Madeline was awake at 7 AM and Linda got her up shortly after that. I slept in until 8 AM. They had already eaten breakfast by then so I made coffee and had cinnamon raisin toast. Metropolitan Baking Company makes a very tasty cinnamon raisin bread. We all sat in the living room while Madeline played with various toys and I worked on finishing yesterday’s blog post.
Linda and Madeline left at 10 AM for the Howell Library. The plan was to let Madeline play in the children’s area, which has a lot interesting things to do for children her age. After selecting some books and DVDs to bring home they were headed to Meijer’s to do some grocery shopping.
I continued working on my iPad until Mara came in the house. We had a chat about blogging and I showed her the Feedly app on my iPad. She has attended workshops put on by The Geeks On Tour and has their training materials. I think Blogger is probably the right tool for her and Picasa is probably the right way to manage her photos. They are both Google products so they work well together and they are free to use. There are downsides to that, especially for professionals, but for most people it’s a great solution.
Mara and I left around 11:45 AM and drove to General RV in Wixom. This was my first visit to their new facility and it is nice. The parts department is larger and better stocked than the old one and is bright with natural light from large south and west facing windows. We were asked several times if we needed assistance but we were never pestered. They did not have any of the white Dicor self-leveling caulk we were looking for but one of the employees checked their stock and brought out six tubes. Mara bought four of them along with a new Norcold refrigerator roof vent cover, a small roll of Eternabond tape, and some concentrated RV wash/wax. I picked up eight brown circular adjustable air vents for the bus. The ones in there now are black but I think the brown will look better with the new floor tile. We won’t really know, however, until we install them.
We drove to Lowe’s in Howell where I bought two pieces of 12″ x 18″ thin galvanized steel plate and three rolls of 3M double-sided tape suitable for outdoor use. The plan is to put one of these on the roof of Mara’s motorhome and possibly put the other on the roof of our bus to allow the use of the magnetic base cell phone antennas that came as part of the weBoost Drive 4G-X cellular booster systems. Once the steel sheets are affixed to the roof I will caulk around them. First, however, I will just set the sheets up there and see what sort of difference the system makes.
We stopped at O’Reilly’s auto parts store and Mara bought some 10, 15, and 20 Amp mini fuses. These fuses have a small LED that glows if the fuse opens. They were more expensive than the regular ones, but that is a very handy feature and I may stock up on these the next time I need to buy fuses.
Back at the house Linda informed me that when the storm blew in it pulled the sun umbrella out of the table on the deck. We put the glass top back in the table and re-installed the umbrella. This has happened a couple of times and we have been lucky that the glass top has not broken. Mara returned to her rig. She had left her patio awning out but it was not damaged.
Linda got Madeline up from her nap at 3 PM and read her a story about flying in an airplane. Madeline then played with her toys for a while. Around 4 PM Madeline wanted to bake a cake. Linda was planning on this anyway but it was nice that it was Madeline’s idea. They got busy in the kitchen and I sneaked off to my office for a while.
Madeline had dinner at 6 PM so I came up from my office while she ate. Meals are a social time and I was ready for a break anyway. After dinner Linda helped Madeline get cleaned up. I slipped back down to my office while they watched an Elmo DVD, but by 7 PM I was done working on the pantry design for the evening and went back upstairs. Linda was reading the airplane ride book (again), after which Madeline played (with) the organ after which they drew for a while and then played with the Play-Doh. Madeline is a busy girl.
I was just getting ready to go ask Mara what temperature to preheat the oven when she came to the house with an armful of ingredients for the pizza. She has a recipe for a wheat-free (gluten-free) pizza dough that she wanted us to try. It calls for cheese and eggs so to make it vegan Linda had her buy Daiya mozzarella shreds and gave her egg replacer to use. The other ingredients include almond meal, chickpea flour, golden flaxseed, onion powder, garlic powder, sea salt, olive oil (EVVO), and water.
It took another 25 minutes to get Madeline to bed but once Linda had her tucked in I opened a bottle of Nebiola wine from the St. Clair Winery in Deming, New Mexico. I often write that I am not a fan of red wines and continue to not like dry wines with lots of tannins. The Nebbiolo, however, is one of the nicest wines I think I have ever tried. That probably means it is too sweet for most red wine drinkers, but I did not find it to be sweet; I found it to be smooth and complex.
We ordered a couple of things from Amazon on Wednesday and they showed up yesterday. When I unboxed the Notier capacitive touch screen precision stylus I was surprised by what I found. It’s a 2-part housing that unscrews and the cover screws onto the other end of the bottom part, which is needed for comfort and balance. The stylus tip is small but has a 1/4 in clear plastic disc on the end. It was on sale for $11 and I decided right away I would not return it. Besides, I had not actually tried it yet. So I finally tried it while the pizza was cooking. It is an amazing little device! It is, indeed, very precise and works with a delicate touch so I will have to re-calibrate my “typing” style, but it just goes to show that you never know until you try.
I lost track of time but it was somewhere between 9:30 and 10 PM when the pizza was ready to eat. It was, however, worth the wait and might be the best vegan pizza I have ever had. The recipe is definitely a keeper. We each had a chocolate cupcake (with sprinkles) while we finished our wine. We then adjourned to the living room and talked until almost 11 PM. It was a very full day for all four of us and everyone was tired but satisfied. It’s nice having family and friends here.