Category Archives: garden shed

Midweek

Posted in Blood test, California, cancer, cooking, decluttering, garden shed, swimming by

Good news. Barclay’s platelets went up to 90!!! that’s from 22. So a big improvement and the nose bleeds have stopped. His hemoglobin stayed at 8.5 so not much improvement but they don’t do transfusions till you’re below 8. So all around he’s feeling better. He does need to have another set of labs tomorrow as they want it to be twice a week.

This morning he will have a video visit with the oncologist and we should have a plan for the next chemo. I’m heading to the pool and Winco so I won’t be able to listen in but I told him make sure, under no circumstances, are you doing the same amount next time. We’ll just have to see what she comes up with. I think she conferred with the Stanford doctors so that will be interesting. He’s scheduled for next Wednesday.

The mornings are darker now and I’m walking with my headlamp. I guess in a few weeks it’ll be fall back time so 6am will be 5am and so the light should be better then. Plus sunset is like 6:15 so it’s definitely different.

I’ve ordered a water bottle for B since he lost his large one some time ago. I use the Takada brand and like it better than most other ones. This one keeps ice water cold for hours. He’ll need something next week since the chemo will probably be 4+ hours.

I did a large Goodwill drop-off on Sunday. Most of it was from cleaning out the garden shed. I’d got most of it sorted and cleaned out. I do have another load of plastic bins to get rid of and I’m not sure if I’m going to leave them out for free ( this would be on our main road as our driveway is a dead end to our house) or take them to Goodwill. I also have another box of canning jars to give away as I don’t plan on canning that much next year. I do love canning and it’s been a great hobby and food saver but I’m older and it might just be easier to buy jam rather than making 12 jars of strawberry jam.:) I guess the reality of what I can do and what can’t/don’t want to do is becoming clearer.

Random bits

Posted in California, garden shed by

I did a preliminary on our taxes. Everything looks good. I’ll finish them up over the weekend I think. I always use turbo tax. It does cost but I find that they are efficient and all the right boxes are checked.

Yesterday I had PT quite early and she had me do some machines and later my knee was definitely aching. I guess I just need to keep strengthening the knee and will have to deal with some aches in the meanwhile. I’ll be sure to let her know next week though.

The rain is headed back our way tomorrow. I hope it holds off till I get back from Sacramento. But it looks like rain from Wed to next Monday.

I went off to the garden shed yesterday to rearrange the canning stuff. I couldn’t even get to them so I asked B to take some stuff out to the empty shelves in the barn. That way I can get to the other stuff in the shed. Mostly, the box with the Ikea Christmas tree and the bin of extra Christmas stuff can go out there. Other than that I’m not sure what’s in the other boxes. I’m going to try and get to that today. Here’s a quote from the author S.G.

“If you can’t see it and you can’t reach it, you won’t use it”.

Pretty good advice, I think.

A beautiful sunrise

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cancer, cooking, garden shed, plants, Uncategorized by

A lovely moonlit walk this morning and a big surprise, no one but us!!! My foot neuropathy is acting up so I made a note to tell Dr.L about it. You really don’t want neuropathy to advance. Right now, it seems worse after Velcade days and then eases up. I’ll keep current notes.

For some reason yesterday I did not feel like going to the pool(very unusual for me). I felt tired. So I decided to can cranberries and bing cherries to use them up. It was easy and it got them out of the freezer.

Cranberry sauce.

Bing cherries!! These are very nice on top of ice cream or cheesecake.

After that, I did a few house chores and tidied up. My daughter got all the geraniums and most of the plants on the patio back in the greenhouse for winter. It looks like we’ll need something else to put the lemon trees in. They are in big pots and need to be covered for winter.

I worked out my schedule for the week as Monday I have a dental cleaning, and then Tuesday swim, Wednesday, labs and rec center, and then Thursday, Friday home or whatever needs doing.

We are headed to Napa next Sunday for 2 nights. We had been scheduled for 4 but that won’t work with getting Velcade on Wednesday. I’ll be glad for the 2 nights and it looks like very nice weather.

I’m back from the gym and Safeway for lettuce and oat milk. I still need to vacuum and tidy up a bit. I think dinner will be a freezer meal.

Saturday’s musings…

Posted in California, cooking, decluttering, garden shed, simple foods, Uncategorized, Walking by

Yesterday was busy with going to Target for a few things, then the Goodwill dropoff, and then the pet bookstore dropoff. My daughter helped with it all as the books were a lot. Plus we had a bag of DVDs and that was heavy too. Lots going out the door. I held back the Beatrix Potter dishes and put them on our local buy group. I kind of doubt they’ll sell but I’ll try. If not that will be the beginning of a new load.

We used the Ooni last night and it came out great. I read an article in the WP about whether the Ooni was worth buying and the guy said absolutely. But he did say with the pellet one like I have you need to feed it for about an hour to get the stone up to a super-hot temperature. I had been getting the oven up to 900 degrees but not letting it stay up there for a period of time so the stone will char and crisp the bottom. It came out perfect. The second one needed more time and was good but the bottom wasn’t quite as crisp. So after maybe 40 pizzas, I’ve learned a thing or two about the Ooni. I’ll probably put it away for winter in the garden shed.

We’ve been walking a little later at 6:20am getting ready for daylight savings to end on Nov 7th. Plus it’s been great that we only encounter AH once or twice and then he leaves. So win-win. Actually, he’s really been unintrusive and he’s now wearing a headlamp so we can see where he is. That was one of my real issues with him. It’s dark out and when you cant see someone it’s dangerous. So all in all, it’s working out ok.

Sunrise in the park.

Yesterday I went to the farm and bought some leeks for potato leek soup which I plan on making today. I also got some garlic and a few more hard squashes. I also picked up a bag of salad greens and super greens which I think had mustard greens in it. So they will be part of dinners. I still have some radishes left from last week and a small amount of broccoli. It’s been fun going over to the farm and buying local. They really are doing a great service for the community and surrounding areas.

Last week we decided to go walk down at the park next to the pool and it was nice. It’s about a mile loop and paved. I’m not sure we’ll do it often but once in a while. Then we went to Winco and picked a small number of things including another turkey roast. It was convenient and fun!!! Then we stopped on the way home to check out a trail I read about locally but it was narrow and dirt. That won’t work for me as I don’t feel stable enough going downhill into the canyon on a dirt trail. If it was a fire road it would probably work.

Today I’m going to make in addition to the soup and a small macaroni and cheese as I have shredded cheese to use up. I’ll probably put that in the fridge for tomorrow though.

Simple Sunday

Posted in budgets, cooking, garden shed, Myeloma by

Today is a Costco day. We needed coffee and that’s always the ticket. Plus the Starbucks is on sale with $5.00 off a bag which is excellent. We got most everything except we couldn’t find the Aveeno cream on sale and they didn’t have printer ink for my printer. We used our Costco rebate and so the final tally was @ 200. Pretty good for us.

This week Flylady zone is the kitchen so I’ll do that tomorrow unless I start a little later. I have a dentist appt tomorrow for a dental cleaning but it’s not till 11am so I have time to do the kitchen zone.

It’s way cooler today and very early summer like. We put up the screen tent thing yesterday as the mosquitos are starting to come out. We had a nice BBQ with some Trader Joe’s pre seasoned Shawarma chicken. It was pretty tasty. There’s enough for leftovers for lunch or dinner. I also made a chickpea salad with olive oil and oregano from the garden. I sliced up some Manchego cheese in it too.

One of my absolute favorite bloggers was writing about some stoneware from England called Hornsea. I’d never heard of it so I went to Ebay and sure enough it’s a stone ware that is very retro and many pieces are from the 70’s. I loved it and may buy a small piece:) I especially loved the little creamer so that may be my first piece. Check it out it’s quite cool.

Well, besides starting Round 5 this week and the dentist not much else. I’ve been staining the fence and got about 3/4 of the way and ran out of the stain so I’ll need to get that. I may or may not start painting the garden shed.

I still haven’t completely decided about the Ooni pizza oven. I like the idea of wood fired pizza and I think I’d use it regularly but $300. is a lot of money. I guess I’ll keep thinking about it for now.

Velcade, Round 4, shot #2.

Posted in camping, cooking, covid-19, decluttering, garden shed, home stuff, husband, Multiple myeloma, travel by

I drove down to Rocklin yesterday and had my shot. I was out again by 10:20 and it went well. Sometimes the injection stings some and yesterday it did. Other times I barely feel it, so who knows.

From there I drove up to the Walmart in Rocklin which is right on my way home and picked up my order. They didn’t have the propane bottles we needed for camping so we’ll need to get them somewhere else. Then I went into the nursery side and bought 2 clay pots and 2 orchids. For some reason getting clay pots now is like winning the lottery. They only had 2 on the shelf. Oh well, I’ll keep checking but Home Depot also didn’t have any.

I took my Dex after lunch and rested. Geez, Dex is so weird. Oh well, my daughter made a nice stir fry with tempeh. It was good. Yesterday I experimented with making jasmine rice in the Staub and it came out great. I love my Zojirushi rice maker but wanted to try this as an alternative. The nice thing is that it is half the time . 15 minutes on a boil and then 15 minutes rest. The other method is an hour. It’s nice to have the alternative.

Today is just take it easy and do a few things. I want to air out the bed covers on the line. And move a few more things around in the closet.

We finished the bedroom painting it looks amazing. I’m very glad I screwed up and started the touch up as I wouldn’t have really know how bad it was( well I guess that’s relative. )

The stove hood debacle continues as it wasn’t working unless the bathroom fan was on which I said”No way, am I putting up with that”. I said hire an electrician, people do it all the time. But he managed to get it hooked to something else?? and now the bathroom fan isn’t working. Did I say just hire an electrician??Well, he is pretty handy and always figures out a solution. We had most of the wiring was redone when we moved in but there were some that the guy didn’t do for some reason. ( he wasn’t a real licensed electrician although he did know a lot).

I hope the tar paper can go on the garden shed before we leave on Sunday but the shingles will need to wait. Most of the trim is going on too. It looks good and I think we will like the extra storage.

I have another Goodwill run to make tomorrow but i will have my daughter help. Last with her helping it went really quick plus I couldn’t lift the monitor anyway.

Tonight my son cooks and I’m not sure what he planning. Maybe I’ll check the freezer but I know I have lots of salad stuff.

Plus, the most exciting thing this week is he gets his Covid shot tomorrow. Hurray!!!!