I haven’t mentioned SCA things here for a long time, but we haven’t been to an event in a while either.  Shane had agreed to make a lunch for That Moot Thingy XI which was held yesterday.  He spend a good portion of this past week, making homemade sausages, a 13th century sugar cookie, and some macaroni and cheese based on a 13th century poem and 13th century macaroni recipe.

On Friday, he went to the storage units and started looking for our garb.  We know it wasn’t left behind, since everything was moved, but most of it is in one of the two storage units.  Unfortunately, when he looked through totes he wasn’t able to find it.  This is the day before the event and suddenly we apparently don’t have anything to wear.  He was able to find a tote that had some things in which he expected to find the garb but it wasn’t there.  In the tote he did find, there was Allyssa older garb, including her very first garb from when she was only a few months old.  There was also a blue linen shirt/tunic Shane could wear but nothing for me in that tote.  Luckily I was able to give a friend a call and she had something I could borrow.

Oddly enough in that tote we also found our old camera.  I have no idea how it ended up in that tote, but there it was.  Shane ended up being right, it was pack in with other stuff and we would eventually come across it.  Though I do have to say I really like my new camera, so I’ll continue to use the new one.

Okay, the new camera actually arrived on Tuesday, but I’ve been enjoying it.  I’ve taken a number of pictures, and I really like how well it handles lowlight and flash.  I have taken several pictures of Allyssa, and she is quite the camera ham.  She wants her picture taken daily, and she wants to see every one of them as well.  I haven’t seen any yet that I like as well as the ones I took the day the camera arrived.  I’m sure I’ll find new favorites though as time comes.  I’ll have to find a few in portrait rather than landscape orientation so that I can update some picture frames.

I’ve been very pleased with it’s zoom function, and Shane has even tested it’s macro features on some of his HO scale trains.  It focuses well even in macro, shows plenty of detail, and all in all we’re very happy with this camera.

I’m very pleased at how well how easy it is to download from the camera to my computer which runs lubuntu (which is a LXDE variant of Ubuntu Linux).  I just plug in the USB cord to the computer, then the camera, and select PC on the camera.  I hadn’t uploaded from the old camera to my laptop,  mainly because we only had the one USB cord for the camera, and the laptop does have an SD slot if needed.  Since I prefer to run linux, it’s harder to install the windows software that came the camera, but I’m not really likely to have used it, or installed it even if I was using Windows so that’s no loss.

We purhased a 8GB class 6 SDHD card for the camera, and at the 14 MP setting we can take almost 1600 pictures before needing more memory space so I don’t think we’ll fill it up any time soon.  I’m planning on taking pictures off the camera at least monthly and more frequently if needed.  I am not sure we’ll even have 1600 pictures a month, but who knows?

It did not come with any sorta of camera case (our last one had a very basic stretchy case that came with it), so I found one I liked online (okay at ebay since they had the best price) and it’s on order.  What I like about the camera case I ordered is that it has a metal clip as well  as a double zipper.  The thought is that I should be able to carry it from a belt loop and still easily get to the camera when I wish.

Sometime this past summer, our well loved 10.1 MP camera which we purchased when Allyssa was a few weeks old, decided to go missing.  We apparently hadn’t used it in a while, and at some point it went missing.  Well, it was not found in the packing, cleaning, or moving from Karen’s.  Shane has found the camera case, but not the camera so I am under the firm opinion that it’s gone MIA.

So one of the things I wanted this Christmas was a new one.  We talked about getting one to use in a new web venture more on that when we get it up and running.  While both Shane and I would love to be able to purchase a Digital SLR it’s really not within our price range currently.  Instead I started with a price range of what we could afford, and started researching online.  I was really looking at a refurbished Kodak M580 (in purple naturally) it had some good reviews, and all the bad reviews seemed to center mainly around it freezing some of the time, but Kodak put out a firmware upgrade that fixed that–which several reviews mentioned fixed the problem as well.  And the ones that didn’t, were complaining that you while it had on camera selection of where you wanted to upload your photos, ie FB, Flickr, YouTube, etc you had to connect to the computer (and internet) to upload them.  Idiots, naturally you have to have some sort of network connection to upload your pictures.  I see no reason for them to build WiFi into a camera–even if they have built it into a SD card sd (they call it eye-fi).

When I was ready to purchase they didn’t have any refurbished ones remaining at the price I was looking at, so I widened my search a bit.  In the end I found that the Panasonic DMC-FH20 had better reviews both with users and professional reviews.  Both cameras are 14 MP with 8X optical (wide angle) zooms.  But since the Pansonic had better reviews, and they’re within $5 online, I decided that is the one I wanted.

Well I ordered it last night, and now am impatiently awaiting it’s arrival to actually play with it.  I must say, that I did go to play with a FH22 at Best Buy  since the only real difference is that the 22 has a touchscreen whereas the 20 does not.  In the store the FH22 took some nice sharp pictures of little girl (aka Allyssa) with zoom etc.  If it weren’t for the fact the store only carried black and didn’t have any up front (might have had some in the back but I didn’t wait to find out),  I might have come home with one last night.

Naturally with the camera MIA that means it’s SD card is as well.  So when I ordered the camera I also found a good buy on SDHD cards.  I ended up finding a 8GB Class 6 card.  If like me you didn’t know the difference in classes apparently the higher the class the faster it writes/records.  We had been to Office Max prior and they had a Kodak 4GB Class 4 card on sale for $12.99 and this was faster and twice the size for the same price.  Definitely received the better end of the deal ordering it with the camera and free shipping.

Now I am very impatiently awaiting the arrival of my package which is scheduled somewhere between January 6 and January 10th.  As soon as I have it I’ll put it good use, and I perhaps I’ll even remember to post some here….

I can tell I haven’t checked our website in a while, when I look at page and find the last update was in May, and now it’s already New Year’s Eve.

Apparently we’ve been too busy with the day-to-day living of life to take the time to update this blog.  Or too busy with the changes to write about them, and then when things settle down it would slip our minds.  Who knows, all I know is that lots have changed in the last 7 months.

One of the first changes from the last blogs, was that Shane is not working for his former employer.  There was a parting of the ways due mainly to a misunderstanding.  Apparently the boss thought that as Shane’s employer he should be in control of when and IF Shane should have free time.  Our family plans didn’t apparently mean much to his idea of deadlines and launch dates, even when notified well in advance, or when it was the weekend.

With that change it became more difficult to complete the trailer in a timely fashion like we hoped.  One of the things that really needed completing before we could work on the interior was the roof.  Well, CraigsList helped us out there with finding the right sized trusses and a wonderful price  for them to redo the roof.  Unfortunately there was several rather heavy rain storms before we had a chance to start on the roof, and with other hold-ups as well we weren’t able to complete the roof soon enough.  What do I mean about not being able to complete it soon enough, well simply that things took too long and the interior became very heavily mold infested.  Too much so, for us to feel safe to complete the trailer or move in.  Therefore the project was abandoned.

In September we moved out of Karen’s.  Instead we moved in with Shane’s brother, Scott, and his wife, Charity.  So now we are living in Arcadia, WI.  We had thought/hoped that with Ashley Furniture and Golden Plump here in town, there might be job opportunities locally.  Unfortunately we are the wrong ages and have the wrong skill-sets for those employers apparently.

December 13, my cousin, Brandi Lynn Allen, was fatally injured in a car accident.  It’s hard to believe that such a bright young woman of only 19 is no longer with us.  She will be missed by many.

Allyssa made out well with Santa this year.  She received some Thomas the Tank things, TinkerBell items, a couple of dolls, and a few other things as well.  It took her about 30 minutes, I believe to open all her gifts and she enjoyed every minute of it, and then became busy playing with her new gifts.

Unfortunately the 26th we seemed to have a bit of a flu bug around the house.  Allyssa seemed to have it first, during the late night of the 23rd, but Shane and I seemed to have a bit of it on the 26th.

Allyssa had her 3 year check up last week, and her doctor said she is doing good.  She is about 52% for her height and her weight was at the 25 or 26%.  So she is growing steadily and is just a tall lean girl.  There was an entire questionnaire for me to fill out so they could determine if her development is on schedule and apparently it is.  One of the questions as whether or not she speaks in 3-4 word sentences and then they wanted examples.  Naturally I can’t think of examples off the top of my head so I went with what Allyssa says while we where there,  which included:  “Can I have Thomas and Percy back now, please?”  She had taken her Thomas and Percy engines in, and I was carrying them for her at the time.

We have been working on potty training, but for a while it was tough going.  So bad that one day she had been sitting on her potty for over an hour  with no success, and less than 5 minutes after getting up off it, she had an “accident”.  Needless to say, I wasn’t so thrilled with all of this.  It felt as if she was being deliberately obstinate.  We had tried telling her that if she went an entire day without any accidents we’d buy her some more big girl panties and/or go to the “indoor park”. Then suddenly last Thursday she just decided that it was time apparently.  She had no accidents on Thursday at all.  Shane and I were both incredibly proud of her.

On Friday, we had a long day planned.  Shane was autocrating the May Day Pie Snit aka Pie Snit III, in Taylor, WI on Saturday.  We had some shopping and two people to pick up that day before heading up to Taylor.  Since it was easier to spend the night on site than go up on Friday to clean it and back early Saturday for the event.  One of the things we did was purchase Allyssa some more big girl panties, while we were taking care of our other errands.  And while we had long periods of time while driving and doing other things where a bathroom wasn’t available, she did extremely well on Friday as well.  No accidents at all!  Another proud day for Shane and I.

With the event on Saturday, Shane and I were busy.  While I was needed indoors, Allyssa kept wanting to go on the play equipment there.  Luckily for her, there was a girl at the event who agreed to play outside with her.  On the flip side, because Shane and I were so busy it was hard for us to reminder her to go to the bathroom.  In fact at one time, when I went out to reminder her to try, she had just had an accident.  Later, she was coming to get me, didn’t quite get to mom in time.  Therefore another accident.  But I really couldn’t blame her, she was in the early stages of training, and did need reminding.  She also tried to tell me, but wasn’t quite quick enough.   But today has been good.

Well, May Day Pie Snit was a really small event.  We had thought we would have more attendance then we did since the Queen was there, but at the last minute a number of practices and moots and turned up in the areas where we would normally draw our attendance from.  Even though it was small event, I believe it was enjoyed by all who attended.

Well, today was Allyssa’s 3rd birthday.  For me it’s hard to believe that she’s already 3 years old.

Yesterday we had a birthday party for Allyssa at Holland Park.  Allyssa was asked what she’d like for a theme for her party (okay not quite in those terms but she asked), and she chose Thomas.  Not much of a surprise there. While Shane was planning to make a Thomas the Train cake, he ran out of time.

We planned for about 30 people from the RSVPs we had received.  And then the day of the party, we had about half that actually in attendance.  Apparently things came up and some weren’t able to come.  Such is the way life goes.

Allyssa received many gifts and loved them all, she received art supplies and an easel, play dough, bubbles with tons of wands, a collection of polished rocks,  a doll house from grandma, and several Thomas trains among other things.

Today, we just had a quiet family day (well after Shane finished work that is).

Well, we have received good news (even if I’m a few days late posting it to the blog).   We will be closing on the trailer we were looking at on March 1st.  After that the trailer, while in poor condition, will officially be ours.

As I’ve said, it’s definitely not the world’s best trailer.  There is graffiti on the interior walls, mold in a couple of places, the living room carpet is in bad shape, and the vinyl tiles in the entry way and kitchen have come up in some places.  The only appliance in the entire trailer is an older gas stove.  But it is priced as something we could afford.  In fact, doing the math, with the deal we’re going to get on this trailer, even if we put in $6000 in repairs in the first year we would break even with paying rent at $750 a month for a year.  Then we will be benefiting from our upgrades and expenditures rather than just loosing the money in rent.

Our goal though is to try and be as frugal as possible with what we put into this trailer, so that down the road we can have a down payment towards something else.  Since we have to redo flooring, walls, and kitchen cabinets as well as purchase appliances our money won’t go far.

On Friday, we did some looking around.  We have a quote for appliances, and while we aren’t looking at the top of the line, what we’re interested in would cost us $3,000 alone.  A quick estimate on cheap kitchen cabinets is around $3,000 as well.  And that doesn’t include flooring or new walls.   This all means that our money could go very quickly, and since we don’t have it all up front, it could take a while.

One of the things this means is that as we planned, we will have to do the work ourselves.  We will also have to find some alternatives.  Instead of purchasing all the appliances new, we’ll most likely use FreeCycle or Craig’s List.  Originally, we thought about hardwood floors but then realized that since it’s a trailer, it would make more sense to go with laminate.  Neither of want carpet in the house, and luckily laminate is cheaper than carpet anyway.

As for the cost of cabinets, well, we’ve all but decided to go another direction there as well.  Instead of purchasing cabinets, we’re going to make them.  Shane’s brother made cabinets for their mother a number of years ago, that have stood up to four moves.  Therefore Shane is pretty sure he can make cabinets that would work also, “they’re just boxes.”  We will have to purchase a few tools to make them, but according to some quick math it looks like we should be able to make the cabinets for about half the cost of purchasing cabinets.

Once we close on the trailer, we’ll go in and take measurements.  Once we have those measurements, then we’ll plan out the exact layout we want.  We may make a few changes in the layout, but there are some things that are harder to change then others.  It’s not going to make sense to move the furnace, and while we could change the plumbing the less changes we have to make there as well, is probably the better.

Our plan is to redo the kitchen, it will most likely have a brand new layout, or at least a some updates to the layout.  We are also planning what most would consider a massive island.  We’re thinking about  5 x 7 in size,  which includes overhangs on two sides for seating.  Well, with an island that big in a trailer your not going to have room for a table.