You never know what will greet you at the back door!
We leave for the beach the end of next week. I usually procrastinate preparations till I’m down to the wire then I’m exhausted by the time the trip starts. I don’t want to do that this time. The new electric jack for the camper arrived yesterday and Mr. FixIt wanted to get it put on right away. I hemmed and hawed and looked at the weather report. It’s going to rain every day till next Tuesday. I really don’t want to push it because…what if something’s wrong and I need parts or whatever? Can’t risk it, so we started the project.
Mr. FixIt has had trouble with fine motor skills in his hands ever since he had his two strokes five years ago. I often have to be his hands because he either can’t manipulate things like screws or bolts between his fingers or he doesn’t have the strength to grasp something tight enough with his hands. He was having trouble with one of the bolts that held the old jack in place, so I got the “cheater bar” out of the garage. That’s a pipe a little bigger around than the handle of the wrench you’re using. It’s about three feet long and it gives you leverage to loosen the tightest bolts. One twist and I had it off there.
I wanted to set the jack in place a quarter turn from the original position so I could have room to open the tailgate of the truck all the way when the camper is hooked up. However, the only way that would work was if we drilled a new hole. And if we did that, it wouldn’t be threaded for the bolt to attach. So I gave up on that idea. It wan’t long till we got that thing on and got everything put away.
By the time we were finished it was time for supper. I don’t know about you, but when I don’t have a lot of time to cook a meal, I love a good Hot Ham & Cheese with chips and call it good. You can’t really go wrong with a sandwich supper! Mr. FixIt has a procedure today, then I’m going to get started on meal planning and packing the kitchen boxes for the trip. Since we are all about saving money these days, I will pack most of the food we need and take it with us. As you can imagine, the food in the grocery stores on the Outer Banks is pretty expensive. We’ll pack the meat in the freezer compartment of the camper fridge. We’ll have things like tacos one night and taco salad the next. Spaghetti one night and homemade pizza the next. Chicken and noodles one night and chicken sandwiches the next. Any time you can make two meals out of one package of meat, it saves a lot of money. My biggest hurdle will be our bread. I imagine we’ll have to buy bread when we’re down there. *sigh*
I’m hoping we have some warm weather when we’re down there. It’s not nearly as much fun when it’s cold! Hopefully, we can supplement our food budget with fresh fish!
🌷💛🌷
“Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”” Hebrews 13:5 NLT
***Gratitude Journal***
I am grateful we have this opportunity to get away for a few days to spend by the ocean. The fact we have our health and can still pull a camper is a bonus blessing.
