Friday Things

Posted in books, California, camping, meal planning, Pantry, reading, travel, Uncategorized by Chris N

Well, our trip to Napa has been on /off again till this morning when we checked the weather again and it looks ok. My concern was for the rain/snow here. But now it seems like that will hold off till Thursday. I guess we’ll see what it is tomorrow because you need 48 hrs cancellation. So I think that will be ok. It’s saying rain here Tuesday but not in Napa.

The gym was good although it seemed there were some new people I hadn’t seen before. I chatted with one of the guys from the pool and it seems he goes to the pool almost every day. The traffic wasn’t too bad for a Friday.

I just finished rereading for the hundredth( okay maybe 10th time) time Mary Stewart’s “The Crystal Cave’. I happened to see this in the Free Little Library at the park. Those books were a huge influence on me. I loved all things Arthurian especially Merlin. I guess I always have had my head in the clouds. As matter of fact, it was around the time when I was pregnant with Sachi that we called the baby “Em” which was short for Emryus, Merlin’s name was g Ambrosius. Fun fact. I’m going to hit the bookstore and see if I can get the second in the trilogy, ‘The Hollow Hills”.

I’m not planning on a pizza tonight so I’ll need to figure something out. ???? The whole pantry challenge has been great to do and we really used up stuff. There are still a few more random things and I still have lots of shelf-stable soups and meals. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do this summer /fall for food storage. Some things worked great and others I won’t do again. It’s a bit of trial and error really.

I did come to the conclusion to NOT get a meat/bread slicer or electric knife. I guess it really came down to not wanting another appliance. So it took a while to process but I’m there now.

5Feb2023

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, budgets, California, camping, Flylady, meal planning, Pantry, travel, Uncategorized by Chris N

Another rainy Sunday.

I went to the gym in Auburn(Anytime Fitness) and did the treadmill and weights. Then I went to Safeway for some groceries to tide us over till we do Costco.

So far the menu planning for the pantry this week is:

Cheese/chile tamales from the freezer( used up the last 4) with refried beans and salad

Beer Brauts from the freezer( the last pack) with peppers, sauerkraut, canned baked beans( my shelf stable beans I canned, and Boca burger for B.

Chickpea curry over brown rice with broccoli( using up broccoli)

Tofu burgers

Chicken noodle soup/ lentil veggie soup

I’ll see what else is in the freezer and add a few more meals. I probably can’t get thru all February but I know I can do another week at least.

I’m back making some sourdough and have done a few loaves already. I plan to freeze 1/2 of each loaf so we have bread ready for toasting or grilled cheese.

I’ll see what else is in the freezer and add a few more meals. I probably can’t get thru all of February but I know I can do another week at least.

I’m back making some sourdough and have done a few loaves already. I plan to freeze 1/2 of each loaf so we have bread ready for toasting or grilled cheese.

There’s nothing on the agenda this week so It’ll just be normal stuff. B did book us a reservation at Napa RV in a few weeks. There are full hook ups which is always a treat and that’ll give us a chance to take Rubi out for the first time this season. It’s only 2 nights but it’s also only an hour and a half away. Maybe with towing. We really enjoyed our stay there last time and knew we wanted to go back. Unless there’s a really terrible storm we’ll go even with a little rain.

The Flylady zone is the kitchen if you want to do Flylady. Just set a timer for 15 minutes and declutter, wipe and clear counters, be sure there are no dishes in the sink or drainer, tidy shelves too. Just do what you can in 15 minutes and then do it again tomorrow. I have a laminated sheet that has my chores for the kitchen and I off each one when I’m done.

3Apr2017

Monday Musings

Posted in Uncategorized by Chris N

Not much going on here. The weather is still nice but cooler than last week and we’re in for some rain starting Friday. I just hope it comes and goes quickly. I spent the weekend tidying things up and we had lots of laundry to catch up on.

Yesterday I cooked the very last of the spaghetti squash my daughter planted last year. I think we harvested them in October. They were amazingly good. I found a recipe from Minimalist baker It was excellent. here’s another source for recipes

Tonight my son is going to grill some burgers up. It’ll be nice not to cook although I’ll make a salad. We went to the farmers market on Saturday and I picked up some beautiful lettuce. I’ve been rereading the Minimalist cooking by Meg Wolfe. It’s a short little ebook but really well done and has good ideas on simplifying not only cooking but menu planning and decluttering the kitchen. I’d recommend it.

I went to town to go do a small workout at the gym and then the bank and pharmacy. It was a short errand list. Tomorrow is my regular gym day and then I might pop into the thrift store. We went into the Capitola Goodwill and I found a few treasures. A Chantal teapot, 4 Corelle lunch dishes, and 6 Dansk coffee cups. I was excited to find these.

In decluttering I sold our oak pedestal table that’s been out in the barn. I’m hoping it’s picked up tonight. The wife said her husband would come by after work with his truck. It’s bittersweet since we bought that table in 1987 when we had just finished building our ‘farmhouse’. But we used it for homeschool in the studio and then it’s been just parked in the barn( the black hole). So that’s the last thing I have to sell for a while and it will open up a lot of room. If it stays nice for the next number of days I’m going to purge more magazines. Plus I have one bin of school stuff that’s my adult children’s and I’d like to whittle that down. So if it’s warmer Wednesday I’ll go do that. I did put out the few Easter decorations I have mostly because it is bunnies and cute chicks and an egg tree. We use to do the Waldorf egg tree with a manzanita branch and real blown colored eggs. Those days are over. The one I have has wool and wooden eggs.