Friday Things

Posted in budgeting, budgets, home improvement, swimming by

We’re back in the rain today and all weekend:( I know we need all we can get but geez, it gets kind of old. Anyway, I didn’t go out this morning so I could do a few house things.

I made up a batch of hummus from the garbanzos I cooked the other day. I planned the next week’s menu using the pantry challenge. Tonight I will use the one frozen pizza I have in the freezer. I’ll make a salad on the side. I tidied up my office space and did a swish and swipe in the bathroom. I planned to vacuum but all the kitties are sleeping!

I had a nice swim yesterday and the pool was not super busy. I usually swim Saturdays but with the next wave of the storm is tomorrow and it’s forecast to be heavier rain and some wind.

Our UHC medicare supplemental has a gym membership with Anytime Fitness for free so I signed up for that. B is already signed up and is going 2-3 x a week. I plan on using the gym for the treadmill and weights when I don’t want to drive down the hill. Plus it’s free!

We went to Costco on Wednesday and it was not too busy at all. We usually try and get there right at 9 but this time we were there at 10 and it was great. Plus we didn’t need a whole lot. I was primarily going to get the 4 pack of Nasocort I use to help clear my sinus cavity. This was something the doctor said to try and it does help. We bought about $100 in just groceries. I’ll add that amount to the food budget but the non food I’ll keep out of the low spend challenge. Things like AA batteries, allergy stuff are just maintenance stuff and need to be bought regardless of low spend month.

My favorite youtube, Minimom had a good budget video the other day. She had bought a download from Etsy that is compatible with Google Docs. I checked it out and I’m curious but I tend to like my budget on paper. It’s on sale today so I guess I’ll need to decide.

That’s it for now, hopefully, the rain will ease up. It’s hard not to go stir crazy.

Thankful Thursday

Posted in Gratitude by

I am very thankful it is NOT raining today!!! We’ve just been inundated with rain and wind so this is a nice break.

I’m thankful that the pantry challenge going well especially using my shelf-stable canned goods. This has been interesting and fun so far. By the end of the month, I’ll see what I still want to try and use up. I’m definitely not spending lots on groceries although at Costco yesterday we did pick up lettuce, cucumbers, coffee, and a few other things but minimal.

I’m so thankful to LLS for funding my health coverage. Our premiums are not cheap so this is a big help. I have to reapply in March so I’ll have to see if funding is open for Myeloma. Last year I had to wait about 6 weeks for funding to reopen.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cooking, Flylady, minimalism, reading, simplicity, swimming, Uncategorized by

We lost power for about an hour last night but I’m surprised it wasn’t more. It’s still raining so we decided not to walk this morning. I actually like walking in the rain as long as the wind isn’t blowing and today it is still windy. It looks like we’re in for rain all week. There have been many trees down so I hope ours can hold on. Even along I -80 I saw some pines that had fallen over.

I did go swimming yesterday and got a lane fairly quickly but by the time I was done lots of ‘new ‘ faces were showing up and the high school team again. I imagine it’ll slow down after a while with NY resolutions fading away.

Then I popped into Winco for salad stuff and other veggies. I didn’t buy a lot of anything else as I’m doing the pantry challenge which is to use up what I have. So far it is going splendidly. Last night we had some salmon I had in the freezer so that’s used up and we had a salad with it. I also used my last acorn squash from the farm stand I bought this fall. So overall I’m pleased with the challenge. This week I plan on using 2 pressure-canned soups, and some enchiladas from the freezer, and then see what else needs to be used up.

I just finished reading an excellent book called ” The Longing for Less” by Kyle Chayka. It is quite the essay on minimalism. I’d highly recommend it. I’m not planning on writing down the books I read this year as last year once I hit 150, I didn’t bother anymore.

Today, I plan on doing the Kitchen zone and then read some more. This week is a mellow week, with no appts. Depending on the weather though, I’ll go down to Roseville to swim and to the Rec center at least 1x.

Frugal Friday and we survived the storm!

Posted in bread, California, cooking, Uncategorized by

We made it thru this storm with rain and wind. The wind gusts were pretty scary up on this hill. We have(still) too many very big (100+ ft) Ponderosas. These trees are probably near the end of their life cycle and even 27 yrs ago when we moved here they were smaller. We’ve spent 10’s of thousands removing trees( the last tree was almost 5K) I think it was 4500? That was for 1 tree. It’s the saturated ground now that could be a concern because trees will fall if the ground can’t hold them. Well, today we have a break so that’s good. The coast and Santa Cruz area( including our favorite Capitola) were hit VERY hard and there has been lots of damage.

On to frugal Friday stuff. So far the pantry challenge is going well and I am using stuff from the freezer and in the fridge. Last night I made a red potato soup with carrots, onion, and celery. Then added some sour cream at the end. I needed to use the potatoes up and it was delicious. I had made a loaf of bread( sandwich) in the Zojirushi bread maker and we had that with butter. I always bake my loaf in the oven and not finish in the breadmaker. There’s a bread challenge going around Instagram somebody is doing and each month is dedicated to perfecting the type of bread such as sandwich, baguette, etc. I’m not too interested in doing it but reading tips on bread-making is always helpful.

I returned the one bread slicer I ordered from amazon. I thought it was too expensive for what it was so I’m still looking for one that’s cheaper. Or I just may keep slicing by hand which isn’t a problem, it’s just nice to have even slices.

Today I’m driving to Roseville to go to the gym and I have 2 holds at the library. I still haven’t been over to Anytime Fitness to sign up under UHC medicare’s free program but hope to do that next week. It’ll be nice to have an option for the gym closer.

We’ve been watching a hilarious show on Hulu,” Only Murders in the Bldg” with Martin Short and Steve Martin. If you have Hulu check it out or do what my daughter does and sign up for the free trial and then cancel. Then we’re watching Poirot and these are the earlier ones so it’s fun. We finished jack Ryan and it was good. I’m not crazy about Clancy’s writing but the character is good.

Tonight is pizza night and I’ll make one from the dough I froze.

I’ve been having some trouble with my left ear again, the one in that I had some hearing loss in last fall. It’s kind of a pressure. Does anyone have that symptom and what did you do. I’m not sure if it’s the inner ear or what . I see my PCP in a few weeks for my annual wellness check up so I’ll ask him but I thought I’d see if anyone has had something similar.

2023

Posted in California, Uncategorized by

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I write down some goals for the new year. This year I separated Household/Yard/Remodel Goals from my personal goals.

Household/ Yard Goals:

Gravel on the driveway

Buy a new weedeater( B’s died last fall)

Replace B’s office windows and restructure the wall.

Fix the carport roof( needs support beams added and a new felt roof)

Support under the house( this is an old house with a post and beam support system which frankly sucks)

I’m sure there are more…..

Some personal goals:

Keep on keeping on! I actually have a list I’m working on so I’ll update it when it’s done.

Keep using cash envelopes for some things. This has worked out well and I plan on continuing with food, misc, chicken food, and household the main ones.

Simple Sunday

Wow, have we gotten rain. There is flooding everywhere and the ground is saturated. We have a break today and then more rain is due this week. Well, we do need it.

Today we started the New Year with a walk, of course. I put a loaf of sourdough in the oven and then put my starter in the fridge. I’ll not make any more bread for a while as I have been freezing at least half of each loaf. I do plan on making a sandwich loaf in the bread maker later this week though.

This week I plan on swimming and going to the gym at least once. I’d like to swim at least 2x but I’ll see how the week shapes up.

My labs came back with a 1.7 increase in Kappa Light chains so I’m now at 27.7mg/L. That’s still fairly low so I’m ok with it and there wasn’t a big jump. It’s when there starts to be doubling increases, I’ll start to worry. 😦

Frugal Friday

Posted in bread, budgets, California, home stuff by

It is miserable out with rain, rain, and more rain. I decided after I got up at 5:30 am I wasn’t going to risk driving to Roseville to swim. It’s not the rain, although that is a factor, it’s more the crazy New Years’ eve drivers going up to Reno or Tahoe. So I worked on my batch of pizza dough to freeze and one for tonight.

Barclay came with me to Safeway to get the sub sandwich things( our New Years Eve tradition) and surprisingly it wasn’t too busy. Then we thought we’d have a coffee date at Starbucks with peppermint mochas, but alas, they had no peppermint syrup so we just had plain coffee.

I’m going full steam on sourdough bread making and here’s today’s loaf: a walnut raisin loaf with some KA white wheat.

I ordered a bread slicer thing to get even slices but I’m not sure that I’ll keep it. I can cut pretty good slices with my bread knife, but I thought I’d try it to see whether I like it. Now for the sandwich bread in the Zojuruishi, it’ll probably be great. It won’t be here till next week, but that’s ok.

For January, I plan on doing a pantry/ freezer challenge that the Youtuber, Three Rivers Homestead started. Basically, you set how much you want to spend in the month, like for dairy or fruit/ veggies, and then the rest of your meals come from the pantry or freezer. I think I’ll put in $100 and see how far that gets me. I do need to go to Costco once for some non food items like laundry soap and allergy pills but I’ll keep it to a minimum and not add that to the grocery bill. The idea is to start using what you’ve canned or processed so you can reduce your pantry in preparation for the coming year.

All the Christmas stuff is away and at Safeway, I bought a bunch of Eucalyptus branches to put in a glass jar.

Well, Have a safe New Years’ eve. I’m working on my list of goals for the year, some for house stuff, yard and, some just for myself to work on.

Thoughts 2022

Posted in California, camping, cooking, MDS, Uncategorized by

2022 started out awful with my sister suddenly dying of Interstitial Lung disease. It was so unexpected as she had been doing just fine and had never had a flare-up before. Her family was/is devastated. I still miss her even though we weren’t exactly ‘close’ we still had a good relationship and she was very kind and generous when Barclay was diagnosed with MDS. I miss her.

We were able to do many RV trips with Rubi and I’m grateful we bought this RV when we did and it fits us to a T. We really love that it is small but has everything we need( a bathroom). Our year started at New Brighton, then we went to Wrights Beach, Napa, and Tahoe and back to New Brighton. All our trips were great with no problems.

We had one tree taken out with a crane and it was expensive but worth it as we really couldn’t comfortably get Rubi out without being inches from the tree( or getting stuck, like the one time we were taking Rubi out and B couldn’t make the turn and had to inch by inch back it up. That was NOT fun.). A very worthwhile investment. Having the tree out makes going out with the trailer easy.

We’ve all been healthy this year and that’s the most important thing.

This year I learned to pressure can and was gifted a pressure canner thru out local ‘Pay it Forward’ group. It’s been fun and rewarding to can shelf-stable soups, beans, sauces, and more. I hope to buy an All-American this spring for more pressure-canning adventures.

I went to our local farm almost weekly and loved getting farm fresh veggies. Not inexpensive but it does support what they are doing right here in our little town.

I’m glad I started utilizing the gym at the Rec Center this summer. It’s part of my membership( which I was only using for swimming) and doing weights again has been very helpful in feeling stronger.

Our vegetable gardens did well thanks to my daughter and we had lots of good produce and herbs. I’m hoping we can add another raised bed this spring.

I didn’t do a lot of decluttering this year but there were still trips to the thrift store to drop off misc. I’m probably at a point where there is not a lot to declutter but always something that I find no longer useful or beautiful.

I’m sure there’s lots more that happened and I may add to this when I think about things as a record of 2022.

Friday things

Posted in budgets, California, cash envelopes, swimming, Uncategorized, Walking by

Another nice walk without being too cold. Sunrise is 7:20 am and was the same yesterday.

Today is just a pottering day and tidying things up. I’m not sure why things look more ‘untogether’ around Christmas. Maybe it’s the Christmas tree and the few decorations I have around although I even put a few away as I felt it was too much visually. Maybe it’s being stuck inside a lot with the rain and cold.

We’ve had fun with the ‘ugliest’ tree ornament game again. So far the pink sparkly dinosaur is winning but it’s a close runner-up with pineapple face. <>!!!!

I’m debating going to the pool tomorrow. I want to go but I’m not sure about the traffic on Christmas eve day. I guess I’ll wake up and see how I feel. I need to check the hours too as I think I saw something about that on the way out the other day but didn’t pay attention to it.

Tonight we’re ordering a pizza so I won’t have to cook. That’ll be nice.

My January budget will go from Dec.26 to January 25 approx. I do think the cash envelopes are helping with some things like Home Depot, bird/chicken food, groceries ( to some degree), and, misc. For now, I’m going to keep doing it. January will be a low spend month with no extras. I plan on holding off on Costco till we need coffee. The biggest change is going to be saving from SS the extra increase so we can use that for annual bills. Plus whatever other money we can put towards that fund from anything else.

Winter Solstice

Posted in California, cooking, seasonal things, simple foods, Walking by

Yesterday was the Solstice and I am glad the longest night and shortest day are over. Of course here in California, it doesn’t really start to turn around and be that noticeable for a few weeks or so. Still, we will notice the increase in light probably in the afternoon.

Today is a run errands day. First to Safeway to get the fondue stuff for Christmas Eve. Then Target to get a calendar. I also will stop at Holiday Market( if I have any energy left) to get their coupon specials for the week.

I have one more night of beeswax Hanukkah candles left and then it’ll just be regular beeswax candles. My daughter has been reading out loud ” A Christmas Carol” while the candles burn down. Charles Dickens was a very flowery descriptive writer. It’s been fun.

I ended up with 10 1/2 pints of Seville marmalade. Some are more runny than others and I’m guessing it’s where the pectin was in the pot. I don’t mind it that way and it’s great as a sauce for chicken or tofu. Then the pear chutney ended up with 8 1/4 pints and we had one the first night and it was delicious.