As you know  from reading my blog, I like to have a routine. I have a  weekly routine that is from Flylady. She has different zones each week. As I’ve embraced minimalism and have less stuff, the zones are easier to do. This week I’ll be in the bathroom. Now we only have a small bathroom so it probably is different if you have 3. But daily I wipe down the bathroom, sink, toilet, and floor. When its the zone, I do the shelves, window and what might be needed. It might take a total of 15 minutes.

I started keeping a simple schedule when I was going thru more intensive chemo, as a way to just do 15 minutes a day of simple tasks. It really helped and now I enjoy being able to clean and tidy in short periods. Having way less stuff totally changed how much there was to dust and clean.

I also try and process one load of laundry a day at a minimum. I also keep the kitchen counters clear  and dishes in the dishwasher after use.

I don’t always get it all done but most days it’s the following of a simple routine that allows me to keep things tidy and clean.

If you’re starting to declutter and are becoming more minimalistic, a simple routine will help.  Of course, you might add in 15 minutes of decluttering too.

My kappa light chains are in the normal range and even went lower than last month, kappa light chains , normal, and the ratio is now normal. Last month the ratio was just a smidge over high normal. So exciting news. My m protein stayed the same at .2  I was hoping it had gone done even a smidge but still this is very good news. This is my week off and next week I will see him.  Last time he offered to reduce the dex, so this time, I will do that. It’s sorta hard to do since it does help and if my numbers trend up then it’s back to adding the 20mg. But I’m willing to give it a shot.  I’d love to go off dex all together but in the past, most of my therapies have worked best with dex. So….

Library news updated update….. I got an email from BM and it was nice. WE both were playing off cues  that resulted in us not really talking. But , there wasn’t really room anyway. It was a good outreach and I’d like to go over and have a talk some time if I can really find out what the LD really wanted to accomplish, and not the BS that I didn’t like the direction of the library. WTF did that come from? Well, I may never know. Anywho… it was a gesture.

Lunch at the civic center was nice even though it was only 3 of us.

Rain is starting to fall and it looks like it will continue till next week. Tomorrow we are going to pick up our new chickies. We’re going to get 5 since were down to 7. That would make a dozen. My daughter is selling the eggs like crazy and so that will be some pocket change for her.

Well, since I’m trying to be as frugal as possible and keep our grocery bill low, I decided, after reading a number of blogs about this, to try Zaycon farm to table chicken.

Well, it’s all natural, good. But not organic, okay, I can live with that.And it’s 40 lb boxes. Okay, that’s a lot of chicken, but its boneless chicken breasts. I went to pick it up yesterday. Very smooth operation. You drive up and viola, they load and all. Getting home and dealing with it, another whole story. It’s not individually wrapped, so, out come the freezer bags and about an hours worth of work. I’m still not sure if it’s going to be worth it but the cost difference is impressive. For Smart chicken, natural, not organic, it’s 6.99 a pound. Organic is $9.99 a pound. So this natural, no antibiotics etc is $ 1.69. That’s pretty good savings. So I hope it works out. they also have beef and some nice applewood hams, but Imaging to wait and see how this works out for a while. I would consider their bacon but some stuff only comes in occasionally.y. They also have wild caught shrimp and some other fish. But 40 lbs is still a lot. maybe the fish is 20lbs. Can’t remember. A lot of frugal cooks and bloggers love this  Zaycon, so I will say, the service was excellent.

On another note, my first labs came in with my CBC and CMP and they look great. WBC great, RBC, great. Platelets great!! Now we’ll see how my SPEP test comes back and Light chains.  I’m excited if there’s more of a drop in my m protein.

Okay, I’m going to be brave and go the FOAL meeting today. They need to vote on the board. I haven’t been to a meeting since they let me go and so I know the library director will be there plus the nasty  person, who actually was the one to call and tell me not to show up at the library. I still have a difficult time with how this went down. All they had to do was say we need to have you step back till they figured out what happened. The problem, I had nothing to do with it, so why was I asked to step back. But no, they just took it and ran. It’s still painful when you know what they did was wrong and I had no recourse being  only extra help. Oh, well, I’m going today to face them. It’ll be interesting to see if they even talk to me.

I have a plan to go and sit next to the couple of Friends who I like and supported me thru this. I also plan not to say much except  hello to the branch manager, since really she is the one who should have taken the fall. But no, (resentment here) she wouldn’t give up that job for anything. I thought she was a friend but not really in any way.

So, that’s my day, plus, I’m cooking chicken parmesan for dinner.(ha ha)

updated

Library meeting went fine. the LD wasn’t there nor her assistant. But the BM didn’t even say hi!  so what’s up with that…! well, at least I went and now I feel ok for the most part about it all.

I’m ready to go to the thrift store again, and the ASPCA bookstore to drop off stuff. Honestly, I wonder where it comes from. But since I just read a book that another blogger mentioned, “Clutters Last Stand”, I went to another level of getting stuff out. Plus,  I read a funny post by a blogger on 365thingsless, about getting rid of stuff not because it doesn’t spark joy, but that it annoys the heck out of you. Really, it spoke to me. I mean, I like Kondo’s book, but it’s not the way I started decluttering and even now, I just do it a different way than she suggests.

Tonight we’re having bean/rice bowls with avocado and lettuce and I think some shredded chicken.

We’ve had a lot of rain yesterday and today quite a lot more is due in. Plus the winds. the winds will be fairly high so hopefully, our trees are well grounded.  It’s actually supposed to keep raining all week with just a few breaks. I know we need the rain here in California, but it does get tiresome.

Last night we had a home made pizza fest. I made a sausage and pepper, mushroom and olive, chicken and bacon with white sauce and an arugula with goat cheese, and a plain cheese. I froze the plain cheese as we’d eaten a lot of the others. The winner for me was the arugula and goat cheese. It was yummy.

I’m also going int town today to give some woman my Waldorf cloth dolls that have been in a bin for almost 15 years. Back in the day, our kids were schooled in Waldorf education, so all their toys, for the most part, were made of natural materials. These dolls were quite the thing back then and actually pretty expensive. But cloth will not stand the test of time and it’s unlikely my daughter will have kids. she just isn’t interested at all. So in my last decluttering phase, these have now or soon will have gone to a family who can love and play with them. I feel good about this and I’m giving them to her for free.

the back of my van is loaded to go the thrift store, but with the rain, it’ll have to wait.

My VW bill was over $600, but it seems to be running well and I’m glad we fixed it and didn’t think, its time to get rid of it. We paid cash from our home money, which pretty much wiped it out but after paying our taxes with a credit card, I just didn’t want to add more. As it is the one CC is getting too much on it and when B’s next bonus comes in, it’ll need to be paid way down. First though we need to add to the EF as we keep dipping into it and that’s not good. I worry about how we’ll do when B actually retires. It’s a scary thought. But for now we keep plugging away. This month also is our property taxes and auto insurance is coming due. So lots of bills. For next year, I need to really have this spring surge of bills in the budget.

Well, off to town.

Well, it’s off to Sacramento for my infusion. For some reason, this is on Thursday, not the usual Wednesday.  Then were going to Winco this week to get some odds and ends like bulk poppy seeds, and other stuff.

IT’s suppose to start raining and keep going. At least off and on for 2 weeks. So much for our sunny Spring weather.

My VW is in the shop. Coming home from getting my labs it sputtered and the check engine light came on. It needs to be smogged and they won’t do it with the check engine light on, plus I don’t really want to break down. So it’s in our local shop, just a walk away. He said it’s the spark plugs and cords  and something else. This is a 2000 VW beetle, that was my daughters. And now it’s mine. We paid her for it when she  bought her Honda. It’s really been fun to drive but I have zero tolerance if a car isn’t working. We really need this to go another year since were still paying on B’s Santa Fe.

Other than that, I’m reading some fun decluttering books someone mentioned on another blog. They are by this guy Aslett, who wrote these in the 80’s. They’re actually pretty good if you can get past the weird cartoon drawings that are really annoying.