maybe I mentioned it again and he encouraged me to do it.
I remember he said, "It couldn't look any worse."
So I spent a few days sanding the old, peeling stickers as best as I could, and taping off everything I didn't want painted, and using the basic, white, $1 can spray paint from Walmart, we started painting it. (Mostly me, with a little help from Ryan occasionally.)
I lost count of how many cans of spray paint this took, maybe between 30 and 40.
It might've taken less if I had primered first, but I was afraid the primer wouldn't make much more difference than just paint, and it was $4 a can, opposed to $1, so, I just did it this way.
It could still use a final coat of maybe better quality spray paint, but I didn't want to buy more expensive paint until I figured out if I was going to use any colors for stripes or a design of some sort.
Ryan and I both spent a good while over several days looking at pictures on the internet, trying to find something we liked, that we could do.
He's kind of stuck on Aqua....which I was, too, when I bought the thing, all the way up until painting was in progress and for some reason I have decided that Aqua is now too cliche'.
Argh.
My other paint project I know was Ryan's doing. It didn't even occur to me.
So, as I've mentioned before (some here, some here) one of our (many) in-progress projects is remodeling the kitchen.
One of the earlier things I did was tear the old linoleum off the floor, thinking I could sand/save the original hardwood floor.
That was a No.
It was glued directly to the hardwood, for many years. I tried sanding at it, but wore out sandpads without making much progress. Tried scraping it, but ended up digging large chunks - and tons of splinters - out of the wood.
I gave up trying and decided I would just cover it with some sort of flooring. I had thought to use the plywood planks, like upstairs, but thought the kitchen traffic and use might be too much for it. I was/am still deciding whether to go with a waterproof vinyl plank, or...something, I'm not sure.
In the meantime, the floor looked horrible.
No matter how much I kept it swept, it always looked filthy, and very bad.
Several days ago, I was complaining to Ryan that I couldn't get in the mood to do my Halloween decorating. I couldn't figure out how I wanted to decorate, do what, where, whatever.
One of the things I said was I thought about doing pumpkins/jack-o-lanterns in the kitchen, but the floor is so awful, it ruins everything.
And he said, just paint it all one color until you can decide what kind of floor you want to put over it.
He said, "It couldn't look any worse."
Genius!! Why can I not have these great ideas?
I have several cans of gallon/partial gallons of paint that we've gotten from various places....in this case, from cleaning out a thrift store that had gone out of business.
The color is (something) Sage. A soft green color that I think actually goes well with my black and white colors. Or, well, my brown dropcloth curtains, anyway.
The floor still doesn't look great, with the gouges and the old adhesive and the plywood parts where we had to cut into the floor to be able to get under the house to level and put piers.
But it still looks 1000% better than it did before.
My old vent covers were grungy and rusted, so I spray-painted them gloss black. They look like brand new.
I am super happy with it.
Although, I still haven't done any Halloween decorating.
I don't know what's the hold up. I love Halloween, and decorating for Holidays. I was excitedly waiting for October 1st to be able to Halloween decorate.
After I wrung the last bit out of our Summer, we closed up the pool and I decorated for Late Summer/Early Fall Harvest season.
I even put the Late Summer/Early Fall Harvest season decor away at the end of September, in preparation for decorating for Halloween.
Then I looked at my Halloween decoration bins and thought, Nah.
Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe later.
So that's annoying, because the boys love Halloween decor and I feel like I'm letting them down, but I'm not Super Mad at myself because I did have a Success...
I actually made a couple of craft projects - in the same year that I bought the supplies!!
One of my cousins-by-marriage posted a picture of a deco-mesh Pennywise wreath, asking if any of her acquaintances could make one.
I never made a deco-mesh wreath before, but I looked up some Youtube videos and it didn't look too awful hard, so I gave it a try.
The first one came out pretty good, so I made another one for my cousin-by-marriage.
She was tickled about it.
My Sister is my greatest Fan in all the things I make, and I would have made her a wreath, but she hates clowns.
I decided I won't send her clown scarys, and maybe she won't send me snake scarys.
I saw this skeleton-taking-a-bubble-bath I thought was cute, so I got a $1 cauldron pail at Dollar Tree, iirc.
The 20" jointed skeleton came from a Walmart that wasn't my local Walmart, which didn't have them. The smaller - I forgot the size, and already threw away the box - clear, glass Christmas ornament balls also came from another Walmart...in a larger population area, I guess.
I hot glued the skeleton in the pail where I wanted it, and stuffed in some fiberfill I salvaged out of an old, flat bed pillow. Used hot glue to glue the 'bubbles' to the insides of the pail or the skeleton or just to the fiberfill so they don't fall out.
She hasn't gotten it yet, but I'm sure she'll get a kick out of it. We have pretty much the same tastes in weirdness. (Excepting clowns and snakes.)
