Category Archives: swimming

FUCKED UP FRIDAY

Posted in books, budgets, California, camping, decluttering, Political things, swimming, travel, Uncategorized by

FUCK everything. What is wrong with this world.? The war now in Ukraine and DICTATOR PUTIN is beyond words for me. I really wonder what is happening on the planet. We have Putin invading a sovereign democracy, Trump calling him a “genius”. JFC, why??

Then you’ve got all these god damned spineless Republicans taking away woman’s rights, trying to control what is taught in schools, making transpeople out to be some horrible thing, banning books. The list just goes on and on.

I certainly do not want to just ignore the news or not read about things. We don’t have TV so I only read the Washington Post on- line and the New York Times. Still it’s enough to send me over the edge with what’s happening. At least there is a few items of good news, the 3 officers were found guilty of violating George Floyds civil rights and not helping him when they knew he was dying right in front of them. And the racists killing Arbery also found guilty . So at least there is some good coming out confronting the evils in this country.

In other home front stuff, just a nice week of pottering around the house, swimming, and reading some good books. Tonight is supposed to be pizza night but we’re not doing that. We all decided we want some ramen bowls so that’s what I’ll do.

We’ve had extremely cold mornings with the temperatures @ 28 degrees. That’s cold. We do get cold weather here but it doesn’t last too long generally. Lots of frost everywhere.

I’ve been having to deal with kick backs on my credit cards that were stolen that have automatic charges. Our Delta Dental, VSP, etc. So I’m having to go and call or go online to fix them. PITA.

I plan to drop off some books at the pet bookstore and then go the market for a few things. My Frugal Challenge of $100 a week is going well. This week I’m at @ $80 and I will spend that other $20 today or about that. It feels good to be going thru freezer food and pantry stuff. I still need to plan our camping meals for when we’re gone. At Wrights Beach, it’s bring everything we may want as there isn’t a store except for a tiny market in Bodega. But at the Napa campground, we’re in Napa so I’m guessing there will be everything in the way of stores. We added Mumm winery to our tastings but I’m not sure we’ll keep the other. Mumm is one of my favorite champagnes.

Friday Things

Posted in bread, budgeting, budgets, cooking, meal planning, swimming by

It’s been a tough week after the car break in. We still don’t have the window fixed and it won’t be till next Thursday. I plan on driving my daughter’s Honda Fit tomorrow to the pool. I finished all the paperwork for the claim but I’m certainly not holding my breath.

I made the pizza dough for tonight and also have my sourdough starter getting ready for another loaf of jalapeno cheddar bread. I’ll mix up the dough later and then refrigerate overnight and bake tomorrow morning.

So far the grocery challenge has been pretty easy. I went to Winco Tuesday and spent a little more than I wanted at $61. Then Barclay spent another $15 at Safeway for bread flour and cream and something else I can’t remember now. So I don’t need anything today or tomorrow so I’ll end the week at almost $80. I’ve got most of the menu for next week done. Monday we plan on going to Costco because we will need coffee. I’m still not sure how I will separate Costco in the weekly budget since some things will last more than a week. Maybe I’ll try and divide it up but that seems like more trouble or effort than it’s worth. So, I’ll need to think about that.

I was working on a spreadsheet form from a Youtuber. But, even though I enjoyed figuring it out for budget stuff in the end it was just too complicated. I do a daily budget sheet in my notebook, so I know exactly what’s going out and coming in. I might play with it some more but I doubt I’ll use it.

In March we will have some bigger expenses. Barclay is having some dental work and that’s going to cost @ 900. Then we have property taxes due and Federal taxes too. We will owe IRS a small amount this year. I’m okay with that as we did use some retirement savings(withdrawal) to do the half payment for the RV. So that will all add up and it will be a pricey month.

If you have Disney Plus, the Mandalorian show is quite good and we’re enjoying it. Oh, and the Amazon Prime new Reacher was EXCELLENT. The actor is perfect for how you visualize Jack Reacher.

Well, I’m off to town to drop a load at Goodwill so I better get a move on.

Post #1500.

Posted in Blood test, budgeting, budgets, swimming, Uncategorized by

It’s Saturday. This post is my 1500 one. I started my blog in 2012 so it’s almost 10 years old. (lo in April). I blog mostly as a journal and it’s fun for me to go back and read what was happening. Also with Myeloma, I like to keep track of what treatments I’ve had and when. It does put things in perspective.

Today is a swim day. I get to the pool @ 7:10 and swim till almost 8am. Saturdays are a mixed bag. Sometimes it’s busy and other times I get a lane to myself. It’s definitely worth my drive of 25 minutes to get there. As I’ve said there’s no pool in Auburn like this.

After that, I plan to hit up Winco for a FEW things. Their wines are the best prices around. So I’ll pick up something. My favorite right now is a French Rose. Not anything expensive, more like under $10. We are holding off on Costco till the week after next. I think we have enough coffee till then which is always the deciding factor.

The most exciting news this morning is my labs came in and there was NOT an increase in my Kappa light chains and it even went down a smidge.

Another month of things looking pretty good. Last month the kappa was 20.6mg/L so, hey, I’ll take it.

Friday things

Posted in bread, cooking, plants, swimming, Uncategorized, Walking by

It’s been a really nice week for me. Mellow and I feel like I got a lot done.

Walking has been really great and two people that used to walk at the same time showed up. They are friendly and always use headlamps. It’s been about 6 months since we’ve seen them so who knows why. I have to say not having the dog walker there has made the park mellow and pleasant. But if he comes back, we’ll deal with it.

I have another sourdough loaf of jalapeno cheddar ready to go. It’s so delicious and really quite easy. You just need the starter feed and then the recipe is basically no-knead and does a slow rise in the refrigerator. If you’re interested it’s King Arthur’s no-knead sourdough recipe and then I just added about a cup of cheddar and a few tablespoons of chopped jalapenos. I didn’t alter the recipe, just added it. I plan on trying an olive one and a walnut one.

Here’s another amaryllis bulb blooming. This one is called Minerva.

Today I might go to the pet bookstore but I’ll do my morning reset first and then see. I also have a load to go to the Goodwill. As usual, it’s in the back of buggie(my 2000 VW) and has been for a few weeks.

I just made the pizza dough for tonight and the oven is coming up to temperature for the bread. ( which takes forever to get to 500 degrees). After it comes up to temp. you drop it back down to 475 or 450 depending on what kind of bread you’re baking.

I plan on swimming tomorrow which I’m looking forward to.

Midweek Musings

Posted in books, cooking, simple foods, swimming by

B’s dental appt for his wisdom tooth extraction went well. He does seem to bounce back from these things very well. His next appt is to try and reattach the crown that fell off. I’m not sure about a new crown since they are expensive. The co-pay on the extraction was just over $500 so not cheap.

We’re almost done watching Season 2 of The Witcher. It’s a great series if you like that kind of stuff, which we do. I also just started reading the book and the author is Polish and the writing is good. We need a new series to watch as we finished what we were watching. I guess we could go back and rewatch some things.

Our beautiful weather continues and afternoons are really nice. I didn’t swim yesterday as I wasn’t feeling 100% for some reason. I plan on swimming tomorrow though.

I made another boule of sourdough this time with asiago cheese. It came out perfecto!! Last night I made a chile Relleno casserole with some of the hatch chiles I froze this summer. It was quite good and much easier than traditional rellenos that require whipping the egg whites first. Tonight I plan on a simple meal of burgers(impossible and maybe meat) and spicy coleslaw.

I found this poem by Mary Oliver on someone else’s blog. I mean, how wonderful is that!

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, Flylady, minimalism, plants, swimming, Uncategorized, Walking by

Another great walk this morning with a pretty sunrise. Nobody else there, not even the AH which we’re not sure why or what’s up with that but still it’s great not to have him stomping by us.

It looks like a cloudy day but the temperatures are really ok with high @ 60-65. Not bad for this time of year at all. The next 10 days actually look quite nice and I think we’re going to plan a drive up to Tahoe.

This week is the bedroom zone. I’ll wash the windows and tidy up but most of it is already done as this room is very minimal. I did wash the linen cover the other day. I may or may not iron it. I do like the look of linen without ironing it. The only thing I’ll probably do is tidy the closet some.

I made some sourdough pancakes this morning from the discarded sourdough and I have a batch ready to go for bread. The pancakes were good. I’ll bake the bread tomorrow after letting it do a slow rise in the refrigerator.

Just look at that beautiful starter. Except for it sort of exploded.

Here’s one of the amyrillys blooming. I bought the 4 pack of bulbs(Costco) and one didn’t come up. The other 2 have buds and this one is blooming. They are strange plants and I don’t think I will do them again. I love orchids though and usually buy one every time I go to Trader Joes.

This week is quiet for me but B has 3 appts. , two dentist and his port flush and blood draw. I plan on swimming at least 2x but that’s about it.

My second favorite Youtube vlogger, Beneta Larsson, has a 6 part series on decluttering if you’re interested. She is a minimalist that walks the talk. Her apartment is a beautiful example of minimalism and I love her cats. I’ve definitely been inspired by her.

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.

Looking back at 2021

Posted in Blood test, budgets, California, camping, cancer, minimalism, Myeloma, swimming, travel, Uncategorized, Walking by

For us, 2021 was a really great year in spite of Covid. For lots of people, it was horrible but we managed to accomplish some very BIG Goals. # 1 was buying Rubi( the RV), which was exactly what we wanted), then Chevy, after realizing the Santa Fe was just not going to cut it with towing, and then going on camping trips especially the new addition of Refugio State Beach.

I started chemo in January, 3 weeks on 1 week off until June. My numbers went back into the normal range almost immediately after just the first treatment but you still need to do the full course of 6 rounds. I’ve had a great 6 months but my numbers are now slightly out of high normal so it’s a matter of how quickly they will increase. I’m waiting now for this week’s labs, so we’ll see. My guess is I’ll be back on Velcade in June. Amazingly, last time ( 2016) I had 4 1/2 years of remission. Not this time and it’s questionable how long Velcade will work before it’s on to the next treatment option. Well, that’s not today so…

I m swimming in March and I continue to love it. I wish I could get more than the 2-3 times a week in but it’s just too far and too much gas to do more than that. But it is incredible.

We did quite a few projects around the house and yard including the privacy fence along the driveway. We replaced the sunroom windows that were water damaged and will do the other 2 this summer. We redid the whole laundry room. It still needs some siding up around the window and I’ll bug my son to finish that when the weather is nicer. Let’s see, what else… I painted the bathroom, and ??? I’m sure there are more things…

Today is New Year’s Eve. We’re going to have the fondue we didn’t use for Christmas and I think to watch the new Witcher series. We had a lovely walk this morning and still no dog walker. That’s very odd, so we think either he got covid or moved?? We never knew his name so can’t check it out. But really it is wonderful to not have him stomping by or trying to run us off the path. Still, he is a dark walker( early morning) so there’s that connection. Not many people do that.

I plan to go to Target tomorrow as I need my calendars for 2022. I like their very simple inexpensive ones. Not sure they’ll have any left but I’ll try there first. I do plan a no-spend January but that’s just extra stuff that I don’t need( like candles). My January budget is set including the increase of our Part D Medicare plans.

I lost count of how many books I read , maybe 75? 100? I read a lot so I don’t think it really matters how many. Sometimes I read 3 books a week. It all depends on the type of book. Maybe I’ll keep count next year except I have tried that and then give up because it starts to be too many.

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!!!

Snow…

Posted in budgeting, budgets, cooking, ikea, minimalism, seasonal things, simple foods, swimming, Uncategorized by

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???

My minimalist Christmas decor.