I need to grow a thicker hide

That's it! I have the proof of the pudding! I am allergic to staying home over winter.

As Rob is converting a bus into a motorhome, we are destined to spend the bulk of this winter at home. And the result is both of us have contracted colds for the first time in years. I am so weak that I couldn't keep anything in for 3 days. Good news is that I have lost weight, bad news is that most of it is fluid and will come back quickly. The lack of energy is most definitely not welcome.

It has worked out extremely well for our family that we are home this winter as our eldest son & his family have had to move back from interstate at short notice. By staying with us, it gives them more time to find a house that they would be happy to buy rather than just taking the first place that comes up near their work.  As it worked out, they fell in love with the first house they went to and bought it straight away, so they were only with us for weeks instead of months. Also soon after they came back, our daughter in law had a conference to attend in New York and they wanted to take advantage of the trip and extend it to make it into a second honeymoon by leaving the two sweetest grand daughters with us for the duration.

The girls aw Wollongong Botanic Gardens

We did have a cruise around the Pacific Islands of Vanuatu, Mystery Island, Li Fou and Noumea planed which was fabulous to escape the start of the cold weather, the weather was fantastic. I only started getting sick after the trip.

Still I mustn't complain, it has been a relatively mild winter and I only have a temporary illness, nothing major if with a constant blocked nose. Apparently I have nasal polyps which may need to be surgically removed...but there's a 4 month wait just to see the specialist let alone get a surgery date! Oh it could be much, much worst.

I will just yearn for the warmer weather and watch my friends go off chasing the warmer sun elsewhere...our turn to hit the road will come again soon.

So tell me where you are this winter?

Eternity

If you grew up in Sydney, then you would have heard of the story of Arthur Stace and that he wrote the word "Eternity" in perfect Copperplate hand writing back in the 1940's and 1950's.

Some 'experts' reckon that Stace wrote this word in chalk some hundreds of thousands of times, some even estimated it could have be written 500,000 times. The chalked word was an enigma that gave rise to thought, consideration and talk. This one word became a powerful message and a sermon.

In more recent times in it indelibly imprinted on December 31st 1999 to midnight on 1st January 2000 when it was lit up on the Sydney Harbour Bridge for all of Sydney, Australia and indeed it was beamed across the world and seen by  millions of viewers as part of the New Year's Eve celebration marking the turn of the new millennium

You need to consider just where it is you intend to spend eternity.
http://www.biblesociety.org.au/news/michael-jensen-on-a-moment-of-eternity.

Half a million times, Arthur Stace bent down and wrote that word “Eternity” on the footpaths of Sydney. And it made a difference. It made a difference to many generations. We wont really know just how much difference that one word drawn in chalk has made until we are in heaven.

A permanent plaque found on the ground outside Sydney's Town Hall

So take a moment and think about Eternity and where are you going to spend it.
Will it be with Jesus or without Him?

Make your life count for Eternity.

The shower ensuite in progress

Another gorgeous sunny winter's day today, but unfortunately it is coming to an end with a cold wind coming straight off the snow fields. Still we can't complain really as it has been a mild winter so far and we are already more than half way through.

Rob did some work on the tiny shower ensuite. It is certainly not finished yet. I just thought I would write and let you know of the progress we are making here.

We deliberately designed a small bathroom, though Rob had hoped for a much larger one originally. It is an all in one shower/bathroom, as when it comes down to it, you really only spend a few minutes a couple of times a day in this little room.

You might remember that Rob made his own mould and fibreglassed a custom fitted shower to fit in the bus. As with many new things, it did not go smoothly. The release agent did not release and this has required a lot of very boring and difficult sanding which is still not completed. You can read more about his trials and tribulations with it here.

Regardless Rob has pressed on and installed the shower into the bus through the hole in the wall in which one of the slide outs is going to be installed.

Ensuite just installed through the bus side wall.

He has fitted the adjustable sliding shower head rail and hand tap in. To conserve space, it is over the sink as you can see here. It also keeps the water plumbing on the one side of the wall.

Rob has installed 2 hand rails to also double as an aid as we have to admit we are not getting any younger! I couldn't get back far enough to get the whole of the sliding shower unit in the photo!

A little window for some natural light as well as ventilation has also been cut in. The plumbing is incomplete at this stage.

A little window for some natural light and ventilation.

We wont be winning any awards for bathroom designs as we kept it purely functional and spartan. Being a wet environment, one is limited with designs. maybe one day I can paint it or utilize some pretty vinyl stickers. It is not exactly finished yet... so who knows just where we end up.

Lamb Casserole

I just love winters for the vast opportunities to cook soups and casseroles. This week I cooked a lamb casserole I adapted a recipe from 2013 August's Super Food Magazine in my Dream Pot. Rob wants me to repeat it... he loves it.
The meat was oh so tender!

However I can't leave a recipe alone and made not just one or 2 changes, so basically I have come up with my own version using their recipe as a starting point and inspiration.

My lamb casserole

This was quite filling and though the magazine says it serves 4, yet I reckon you can easily feed 6 people very generously!

Shelly's Lamb Casserole

Ingredients

1 teaspoon olive oil
1 kg lamb chops
1 large onion diced
3 garlic cloves sliced & chopped fine
410g tinned tomatoes
2 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 cup beef stock (I made it using beef stock cube & water)
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon rosemary
2 cups chopped cauliflower
1/4 cup peas
1 stick of celery diced very fine
100g mushrooms diced
2 large carrots sliced.
salt & pepper to taste

Method 

Heat oil and brown meat in frypan.  Add onion and garlic. Cook until onion is cooked. Add all the rest of the ingredients. Place lid on frypan and simmer gently for an hour. Top up fluid with water as needed if reducing too far and turn heat down a bit.
Boil water and heat both inner pots. Tip water out of larger pot and transfer simmering meat into HOT large inner pot.
Transfer larger pot into the insulating chamber of the Dream Pot.
Place smaller pot with boiling water still in it in the top of larger pot and place the inner lid on
Close the Dream Pot and set aside for minimum 5 hours, preferably 6-8 hours to allow it to keep on cooking in the residual heat.

I served it with boiled cabbage and mashed potatoes which I cooked independently. (I had intended to cook the cabbage in the smaller pot for the last 40 minutes, but I got carried away doing some sewing and forgot about it, so I zapped it in the microwave instead!)

Spicy Lamb Shanks

I have to say that I still prefer my Spicy Lamb Shanks which I did a month back. You can find the recipe here!

Try both and let me know which is your favourite. Or maybe you have a recipe I should try! Post it or a link to it in the comments! I would love to try some more recipes, even if it hasn't been adapted for a thermal cooker such as a Dream Pot, I reckon I could work it out!

We can move at last

Yabba Dabba Doo! After a few hiccups such as the wrong links sent, the complete drive chain has finally arrived. What a drama this has been.

At first 'they' send the wrong link to 'close' the chain.

 Just a recap: First it was too loose and this is a major part of the reason why the bus broke down just after Rob had driven it some 4,500km over 4 days and it broke down literally on the bottom of our very long driveway. We initially thought this was better than the diff playing up. It took a long time to find out how to get it fixed. Eventually we found out that the chain has to be hand made over in America. It was quite a blow but at least it can be replaced....eventually. In the meantime we got the buss pulled up to the top of the driveway but it has had to stay in the way of our regular cars and it was quite an eyesore. It also meant that there would be a considerable delay. However there were things we could do whilst we waited, which we have written about up until now.

Our drive chain is known as a Morse chain.

We booked the mechanic once again to come and install the chain. Then Rob is in a position to move the bus to the other side of the house closer to the garage. Now he is in the process of erecting some framework and tarp covering to enable him to work in all weather and to keep the roof dry when painting it and installing the solar panels.

The bus up on timbers and over next to the garage.

I am just happy to have the bus out of the way and make it 'friendlier' when first approaching the house instead of carefully picking your way through all the debris and clutter that seems to surround the bus just to get into the house!

Setting up the frame work before the tarps go on.

The tarp is up.

Forgiveness - letting go

I am deaf and from time to time I get to read the stories of other deaf people. Many I can relate to even though we obviously have different experiences and personalities. Some have wonderful support of friends and families and others struggle for acceptance.

This week I read of one lady's relationship struggle with her father. At the end was a wonderful quote that has touched a deep chord in me. You can read her story here.

I had a toxic relationship in my teenage years (that has nothing to do with my disability).   

Forgiveness does not come easy for most of us. A lesson I learnt  by the grace of God, is that I can forgive without needing the person to seek forgiveness.

Forgiveness has freed me and allowed me to move on with my life. Maybe one day I can introduce Jesus to him and help set him free in a way he has never experienced.

If you would like to understand more about forgiveness, then feel free to contact me or better still go to a church near you and ask them to explain it to you. 

Progress is slow

Well it has been quite a while since I posted about the bus conversion. Good grief, I just took a look back and it is worst than I thought. The last post about the actual bus conversion was way back in May and about the making the doors.

Part of the hold up has been family related with a son and his family moving in with us whilst they moved interstate and look for a new house in Sydney. It meant looking after their 2 little girls full time and so much bus work was slowed right down. We also had to wait for supplies to come in especially the drive chain from America.

It has been a delight to look after my 2 little grand children for some 4 weeks.

So while waiting for the drive chain there is obviously still much that could be done. Now most of it is boring but necessary. Sanding and rust proofing lots of areas and in improving the structural  strength in some areas.

A spot of rust that needs removing

A major time factor has been Rob's research of alternative energy sources for the bus. We want to make the motorhome as self sufficient as possible. We have looked into solar panels and the various ways to store and charge the batteries. This has been quite a steep learning curve. We learnt about longer lasting lithium batteries from a guy at the Sydney Super Show and we were keen to learn more. This required a lot of research and finally making contact with people who knew what they were talking about and were willing to share such knowledge with us.

From here we needed to work out the various lights and power points we will need. This will help us decide just how many batteries and solar panels we need. We now have electricity wires running all around the bus.  We rather hope we can do without requiring a generator at all if possible.

We  installed windows including the little window in the kitchen which I have deliberately kept rather small so that I could maximize the storage in and around the kitchen.

The little kitchen window.

So whilst nothing exciting has been written about or photographed, things are still happening in the background!