The decision to stay.

So this month will mark the 90 day anniversary of our move to Florida. For the first two months, I will admit I couldn't relax. I just kept thinking some huge cosmic rubber band was going to snap us back up north against our will. But my husband convinced me that our future is up to us. It's our decision where we end up and how we do when we get there.

So after much discussion, we decided to really put down some roots here. And by roots, I mean deck legs. Yes, we are building a deck. Well, no, we aren't. OMG. It's 100 freaking degrees out there! I mean, we are paying to have a deck built. One of the guys in the park works with another of the guys here and they build decks for the full-timers.

So this will make it official. Well, as official as it gets, I guess. I mean, when we do eventually leave, we can't take the deck with us. We'll have to "give" it to the resort like the one in Ohio that we bought used and already on-site at the campground there. But in the meantime, if you spread the payment out over 12 months, it's literally cheaper than the total monthly cost of Patrick's Dunkin Donut runs. How could we not add 128 square feet of living space?

It's going up over the patio area so we'll be forsaking a wonderful piece of concrete. But it will add a whole bunch of extra space for the dogs and I plan on buying some screen panels and hanging them from the awning so we'll finally be able to eat outside without being eaten alive ourselves!


After all, that is also where I cook every night.

Now, yes, for those of you who have never seen our humble abode, we do have a full kitchen setup inside. However, as any of you who have lived in smaller homes/apartments know, whatever you cook can and will smell up your entire house for days, especially if the rooms are open to each other. Well, in our home, every room but the bathroom is open to the  main area and I'd really appreciate it if my clothes didn't smell like frying fish, baking clams or even the occasional splurge of garlic-laden homemade red sauce. 

So some reconsideration of our set up was necessary if we were going to do live this lifestyle long-term.

First, we took the two old grills to metal recycling and bought a new smaller grill for 2 people (Bonus for the future: it's easy enough and tiny enough to get on a condo patio without paying movers to help). It's a pretty nice model that has enough room for 6-8 half pound hamburgers, which is still more than we would need, but it's got a great compact footprint, especially with the sides down.

It's only about 2x2 and it's fairly no frills, but it does have a really nice ceramic coated inside and it seems to cook very well. But will it hold up? We're notoriously hard on our grills, going through a gas grill every two seasons since we even grill throughout the winter months. Our longest lasting grill was the stainless steel Jenn Air Patrick bought with his first bonus check from BAE, and that lasted us 8 years. But not without all 3 burners dying on us and the starter going fairly early on.

So the BBQ is taken care of. We could grill meats and crisp up corn and potatoes, but what about pasta and sauce? Or frying anything? Our only other modes of cooking are in the microwave or in the toaster/convection oven combo inside. Back to the drawing board.

And that's how we got to investing a small bit into this new diddy:

She's a beaut, ain't she? I named her Sally the Stove. (I don't know why, she just looks like a Sally to me.) We had been eyeing her since we decided to do this trip and then when Patrick started working, we took the plunge and brought her home. Well, really, FedEx was kind enough to deliver her to us from her previous home at Amazon, but you get the picture.

She's got 2 burners, 30,000 BTU's each (your home stove is lucky if it's got 10,000 BTU burners on it as most are 5,000 and 7,500), so of course that means no teflon-coated pots lest we die from poisoning as it melts off the aluminum. (Did I mention I can boil 5 quarts of water in just under 3 minutes on her?)

Nope, everything has to go to cast iron or copper clad. Being that the cost of copper is outrageous and cast iron will last long enough to eventually be willed to my grandkids, we decided to go with the cheaper and longer lasting of the two.

So that then meant I had to add a few pieces to my already established collection of Lodge cast iron cookware. (Do you see where this is going? Have you caught on yet?)

Let me just state this before we go any further:

I LOVE LODGE COOKWARE.

If you've eaten at my house, you've probably been fed from my gorgeous rooster-red ceramic coated dutch oven. It is the bomb! Everything I've ever made in it comes out perfect each time. I can't tell you how much I love this piece!

From a whole 8lb 30 clove garlic chicken to enough Di Russo's sausage links to feed 30 people at 2010's Christmas Dinner, plus all the green peppers, onions and mushrooms it could hold, this baby is one beautiful and solidly build work horse that goes from the stove to the oven and back again with no issue.

All in a striking red paint job. Brilliant!

However, she's currently packed away  and buried in an unmarked and inaccessible box in the storage room. ACK!

So I had to head to Walmart and find something to replace her when we first came down here and were cooking right on the grates of the old grills. We picked up a 6" skillet, a grill pan and another 5 qt dutch oven. I figured that's a good start.

But I just felt with this new stove, there were still a few pieces missing. I searched online to see what else would make me a gourmet full-timing chef and I came across a griddle and this nifty combination of dutch oven base (that I'm going to use for making pasta and sauce in since it has a nice rounded bottom) and lid that doubles as a 10" skillet.

 

Now we're talking...

But how did this lead to the deck, you ask? 

Well, have you ever carried cast iron cookware? It's heavy. With food in it, it's freaking heavy!

So the way things were set up, we had the grill and the stove on the patio, which was down the 3 precarious shifty metal steps of our rig. Carrying food in and out meant having to brave a trip up and down this staircase that rocks like one of those carnival fun-house get-ups. Add to that a 20 lb pot of steaming hot liquidy food and you've got yourself a definite recipe for disaster.

So we opted to have the deck built.

Now all I will have to do at dinner time is step directly out the door onto a nice level surface, with my stove and my grill not but 5 feet away. No steps, no traversing concrete, no extra danger of scalding myself as I try to climb back up 3 wobbly stairs with 20 pounds of food and cookware in my hands. 

And it gives us somewhere to put the picnic table, a few of the wrought iron chairs we got from Craigslist, and second best of all, it gives the dogs somewhere to go outside where they will be safely confined so they can watch the world around them instead of staring at me blankly all day, stuck inside.

And if all else fails, while we're still here, it will double as a very weighted place to tie down all our outside stuff during the hurricanes...

Because if you know me at all, you know that's the main reason I signed on to have it built in the first place.  ;)