Tag Archives: kitchen zone

Simple Sunday

Posted in books, California, cooking, meal planning, Uncategorized, Walking by

I had a rough day yesterday. It seemed like everything was achy, and I was stiff. Not sure if it’s the rainy weather and arthritis hitting, but today is better. I walked even though it was drizzling and then raining. I’m not walking for great distances( one mile), but I felt I should at least move some. I’m planning on going to the gym this morning although its already almost 8am. I’ll sit here a few more minutes and decide.

Well, I’m back from the Auburn gym, so that feels good. I try and do weights at least 2x a week, and the Auburn gym helps since it’s close.

I finished the kitchen zone yesterday, so that’s done, and I only need to tidy up some things today and figure out dinner. I have some russet potatoes left from the Costco bag, so I might do some form of potato, and I have some broccoli. I’m not sure what protein I’ll add. I don’t have any tofu, so ??

I also want to write the menu for the week using what I have.

  • beans, WW tortillas, cheese, etc.
  • soup of some sort, I think I’ll do a lentil soup with carrots and add curry powder to make it curried lentil soup.
  • I have some chicken burgers or turkey burgers to use so I’ll do that.
  • I think I’ll do a breakfast for dinner night with scrambled eggs, blueberry pancakes, and sausage if I have any.
  • I want to look through the freezer and see what needs to be used. I know I have spaghetti and meatballs frozen. I need to check what else I have in there.
  • a pizza night
  • ???

I plan to go to the pool at least once and Maheny at least once.

We’ve been having fun watching the original Frankenstein and Dracula, which is on Prime. We actually have the DVD’s but these have been digitally remastered and there are subtitles. Both of these were around 1931, so the sound quality wasn’t very good. Plus, they’re only like an hour and 10 minutes.

That’s about it for today. I’m going to read and do some more practice embroidery.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cancer, Flylady, husband, peritoneal mesothelomia, travel by

A very cold morning. The park was all frosty. We did our usual loop which is about a 1.5. That’s what I aim for and then at the gym, I add on another .5 to 1 mile.

I’m heading into the gym this morning and then straight home. I don’t need to get anything. I have salad stuff B got at the store yesterday and leftover quiche too.

We leave early Tuesday morning and hopefully will between rush hours in the morning. Last time going down was fairly easy so I’m guessing Tuesday morning will be about the same.

I’ve finished the kitchen zone except for the floor. I asked my daughter to do that for me. Next, I’ll do the bathroom and bedroom zones. Just a quick dust and tidy.

I finished the taxes and submitted them. BTW, I checked out the IRS free e-file and it was not very user-friendly so I went back to Turbo Tax which is extremely user-friendly and just prompts you through.

Well, I’m glad this finally happening even if we don’t know the next step at least we know this one.

Menu for the week and misc.

Posted in California, cooking, meal planning, Uncategorized by

I had a great swim yesterday except I overdid it so my low back is a little sore. Once I started moving around it was fine but getting out of bed was like,, urgh… Oh well, I surpassed my last swim yardage and got to 950 yards so I’m happy about that.

Sunday night-Turkey with some stuffing, salad, and nut loaf from the freezer.

Monday- leftover lentil soup and salad. I made a salad I saw on Facebook of chickpeas, cucumber, avocado, cherry tomatoes, parsley, and artichoke hearts. quite yummy.

Tuesday- I made a Greek pasta salad and I’m unsure what I’ll have with it. Maybe grilled tofu.

Wednesday- I want to make a turkey and wild rice soup with the leftover turkey. I’ll make B a ramen bowl.

Thursday- Something from the freezer to use up. I have some perogi’s from Costco to use. I wouldn’t buy them again. They were ok but not our usual fare.

Friday- Pizza, either make or get take out.

Saturday- Again something easy to use up freezer stuff.

Sunday- TBD.

I just finished the kitchen zone and I still need to vacuum. I thought of going to Trader Joe’s today but I think I’ll wait a bit maybe till Thursday. The only thing I do need is butter and the Lundberg wild rice and I can get those down at the Holiday.

Oh EXCITING! We scrolled through Amazon Prime and saw on masterpiece, the new season of Astrid. So we watched the first episode and it was very good. They definitely have snazzed it up some.

The afternoons are longer and it was light almost till almost 5:35. Even the angle of the sun coming down our driveway is different from a few weeks ago. Imbolc is Feb 2 so pretty soon it’ll be crossquarter.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cooking, freezer cooking, Pantry, simple foods by

It’s raining this morning and is supposed to keep going till tomorrow. There’s also a wind forecast. Let’s hope it’s not too bad. Southern California especially Santa Barbara is really in for huge amounts of rain.

Everyone is hanging out today so I probably won’t get the kitchen zone done. Everyone’s in and out of the kitchen cooking or making coffee/tea. It can wait till Monday or Tuesday.

I don’t feel very motivated this morning anyway. I plan on cooking the turkey breast a little later and then heating up the frozen potatoes. I have the leftover nut loaf for B defrosting as well. That should make an easy dinner. We’re not big leftover eaters except for lunch the next day.

I’m trying to refine how we’re eating and what works right now. We generally eat very simple meals and I want to simplify that even a little more. I do love cooking but I’m definitely not into complicated meals. We’ve been making brown rice once a week and using that in things.

Also, I don’t think I’ll do too much pressure canning of meat meals. The beans have been a huge success and we use them weekly. Also, salsas and tomato sauces are used a lot. I guess it’s a bit of a learning curve and trying to decide what works and what doesn’t. Some frozen prepped meals work brilliantly like lasagna. Others like pulled pork not so much. That’s okay. I’m working through what I have and taking notes.

Tomorrow I have the very early PT at 6:45. yikes! Then I have the annual well care appt with my PC. I was going to cancel but then thought I should keep it and go over what happened with my knee etc.

My big question this week is will I go to the pool ? If I do I’ll go around 8:45 and do 20 minutes or so. The pool closes at 9:25 so that’s why I’m shooting for 8:45 and hoping all the regulars are gone and it’s only a few stragglers left. Since I’ve never gone that late it may be a whole other group of swimmers.

The rest of the week is open and I will go to the gym at least once. I don’t need any groceries except if we need milk or eggs or some misc item. I’m feeding my sourdough and it should be ready tomorrow. It does take a while after it’s been in the fridge.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cancer, home stuff, Uncategorized by

A bit cloudy this morning and I think we’re supposed to get some sprinkles. The leaves are holding on though and all the Japanese maples are turning shades of red. The oaks are golden yellow.

I’ve been off walking since I hyper-flexed my knee again. (That was Friday). Dr. L said it wasn’t dex so that was a relief. The most I can get is when I fell off the step stool I tore the meniscus and that is what is still causing the knee and muscle pain. I have an appt with the PC to check it out. There doesn’t seem to be much you can do but keep wearing a brace and let it heal. I’ve got a compression sleeve coming tomorrow. It was supposed to be delivered yesterday but our PO sucks and doesn’t always deliver and says pick up at office. I read that walking is good for it overall and I’m gue botheredssing swimming. What I can’t do is twist or hyperflex.It does seem odd that I’ve been walking ,swimming etc and not much has bothered me till just the other morning. Oh well, getting old is not for the faint hearted that’s for sure.

Yesterday, I made a homemade chicken noodle soup. I had that for lunch and dinner. The I prepped the cheese nut loafs for Thanksgiving. I had made the brown rice the day before( you want it cold when you mix the ingredients). Then added all the ingredients and baked in 2 loaf pans. So there’s quite a bit to have for Thanksgiving and whenever. Tonight I’ll serve some slices with gravy as a pretest. I have 2 small jars of cranberry sauce left over from last year so I want to use those before I use the ones I just made. As I said before, Thanksgiving is going to be dex day so I need everything ready for the fam to cook. We’re not big dessert people so, that can just be whatever maybe a Costco pie.

I finished the kitchen zone with B doing all the higher shelves. He just finished washing the linen sheets, and I just need to do tidy up in the living room.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, camping, cooking, Flylady, travel, Uncategorized, Walking by

We had a nice Sunday walk in the park. Quiet with only the Canada Geese families around. I think we counted 6 families.

I went to the Auburn gym for a bit and then when I got home sliced up the jalapenos for refrigerator jalapenos. It’s an easy recipe of 1 cup white vinegar 1 cup water, tsp of pickling salt, and 1 Tsp of sugar. Boil that and then pour over the jalapenos in the jars. Cool and then refrigerate.

I labeled the Chicken Chili Verde pressure canned jars and put them in the pantry. I plan on trying a few other of the Ball meal-in-a-jar recipes. There’s a chipotle taco meat one that sounded good. There’s also a chickpea stew one that’s vegetarian I want to try as well.

B cleaned out the inside of the fridge and freezer while I was gone so that chore is done. I plan on doing the kitchen zone tomorrow. Monday is usually my home reset day. I do the little things that need doing and the zone cleaning.

I made a quiche crust to make a spinach quiche for tonight. ( not anything to do with the coronation, just part of my meal rotation.) I had preordered the new Magnolia cookbook and will look thru that today too. I like her recipes and find them to be very good most of the time.

This is a quiet week with only one appt. I have an appt to get my booster. Other than that, just normal stuff. Next week we’re in New Brighton for the week. Hopefully, the AC charge they did works. I still think there’s probably a leak but at least for now, it’s working.

Simple Sunday

Posted in Blood test, California, cooking, Flylady, home stuff, reading, Uncategorized by

Our beautiful spring weather of sunshine and warmer temperatures is back. It’s so nice to go out into the yard and see spring popping up everywhere. Greengrass, trees budding, the flowering cherry tree is still beautiful despite losing those branches.

Yesterday, I didn’t swim because I had an allergy attack and didn’t feel great. Also, it seems after I swim more vigorously like I did on Thursday, I get a ‘lactic acid’ attack the next day so that may have been some of it. Since I’ve increased my weights to 15-20 lbs, I am definitely swimming harder. Yay to that but then I get the downtime too.

Today, we’ll walk and then I plan on going into the Auburn gym for a bit. Tomorrow, I have labs and then I will go down to the Roseville gym. I have books to drop off. I’ve been reading the Dales Detective series( which is fun reading) and had gotten the 4th one in the series as a zip book. I plan on doing the 5th one as a zip too, but you can only have one at a time.

Yesterday, I washed the Ikea couch covers. I had checked about getting a new set but lo and behold, they don’t make the Ektorp couch anymore. I was kind of shocked. It’s been replaced by the Uppland. So I guess until I plan on getting a new couch, I’ll be washing these covers. BTW, they do wash up very nicely and I love having a white couch. The next couch though I think I want is a bit more modern looking and I think it only comes in a grey color which I do love also. The covers on our Poang chairs are a beautiful grey and look good with the white.

I plan on making up the week’s menu plan this morning. So far I have:

  1. chicken pot pie (shelf stable that I canned) and tofu pot pie with green beans
  2. pizza night
  3. Taco night or Mexican night, BTW, the pressure canned pintos came out delicious.
  4. A stir fry night with the veggies from Costco probably with tofu and rice
  5. I have some cheese ravioli to use from the freezer so I might do that
  6. ,???
  7. I have some tilapia to use too, so I’ll pan-fry that with asparagus and potatoes on the side

This week is the kitchen zone so I’ll start that this morning. I’ve been doing a little every day but still I like to do it one fell swoop so it’s all clean and shining.

B went back down to Costco to buy another pear tree because you need 2 to pollinate. They’re good sized trees so we might get some pears in 3 years. I wish we had planted more fruit trees over the years but we never did. Our apple tree was planted when we first moved here so it is over 25 years old and in a good year produces tons of apples. Last year, sadly, all the blossoms got killed by that very late frost and all the orchard around here lost entire crops of apples.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cooking, Flylady, minimalism, reading, simplicity, swimming, Uncategorized by

We lost power for about an hour last night but I’m surprised it wasn’t more. It’s still raining so we decided not to walk this morning. I actually like walking in the rain as long as the wind isn’t blowing and today it is still windy. It looks like we’re in for rain all week. There have been many trees down so I hope ours can hold on. Even along I -80 I saw some pines that had fallen over.

I did go swimming yesterday and got a lane fairly quickly but by the time I was done lots of ‘new ‘ faces were showing up and the high school team again. I imagine it’ll slow down after a while with NY resolutions fading away.

Then I popped into Winco for salad stuff and other veggies. I didn’t buy a lot of anything else as I’m doing the pantry challenge which is to use up what I have. So far it is going splendidly. Last night we had some salmon I had in the freezer so that’s used up and we had a salad with it. I also used my last acorn squash from the farm stand I bought this fall. So overall I’m pleased with the challenge. This week I plan on using 2 pressure-canned soups, and some enchiladas from the freezer, and then see what else needs to be used up.

I just finished reading an excellent book called ” The Longing for Less” by Kyle Chayka. It is quite the essay on minimalism. I’d highly recommend it. I’m not planning on writing down the books I read this year as last year once I hit 150, I didn’t bother anymore.

Today, I plan on doing the Kitchen zone and then read some more. This week is a mellow week, with no appts. Depending on the weather though, I’ll go down to Roseville to swim and to the Rec center at least 1x.

Simple Sunday, Rainy Sunday

Posted in books, California, camping, cooking, Flylady, swimming by

We are getting lots of rain and we need it here in California. There’s a lot of snow in the mountains, which will help the snowpack for spring melt off.

I had a good swim yesterday and the pool was busy but I had a lane to myself for most of my swim and then shared a lane at the end( which is about 45 minutes). Saturdays are hit-and-miss. Sometimes it’s super busy and then sometimes mostly empty. Traffic was light too which was surprising since I thought more snowboarders and skiers would be heading up to Tahoe.

Then when I came home I started the chicken pot pie pressure canned filling. The chicken wasn’t really up to my standards but I thought I was being frugal buying the Safeway deal. I think I’ll skip that next time. It just wasn’t that great. I haven’t tasted the final product but hopefully, it’s ok. But I couldn’t get my pressure canner to not leak (drips) from under the rim and then it wouldn’t come up to pressure. I had to restart 3Xs. Finally, I googled it and someone said to use vegetable oil on the gasket on both sides. That finally did it and the pressure was fine at 15 lbs. It’s quite a learning curve doing this pressure canning. So then this morning I’m pressure-canning organic kidney beans that I got from Azure. I ended up with 7-pint jars. These will be great for soups like minestrone. I did see that All American has the pressure canner that I want back in stock but at $400, I need to wait till January. I just paid the property taxes so we need to regroup from that.

This week it’s the kitchen zone in Flylady and I’ll do that tomorrow or Tuesday. This is a mellow week for me with no appts. I think we’re going to do Costco and get that done well before Christmas. I plan to go to the gym at least once. I wish I could get there more but the cost of gas is an issue with it adding to the cost of the membership.

As usual, Christmas will be minimal with just a few gifts each. We don’t really exchange any gifts with other family members except Heid’s husband which I sent a Point Reyes Cheese selection. Heidi loved charcuterie so I think Richard will like this sampling. Point Reyes cheese is a women-owned cooperative. I’m sure Christmas is going to be difficult for him.

I looked up reservations for Nevada Beach and it looks like this week I’ll try for a spot in early June. Fingers crossed!

I’m about halfway thru reading Gone with the Wind. It’s over 1000 pages. It is so interesting her depiction of the South and life there. It seems it’s very much like looking thru rose-colored glasses that the ‘darkies’ as she calls them, were really people enslaved and owned by other human beings. It’s kind of weird to read it now from a different perspective. So then we watched the first half of the movie last night. It is an amazing cinematography feat especially when Atlanta is burning. I think we’ll watch the other half tonight which picks up after Scarlett is back at Tara.

Simple Sunday

Posted in Flylady, home improvement, home stuff, minimalism, Uncategorized by

A lovely Sunday morning walk. They’ve fixed some of the path with new asphalt so it’s much nicer and has fewer cracks to trip on. I use my walking stick in my left hand which does help with stability but mostly I keep it with me so that the AH dog walker moves over when he’s walking in the middle of the path with his dog to his far-left which puts the dog straight in our path. With his passive-aggressiveness, he usually waits till the last second to move over to the side of the path he’s supposed to be walking. Remember driving, bicycles, etc, you stay to your right. Oh well, it was still a very pleasant walk.

I came home and started working on the bedroom closet which is our ONLY closet. I did a little more reorganizing and there’s still some more to do. I’ve decided for the most part to not keep extra pantry stuff in there except for the Costco size cereal boxes. Plus probably the extra coffee bean bags. Last time I went to Ikea I bought a few extra white boxes and now I have all the stuff I use for Easter, Christmas, and Hanukkah in those boxes on the top shelf. I don’t have a lot of clothes so I hang my T-shirts, denim shirts and the 2 sweaters I have. I’m not sure what my end goal is in there but definitely eliminating as much extra stuff as possible.

Then I did the kitchen zone : here’s a few photos.

Someday, we’ll have money to redo the kitchen. Not the lay-out but the counters and the cabinets.

The new sunroom windows are almost in. What happened was the nice old redwood windows had just gotten too water damaged and water was seeping in and getting on the floor when it rained. Granted it is just a porch but we use it a lot for wood, cat litter etc. So now there are windows that will open and that will help with air flow.