Tag Archives: ikea

Wild California Weather or Frugal Friday

Posted in Blood test, bread, budgets, California, camping, home stuff, ikea, Myeloma, Pantry, swimming by

We are still getting clobbered. Right now it’s been raining here nonstop and there’s some wind. There are flood warnings everywhere for N Ca, specifically the Sierras and the Bay area. At this point, I’m guessing we’re canceling New Brighton because of the flood dangers in the Santa Cruz Mtns. Plus we’ll be right on the coast so I’m not too comfortable with the whole idea. Also, the day we leave it’s raining nonstop all day in Capitola. Reserving something in March is always a gamble, so we’ll be flexible. I do hate to give up the spot because it was an electric one. Oh well, that’s life.!!!

This week was busy but not too bad. I swam on Wednesday and that was lovely. I went to the gym on Tuesday and the library. We went to Costco on Thursday( yesterday), and holy cow was it busy. We didn’t have a clue as to why. It seemed just a regular Thursday. Weird. Anyway, I got lots of things to bulk up the freezer and pantry. I plan on going back in soon to get a few things more that we need like AA batteries. I didn’t want to add them to the cart yesterday.

After Costco, we went to our favorite pizza place, Celestino’s which is the closest to a NY pizza I’ve ever had out here. Although I left NY in 1970, thankfully, NY pizza has always been near and dear to me since I grew up right next to Pepe and Eddies. Now that might seem strange since I grew up on Quaker Rd in Highland Mills which back then was VERY rural. But right up the road, actually, the end of the road was this Italian family who ran the restaurant. There was the grandmother, Nonnie, Eddie, Pepe, and 2 children, Barbara and Johnny. Johnny was a few years older than me and we did play together occasionally. Anyway, their pizza was the best, ever.

We also spent money at Ikea but I brought cash for that from my ‘home’ money. The Ivar shelf is absolutely fabulous. I wish I had room for a second one. Maybe if I look at the space closer, I may be able to fit it in but that would mean using most of the wall and I’m reluctant to do that. ( at least for right now).

I should have bought another shelf and actually when I did my calculations I had the extra shelf in there but Ikea sells the Ivar as separate pieces. I had figured the 5 shelves( as shown on the website were all together but they weren’t. I got 6 shelves instead of the 7 I had planned thinking that was all I’d need but I can see I need the extra one for pint jars and half pints. I love that I can see what I have left in the canned goods and what I need to do this summer.

This is such a clever system and the total was $115. So a fabulous deal.

Today is a home day and with the rain and wind, I’m glad to be home baking and tidying things up.

Overall, an expensive week but since it’s all stuff we don’t normally do, I’m ok with it.

My labs came in with another 6pt increase. 😦 so now I’m at 36.7mg/L for kappa Light chains. It’s a bummer but as I’ve said,” your blood is your blood and it is what it is”. I did go back and looked at the graph for my increases in 2019 and they really started doubling at about 55mg/L. So in one month they went from that to almost 100. And then the next month almost to 200mg/L. So that’s what I don’t want to happen this time. The Myeloma cells are clearly on the increase and why wait till I’m at 600mg/L to start treatment. We don’t even know if Velcade will be effective since this will be my 3rd time on it. Lots of unknowns.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, decluttering, Flylady, minimalism, swimming, Uncategorized, Walking by

A very pretty morning in the park and no one there but us and the Canada Geese.

Today I plan to do some reorganizing in the pantry, closet, and the Heywood in the kitchen. There’s not a great deal to do but a few things I want to rearrange. The closet( our only closet and my nemesis) is almost where I want it. I don’t want food storage in there anymore just clothes and seasonal things. So I know there’s a bag of coffee to move out and a bag of flour. Otherwise, I’m finally getting the closet to a space that’s not so crowded with EVERYTHING.

B got the patio shade cover up and it’s very nice and really covers the whole area. It’s 13×13 so bigger than most patio shade covers. We had some serious wind the other day and it was well anchored.

This week is quiet with not much going on except the normal things like swimming, walking, some grocery shopping( not much), and just house stuff. I’d like to do a library run maybe Thursday. Next Sunday is my darling daughter’s birthday so I need to ask her(again) what she wants to do. It’s hard to believe she is 37 YO and 37 years ago we were waiting for her to arrive. It was one of the happiest times of my life. I loved being pregnant both times. I did have a miscarriage 2 years after she was born as we were trying to have another baby. I was 16 weeks. That didn’t work out and after that, we just gave up on any infertility treatment. But of course, then the miracle child(my son) showed up 9 years later.

This week is Flylady bedroom zone but I did that this week as I had B move the bed and I vacuumed and cleaned under and around the bed. This week I’d like to change the curtains out to some light fabric but I’m not sure what I have around. I might need to go down for a quick trip to Ikea.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cooking, home improvement, home stuff, ikea by

Another beautiful October day. The clouds are rolling in and we expect rain. As a matter of fact, it looks like the storm door is definitely going to open by Wednesday. We are covering things and finishing up some outside work.

We went down to Ikea to pick up some heavy curtains for the bedroom as the windows do let in some cold even though they are double paned. That was supposed to be a project this year of replacing them but we ended up replacing one sunroom window and then the laundry room got a makeover. Maybe next year.

I plan to write out some goals and projects for next year and prioritize them. We know we need one more tree down that is nearest the driveway and is making taking the RV out challenging since it leans in toward the driveway. This is another 100 ft Ponderosa so probably $3000. Then we are planning to switch the wood stove to propane as we feel that B probably isn’t going to want to keep cutting firewood. Those 2 projects are probably the big ones.

Simplifying the woodstove will make a big difference. We love wood fires but it is a lot of work and we need to look to the future when getting wood, bringing it in the house, stacking, etc will be another chore we’d rather not do.

I’m tired from going to Ikea so I think dinner will be a simple tofu scramble with some Kirkland tomato bisque soup. That’s about all I can do.

This is looking out at the driveway. The second tree in is the one we need down. the first one is a leaner but it’s leaning away from the driveway so if it goes it will go in that direction. The last one is a crooked tree that the original owner cut the top to put an antenna on top thus the split. If that goes it will just fall in the woods. Trees are beautiful until they are a threat. 😦 The golden bamboo is the bamboo I went and dig up at a fellow Waldorf school parent’s house back in 1997.

Simple Sunday

Posted in cooking, home improvement, Uncategorized by

Yesterday I chose not to go to the pool and stay home and cook. I wanted to get some freezer meals done so I have more choices when I don’t feel like cooking. So first I used my last #10 can of tomatoes and cooked up some ground beef and made a meat sauce for lasagnas. Then I used the other half of the can for sauce in the cheese lasagnas. I had decided to buy the freezer containers from amazon.

I started out making 2 cheese lasagnas, 2 meat lasagnas , and 1 cheese enchilada tray.

This week I’m in the bathroom zone. At Ikea I bought a round mirror to replace the one we’ve had in there for 25 years. I checked prices on Amazon and Ikea had the best price for this type of mirror.

Today we are doing a little painting in the laundry room. The window is in and there is still the new subfloor to put down.

We had an unfortunate negative run in with our neighbor that we want the fence built to block out his garage. So he seems to not have a job but works on old cars, that’s fine. He is often grinding or doing something making noise but it’s tolerable. Well, yesterday starting at 8 am he started air blasting an old truck. the noise was at 85 decibels which, if you look it up, is VERY loud. So I said, let’s just give him the benefit of the doubt and let it go till noon. Well, noon came and went and so the noise kept going Then he had 2 people show up doing other blasting things. I really was losing it by 4pm. So I said ok let’s wait till 5. At 5:15 I walked over to the fence behind the barn. One of the men came over and I said “you cannot be running industrial machinery all day in a residential area. I’d like to talk to the owner. He had his back to me and turned around and said ‘call the police’. I said that’s what I don’t want to do. He turned his back to me and ignored me. the other guy says, this is almost over and I said, regardless you cannot have industrial level noise in a neighborhood and it’s the owners responsibility. I was livid to say the least. I’m thinking what is with this guy. We’ve never had any encounters with him ever and he deals with me that way. So my daughter checked and we can file a noise complaint online. I really don’t want to do that but I will if it happens again. I hate conflict and am NOT good at dealing with these things really. But I will call the sheriff if it goes on again for that long.

What would you have done? and why do you think he was so belligerent to me.?

Frugal Friday( for the most part)

Posted in budgets, home improvement, Lake tahoe, swimming, Uncategorized by

I suppose the biggest save this week was shopping at Winco . I haven’t been in quite a while and ,once again, really shocked at the low prices as opposed to Safeway/BelAir.

I probably saved $50 at least on what I bought. I didn’t really go item by item but it was significant. What happened is, after swimming I decided to go over there and it wasn’t too difficult at all. Usually after my swim I come directly home. No stops. So this time I swam 35 minutes so I wasn’t too wiped out and it was perfect. Plus I was in there at 8am. So there were just a few shoppers( big bonus for me who dislikes people). All in all, I was quite pleased and will do it again, probably before we head to Tahoe ( if it is even open).

The truck AC we as fixed, we think, at no cost to us as we have the warranty. I’m still not sure it was just the freon but I’ll wait and see.

We haven’t done any take out in a while and that always saves money. Just haven’t been interested in other people’s food. Tonight is pizza night and I’ll do an Ooni. I’m down to 4 more and it’s paid for itself. If I were to order it again, I would definitely go for the gas one so if you’re thinking about an Ooni do the gas one. The pellets take more work and getting the temperature right is tricky. Not hard, you just have to keep adding the pellets at the right time.

I’m planning on going down to Ikea this morning as I have a 10% coupon I want to use. I tried to do the click and collect which is nice and easy but the item I wanted they said they couldn’t do that due to low stock. Oh well, it shows 4 in stock so I hope it’s there.

The laundry room is still torn apart but getting there. I decided to buy the less expensive window to replace the one that broke and was all fogged anyway. That hopefully will go in this weekend. I want it all done including being painted by the time we leave for Tahoe so that should give my son and B a timeline.

Five on Friday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, cooking, covid-19, Flylady, ikea, meal planning, Political things, Uncategorized by

*Let me be the first to say, Trump and Melania testing positive is just what he deserves for not taking any precautions or even taking Covid-19 seriously. We never go anywhere without masks and sanitizer. We don’t mingle in crowds or go to Target to browse. Nada!! ” So stupid is as stupid does” Forrest Gump!!

*My son is very creative and loves to build things related to movies/props/video games. So using a 3D printer he built this

and another angle

This is from The Portal Game; The Aperture Science handheld Portal Device. ( For us non gamers, this is a video game)

Pretty amazing! and he figured out the electronics so it changes colors,red to orange to green to blue.

Way beyond my comprehension. Maybe all that homeschooling and building projects did something?? nah, I think he’s just super smart.

*Yesterday I made a very yummy applesauce cake with the left over apples I had. It turned out way better than I thought it would.

I dusted powdered sugar on top to make a finishing touch. It’s almost gone this morning!! The recipe also did not use eggs and I wasn’t sure about that but it was fine.

*Budget wise, things are pretty good. Except for the Ikea trip we didn’t spend any extra. Since we do Ikea maybe 2x a year, I’m okay with picking stuff there like extra kitchen towels, pantry jars etc. Plus, if you have an Ikea near your Tuesdays and Wednesdays they open at 9am for over 65. It was great to get in there and there were only a few people in there. No kids! Very worth it! We will need to still pay the AAA fair California bill but we haven’t gotten it yet. I’m guessing it’ll be there any day in the mailbox. Plus the other big expense will be property tax. I’m planning on paying that when we drop our ballots off at the county voting box.

*I spent a little down at the market for milk and a loaf of rustic bread and Guiness Stout for the Welsh Rarebit I made for dinner last night. I love Welsh rarebit. It’s basically cheese sauce on toast. The recipe was form the NYT (mark Bittman). It was a little strong on the stout.

Since we had pizza on my birthday, tonight I will do either breakfast for dinner or a frittata with some potatoes or???? mystery night!!

*BTW, if you follow Flylady this is a 2 zone week. Yesterday started the Entryway/dining room zone. Always a good time, if you have a dining room to declutter,simplify and minimize what you have. I don’t have a ‘real’ dining room. Our table is in the main room. I have the Heywood wakefield hutch which holds my Tepco pine cone ware. So all I do is wash the glass on it and dust. I also make sure the table is clear except for my beeswax tapers and seasonal decor( right now it’s the little white pumpkins from the garden, and our linen napkins in a bowl.

Ok, that was 6 things with a lot mixed in:)

Another turn around the sun.

Posted in cooking, ikea, Uncategorized by

Yip…. another year older. I made it to 68.

Getting older is kinda weird really. Inside you feel pretty much the same as you did when you were younger but the body sure can’t keep up the same:) I am extraordinarily grateful to be 68.

We had a nice walk this morning and got there @ 5:10. So the annoying lady showed up at 5:43 but we were done. It was so weird. She pulled in to the parking lot and parked in the middle of almost on the park road. Honestly, I was WTF? is she doing. Not the best place to park.

We had a fun trip to Ikea but alas, the chairs were not what I wanted and then we found some we like but they were out of stock. But I bought a bunch of fun Christmas stuff, a new bath mat, candles, 2 glass jars and their brand of cotton kitchen towel that run .79 and are really the best of found except William Sonoma’s but they are 4 for $20.

Tonight my son is going to go get a pizza for dinner so no cooking.

Last night we watched another episode of ‘THe Boys”. that show is intense to say the least.

It’s fairly warm today and there’s smoke from the Santa Rosa fires. We sure could use rain.

There’s also supposed to be a high fire warning tomorrow thru Saturday.

What a joke about the debate. We didn’t watch but caught all the news this morning. tRump was an asshole. Biden did the best he could but Chris Wallace should have shut tRump down. And that whole thing with the proud Boys makes me sick. I hope we can hang on till Nov 3 and then ?

A commenter wanted to know how to freeze the potatoes. Potatoes on there own don’t freeze well but these double stuffed do. First bake way more than you think because you will scooping out the potato. So I did 15 whole potatoes. It does take a while to bake. I had them on 2 hours but they were done by 1 :45. So then let them cool and cut in half. Scoop the insides into a big bowl. I add a stick of butter and About one cup of cheddar cheese. I also add 1/2-1 cup of sour cream. I kinda eye ball it. Salt and pepper. Blend well. Then I mound it into the shell. So 1 potato half is maybe 3/4 of the potato. I ended up with 20 halves. I wrap in foil and then put in a zip lock bag and then freeze. I often take them out and heat in the microwave or I’ll just stick back in the oven and rebake. Great for nights when you don’t feel like cooking.

Simple Sunday

Posted in cooking, Flylady, freezer cooking, ikea, Walking by

Perfect fall weather. The mornings are cool and days get warm. We still haven’t had any outdoor fires in the fire pit because of fire danger. We need some rain to do that.

Not now:(

Our walks are stress free since we’re the only ones there that early. The stars have been spectacular. Venus is very bright and Mars is quite red. We we’re leaving at 6 and the first person showed up so hopefully we can maintain this schedule. Frankly, it’s worth it to be out the door just a little earlier. As I said to B this morning, we can do it now but who knows the future. A year from now? or when I start Velcade? I may not be up to it so we might as well do this while we can.

This week is the Living room zone if you follow Flylady. I did ours including window washing. I need to do the outside windows this coming week. I try and do them each quarter. I use the outside bottle of windex that attaches to a hose. It works quite well.

Today is a mellow day without too much on the docket. I’m planning on soup for dinner with salad. Yesterday I prepped 15 baked potatoes( Costco, big bag) for double stuffed potatoes. That’s 30 halves. But when you pile it on you do get less. So I ended up with 20 halves. I left 4 out and froze the rest. The potatoes were really nice so if you’re in Costco, that’s a good buy. I guessing that’s because the harvest is happening in Idaho. Plus the value is incredible. 15 lbs of bakers for $5.69. I think down at the Holiday they are .99 a pound right now. Also, double stuffed potatoes freeze beautifully.

This coming week has some appts. I have a dental cleaning and we are tentatively going to Ikea to get 2 chairs for the sunporch. We’ll see. It depends how the week shapes up and my mood. The pantry from Ikea is still unavailable so that won’t be happening. But Ikea is fun and affordable.

A lovely fall so far…

Posted in ikea, plants, Uncategorized by

Our weather is so beautiful.

I can’t hardly imagine being anywhere else, well maybe Hawaii! Next week looks lovely as well with day time temperatures in the 70’s. We do need the rain though:(

We had a fun time at Ikea this week. I got the new Poang chair covers(2) that I’d been waiting till they were in stock. I really would have liked the more expensive ones but they weren’t in stock till the end of November plus they were kinda pricey.  I love their storage jars and always buy one or two.  I’m liking the smaller ones to use in the fridge.

We also picked up the plant stand I’ve been eyeing so I can put 3 plants together.

 

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I really like the bamboo wood legs and it holds 3 plants. I’m still experimenting with which ones to use.

I also gave some plants a shower this week and they’re happier.

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This morning I made banana bread as we had 4 ripe bananas that needed using.

I always add pecans/walnuts and choc chips.

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This morning I’m planning on going into town for just a brief stop at the bank to get a copy of a transaction and then down to our local bagel store.

We haven’t heard from the tree guy so maybe next week. Since they did the other tree last Saturday I thought they might be back today but we had no call.

Things are going great!!

Posted in Bone marrow transplant, home stuff, husband, ikea, MDS, Multiple myeloma, Uncategorized by

First things first, TODAY is my 14th year since diagnosis. I was standing in our driveway and Barclay took the phone call from the awful doctor. Doesn’t matter, here I am!!!!  So onward. Next week I get my labs in the middle of all this and we’ll see what my numbers do. Up or down??? I’ll deal with it one way or another.

It’s the weekend and B has no labs till Monday so we can relax. I’m heading over to Ikea as they charged me for 2 paring knives but I only bought one. I’m not sure how that will work but I’ll try. Plus I bought this darling fold out bed for our daughter to sleep on here but then discovered that the couch does fold down to a bed. Okay, Barclay figured it out I just kinda looked at it and didn’t connect the dots. Oh, well.  So I will return that(insert sad face as it’s really cute). But I don’t need it now and then at home I’d have to store it so, decision made.

It’s all going really well and so far and now it’s just waiting till we can go home. Although next week is labs one day, clinic the next and then repeat so going home isn’t too feasible.

Tomorrow both kids are coming down so we can have Fathers day here.  They are doing a great job keeping things going at home. Which, surprisingly, is a lot of work mostly due to having pets, chickens and large garden areas.

We are off for a small walk and BTW Sacramento is having a serious cool down so we are VERY comfortable…. Todays high is only going to be 84 so really nice.