Category Archives: home improvement

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.

Friday Things

Posted in budgeting, budgets, home improvement, swimming by

We’re back in the rain today and all weekend:( I know we need all we can get but geez, it gets kind of old. Anyway, I didn’t go out this morning so I could do a few house things.

I made up a batch of hummus from the garbanzos I cooked the other day. I planned the next week’s menu using the pantry challenge. Tonight I will use the one frozen pizza I have in the freezer. I’ll make a salad on the side. I tidied up my office space and did a swish and swipe in the bathroom. I planned to vacuum but all the kitties are sleeping!

I had a nice swim yesterday and the pool was not super busy. I usually swim Saturdays but with the next wave of the storm is tomorrow and it’s forecast to be heavier rain and some wind.

Our UHC medicare supplemental has a gym membership with Anytime Fitness for free so I signed up for that. B is already signed up and is going 2-3 x a week. I plan on using the gym for the treadmill and weights when I don’t want to drive down the hill. Plus it’s free!

We went to Costco on Wednesday and it was not too busy at all. We usually try and get there right at 9 but this time we were there at 10 and it was great. Plus we didn’t need a whole lot. I was primarily going to get the 4 pack of Nasocort I use to help clear my sinus cavity. This was something the doctor said to try and it does help. We bought about $100 in just groceries. I’ll add that amount to the food budget but the non food I’ll keep out of the low spend challenge. Things like AA batteries, allergy stuff are just maintenance stuff and need to be bought regardless of low spend month.

My favorite youtube, Minimom had a good budget video the other day. She had bought a download from Etsy that is compatible with Google Docs. I checked it out and I’m curious but I tend to like my budget on paper. It’s on sale today so I guess I’ll need to decide.

That’s it for now, hopefully, the rain will ease up. It’s hard not to go stir crazy.

2022

Posted in California, camping, covid-19, Flylady, home improvement, home stuff, Retirement, swimming, travel, Uncategorized, Walking by

I’ve said before, I never do resolutions anymore but I do set some goals as benchmarks to move toward. The top of the list is to keep doing things that are healthy for me/us. That would include walking almost every day, swimming 2x -3x a week, eating good food( which we do anyway), keeping positive( which I think we do anyway, but always a good reminder. I’m pretty disciplined with menus, budgets, groceries, Fly lady routines, and other chores.

Other goals would be for projects. The entryway windows where B has his desk are not doing well. They were wonderful old windows from a library in SF someone gave us. But now the wood is in bad shape so probably the first project will be taking them out and replacing them with a vinyl-type window. the footings under that part of the room should be done better too. The next 2 windows are in the sunroom. These shouldn’t be as complicated as the other ones as the wall is straight and not at an angle and it should be fairly straightforward. Other outside things are a fence along the nasty neighbor’s border. We hoped to do a privacy fence but I think that will be too expensive this year so we decided to put up 5-foot fencing to make the boundary more designated and we can even plant some things along it to create a barrier. Fencing and poles shouldn’t be more than $150 maybe and it’s a start. Right now it is the original (since 1950) 3-foot hog fence that has 4inch gaps. So this will be a good start. I’m pretty sure we are going to budget for the one tree to be taken down. I’m hoping the bid is @ 2500.

We’ve got 4 RV trips planned and I hope we can get reservations for at least 2 more maybe 3. I’d like to find one more new place to go. Last year was great with discovering Refugio State Beach and then the Wine Resort RV Park in Paso Robles. We definitely enjoyed full hookups.

My sister’s health is very precarious right now and she will go into hospice care soon. With Omicron, I won’t fly but we could drive back if she makes it into spring. We just don’t know and the details are somewhat sketchy. It’s been hard to deal with as she’s only 4 years older than me. What her husband said was, she was having difficulty breathing( she is on 24hour oxygen due to the Interstitial lung disease . Other than that , like why? I don’t have the details. It sucks really.

This week I have my 6 – month eye check for the macular pucker and I have Dr. Laptalo as well. I’ll swim at least once and probably call that good.

Last night I made a loaded baked potato soup and it was very good. Tonight I’m roasting a chicken and I’ll do some frozen nut loaf for B. Not sure what else, a salad and ? Then later in the week, I plan on making Beef bourguignon. I saw a recipe for mushroom bourguignon and I might do that for B.

Most of the week is supposed to be nice but there is rain tomorrow and Tuesday. I don’t think we’re supposed to get snow though.

Simple Sunday

Posted in Flylady, home improvement, home stuff, minimalism, Uncategorized by

A lovely Sunday morning walk. They’ve fixed some of the path with new asphalt so it’s much nicer and has fewer cracks to trip on. I use my walking stick in my left hand which does help with stability but mostly I keep it with me so that the AH dog walker moves over when he’s walking in the middle of the path with his dog to his far-left which puts the dog straight in our path. With his passive-aggressiveness, he usually waits till the last second to move over to the side of the path he’s supposed to be walking. Remember driving, bicycles, etc, you stay to your right. Oh well, it was still a very pleasant walk.

I came home and started working on the bedroom closet which is our ONLY closet. I did a little more reorganizing and there’s still some more to do. I’ve decided for the most part to not keep extra pantry stuff in there except for the Costco size cereal boxes. Plus probably the extra coffee bean bags. Last time I went to Ikea I bought a few extra white boxes and now I have all the stuff I use for Easter, Christmas, and Hanukkah in those boxes on the top shelf. I don’t have a lot of clothes so I hang my T-shirts, denim shirts and the 2 sweaters I have. I’m not sure what my end goal is in there but definitely eliminating as much extra stuff as possible.

Then I did the kitchen zone : here’s a few photos.

Someday, we’ll have money to redo the kitchen. Not the lay-out but the counters and the cabinets.

The new sunroom windows are almost in. What happened was the nice old redwood windows had just gotten too water damaged and water was seeping in and getting on the floor when it rained. Granted it is just a porch but we use it a lot for wood, cat litter etc. So now there are windows that will open and that will help with air flow.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cooking, home improvement, home stuff, ikea by

Another beautiful October day. The clouds are rolling in and we expect rain. As a matter of fact, it looks like the storm door is definitely going to open by Wednesday. We are covering things and finishing up some outside work.

We went down to Ikea to pick up some heavy curtains for the bedroom as the windows do let in some cold even though they are double paned. That was supposed to be a project this year of replacing them but we ended up replacing one sunroom window and then the laundry room got a makeover. Maybe next year.

I plan to write out some goals and projects for next year and prioritize them. We know we need one more tree down that is nearest the driveway and is making taking the RV out challenging since it leans in toward the driveway. This is another 100 ft Ponderosa so probably $3000. Then we are planning to switch the wood stove to propane as we feel that B probably isn’t going to want to keep cutting firewood. Those 2 projects are probably the big ones.

Simplifying the woodstove will make a big difference. We love wood fires but it is a lot of work and we need to look to the future when getting wood, bringing it in the house, stacking, etc will be another chore we’d rather not do.

I’m tired from going to Ikea so I think dinner will be a simple tofu scramble with some Kirkland tomato bisque soup. That’s about all I can do.

This is looking out at the driveway. The second tree in is the one we need down. the first one is a leaner but it’s leaning away from the driveway so if it goes it will go in that direction. The last one is a crooked tree that the original owner cut the top to put an antenna on top thus the split. If that goes it will just fall in the woods. Trees are beautiful until they are a threat. 😦 The golden bamboo is the bamboo I went and dig up at a fellow Waldorf school parent’s house back in 1997.

Simple Sunday

Posted in cooking, home improvement, Uncategorized by

Yesterday I chose not to go to the pool and stay home and cook. I wanted to get some freezer meals done so I have more choices when I don’t feel like cooking. So first I used my last #10 can of tomatoes and cooked up some ground beef and made a meat sauce for lasagnas. Then I used the other half of the can for sauce in the cheese lasagnas. I had decided to buy the freezer containers from amazon.

I started out making 2 cheese lasagnas, 2 meat lasagnas , and 1 cheese enchilada tray.

This week I’m in the bathroom zone. At Ikea I bought a round mirror to replace the one we’ve had in there for 25 years. I checked prices on Amazon and Ikea had the best price for this type of mirror.

Today we are doing a little painting in the laundry room. The window is in and there is still the new subfloor to put down.

We had an unfortunate negative run in with our neighbor that we want the fence built to block out his garage. So he seems to not have a job but works on old cars, that’s fine. He is often grinding or doing something making noise but it’s tolerable. Well, yesterday starting at 8 am he started air blasting an old truck. the noise was at 85 decibels which, if you look it up, is VERY loud. So I said, let’s just give him the benefit of the doubt and let it go till noon. Well, noon came and went and so the noise kept going Then he had 2 people show up doing other blasting things. I really was losing it by 4pm. So I said ok let’s wait till 5. At 5:15 I walked over to the fence behind the barn. One of the men came over and I said “you cannot be running industrial machinery all day in a residential area. I’d like to talk to the owner. He had his back to me and turned around and said ‘call the police’. I said that’s what I don’t want to do. He turned his back to me and ignored me. the other guy says, this is almost over and I said, regardless you cannot have industrial level noise in a neighborhood and it’s the owners responsibility. I was livid to say the least. I’m thinking what is with this guy. We’ve never had any encounters with him ever and he deals with me that way. So my daughter checked and we can file a noise complaint online. I really don’t want to do that but I will if it happens again. I hate conflict and am NOT good at dealing with these things really. But I will call the sheriff if it goes on again for that long.

What would you have done? and why do you think he was so belligerent to me.?

Frugal Friday( for the most part)

Posted in budgets, home improvement, Lake tahoe, swimming, Uncategorized by

I suppose the biggest save this week was shopping at Winco . I haven’t been in quite a while and ,once again, really shocked at the low prices as opposed to Safeway/BelAir.

I probably saved $50 at least on what I bought. I didn’t really go item by item but it was significant. What happened is, after swimming I decided to go over there and it wasn’t too difficult at all. Usually after my swim I come directly home. No stops. So this time I swam 35 minutes so I wasn’t too wiped out and it was perfect. Plus I was in there at 8am. So there were just a few shoppers( big bonus for me who dislikes people). All in all, I was quite pleased and will do it again, probably before we head to Tahoe ( if it is even open).

The truck AC we as fixed, we think, at no cost to us as we have the warranty. I’m still not sure it was just the freon but I’ll wait and see.

We haven’t done any take out in a while and that always saves money. Just haven’t been interested in other people’s food. Tonight is pizza night and I’ll do an Ooni. I’m down to 4 more and it’s paid for itself. If I were to order it again, I would definitely go for the gas one so if you’re thinking about an Ooni do the gas one. The pellets take more work and getting the temperature right is tricky. Not hard, you just have to keep adding the pellets at the right time.

I’m planning on going down to Ikea this morning as I have a 10% coupon I want to use. I tried to do the click and collect which is nice and easy but the item I wanted they said they couldn’t do that due to low stock. Oh well, it shows 4 in stock so I hope it’s there.

The laundry room is still torn apart but getting there. I decided to buy the less expensive window to replace the one that broke and was all fogged anyway. That hopefully will go in this weekend. I want it all done including being painted by the time we leave for Tahoe so that should give my son and B a timeline.

Five on Friday

Posted in covid-19, home improvement, home stuff, swimming by

So far I only got one swim in this week and I’ll go tomorrow.

We had to go back to the Honda dealer to resign the papers as they had put something wrong in the contract. On the way home we both noticed the AC wasn’t cold so later I called and now we have to go back down today. Thus, no swimming today and bumped till tomorrow. I’m thinking they’re going to just do a freon recharge but I don’t think that’s the problem as they probably did that when it was on the lot. so it’s under warranty but still a PITA. Why is it always something???

Barclay also goes today to infusion for his IGIV. His immunoglobulins have been steady but being on the Jakafi ( Gvs H drug) his numbers have declined. So on top of the truck drop off there’s that. Fortunately, my daughter will go get him at 4pm. It is a long infusion.

Our weather has been lovely cool fall like. There’s still smoke drifting over from the Caldor fire but we’ve mostly had clear skies. Today looks more smoky though.

Barclay and my son have the laundry room torn apart and hopefully will get new flooring this weekend and some new sheetrock. This is not your average house laundry room as it is attached to the back off the house with only outside access. It works for us for now. There wouldn’t be a place in the house to put a washer/ dryer unless we built a ‘real addition’. Oh well, that’s what we have.

Bonus: I got my Covid booster so very excited about that. A sore arm but that’s it!

Friday things…

Posted in cooking, home improvement, home stuff by

We’re headed into 4th if July weekend. I-80 has been crazy busy but we pretty much stay home on holiday weekends. I do plan on going to the pool tomorrow but early so I’m hoping most of the traffic will be gone.

We had turkey burgers on the BBQ last night and it was hot out so it made it challenging to cook. They were ok. B had a Beyond burger. Tonight I plan on using the Ooni and make 2 pizzas. i think we’ll just need to move one of the patio umbrellas so there’s more shade.

The kitchen shelves are now up and look good. The brackets are from Signature hardware it you’re looking.

So everything that was on the restaurant shelves is on these shelves and in the Heywood. I do like the drawer for utensils as we only have the one other drawer, so that’s nice. Underneath has my Vitamix, and my big jars(gallon) of flour and rice. Plus, I’m using the cabinet that was in my office area and was empty except for a few items. For now it’s a good alternative to the Ikea pantry.

Oh, the boy kitties are now neutered and so the only one left is the little girl kitty. They don’t have any openings for girls right now so that’ll be something to stay on top of. You have to check their website daily for appts. But everyone(except little Cherry) has shots and fixed. Hurray!!!

Our temperatures are fairly normal here in the mid 90’s. July is always hot and so is August. Hopefully, not too many over 100 degree days. I shudder to think of the electric bill. We have been line drying clothes since it’s too hot to use the dryer. I do put the clothes in the dryer for a fluff cycle but that’s not hot.

Today B is going to do another dump run. I think this is our 6th this year. We had one free one and then the others we’ve paid for. Today it’s a bunch of old carpet that was on the floor of the barn, old fencing and misc. I cleaned out the freezer so there’s a bunch of food stuff to go in a bag. I got tired of looking at 1/4 bags of frozen veggies that have been in there for a year.

Well, that’s a wrap up.

Kitchen zone

Posted in Flylady, home improvement, home stuff, Uncategorized by

I did the kitchen zone this morning. I actually timed it and it took an hour. I still need to water the plants and do the overhead lights but basically it’s all done. The bread stuff usually fits in the one bin but since we’d just been to Costco there was an overflow of ummm, danish things.

The new stove hood is great and I can reach the buttons/functions so that’s a big plus. We’re still hoping we can re do the counters with Ikea cabinets this fall but right now nothing is in stock. When we go in next time I’d like to ask the sales person if we can order and just wait.

This area will stay the same as it’s functional and we don’t need it different.

The top shelves you see will be replaced with boards and the same brackets I bought for the Ball jar shelves. I’ll also have B dropped them a few inches so the tops are more accessible. The shelves will also come all the way to the window.

This area will stay the same too as we just added that bottom shelf.

I wouldn’t mind a bigger window but probably that won’t happen. We will get a window though that opens up instead of sideways.

This is some of my All Clad. Barclay bought me a set when we finished building our house in Foresthill in 1988. If you ever need pans to last a lifetime, All Clad is it. I also have 2 frying pans and large stockpot.

The stove hood is a nice improvement.

As I’ve said the kitchen zone is my biggest zone mostly due to the work area. There’s the stove, hood, shelves, cabinets etc. so it definitely takes some time. I plan on getting a new stove sometime in the next year too.