Monthly Archives: October 2020

Frugal Friday

Posted in books, budgeting, budgets, cooking, home stuff, Uncategorized by

It was a frugal week overall. The grocery shop at Trader Joe’s will go on November’s grocery bill. So far October has been around $800 all inclusive. That’s food, non food and alcohol. So actually I’m ok with that total. For 4 people eating 3 meals a day, I’d say it’s quite good.

Gas has been quite reduced since we don’t really drive anywhere. I fill my VW up about every 6 weeks and that runs around $30. The Santa Fe fills up about once a month at $50. So really that is a big savings.

All our annual bills are done for the year so that’s also a savings as we wont have property tax or Allstate till next spring. I paid the property tax way early( for once) and that’s kinda nice. Usually I’d wait till the first week of December to do it.

We don’t have family to buy gifts for so that reduces Christmas spending. I usually get my brother a GC to either Tractor Supply or Starbucks. Then I send my sister a consumable gift usually wine or something a little fancy.

For us, I keep it simple. For each of us, one book(almost always an Easton Press), one piece of clothing, something fun, and something they need. My son will get a GC to Home Depot since he’s working on the barn and rebuilding/strengthening part of it. I still end up spending more than I’d like but it’s not bad. I try and buy all year long when I see something then I don’t have to think about it. Pre pandemic, I would often find things at the thrift store all year to put away for Christmas but not this year. I’ve gone into Goodwill 2x since the pandemic started and it wasn’t all that interesting.

Tonight is pizza night and I think we’re going to order something. I need to check but I think we’ve done 2 takeouts this month. Well, I know one was the free pizza from the store and my daughter bought Tacos one day so I’m not sure what else we did this month. Anyway, I don’t have the pizza dough made so that kinda settles it anyway.

I finished the Return of the King yesterday. The trilogy takes me about a month to get thru and is thoroughly enjoyable everytime I read it. This is my 3rd or 4th time. Next up I’m going to re read, To Kill a Mockingbird as part of that takes place at halloween( BOO Radley!!). Anyway, I was going to start Dracula which I also read once a year but maybe later.

Thursday stuff

Posted in cancer, cooking, covid-19, Halloween, Multiple myeloma, Myeloma, Political things, prepper pantry, Walking by

Yesterday was my doctor appointment and it went well. I’ll have my 8 week labs around the first week of December, then see him right after Christmas, then start Velcade/Dex in January. He did mention that there is a pill form of Velcade but since that would be a tier 5 drug, I just don’t want to deal with that. So the shot isn’t bad and neither is the drive. ( We got there in 50 minutes yesterday with NO traffic. So it’ll be 3 weeks on one week off. I’ll be ready!!!

I am having lots of anxiety about the election next week, along with the rest of the country.( well, intelligent people who can see Trump for what he is). It’s just a lingering underlying stress as to what’s going to happen. It’s not keeping me awake at night but still, I read the news compulsively for clues. Well, I guess we’ll know soon enough.

We shopped at Trader Joe’s in Roseville after the doctor appt( which was why B came with me). It was pretty packed with people but everyone HAS to wear a mask so it was ok. I loaded up on lots of things. Some prepper stuff like canola spray and tamari, and some just regular food. We were home by 12 noon so not bad at all.

As I mentioned, we adjusted our walk time till 6 so as to try and avoid jerk walker. He’s still there though and just as abrupt but at least walking the other way has made a huge difference. 6 am is nice because by 6:30 it’s predawn and the sky is lightening up. Sunday is daylight savings so I figure we will just walk when we feel ready and see what time that ends up being. I’m guessing the jerk will go by the darkness not the time. One example of him still being a jerk. So the confrontation was about his not using a flashlight, right? So he has been using one. Then this morning I saw him have it on and then as he approached us he turned it off. Uhh…passive aggressive anyone????

Tonight my son is going to make us an Oktoberfest dinner of Bratwurst something( not sure yet exactly what he’s doing) but at least I don’t have to cook.

I have a loaf of rye sourdough baking and it didn’t puff as much as I’d like but it still tastes great.

We are still getting lots of eggs and I’ve been keeping up on using them. I put it out on Nextdoor neighbor but no one answered. I’m guessing with the pandemic when everyone was buying chicks, and now they are all laying eggs. It’s okay, in a few months they will slow down once it gets cold.

I have loved lighting my beeswax candles for dinner time. I have lots of pumpkins on the table and around. We’ve been having a fire every morning too. It’s been about 45 degrees out, so chilly.

Clear skies but noisy generators….

Posted in California, covid-19, Political things by

I swear I’m ready to go buy 160 acres somewhere just for quiet. Yes, we have a generator but it’s a Honda and very quiet. Plus, we don’t run it all night just a few hours a day to keep the fridge cold and the freezer. Oh and charge our phones.

The new neighbors are the culprits. Why???? Do you really need to have every light in your house on????? It really drives me crazy.

We did check on our very old neighbor and he said he was ok but I don’t know. He doesn’t have back up lighting and only cooks with a microwave. Today, Meals on Wheels should show up at least for his lunch. It just goes on and on with his stuff only because his family is so negelient.

Well, on a positive note the skies are a brilliant blue. Our winds so far haven’t been too bad but we’ll see what today brings. Fingers crossed we don’t get a fire anywhere.

Personally, I’m all in on PGE turning power off. If it saves lives and property. Lots of people complaining and blaming Governor Newsom. What’s he got to do with it?? Is he making the wind??? I think he has done an amazing job with fire stuff and the pandemic. It’s the god damned Republicans that can’t handle it. Well, I guess that was the end of my positiveness.

Today is a sad day for Americans and women with the nomination of Barret to the SC. I feel we are going back to some hard times for women because of her ultra conservative views on gender, Roe, and just all of it. It just makes me want scream and then throw up .

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, California, cooking, covid-19, Myeloma, Uncategorized, Walking by

We are on extreme fire alert today thru Tuesday. Power will be shut off this afternoon. Scary stuff. Plus everything is so dry. These winds are supposed to be quite bad all the way to the Bay area. Geez. We really need a break here.

The winner of the bread recipe so far is the No knead sourdough. Both the rye and the white were superb. I may just keep tweaking it so it’s perfect. Of course, come next summer, I’ll abandon bread making and forget it all. Hummm…. maybe that’s why I blog about bread, so as to have a written history.

Success!!! We are walking a little later at 6am. The jerk is still there, but we are walking in the OPPOSITE direction and it makes all the difference since he’s not storming up behind us. Now he just storms by with his dog. It has been GREAT!

I had my biennial mammogram and will get the results next week. Since I didn’t hear anything I’m guessing it’s ok. I was in and out in record time as they have scheduled everything with Covid in mind so appts are spaced.

This week is my oncology appt. I’m not too concerned since I know it’s another 2 months before I’m starting something. That puts me after Christmas. So if all goes accordingly, I’ll wager January. After my appt, I plan to hit up Trader Joe’s in Roseville on the way home. I haven’t been there in months. There’s a few things I specifically want from there ( besides the Charles Shaw), tamari, hash browns, some frozen stuff which TJ’s does a great job of. That will go on my November food budget.

I was out in the prepper pantry in the barn the other day, and it looks great. I have to say, we did a great job on both food and nonfood. I can see periodically adding stuff but for the most part we are using stuff on rotation and then replacing.

The gardens are all cleaned up for winter. My daughter does a great job pulling everything up and putting it in the compost. We haven’t planted anything else yet but I may encourage her to start some chard and cold weather stuff. She did plant all the bulbs I ordered. I ordered 3 giant bags. We have one designated bulb area and in the spring it is very pretty.

This week is the living room zone, so I’ll wash windows and do a deeper dusting.

Halloween stuff..

Lanterns for later when the power is out.

Of course, we have out generators too but we’ll use them tomorrow for a few hours for the freezer and fridge.

Bread making continues…

Posted in bread, cooking, Uncategorized, Walking by

Even though temperatures are in the high 80’s, it is fall.

I think this is the warmest October I can ever remember here. Still, I’m back into bread making. Bread making is definitely an art form, and in the summer when I don’t make any, I have to get the feel for it all over again by fall.

I’ve been feeding my sourdough starter quite diligently sna it’s doing great. i probably have too many jars going as the counter is often filled with jars in different stages of bubbling. It looks a bit like a science experiment.

This in the jars just fed, so it will double in size.

This is the rye starter.

Yesterday, I made a sourdough sandwich loaf. It didn’t rise as much as I would have liked but it is a softer bread( the crumb that is). It has milk in it which will always make a softer bread.

My favorite so far is the sourdough rye. It is dense and just delicious. Today I’m going to experiment with a no knead sourdough rye. we’ll see??

Yesterday for Sunday breakfast I made sourdough banana pancakes with discard. For some reason, I’m loathe to toss the discard after you do another feed. It just seems wasteful. Besides pancakes, I found lots of recipes like biscuits, and pumpkin bread so I’m definitely going to try and use some of the discard in other recipes.

Today I’m going in to the bank to get the print out of our payment to UHC so LLS can reimburse me.

Today was our no walk day. We had a confrontation yesterday with dog walker. He doesn’t use a flashlight and with no moon it is dark. We try very hard to get out of his way but when he comes around behind us, I shine the flashlight on him. Well, yesterday he flipped out. I think he was partially right that I didn’t need to shine it on him but it does let us see where he is. Anyway, it wasn’t nice. So tomorrow we are going to walk in the opposite direction so we can see him coming. Not sure if that will help but I’ll try. I think we need to try and say good morning although in the past when we have, he just ignores us so not sure about that. I did apologize for shining the flashlight at him but he didn’t seem to want to let it go. It’s an unfortunate series of events because we like being there early and in our almost 9 years of walking in the park we have never had a belligerent person. So this is kinda new and I’m not sure how we will approach it. We could time arriving when he leaves but I actually don’t know that since we only walk for 40 minutes and he does at least an hour so????

Any ideas?? walk later? earlier? ( that would be a stretch since we start at 5:15am. oh well, it was/is depressing.

Unfortunately, there are no other paved trails around us. The closest would be down in Folsom and that’s 40 minutes away.

Five on Friday

Posted in Lake tahoe, travel by

We finally got off our asses and drove up to the West side of the lake for a day trip. It was really glorious. The west side( Tahoe City, Tahoma, Meeks Bay is closer so that’s where we headed.

First we stopped along the paved trail that runs along the Truckee river and walked some. Beautiful fall foliage. The trail was pretty empty except for some bicyclists. Nobody else walking.

Then we went on into Tahoe City to our favorite coffee house, Tahoe house. It required everyone to wear a mask and use the lines spaced out on the floor. We got 2 coffees and a danish to share. All their food is made on site and quite delicious. It was cool that they had signs on the tables that showed green for sanitized and then when you left you flipped it over and it was red and said not sanitized. It seemed they were coming around frequently to wipe tables.

Then we went on down to Meeks Bay which is a forest service campground and beach. There were only a few other people on the beach and all a good distance away from us. We ate our picnic lunch and relaxed. the only thing we needed were our beach chairs( which I didn’t even think about) as the blanket was okay to sit on but not really laying down.

This is looking East toward Nevada Beach.

All in all, totally worth it.

I paid the property taxes this week. At least we had the money. There were many years where we had to make payment arrangements because we didn’t have the money. So I am grateful for that. I’d like to plan next year to pay the whole year at once as opposed to the twice schedule. But that wouldn’t be till a year from now. That would give me time to strategize that into the budget.

We also paid our PO Box fee for the year. So I think that is all our annual bills till next spring.

We’ve all voted!! If you get a chance to read the NYT editorial today about voting Trump out, you should. It is a superb write up about how dangerous he is for this country and how we as a democracy will suffer if he is reelected.

Today, I don’t have a whole lot going on. I’m feeding my sourdough starter with rye flour to make another rye loaf. I plan to go in to Target for shower curtains and that’s about it.

A few more random thoughts on creating a minimalist home space.

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I was still thinking about this yesterday, as we drove up to Tahoe! It was stunning up there and I shall post a blog about it tomorrow.

Keeping as many surfaces clear off things is essential. I keep my kitchen counters mostly clear. I have a toaster oven, a Britta water pitcher, and my kitchen aid mixer(in the corner) and that’s it. I work at it all day to clean up after I cook or do anything so it remains clear. If I put things on a side table, I limit it to 1-3 things. Such as on the side small dresser in the living room, I only keep the mini google play and lamp on it. In the bedroom, I keep the dresser clear except for a candle or infuser. Of course, there are times I use the dresser as a landing for things( like right now, I have mylar bags of flour) until I move them to their future location. Usually, I keep the dining room table clear except for my beeswax tapers, but right now I have fall items there too. A jar of fall flowers from the garden, some acorns, and the small pumpkins from the garden.

It’s absolutely true, that clutter attracts clutter. It’s a slippery slope of putting one thing on a counter and pretty soon there’s a pile:(

Have a designated place for everything. Also, know where you put things and as I like to say” where they live”. For instance, we have one drawer for batteries. That’s where they live. The same is true for dishes, pots, utensils, etc. It does make your life way simpler than trying to remember where you put something.

Keep like with like. It goes without saying, it just makes life easier to keep things that are similar together. I keep my office stuff( envelopes, pens, post-its, etc) all in one drawer.

Keep pictures on the walls to a minimum or designate one wall for art. Again, too much visual clutter is distracting. In my office room, I have one wall with our most colorful art. A Bob Dylan poster by Glasner, framed Grateful dead records, my favorite Star Trek Poster, and our Woodstock Life magazines. In other rooms, I try not to have a lot of art on the walls. When I did Feng Shui, one thing to always look at in art/wall items, is what message is it sending? Is it a weird picture of ancient relatives, art that is disturbing? It’s things like that to keep in mind. I remember one time doing a consultation with a woman who had very large framed photos of “old” relatives( like from the late 1800″s and early 1900s, all down her hall. It was very scary having those eyes watching every time she walked down her hall. I don’t think she ever took my recommendation, to take them down.

Finally, if you live in a small house, keep yours walls painted the same color( I use Benjamin Moore’s Simple White) to create a homogenous flow from room to room. It really does make a difference, as I can attest too. The onlyroom that is different is my daughters which is lovely light sage green( very wabi- sabi) and the bathroom which is a very pale grey blue, also very wabi sabi.

Everyone’s journey is different. The reasons you want to declutter and have a more minimalist home are different from mine. But do try is create a more simple clutter free space to enjoy, you will be happier for it.

Ideas for becoming more Minimalist

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When I started decluttering, minimalism wasn’t quite in the picture.

I started collecting vintage 40’s and 50’s things for about 10 years( somewhere around 2002). That started with the Life magazines I bought at an estate sale. Originally, I planned to cut out ads for like cars, coke cola, etc and then sell those at flea markets. I did that off an on for a few years. I also sold lots of magazines on Ebay. At that time Life magazines were very collectible and I made a good amount of money.

I also started collecting lots of interesting things( to me). My love of Heywood Wakefield was born and a style that was minimal and scandinavian. But I also had collections of thing I loved like vintage buttons, pyrex, old fans, dishes and lots of other things .

I’m not sure what triggered the “aha” moment but it was around 2010. I had too much stuff for this small house. Recently, I found a few pictures of the front room and frankly, I was appalled at how it looked.

So I started selling and giving away tons of stuff.

But there are a few things that really helped me declutter and minimize:

1. There is only so much space in any given area and when that space is filled nothing else can go there. Such as books. When the shelf is filled with books and you have more books than shelves, you must get rid of some books as that is all the space there is. The same is true of drawers, kitchen cabinets, etc. This concept really rung true for me and to this day, is one I still use.

2. In the same vein, one in and one out is also very important to keep clutter from coming back. If I buy a new t-shirt ,for instance, one old one needs to go.

3. Visual clutter clearly affects how you feel in your home space. I think I didn’t realize this for a long time. And it wasn’t till I started clearly stuff out that I made the connection of having too much ‘stuff’ on display and feeling overwhelmed. Even today, when I start feeling overwhelmed, I look around at what needs to be either tidied up or removed from my space.

4. White space. I never knew about this concept in interior design but it fits with minimalism. Basically its space left open and clear. Instead of putting, let’s say a side table somewhere, you leave that space open. I think it reduces what’s in a space but also visually it allows your eyes to not get ‘stuck’ looking over a room.

5. And of course, there’s KonMari. That really came way later in my journey of minimalism but I still went thru each category and did declutter another layer of things that did not spark joy. I think her method is good, but I would definitely recommend starting small like cleaning out drawers, or duplicates of things in rooms, or items you know you haven’t used in a year. Ithink it’s important to think about the why too. For me, I just didn’t want the clutter and wanted my house to look simple and streamlined.

I still have a ways to go and often think about getting rid of even more things but for now it’s a good balance of what we’re using and purposeful and minimal.

It’s a Struggle…

Posted in Blood test, Multiple myeloma, Myeloma, Uncategorized by

Honestly, it is hard at times to be positive about having cancer. I can compartmentalize most of the time and I do. But then when labs come in and you have to face the reality it is hard.

I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in 2005, had the autologous transplant in 2006. I know how lucky I am to even still be here but it doesn’t make it easier. I relapsed in 2010 and actually did great on Revlimid ( aside from it causing severe IBS) for 5 years and then that stopped working. My kappa light chains went up to almost 1100mg/L so pretty high and my ratio was way up at 92mg/L. Velcade or bortezomib is a proteasome inhibitor and worked astonishing well. Within 2 cycles my numbers were almost in the normal range. And that has lasted 4 whole years.

I have no complaints. But the reality is now my numbers are increasing exponentially and I have to deal with it. With my new numbers, I still think it will be January 2021 when I restart Velcade. Since I get my labs every 8 weeks that puts me at the beginning of December, with a doctor visit by the end of the month and then a start date. Velcade means weekly trips to the infusion center. It’s 3 weeks on 1 week off.

It’s depressing but the fact remains I have a cancer that goes in to remission and then re-emerges. It’s never going to disappear. Don’t get me wrong, I am exceedingly fortunate not to be dead from this already, so it’s really just a matter of buck up and deal with it. So many cyber friends with myeloma are long gone with very aggressive myeloma. Mine is always there but so far hasn’t been aggressive.

So here’s the numbers:

Kappa light chains at 382.mg/L up from 239.2mg/L

Lambda light chains at 11.2mg/L up from 10.2mg/L

ratio of the two at 34.11 mg/L up from 23.2

M-protein( SPEP) .4 up from .3

Well, blood doesn’t lie so there it is in black and white. The cancer cells are on the march.

Give me a few days and I’ll be okay with it and be ready to reset. Plus, after thinking about it, I wouldn’t want to start anything till after the holidays so there’s that as well. I’ll see what he thinks when I see him at the end of the month.

Simple Sunday

Posted in cooking, Flylady, Halloween, Uncategorized by

Another week gone by.

Today it is sunny and a true autumn day. Bright blue sky and leaves starting to get hints of yellow and orange.

We’re still unloading the oak but it should be done today as I’d like to get their trailer back tomorrow.

We’ve both voted!!!! I’m planning on dropping them off at the elections office this week.

I’m experimenting with making a sourdough rye bread. The recipe is King Arthur‘s. I love a good rye bread and can remember when my grandmother, who we called Genna, would bring Jewish rye up from the Bronx. By then we were living in Highland Mills which was an hour or so away from the city, but she continued to live and work in the Bronx. She would also bring up smoked white fish which I love, a chocolate cake that had the thinnish icing like a ganache. Those are some good memories, the few that there are.

This week we are in the bathroom zone. I finished mine early. I always like to do one extra thing each time I am in a zone so this month I will get new shower curtains. Since we have a claw foot tub with a circular rod we need 2 curtains. I do wash and reuse them at least 3 times but then they start to not look great anymore.

I put out my vintage halloween decor.

Well, off to check the bread and do quick tidy up.