My new budget starts next week. So far, groceries have come in under $400, so I think I’m getting the hang of buying less.

I went to Costco this week and spent $233 on food. Freezer and pantry stuff brought it down to @150. For the pantry, it was granola, which lasts months, butter for the freezer also will last 3 months, pulled pork will be for at least 4 dinners over a few months, tamales, the same as they will be used over the next 3 months, and coffee, which will be about a month. Non-food came in at $70, about for batteries, hair conditioner, TP, and paper plates were on sale, so I picked them up for easy clean-up dinners. All of that will last for months.

For wine, I bought my favorite Juliet Rose and a fancy bottle of Sonoma-Cutrer wine. That was around $40.

Overall, I was pleased. Then I bought 2 pizzas for the tree crew that were here. I’ll show the pictures below.

We just got our Allstate car renewal, and it went up $1000 ( fuck Allstate) because of the claim that the scammer did, saying my car door scratched his. It’s a long story, but suffice to say, my door did not scratch his, but it did touch his passenger door, so Allstate had to favor his claim. It was a scam to begin with because then he got the money, and of course, didn’t go to the body shop. I tried to explain the setup because he was extremely aggressive verbally, and never even got out of his car, but took a picture ( or someone did) of my license plate. My guess is someone else was waiting with him in the parking lot. Oh well, done is done, but that is going to cause me extreme stress trying to pay that. I guess the best I can do is do the payment plan at this point.

On a positive note, the tree crane was here and took the tree. It was quite the job, as you can see. It took all day and then the next to deal with it all.

I’d had other plans to meet a friend for coffee, but that went out the window dealing with this. I hate dealing with this stuff, but I don’t have a choice. The other tree, I guess we’ll just have to wait on because it wasn’t in their system, but I’m going to try and convince them, but that will also take a crane( I think).

It would have been too much to do both anyway. All the wood is gone now, and it looks good. They did a good job.

Today, I’m going to Auburn and will drop off a load at Goodwill. It’s mostly stuff from Rubi that I know I’m not going to use if we get a tent trailer eventually. I still have the bathroom in Rubi to sort out, though.

It’s been a stressful week with my ortho appt, labs, the tree, etc. BTW, the shot hurt like hell, and my knee was really sore from it, but yesterday it started feeling a lot better. So hopefully in the next two weeks I can increase my walking. It takes about 2 weeks for the steroid to take effect.

Also, on a positive note, my labs came back about the same. Kappa went up to 20.5ml/g, so a slight increase from 19.8. Really, in the big picture, that’s not much. My ratio, though, did go up a bit because the lambda went down. If the Kappa goes up, Lambda down, then the ratio goes up.

The heat is back, and 98 * is hot for us. I think today it’s supposed to go to 99*. I’ll have to turn the coolers on by 10. Our PGE bill did go down some, though, so there’s that, I guess.

On a sad note, it’s our 55th anniversary soon. It makes me sad. We did have a wonderful life, even with the ups and downs of it. I’m planning a day trip to Tahoe soon, just not sure when. Burning Man is happening, so the freeway has lots of crazies, which also means the Tahoe area has some overflow. I’m hoping next week sometime.