Tag Archives: mushroom & greens risotto (WFPB)

2015/12/21 (M) John and Marian

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Linda was up at 7 AM this morning and I got up at 7:30.  It was 66 degrees F in the coach so I turned on the Aqua-Hot diesel burner and turned up the thermostats.  I made our morning coffee and got to work finishing yesterday’s blog post.

John and Marian Hagan would be visiting this afternoon and staying for dinner.  Given the large meal we had for dinner last night we wanted to take it easy today so a little after 9 AM we had a light breakfast of grapefruit and English muffin with apricot preserves.  So good.

After breakfast Linda did some light cleaning.  I was going to do a load of laundry and recharge the water softener but Linda reminded me that I had decided to do all of those chores tomorrow.  Deal.  I started working on this post but eventually got dressed and settled in at my computer.  I spent the rest of the morning updating my BCM article status tracking Excel spreadsheet and uploaded it to our Dropbox.  I also cleaned up the organization of the files to match the status sheet and backed them up to the NAS.

As planned, we skipped lunch.  John had indicated they would arrive around 2 PM.  I asked him to call when they got to the office and he did.  I was going to drive up and escort him in but getting to our site is very straight forward so I just gave him the directions.  A few minutes later they pulled up and I got them parked next to our car, which Linda moved to one edge of the pad when she returned from Winn-Dixie this morning.

After giving John and Marian and tour of the interior remodeling project we spent most of the afternoon sitting outside.  Linda thought about using the induction cooker to make dinner outside and remain in the conversation but realized she needed two burners.  When it was time to prepare dinner Linda went inside and Marian went with her to help.

For dinner Linda made a salad and risotto with olive oil, garlic, mushrooms, and dark greens.  She bought a frozen vegan cheesecake at Earth Origins the other day and served that for dessert.  John and Marian brought a bottle of Barefoot Riesling wine and between Marian, Linda, and me we finished it.  That’s only 250 mL per person, so not really that much.

We eventually moved inside and continued our conversation over coffee.  John and Marian were members of our FMCA Freethinkers associate chapter until they bought a house in Dunnellon and sold their motorhome.  Since we saw them two years ago they have gotten more involved in the humanist group that meets at The Top of the World (an adult planned community) and joined the Unitarian Universalist church just south of Dunnellon, both of which have given them the opportunity to make new friends in the area.  They had a half hour drive to get home and left at 6:30 PM.

After cleaning up the dishes we watched TV and doodled on our iPads.  I probably should have worked at my computer but did not feel like it.  I did check my e-mail and had a reply from Butch with his edits for the BCM article on the ITR Oasis Combi Installation he did last fall (2014) in their MCI MC-9 NJT motorcoach.  I also looked at, and commented on, several posts/comments on RVillage.  Linda was off to bed at 11 PM and I was tucked in with the lights off by 11:30.

 

2015/05/17 (N) A Tale of Two Sittings.

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Our day had two parts.  Part 1 was at home and Part 2 was in Ann Arbor.  The first part started with our normal morning routine:  coffee, breakfast, and iPads.  I put a load of laundry in the washing machine and then checked/replied to e-mails, which I had not done for a couple of days.  We then got busy on tasks and chores.

Linda’s focus for the first part of the day was cleaning and straightening up the house in advance of Jack coming on Wednesday to clean all of the carpets.  Jack Hoskins runs Duraclean as a one-man business and has done our carpets and upholstery for a while.  My focus was the bus and my first task was to carry all of the “stuff” that came out from under the bed into the house.  All of that stuff then went various places downstairs, but not on the carpets.  By the time we finished the morning chores it was almost 1 PM so we had a few pretzels with hummus for lunch.

I only worked in the bus for a few of hours but I got some things done.  First I broke all of the carpet tack strips into pieces small enough to fit in a trash can.  Linda then helped me get the Shop-Vac into the bus and I vacuumed up most of the loose debris.  I had not yet removed the carpet from the right wall of the entry stairs so I did that next.  To remove it I had to take a light fixture loose and remove a piece of upholstered trim from around the bottom door hinge.  The two door hinges have thick rubber covers and after I removed the carpet I pulled back the rubber cover of the lower hinge and measured the width of the opening from the left edge of the door frame to the hinge.  It looks like we have 27″ to work with if needed.  I put the trim back on and re-installed the light fixture.  I then spent the rest of my time pulling carpet pad staples and carpet strip nails out of the plywood subfloor.  Removing the staples was tedious but it was part of what had to be done.

I quit working around 3:30 PM and took a shower and then relaxed for a bit while Linda was busy in the kitchen making a mushroom and power greens risotto.  She often uses barley in her risottos but this time she used Arborio rice which is the type normally used to make risotto.  I really like her barley risotto, but the rice version was outstanding.  After our early dinner I set an alarm on my iPad and we both took short naps.  We up at 5:30 PM and I gathered up my laptop computer, digital camera, and iPad while Linda closed up the house and got her iPad.  At 5:45 PM we were off to Ann Arbor to entertain (and supervise) grand-daughter Madeline while her parents went to a friend’s house for dinner.  We stopped at Whole Foods for some Almond Dream non-dairy ice cream.

Madeline was very excited to see us and showed us her house and back yard.  We went for a short stroll with her in her tricycle and then again in her car.  She had a Little Tykes kitchen playset on the back porch, just outside the real house kitchen, and she made “coffee and tea” for us to enjoy on the veranda.  Brendan has been working on the back yard and slowly but surely getting it into shape.  Yards are a lot of work.

Madeline was a little teary when Brendan and Shawna left but she settled down quickly as Linda got her engaged with some of her puzzles.  I sat on the floor with her and helped build the giant animal puzzles.  (The puzzles are large and have large pieces, they are not puzzles of giant animals, although giraffes are rather large.)  We learned that lions are nice but we do not pet “dinos” (alligators).

Linda prepared a bedtime snack for Madeline of grapes, strawberries, pineapple, and crackers and we had a few grapes too.  By 8 PM Madeline was tired and Linda got her ready for bed, which is a whole routine unto itself.  While they did that I got out my computer and set it up.  I checked my e-mail and then copied the photos I had taken since May 1st from my camera to my laptop.  I had photos of the work on the bus from four separate days so I selected a few photos from each day and post-processed them.  I then copied my draft blog posts for May 10 through 17 from my e-mail to separate Word documents and edited all of them.

I was spell checking my blog post drafts when Brendan and Shawna got home around 10:20 PM.  I shut down my computer and we visited while I packed up.  By 10:45 PM we were ready to be on our way.  We drove down in Linda’s car so she drove us home.  It rained several times between 8:30 and 10 PM but riding home we had clear skies in some directions (we could see stars) and lightning in other directions.  The roads were mostly wet and we drove in and out of a few showers.  We were hoping the rain would hold off as we have had a wet week and Keith is supposed to cut our grass tomorrow.