Yesterday was the Solstice and I am glad the longest night and shortest day are over. Of course here in California, it doesn’t really start to turn around and be that noticeable for a few weeks or so. Still, we will notice the increase in light probably in the afternoon.
Today is a run errands day. First to Safeway to get the fondue stuff for Christmas Eve. Then Target to get a calendar. I also will stop at Holiday Market( if I have any energy left) to get their coupon specials for the week.
I have one more night of beeswax Hanukkah candles left and then it’ll just be regular beeswax candles. My daughter has been reading out loud ” A Christmas Carol” while the candles burn down. Charles Dickens was a very flowery descriptive writer. It’s been fun.
I ended up with 10 1/2 pints of Seville marmalade. Some are more runny than others and I’m guessing it’s where the pectin was in the pot. I don’t mind it that way and it’s great as a sauce for chicken or tofu. Then the pear chutney ended up with 8 1/4 pints and we had one the first night and it was delicious.
As usual, I started my day with a walk. Only one other person there today. She’s a regular who does an exercise class at the community center ( on the steps outside) with our neighbors. They’ve been doing this for quite a few years now. Later this week we’re supposed to get some very cold weather like the low 30s. I really dislike that kind of cold but it is what it is.
Then I worked on putting some Christmas stuff up.
Then I got busy pressure-canning the turkey broth. I noticed some water leaking from the top after I put the gauge on so I had to stop and let it depressurize and then see what the issue was. The gasket must have been slightly off so I reset it and put some olive oil on it to help seal it. For good measure, I went to Amazon and ordered a new gasket. I’m not sure I need the new gasket but at least I’ll have it if this happens again.
We watched Home Alone last night and I thought it was kind of dumb. I had seen it before, so I thought the same thing then too. We’re totally enjoying watching Poirot though. It is really well done. That’s on Prime if you are interested.
A somewhat busy week with my doctor appt and I have a follow up audiology check up. Plus a swim and the gym too.
I’m in the middle of making spinach and mushroom crepes. I had to go down to the Holiday Market for gruyere and ended up spending $77.00. Food is really expensive and it seems every time I’m in the store it’s almost $100. I haven’t totaled this month up but I’m sure it’s going to be VERY high. Both Costco and the Azure order(which will be here next week) were around $300. So right there that’s $600. Oh well, I’ll just blame it on the holidays and inflation. sigh^^>>^^.
The kids took off in the Santa Fe for Hollywood this morning. Hopefully, it’s a good trip for them and fun too. My daughter, whose an author of Gay/lesbian Vampires, Werewolves, and other unworldly beings books, is there for the Whatpad convention for paid writers. I think there are awards being given and she is up for one. Her books are read worldwide and she has a big following. My son and his friend are going to the world tour concert by Elton John at Dodger stadium.
I won’t be going to the gym or pool unless I have B drive me in the truck. I could use my daughter’s Honda Fit but it’s such a small car it makes me nervous. So that’s ok, I can wait til next week if necessary.
Our days continue to be beautiful. There are still leaves on the trees so probably in the next storm they’ll all come down. We had a tree person look at the snags on the bottom of the property and he quoted $1500. I just laughed and said they can fall. I would prefer they don’t fall on the neighbor’s fence again but I’m not paying that kind of money for 2 snags. I’m hoping we can find someone who’s a logger( and needs work) to drop them for $100.
Next week is Thanksgiving and I plan on having most of our simple meal prepped and done by Wednesday except for the turkey, I made the nut loaf yesterday and froze that. I’ll use the canned cranberry sauce I made and then make mashed potatoes, green beans and, stuffing. I’m sure my sister’s family,which is quite large as she had 5 kids and they all have kids, will miss her. We never spent Thanksgiving together but I’ll miss talking to her. We were never really close but in these last 15 years she has been there for me and my family. So I’ll raise a glass to her. 🙂
Fall is definitely here and with it colder weather and lots of pretty colored leaves. In the park, the trees are red, orange, yellow, and gold colors. Up here on our hill, we mostly have shades of yellow and gold. We had a lovely walk with no one there again. Sunday is my favorite day to walk. We’re consistent in walking 45 minutes. Then poof! I’m done. It’s the same with swimming. 40 minutes give or take and then that’s it.
I ordered 2 more cases of Ball jars and lids. They didn’t have the pint ones so I’ll check around for them. I also got a table runner in a tartan red plaid for Christmas and a candle(balsam). Speaking of Christmas, I’m pretty sure we’re not going to go up to Tahoe to cut a tree. The permits are in South Lake and that would mean going twice up there, once to buy the permit and then second, going to get the tree. There are no online purchases this year. Again, I don’t think we’ll do much in the way of gifts. Both my children buy whatever they need/want anyway. I’ll probably do a few gift cards though.
Here’s the applesauce from the other day.
I only got 4-pint jars but it is very tasty. I’ll see if my son can pick up a few more apples from his friend’s trees.
This week is another quiet one with no appts. I will go to the gym at least once and then swim at least twice. I’m doing a small Winco trip on one of the swim days as it is just across the street from the pool. We’ll probably do Costco in two weeks. As always, it’s the coffee we’ll need.
So we have a ‘new’ very friendly cat that has shown up!!!
Meet Chester!
He looks just like Gus! But his face is squarer ( is that a word?)more square. He’s very friendly and wants attention. We’re not sure where he came from but he seems to like it here.
This is Gus the tiger boy!!! He is bigger than the new cat that we’ve named Chester!!
I’m glad the week is over. I had those few days I didn’t feel well and it was just kind of an off week. Flylady zone is the living room. I did the windows and dusted. I put out a few Halloween decorations( my vintage ones) and added some mini pumpkins.
We finished watching “Severance”. If you like futuristic, dystopian stuff, then this is for you. Very intense and you’re not really sure what is going on. I have some Ann Cleeves on hold at the library I’ll pick up this week. ( she writes the Vera series).
It’s been a weird week. It started off with me having to take Buggie back to the garage because my fan speeds were not working. The girl at the desk became very defensive and I was also defensive that my fan wasn’t working and I wanted it fixed. It boiled down to when I brought my car in my fan was working when I picked it up(well my daughter did),the fan speed was stuck on high. I asked Sachi and she said the fan was on when she picked it up and just thought with the smoke and fires the garage had it running high. So the whole escalated the next day with the owner calling me and really ripping into me about how I was rude and ‘an awful person’ for confronting his daughter. Of course, I said look at it from my side,that I just spent $3000 on the car and I get home and my fan is not working. Well, it volleys back and forth that no way did they do anything to my fan and it must have been my daughter driving it home( which is 10 minutes folks) and cranked the fan on and broke it. Really??? are you kidding me.? no I didn’t say that. I just said, I don’t know what happened but she said the fan was on high when she drove it home and she didn’t touch the dial. I apologized that I offended his daughter but again, my point was my fan is not working. So, in long run, he said he spent ALL DAY fixing something( the switch??). I said thank you and took my keys and left. Obviously, I will never go back for service there. It’s always so weird to me how things can turn into an event when I simply went in saying I want my fan fixed since when I brought it in it was working and when I drove it next the fan was not working. I’m sure I was intense to a degree but not ‘rude’. Oh well, I thought of doing a negative Yelp review, but then just figured why bother?
Other than that, Tuesday I had my labs and my CBC, CMP are all the same pretty much and my Kappas just came in this morning and went up to 22.3 mg/L from 20.1. so an increase but not too dramatic. It seems my numbers are holding steady for the time being.
This morning is my covid booster so I’m planning on doing that and then going to Safeway for a few things and then home. Usually, Saturday is my swim day but I’m leaving that open as I don’t know if I’ll feel lousy or not.
Budget-wise, it was a good week with nothing extra spent except some salad mix, wine, and bananas. bb
I’ve been doing some batch cooking for the freezer. I made beef stew in the Instant Pot and then froze 2 quarts, lentil soup, and froze 2 quarts. A yummy quiche from Le Creuset cookbook. It came out really good with fresh thyme.
I got a lot done around the house yesterday and felt good about that. I changed the shower curtain, we put the rug back down in the bedroom, made the lentil soup, and washed all the couch covers. So everything is fresh for fall. I’m having B take out the cooler in the bed room this weekend and I’ll put up the fall/winter cutains soon.
It’s been a quiet week and also an off week. With the 4th of July on Monday, I didn’t go to the gym and then I didn’t swim Tuesday because I didn’t want to get stuck in the traffic on I-80 with everyone traveling after the holiday. So I went to the gym Wednesday and now it’s Friday and I’ll swim tomorrow. But next week is also messed up because Monday I have my annual eye exam and I’ll get my eyes dilated so I need to drive straight home as my pupils stay dilated for hours. Then Thursday I have Dr. Laptalo, so no gym that day unless I went afterward. It’s always a crap shoot if he’s on time (almost never) or really late ( almost always). So if I don’t leave there till 11, I probably will not want to go to the gym at noon. Some weeks are just like that but I don’t have this happen that often.
I’ve been watching some youtube channels using the All Amerian pressure canner. I’m still undecided. I’d like to be able to can low acid foods( you must pressure can), or just stick with the water bath canning which is what I’ve always done. The canner is quite expensive at @$400, so not a small investment. I guess I’ll keep thinking about it.
The herbs I’ve been drying have come out very nice and quite fragrant so I’ve enjoyed that. This morning I’m making some herbed butter to freeze. I mix the unsalted butter with thyme, parsley, and chives and then roll in a piece of parchment to make a log. It’s nice to have in the winter.
The second batch of bagels I made yesterday came out great.
This is after the overnight fermentation in the fridge.
So using the barley malt syrup is absolutely a game-changer. It gives the bagels a nice chewy texture and delicious flavor. I plan on making these once a week for a while. It is a two-day process with a rise in the refrigerator overnight.
I went to the farm stand yesterday and bought some produce for the week. Beautiful lettuce, spring mix, radishes, cabbage, zucchini, and cucumbers. We’re lucky it’s 5 minutes down the road. I’m hoping to find some peaches this weekend to make some peach jam and maybe a peach pie.
I didn’t do any grocery shopping this week but I may go to Winco tomorrow as we need milk and a few other things. I guess I’ll just see after my swim. So the week has bfarm standeen quite frugal.
Other than that same old same old. It’s still hard to see the news and the horribleness of the Highland Park shootings. It’s really just crazy. Just think, you’re out with your family for the 4th of July to celebrate, and see the parade and then the next minute you’re killed by a crazed murderer with an automatic weapon. When is it going to end and we ban assault rifles. How many more must die.?
Wow, where did the time go?? Tomorrow is July 1st. It’s been a very nice summer so far even without going out in the RV. This time of year I’d rather stay home than deal with everyone out in campgrounds and on the road. Right now the weather is lovely again and our temperatures will be in the 80s for the next week at least. We even sat outside after dinner last night.
I didn’t walk this morning. I just felt I needed a break from getting up at 4:45. But I am going down to the sports center to do weights. I’m not there yet, but I think a few more weeks and my muscles will be much stronger and back to where I was when I was going to the gym in Auburn(pre-Covid). It is a commitment though, that’s for sure.
Here’s an updated pizza picture, after the Ooni disaster. This one was perfect. As one person commented, Ooni is overly optimistic about the time it takes to heat up the oven to 900 degrees.
This was using OO flour too which made the dough very pliable and easy to work with.
The garden is doing well, and here’s some of the garlic harvest.
These were planted last about 6 months ago. A few bulbs are a really nice size. That’s one onion out of a few I’ve already used. I’m not sure how many onions will get with this second planting but I hope enough for a few months.
I dried some mint in the dehydrator and plan to do more so we can have mint tea. I also have quite a bit more parsley I will start today. The tomatoes are looking very good and I hope I get a bumper crop. I’d like to can some salsa and of course, do my freezer sauce. I’ve been watching a Youtuber” The Happy Homestead”, and she does a lot of pressure cooking canning. I’m kind of freaked about using a pressure cooker canner so I’m not sure that’s for me. But she does lots of broths and meat things which do need that type of canning. Does anyone reading here use a pressure cooker canner? and how does it work?? is it easy?? BTW, her youtube channel is very refreshing as she is honest and open with her information and quite informative. I’ve unsubscribed from a bunch of YouTubers, even my favorite Benita Larsson in Stockholm. When someone starts putting money ahead of content and adding the Patreon thing at 3 levels, I just see they’re doing it for the money. The content of her videos has gone way down the rabbit hole of now the ” 10 things to ……( fill in the blank). I find that supremely annoying. Of course, in her defense, she does say this is her job now but still. 😦
Whoo Whee…it is cold. We woke up to snow on Tuesday morning and it kept going off and on. We usually get a sprinkling of snow at our elevation a couple of times during winter. This was a big snowstorm for the Sierras and is much needed. Needless to say, I didn’t venture out to swim. I probably would have been fine on the freeway but with Caltrans discouraging any travel, I didn’t feel I needed to add to it.
It’s bright and clear this morning and 27degrees. So the trees in the park were very frosty.
I went into Winco after swimming yesterday for a few things. And next week I’ll hit Trader Joe’s for a few things including fondue, which is our traditional Christmas eve dinner. So far even with Costco, I’m under budget for food/alcohol( mostly wine). If my calculations are correct, a total of @ $550 is really quite good. So if I add the TJ’s trip at about $100 that brings me under budget. Of course, there will be the run to the market here for the odds and ends before the end of the year but usually, that’s not too much. Shopping at Winco and the new Trader Joe’s, and of course, Costco has definitely made a difference from shopping just Safeway.
Other than that there are no unusual budget expenses for the rest of the month. January is a NO SPend month so no projects or Home Depot trips. Anything that the house might need is excluded like vacuum filters or the filters for the air filter thing.
Today I’m planning on taking the couch covers and washing them. I do this around every 3 months. This Ikea couch has been absolutely fabulous and I love it. When it’s time for a new one I’ll definitely do Ikea but maybe a bit more of a midcentury look. I’ve been waiting for the two chairs forever( since the beginning of the pandemic). The Poang chairs still look good and quite comfortable.
My son is headed to Yosemite today and is going to be there a few days. It should be quite beautiful as it got a lot of snow.
I need to go make some pizza dough and I was going to make bagels but the Barley Malt I ordered from Amazon was lost in the mail so I need to find it in a store. I haven’t been too inspired with cooking lately but maybe over the Holidays or not???
Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah. I plan on making some latkes and a piece of salmon and salad. Nothing too fancy.
We are not Jewish but atheists, but I do love traditions and lighting the candles to me represents bringing some light into the world. I didn’t do presents as such, just a few chocolate things from Trader Joe’s and I’ll give the kids some money one night. Not much as they both work good jobs.
We are having lovely November weather. We had a fire outside yesterday afternoon and it was perfect for sitting outside. Our walks have been nice too. We still see AH but I think the train has left on that and we just don’t care anymore. Once in a while he’ll be a little passive-aggressive and walk straight at me with his dog but then he moves over at the last minute. And if he sees us coming with our flashlights he’ll turn his off. Weird but ?? Oh well, we’re just doing what we’ve done for the last 10 years. When I started walking daily part of the path was still dirt and there were very few people who walked. Now it can be very busy especially by 10 am.
Today is a nice pottering day. I’ve made some pumpkin spice scones. Swish and swiped the bathroom, scrubbed a cast iron, and got out some more Christmas things. I put the lights on the Ikea tree and that’s all I plan on doing. We were lucky to get a Christmas tree permit so we’ll go get a live tree for the sunroom next week. We certainly don’t need it but for $10. it’s a cheap date for B and me.
I’ve been working my way thru PD Jame’s books and she is such a good writer. I am enjoying them.
Well, back to pottering around. I’d like to finish embroidering one napkin too.
Well, we would have been on the road by now down to Capitola. It’s still raining and there are numerous flash flood warnings. We live on a hill so we are not affected but around town there are a number of creeks that probably are flooded.
So, since we were not going I was going to go swim but checked the website and the pool heater is down. They said you could still swim but no thanks. So NO walking, NO camping, NO swimming. I think the universe is trying to tell me something.
I did get to the pet bookstore Saturday so I loaded up on some books so that will keep me busy. I don’t have any baking plans but maybe I’ll make so cookies. Plus, I’ve made a few more pot holders and have enough for one or two more.
Tonight I plan on making spaghetti and using two frozen sauces I have in the freezer as I continue to use up what I have. Funny how some people are stocking up again with the news saying the supply chain is going to cause some shortages. Someone in Costco was trying to buy 2 paper towel packs( which is a lot of paper towels) and they said only one per customer. So maybe panic buying is back in. We’re fine with what we have and I have no plans to stockpile anything. Actually, I plan to get out to the barn and seriously go thru stuff. I wrote a revised menu plan for the week( now that we’re not at Capitola) to use up stuff.
I did give away our artificial tree this past weekend to a nice young woman. this was our 7ft one that was quite nice but I just don’t want to store something that bulky. I plan to go thru our ornaments( again) and see what else I can get rid of. My son got out one wine box of DVD’s and separated out a huge bag to go to the pet bookstore because he has them on his Google Play Library. So that was cool especially since he is a bit of a hoarder on things. 🙂 I’ll drop them off next week.
I've been married for nearly 15 years to a wonderful husband and I'm a mom to three great kids ages 12, 11 and 9. Oh, and I just happen to have cancer. Multiple Myeloma is a cancer of the blood that is currently incurable but IS considered highly treatable! My goal is to make people laugh, cry or feel a little less alone whether you are a mom, cancer patient or BOTH!
Tahoe Girl 