Happy Christmas

When I was little, one of my favorite activities around the holidays every year was making oodles of Christmas cookies to give away to friends/family/neighbors/co-workers. (except for that one year we made the salt dough Christmas ornaments with the alphabet cookie cutters in everyone's initials. That beat cookies). My mom would spend HOURS with the three of us making dough, cutting out the shapes, baking and decorating the cookies... gobs of confectioner's sugar everywhere and food-coloring stained little kid hands. Sprinkles, silver balls, Christmas carols.... culminating in cracked out cranky kids, an exhausted mom, and a bunch of curly-ribbon clad cookie pacages. That my mother would then make us deliver with her. Thankfully we lived on a prep school campus, and most of this could be achieved by walking.

This year I coerced the Spawn into making Christmas cookies with me. He was a little trooper and put up with my Christmas cookie shenanigans replete with carols playing, and plastic cookie cutters. I am very thankful to the Spawn for letting me have that day of Christmas cheer (he got to play a fair share of videogames, too, so I know he stayed happy), and happy for us not ending up cracked out or cranky.

Granted we would have been done a lot faster if I could get more than one 15x10 cookie sheet in the oven at a time. Someday!

Roll and flip. Roll and flip.

Cut out those shapes - as close together as you can!

Ready to go in the oven.

Color Mixologist.

Decorating.

Ginger cookies. Notice the Airstream Custom oven. Teensy yet effective.

Drying*

My fave**

*They got 3/4 of the way dry and then it started raining BUCKETS. Since the Airstream is a tin can, not much of the humidity made it back outside. Most of it got sucked up by my cookies. Only the few duds I had set aside for family consumption (another family tradition) survived the great humidity of 2011.

**even this one bit the dust. >sad face< 

More Space!

So here's *part* of the reason why I've been MIA... we've been adding some space to stretch out in. Yay!

If you're friends with me on FB, you've seen these pictures, but here they are in their expanded and expounded upon glory nonetheless.

Manfriend had done some research on our best options for expanded space for this winter. Really we can't afford to build a house (by like a LOT), but my beloved Melvin would be a bit crammed with the 3 of us... so basically we need just one more room to get through the winter and not kill each other. I think we found a happy medium between what we can afford and what we need. I drove down and finalized everything, and gave them delivery instructions.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

 Our materials and blueprints were delivered the next day.

Chicken approved worksite.

Manfriend recruited a buddy, and the two of them started working on it Sunday evening. They got the toughest (in my non-participating humble opinion) part done that day - placement and squaring and leveling the bottom of the whole thing.

When you look at it this way, it looks huge. Wait. It kind of is.

 The boys did well amongst the chickens and the puppy.

Early the next morning, they had the floor finished.

 The next morning, as the boys finished the floor, the chickens and the dog had found a new favorite cool place to hang out.

Zora is helping.

Wall #1!

 Yes. At this point I hid. I had tears in my eyes. When wall number one went up is when it all kind of sunk in - that I will soon get my manfriend here all the time, and that he and I can start figuring out what to do/where to go (metaphorically speaking, thankyouverymuch) from here.

(Thankfully Mike never reads this blog - otherwise I will NEVER hear the end of it for that one)

The other walls went up rather quickly.

 By the time I got home from work on the second day, They had ROOF RAFTERS on. It was awesome. It reminded me of the first time I drove home to the property and saw Melvin gleaming off in the distance... a first glimpse on what will soon be my normal "almost home" view from the car in the dark.

Heat makes you loopy.

Those two boys did the good work. OMG. Yesterday they got a bit of a respite, but day number 1 and day number 3 (today) was blazing hot. BLAZING. Day number 1 more so, but today they had the distinct luxury of being up on the roof in full sun with roofing felt and asphalt shingles...

I felt guilty not helping, but there wasn't anything I could have done. Mike's buddy is SO efficient and good at construction, combined with Mike's renaissance man quality (and previous dabblings in various construction projects himself), they needed no help from me. Except for the occasional run to town for ice, nails, and gyros :)

Taking shape...

As Mike and co really needed to get back to their neck of the woods, they got the roof done, and the key pieces of siding on. Mike'll be back at the end of the week and we'll start knocking out the rest. I will finally get to help - by holding up siding while he nails and by trying to stay out of the way...

Yet another way in which a redneck further hooks a hippie.

My Beloved Tin Can

Several people have asked me what it's like living in an Airstream. If you've never been in an RV or a boat cabin, it's kind of hard to describe. And if I can't describe it, you can't imagine it.

Thankfully, some dude made a video on YouTube that is a little walk through of the exact year, make & model of Airstream as my beloved Melvin. Melvin is a little bit more beat up here and there, but is still in great shape (to the eye. Some of the water systems etc are having issues....) So. If you'd like to attempt to wrap your head around what I call home, knock yourself out:

And keep in mind, it's 31ft long. The whole thing.

I love mine, and I have yet to meet (or hear of) an Airstream owner that doesn't.

Whew!

The trailer is in! Woohoo!!

Mom toasting the trailer. Current name options: Bessie or Tom. Not sure why.

It was quite a process. We had gone about 170 miles east of us to see it and purchase it, only to find that it would really be a hassle - logistically and legally - to get it back to our property. So. The kind seller offered to deliver it to us, and on Saturday he and his right hand man did.

The bottom of our driveway is a bit steep, and due to a few day's worth of rain and the fact that it has never been graveled (only graded 40 years ago?), it can be a bit tricky to get up it. I take it at full speed (about 35 since you turn into it) and coast up it in order to not get stuck and to not make giant ruts in it.

Now. When you're hauling a 32ft trailer behind you, you can't really take a running start. And poor Mike got stuck in the mud. Fortunately - The Beast has a winch on the front end of it, and we were able to haul them up out of the front of the driveway no problem.

While the winch had no problem pulling the weight, I had to sit in the truck and STAND on the brake to keep The Beast from rolling forward. Hence my arm sticking out the window and holding on for dear life, while my dad nonchalantly mans the winch control.

Free of the driveway!

Our driveway, as I may have mentioned before, is estimated at about 600 ft* -and it's got a 90 degree turn about 2/3 of the way down. Our original plan was to overshoot the turn (we cleared a bunch out of the way in preparation), and then back down the rest of the driveway so that the trailer sat facing trailer hitch forward at the end. This would also conveniently put the door to the trailer facing the lake.

Preparing to back down the driveway. Before we found out the half ton Mike was in was slightly too long and we had to switch trucks.

We kind of did that. 1 hour, 2 trucks, 3 burly men, and 4 bystanders later - we got it in.

Zora is 'helping'

Mom (and I, but mostly my mom) immediately started scrubbing the thing, and this requires water.

Simple Green is the bomb diggity.

Ahh. Water. It's amazing how you suddenly become incredibly conscious of how much water you use when you have to haul it out of a well hand over hand and then drag the now heavy bucket up an incline that didn't seem to exist until you were carrying a bucket with 6 gallons of water in it.

First you have to open the well cap with a 48 inch pipe wrench which weighs almost as much as me.

Next, you drop the bucket down, listen for it to hit, listen for it to make the "I'm full" farting noise, and then haul it up. It helps to work your side abs for this step. Hence the funny face.

Now the fun part: lift the lever in the handle and watch the past 5 minutes' worth of hard work come gushing out the bottom.
Rinse, repeat.

But when I came home on that first night we had the trailer and saw it gleaming at the end of the driveway, I was incredibly happy, and totally looking forward to the next step.

Home sweet home.

The next step? Getting electricity. Mostly for a well pump :)

*UPDATE - the driveway is 1150 ft long. I grew up with the metric system. This foot business is beyond me.