A Day at the RV/Camping Show

We spent the day climbing in and out of campers at the Green Bay RV/Camping show.  Vendors from all over northeast Wisconsin were displaying their pop ups, campers and recreational vehicles.  

The show had been moved ahead because the assumption was that the Packers would still be in the playoffs. The arena where the show is held shares the Lambeau Field parking lots, so both events could not be held at the same time.  

The Packers lost last Sunday, but it was too late to move the show dates back. That meant that Saturday and Sunday crowds were all crammed into a Saturday show.  Thousands of people slowly moved down narrow aisles between the giant rigs.   

We climbed into camper after camper to see what they were like inside.   Eventually, we want to spend our summers traveling but that will require something different than the HTT we have now, which is a hard sided camper with pop out ends that hold the beds. 

Gary and I have found that we can live together in Mathom House because we have offices on separate floors.  Gary figured that if we could turn one of the bedrooms in a camper into an office for me, I could write this blog, short stories and novel drafts there. We would meander around the United States going from one national forest campground to another. 

We found what we wanted, two bedrooms, one of which would be mine.   

This little room would suit me perfectly. My laptop computer would fit on the table, there would be storage space for printer and office supplies and we could easily change the bunk beds into a comfortable couch/bed

The rest of the camper has a bedroom, a bathroom, a living area and a kitchen. The dinette would serve as Gary's office.  

No, we didn't buy the rig, but now we know the right one is out there.  It may be a few years before we hit the road.  I still have a house that will have to be sold once the market improves, and there is Rascal, our 18-1/2 year old cat.  We can't take him with us and he is too old to adapt to a new family.  Then there is the problem of what Gary, the pack rat, would do with all his possessions.  

It will be a few years for sure.   

Blah Day

The cold weather continues here in northeast Wisconsin.  Gary and I both have had sore throats so are doctoring ourselves with hopes we'll be able to escape Seymour tomorrow for the RV/Camping show in Green Bay.

With not much else to do, I looked around for entertainment.  I've been reading the latest Terry Pratchett book, Snuff.  I've read every one of the Discworld series and enjoyed them so much.  Now I wonder if Snuff will be the last since Pratchett has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.  The end of a wonderful series is always painful to readers.

I take breaks from Snuff to read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice on the Nook. I'm also starting A Brief History of Canada, by Roger Riendeau.  Americans are abysmally ignorant of Canadian and Mexican history and I am just as bad.  Our schools of higher learning don't teach anything about our neighboring countries unless their history is tied to ours.  Therefore, we know about Pancho Villa because he raided New Mexico, about the dead of Montcalm at Quebec because he would have been the one general who could have beaten Washington during our Revolution. When Gary mentioned "Boy Kelso" I realized I needed to study a bit.

Every so often, I stop reading and click this link:
http://mirrors.5nines.com/stream/

This is one of the most popular sites in Wisconsin just now.  The webcam is following the activities of the General Accountability Board as it verifies the signatures on the 3,000 pounds of recall petitions.  Boring?  Inane? yes, but it gives us the satisfaction of watching the work being done.

The governor keeps claiming that he is bringing jobs to Wisconsin but though the nation is adding jobs, Wisconsin is losing them, almost 4,000 a month.

I find it interesting that the only jobs this governor creates are temporary one.  Dozens of workers will have paychecks for the next two months.  So I check in with them.

Still, it will be good when our throats heal and warmer weather comes to Seymour. I am ready to escape this house.

                * * * * *
Don't forget to check out our short story blog
http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com
Wade has just posted the first half of his post-apocalyptic piece.  We do have a variety of stories for our readers.  

Brrrrrr!

This morning I woke up to a temperature of -3 degrees F - 17 degrees C.  The highest temperature here was 6 degrees F.  Gary and I went nowhere for most of the day.

On the plus side, I did a lot of work on my novel, finishing the 3rd draft of Chapter 5. I should have the entire novel ready to turn over to a reader by the end of March at the rate I am going.

I sent e-mails to twenty Michigan libraries asking them to look at Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com  I've been sending these messages to libraries asking them to have their adult book clubs take a look at the site.  I would be willing talk to the clubs by Skype.  I know that the libraries and their patrons do look after my e-mails because we get a number of "hits" when I do this.

Gary went off to a meeting.  I had no intention of going anywhere, but finally I needed to get out and stretch my legs.  I went to ShopKo, our new store and walked around and around and around, finally buying some Christmas bags marked down by 90 percent.  Next I went over to the church where I walked around the big fellowship hall and practiced the piano a bit.

Now I am home, about to do some yoga to stretch out aching joints.

Cold is not nice but in spite of the weather, two of the daffodils I forced earlier in the month have put out sprouts.  Tonight, I will plant the final bulbs and put them out on a window ledge.

I continue to count down to spring.  It's only 62 days away.

Eat Your Veggies

This morning Gary must have read something on nutrition on the Internet, because he told me I should eat more vegetables.  Because we don't eat lunch together, he was unaware that I eat five servings of vegetables every day.

Years ago, I read Dr. Andrew Weil's book Eight Weeks to Optimum Health, and it changed my life.  By following his simple instructions, I began to eat right, exercise every day, and generally take care of myself.

I have a little chart I made up to make sure I eat right.  It sounds obsessive, but I have never had a great short term memory.

Every day, I try to eat:
..two fruits
..a carrot or a yam
..four green vegetables (three times a week that includes a cruciform vegetable such as broccoli or cauliflower; three times a week it must be a dark leafy vegetable such as spinach)
..nuts, preferably walnuts or almonds
..two servings of whole wheat
..yogurt or a dairy equivalent
..fish twice a week
..tofu twice a week

I eat poultry and red meats, too, but sparingly.

That sounds like a lot of food but it is spread out over the week.  I aim at around 1750 calories per day.

I don't get it all right every day, but I make the effort and it has paid off in good health.

Historic Day in Wisconsin

On March 12, 2011, I was one of the 200,000 protesters in Madison.  We marched around and around the capitol protesting our governor's attack on public unions and citizens' rights.  I was furious because Wisconsin has always been one of the most progressive of all the states.  

Wisconsin's firsts:

-- comprehensive worker's compensation law
-- unemployment insurance
-- child labor laws
-- forest and water conservation laws

We were a state with good government with good governors from both parties. Warren G. Knowles, the Republican governor when I was a child, was a giant in the environmental movement. Tommy Thompson, a Republican, while not my favorite governor, was certainly able to work with both parties to move legislation along.

Our current governor Walker has done his best to move back protections for workers and the environment and refusing to work with the Democrats in the state legislature. Public workers were vilified and threatened.   So I marched.  I talked to teachers, firefighters, police, librarians and others whose benefits would be taken away. Angrier and angrier, I was one of the first to sign a recall petition that day.

The recall effort continued with 30,000 volunteers collecting signatures to remove Walker from office.  Today 1.9 million signatures on recall petitions (3,000 pounds of them) were delivered to the state election board in Madison.  It will take months before the signatures are verified but by June there will be a recall election and we all hope this governor will disappear.

It shows that Wisconsin is still Wisconsin. We want our environment protected and our people treated fairly.  We don't put up with people like Scott Walker.

Peanuts

Gary and I like to stock up on supplies when we can find good deals.  Yesterday, we found one of the best we've ever run across.

We went to the new ShopKo Express to see if they had a filter for our humidifier. They didn't but I started looking at Christmas cards and ornaments, which were marked down 90 percent.  On the way out of the store, I saw another display marked down but this time it was packaged food  Each package had three nine ounce cans containing three kinds of peanuts:  salted, butter toffee and honey roasted.  Originally the package was $8.99, but they were 90 percent less, so sold for 89 cents.  That was thirty cents a can!

We took one package home, opened it and found that each can had a "use by" date of September 2013. The peanuts were delicious.

We drove right back to ShopKo and bought ten more.  Gary put half of them aside for summer camping treats.   Later, thinking about it, he went back and bought two more.

And why not? Last summer, with horrible drought hitting our southern states, the Georgia peanut crop failed. The cost of peanut butter will go up and so will the cost of snack peanuts.This morning, I checked out Don's Quality Market here in Seymour and found out that a nine ounce can of peanuts was $2.69

For $11.57, I figure our 39 cans are worth $104.91 and contain enough peanuts to last through 2012.

We spread the word through Facebook.  One friend told me that she thought chopped up butter toffee peanuts would taste wonderful on french vanilla ice cream.

I told Gary we better stock up on ice cream.

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Yesterday, I wrote the blog and posted it...but I posted it to Black Coffee Fiction by mistake and it wasn't until this morning that Wade noticed it.  My regular readers here probably wondered what happened to me since I write every day.  The Black Coffee Fiction readers must have wondered what kind of short story I was trying to write.

I promise never again to work at the computer while watching "Downton Abbey".

Games Over

The Games Over! 

The Packers played the Giants at Lambeau Field this afternoon. I did my best by spending the afternoon at the swimming pool, since Gary was convinced that I am a jinx.  I talked to the lifeguards and tried out the exercises I learned yesterday at the aquatic center luau. They do work wonders on my knee. 


But when I returned home the Packers were losing and continued to lose, so my efforts were in vain.The game is over and the team is no longer in the playoffs.  So far as Wisconsin is concerned, the season is over.


I can't say that I am mourning the loss.  


Next weekend is the RV/Camping show at the ShopKo Center and Arena which are adjacent to the Packer Hall of Fame and across the street from Lambeau Field.  If the Packers had won the game today, the whole show would have been moved to some time earlier in the week and parking would have been at a premium.   Now we can go back to the regular schedule.   Gary and I will be there early on Friday to check out the displays and look at all the new camping gear.  It is one of the highlights of our winter.


Facebook will have less Packer patter.  Now the big topic will be Wisconsin politics and the recall election.   From there we'll go on to the primary elections and in the fall the Presidential election.  There will be happy posts from family and friends.  Come spring, I'll be noting the avian arrivals and the latest spring flowers.   


Yes, I am not unhappy about the Packer loss.  Life can go on.