Category Archives: decluttering

Thankful Thursday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, cooking, decluttering, Gratitude, swimming by

I am very glad the cooler temperatures are going to return. not cool, cool, but better. Today is 93, and tomorrow back in the 80’s. I really dislike the heat, so it’ll be better.

The tree trimmers from PGE were here yesterday to take 2 small oaks. I went out there with them and wasn’t too pleased at them having to take them, but they were under the power line. I didn’t go back out to see how it looked, but I will this morning as I need to water the bamboo out there.

The pool was busy, but I’m grateful to have gotten a lane mostly by myself, and then later someone came in with me. Someone was talking about the day before at the pool and said it was so busy she finally gave up waiting for a lane. I’ve only had that happen I think twice in all the time I’ve been swimming, so I’m grateful that usually it works out.

I’m grateful for the AC units in our windows. We have 5, but only use the 4, in the LR, entry way, bedroom 1, and bedroom 2. It makes a big difference. Of course, that means our electric bill will go up:(

Today, I plan on staying home ( at least as of now). I need to do some tidying and put things away. I also need to take out the recycling. I did think about going down to the gym and doing my weights, but I think I’ll wait. It’s early yet, so I may change my mind.

I’m thankful my CPAP is mostly working well. It is controlling the sleep apnea, and my 02 is better at night. Going by the RingConn, I drop to 90 a few times, but then the line goes up to 95 or even 97, which means the pressure ramps up. I tried using some mouth tape that was recommended on the Facebook group, but that night my 02 was at 89 for more than I want ( like 30 minutes). So I went back to the chin strap. It’s ok, it bothers my face a bit, but I need it to keep my mouth from opening. It still does open some, but this controls most of it. I ordered a different one from Amazon, so maybe that one will work better. This was not a problem until the doctor increased the pressure settings on the ResMed. Before that, I didn’t have a problem because the pressure was much lower. Oh well, it’s working.

I’m working my way through the chest freezer, and it’s going great. Yesterday, I took out 2 bags of apples( from a friend’s tree) that I had cut up last fall. I put them in the crockpot, and it cooked down to a lovely applesauce. We had it with dinner. I’m not planning on canning any, just plan to eat it. I also pulled out a turkey and cooked that. Mostly, after it was cooked, I took all the meat off and froze it. In the future, I only plan on doing the Diestel turkey breast. Much easier and better quality. So that really freed up some space. I think I’ll keep the chest freezer as the refrigerator one is too small to hold much, but I want it to be less packed. I’ll go out there today and see what else I can use up. BTW, the chest freezer is out in the laundry room, which is at the back of the house. Barclay built it there, as there was no room in the house for a washer and dryer.

Midweek Musings

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, decluttering, home stuff, library, minimalism, Uncategorized by

Another shout-out to a supporter who made a donation. I am truly humbled by the kindness shown here. Thank you!

Well, yesterday I went down to the Roseville gym and did weights and the treadmill. I was going to walk the trail, but by the time I was done, it was already warm, and I didn’t have my hat. After that, I went to the library, which is next door to the gym, and got my 2 holds.

I got up to Costco around 10 and got the dishwasher pods( on sale), my vitamins, and protein bars that my daughter likes to take to work, also on sale, and AAA batteries I needed. I didn’t linger too long. I paid with some cash and put the small balance on the Costco CC.

I’ve been checking my SP02 every day, and the oximeter needed batteries. The daytime readings are fine for the most part, but there’s still a dip at night. Of course, that will be the primary discussion at my appointment, I’m sure. And that I will not do an in-lab titration test. My anxiety and my semi-claustrophobia would be too much for me. When I was first diagnosed, it was with a home test, but apparently, this test can fine-tune the CPAP machine. But as GEmini AI has pointed out, the SD card is giving him titration info every night. So???

Anyway, today is a home day, and I need to finish up some things. I want to get the recycling bags ready to go, put the thrift store stuff in the car, and tidy up some papers that are lying around.

I was playing around with Chat GPT with pictures of B’s office. And it came up with some nice minimalist images. I find taking pictures of areas that need some attention is a great visual aid. I’m a very visual person, so that worked, and I immediately removed a few things and rearranged some others. My printer is on the desk, and that’s one thing I’d like to find a different place for. But for now, that’s where it lives.

Of course, I don’t have a bookcase like that, but I do have the Billy shelves, and the desk is the Heywood Wakefield. The picture on the left is before I tidied it up. It’s a small area, but that’s where Barclay worked from home all those years. His desk was different, and the chair was an office chair. Well, it’s fun to do, and it gave me some good ideas.

Stuff

Posted in California, decluttering, home stuff, minimalism, Myeloma by

First, I want to thank a blog reader who made a donation on Buy me a coffee. It’s always such a pleasant surprise to have that happen. So thank you for that. Writing my blog since 2012, so 14 years have been good for me. It keeps me focused, and I can look back at when things did happen. When I started, my main focus was offering information that I found useful concerning Multiple Myeloma. Since I still have Myeloma and am in active treatment, that is still a focus, but not the only one.

Minimalism has played a huge part of my journey and now that “I’m older than that now, ” I can see how much it supports me. I still use Flylady as my weekly focus but really, each zone only takes a small amount of time. Even the kitchen, which is my biggest time factor, I can get through in 30 minutes. I’m still decluttering, and I know I’m close to that sweet spot of having only what is beautiful or useful in the house.

Here’s a good example: I have had the same linen sheets for about 4 years. They are on my bed 7 days a week. When I wash them once a week, they go right back on because I only have the one set. But I also have a linen comforter cover I bought for Rubi, the trailer. But it’s been stuffed in a drawer since I cleaned out the trailer. I kept thinking oh, I can use this for something but really it’s bulky, and I’m not the kind of person to wrestle putting on a cover on a queen-size quilt. So it’s now it’s way to the Goodwill. I don’t want stuff just in case!!

I also write about living a simple life and my love of cooking and reading. Those are so much a part of me. With the biggest part of me, my husband, now gone, I’m still working on living a simple life, but alone. So much of my life, really my whole life since I was married at 18 and left home, has been with him. Now at 73, here I am. I’m slower, and my body is stiffer, that’s for sure, but I still do those things I love. I imagine a time will come when I won’t drive to Roseville to swim, or go to the big gym, or even go much down the hill unless someone is taking me. But that is not this day, and I am very grateful for that.

This week is the bedroom zone, and once again, it’s my nemesis, the closet, that I will straighten out. Otherwise, this zone really takes care of itself since there’s not a lot in there. I think I’ll pull out the steam mop and do the floors. I need to put up the blackout curtains as the sun is now coming directly into that room in the afternoon. It does make a difference.

Well, I’ve rambled on enough. I’m still stressed about my upcoming sleep doctor appointment, but I guess, like everything, I’ll take one day at a time.

Thankful Thursday

Posted in Blood test, budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, decluttering, Gratitude, Uncategorized by

I’m very thankful to feel ok again. Whatever it was, I’d prefer it not to happen again. Next time, I will be sure to drink some electrolytes. AI seemed to think that the need for them was contributing to my overall yucky feeling.

My labs came in at 30.4, so up from 29.1, but not too bad. .7 increase, and my ratio came down to 2.65 from 2.95, so that was positive. Another month of just keeping on.

I’m thankful for a day with nothing planned. I don’t have any plans for the day, so I’ll see what I get up to. I’ve been decluttering a few random items that I’m not using and will take to Goodwill once I have a few bags.

Today, I plan on making a chicken salad with leftover Costco chicken. The rest I’ll just freeze. Plus, at some point, make some chicken broth. I think this time I’ll pressure can it, so I don’t take up so much room in the freezer. But that’s not today.

We had a dead deer in our upper yard near the pond. We’re not sure if it got hit by a car or what. My daughter called animal control, and usually, if it’s on private property, they won’t get it. But since we said we had no way to move it, they took it. Why couldn’t it die on our neighbor’s property? I’m thankful they took it, though, as a number of years ago we had a dead deer down in the woods, and it just decomposed and certainly smelled for a while. We think that one, though, was a mountain lion kill, as there were only pieces left. Anyway, it’s gone.

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, budgeting, budgets, California, cooking, decluttering, swimming by

I woke up with a headache. I think it was because I had some ice cream last evening. I rarely eat anything after dinner, so I think it threw my metabolism off. Anyway, I took some Advil, and it’s better.

I wasn’t going to walk, but then I powered through and did it. I really need to up my walking, too. Right now, I do about a mile, so I think I’ll try for 1.25 and see how that is. I haven’t decided on the gym yet, but I will soon. I went to the pool yesterday, so I got that workout in. If I’m going to Mahany gym this coming week, that’ll get my weights in.

Update: I decided not to go to the gym today and have a home reset day. 🙂

After the pool, I dropped off my Goodwill donations. That felt good as it’s been in the back of the car a while now. Besides misc stuff, I gave away 2 space heaters we weren’t using. It always feels good to declutter stuff.

We’re supposed to get rain tomorrow and Tuesday. My son was going to come up and weed-eat, but that won’t happen if it’s raining. He might just come up and work out in the barn. He’s done a good job organizing his stuff out there and getting rid of a lot too.

My starter is quite active now, and this was a kalamata garlic loaf. It came out really nice. Today, I’m going to make a cranberry-pecan one. I’ve been using my Krups slicer to slice the bread, then freezing about 6 pieces in a zip-lock bag. I plan on giving some to my son. The slicer is one of my better thrift store finds.

A bit of catch up!

Posted in Blood test, books, budgets, California, cancer, cooking, decluttering, home stuff, Pantry by

The days have been busy, which is good.

I went to the gym on Sunday and then did some decluttering when I got home. I have a bag of books to take to the pet bookstore and a bag of odds and ends to go to Goodwill.

Monday, I continued decluttering out in the garden shed and a utensil drawer in the kitchen. I looked at things I’m not using, as I prefer to not have single-use things. I wrote out the menu ideas for the week too.

Mostly, using things I have in the freezer /pantry, which included using up the turkey chili, a box of cornbread mix, a jar of home-canned kidney beans, and some ends of cheese( cheddar and comte) to make a baked macaroni. Today I plan to prep what veggies I have and put them in glass containers. I have broccoli, beets, spinach, some lettuce, and carrots. I’m sure I’ve missed a few. My plan is to wash and put them in containers so I can see what I need to use. Too often, things in those new produce bags just get pushed behind things, and I don’t see them ( refrigerator blindness). To help, I ordered some containers from Amazon. They’re the brilliance Rubbermaid. Costco has these occasionally, but not right now.

We also had leftover Easter tofu, potato salad, and deli ham. I didn’t buy a ham since that would be too much for us, so I got some sliced ham, and it worked fine as a side dish. ( We mostly want the southern fried tofu with tartar sauce.)

Rest of the Week menu ideas:

BBQ chicken

One freezer meal

Bean burritos with toppings. This will use a can of refried beans in the pantry, and some of the toppings will use things up, too.

a pizza night

Orange chicken with rice and broccoli

TBD

After my labs on Monday, I went and got the Santa Fe smogged, so that’s done.

Tuesday, I headed to the pool, and it was quite mellow. I stopped and got some cash from the teller, as I want to give my son a few dollars to help offset the cost of the weed eater and the motorcycle class. I also stopped at Winco for spinach, broccoli, bananas, and a few other things. It was less than $40.

I haven’t gotten my kappa light chains back yet, but my other labs are all about the same. We’ll see:)

Update: just got them and they did go down 2 points. Not a lot and I hoped for more, but I’ll take it.

Today, I plan on getting the thrift stuff organized and put in the back of the car. Then I’ll go to town and drop some stuff off. I do have a big bag of books to go also.

I got the notice of the Fair Plan being changed, so that was good news. But paying for the new auto insurance added to my credit card balance, so be it for now. I just don’t have the income to pay it from my regular accounts. I think the only other annual bills coming up are DMV for Rubi and the truck in June. That’ll give me some time to concentrate on paying more of the CC stuff over a few months. sigh:( Still, I’m thrilled the auto insurance was reduced from the Allstate quote.

The rest of the week is open, so I’ll figure out whether I’ll do another swim or go to the gym. Because of gas prices, I’ll pick one or the other.

These are roses from the back yard area and the California poppies are in the front of the house.

Simple Sunday and almost the end of March!

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, cooking, decluttering, home stuff, Myeloma, swimming by

The park was nice this morning. I was the only one. I’ve been getting there at 6:30, so it’s not dark at all, but light enough to walk without a flashlight. Sunrise is 6:51 am, so very light.

Yesterday was a busy day. My daughter took down the shelf in the closet( our only closet) and repositioned it, and raised up my clothes bar.

It’s much more accessible now, and there’s plenty of room under my clothes for some banker’s boxes. The other side still needs some reorganizing. I keep my canning jars there, Christmas stuff, and 4 baskets that hold my clothes( undies, socks, workout pants. I’d like to get all the Ball jars together and put them on my Ikea shelves, which serve as my pantry, but I’d have to rearrange to make that happen.

I’ll spend some time today organizing that. I’m planning on giving away another case of quart ball jars. I might get out the paint( Benjamin Moore Simple White) and touch up the walls.

I also took down one of the velvet curtains and put up the summery ones. I had to iron them first and only got one pair done, so today I’ll iron the other one.

I made up a cabbage salad from Ella Mills new cookbook. We didn’t have it last night, but we will tonight. She’s a vegan but her recipes are quite good and I got some good ideas from it.

I’ll take some after photos if I remember.

I plan on going to the Auburn gym this morning and then dropping off a load at Goodwill. These days, I don’t have huge amounts, as most of my decluttering is done. But there’s always something.

This coming week is my Velcade and, of course, back on Dex. I guess we’ll see if it drops my kappa number, and then we’ll know that dex is important in my treatment plan. I’ll just have to relax with the dex and not go anywhere. 🙁

I think I’ll try to at least get a swim in. After Velcade, I could go to the gym to do weights, but I’ll wait and see how I feel. Other than that, it’s a normal week.

New Years Eve

Posted in California, decluttering, home stuff, simplicity by

I hope all of you out there in blog land have a safe and happy NYE.

We will do our tradition of sub-type sandwiches and watch some movies. I have never stayed up to midnight in all these years. B would always stay up with the kids till midnight. sigh:(

The rain is expected to come back in tonight and continue for quite a few days. My son’s friend came yesterday and helped do a deeper clean. He’s a wonderful young man. I was happy to pay him to help. It’s interesting because I had just watched a YouTube channel that caught my attention about Japanese things. The concept was

‘oosouji’, which means ‘big clean’. I told T how cool that was because he was here helping to deep clean. He does a great job, btw.

So, today, I have some more oosouji to do, such as cleaning out the fireplace and washing a few windows. I’m also hoping that the desk and chair I have listed for free will be picked up this morning. They are in the sunroom, crowding it. It’s an extra desk my daughter doesn’t want anymore. If I had room, I’d keep it, but I don’t. So the other Japanese concept of ‘danshari’ is applicable here. Basically it’s refuse, dispose, and detach. So be it.

Well, what kind of NYE plans do you have? I have never gone out on NYE in all my years, ever. Do you go out? Just the thought of crowds is enough to stop me cold.

Frugal Friday and misc. stuff

Posted in Blood test, budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, decluttering, frugalism, Multiple myeloma, Myeloma, Uncategorized by

We ended up having a lot of rain!! But now it’s blue skies and the temperature is lovely. We should be having day temperatures in the 70s. We have some outside things to do, so that’s perfect. I need to paint the new gutter that S put up and tidy the patio up for winter.

I have a small pile to go to the thrift store and will probably do that on Sunday after the gym. I’m still going through different areas to find more things to add to the pile.

My son and his partner came over on Wednesday afternoon, along with the partner’s parents. They are lovely people, and I wish B could have met them. But they were here for the dad to check out my son’s Subaru. The dad is very mechanically minded. My son is giving( with my permission, as it is my name) the Subaru to him for free. They checked it out and will take it hopefully soon. As soon as that’s done I can take it off the insurance and that is going to save me over $700. I’ll call allstate as soon as it’s signed over.

My daughter and I went to Costco yesterday to finish shopping for the stuff I didn’t get last time. Most of it was non-perishables like the smoke alarms( wow, they were expensive even on sale), TP, and laundry soap. water, and a few other things. From there, we went to my favorite pizza place for a slice of New York pizza. It was fun. I also got the car washed since Quick Quack was just across the street. Costco ended up a little over $300 but I need to break down non food and also long term items and see what the total was.

My food budget for the month came in at about $350, so I’m really getting the hang of not buying so much. The Costco trip I’ll be putting on next month’s budget, which starts next week.

In not-so-happy news, my labs came back with a 4-point increase, so myeloma is definitely on the move. I checked in with Dr. L, and we decided to go one more month and see what the next increase is. I’m disappointed, but it was to be expected at some point. I just wish I could have had at least some period of time with things ‘normal’ after B died. Well, at least I’m asymptomatic which is good. Also the ratio of kappa / lambda was the same so that’s good. The plan will be to try to do biweekly,depending on how next month goes, and if that doesn’t work switch to darzalex fast pro. I’ve made it 20 years with Myeloma and know I’m one of the lucky ones. Still reality sucks that I have to deal with this. 🙁

Friday Things

Posted in Blood test, books, bread, budgeting, budgets, California, decluttering, Myeloma, swimming, velcade by

It’s been a busy week. I’ve done tons of decluttering. The back of the Santa Fe is full, so I’ll go to Goodwill, maybe even this morning.

I emptied 2 binders of recipes I had saved and only kept the ones that were really favorites. Most of them can be gotten from the internet anyway. I went through the last two vintage suitcases that have my kids’ Waldorf toys and got rid of a few little things, but mostly just consolidated them into one, so the other is going to the thrift store.

It’s a strange place to be, but I’m determined to whittle things down to just the bare bones and keep the poetry. I have two empty shelves in the closet now. The bread maker is in there on a shelf and I haven’t decided on the bread maker yet. I think I’ll plan a sandwich loaf over the weekend, and then that’ll help me decide whether it’s a keeper or not. Good bread is easily bought at Costco and then frozen.

It’s raining this morning, and it’s wonderful to have everything watered.

We had a fun (expensive ) lunch with my son this week, and it was worth it. It was only burgers for all three of us but now a days that’s $20 each for a sit down meal. I also went to Costco after my labs on Wednesday. Something was off this week because I went in twice, and both times my lab orders were NOT there. Fortunately, I thought to get a PDF copy, so they did do the labs minus one (the SPEP). I scheduled it for next week but I think I’ll just cancel it and get it next month. My kappa Light chains went up another point. So now it’s at 21.5 . If the trend continues I’ll need to do something by January. I see Dr. L in October and see what he says. I can only hope it drops again next month but who knows.

All the bills are done for the month, so that feels good. It’s a good feeling to know it’s all taken care of for now. I’m still waiting on the Allstate bill to activate, and then my only choice at this point is to make the partial payments.

I’m planning on going down to the pool this morning and then straight home. I do need to get water at Costco, but it’s too heavy for me to get alone, so I’ll see if my daughter can pick some up after work.

I haven’t been reading much, although I did start my annual rereading of The Hobbit and LOTRs. I have books to drop off at the library, so I’ll check what’s new.

I scheduled my flu shot and COVID-19 booster for next week, so I’m sure I’ll be down for a few days. That’s usually what happens.

Update: all dropped off!