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This Week on Instagram

This Week on Instagram: March 22-28, 2014

This Week on Instagram March 22-28, 2014

Cousin time! We had so much fun courtesy parking outside Sam’s brother’s house for a few days this week. The kids jumped on the tramp, played Lego’s, we went on a bike ride, visited the Jelly Belly Factory, and earned 2 Jr. Ranger Badges! Whew. We also camped out at Samuel P. Taylor State Park closer to the coast. Tucked in among the Redwood trees, we’ve been absolutely content. We also survived the windy road out to the Point Reyes Lighthouse and climbed the 308 stairs down to see the Fresnel Lens.

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Homeschool

The Together Box

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We recently had the opportunity to try out a TogetherBox. Not quite sure what to expect, we were totally blown away with the box itself (supplies and directions) as well as how much fun we had. If you know me at all, you’ll have realized by now that I’m not exactly SuperCrafty Mom, so having 4 activities  detailed, layed out, all supplies included (with ideas for a few more) is a life saver. As the name implies, the activities are designed to do together as a family.

TogetherBox was created to make family together time easy. When you sign up, everything you need to have hours of family fun will land on your doorstep every month. You’ll spend less time researching, stressing and gathering supplies and more time spending quality time with your family. Each box will come with 3-4 carefully crafted activities, experiments and games around a surprise theme. All activities are designed to appeal to a large age group so your whole family can enjoy their time together.

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When you sign up, you’ll receive a box every month filled with fun things to do with your kids. We tried to do about one per week, but with our crazy schedule that proved to be a little difficult. We ended up doing one, and then 2 weeks later another one, and then the last two the same morning. Each box has a theme, and ours was the “Balloon Box”. Check out our activities:

Balloon Fountain

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Balloon Rockets

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Balloon Ninjas

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Together Balloon Box_019My kids absolutely loved this (and the adults did too). We are excited to try out our next box for the month of April! If you are interested in signing up, use code “currentlywandering” for $10 off your first box!

Categories
Airstream Accessories

Good Headphones – Necessary Traveling Work Equipment

One of the most important items for working in a busy, and sometimes noisy place is a GREAT set of headphones. I use AKG 271 MKII closed back studio headphones. I’ve had them for a few years and found them to be useful in my home office (the one without wheels) as well. I bought them on a recommendation of a colleague, and I’ve been very happy.

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Why are these headphones so awesome?

Each earpiece is large enough to fit around my hears without pressing my ear to my head. This is critical to comfort, and unfortunately hard to find. Or maybe I just have big ears. Either way, this allows me to wear them for hours if needed. I can only get away with an hour or so with earbuds, which just isn’t long enough.

The Closed Back design blocks out background sound. These are not noise cancelling headphones, which mostly only work on repeat noises like airplane engines. These just block the noise, and with music playing softly it blocks all unwanted noise from around me.

The sound quality is great. I’m no audiophile, but the sound on these things are amazing. I’m constantly hearing lower tones and picking up other small nuances in favorite songs that I’ve never heard before.

When I’m wearing my headphones, someone generally has to wave a hand in front of my face to get my attention, or I don’t notice they are talking to me.

Not quite perfect…

These things do not fold flat. They are bulky, but not enough to motivate a move to lesser quality earphones. One of these days, I’ll find a comparable set of headphones that has swivel ear cups, and that will be a nice upgrade.

No microphone. I often take work calls on my laptop, over Skype and Google Hangouts. Though I can’t hear my own background noise due to the stuff mentioned above, those I’m talking too usually can. I can often hear my own background noise louder through their feedback then I can through my own headphones. If I found a set of headphones with a good mic, I would share my noise a little less. My clients all know my traveling circumstances, so the noise is rarely a significant issue. Even so, I’d love a built in mic.

Listening Material

I listen to some podcasts, but mostly I listen to music while I work. My best work seems to be done to the sound of Moby, Lindsey Stirling, Samantha James, and The Piano Guys. If I’m in range of cellular data (unlimited on my phone), I’ll use Pandora. Otherwise, I’ll play the music stored on my computer.

As I try to work about 7 hours a day in a small space, having a great set of earphones is a definite must! If you’ve never spent $140 ish on a set of headphones, you should give it a try.

Categories
Fitness & Recipes

Airstream Kitchen: A Few of Our Favorite Recipes

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Cooking in an Airstream is really not that different from a regular kitchen. Okay, that’s not entirely true as I have less bowls, less utensils, and less specialty appliances. My salad spinner doubles as a salad bowl (minus the colander part), and sometimes also as a bowl to mix up pancakes. Everything seems to have more than one purpose, but that’s totally fine with me. I’d rather have less stuff and clutter than have a gazillion gadgets that only do one thing.

Even with a shortage of gadgets, we cook almost every day. I dislike planning what to eat and grocery shopping, but don’t mind the actual cooking part. In fact, its kind of fun as its one of the only times during the day that my kids will leave me peacefully alone. I tend to get all wrapped up in my thoughts and just have some “me” time. Its fantastic.

We’ve generally been eating less meat, mostly for financial reasons, but also because of freezer space. We just don’t have a lot of room. We’ll do a lot of rotisserie chicken, and black bean tacos (which are a total hit with my kids). We’ve also been spending time with family in Northern California, and it turns out they’ve pretty much gone vegan. Totally another story for another time, but its actually been really fun to see what they eat, and then come to the realization that some of OUR recent favorite recipes are also vegan. Who knew? I guess I’d just never thought about it like that before.

Some of the meals we’ve had recently have turned into favorites, so I thought I’d share a quick list.

Tortilla Soup (photo above) from Kraft Recipes: Love that this uses frozen chicken. The avocado and cilantro totally make the dish so don’t leave those out.

Chopped Salad with Quinoa, Sweet Potatoes and Apples: We packed this as a picnic lunch today to eat at the Jelly Belly Factory for the adults. It was fabulous. Sam said he could have eaten twice as much as we packed though. Would also be good with walnuts, almonds, or cashews and even chicken.

Quinoa, Black Bean, and Corn Tacos: I could eat these every day. I’ll usually make up a bunch and then put the leftovers on a salad the next day for lunch. Or just eat it plain.

Broiled Tilapia Parmesan: We all gobble this up. Kids included.

Creamy Southwestern Chicken Nachos: I changed this up and use rotisserie chicken and just make it on the stove. Works like a charm and is easy to whip up. My kids have dubbed this “Mom’s Famous Nachos”.

Creamy Tortellini Soup: I don’t make this one in the crock pot either and it works fine. As long as I don’t put too much spinach in it my kids will eat it.

I have some more Quinoa based, vegetarian meals I want to try as I’d love to only cook meat 2-3 times a week. We’ll see how quickly I get around to trying them out!

Categories
Inside the Airstream

Inside the Airstream: Bathroom Upgrades and Tour

I got a little stressed out back in San Diego, and one of the ways I apparently deal with stress is to redecorate. With only 188 sq feet of living space, I don’t have a whole lot of options, but I managed to change up the bathroom a bit to make it a little more exciting. We have a room on one side of the hallway that has the toilet, sink, and cabinets and then across the hall is the shower.

Here’s the before. Very functional, kind of boring. We did pick up the toothbrush holders on Amazon very first off (months ago) and they have been great. No problems with them ever falling off. We also added the command strip for a lower hand towel before we originally left. I knew the kids wouldn’t hang it up if they couldn’t reach.

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To spruce things up, we removed one of the towel bars (which we never really used anyway) and hung up some IKEA frames with photos using picture hanging command strips. I also bought a cute little IKEA plant (are we sensing a theme?) that sits on the counter. I seriously stared at this thing in the store for like 20 minutes deciding if I really wanted it. I hate clutter – I don’t want things on the counter as its just one more thing I have to put away when we drive. However, the cute little plant in the bright purple pot was just so cheerful I couldn’t resist.

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Here is the after. I moved one of the kid’s towels from the back bedroom to the towel bar to add a little more color and to fill the empty space above the toilet.

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And since no tour would be complete without photos of what is actually IN our cupboards, here you go! This one is a bit of a disaster just because of the shape. The curved back on the top one doesn’t help things stand up very straight and it all falls over when we drive anyway. I’d love Sam to make some custom divider things so that we can just cram it all on on end and it’ll stay upright.

The pink cases are from a Mary Kay make-up keeper I had. I just pulled them off the roll, ad they fit great right in that little space. Sam has one for his razor and deodorant (totally a man that doesn’t care that it is pink), I have my make-up day time stuff in one, and my face wash stuff (night time) in another.

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Under the sink there is a small cupboard that has extra towels, laundry detergent, hand soap, toilet paper, extra body wash, Windex, and 409. Its actually quite a small space, we just don’t have very much of the afore-mentioned supplies. Underneath that cupboard is the water heater so no space there.

Under the counter we keep some more randomness. A container under the toilet paper that has our elastic, brushes, and a comb. That one is constantly in and out and often gets left on the counter. Cotton swabs, extra make up, reserve shampoo and conditioner,  girl supplies, nail polish, extra chapstick, toothbrush heads, and baby wipes. Its your typical bathroom cupboard I suppose. I could probably keep it a bit more organized, but since the doors close and I don’t have to see it, I haven’t made that a priority.

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I was really surprised at the amount of storage space IN the bathroom at first. I had to hunt for things I felt comfortable storing in there (oats, anyone?) because we just didn’t have that much. The little Sterilite containers have been a life saver, helping me keep all the little things organized. I should probably pick a few more up next time we go to Wal-Mart. We try to live simply, so not having a lot is the easiest way to fit everything in.