Tag Archives: Gardening

Five on Friday

Posted in Blood test, budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, Myeloma, travel, Uncategorized by

We had the most wonderful thunderstorm and rain last night with lightning. We got a lot of rain, and the ground is pretty soaked for now. Yeah, for the rain. Although not so good, it started a lightning fire across the canyon, but I think I saw it was contained.

A low spend week for the most part. My daughter went to Costco after work for a few things, namely dishwasher pods that we needed. Plus water and just a few other things. Food came to @ $47, and then the wine I want to take to the coast was $18. It’s called Sonoma-Cutrer. I haven’t had it before, but it’s supposed to be good.

All the July bills are done, so I have August’s budget almost done. With SS decreasing, I have made a few adjustments. I think mostly it’ll be decreasing food costs and miscellaneous expenses. Most of our bills are fixed, so I can’t do anything there.

Let see, the good news is LLS opened funding for Myeloma, so I hopped on the website and was approved. I just need the doctor to fill out his form. Having that money will be a great help in paying for my insurance.

Other good news is, my kappa light chains stayed about the same, 19.8. So up from 19.6, but that’s really marginal. So good news on that front.

I had fairly good energy this week after the low with Dex. I got the living room ceiling painted. It took 2 days working for about 30 minutes each time. I also went to the paint store and bought another gallon of Simply White. Except for the bathroom, our whole house is painted that color. It makes it easy to do touch-ups and keeps the look clean and minimal.

Well, I’m off to do some tidying and put some stuff away.

Simple Sunday

Posted in Blood test, California, cooking, swimming by

We’re experiencing a bit of a heat wave. Mid-90s all week. I’ve closed all the windows and that keeps the cool in for a while. I think after this week it drops back down to the 80s. We are trying not to water too much, but just enough to keep things going. Our water bill always skyrockets in summer.

I finally got to the pool and loved spending 30 minutes swimming. Although I am definitely sore from doing it. With the 4th of July next week, I need to look at what day I can get a swim in without being stuck in ‘vacation’ traffic.

On a positive note, my kappa light chains came down a point to 19.6. High normal is 19.4, so all good there. I don’t even see Dr. L till August sometime. My LLS grant is used up, and so hopefully next month there’ll be some funding for myeloma. I haven’t heard that any funding has opened in quite a while, so I’ll just need to be checking daily.

My son came and took a load to the thrift store. That got rid of some old exercise equipment. I doubt he’ll get to the next dump run till after the 4th.

My daughter made a delightful black bean chili for dinner the other night. I froze 2 portions for later lunches. I’m using the Souper Saver cubes. They are really great, and if you freeze leftovers, check them out. I first saw them on Facebook, where Steve Sando( Rancho Gordo) was cooking basic beans and showed them. After the beans are frozen, you pop them out and store them in a ziplock or other reusable baggie.

Here’s a picture of a cholla cactus blossom.

You don’t want to get too close to these.

The news coming out of the white house and all the departments is so discouraging. It’s also so alarming. I’ve got my NYT sub, and I also do The Hill and The Atlantic. Some of the op eds are truly scary to read about where this administration is going. It’s hard to imagine where we’ll be in 3 more years.

Frugal Friday

Posted in bread, budgeting, budgets, California, cooking by

The biggest expense this week was my dental appointment. It was quite a bit but then what isn’t these days. It needed to be done so. I still have a cleaning in March and I’m planning on signing up for their dental saver program. It’s $400 a year and covers 2 cleanings and lots of other stuff. It seems a good deal.

Then I went to Costco earlier this week and that was around $200. That shop will last us a while until we need coffee again. Food was less because B picked some socks, and I picked up the new Dawn spray cleaner and there was something else nonfood.

I drove to Sacramento for my doctor’s appt, which uses more gas. I have enough gas in the Santa Fe until I go back to the pool which I think will be Monday. i have labs early Monday and plan to go to the pool afterwards.

Not a very frugal week but manageable.

Today I opted to stay home and do some extra house needs. I washed my office windows, and dusted baseboards. I also started sourdough baguette loaf for tomorrow. Last night I roasted a chicken and made homemade mac and cheese. Tonight I think I’ll make a frozen Costco pizza. It’s a new brand they had and I’d like to try it. I think it said made in Italy.

It’s a beautiful sunny day with a temperature of 62 degrees. I’m looking to put a chair in the sunroom so I can sit out there. right now, I don’t have the little loveseat because Tux is sleeping out there in a cat bed and he’s not fixed. therefore he’s spraying although we haven’t seen him spray out there. I’m thinking of a used Poang chair from market place. I’ll have to look at listings.

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, cash envelopes, cooking, Gardening by

Costco $153. food 140, wine 13. I just love this new Costco.

It is so easy to get into and the registers are always open. I haven’t had to wait once. I think what I like the most is doing smaller shops. Usually, before shops were $300 or $400 and loaded up the cart. Now I am just picking up maybe 15 things. So yesterday, was tofu, block of Tillamook, cottage cheese, sour cream, eggs, black bean burgers( a new product I thought we’d try for an easy meal), Bonne Mamam jam in the EXTRA jar jar that I’ve been looking for forever, oh, another new item, potato and cheese pierogis, oh, and the gallon zip lock freezer bags on sale. I always try and buy the things on sale as that is where Costco excels.Plus the Kirkland Pinot Grigio and Kirkland Sauvignon. I think there was something else but I can’t remember now. Oh I remember, it was another new product of pretzel bites!! We love pretzel bites so it was a no brainer!

Dinners have all been homemade and easy this week. The start was the honey garlic tofu. I still have half the block frozen so I may make that again tomorrow. Tonight I think I will make a homemade pizza. I have dough in the freezer so that’ll be easy to do.

Since I’m on Dex for the next 3 days I’ll add some extra things to do. I’d like to spruce up our one entryway by the sun porch. Maybe switch out the faux flowers on the wreath to fall stuff. I had a nice red geranium out there on the table but the deer ate the flowers:(

Here are a few pictures of the front yard. Lots of morning glories which just seed themselves every year and this this delicata squash was a self seeder from the compost that we added to that bed. My daughter came up with the idea to grow it on this old trellis that was going to get thrown out. Works great and we’ve never had that many delicatas ever.

My next batch of tomatoes I plan on freezing and can later this fall. Tomatoes came in so early this year I guess with all the heat we had. Our peppers didn’t that great though for some reason. Which is odd since they love heat too.

Thankful Thursday

Posted in books, bread, California, cooking, Gratitude, home stuff, simple foods by

We finally have a cooling off period so I’m thankful for that. Unfortunately, next week looks worse than this week with Wednesday being 110. Yikes! I’m supposed to go to Sacramento to see Dr. L but I’m going to reschedule this morning after they open. I’m not driving into Sacramento when it’s that hot.

I’m thankful for a day to just potter around and do some extra things. I want to steam-mop the studio and vacuum. We moved the Ikea sofa out to the studio so I want to vacuum that too. Plus the windows need washing. I may not get to it all but some.

I’m grateful for my swim yesterday, It was not too busy so that made it nice. After that I went over to Winco for strawberries. I think Winco has the lowest prices so I bought 5 containers. They were $1.48 ea. I have seen them as low as.99 but not yesterday.

I’m thankful I was able to come home from that and still have the energy to make strawberry jam. I used 4 containers, so that was $5.96. I ended up with 10 half-pint jars plus 3 quarter-pint jars. So overall a good savings. I don’t plan on any other jam-making so this will last the year.

I’m thankful that B has his medical things organized and is going for a CT scan to see if his weight loss is related to something intestinally. He’s actually eating much better so that’s an encouraging thing.

I’m not so thankful that the bathroom now has another issue. We thought the floor would be done yesterday but when B pulled up the tiles, the floorboards had water damage around the toilet. So we are now in stop, regroup, plan phase again. He’ll need to take the toilet out and repair the floorboards. All I can say is Fuck, it’s always something. At least it was discovered now instead of 10 years from now. The area is pretty small so hopefully, it’s an easy fix. Still, it means removing the toilet, putting in a new ring, etc.

I plan on making my sourdough bread this morning. I added more flour to my starter so it should be ready around noon.

Here’s one of our dinners this hot week. Scambled tofu with spinach.

This was an interesting book with lots of recommended reading.

this is little Cherry Rat. She’s the only girl besides mama cat.

Here are pressure canned beans, Rancho Gordo pintos, and Marcellas.

Two of the 10 half-pint jars. I skimmed as much foam off as I could but there’s always some left. Any canners out there with hints. I seem to remember something about adding a teaspoon of baking soda??

Spring Flowers

Posted in books, California, Gardening, home stuff by

Our yard is pretty right now with everything so green and lots of different blooms.

Above is the Rhode Island Greening apple tree. I wonder if we’ll get apples this year. We only bought this about a year ago so I’m not sure.

Lots of California poppies. I tried for years to get them to grow here but finally, my daughter, the gardener, got some to grow and once they start, they will spread.

Here’s the white camellia tree. This is the only original plant from when we moved here.

I’m not sure how old it is but probably over 50 years. It is of unknown variety but again probably one that doesn’t exist as such anymore. Where the Buddha is, is where Ollie and Winnie are buried. I still miss them.

Here’s handsome Gus though!!! He’s a very big cat and such a baby!!

This is the fence with wisteria. It’s about to burst!!

A redbud in bloom.

This came as a twig and my daughter got it to grow in a pot and then now in the ground.

This is part of the cherry tree. This is a fruit-bearing tree but the birds get them before we do.

This is the eucalyptus I bought last year. It’s still in a pot. It’s putting out some nice new growth.

this is English lavender. The stalks are different from French lavender.

All the Japanese maples are leafed out and look pretty. Again, my daughter has planted probably 25 Japanese maples around the property. Mostly they come up as seedlings around the big one we have. That one we brought with us from Foresthill was probably 5 years old then.

Yesterday I went to the gym and library and both were good. Not too busy. Today is a home day and I plan on doing a few organizing things, cooking the turkey chili, and reading some.

Barclay plans to start on the bathroom window this week. Well, I guess he needs to go buy it first and then he’ll start. I’m still not sure what we should do about the tub. It all seems a bit overwhelming. But I guess we’ll figure it out.

Simple Sunday

Posted in budgets, California, cooking, decluttering, Flylady, Pantry, Uncategorized by

Wow, lots of rain yesterday. This morning is still a little drizzly. Sadly, there is no Sunday walk but once I see the PT I’ll ask if I can even do a little. I don’t see them till near the end of the month unless there’s a cancellation. Definitely difficult for me but also don’t want my knee to buckle and then if I fall cause some other problem.

We did venture out in the rain to get the monthly Costco done. I was quite surprised it wasn’t packed. We found a place to park near the entrance and had no problem going down the aisles. We even got to the register without waiting. By the time we were leaving though cars were circling the parking lot because of the pouring rain.

Today I plan on doing the Flylady zone of the bathroom and I’ll add the bedroom too. I usually do these together as both don’t take very long. I also want to write down the meal plan for the week and see what needs using. We had freezer stuffed peppers last night and I also have some chicken enchiladas that I took out so I’ll have those tonight. I have some rice so I thought I’d make my favorite Greek lemon rice soup. Plus I have a lot of Meyer lemons that were given to me to use.

I have put a few things on Facebook market place I’m not using to try and sell. One is the Food Saver vacuum thing. If it doesn’t sell then I’ll put in a box for the Assistance League thrift store. My food saver hasn’t been used this year except when I did the corn this summer. I can just use ziploc bags for that this summer. I did use it when we were in the pandemic for oats and such but now I’m not interested in that kind of food storage. We gave the food bank all the Mountain House food I’d gotten during the pandemic and lots of cans of things I don’t need. That felt good to do that. The barn pantry now is officially closed and I’ll only keep bulk items in the house either in my jars or in the 2 under the bed bins. I still have plenty of beans, rice and canned goods plus my own shelf stable foods I canned. I’ll have to think about what might need to get stored out there as I have the nice bins I bought for food and I’d like to see them used for something.

This just arrived from Williams Sonoma. It’s my Christmas present from my daughter. I’ve been using it constantly and it’s really great. The rice came out perfectly. If you’re going to invest in Staub, be sure to wait for the sales. Most of the time you can get 50% off if it’s around Christmas.

This week I’m planning the gym once if I feel my knee can get me in there and I need to drop books off at the library. If I’m wearing the knee brace my knee does feel more stable.

End of a year…

Posted in books, California, camping, cancer, cooking, Gardening, travel, Uncategorized by

2023 is almost over.

Overall, I think we had a good year.

We had lots of RV adventures in Rubi and even went to The Westin in Napa(points used) for an overnight.

Everyone’s health is good and except for my knee still acting up and being on Velcade this fall, I think my health is good. This week is my last weekly shot of Velcade/Dex so I will be ready for a break. I’m not anemic or having any serious issues with Velcade just the normal stuff that’s to be expected. Still, I will be glad to switch to the monthly.

I did a lot of pressure canning and water bath canning this spring, summer, and fall. At this point, I’d say I’ve used maybe 1/3 of my pantry. I’ve learned a lot about food storage and it’s been fun. The all-American canner is a dream to work with. But as I get older, I may switch to the electric canner because the all-American is super heavy and difficult to move around. The electric one does have limits to how many you can do but that wouldn’t be a problem for me as I’m trying to can for a family with kids.

We were fortunate not to have to have any trees taken down this year but if we can afford it next year we should move ahead and do at least one. By my last count, we have about 10 more trees that should come down. But that’s A LOT of money we do not have.

We had a great garden this year too thanks to my daughter. I’m hoping next year is good too. Probably lots of tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, etc. Of course, crops should be rotated so that might affect where things go and how much we can plant.

The library has been wonderful and after reading over 100 books, I stopped counting because …why? Also, having the gym and library next to each other is awesome.

We do live a simple life.

Friday things

Posted in books, bread, California, Gardening, LLS, Myeloma by

Yesterday we ventured out to Costco and it was fine. We were only among a handful of people wearing masks but heck, that’s ok. We spent $300 on food and $80 on nonfood. Overall, that’s a low $ trip at Costco for us. I still need a few extras and I think I’ll have Barclay do that next week after he gets his port flush. What I’d like to take advantage of is the Nasacort that is on sale. It’s 4 of them for $28. I pay $18 at the store for one. So that’s a big saving. Then I went over to Dicks’ sporting goods for earplugs. They didn’t have the Speedo ones so I got the TYR as a backup since last week I had to swim one time without earplugs because I thought I left them home. In actuality, they were stuck in my towel and when I lifted my towel they fell out. Oh well.

OMG. good news!! LLS just opened funding for Myeloma so I jumped on and submitted my application and was approved. They have it very streamlined and it was easy to do. I was definitely getting concerned about funding. LLS covers our medicare and UHC so it’s a good chunk of change a month.

Today I need to go drop off food at the food bank, Goodwill, check on my prescription at Bel-air, and then drop books off at the bookstore.

I plan to make pizza tonight but I’ll use a Trader Joe’s dough. I’m going to top with the fennel sausage I bought in Napa. I think I’m going to pull the Ooni out and use that so one with be cheese and the other will be the sausage.

Our weather has been spectacular and we ate dinner on the patio 2 nights in a row. Next week does look quite a bit cooler.

I’ve been reading the book ” High on the Hog” that the Netflix original was based on. I’d highly recommend it just for the history part. What we did to Africans is shameful. All that history SHOULD be taught in high schools so students can learn about ALL of our history, the good, the bad, and the ugly. NOT just what the good White people did. Arghhhh, don’t get me started.

We’re working in the garden areas and decided to buy 2 galvanized water troughs that people use for raised beds. B filled one with garden soil and is ready to plant. We bought some things at the nursery to plant like onions, and parsley, cilantro, chives. My daughter has lots of seeds to plant too. The garlic in the barrels we planted is doing great. We do have the front garden beds almost ready. Those will be things like chard, lettuce, kale, etc.

Everything is starting to pop with this warm weather. It’s been a very pretty spring.

Spring time busy.

Posted in Blood test, cancer, home stuff, Multiple myeloma, Myeloma by

There’s lots going on in the gardens and the yard. Flowers are blooming and all three lilac trees are in full bloom. This has been a really good year for flowering trees. Out Cherry trees maintained their blossoms for weeks which was unusual. Now the lilacs are in full swing and very full. The white roses are just starting to bud and a few have flowers. The Cecil Brunner looks to be ready to explode with pink blossoms.

Today I plan on applying the redwood stain to the new fencing. I’m going to use a small roller so I think it will go quickly but I’m not sure how much/far the gallon will go. It certainly wasn’t cheap at $58 a gallon. The garden shed is nearing completion and I have bought the same house paint to paint that. I’m still not thrilled with the way it’s positioned but done is done. We still need to get some roofing to finish the shingles. We had some left over when we had the roof re -done so we just need to get 2-3 more bundles.

The weather is stellar right now with this afternoon being @ 80 degrees. I plan on BBQ some chicken and tofu.

I need to write up my monthly menu and check the freezer. I know I’ve used up quite a bit and when we were in New Brighton my daughter also used up lots of frozen things so that’s good and I can write a list of what needs to be replaced.

After my doctor visit yesterday, which went fine, I stopped at Trader Joe’s in Roseville. I bought some bread things,bagels,pita bread, sandwich bread, some veggies, some frozen things too. TJ’s is great for snacks like sesame sticks so I got a nice variety.

The doctor visit was fine. He said to lower my Dex( from 16 to 12 mg) so it’s maybe not so intense. That’ll be nice. He also said we’ll just wait and see about Round 6. I think if the Dex is more tolerable he’ll go for round 6. I guess we’ll see. All my numbers were still great and my ratio even went down to 1.3 since Lambda went up slightly. So I’m pleased and plus I feel pretty good overall. I do feel pretty lucky that the cancer is being wiped out by Velcade. Unfortunately, there are always rogue cells left behind and that’s why relapse is inevitable. But that’s not now and I refuse to think about something in the future I have no control over.