Category Archives: Organizing

King Tide

In yesterday’s post, I said we’ve managed to avoid the holiday shopping crowd. I spoke too soon. We had to buy some supplies for Christmas dinner, which we’ll prepare at my step-dad’s house in Menifee.

Our first stop was Costco – I wrote a little history of the Costco #401 on Morena Boulevard in this post. We pulled into the parking lot at 11am. I thought that 11am on a Monday should avoid the worst of it. I thought wrong – the parking lot was an absolute zoo.

Gridlock in the Costco parking lot

Gridlock in the Costco parking lot

I didn’t try to park close to the store. I pulled into the row closest to the boulevard. After a couple of slow laps, I found a car pulling out and snagged a spot. We only needed a few items, most important of which was the spiral cut ham. I also picked up a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne for Donna in anticipation of New Year’s dinner at Hidden Shores. We were in and out in a reasonable amount of time despite the crowd.

From there, we drove north to the shopping center at Nobel Drive. Again, the parking area had a lot of traffic, but there were plenty of spaces if you didn’t try to get too close to the stores. Donna went to Trader Joe’s while I walked to Cost Plus World Market. I replenished my supply of Tomolives there – they have them for $2.99 for an eight-ounce jar. This price is as good as anything I’ve seen online and there’s no shipping expense.

Donna had a coffee date with the author of The Homeless Hero, Lee Silber. Lee ended up cancelling – he couldn’t miss out on the high surf. We’re having a condition known as King Tide in San Diego. King Tide occurs when the sun and moon are in a certain alignment. The additional gravitational pull this creates results in very high and extreme low tides. This is accompanied by large waves. Yesterday, the swell was six to eight feet out of the southwest. This made great surfing conditions for experienced surfers.

The King Tide was made even more enjoyable for the surfers with clear, sunny skies and air temperatures in the 70s. Pretty hard to beat, right?

I spent some time working in the trailer. I deflated and packed up our Sea Eagle 370 inflatable kayak. I cleaned the trailer up a bit, but I still have much to do before it’s ready for travel.

I took a walk through the park after I left the trailer. I saw a rig that I don’t believe I’ve seen before. It was a camper on a pick-up truck with a driver’s side slide-out! I don’t think I’ve seen a camper with a slide-out before. These days everything has to have a slide-out I guess.

Truck camper wide slide-out

Truck camper with slide-out

Last night Donna prepared a simple dish of spicy Italian chicken sausage with a red wine sauce over whole wheat spaghetti. I enjoyed the plate with a bottle of Stone IPA while I watched Monday Night Football. The Cincinnati Bengals secured a playoff spot by intercepting Peyton Manning four times en route to a 37-28 victory.

Simple dish with IPA for Monday Night Football

Simple dish with IPA for Monday Night Football

We have beautiful weather in store once again today. The King Tide continues. I might take a ride to the beach and check out the surfers before I get to it in the trailer.

The Road Beckons

I’m a little frustrated with my laptop right now. I had written about half of today’s post when suddenly a window popped up asking if I wanted to leave the page. The next thing I knew, I was back at the WordPress dashboard and my draft was gone. Oh well, I just have to start over.

I haven’t posted dinner photos for a while. Donna still feeds me like a king. Tuesday was wet and blustery, so Donna cooked indoors. She prepared pan-fried pork tenderloin medallions with a dijon mustard-butter sauce on the induction cooktop.

Pork tenderloin medallions in a Lodge cast iron skillet on the induction cooktop

Pork tenderloin medallions in a Lodge cast iron skillet on the induction cooktop

She served it with steamed broccolini and baked sweet potato.

Meal fit for a king

Meal fit for a king

It rained heavily at times overnight on Tuesday. The last of the showers passed through Mission Bay around 8am Wednesday morning. Donna drove Shauna’s car to the medical center – she had a 9am appointment for blood work. Afterwards she stopped and stocked up at Trader Joe’s.

When she returned, it was my turn to head out. I had an 11am appointment for follow up with Dr. Ryan. As expected, he upped my dosage of Lisinopril to 40mg/day to control my blood pressure.

On the way home, I stopped at Subway® sandwich shop. They had a special – I bought two six-inch subs for two dollars each. I brought them home and Donna and I enjoyed them for lunch. It’s not all gourmet meals at chez Koop. Lunch for two for four bucks is hard to beat though, right?

I put a lot of time into our plans for the first quarter of 2015. We’ll be back here in early April through early May for Shauna’s graduation from Cal Western School of Law. Between now and then, we’ll spend time in the desert.

Our plan is to leave here on Saturday, December 27th. We’ll spend two nights boondocking near the Imperial Dunes area. It’ll be a nice change of pace to get away from civilization where we can listen to the coyotes and see countless stars in the sky at night.

We’ll arrive at Hidden Shores Village on the 29th. Hidden Shores is on the Arizona side of the Colorado River, north of Yuma near the Imperial Dam. When I was a kid, it was known as Imperial Oasis. We plan to spend a week there and join Bruce and Debbie Bednarski for a New Year’s Eve celebration.

From there, I’ve booked a week at the Casa Grande RV Resort. I want to have our coach serviced at Speedco® while we’re there. Then we’ll move on to Mesa, Arizona.

Finding a place in Mesa turned into a challenge. There are a lot of happenings in the greater Phoenix area over the next few months – the Superbowl, Barrett-Jackson auction, major league baseball spring training (Cactus League) and of course, the Phoenix Open golf tournament.

This schedule of events has almost every RV park booked full. It’s been a logistical nightmare. After many phone calls and time spent looking at options on the web, I found a place in Mesa called Orangewood Shadows that can accommodate us for two months. Donna has book signings and a speaking engagement scheduled in Phoenix in late January, so we needed to be there. I still have time open between our departure from Mesa and our return to San Diego. We’ll wait and see what we feel like doing in March when the time comes. Places should be opening up by then. We might want to spend some time in the Tucson area.

Last evening, one of our neighbors, Joel, organized a potluck dinner at his site. More than half a dozen couples attended, mostly younger (under 60) full-timers. We had a happy hour (more like three hours) with lots of food. We enjoyed socializing with like-minded folks and it was a nice change of pace. With only nine days left before we head out, we wish we would have met some of the people earlier.

Fire pit, cocktails and lots of food and conversation

Fire pit, cocktails and lots of food and conversation

At some point over the next few days, I need to clean out the trailer and begin re-organizing it for travel. The road beckons and I’m getting excited to find new places, new friends and new adventures.

Another Pleasant Day

Donna was busy yesterday. She spent most of the day working on a PowerPoint presentation for the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) conference in Scottsdale at the end of May. Donna will be speaking there. She took a break around 11:30am and went for a walk. She walked about a mile to the RV Resort and swam laps in the pool, then used the shower facility there. When she finished her shower, she called me on the cell phone and I rode the scooter down to pick her up.

Donna made chicken-guacamole wraps for lunch. We had lunch at the covered picnic table near our site. A chipmunk came out to see what’s for lunch. He was unafraid and inquisitive. He sprawled out on the concrete near our table, just waiting for us to offer him something. I eventually caved and threw him an apple slice. He picked it up quickly and ran off into the brush to munch it down.

Lunch time visitor waiting patiently

Lunch time visitor waiting patiently

After lunch, I rode down to the resort and used the shower. The bathrooms and showers are very clean and the water is hot with good pressure. After shaving, I enjoyed a long, hot shower. This is one of the things that’s cool about this place. We’re boondocking on top of a bluff with a great view and no neighbors to speak of – there’s  a travel trailer on the bluff, but we’ve only seen the owner once on Monday night. We think he must be working in the area. We have a great view of the lake and marina. It’s quiet, but we’re only a few minutes away from amenities like the pool, showers and convenience store. And we only pay $11/day!

The afternoon was quite warm. The temperature was in the upper 80s and there was very little breeze. I fired up the generator around 3PM and turned on the air conditioners. At 5:30PM we rode down to the resort clubhouse for a potluck dinner. We don’t usually engage in that sort of thing, but we thought we’d check it out. Donna made a salad with leftover jerk chicken and mango salsa. When we arrived, people were already seated and eating. There were only five other couples. They were all older people who live here full time. We heard some scuttlebutt and history of the place. I had things a little mixed up in yesterday’s post. The Lake Pleasant Regional Park campground  is on the other side of the lake. Pleasant Harbor is owned by the Maricopa Water District. We enjoyed the meal and conversation and left before sundown.

We walked down to the marina. Donna had been there before, but I hadn’t made the walk out on the boardwalk. We went to the restaurant and looked the menu over, then walked back.

View of our bluff from the marina

View of our bluff from the marina

Back home, we made cocktails – I had a martini and Donna had a greyhound made with fresh squeezed grapefruit. She’s wishing now that she had taken more grapefruit from the Apache Wells RV Resort. The temperature had cooled and it was pleasant out, so we carried our drinks to the picnic table.

Happy hour at the picnic table

Happy hour at the picnic table

We sat and talked and watched the sunset. There were clouds in the eastern sky that made it colorful.

Clouds in the east at sunset

Clouds in the east at sunset

We watched two episodes of House of Cards before calling it a day.

Today, I want to try to meet up with Curtis from RVilliage.com. Curtis is the man behind this new site. This new website allows members to locate other like-minded members and arrange meets. When I checked Pleasant Harbor, I saw Curtis was here. I found a picture of his Prevost coach and saw it parked in the temporary area. We exchanged messages via RVilliage and he gave me his cell phone number. I’ll call him this morning and see when he might have some free time.

The weather guessers are calling for another warm day, but we should have a breeze to mitigate it. Another pleasant day at the lake.

 

Home and Housewares Show

I didn’t post to the blog this morning as usual. I didn’t sleep well due to the pain in my neck and shoulder. Before I complain too much, I should count my blessings.

My ex-wife and I raised our three daughters in the north Cascades of Washington in a small town called Darrington. Darrington is about 35 miles east of I-5 on highway 530, north of Seattle. I still have friends and family in the area. Last Saturday, tragedy struck outside of Darrington, east of the community called Oso. A large section of a mountain on the north side of the Stillguamish River broke free and turned into a mudslide. The mudslide quickly traveled south, crossing the river and damming it. It continued south through two neighborhoods and across highway 530. There were lives lost and homes destroyed. Many people are still missing. The mud slide covers about a square mile of land. The full extent of death, injury and damage are yet to be determined. My heart goes out to all in the community.

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned the International Home and Housewares Association (IHA) Show Donna attended in Chicago. The IHA Show is an annual event for buyers to connect with manufacturers who come to the show with their latest and greatest products, many of which will be launched in the coming year. Taking photos was not allowed at the show, but Donna did come home with some product samples.

Cupanion vacuum insulated bottle and infuser

Cupanion vacuum insulated bottle and infuser

Cupanion hot and cold cups
The blue bottle is a water bottle with an infuser so you can add fresh fruits, veggies and/or herbs to your water. The black bottle will keep drinks hot or cold. This is neat – with every reusable bottle you purchase, Cupanion will give the same amount (equal to your first fill) of clean water to a person in need.

Brillo makes more than just steel wool cleaning pads.

Brillo makes more than just steel wool cleaning pads.

Sponges from the Brillo company
Donna connected with people from the Brillo Company and learned that they are manufactured in Walled Lake, MI – just around the corner from where we used to live! Donna came up with a great cleaning tip using Brillo pads – they’re perfect for cleaning glass shower doors and no, they won’t scratch the glass. Anyway, Donna stopped by the Brillo booth to let them know that she often recommends Brillo pads for that job and, in fact, her tip was included in the April issue of Real Simple magazine. They had the magazine in their booth and were very pleased to meet her. They gave her a bunch of product samples including a pack of Bug Blaster sponges for getting bugs off the windshield and some kitchen and bathroom cleaning sponges that are so good, Donna threw out all of her other sponges!

Slim Sonic travel toothbrush

Slim Sonic travel toothbrush

Slim Sonic travel toothbrush
Donna met the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for VioLife, makers of the Slim Sonic toothbrush, on her flight to Chicago. She gave Donna a sample of the toothbrush at the show. Donna loved the variety of designs that include their new destination series. They also make a mini-humidifer that she is sending to us to try out in our motorhome.

gloves

Dawn Luxe dishwashing gloves

Dawn Luxe dishwashing gloves
Donna likes these because they are infused with hand lotion to soften your hands when you wear them. They will be in stores soon.

towels

Bamboo perforated towels

NatureZway(TM) Bamboo Perforated Towels
NatureZway(TM) Bamboo Perforated Towels are from the makers of Spic and Span products. These towels come in a roll like regular paper towels but are reusable up to 10 times. This makes them a great product for RVers, don’t you think? Keep an eye out for them in stores.

Bounce lint roller

Bounce lint roller

Bounce Lint Roller with Febreze

Those of you with pets probably go through a lot of lint rollers! This one is scented with Febreze. FYI, another one of Donna’s cleaning tips is to use lint rollers as an easy way to clean lampshades.

Something I meant to mention in yesterday’s post – shortly after Donna came home Saturday night, we stepped outside at 9:15pm and enjoyed the fireworks display I organized to celebrate her return.

Actually, we don’t know why the fireworks show was going on just north of the Apache Wells RV Resort, but I can take credit, right?

Shameless Plugs

I thought I wouldn’t post today. Really nothing new to report and I’m not feeling too creative this morning. Then I thought I should share a couple of things.

First, I want to tell you about the book Donna published this week. She’s wants to get as many copies out as soon as possible and is promoting the book through a free offer. You can download the book for free today through Sunday only.

SOPO V123

I also want to share a few of Mark Fagan’s photos. You can view more of his work at this site or read about Emily and Mark’s adventures here. Click on Mark’s photos below to enlarge.

Fishing

DSC_7127

DSC_7162

You can see the cloud cover that moved in yesterday in the photo above. It was still warm though and the clouds held the warmth overnight. It’s cloudy this morning and I’m hearing rumors of rain in the forecast for tomorrow! This might dampen my plan to pack the trailer tomorrow in advance of our move to Usery Regional Park on Sunday. I want to get into the park and be set up before the Superbowl starts.

Back to Business

Donna here. I’m really happy to be in San Diego. It took eight weeks to get here and I enjoyed every mile of the way. What a beautiful country we live in! And San Diego is one of America’s most beautiful cities. I’m really enjoying the sunshine. And I’m loving that we both have family and friends here.

Last night, we joined my youngest sister, Sheila Connor, and her friend, Dr. Jeff Sandler, for an amazing dinner. Sheila whipped up Grilled Salmon with Orzo, Feta and Red Wine Vinaigrette. I have the recipe if you want it. For an appetizer, she made heirloom tomatoes with buratta which is a super creamy mozzarella. Yum.

Sheila is also a good cook!

My sister loves cooking, too!

Our plan is to stay in San Diego for a few months, which feels odd because we’ve been on the go ever since we left Michigan and that’s become the norm. So far, this full-time RVing thing has felt like a very long vacation. But now it’s time for me to get back to work.

I have a book manuscript due to my publisher by the end of the month. I worked on it some while we were on the road, but didn’t make much progress. Fortunately, I had a pretty good head start on it before heading out.

The working title of my book is The One-Minute Organizer’s Guide to a Cleaner, Happier Home. Scheduled for publication in October 2014, it will include my favorite organizing and cleaning tips, which brings me to the gist of this post. I want to share a few tips for RVers.

We purchased a Dyson DC44 Animal rechargeable vacuum cleaner for our motorhome and I highly recommend it. It’s portable, easy to store and runs up to 20 minutes on a charge, so we can use it even when we don’t have an electrical hook-up. And it works great, especially for cleaning in tight spaces like around the toilet and under the driver and passenger seats. It’s not cheap though. We paid $300 for it on sale, but the regular price is more like $350.

Vinegar is my go-to cleaner. To clean the toilet, let out the water and then pour in 2 cups of vinegar and let it sit for at least five minutes. Then brush and flush. To clean countertops, mix equal parts of water and vinegar in a spray bottle, then spray and wipe with a microfiber cloth or paper towel. To remove stains from Corian countertops and sinks, just rub with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser sponge. It really does work like magic!

To clean a spill on your carpet, blot the excess with a clean, white towel. Then pour a little hydrogen peroxide on it and continue blotting until the stain is gone (or almost gone). Cover the area with a clean, white cloth and step on it to blot up as much moisture as you can. Then set something heavy like a skillet on top of the cloth and leave it overnight. I spilled red wine on our upholstered dinette bench the other night and following these directions, I got it out with no trouble at all.

One of the benefits of living in a small space is that it’s so much quicker to clean. I can clean my entire home now in less than 15 minutes. The trick to keeping it clean is to clean often. I wipe countertops daily, clean spills immediately, and vacuum three times a week. And I am always amazed how much dirt that little vacuum cleaner picks up! If you have pets, you’ll want to vacuum more often.

I promised in an earlier post that I would show you how I re-purposed clear plastic shoe boxes as storage containers. In the front of our coach, on each side, we have long, narrow, horizontal bins. I used three shoeboxes to organize and store various household items such as batteries, envelopes and stamps, tape, scissors, stapler, etc.

Front overhead storage

Front overhead storage

I used more shoeboxes in the bathroom in our medicine cabinet (the one on the center shelf in the photo below is labeled “First Aid”) and under the sink.

Center bathroom cabinet

Center bathroom cabinet

In the bedroom, I store all of my undergarments and socks in two fabric bins I bought at Bed, Bath & Beyond. I use a Clever Container hanging jewelry organizer to store all of my earrings, pendants, and bracelets. And my necklaces are hung on the inside of the closet wall using 3M Command Adhesive hooks. I originally hung them on the back side of a cabinet door, but they banged around as we drove down the road – and every time I opened the door – so I moved them.

Jewelery storage

Jewelry storage (hanging organizer is pulled out so you can see it better)

Fabric storage bins

Fabric storage bins for undergarments

Also in the closet, we each have a tiered pants hanger. There is a bar that holds each pair in place that lifts up for easy removal and hanging. I like it. I also like the slim, grippy hangers I bought to replace all the plastic hangers I was using before. They do a great job of keeping clothes in place. And they don’t take up as much space.

Tiered pants hanger

Tiered pants hanger

What are some of your favorite cleaning and organizing tips for your RV or motorhome (or small house or apartment)?

 

 

 

Organizing and Eating Well

Donna here. Long before we left our “sticks-and-bricks” home, I ponied up to the challenge of organizing our motorhome for full-time living. We have about 300 square feet of living space in our coach – about the size of large hotel room or small hotel suite.

My first priority as chief cook was to organize our food storage. We have a pull-out pantry which is great, except that the low sides of the pantry baskets only allowed room to store a single layer of cans, leaving a lot of wasted space. So I got the idea to place two plastic magazine racks in one of the baskets which tripled the canned storage space on that “shelf.” In the organizing profession, we call that “re-purposing.” I was planning to get rid of the magazine racks, but instead put them to good use.

Pull out pantry

Pull-out pantry

On the floor under the pantry, I have a small Clever Container folding cube where I store things like extra bottles of sparkling water. I also claimed the two cupboards over the kitchen table for food storage, plus a small storage area under the clock and the back half of a drawer under one of the kitchen bench seats where I store sugar, flour and other baking supplies (because I rarely use those items). I store spices on a two-tiered carousel in our one large kitchen cabinet that has two doors for access.

Overhead cabinet

Overhead cabinet

Cabinet below clock

Cabinet below clock

Kitchen cabinet

Kitchen cabinet

Visitors are often surprised to see that we have a fairly good size refrigerator/freezer. Still, it’s smaller than the average home refrigerator/freezer and lacks the compartmentalized storage of a larger unit. On my next trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond, I may buy one or two Fridge Bins to help organize the shelves. I did buy a pack of reusable GreenBags. I’m glad I did because I love fresh veggies, fruit and herbs and our refrigerator has just two tiny crispers. I had a few peaches go bad (I prefer not to refrigerate them) and wish I had thought to put them in a GreenBag in the fruit basket (yes, you can use them for countertop storage also).

When we first hit the road, I had the freezer packed with meat. Now I’m using more of the freezer space for frozen fruits and vegetables. I prefer fresh, but frozen fruits and veggies are still highly nutritious and sometimes, our only option.

At this point in our journey, shopping for groceries is catch-as-catch-can. If I have an opportunity to shop, I do because I don’t know when I’ll have an opportunity again. If we overnight at a Walmart Supercenter, then I can wheel a cart of groceries back to the motorhome. But if we’re camped at an RV park, then we’re limited to what we can carry on our scooter. Where we are now in Salem, SD, the nearest decent grocery store is 30 miles away in Madison. I’m looking forward to being within easy walking, cycling or scooting distance of Trader Joe’s when we get to San Diego!

I love grocery shopping actually; it’s my preferred form of retail therapy. I do have to be more careful now though not to overbuy, because we have limited storage space. This morning, I planned our meals for the upcoming week which includes a couple of nights of dry camping where we probably won’t be able to run the generator. That means we can’t reheat leftovers in the microwave. And because we don’t level the coach or put the slides out, it’s a bit cramped for cooking. So one night, I’ll thaw some shrimp for shrimp cocktail and serve it with a salad plus leftover chilled cucumber soup that I made this morning for tonight’s dinner.  (If you want the recipe, leave a message below with your email address and I will be happy to send it to you. I scanned all of my favorite recipes.)

For meal planning purposes – and to reduce spoilage – I made a list of what’s in the freezer as well as a list of the fresh veggies, fruits, and herbs in the refrigerator and posted these lists on the inside of the pantry door. I also keep a running grocery list in a Post-It Pocket that I mounted to the inside of a kitchen cabinet door. So when I have a chance to shop, I know exactly what I need and can get in and out of the store pretty fast and we can be on our way.

In the process of moving, I decided to let go of things like my Pampered Chef mandoline (which I never got the hang of using), but was not leaving without my Keurig Platinum Brewing System, Vitamix, Cuisinart Food Processor, and crockpot – all of which I use frequently. I used the Vitamix today to make the chilled cucumber soup. Tomorrow, I’ll make hummus in my Cuisinart. And on Friday this week (after sightseeing at Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument) I plan to try out a new crockpot recipe for Balsamic Chicken.

For dinner tonight, we’re having Blackened Tilapia with Cumin and Cayenne and a generous helping of sauteed spinach. We’ll start with the cucumber soup and end with a fresh peach for dessert. I haven’t been exercising as much as I usually do and snacking more than I should, so I’ve been fasting on leek soup (from the French Women Don’t Get Fat cookbook) since yesterday morning and I’m really looking forward to dinner!

Kitchen counter and refrigerator

Stay tuned for more small-space organizing tips. I can’t wait to show you how I re-purposed a set of clear plastic shoe boxes!