October 29 2011 WOW! This is post number 100!

I didn't realize until I was ready to publish this post that it was the 100th.  That is amazing.  I'll have to check my other blog www.thomasewilliams.blogspot.com  and see how many I've posted there.

Several months ago we got some frozen flounder fillets in our Angel Foods order.  I don’t like them.  I’ve coated in flour and cornmeal and fried them.  I’ve steamed them with butter and herbs.  They taste and feel nasty in the mouth.  But I’m too tight to throw them out.  So, I’m trying a chowder with them. I’ve added enough other things to enrich the taste so I hope it turns out okay.  I have potatoes, bacon, sausage, carrots and celery in the mix.  I realized that I had neither heavy cream nor sour cream. so I’m using cream of mushroom soup.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.  Right now the trailer smells really good as the chowder starts to heat in the slow cooker.
Do you have any good recipes for flounder fillets?
What is your favorite chowder recipe?

Ella works this morning so I’m just sitting at home and watching the dust motes dance in the sunshine pouring through the windows. (Actually, I don’t see any dust motes – that is just a memory from my childhood.)  As soon as the sun came up I turned off the furnace because that sunshine will keep us plenty warm inside.  It is amazing how little added heat is needed even during the winter, if the sun is shining bright.  Can you say, “Passive solar heat?”

Last night the temperature dropped to 31 degrees.  So I had unscrewed the water line into our home before going to bed.  Because the temperature is back above 40, I had refastened the line and turned the water on this morning.  A couple of minutes ago a neighbor knocked on the door to say I had a water leak.  Sure enough, water was spraying out from where the filter attached to the hose.  A little twist and it was tightened again.  

The good news is that I really needed to water that area where it puddled.  Because the new trailer is five foot shorter than the previous one, when we moved it onto our site, it there was a spot with no grass had grown under the older trailer.  I had sewn some grass seed and watered it once.  However, I hadn’t really soaked the ground as I expected that the grass wouldn’t sprout until next spring after the snow melted.  But now it has had a good soaking anyway.

Man!  That chowder smells good!  It is three hours before Ella will be home for lunch.  I may have to find something outside to occupy me until she gets home – otherwise I may start dipping into the chowder a little early.

October 28 2011

            This has been a fairly busy week.  Monday morning we babysat the ‘greats’ until they went to school and preschool (7-12).  We had the lunch buffet at Old Chicago Pizza.  Then we did some a little grocery shopping.  That evening we had a supper meeting at Smokey D’s BBQ.  The meeting was with about twenty of the leaders from our church.  This coming Sunday is Consecration Sunday and we were each given a list of names to call.  The people on the list were members and regular attendees who had not yet indicated if they would be coming on Sunday and staying for the catered mean after service.  We needed to get an accurate count to place the meal order.  We both had eaten too much pizza at lunch and ordered lightly at Smokey D’s.  I really intended to take my brisket sandwich home.  However, as the meeting went on I ended up eating the whole thing.  Ella did the same thing with the potato chowder that she’d ordered.

            Tuesday was more of a laid-back day.  We stayed home and took care of minor chores.  We also made our assigned calls to church members and found out who were going to be there for lunch.

            Wednesday I went to Men’s Bible Study from 8 to 10.  I picked Ella up at home and we went to Home Depot to purchase five more sheets of ¾” foil backed foam board.  We came home and unloaded the foam board and then went to Sam’s Club to buy groceries.  After putting the groceries away we went to Village Inn for pie.  Usually there is a group of us that go together for pie but this time it was just the two of us.  Late afternoon and early evening I worked on getting most of the foam board cut and placed around the bottom of the trailer.  Ella took a load of laundry to the club house to wash.  However, when she got there she discovered that the water was off.  A water main had broken and we had no water in the resort for an hour or so.  If she hadn’t been attempting to do laundry we may not have even known that the water was off.  Since we have an eighty gallon fresh water tank, we could have used that if the need had arisen.  But it didn’t.  Around seven that evening we received a call from Lynn asking if we were going to go for pie.  We said that we already had but would be willing to go back so that we could visit with her and Kip.  Kip had just celebrated here 103^rd birthday a couple weeks ago.  Ella and I ordered our pies to go.

            Thursday Ella went back to the clubhouse to do laundry.  While she was doing that, I went to Love’s and had one of our 100 pound LP tanks filled.  I came home and hooked the tank up and then started to work on finishing the insulating around the trailer.  By the time I finished, Ella was done with the laundry so I drove over to pick her up.  When we arrived home I realized that the LP tank was still ‘off gassing’.  It’s not unusual for these large tanks to do that after they’ve been filled and the LP in the tank warms up and expands.  However it does not usually last this long stop off gassing.  I was concerned that something might be wrong with the valve so I called our maintenance man here at Cutty’s.  He came and looked at it. I told him that I had just had the tank filled.  He asked how many gallons they had put in, as the tank is supposed to only be filled to 80% to allow for the expansion.  80% would be 22 to 23 gallons.  I checked the fill sheet and found that they had pumped 28 gallons.  We just opened the valve and let some of the gas bleed off.  I’ll have to watch them more closely next time.

            Today is Friday and we went to breakfast at Dahl’s with friends.  Since we came home, Ella has been setting up appointments for us to talk to a councilor about Medicare.  We have received SO MUCH information about the different plans that we are totally confused.  At this point, I just want somebody to make the decision for me.  While she has been doing that, I’ve been updating my blog.   THERE ALL CAUGHT UP! And I still have most of the day left to sit on my backside and watch DroidTV.

October 26 2011

Okay, so, I’m sorry, okay?

I haven’t kept this blog up to date.  I have an excuse, though. 

We will soon have 4G service (finally) in our area.  So, it was time to update my aircard for the laptop.  The old aircard plugged into a USB port.  The new aircard is wireless (and can support up to 5 devices at a time) Yeah!  Sounds great.  However, when I got it home, I found that the laptop no longer could find ANY wireless networks.  Great!  I’d just spent more money than I really wanted to in an effort to speed up my system only to find that I could not connect to it.

            After weighting my options I decided to spend even more money and purchase a new laptop.  Hey, we can go without eating for a month!

            Okay, now that THAT is out of my system.

            We have been having absolutely gorgeous weather for the last couple weeks.  We had one night when they predicted it would get down to 28 degrees but it only dipped down to 32 for a minute or two.  We’ve had highs in the 70s and lows in the 50-40s.  The trees are no longer as pretty and many are standing naked now.

            The activities here at the resort have changed from the frantic days of summer camping to the quieter fall camping of sitting around campfires after dark (which comes so much earlier).  Many of our snowbird friends have left or are in the process of getting ready to leave for the season.  Others of us have begun preparing our trailers and motor homes to be ready for the cold and snow that we know are coming.

            We have been babysitting with the ‘greats’ off and on. Their aunt Audrey is out of work at the moment and has taken over the responsibility for the kid’s part of the time.

            This last week I preached at both the Saturday and Sunday services while our pastor was in California meeting his new granddaughter.   You can read the sermon at www.thomasewilliams.blogspot.com