Category Archives: Flylady

Simple Sunday

Posted in Blood test, books, bread, California, cooking, Flylady, Uncategorized, Walking by

Yesterday we were out the door at 6:20am( unfortunately, not to swim as that is my normal leave time to go the pool), but get the MRI on the knee. It all went very easy and even though it wasn’t an open MRI, my head was outside the tube. I’ll be glad to get the results and then go forward with whatever. For now, I won’t swim or go walking till I know the scoop.

I was done within 1/2 hour so we went to a new to us breakfast place. It’s called Pottery World Cafe. Just over the freeway from the imaging building. It was quite nice and the food was good. From there we drove another 5 minutes up to where Trader Joe’s is and picked up some groceries. All in all, it was a fine morning.

Then the rain came in quite heavy around 12 noon. It pretty much rained all day. Today is very cold but nice and sunny.

I do plan on going to the library Tuesday or Wednesday depending. I have 6 books on hold. At least I’ll have something to read.

I have to call the PT office and schedule seeing someone. I’m not sure how booked they are so that could change the week. If there’s a chance I will go do upper body weights and at least keep something going. 😦

I have a tentative menu plan for the week:

  1. black bean chili and cornbread

2. roast chicken, potatoes, salad and something for the vegetarian.( I have some tempeh to use).

3. lentil soup and homemade bread

4. A freezer meal, maybe cheese tamales

5. pasta with red sauce and salad

6. leftover chicken something, quesadillas? or pot pie?

7. either pizza or something which resembles pizza.

Of course, every day is different so I’ll decide what to cook each day.

We finished the Reacher Amazon Prime series and it was very good. If you like Reacher as a character, the show is well done. Now we need to find something new. We really only watch maybe an hour and a half at night, sometimes less even but it’s nice to have a series where the episodes are 60 minutes or so. I had gotten the Season 10 of Father Brown and that was fun to catch up on. I think we stopped watching back in Season 7 or 8 so there had been changes but still, it was fun to watch and who doesn’t love the Cotswolds.

I’ve already done the kitchen zone for the week, so I don’t have any big house stuff to do. I need to run Bender, dust plus water some plants.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cooking, Flylady, home stuff, meal planning, Uncategorized, Walking by

A cloudy but not too cold of a morning walk. The park had a few people showing up to do things Christmas related at the community center.

We are expecting quite a bit of rain this week so we’ll see how the driving to Roseville goes. The only day I have to go is Wednesday for infusion. If it’s miserable out, I probably won’t drive down to the gym/library.

On the agenda today is to tidy the house, vacuum, do the bedroom zone(done), and do a meal plan for the week with freezer /pantry meals. So far I have cheese tamales, mushroom spinach crepes, the meatballs from Costco, and baked potatoes. I might do a spaghetti night too.

I plan on doing some decluttering around the house. Mostly, misc stuff that just needs to go or seems to be unneeded. The end of the year is a perfect time to look around at what is being used and what is just in the way. Especially since I’m neurodivergent when it comes to visual clutter or even just visual things around me. I don’t like and/or get stressed at too much color, and patterns or things on the surfaces of things. Right now with Christmas, I’m stressed about the added stuff around which is probably why I put some of it away already. Well, it’s always a good idea to look around our homes with a fresh perspective.

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, budgets, California, cooking, Flylady, Halloween, Pantry, seasonal things, Walking by

A rainy simple Sunday. I’m grateful for the rain. Fire season is safely over. It’s hard to sense whether we are in for a hard winter or mild. With global warming, I guess all bets are off. Still, it is such a strange October to have temperatures close to 90 degrees. That’s never happened before.

We started out with our walk and it hadn’t started raining yet. It was quite balmy in fact. A very nice quiet walk. Most of the Canada geese are gone and the 3 little white duckies are gone too.

I came home and got the KBS bread maker going with a whole wheat sourdough. It seemed to not display the menu right and I had to do a reset that B figured out. Not sure what is the problem but I’ll have to check how long before it is that I can return it if necessary. It did go to the dough cycle after the reset. ?? humm, we’ll see. Anyway, it’s doing it’s first rise in the bread pan.

I did some weights at the gym and didn’t stop anywhere except our PO box. I’ve had 2 things lost this week and yesterday a VERY expensive Ebay item(christmas) it said delivered but no one came up to the house. So I’m freaking out a little as to where it is but can’t call the post office till Monday. Our post office has gone down hill this last year with things continually being lost, damaged, put in wrong boxes etc. I’m not sure what their problem is. But also, the person from E bay was not very nice and essentially said too bad. But I will open a dispute if it doesn’t show up. Anyone have an ebay item lost/not show up and get a dispute resolved. If it was just a few bucks I wouldn’t mind but this is in the 100’s. A very specific item.

My house tidying up is almost done. I just need to finish the kitchen. There’s one small load of laundry going. I vacuumed yesterday so that’s done. this week with Flylady, it’s the bedroom zone. I plan on moving all the rest of my canning jars out to the garden shed as I don’t plan on doing anything soon. I know I want do at least one other shelf stable meal, but haven’t decided what yet. We did love the white bean stew. Plus, it was vegetarian so B could have it.

Another blogger was showing some Halloween decorations she had out and I said I’d post a few photos of my 1940’s collection.

This one is probably 1950’s.

Vintage are items are VERY pricey as I’m guessing a lot of it got used and then tossed.

Simple Sunday

Posted in Blood test, bread, California, camping, cooking, decluttering, Flylady, freezer cooking, Lake tahoe, minimalism, Sashiko, simplicity, swimming, Uncategorized, Walking by

A lovely walk this morning with a few people there. Sundays are my favorite day to walk as usually there is no one. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the weather turns.

Yesterday the pool was quite busy and I shared a lane. I noticed more of the ‘regulars’ there so it must be the news is out that the pool is open. It was still great. This week will be different as I have 2 days of doing other things and then next Sunday we’re off to Tahoe for the week. We do plan to use the gym at least 2x and walk when we can.

Here’s a sample of the Sashiko I’m doing on a pair of old jeans.

I got these 2 books from the library. Both are quite good with patterns. I liked the one on the left more.

Working with the denim was more difficult but it’s just a patch so I’m not concerned about even stitching. Just random running stitches.

Here’s a picture of the sourdough rye I made. It had good flavor and it did a fairly nice spring for being rye. Rye is hard to do but I’ll do another loaf eventually.

I’ve been playing around with sourdough focaccia too. I still haven’t gotten the top all crispy like the YouTube channel showed. I’m thinking the oven needed to be hotter?? Not sure, but I’ll keep trying. I wanted to perfect a bread that we could use for sub sandwiches and the focaccia seemed like a good option.

This morning, I plan on going to the gym for just weights, no treadmill as I walked this morning and I don’t want my knee to be overworked. Then I have double-stuffed potatoes to make and freeze. Yesterday PGE had our power off all day so I couldn’t use the oven.

Flylady zone is the bedroom. If you follow along a tip I read from Peter Walsh was ‘ask yourself what the room in question is for’, so like the bedroom is to sleep, rest, etc. So remove anything from the bedroom that doesn’t support that. No electronics for instance. After having done Feng Shui for years, I do think what you have around you does affect you on some level. I don’t do FS anymore but the principles of FS and minimalism are quite similar. Keeping things harmonious and uncluttered is key, along with subdued color palettes.

I get my labs tomorrow so I should know by Friday what we’re going to do with treatment.

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, California, camping, cooking, Flylady, home stuff, Lake tahoe, seasonal things, Uncategorized, Walking by

I made it around the park 3 times so that’s a big improvement. My knee is definitely improving. I didn’t use the treadmill though at the gym as I thought that might be too much. I did the weight machines twice.

We’ve been having supper out on the patio all week and even had 3 evenings of a fire in the fire pit before we come in to watch Bosch. I only watch TV for an hour or an hour and a half is pushing it. Even movies, we split into 2 nights. We watched Otto this week for 2 nights. It’s a good movie, maybe not a great movie, but still enjoyable.

After the gym, I put the bread in the oven. This is a new sourdough recipe from ‘Everyday Sourdough’ and it uses whey from yogurt making. Since I had just made yogurt I saved the whey. It uses a Pullman pan which sadly I do not have yet. So we’ll see.

Then I did the bathroom zone, vacuumed, tidied the bedroom, and dusted the LR zone. That’s about it for zone cleaning.

My daughter harvested most of the basil and I made four 4-ounce jars of pesto for the freezer.

The next batch of tomatoes you see behind the pesto, I will freeze till I have enough for sauce.

This coming week looks light. No appts, but we may go to Costco. I’ll wait and see what I need. I know I’ll go before our Tahoe trip so I have 2 weeks.

Simple Sunday

Posted in books, bread, California, cooking, Flylady, home improvement, home stuff, kitchen remodel, Uncategorized, Walking by

I’m trying out some new sourdough recipes for burger buns. This is the second recipe. It has an egg and milk so it’s a soft dough. Not a lot of rise so I may try one that just uses instant yeast. Last night we had tofu burgers with the ones I did yesterday. They had excellent flavor but were on the smallish side.

Whoa, Nellie!! It is hot!!! Today is supposed to be the hottest at 106. I hope it doesn’t get that hot.

I just finished closing all the windows and the thermo curtains. These are the ones I bought from Amazon. I originally bought them for the entry way windows as they get full afternoon sun. They do a great job so I ordered a set for one of the bedroom windows and then 2 sets for my office windows that get full morning sun. They are affordable and do the job. I wanted to get the natural colored ones for myoffice but they were double what the grey ones were so that won out.

The window coolers are doing a good job keeping things cool enough. I have them set on the lowest setting and the 2 that are digital I keep at 78-80 and they come on automatically. Last night I turned them all off at 8 and opened windows.

We had a nice walk this morning and it was cool enough. Lots more people out early though to walk before the heat kicks in.

We took one side of the kitchen cabinets down yesterday.

We’re going to put up one 2×12 shelf using the hand forged brackets from Signature Hardware. B will paint it today and then get the shelf up. Then all the shelves will match except the other side which we’ll take down next week. I don’t have the brackets for that side yet. They are pricey but I love the look. Originally I was going to do Elfa shelving from the ceiling down but I don’t need that much shelving and plus I wouldn’t be able to reach anything. One shelf will be enough. I keep my bread up there and my basket of vitamins/prescriptions. There will be a few cups as well.

After I bake the burger rolls I’m going to the gym and do some weights. I plan on cooking a chicken while I’m gone so the oven can be off after 10 am. My oven is very efficient though and does not heat up the kitchen. Still, it’s on and there probably is some heat residual.

FlyLady this week is the bedroom but I’ve already done that so I’ll just do a quick once around and tidy some areas that need it.

I just finished Rhonda Hetzel’s book’ Down to Earth’. It’s a very fine book and worth buying. I got my copy off ebay. I doubt you would find it at a used book store. There weren’t a lot to choose from. It’s nothing all that new to me, but I like her perspective. Her husband, Hanno, died last year and it’s been a hard time for her. She actually closed her blog just recently. She has kept up all the posts and they are worth taking a read.

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, California, decluttering, Flylady, simple foods, Uncategorized, Walking by

photo from The Nesting Place

I’ve been working a bit on decluttering and changing things up a bit. I decided to iron the linen duvet cover and put the comforter inside. It might be too warm this time of year but I’m trying to keep the comforter clean as it is white. So the big basket I kept that in and our one other blanket I have ready to go to the thrift store or the Pay it Forward group. Honestly, I’ve had very little luck with that group. People say they want something and never show up.

I finally got the second box of peaches from Stackhouse Orchards( Local in the valley), so I waited about 5 days for them to ripen and made a peach pie.

Not the prettiest lattice top but hopefully it tastes good. The peaches were very sweet. update: We had this with vanilla ice cream last night and it was yummy.

We had a nice walk this morning with no one else around except the Canada geese. All the families are grown up and they should start flying lessons soon.:)

I just started the oven to preheat for a loaf of sourdough. I’ll get that going before I go to the gym.

I was thinking back to routines when my children were younger. Since we did Waldorf schooling there is always a rhythm to the day and week. Rudolf Steiner, although weird, did create an exceptional educational model. Each day had a color, and like wise, each classroom in Waldorf is lazured ,painted, a certain color. For instance kindergarten is an orange pink, all the way to 8th grade which is usually a violet blue.

I think the rhythm of the day and year were important in how my kids developed. We always ate dinner together and often did school craft projects together too. My daughter who is an incredible artist often did watercolor painting with Z.

That’s probably where my love of routines comes in. I didn’t start Fly Lady till later, probably around when my son was in 4th grade. It was an instant fit for me to do the 15 minutes a day and that’s how I started decluttering. Most of the major decluttering is done except for keeping up with what’s relevant now in our lives. Things come and go. But the zone cleaning keeps me on track and even though I know it without even looking at a list, I like to have the lists as reference. What I did eventually was write down each of my zones and what needed to be done according to them. That’s what still use today.

We had a ready made meal last night from the pantry. It was the white bean ragout and then my daughter and I had the chicken chili verde with some of the white beans. It was a hit. I need to write up a menu for the week. I know one night I’m doing a spinach frittata. I also have some ricotta to use so I may make a couple of cheese lasagnas.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cooking, Flylady, home improvement, home stuff, Political things, Uncategorized, Walking by

A nice Sunday walk to wake up the old body!!!!. We get up fairly early 5am or so usually 5:15 and have coffee. Then we go to the park and do 2-4 rounds. Today it was just us and that is always a treat. The Canada Goose families were there too!! The babies are all growing.

Supposedly the kitchen pipe is getting fixed today so that’s a good thing. The next issue is the wood on the foundation is pretty rotted and will need to be replaced. That could be a bigger job than just the pipe. So maybe it’s a good thing the pipe was leaking as we would never have pulled off that siding.

After tidying up I went to the Auburn gym and did weights and treadmill. I was going to go to Safeway as they have corn on sale again but I didn’t feel like it after the gym. Maybe tomorrow. After getting home, I put a chicken in the oven to roast for dinner. I made some coleslaw too.

The yogurt was put in a colander and drained off the whey. So what were 2 quarts of yogurt after draining the whey was one full quart. This method is pretty great and I feel I’ll keep making yogurt this way once a week. I figured out the cost factor to be @ $2.00 for an organic probiotic yogurt quart. The Nancy’s probiotic yogurt I’m using as the starter was $6. So a significant savings.

I moved a few house plants around for summer and probably will need to move some out of the sun room as it gets too hot for them. But since it’s still cooler out, for now their fine.

I’m glad something is happening with the debt ceiling crap but who knows? I’d like to see any of them deal with having to rely on SS to live and then see how fast they do something to change the system. Every Senator and Congress person should be required to live for one month(or more) with $$ xx for one month and see what it’s like. And it should be what the average senior gets which I can’t remember but I think it’s only $1500 or less.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, camping, cooking, Flylady, travel, Uncategorized, Walking by

We had a nice Sunday walk in the park. Quiet with only the Canada Geese families around. I think we counted 6 families.

I went to the Auburn gym for a bit and then when I got home sliced up the jalapenos for refrigerator jalapenos. It’s an easy recipe of 1 cup white vinegar 1 cup water, tsp of pickling salt, and 1 Tsp of sugar. Boil that and then pour over the jalapenos in the jars. Cool and then refrigerate.

I labeled the Chicken Chili Verde pressure canned jars and put them in the pantry. I plan on trying a few other of the Ball meal-in-a-jar recipes. There’s a chipotle taco meat one that sounded good. There’s also a chickpea stew one that’s vegetarian I want to try as well.

B cleaned out the inside of the fridge and freezer while I was gone so that chore is done. I plan on doing the kitchen zone tomorrow. Monday is usually my home reset day. I do the little things that need doing and the zone cleaning.

I made a quiche crust to make a spinach quiche for tonight. ( not anything to do with the coronation, just part of my meal rotation.) I had preordered the new Magnolia cookbook and will look thru that today too. I like her recipes and find them to be very good most of the time.

This is a quiet week with only one appt. I have an appt to get my booster. Other than that, just normal stuff. Next week we’re in New Brighton for the week. Hopefully, the AC charge they did works. I still think there’s probably a leak but at least for now, it’s working.

Simple Sunday and blog anniversary

Posted in bread, California, cooking, Flylady, Myeloma by

I started my blog in April 2012. I really wanted to document how my life with Multiple Myeloma was. At that point, I had been on Revlimid for 2 years and would stay on that for 3 more years till it was no longer working.

I had already begun becoming more minimalist and had been decluttering using Flylady for a few years. I mostly wanted to journal using the blog as the forum because writing( in a notebook), a journal never appealed to me. It’s been a fun outlet for me. So here I am 11 years into blogging and about ready to start another round of Chemo( well, I hope not till fall).

Spring has sprung here in Northern California and it’s been quite nice. The trees are starting to pop out and our white camelia tree is blooming( very late I may add). We had the Ooni fired up for Friday night pizza and last night used the charcoal Weber for chicken and veggie dogs. Tonight, I plan on Spanish rice, chips, and Pico de Gallo, and some main dish. I might open a pressure canned jar of veggie stew.

This coming week is just regular stuff. I plan on trying to go to the gym and pool twice each. We’ll see. That’s a lot of driving so, I’ll just see how I feel.

I’m making a loaf of sandwich bread right now. I’ve been trying to not eat bread but the rest of the fam needs it so I used the Kitchen Aid and made a King Arthur recipe. My son thought his partner might like the Zojirushi so he took it down to their place. I actually feel good about letting it go. I guess the final question was did I have the space for it and really I didn’t. It was in the closet but now I’m using that space for something else. Plus, most of the bread I make is sourdough in the Dutch oven and I only used the bread maker for the dough cycle for sandwich bread.

I sorted thru most of my canning jars and I have plenty for this season. I think I’ll buy some lids though so I have extra. Probably Winco is the best place to get them.

Well, I’m off to finish the bedroom zone and get the bread in the oven.