Category Archives: prepper pantry

Simple Sunday

Posted in Blood test, budgets, California, cooking, Flylady, home stuff, minimalism, Pantry, prepper pantry, simple foods, social security, Uncategorized, Walking by

A sunny Sunday but cold again. Still at 32 degrees and frosty on our walk this morning. The park was all frosty but it was a nice walk. It seems Great White Duck is now missing so we’re assuming it got taken by a predator. She/he has been around for maybe 4-5 years so that’s sad.

I worked on the bedroom zone and I plan on shampooing the carpet this week. I probably will also add in the LR zone too as there’s not a lot to do in that either. I do need to dust everything though.

I popped into the Auburn gym and felt the same about it as last week. The assisted weights are old and really dated compared to Roseville. The treadmills are also ‘dated’ to some degree. I was the only one using wipes on the equipment and it seemed most of the people there were ignoring wiping anything. I saw one old guy sneezing and snotting into his tissue and then go use a machine. Ewwww:(

Tomorrow I have my labs and then I might go down to the Roseville gym. I’m not committing yet because I may want to just come straight home and do some house tidying. The thing about being more minimal is it takes way less time to clean, tidy, or organize with a decluttered house. Still, things need to get done. Yesterday I washed the sunroom windows and washed the barkcloth cover I use on the couch out there. So everything in that room is done.

I also think having routines and daily to-do lists helps keep things organized. I almost always have my menu in place for dinner and I always keep my kitchen counters clear. If I had more storage space I definitely would keep my Kitchen Aid in a cabinet. Also, I think when our small microwave gives up the ghost I won’t replace it. I also keep the tea kettle on the counter. I really can’t change that as we use it a bazillion times a day.

The pantry challenge is going well and we are definitely using up things. This week I have some Dover sole to use up and from the big freezer, I’m planning on using the last ground turkey to make chili. I’m slowly bringing in all the pantry things from the prepper pantry and putting them in rotation. I’m pretty sure I won’t do a huge prepper pantry again. But I do want to keep doing pressure canned shelf stable foods. I don’t think I’ll do tons but I do enjoy the process and it is very convenient. So far the big winners are the BBQ sauce, enchilada sauce, chicken pot pie filling, and vegetable soup.

The pantry challenge also helped with my budget and I’m coming in way under what I planned. Our next month’s budget starts next week with our SS checks and then I’ll do a final tally. Let’s hope this debt ceiling shit doesn’t affect SS as that is all we’ve got!

Simple Sunday

Posted in cooking, Flylady, home stuff, meal planning, prepper pantry, Uncategorized by

Well, the HOT weather is back and will be with us for about 10 days. I try and hold off turning on the coolers till about noon. The one we added last year in the entryway/ B’s office space actually helps the house the most as there’s no air circulation there and it gets really warm. The cooler moves the air in there and into the kitchen. I also close all the windows by 8 and close what curtains/blinds we have and that helps.

This week is the Flylady bathroom zone and I just finished that. I tidied the kitchen and other rooms too. I was going to make the bagel dough for tomorrow a little later. ( will see if that happens.)

I’m planning to go in to Auburn to go to Michaels as I need some black embroidery thread. I’ve been having fun doing some embroidery. Usually, I just like to do borders on napkins and things but I found a cute Neko cat one on – line for free and I’ve 2. One is just on a linen bag I have and the other I left in the hoop for my daughter to put in her space. It’s meditative and like knitting is a good mind exercise. I might pick up some cotton to do some wash cloths too. I can only knit so long as my hands have some arthritis and after a while cramp up. Still, it’s fun to do something creative.

I did end up going into Winco yesterday and spent a little over $100. I got a few extra pantry things so that was good. One thing I told B when I got home was all the shelves and bulk sections in Winco were all full. No gaps or empty shelves. So I think this is a good time to look at what I need to restock in my prepper type pantry.

I think dinners this week will be around a salad theme because of the heat. I plan on making a Greek pasta salad for tonight, maybe do a sandwich or wrap night too.

Wednesday things

Posted in bread, budgeting, budgets, cooking, decluttering, prepper pantry, Uncategorized, Walking by

A beautiful walk this morning under the Snow moon. Quite bright and no one showed up whilst we were there. Sunrise is definitely getting earlier now. Venus is very visible too.

I didn’t swim yesterday as the Santa Fe’s window is still not fixed. It should get sorted this afternoon though and I plan on swimming tomorrow. When we went to Costco on Monday, I went to the service counter to get a new card and the person asked where I had my purse stolen. So I said right down the road at the Mike Shellito pool and she said wow, I was the SECOND person in the last two weeks that had their car broken into there. WOW, is all I could say. Nothing new with the claims but it’s early yet.

Yesterday I made sourdough cinnamon/cran bread.

It was good. I think next time I’d use brown sugar and a little more. My favorite is still the jalapeno cheddar.

My pantry challenge is moving along and I figured out breaking down the Costco shop into categories( non -food, food) and then I separated all the food for just this week such as strawberries,half and half) and then all the longer term items like coffee, blocks of cheese, I calculated the cost per week and how many weeks would it take to use and then added those totals. So that was kind of a revelation. So if I broke down just this week’s food it came to $43. Then the breakdown of food for the month(like the coffee) was $20 a week. That’s things like tofu, coffee, cheese, ramen. Then B went to TJ’s and spent $25 on food.( Well,some how two TJ’s chocolate bars ended up in his cart, but that’s ok. So, that’s @$88 give or take a few dollars. I usually round up so, $90 with $10 left over. Our meals have been delicious with tamales one night, Tucson Stew another night, pasta with homemade alfredo sauce tonight.

I still think this $100 a week for 4 people would be very hard if you didn’t have some sort of pantry or freezer back up. I’m not planning on doing any major restocking for the prepper pantry. I think I’ll just keep getting some things that I like to keep extras of and call it good. For some people the idea of a year’s worth of food is comforting. For me, it seems slightly fear driven ( I totally did this too) but maybe the lesson out of it all was FOR WHAT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES ARE, keep some pantry in case of emergency and decide how much that is. For us, I think a reasonable balance is maybe a months worth of stuff. Now remember, I have always ( since 1975) bought in bulk my beans, rice, flour,etc. So that’s nothing new to me. But all the extras was somewhat recent with the pandemic. ( Think extra soup cans, condiments, etc). Well, life is a journey and we can only hope to learn from where we’ve been to where we are going.

Barclay had a good visit with his transplant doctor and the good news is he will go off Jakafi. That’s an anti-rejection drug that runs @ $7,000 a month(OOPS, Barclay said it’s$17,000 a month). Fortunately, he has the grant actually from the drug company and UCD charity.

This month is my renewal for LLS and there is no funding for myeloma so I’m trying to not panic too much. I just keep checking daily as the funding can come in and then be gone quite quickly. Hopefully by the end of February which is my renewal month.

Today I’m planning to drop off the last of my Fiesta ware that I know I’m not going to use at the Hospice Thrift. Then a few other errands like an Amazon return.

Snowmageddon

Posted in California, cooking, home stuff, prepper pantry, simple foods, swimming by

I am now going crazy with NOT being able to go swimming much less walk.

SNOW, SNOW,SNOW……….

I had planned to go down to Roseville today to swim but again it’s snowing and I don’t want to be on the freeway getting stuck with a billion semis that are lining the on-ramps. Oh well, not much I can do about it. Maybe later we will walk from the house down to the park. The main reason we don’t do this regularly is our driveway is about a 45-degree angle. I can easily walk down but coming back up is difficult. Oh well, I guess since there’s nothing to be done about it, I’ll just accept it as Mother Nature’s way of saying take a break.

I made some yummy black bean burgers last night for dinner. The recipe is PioneerWoman’s and is simple and quite excellent. Everyone liked them.

I did a pantry check and wrote down what I have in the house and what I need. I still have to go out to the barn to do the prepper pantry. I have used most of what’s out there except a few things and I need to go check that out as I don’t quite remember. I think I have 2 bins of food plus the long shelf life of dried foods. Those I won’t use as they are true emergency food items. I’m not sure we will ever need them but they’re fine in one bin. or two. Most of the cleaning/non-food items I’m moving into the laundry room. Since it’s been redone it has two nice big shelves for those items. I still have some beans and oats in mylar bags and those too are long term so they’re fine in the storage bucket.

I’ve definitely gone thru some mental change in regards to a prepper pantry. I don’t feel the need to hoard a year’s worth of food or even 6 months. If the apocalypse is coming well, then it’s coming and me having a year’s worth of food isn’t going to matter. That being said, I have always ( 47 years now, since1975, have bought in bulk. Back then it was rice or beans, honey, flour, etc. I just always felt it was easier to have a supply on hand and then I didn’t need to think about it. So plus this last year really helped me focus on what we eat and what was just ‘hoarding’ or ‘what other people were doing. So that’s that.

I plan on making some scones this morning. I have a King Arthur Eggnog scone mix that’s definitely holiday-ish. I think I’ll do spaghetti with sauce tonight maybe a meat sauce but probably not as that means defrosting something. I’ll see how I feel later. I have some salad stuff that needs to get used up and some garlic bread. Yeah, that sounds good for tonight. Less thinking about it and it’s there to be used from the pantry. I have a nice bottle of red wine too!!!

Is it a Frugal Friday after a Costco trip…

Posted in Blood test, budgets, camping, decluttering, prepper pantry, swimming, travel by

No, not really but we did go mostly to get the stuff that was on coupon so that did help. Still, $300 later…. Not that anything will go to waste because I froze some stuff and a few things are for the camping next week. It rained super hard driving down to Roseville by the time we got out it was not pouring. I also picked up a $9.95 large pizza so I don’t need to think about dinner.

Let’s see, other frugal things this week… ummm…I got nothing. We didn’t do too much this week so maybe that was frugal. After watching this one YTer this week that is a hot mess( bipolar) and her awful pantry with strange food she bought for the pandemic, I came to the conclusion that I will go thru my prepper pantry and redo it. Watching these YTers is quite eye opening and makes me re-evaluate what I do have. I think I will start a box for the food bank and see what I end up with. I always do a food donation around Thanksgiving anyway wo this will motivate me to do more:)

The pool has been emptier than usual so I’m wondering if the cooler fall weather is keeping some people home. It’s still busy but not crazy busy. Lap swimming only goes to 9:30 am so it’s a limited period of time. Since I’ll be gone next week I’ll miss swimming for almost a week. Hopefully we can just walk more while were there.

I had my bloodwork done this morning but won’t know much till we’re back. That’s okay. It’ll be whatever it is.

Friday things…

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, Myeloma, prepper pantry, Uncategorized by

I’ve added some things to the prepper pantry that I got at Walmart the other day. I think most of what I think we can use/ need thru the winter months is in there now. I also bought 8 Mountain High freeze dried meals as emergency meals if ever needed due to fire or other disaster. I still need a few things from Costco that I forgot the other day like maple syrup, tomato paste, and ? So I may pop in there or have B pop in some time after he gets back from Salt Point.

Today B is going to the bank to get the copy of our bank statement for LLS. You , of course, need to provide proof of payment. I’d like to get it done by Sunday so it’ll come in before the end of the month. It usually takes 2 weeks minimum. I am grateful to all the people who donate to LLS as they give us these grants for reimbursements for insurance, prescriptions, and lots more. When I was on Revlimid( an extremely expensive Tier 5 drug) they covered my OP expense. Thankfully, I’m not on Revlimid anymore and Velcade was covered by Medicare as it is in clinic infusion.

I just finished the pickled jalapenos and am about to start charring the Hatch chilies. I’m planning on just freezing those and not do the whole relleno thing. They do freeze well.

I sold a few Waldorf books to the young mom who bought most of my Waldorf toys. Nice young woman and I gave her all my wool roving and needles so she can make some felted animals from the book I sent to her. I have some wood toddler toys as well but her kids are older so I’ll donate them to Cancer Thrift.

Budget wise, Costco took us right to the $550 mark for the month. So I’ll end up probably close to $650 I think. Except for the small Costco trip, I don’t need too much except maybe some veggies. I might go out to our local CSA farm and get some. They are more expensive but totally worth it as it is all grown right out there in the fields that used to be Simpsons Ranch. The Simpsons homesteaded this property in Meadow Vista sometime in the early 1900’s. The Maidu Indians lived on this land seasonally and there are many grinding rocks in the fields where they would crush the acorns to make a flour for winter. Mr Simpson wrote a book called”OOTI” about the Maidu. What is wonderful is that instead of selling and making a shitload of money the land went to the Placer Land Trust and the people farming it are ‘renting’ it as a farm.

Our skies continue to be filled with high smoke clouds. It’s not down low but it is our there and the sun is a ball of orange.

I plan on using the Ooni tonight for pizza though as the temperature looks to be @ 93. So not too bad.

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, California, cooking, Flylady, prepper pantry, simple foods, Uncategorized by

Happy Lammas Day, the pagan celebration of the first harvest.

A very nice Sunday morning walk. Temperature around 70 degrees so not too hot at all. Yesterday we even sat out under the umbrella for half an hour and it was not too too hot. Today and all week it stays pretty much the same : around 93 degrees as the high.

Our water bill came in almost $40 less so we clearly have been watering less. Still high but that’s MV water.

Yesterday I did a bunch of cooking. I made a yummy ww bread in the Zojirushi( well the dough) since I bake it in the oven. Then I made homemade pie crust and a goat cheese quiche.

OOPS, who took a bite of the crust to test it???

This was the leftover cream and goat cheese mixture so I added some homegrown serrano peppers and it was delicious.

Delicious. I also put in brown rice in the zojirushi rice maker because we are having a rice salad tonight for dinner. I’m almost done with August’s menu.

This morning I’m making the pickled refrigerator jalapenos. I may see what else I can prep for the week. Maybe some chicken and / or baked tofu.

I’ve been buying some more things for the prepper pantry. Yesterday I bought some extra cans of tomatoes, cannellini beans and some Herdez salsas that we like. I think the rising food costs are just going to keep rising and so I want to get some stuff now before the real increases start this fall. I don’t plan on going overboard and spending $1000 again but just the stuff I know we use.

We finished a good series on PBS mystery theatre, Tennison. We both liked her character of a young police woman in 1973? or 1972? Not sure the date but the music is great as well. Now we have to find something new. We only watch an hour or so of TV in the evening so a series lasts a while. Well, we stream it with Amazon Prime as we don’t have cable.

Flylady zone is the Entry Ways and dining room. I don’t add the dining room here as that is part of my living room zone. So I just do both doors to the house, sweep up, tidy plants, wash the windows if needed.

Simple Sunday

Posted in camping, cooking, covid-19, Flylady, home improvement, instant pot recipes, minimalism, Multiple myeloma, prepper pantry, travel, Uncategorized, Walking by

A simple day to start the new year.

My daily chores are done and the FL zone this week is the kitchen. The entry way was only 2 days so I missed that. But, I think I’ll sweep the patios and tidy up the fir boughs.(my daughter already did all this so it’s done!!) I’m going to leave them thru january as it seems wintery. My door wreath is bay laurel so that can stay up too. I also have some nice pinecones we collected up in Tahoe on the bench outside the front door.

One thing I’ve learned with being more minimal is to use natural things for decor or seasonal decorations. It makes it easier for me to not have think about the decorations in bins. I definitely used to keep bins with seasonal stuff but not so much any more. Now I only have my vintage Halloween, and some Easter stuff and Christmas in some Ikea boxes. Works for me.

I used my Staub again for a braised short rib recipe. It cooked beautifully but we ( the meat eaters) were not too into the dish. It was good but not great. It will not go into rotation even though it really is an easy one pot meal. This pot though has cooked everything I’ve done to perfection. If you’re looking for an all around pot this is it. Staub should sponsor me as I cannot say enough good things about this pot. And that’s coming from a die hard fan of Le Creuset.

I am doing a Walmart pickup so that should get us thru till we get to Costco about mid month. I’m planning on trying to use the Instant Pot to make yogurt. It seems easy enough so on the Walmart order I have some whole milk yogurt to use as a starter. We’ll see. I’ll post how it goes.

My rib feels pretty good. Maybe still a little tender where I probably pulled the muscle around the rib. I’ll be sure to mention it to my doctor. He did ask whether I wanted to do PET scans and a bone marrow biopsy to see it there were any hot spots and/or if the myeloma has morphed. I declined since it is what it is regardless. I think if I had more symptoms I might but at this point I’m fairly asymptomatic except for blood work that show the increases.

This week I see the eye doctor for my 6 month macular pucker scan. I’m hoping to not have to get my eyes dilated as they stay dilated for hours. I’m also thinking of getting the surgery when the pandemic is over and things are back to normal so probably a year from now.

I added some more ” things I hope to accomplish” list. :

find 3 new hikes to try

paint the living room and kitchen( this was supposed to be done last year)

find 2 new places to camp( I was thinking either private or maybe just Forest Service campgrounds)

keep up with the prepper pantry but streamline what I stock( and know we will use).

Thursday stuff

Posted in cancer, cooking, covid-19, Halloween, Multiple myeloma, Myeloma, Political things, prepper pantry, Walking by

Yesterday was my doctor appointment and it went well. I’ll have my 8 week labs around the first week of December, then see him right after Christmas, then start Velcade/Dex in January. He did mention that there is a pill form of Velcade but since that would be a tier 5 drug, I just don’t want to deal with that. So the shot isn’t bad and neither is the drive. ( We got there in 50 minutes yesterday with NO traffic. So it’ll be 3 weeks on one week off. I’ll be ready!!!

I am having lots of anxiety about the election next week, along with the rest of the country.( well, intelligent people who can see Trump for what he is). It’s just a lingering underlying stress as to what’s going to happen. It’s not keeping me awake at night but still, I read the news compulsively for clues. Well, I guess we’ll know soon enough.

We shopped at Trader Joe’s in Roseville after the doctor appt( which was why B came with me). It was pretty packed with people but everyone HAS to wear a mask so it was ok. I loaded up on lots of things. Some prepper stuff like canola spray and tamari, and some just regular food. We were home by 12 noon so not bad at all.

As I mentioned, we adjusted our walk time till 6 so as to try and avoid jerk walker. He’s still there though and just as abrupt but at least walking the other way has made a huge difference. 6 am is nice because by 6:30 it’s predawn and the sky is lightening up. Sunday is daylight savings so I figure we will just walk when we feel ready and see what time that ends up being. I’m guessing the jerk will go by the darkness not the time. One example of him still being a jerk. So the confrontation was about his not using a flashlight, right? So he has been using one. Then this morning I saw him have it on and then as he approached us he turned it off. Uhh…passive aggressive anyone????

Tonight my son is going to make us an Oktoberfest dinner of Bratwurst something( not sure yet exactly what he’s doing) but at least I don’t have to cook.

I have a loaf of rye sourdough baking and it didn’t puff as much as I’d like but it still tastes great.

We are still getting lots of eggs and I’ve been keeping up on using them. I put it out on Nextdoor neighbor but no one answered. I’m guessing with the pandemic when everyone was buying chicks, and now they are all laying eggs. It’s okay, in a few months they will slow down once it gets cold.

I have loved lighting my beeswax candles for dinner time. I have lots of pumpkins on the table and around. We’ve been having a fire every morning too. It’s been about 45 degrees out, so chilly.

Budget Friday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, frugalism, home stuff, Myeloma, prepper pantry, social security, Uncategorized by

I’m trying to come up with a good blog title for Fridays. I’m not sure Frugal Friday quite fits.

Overall, we are frugal because we have no income per se except SS. So maybe just Budget Friday would work. I’ll see. But budget-wise, all Octobers bills are in. We do have the 2 annual bills of house insurance and Allstate which is twice a year. With ALL the insurance companies getting out of insuring California property, for the most part, we are now having to do the California Fair Plan which is added to the AAA insurance. We went from our annual bill being slightly over $1,000 to now we are slightly over $2,000. Quite a jump.

Costco was just at $450, so that will go on October’s food budget. About $70 was wine and beer. I did buy a bottle of nice champagne for celebrating birthdays. Actually, it wasn’t expensive at $15.00. Plus there were a few prepper items and 2 bags of Starbucks coffee that was on sale. With all 4 of us drinking coffee we go thru quite a bit. But I don’t see us going back to Costco till the very end of October or even the first week of November which could then include any Christmas food or items. Prepper stuff included tuna, Cholula sauce, TP, another case of water, extra butter, and extra cheese. The only thing I didn’t get and I need is some tamari sauce. I’ll probably just go down here to the store and pay their price. The best place to get low sodium tamari is Trader Joe’s but I don’t think I’ll be getting there any time soon.

So far this morning I have made pizza dough, washed living room windows, cleaned the ceiling fan, and am just about ready to clean the rest of the sunroom.

Our lovely fall weather continues with absolutely beautiful days with temperatures in the mid to high 80’s. Next week does have a few 93degree days but this time of year that doesn’t seem so bad.

Budget-wise, I did my LLS for the UHC premium and my medicare which they cover for 2 months so that will be here in a week or so. I am very grateful to LLS for my grant (myeloma) as it does cover health insurance. If we had to pay OP for us both it’s almost $700 so I’m not sure how the budget would do. Probably we would be in the red. But there are gifts sometimes even with having cancer.

B did order the boards for the house ( 5 of them) so that was $120 about. But the siding needs to be fixed. Other stuff, even the fencing by the barn is optional and can be put off if we don’t have extra money.

If you’re looking for a new TV series, The Boys, is quite good. It’s super heroes that are darker more evil and is well done. We just started Season 2 on Netflix.

Well, that’s a wrap for now.