Category Archives: Lake tahoe

Simple Sunday on a Monday

Posted in Blood test, California, camping, covid-19, Lake tahoe, meal planning, swimming, travel by

We left Tahoe in the smoke and came home to smoke. Ugh….One day the AQI was 500, which is pretty bad. Today is also not looking good. Our weather is cooler so hopefully, that will help the firefighters.

My daughter went and picked up my VW on Friday and didn’t notice the fan was on full blast, and when I went to turn it down it wasn’t working. I tried a few times and then just decided I would need to confront the garage because it was working fine when I brought it in. So I went in this morning, a little defensive, and said this was working when I left my VW here and now it’s not. She said, we didn’t work on that and I said that may be but my fan control is not working now and it was when I brought it in. I said I would like it fixed. I haven’t heard back from them; hopefully, it is a minor thing. I better not get charged. And there was a diagnostic charge I said don’t bother with and they have it on there so another confrontation, which I do not do well.

I canned BBQ sauce yesterday with the last of the tomatoes. It’s way early for them to be done but this summer has been so weird that it’s just one more thing. It’s thinner than I wanted so I wrote on the lid to add ketchup to thicken it.

Yesterday was my sister, Heidi’s birthday. She would have turned 74. It is so strange how she just had a flare up of the interstitial lung disease and died. She had been coping with it for a number of years with no flare ups. Well, I guess when it’s time, it’s time. ( that’s just me rationalizing).

Tomorrow I have my labs and so I should have my kappa light chain numbers by Friday. I see my doctor next week. Then I scheduled my omicron booster for Friday. I didn’t have any reaction last time so fingers crossed this time. But each time is probably different so who knows.

We’re still on the fence about going to Southern Ca next month. I guess we’ll just keep sifting through our feelings and fiances about it.

My son is off on a cool adventure staying in a fire lookout up in the McCloud district( way Northern Ca). This can be booked like a camping spot and is fairly hard to get a reservation. Back in the 70’s we often went to the Duncan Peak fire lookout especially since our friend Shelley was the lookout person. I haven’t been in years and years and my son said all that’s left is the foundation as all lookouts are done with remote viewing.

I just looked outside and everything is a weird yellow color from the fire. I’m sure the air quality is awful. I was going to swim today but the pool is closed also due to the AQI.

I still need to plan some meals this week and write a grocery list. I need salad stuff so maybe I’ll do Winco for organic spring mixes. I did see a recipe on a youtube channel for a green soup. Lots of veggies and spinach and then blended. Green soup is one of my favorites and this one also had cauliflower and broccoli.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, camping, cooking, Lake tahoe, swimming, travel by

It’s already hot out so I started one of the coolers on low. Today is only 103! haha,, but Tuesday still looks like the worst at 108. There’s a big fire up near Mt Shasta, in the Weed area. That is a lot of cattle/ranch land. I saw that some structures burned:( What a difficult weather pattern we’re in with global warming. I hope it’s not too late to reverse some things.

Our walk was very nice with only us and the stray kitties. That doesn’t happen very often anymore. I’m not sure if we’ll walk tomorrow or just wait till we’re settled in camp and then go for a walk up there. B has Rubi ready to go. Tomorrow I’ll put all the food in and clothes and prescriptions etc. No hurray as we won’t leave till @ 9:30-10am.

I’ve done a quick go thru go all the zones so my daughter just has to keep up on swish and swipe and vacuuming. She takes care of the litter boxes anyway. Food is up to them although there is plenty in the fridge and freezer. The only night she works late is Tuesday but my son will be home to take care of kitties and things.

This morning I made the brown rice to stuff the peppers. The peppers are from Costco, the organic ones. So the mix is brown rice, some tomato confit, sauteed onions,( I forgot garlic), a bit of grated cheese, some green hatch chile sausage crumbled and sauteed, and finally some chopped nuts. The veggies ones are the same minus the bit of crumbled sausage.

So this is in the crock pot with some San Marzano tomatoes. In camp, I will use the Staub and simmer for an hour.

I finished another dishcloth,#3. It’s gray and my favorite so far.

Here’s the ecru-colored one.

I’m planning on taking my knitting camping and also my embroidery. I bought a kit from Walmart ( very inexpensive, like 4.99,) and it’s a cat so that’ll be fun.

We watched Jaws last night. Such a great classic summer movie. We haven’t watched the new Amazon Tolkien one yet. Maybe we can stream it up at Tahoe.

Well, that’s a wrap for today. I’ll have a full week off from swimming and the gym. Then it’ll feel like I’m starting all over :(. We will walk a lot in Tahoe but that’s quite different from doing weights and the pool. When I get back I have labs on Tuesday so I won’t swim that day( Tuesday is my regular swim day). The pool is only open for lap swimming till 9:30 so it’s too rushed to go down after labs. I’ll go Wednesday.

Frugal Friday, and the heat is coming:(

Posted in California, camping, canning tomato salsa, Lake tahoe, travel by

The heat is on its way.

Today is around 103 degrees; by Monday, we’re looking at 108. That’s pretty much unheard of in the Sierra foothills. We get 100-degree days, maybe even 103 but I don’t remember 108. We’ll be leaving for Tahoe Monday morning @ 10 am so we can get up there by 12:30. Checkout is noon so we don’t want to get there too early. We’ve never had a problem with early check-in but it does depend on the camp hosts.

Even in Tahoe, the temperatures will be in the 80’s, and for September that’s hot. I’m looking forward to just getting up there.

I have most of the meal ideas planned and will make a list of what to go buy at the store. This week was another lower spend week with B going to Costco but that was only $85 and $20 of that was champagne to bring with us. But he filled the truck at Costco gas and that was the main reason for going. No extras from Amazon or Winco this week. I stopped at our market yesterday to pick up cilantro for the salsa I was going to make this morning.

We had a nice walk at 5:40-6:20 am and then I came home and started chopping stuff for the salsa. The recipe calls for chopped onions, tomatoes( peeled and cored), bell peppers, and jalapenos, cilantro, and garlic. After all that I cooked it down for 30 minutes and then put it in the jars. Processing was 20 minutes.

That was 10 lbs of tomatoes. I think probably I’ve done @ 50 lbs so far. There’s not a lot left on the plants but if there is I’ll just do some quick sauce and maybe freeze that.

Except for the excessive heat, it’s been a nice week.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, camping, cooking, Flylady, Lake tahoe, simple foods, Uncategorized by

Our day started with a lovely walk with no one else until our last round. This past week every day we walked there were way too many people for me. I don’t mean just one or two but probably 8-10 people and that’s at 6am. Oh well, today was nice and the temperature cool.

We only have a week till we head up to Tahoe and I’m sure looking forward to it. We don’t have any plans to do anything yet but we’ll do a lot of hiking, beach time, walking, and just camp stuff. I’m working on our menu and know we’ll do a few meals on the Weber. I’ll also use the Staub for a few meals too.

This morning I’ve done some meal prep for the week. I’m marinating the tofu for the “Superiority Tofu burger , this is from a restaurant in Greenwich Village NY. It’s marinated overnight in a pickle brine and then fried. Then I’m soaking some black beans for a recipe my daughter found of’One pot Rice and Beans”, I made up two w.w wraps with cheese, spinach, tomato and, a slice of ham.( no ham on the veggie one). And finally, I made our favorite chard soup. ( there are 2 jars of this in the fridge).

I think I may still grill the chicken up and then we could have that in a few dishes like tacos, or bean bowls.

Yesterday I made another batch of tomato sauce. I cooked it down for about 2 hours and it had a lovely consistency.

I prefer not to use the quart jars as it takes more water in the canner to cover them but I wanted the larger size this time. I think I have close to 12 jars of sauce right now down.

I’ve been having fun with a few house projects. One is simply using one of my vintage tablecloths to make a curtain to cover the one opening under the counter. Who knows if we’ll ever be able to afford a kitchen remodel so trying to make it more functional and yet less cluttered is important to me. Behind this curtain are all my cooking oils and vinegars.

Then I’ve been enjoying knitting some dishcloths. I really like the repetitiveness of knitting. It’s probably a right brain/left brain thing.

This week is low key with only my regular gym and swim days. Barclay is going to take the truck to Costco to fill up with gas and then get a few items in Costco. If I need to get anything, I’ll go into Winco which is across the street from the pool.

Flylady is the LR zone and the entryways. I bought this really lovely Tartan print runner from Target and love the fall colors of it.

The napkins are a nice linen blend which is always my favorite.

A great week

Posted in California, camping, Lake tahoe, Uncategorized by

We packed up Rubi and left the campground around 9:15am. Hooking up Rubi and getting ready to travel takes about 45minutes. B has it down now and it’s just a step-by-step process. Then we headed over to Zephyr Cove RV campground to use the dump station. That went well and we were on our way by 9:40am. The trip around the lake and then down I 80 went smooth and traffic was minimal. We pulled in at noon.

Some pictures;

This is one of the meadows near the campground.

Some of the cool granite boulders. This area was the land of the Washoe Indians and where the name ‘Tahoe’comes from.

Some wildflowers.

This is sunrise over in Desolation Wilderness.

Sunrise over the lake.

Today our weather is cloudy and cooler. We may even get some much needed rain.

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, camping, Lake tahoe, swimming, travel, Uncategorized by

It was a frugal week overall. All of June’s bills are in for the month with the exception of the DMV for the truck which is due at the end of June. The DMV seems really high but maybe trucks cost more. We bought the truck a year ago so DMV fees were included and we didn’t probably notice.

This past week was 2 grocery shops. Winco for @ $100 and Costco for @$120. So not too bad. Most of those things will last the month of June and were some pantry refills. I plan on going to the store tomorrow for some camping food things we will need like half and half, some bananas, and at least one salad pack.

We’re leaving Monday and I don’t think were going to hit traffic going up to Tahoe as most of it will be coming down going west. Tahoe itself will probably be busy but we’re not planning on doing anything extra except a lunch out. We also need to go check the dump station in Zephyr Cove as Nevada Beach campground does not have a dump station. We’re only there 4 nights so it shouldn’t be a problem. Still, we will want to use a dump station before coming home.

Other expenses this week were the birthday present for my daughter, stuff from Home Depot, and some things from Amazon. I needed some black-out curtains to hang as the sun is pretty intense in the bedroom and the entryway this time of year. I also bought a Hario pour-over set for Rubi. We usually do the coffee press first thing but then after we walk we’ve felt like a coffee so this will give us 2 cups more. It’s a small pour-over carafe. Hario is supposed to be an excellent product so I’m excited to try it.

Tomorrow is a swim day and I’m hoping the pool is somewhat empty. The other day it was absolutely packed with people even waiting which does not happen very often. I also thought to go check out the gym over by the library for using weights. I’ve seen the building but haven’t gone in and I’m not sure what the set up is but it’s included in my monthly fee so it’s worth checking out.

I don’t have much on the schedule today except work out in the garden shed some. Tonight is pizza night and I think we’ll order one.

Post Script

After 6 months of glorious walking without the AH, he showed up yesterday. I almost fell over:(

So here’s the whole story, I decided a while ago that if he came back, which honestly I didn’t think was going to happen after 6 months, I would make an overture to him. So as he passed by I said ” Hey, Welcome back! Where’ve ya been??” Nicely… So he turns around( he a very dark sunglasses on so I couldn’t see his eyes) and looks at me and says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and then turns and keeps walking. I was floored. I really was totally floored by this. But he was here this morning and we just ignored him and he looked the other way when he saw us. I’m convinced he has some sort of social issue or a mental issue or both.

Simple Sunday

Posted in Blood test, California, camping, cooking, Flylady, Lake tahoe, Myeloma by

It’s been a nice week with even a trip up to Lake Tahoe. I’ve wanted to try and stop at the Ritz Carlton in Tahoe to buy one of their signature candles. Each Ritz has its own signature fragrance. So that was our first stop. If you know Tahoe it is right next to Northstar on 267. It’s quite a ways back and feels a little like driving to the Overlook in “The Shining’. But it’s very beautiful. There was no one out front but the valet and he asked were we checking in? There’s NO parking at all in front of the hotel. So I said we were hoping to go to their gift store. He sort of hemmed and hawed a little and then said ok, pull over there on the right, and to give him our keys, and told us how to get to the spa. I practically ran in. It was really nice of him to let us do this. So anyway, long story short, I got the Tahoe Candle.

Barclay actually has enough points from his Marriot account for one night there so we will do that during an off-season time. Right now is perfect but we’re going to Capitola next week so it seemed too rushed to try and do it now.

From there we went to NuLeaf for B to get some chocolate and gummies. NuLeaf is in Incline, so you drive down to Kings Beach and then over to Incline going around the lake. Next, we stopped at Potlatch gift shop for some postcards of Tahoe I wanted to get you YouTuber Minimom who has asked subscribers to send postcards of the area they live in. She’s in New Zealand. I thought she’d enjoy Lake Tahoe. And we also picked up some stickers’ Keep Tahoe Blue”.

Next, we got sandwiches at a new to us place in Incline and then headed to Sand Harbor. Sand Harbor is one of the most beautiful beaches around Tahoe. There was pretty much no one there, maybe 5-6 other people. So it was glorious.

All in all a beautiful day.

Next Sunday we leave for a week at New Brighton State Beach. We have one of our favorite spots. It’s not an ocean view spot but it is open and near the bathrooms, if we need them. No hookups though. There are a few spots with hookups but they are hard to get.

I’ve cooked some great meals this past week from ‘The Le Creuset ‘ cookbook. The french onion soup.

A quiche

This week Flylady zone is the entryway. I did the windows and B replaced some pavers out the sunroom porch room so that was a nice improvement.

Our weather is going to be beautiful this week with temperatures in the 70s and even one day with an 80-degree day.

I have labs on Friday so I should get results next week while we’re gone. I’m not too worried about my numbers this time but I hope they are still in the normal range.

Here’s a view of the yard. Everything is very green and lush right now.

Simple Sunday

Posted in cooking, Flylady, Lake tahoe, meal planning, Walking by

A lovely walk with just the two of us. 🙂 Sundays are usually quieter anyway but the dog walker was always there regardless. I’ve come up with two scenarios: either he moved??? or has had some surgery/illness prevention him from walking. Being that he walked 5 miles a day (I’m guessing) not walking just doesn’t seem an option. It doesn’t matter, he’s not there and we are truly enjoying the park again.

This morning we had a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs with Boursin cheese, rolls that my daughter made, and some bacon. ( no veggie bacon today:( ) Right now I have the sourdough bread in the oven on its last 15-minute bake. This one is jalapeno cheddar. The asiago one was quite delicious. Last night we had stuffed peppers in the crockpot with brown rice, cheese, walnuts, and onions. I cooked them in a tomato base. Quite yummy. Tonight I’m making some grilled chicken, potatoes and a big salad. I’ll probably grill some tofu too. The rest of the week is undecided but I am going to start my pantry challenge early( this week) and see how it goes.

We had a couple of spectacular sunrises and sunsets the last few days because of the wind stirring up so much dust/particles in the air. Reds, oranges, yellows.

We’ve been debating the wood stove thing again vs gas fireplace. We know down the road we will need to do this as B will not be able or want to keep up with firewood. Plus firewood is messy and the dust isn’t good for the air quality esp. since my daughter is asthmatic. I guess we just need to go into a fireplace store and find out how much they are and installation.

Oh here’s the bread, I just took out of the oven. yummmmm….

I plan on two swims this week and we may drive up to Lake Tahoe to see the snow.

Simple Sunday

Posted in budgets, camping, Flylady, Lake tahoe by

A beautiful clear but cold day. the temperature was 32 this morning and probably had gotten into the high 20’s. We walked a little later because I was trying to do Nevada Beach for June. I hate their system now. In seconds of opening, every spot from May 15( when they open to June 19) was GONE. They really need to figure out something. It’s not fair when people can book all that much and then it’s gone. I’ll keep trying but now we’re at the end of June and we don’t do Tahoe in July or August because of tourists. Really pisses me off. Anyway, it was a nice walk after 7am.

I did the bedroom zone and tidied things up. Yesterday I had washed the LR floor around rug with a rag and it wasn’t too bad. I guess at some point I’d like to do the vinyl flooring as it stays so clean but that’s not on the agenda next year.

We’re actually looking at what projects to do and the money for them. We need to take the tree down in the driveway so we can get in and out with the RV easier. Maybe work on some fencing. We need to take out the wood windows in B’s office and replace with something like what we just bought for the sunroom. They’re not Anderson windows but are adequate. Plus that foundation around his office needs to be redone. I don’t think we can budget anything for the house but we do need the septic pumped and last time that was almost $700. We did plan on putting in the propane stove in the living room, replacing the woodstove but I think that will cost too much to do.

This week is pretty mellow. I plan on swimming Tuesday and then popping into the new TJ’s, I will go into Safeway Thursday morning early and skip swimming, and that’s about it.

I want to do some more decluttering in the barn if it warms up plus I have more canning jars to give to the thrift store. I only need so much.

Well, that wraps up the week.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, Flylady, Lake tahoe, minimalism by

Things are back to normal around here. All the camping stuff is organized back in Rubi, the linen sheets washed and put back on the bed and kitchen is tidied too.

Our weather is definitely fall like and it’s getting darker earlier in the evening and getting lighter later in the morning. We walked this morning starting at 6:08 and it was still somewhat dark so we used a flashlight. AH was there, (when is he ever not there) and didn’t have a flashlight. ( Jerk!!)

BTW, we did get the laundry room back together before we left for Tahoe. The walls are painted but the ceiling wood still needs to go up and the door isn’t up. That’s because we plan to flip it so it opens the other way that what it was doing before. It looks good. I’ll get a few pictures up this week.

We decided to do Costco this morning because of the coffee on sale( Starbucks that’s $5.00 off) and the sale ends today. We got other sale items too since that is the best way to take advantage of Costco’s prices. We were in and out in 30 minutes, so a record.

The kitties are growing and lots of fun to watch although they are little terrors when running thru the house. Little Cherry got spayed on Thursday so now they are all done. They all have such unique personalities.

All the garden stuff is winding down and we have been cleaning up the yard/garden areas. My daughter does most of it but I try and do some everyday. I must have made 8 jars of pickled jalapenos. Hey, if you haven’t tried pickled jalapenos in eggs salad , give it a try it was delicious.

Last evening we had a BBQ. The first in months with the weather so hot plus fire danger. I did some burgers, veggie burgers and chicken. I plan on using the chicken tonight in some ramen. It was fun and it was nice to sit outside with the lovely weather.

I have a load in buggie to take to the Goodwill tomorrow. Included is a small very nice old dresser that has carved acorns on the handles. I’ve loved the little dresser but now I don’t have a use for it so I’m going to pass it on to someone who has space and can use it.

This week in Flylady we’re in the living room zone. We plan to take out the window cooler and I’ll wash the windows. I might look around or take some pictures to see what can be rearranged or decluttered. BTW, one of the BEST tools to see how things are in your space is take pictures with your phone. It really is eye opening.