In the language of flowers, the iris symbolizes faith, wisdom, cherished friendship, hope, and valor. It is a showy flower that is named for the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. With over 200 varieties and the vivid colors in which the iris comes, I think you would agree that it is aptly named.
Here is my cross stitch project featuring beautiful iris blooms ... the bird in the flower pot just adds to the charm.
I’m processing photos from my 2010 trip to Turkey, which coincided with a national holiday celebrated on April 23 to commemorate the date of the first meeting of the Turkish Grand National Assembly in 1920. In 1929, Atatürk dedicated the day to children and the date became known not just as National Sovereignty Day, but as Children’s Day as well.
The photo below pre-dates my 2010 trip by many, many, many years. In fact, it goes back to when I was in grade school in İzmir, Turkey. I’m pictured at one of the events focused on not just the children of Turkey, but the children of the world. As you can tell from my costume, which was red satin trimmed in black, I was dressed to represent Chinese children.
If you’d like to see some of the photos I took at a preview parade I encountered by chance during my April 2010 trip, click here.
For most RVers, a good cell phone plan is probably sufficient to stay in touch with family and friends while they’re on the road. If our families were in Canada or Mexico, we could probably get away with just having cell phones as well. But that’s not the case — our families are in Turkey, and cell phone calls are prohibitively expensive regardless of who initiates them.
At the condo, we have Vonage VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) phone service. A flat, monthly rate gives us unlimited domestic and international calls without worrying about by-minute charges. And there’s no contract; always a good thing.
Our plan all along has been to take Vonage on the road with us, provided we could have a reasonably reliable internet connection. We resolved that requirement with our Millenicom aircard and CradlePoint router (post here). I imagine that there will be some places where we might not have internet, but they should be few and far between.
We were pretty sure this plan would work, but wanted to test it anyway. So, last weekend, we took our Vonage modem to the motorhome and Mui set things up in a jiffy. Since the modem was there only temporarily, we didn’t bother putting it in the cabinet where the whole set up is eventually going to be installed.
We have phone service!
The aircard and the Vonage Modem both plug into the CradlePoint router;
the phone plugs into the Vonage Modem.
The laptop’s there to make sure the phone set up doesn’t interfere with the wi-fi connection.
One more thing has now been checked off our ‘getting ready to go on the road’ to-do list. It feels good :-)
A king is not a king when it’s a Sleep Number® bed in a motorhome. No wonder the king size mattress pad and sheets we initially bought for the Phaeton didn’t fit the way they were supposed to — even after we washed them in hot water!
Stupid us! We didn’t measure the mattress before shopping for bedding. After all, a king is a king. Right? Wrong!!! Even the sales people at the Sleep Number® store we went to at Fair Oaks Mall weren’t aware of the ‘custom king’ mattress. At 72” x 80” (1.8 x 2 m), the mattress in the motorhome is 4 inches (10 cm) narrower than the standard king — that’s Eastern, not California. That’s enough to make all the difference in the fit of the bedding.
Thanks to MBZ, friend and fellow Phaeton owner, who gets to have her rolling home parked next to her stix & brix home, we didn't have to make a special trip out to the coach to measure our mattress. Not only did she do the measuring for us, but she provided a link to Camping World to confirm the custom size. Who knew that CW sold Sleep Number® beds! As well, MBZ pointed us in the direction of right-sized bedding, which we ordered from Amazon.
These Sleep Number® products didn’t work for the Phaeton bed, but we’re keeping
them for when we buy our Eastern King after we’re done with our nomad lifestyle.
Ah, yes; these work beautifully. Just the right size.
The linens are washed and the bed is made up, complete with the tea-dyed matelassé
cover we prefer to the bedspread that came with the Phaeton.
Finally, sheets stretched taut and not a wrinkle, crumple, crinkle, or bump in sight! No Princess and the Pea experience for these two campers, thank you very much.
President’s Day is one of those holidays that often goes unnoticed, except for all of the sales ads one might see in newspapers and on TV.
At my company, President’s Day is a floating holiday. What that means is that I can either take today off, or I can ‘save’ the day to boost my available vacation days when I really need it. I’ve opted to do the latter and plan to use my ‘free’ day when we go on our spring trip with the Phaeton.
Even though I am working — I have a big project on my plate — I do want to recognize this holiday. In some ways, President’s Day is intended to honor all US presidents (let’s not get into politics here), but in particular, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln — one the father of our country; the other the man who reshaped our country.
Notes:
A high of 61F (16C) when we left the lot where we store the Phaeton sent a twinge of guilt through us for not being out and about, exploring somewhere new to us. In our defense, the temperature wasn’t expected to rise that high, and the clouds were supposed to move in for the afternoon. So much for the weather forecast! We had gorgeous blue skies with plenty of sunshine through the day — I even got a touch of sun-color on my face.
That’s not to say we didn’t have fun at the coach; we did. And it was a productive day to boot. We took care of a few things inside during the morning when it was slightly more chilly; then we moved outside. I’ll focus on the latter in this post.
As you might imagine, with such a beautiful day at our disposal, we just had to have an al fresco lunch before tackling the day’s ‘sorta big’ project. Pulling out our camp chairs, we even made ourselves comfy.
After lunch, I managed to sneak in some downtime while Mui worked! Of course, that was in between documenting the project on which he was working.
First a bit of web browsing …
… then catching up on the news.
This wasn’t a project that was on the front burner — that is, until I read Mark’s post on Phaeton Place. I sent the link to Mui. He liked what he read on the blog and the RV Upgrades website, and placed an order for the same light — a Star Light Black Smart 1000 Porch Light. Thanks for doing the research for us, Mark.
Although this light has a bigger footprint than the one that was originally installed, it blends in better with the body of the coach because of the transparent lens. I also like that it is LED and more energy efficient. As well, the light is designed to cease functioning when it senses that the house batteries have dropped below 11.5 volts. That’s a really good thing :-)
In his post, Mark had noted that the installation looked easy. Mui can confirm that it is. It took just minutes to remove the old light and clean up the residual caulking. Then, it was a matter of five minutes or so to connect the new light to the existing electrical wires; fill the hole with some caulking; affix the light plate to the body of the coach with a couple of self-tapping screws; run a bead of black silicone caulking around the edges; and finally, place the clear lens cover to finish up the install.
Here’s the light still in its packaging.
First things first; let’s check out the instructions … just in case!
The old light comes off …
… and the new light gets installed.
Et voilà … the finished project.
In broad daylight, the motion sensor doesn’t work. That too is a good thing. However, the little blue light that indicates the sensor is working did blink when we tested it, so we have no reason to think the light won’t work as expected. Kudos on getting another project under your belt, Mui!
There’s this Homeland Security …
… as the t-shirt states.
During his nine years with DHS, he has served in various positions in the procurement organization. His most recent role as Industry Ombudsman carries with it the responsibility for organizing an annual Industry Day, which has an attendance of over 2,700 — in person and online.
The event held on 26 January was the last one he’ll be putting together before he retires at the end of the year. In announcing this to the industry attendees during the opening session, his boss also marked the occasion by presenting Mui with a pewter tray stamped with the DHS logo. What makes the tray special is that the signature of his current boss, along with those of his former bosses, are etched on the back.
This was the first time someone took photos at the event … so, I’ll share a few here. After all, it won’t be often — or perhaps ‘ever’ is a better word — that you’ll see Mui in a suit and tie once he retires ;-)
The pewter tray; alas no good way of photographing the finely etched signatures on the back.
Blogger has changed the word verification feature. The problem … these ‘supposed’ words can be far more difficult to decipher. (Usually worse than the ones in the screenshot to the right.)
No kidding! That’s about how long it took us to set up a wi-fi network using our Millenicom aircard and the CradlePoint CBR400 compact broadband router Mui ordered from B&H last week. (Our timing was good; the price has gone up $30+ since we placed the order.)
Now Mui and I can share the 20GB data package our Millenicom aircard offers.
We did the initial network set up at home after turning off our existing wireless network. The Quick Start Guide was right on the money, and soon we were both connected and surfing away at speeds equal to that of our home network. Adding my iMac, which is in the office upstairs, was just as easy and did not impact network performance at all.
Since we bought the CradlePoint to use in the Phaeton, our next step was to go to the storage lot and test everything there. Piece of cake. Thanks to the work we’d done at home to set up the network, the laptops connected instantaneously.
Happy campers computing away on the new network!
We have our phone service through Vonage and plan to keep it when we’re on the road. So our next step will be to connect the base phone to the router to see how it works out. Also, the CradlePoint will boost any campground wi-fi connections that are available; one more thing to test … maybe when we go on our spring outing in April.
Storms … bad weather days … the nemesis of every RVer. If we pay attention to weather forecasts, we can avoid the worst. If we have enough warning, we can move out of the way if we happen to be in the path of a storm. That’s the beauty of having a home on wheels.
But what about those sudden-onset storms that show up when least expected? Like the one that hit last spring while we were in the Outer Banks. We monitored the radar on our computer — luckily we had an internet connection; we spoke with the staff at the campground office to confirm that they were monitoring the imminent storm as well; and we were prepared to move to a cinderblock structure should the sirens go off. In the end, the storm passed to our west and north, and we just bore the brunt of some wind and rain. Those in mainland North Carolina and nearby states were not so lucky.
Being forewarned is being forearmed. So, a few weeks ago we ordered a Midland WR300 digital weather/all hazards alert radio. I won’t go into the features since the website (linked above) lists them all. (We bought it on Amazon for less than the stated price on the website.) Mui got the strobe light as well since I sleep with ear plugs.
We set up the radio at the condo and dialed in the appropriate county code. Now we wait. Don’t get me wrong. We’re not wishing for a storm or anything; that’s the last thing we want. But if the radio doesn’t go off with an alert, how do we know it’s working? That’s the dilemma!
Actually, the hose has had a custom-built home for a while, but I neglected to write a post at the time.
We were storing the sewer hose in a clear plastic bin with a lid, but it took up too much room in the basement. Before that, we kept the hose in a trash bag in the sewer connection bay, but that was before Mickey’s cousins stopped by for an uninvited visit and built a home inside the hose. Needless to say, they were evicted — home and all.
We looked at the usual storage options — you know the tubes sold at places like Camping World. We even bought one and brought it back to the Phaeton only to find that we’d have to remove the collar from the hose if we wanted it to fit inside the tube. Back to Camping World the tube went.
A bit of sawing to shorten the sleeve; a bit of drilling to put ventilation holes in the end caps; a bit of screwdriver action to mount it all in place … et voilà — for a fraction of the cost of one of those tube things, we have something that meets our needs and fits nicely along one side of the small basement compartment adjacent to the sewer hook-up bay. (The compartment in question is marked with blue lines in the photo to the right.)
I wasn’t with Mui when he went out to the coach to build the sewer hose housing, so I’m afraid the documentation of the project is a bit on the ‘lean’ side.
We saved money and the sewer hose is happy with its custom housing.
It’s good that Mui’s such a handyman! I see many more Phaeton projects in his future :-)
My ‘craftiness’ hasn’t been limited to just cross-stitch projects.
I’ve sewn a few things — never got good at it; probably because I didn’t much care for sewing. And still don’t. Ask me to hem something and you might as well ask me to jump in a lake somewhere!
I’ve done quite a bit of knitting — one of my first projects was an evening gala outfit consisting of a halter top and a floor-length tube skirt in a fancy pattern (I’ll have to see if I can dig up a photo); I also made the usual scarves, shawls, and throws. I still knit on occasion; mostly when mom is visiting and we can share the hobby.
I tried my hand at crocheting — I still use the spider web shawl I made in the 1970s; I also made an afghan or two, and a granny-square footstool for my father. I gave up crocheting as I found it to be too repetitive.
When we were living in Salt Lake City in the 1980s, I gave ceramics a whirl. Now, don’t get the idea that I threw pottery or anything. Nope, the wheel was not for me. I simply painted and decorated unfinished forms at a local studio; the firing of the finished product was included in the price of the item. Boy did I make a lot of things — for us and as gifts for others. What few I kept are already packed up for storage, but I found a few photos from way back (mostly of the gift items I made).
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Left: nursery Lamp; gift when my brother’s first son was born.
right: gift for my brother; he was interested in native american culture.
Gift for Mui; for his basement office
(sadly this was broken in the move from Utah to Virginia.)
Gifts and a few items for us.
I made the chicken (or is it a duck) for mom’s kitchen (yes, it traveled to Turkey). the nativity in the bottom corner was for one of my aunts; the orange cornucopia was for another aunt. the three other items were for us; some fell victim to accidental breakage while others found good homes elsewhere when we moved from Utah to Virginia.
Award winning ceramics projects.
the wreath decorated our home for many years; the color in the bottom photo is truer than the one above that shows the wreath decorated with dried baby’s breath. (I wish I had a close up of this one; the detail was amazing.) The deer sat by our fireplace for many-a-Christmas before one of them broke at the neck. The Christmas candy dish was a gift; as was the Halloween spook light.
I wonder what other treasures the photo-scanning project is going to uncover :-)
I'm not one to pat myself on the back — normally.
This recognition, received a few weeks ago, was for a project I completed at the end of 2011 to replace a COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) application we were using for tracking business development opportunities with a custom application using Microsoft SharePoint. It meant teaching myself the basics of SharePoint before I could even begin the first baby steps of development (with some support from our IT geeks). Now that it is launched, the new application is being used company-wide. I have to admit ... I'm proud of myself for this accomplishment.
