Time-out: Camping trip!

The Man and I decided to take a time-out from our house and all the work to the house, and take a little weekend camping trip in Malibu. Leo Carrillo State Beach/Park is our to-go to camp site. If we need to unplug and get away, it's close enough that we can drive to and far away enough from the city that we feel like we're in nature. It's about 40 miles from our house, in the Malibu canyons. Right next to a beautiful ocean filled with lots of tide pools and caves. Really cool and really quiet.


The first night we got there, Friday, was really, really windy. Like 60-70 miles/hour winds. It was really hard to get the tent setup, the fire going, cook, and also sleeping. Plus it was SO dry. Like crackling my skin dry. Wind + dry = not that pleasant of a first night. But hey, you roll with it at camp......

Sidenote, not to mention my OCD with cleanliness but during camp, all those OCDs are thrown out the door. I have an OCD to keep everything clean and tidy. Nope, not gonna happen at camp. Dirt and grime everywhere, sand, dust, shoes in the tent (we don't wear shoes in our house), more dirt and sand, even in our fingernails....omg).

(Ah my Eagle Scout, making a fire with kindling)

(Yay, we have fire!!)

(Our good ol' tent....Actually, this is the tent our family used for camping when I was growing up!
So it's really vintage. Reminds me of our family camp trips to Sequoia and other places!)

(Wind breaker thingy....on top of the tent. Setting up the tent is not hard at all, but
you do need 2 people to set up)

The next day we walked down to the beach....and unfortunately it was still very windy. Lots of sand flying around into your eyes and hitting you in the face. We spent a few hours here staring at the ocean, watching surfers catch a wave, exploring rock formation, and mostly reminiscing about our youth and how we used to come here much more often. How did we get so old?!

(The next day, what a glorious looking ocean!! So gorgeous, and windy too! Weather in January in CA, sunny
but windy, we are so blessed!)

(More caves and tide pools, water was of course freezing that day. But I couldn't help dipping my toes in
there. It felt so nice to feel the ocean again)

We headed back a little early and I took a nap in the car (because it was way too windy in the tent). Before sunset, we started dinner prep! Mexican night! Fajitas with grilled veggies and flour tortillas, spanish rice, roasted corn, baked potatoes, guacamole salad with tomatoes, and for dessert, traditional s'mores. What a tasty meal it was!! Camp cooking is always a bit of a pain, but it's fun eating outside and making food on a camp fire!

(Prep time for dinner!)

(Roasting corn in foil and making spanish rice for dinner....and the Man poking the embers)

(Fire is slowing giving away to embers. Beautiful. I love looking at camp fire)

(Now that we have embers, we're cooking up our veggies for the fajitas. Yum!!
Love grilled/charred veggies, they were tasty!)

(Kind of a dark image but we eventually got our skirt steak to cook as well and heated up some tortillas too.
Here's our makeshift taco stand! Cooking is so much harder at camp....and it's even harder in the
dark with winds blowing like crazy)

(Mmmmm, spanish rice, tacos with veggies and guac! Perfect camp food!)

(Corn took a long time, it even caught on fire!)

(Dessert, s'mores. And of course, a BLAZING fire!! So much fun!! Fire! Fire! Fire!)

Love unplugging and enjoying nature,
The Camping Lady

Ceiling's Done!

Yay, the Man finished the ceiling! Voila la! What a difference!! From cracking, ugly plaster to a smooth drywall finish.  The Man did a great job, and fairly quick too. Only about 2 weeks since the ceiling fell.

And our temporary living room is restored back to normal! For now....

It's so nice to have another room back again.....just having our bedroom was rough for the last 2 weeks....

Lady Out!

New Year, New Challenges

Happy New Year!! 2015!!

First blog of the year.... here we go.

What a delightful way to start the new year! On January 2nd, our ceiling in the "brown" room aka our TV and temporary living room just fell down. Yes, out of nowhere. Well not exactly. There was a hairline crack around Christmas time which exponentially grew everyday but we tried to ignore it, hoping it would just hold. And it did not hold. In fact, the plaster ceiling came crumbling down on our sofa and rug. Good thing my little Punas were not hurt! So here's the damage:

(Exposed lath and missing plaster)

(The Man was right on it, the next day filling the hole with drywall)

(Drywall puzzle)

(Drywall puzzle with washers to hold down the existing plaster ceiling edges)

(The Man carefully cutting out drywall "puzzle" pieces)

(The next day, plastering begins....and the Lady is taping up the seams with fabric mesh tape, to keep the seams from
cracking as the Man claims. There is no way to put mesh tape up without getting dirty, it's a messy job!)

(just like that, here's my contribution: mesh tape on the seams between drywall and plaster. The Man swears by
this. Otherwise, you'll be sorry with cracks down the seams)

(Tape while the plaster mud is still wet, so it can adhere well)

(Me on the ladder looking out to our street)

Offffff course with any construction or renovation, you always hit a hiccup. Plastering on the old ceiling with a combo of the new drywall has backfired a tad on the man. We got some major bubbling and peeling from the old ceiling (not strong enough to hold the new plaster), so the Man had to remove the new plaster that he just plastered on and put big chunks of mesh up on the ceiling to hold the new plaster to the old ceiling. Yes, complicated, tedious hard work.

It set him back a few days and frustrated him as well. He said he's drywalling all of the ceilings from now on.Sounds good! Plus we got some rain this weekend, which dampened the environment, so we couldn't paint. He finished plastering and sanding/sponging the ceilings but we're just waiting for all of it to dry up to paint.

Patience. Live and learn. Two attributes we will probably come across again and again this year.

Working mode,
The Lady