Finland

Couple months ago we started to go through our belongings and packing some of it away to be saved and leaving the rest unpacked for an estate sale. We divided our clothes in two walk-in closets between keepers and get rid of's. The progress has been slow, but we started it!

Couple weeks into our organization came a day that I rushed to the airport and flew home to Finland to see my family and to attend my sister's wedding. Unfortunately I made my trip alone, Lee stayed behind to take care of the house and 3 hounds. I spent two and half wonderful weeks in Finland, eating mom's cooking and enjoying the cooler weather and peace and quiet. Well, some might think the weather was not cool, it was probably at low 90's, but coming from Texas, oh yeah, that's nice and cool! 

It was so wonderful to see the family and the friends after a long time. The sad thing is that there is always less people to meet than there was the time before and being on the other side of the globe doesn't always make it easy to accept. However, that is the life for people who live thousands miles away from their family. Another thing that made it a little bitter was that Lee and our pups were back home in Texas. Well, that resulted in lots of Skype action between Scandinavia and The Republic of Texas.

My timing in Finland was perfect, the weather was nice; blueberries, raspberries and strawberries were in season, even the mushrooms were forcing me into a daily game of hide and seek. Oh, and did I mention, it is so green in Finland, GREEN!!! Hardly anyone has sprinklers for their lawns and it is not even needed, the rain will come sooner or later and make everything lush and clean and first of all, green. The laundry gets dried on the lines outside and it smells like forest. The birds are chirping through the night, since in the end of July the dark doesn't come until after midnight. And how I missed the quiet and peace by the lake, the only ones making any noise were the numerous birds, like swans and loons.

My sister's wedding was fun and relaxed and everybody had fun and soon after the life returned back to somehow normal. I was so excited that my brother who is serving in UN Peace Corp was able to come for a short vacation and I got to see him. The time always flies by really fast, though all my siblings had arranged time off to spend with me, which was wonderful. 

Like always, the time comes to an end way too soon. And my trip back home started. I had a hectic layover in Chicago, where I walked forever, waited forever for customs, security and finding and dragging my 2 huge bags without the cart for re-checking. After that was all done, the run to the right terminal and gate started, I just got to my plane before they closed the gate and sat down and started the last stretch to home. I knew the layover would be really crazy, so I was ready to run out the plane as soon as I was able to and in a process forgot that I had split one of my carry on bags since it didn't fit in overhead cabby in one piece. Well, the yummy Finnish chocolates and some other candy, some souvenirs and a pair of earrings are greatly missed. It wasn't a huge financial loss, but I was so mad at myself for forgetting such a thing.

It was nice to be back home in Texas. There is a Finnish proverb that says something like: Being home is strawberry, being elsewhere blueberry, it doesn't really translate well, but you might get the idea. And if you ever have a chance to taste Finnish strawberries, their sweetness and juiciness, you will understand what it means. Though the wild blueberries are pretty darn awesome too. The difficult part is that for me, there will always be 2 homes.

Bugging Out And Bootlegging

It has been one busy and long Christmas for us. We celebrated 4 days in a row and now we are exhausted. Though I had a chance to go to work to get a little bit of "rest". We took the Revcon for the first trip hoping that all the issues with the fridge and what ever else would have been resolved. We were pleased to notice that indeed they were. As expected the dogs were all fine, excluding Pixie, who always freaks out if we go somewhere. Just a matter of getting used to that sort of thing, or so we hope. The drive itself down to South of Texas to meet the family was uneventful, though once we had a deer run in front of a rig. That was not entirely unexpected, there are lots of deer around, but what surprised us was that it was in the middle of the day.

We arrived to our destination and camped out at Lee's cousins house, where they have repeatedly provided us with their RV hook up and this time we almost blew up their Christmas lights. They have a nice level driveway that we were allowed to use. This might not sound like anything special, but I can tell you that it felt luxurious compared to our driveway which is not level nor is it long enough for our rig. We have done some creative parking blocking the use of our garage, but let's get back to the story.  We spent the first night thinking that only the greyhounds would be able to climb up to the bed above the cabin and we were right. We did not expect though that the old girl Nelli would decide that she wants her place between our pillows, but as soon as we decided to hit the hay, there she was staring up at us and making noise and we knew that there would be no end to that if we didn't give in (14 years of training us has paid out). Plus she is surprisingly easy to ignore, since she doesn't really take a space that we would use anyways. We slept our night tightly and warm despite of the close to freezing temperatures. We also came to a realization that we need to add a rail and a step to our bed to keep the dogs from hopping down to the floor from that high. All of them did jump down at some point without requiring any broken bones, but it will be just a matter of time if they keep doing it.

The next day the weather warmed up nicely and we went for a Christmas dinner with Lee's mothers side of the family. I only wish I had taken pictures there, the house and the few acres of a lot is simply amazingly beautiful, it is surrounded by the fence and cattle guard, and they usually have cattle too, but due to last two years of drought the cattle has been sold and the donkeys are claiming it as their territory. The old crooked oaks shade the lot nicely and every time we visit I dream of finding as lovely place for us. I would never even consider moving again! Oh yes, the dinner... The dinner was like usually nothing short of delicious and it fed tens of people. The dishes were beyond the drooliest dreams and we stuffed ourselves silly and drove back to our dream spot on our cousin's driveway.

How lucky do you have to be to have views like this every day
 from your porch?

Before going to bed, the cousin's husband, Lee's sister and her husband plus we two hang outside talking and the discussion for some reason geared towards zombie apocalypse, prepping and they decided that the Revcon should be the bug out vehicle when the crap hits the fan. The plans to mount some heavy artillery and  to use dry erase board as lining inside was brought up and of course nobody would take us seriously without run flat tires. This conversation pointed out the direction for days to come too and this Christmas will go into the history as Zombie Christmas. Alas, the time goes fast and soon it was the time to crawl back into our cave to sleep. The night was hot, and the dogs were restless, making our sleep a bit sporadic.

The next day we drove to the city to Lee's grandmother's house to meet the father's side of the family. We were greeted as soon as we walked in with a cold beer, of course Shiner, since we are in Texas. The cousins and aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, boyfriends and girlfriends and what not all filled up tummies with another amazing setting of holiday foods and all kinds of appetizers and deserts. If anyone left hungry, it was their own fault, food was delicious and there was plenty of it. We also took a yearly family picture, this year being special, since we are pretty sure everyone made it, not one person was missing of the fun. The next part of the day was the high light of the year. The big bootlegging: liquor exchange, there is no better fun that it is. We do the Chinese Christmas where we either open a concealed present or steal someone else's present. And each present is available for stealing three times. And the liquor is high quality and there is plenty of it, the stealing goes on for quite a while. The plotting and planning is so fun. I left with a keg of my favorite beer Newcastle and Lee got two bottles of Texas wine with a stack of scratch offs.

Soon we had to head out to Dallas. The dogs slept most of the way home, they were too tired of all the excitement and about worrying when ever we left them into the RV alone. Next time they will know better what to expect.

Louie, pretty perfect travel dog

The next day would be Christmas Eve, the day Finnish people celebrate their Christmas. We have now for few years had the tradition that I make the Finnish Christmas meal and Lee's sisters family and mother will come over and we will eat all together. So we did this year too, except that it is becoming more of a tradition and we actually sat down almost till midnight talking and having fun. At least I really enjoyed it. The three kids are all old enough to be able to take a part in our conversations and we really enjoy their sense of humor. They are all really great kids, so much fun to be around them. The clean up was really easy too, we had dogs to do the dishes ;o)

The weather turned back to really cold again in the wee hours of Christmas Day and it started hailing and raining and the aluminum roof was very loud keeping us awake. We also realized that getting the greyhounds to potty outside became a serious chore. So the next morning we headed to Lee's mother's house for the actual Christmas celebration. We were hours late, since the weather kept us awake the night before and getting the dogs settled took longer. I am sure that the kids were just about to go bonkers waiting for us to come over so that they can open the presents. First we ate breakfast, which is traditionally corn beef gravy with some toast. I remember thinking it was strange food when I first ate it, now I am expecting it as a breakfast every Christmas.

We told everyone not to buy us any presents this year, but that of course didn't happen. But we really can't complain, we received some really amazing present, like a table top grill for the RV from my sister in laws family, some LED lanterns and lights and the cutest flip flops ever, just to mention some. All in all, Christmas was lots of fun and for a very long time. It remains as my favorite holiday and next time it might be very different if we get our plan in action. We shall see! For now I am happy this Christmas is over. I enjoyed it a lot, but considering all our dinners around Christmas they just all happened one after another and it can be kind of tiring. Still I wouldn't miss any of those days!

                                

Pecans And Baking

Well, we have lived for over 4 years in this house and this Monday our lawn crew came and they asked if they would be allowed to pick a little bit pecans under our huge tree after the mowing. Of course, why not, we never did. I guess we assumed that we got nothing this year since last year the shells were empty due to severe drought. And the year must have been tough for squirrels too, we have much less of them than we used to. We happened to talk with our neighbor about the pecans and he just said that the pecans are beautiful this year, so I decided to go see if there was any left under the tree and I was in luck. I collected about two to three gallons of shells and very few actually were either empty or damaged, they might have been from last year for what we know.

Suddenly I wanted to bake a pecan pie and I had never baked one before. I asked my friends in Facebook for a good recipe and Catie Doman graciously shared her blue ribbon winning recipe. Keep your eyes peeled, I will share it with you with her permission. I went back to get some more pecans and kept jumping up to reach the ones up on the lowest branches too. I just wanted to make sure that I had enough for a pie in case they end up being bad ones. I was in luck again. I think I could bake thirty pies out of them. Better safe than sorry is what I'm thinking.

So I had most of the ingredients at home but wanted to make my baking as RV'ish as possible and I think I would use ready made crust to save time while RV'ing. And since I am trying to learn to take shortcuts, I decided it was good time to start using the half ready products. I am originally from Finland and we make everything from scratch and I need to learn to simplify my cooking a lot in order to enjoy it better. So here is the recipe for the filling, I used Pillsbury pie crust and I still have half of it left, since it has two crusts in it. I can make another one as soon as this one runs out, which is probably later on tonight.

Fresh from the oven, hot and still puffy!

Catie's Blue Ribbon Winning Pecan Pie:

1/2 cup of sugar

1 cup of Karo dark syrup
1 cup of pecans

3 eggs

4 tbs butter (which I forgot, still came out good)

1 tsp vanilla

1/8 tsp salt

Pillsbury pie crust or home made crust.

Mix the ingredients and pour onto the crust. Bake 10 mins in 400F and then 35 mins in 300F. You can probably make it prettier with nice edge and not forgetting the stuff out of it. But at least I do have a reason to make another pie. It is pretty yummy, make two at the same time so you don't have to be baking all the time.

Just imagine the stick of butter in the picture, I am sure it will be even
 tastier  with it.

YUM!

Serenity

The decision to keep the house has calmed me down. I am not so worried anymore what kind of rig we have, or if we have enough room. Not that having the house will help anything with the fact that we are living small while on the road, but just the knowledge of being able to return here will release some of the pressure of having to sell everything. It might actually be worth keeping the furniture at least some of it, so we don't have to go all crazy spending once we are done roaming around the country.

We also are relieved that we don't have to fix as much right away, since we are not trying to sell for a top dollar. Some changes that we need to do can be done down the road, whenever it seems necessary and we get to keep our nice neighborhood and all our friends and family close. Such a nice feeling. I am already feeling a little sad of missing on all the fun lunches and dinners with one of my closest friends. We usually have dinner in our favorite Indian buffet once a week, or anywhere we feel like, and those will sadly have to be iced until we come back from our Tour de America.

Fresh herbs will be greatly missed, especially the basil that
 took over the whole back yard

I have been following a few RV bloggers and I have to admit that I am pretty anxious to get on the road. Some of the bloggers have absolutely amazing photos on their blogs, and I am sure they would be able to make our dumpster to look like a dream vacation spot, but I can't help but wish I could go to see all those fabulous views and sceneries that they have photographed to their blogs. Looking at those pictures it just makes you think that they are either professional, or they have a camera that has a button "$1M" that makes everything look like million dollars. Maybe you can train your eyes to see the photo in front of you, but the colors look sometimes so surreal, maybe they have more professional gear than my point and shoot.

I have been frustrated with my own photos, since there isn't really anything yet to take pictures of, and when you are trying to blog about the brainstorming it gets a bit difficult to take photos that are actually somehow related to the post itself. I have to use pictures of what ever random stuff  that are not related to anything that I am really talking about, but that have something in them that I like, not necessarily great photos, but images of things that I like. This is one of the reasons you have seen so many pictures of our critters and our home. But this is one of the things I would like to concentrate more once we hit the road. I can't wait for that one.

Another amazing photo of the... vegetation on our yard. 

Moving from 3000 square feet to about 150 will be a huge change. I am sure the lack of storage is not going to be the only issue, one of the things I have been threading is the cooking. We have a pretty big kitchen with all the possible appliances and gadgets and the RV, well, it just doesn't. I have been thinking about toaster oven and maybe a single burner to add little cooking power, but then again storing them will be an issue. I think we will just try to figure out how to use the convection micro as an oven and try to get by with as little as possible. I think my Kitchen Aid might not have a spot in the RV, drats!


                                 

Happy Halloween!

We feel the blues of Chinook being sold. We were supposed to "baby sit" her while the new owner was out of town for the weekend, but his wife seemed to bond with her real fast, and we haven't seen her since the money changed hands. I am glad it went to a good home where it gets used. Now we get to step into the next part of our plan, which is getting the house fixed, so we can rent it out. Time is going by fast, and we need to kick in the next gear, there might only be couple months left for us to get ready.

The Halloween has been really tame this year for us. We usually have a party for Halloween, but this year we sold our awesome margarita machine, and decided to not throw a party after all. We did attend one though, and like usually for this holiday, we were dressed up for the occasion. I love Halloween.

                                

                                

One decision closer

As it often happens, the fall does bring the nice cool weather. And it looks like our chase for the perfect weather of 75F has taken a break. It seems to be perfect enough right here, right now. Few days of occasional slow drizzles and cooler night temperatures, and suddenly this seems to be my Texas in all the possible positive ways. This has brought us to reconsider selling the house, and maybe just rent it out. There are so many pros and cons, it is difficult to make the right decision.

The pros on keeping the house:

• There is always a place to fall back into after we are done with RV dwelling, or if something would happen and we will be forced to get back to "normal life".
• Real estate is always an investment, the house will still be there, and maybe we could sell it later on if we need to, or if we find another place we would like to call home.
• The house is really a unique, we still could be able to make it into our dream home with few changes.
• Lees family lives here, and we would love to be close to them.
• This is a great place to live, very desirable area, and this kind of lots are too difficult to find in neighborhoods like this (the lot is huuuuge).
• We love the house!
• The house could be generating some income for us. Paying the mortgage and leave a bit over for fixes that might be needed, and maybe even leave some money to drive a few more miles on our trip.

The cons on keeping the house:

• It is older house and needs constant maintaining. We either need to pour money into it now, or risk the fixes without our supervision. (costs more, and once you aren't supervising the work, anything is possible)
• Some major repairs are in our future if we keep it.
• The Texas heat is really brutal and can cause some serious damage to our house, especially if it is leased out to someone who doesn't care about it as much as we do.
• We wouldn't have as much money to start with if we didn't sell the house.
• Being absent for years while the house is rented out can destroy the landscaping and pretty much anything else too.
• The fixes on the rental are quite difficult to do on the budget while travelling. 
• The repairs can be costly, especially on the major things like AC units.

The critters won't give a rats patootie where we live,
 and who lives in our house as long as they have a pile
 of blankets to burrow into

It is so easy to make a decision just considering what is happening around us at the decision making time, but the truth is that there are other times too, and things change throughout the year. The problems seem to arise mostly during the summer time when the heat is extreme, but once the weather cools down a bit, it can be pretty dang awesome place to live. But maybe there is a place where we could be happy around the year. For some reason I keep looking towards the East coast thinking that is where our questions get answered. But then on the other hand, I keep wanting to head to the West... makes sense, right?

For now, I think we have made the decision. This post has been a draft for weeks now, and I finally found it more fitting to our situation now, since after listening to our friends who also happen to be experts in real estate or rental properties, we have decided to go forward with the intention of keeping the house and leasing it out instead. I feel happy, since I can still have my dream of fixing it into a perfect place. And if the road is going to claim us, then be it, the option to sell it later on is not going to disappear anywhere.

                               

                              

Pumpkin Season Is Here!

Today we got greeted with a nice cool weather. It had been raining at night, which we are excited about. The watering of the lawn and plants had started to feel like a second job. The rain has cooled down the temperatures that had been soaring at around 100F all summer. It feels wonderful to go out without having to wear shoes around the pool just to prevent your feet from burning up on the hot concrete. Now we can keep the doors open and let the breeze to get in. Aah, how I love the first cool days after the toasty summer. My plans were to finish up some yard work as soon as the weather like this arrived, but instead  I decided to just lounge on the couch and be useless. Man, it was tough, but I think I achieved my goal.

 After few sweet recipes, I thought it was time to straighten up our diets and stir away from the sweets and try to eat a bit healthier, and suddenly after today's lunch in Vietnamese restaurant the curry chicken pho made me crave for more curry, and suddenly I remembered that it is almost time to dust of your holiday recipes, and I happen to have one that I just one day pulled out of my sleeve, and it made into a hit at a Thanksgiving party, even kids loved it.

So get ready for fall, the pumpkin season is here. And even though I will try to stick to the healthier stuff I think I will occasionally slip in few recipes that will also satisfy the sweet tooth. But for now I am going to share my recipe for curried pumpkin soup. And since I like the easy cooking, this is once again one of those recipes where most of the ingredients come straight out of the can. And it is really good too!!!

Pumpkin Soup with a little side kick!

2 tbs butter

small onion

2 cans of pureed pumpkin

2 cans of chicken broth

1 can of coconut milk

bunch of cilantro

salt

turmeric

coriander

cumin

nutmeg

curry

Melt butter on a large sauce pan, add finely chopped onion and spices to taste, I usually start with about 1/2 tsp each except nutmeg 1/4 tsp and add later on to taste I like mine more flavorful, so I usually add another round of the spices. Stir for a minute or so and add broth and pumpkin. Let mixture warm up to a boiling before adding the coconut milk. Let boil for a while (10-15minutes) and add spices to your taste if needed. Just when done cooking, add fairly generously chopped cilantro, stir in. Garnish with some more cilantro and a dollop of sour cream. Tadaa!

Yours to try, let me know how you liked it.

                                  

Mixed Emotions And Video Intro Of The Beast

While I am excited about the Revcon, I can't help but think how many of my boxes it actually ticked. Well, not too many. However I know that Lee is very excited about it, and I am ready to give it a good try, I will try to get over the fact that the kitchen does not have an oven, and has only two burners, the fridge is one of the smallest possible RV fridges, and the storage is minimal. The fact that the bed is above the cabin will create problems too, but maybe we can adjust to all that. The cab of the truck takes almost half of the space, so I think on top of the one removed seat, we are going to have to remove another one too, and make best use out of that space. But this is where I think my inner interior designer will get a chance to do its magic.

Here is the video intro to the belly of the Beast, it is pretty home quality, and please, don't hold it against us, it will give you maybe a bit better idea of the space and what we have to work with.

This all will be a huge change not only for us two, but also for our pets who have had a run of the huge house and a gigantic yard. They will have to deal with a minimal space with no yard to run around. I see frequent trips to dog parks in our future. The cat who has been indoor/outdoor cat, will have to adjust to live in a small indoor space with 3 dogs and two humans. Right now he has a pet door to go in and out as he wishes, his own room, bathroom and climbing trees on both ends of the house. We are wondering where is the limit for our adjustments, and who is going to actually need to adjust the most. It will definitely be a challenge to stuff the cat with three dogs into a small space, especially since the greyhounds like to chase him, and he does take it as an attack and will defend himself in that situation. At 18 lbs, Zubie is not likely going to take any prisoners, it could get bad if we didn't make sure that he has his own area where the dogs are not allowed.

Zubov, see how vicious he is?

We are tossing all kinds of ideas around, and once we decide on something we are pretty guaranteed to back out as soon as we get a chance. We are reconsidering selling the house, at least to start with we might want to hold on to it, and if we really want to stay on the road, maybe then we will let it go. I am just worried if the life on the road doesn't fit for us and we sold the house, then what? If we were able to rent it, or just rent a room out of it, then nothing would be so permanent that we couldn't change our minds and come back home if we wanted to.

the nightly race around the pool 

We don't seem to make tons of progress, but we have received the title to our other RV and can sell the old faithful Chinook. I bet selling it will be a bit emotional, not because we had it for a long time, no, we have actually had it less than a year, and used it only couple times... drove all together probably less than 1000 miles with it, but because it actually does have all we need, just not enough space on a long run. But in order to get the house fixed, we need to let her go. So I think tomorrow we have to remove all of our belongings out of it and make her ready for a sale. It is perfect for a couple or a single person, but not for couple with tons of junk and 4 pets. Stay tuned if it is something you'd want to consider, it will likely sell fast.