Tag Archives: rain

Frugal Friday and misc. stuff

Posted in Blood test, budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, decluttering, frugalism, Multiple myeloma, Myeloma, Uncategorized by

We ended up having a lot of rain!! But now it’s blue skies and the temperature is lovely. We should be having day temperatures in the 70s. We have some outside things to do, so that’s perfect. I need to paint the new gutter that S put up and tidy the patio up for winter.

I have a small pile to go to the thrift store and will probably do that on Sunday after the gym. I’m still going through different areas to find more things to add to the pile.

My son and his partner came over on Wednesday afternoon, along with the partner’s parents. They are lovely people, and I wish B could have met them. But they were here for the dad to check out my son’s Subaru. The dad is very mechanically minded. My son is giving( with my permission, as it is my name) the Subaru to him for free. They checked it out and will take it hopefully soon. As soon as that’s done I can take it off the insurance and that is going to save me over $700. I’ll call allstate as soon as it’s signed over.

My daughter and I went to Costco yesterday to finish shopping for the stuff I didn’t get last time. Most of it was non-perishables like the smoke alarms( wow, they were expensive even on sale), TP, and laundry soap. water, and a few other things. From there, we went to my favorite pizza place for a slice of New York pizza. It was fun. I also got the car washed since Quick Quack was just across the street. Costco ended up a little over $300 but I need to break down non food and also long term items and see what the total was.

My food budget for the month came in at about $350, so I’m really getting the hang of not buying so much. The Costco trip I’ll be putting on next month’s budget, which starts next week.

In not-so-happy news, my labs came back with a 4-point increase, so myeloma is definitely on the move. I checked in with Dr. L, and we decided to go one more month and see what the next increase is. I’m disappointed, but it was to be expected at some point. I just wish I could have had at least some period of time with things ‘normal’ after B died. Well, at least I’m asymptomatic which is good. Also the ratio of kappa / lambda was the same so that’s good. The plan will be to try to do biweekly,depending on how next month goes, and if that doesn’t work switch to darzalex fast pro. I’ve made it 20 years with Myeloma and know I’m one of the lucky ones. Still reality sucks that I have to deal with this. 😦

Frugal Friday

Posted in books, budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, frugalism, Uncategorized by

All the big Fall annual bills are accounted for. I put Allstate on payments and also the California Fair Plan. The AAA rider is still not paid, and I think I saw it was on auto, so I need to double-check that. I paid the property tax with cash from my envelopes so that was very positive. It’s not due technically till December but I figured i’d get it done.

Update: It does look like it’s autopay for October. I actually haven’t gotten the bill, so I’ll check the mail today. So I feel pretty good about having handled all this by myself, even though I don’t like doing it.

I also paid the motorcycle insurance for the year. They took Barclay off as the rider, so the insurance really is just on the bike if something happened to it.( I guess, they weren’t very clear about it.)

After accounting for all the monthly bills, there’s not a whole lot left, but I’ll manage. I’m planning on doing one more Costco shop because I couldn’t find the smoke alarms on sale last time. I spent $100 last time, so I still have a grocery $ budget. I’ll probably do that next week after I see Dr. L in Sacramento.

We had a horrendous amount of rain yesterday. It was like a hose turned on full. My daughter has been working on fixing the gutters so the water was coming down right in front of the door. Not good!! That should get fixed this weekend, and I think today is the last rainy day for a bit.

Today, I’m undecided if I’m going to the pool or not. I’m not crazy about driving in the rain. Plus, my sleep disturbances were elevated last night, and my blood oxygen was lower than normal. I generally don’t feel much different either way, but I have been tracking it since I got my Apple Watch last December. I just had a 10-day period of not elevated which is so weird because nothing is different. I’m glad it was like that but I still can’t figure out a common denominator. I haven’t heard yet from the sleep people for an appt so who knows when that will happen. If I’m inspired I will call them.:)

My son picked up 5 books at his favorite thrift store for me for my birthday, so I have a nice stack of books to read. That’s nice since I don’t feel pressured to go to the library. I started the Nelson DeMille, The Cuba Affair, and so far, I like his writing. I don’t know if I’ve read his stuff. I’ll check out some other titles.

Next week I have my doctor appointment and also Velcade. The doctor’s appointment is on Wednesday, and I do plan on asking about a plan of action should my numbers go up. Knowing his style, he’ll probably say, let’s wait and see, which is probably ok since we won’t really know anything for a few weeks. Fingers crossed it doesn’t but I do need to be ready probably more emotionally than anything. Hopefully I’m just overreacting but still cancer is always there in some way.

Friday Things

Posted in Blood test, books, bread, budgeting, budgets, California, decluttering, Myeloma, swimming, velcade by

It’s been a busy week. I’ve done tons of decluttering. The back of the Santa Fe is full, so I’ll go to Goodwill, maybe even this morning.

I emptied 2 binders of recipes I had saved and only kept the ones that were really favorites. Most of them can be gotten from the internet anyway. I went through the last two vintage suitcases that have my kids’ Waldorf toys and got rid of a few little things, but mostly just consolidated them into one, so the other is going to the thrift store.

It’s a strange place to be, but I’m determined to whittle things down to just the bare bones and keep the poetry. I have two empty shelves in the closet now. The bread maker is in there on a shelf and I haven’t decided on the bread maker yet. I think I’ll plan a sandwich loaf over the weekend, and then that’ll help me decide whether it’s a keeper or not. Good bread is easily bought at Costco and then frozen.

It’s raining this morning, and it’s wonderful to have everything watered.

We had a fun (expensive ) lunch with my son this week, and it was worth it. It was only burgers for all three of us but now a days that’s $20 each for a sit down meal. I also went to Costco after my labs on Wednesday. Something was off this week because I went in twice, and both times my lab orders were NOT there. Fortunately, I thought to get a PDF copy, so they did do the labs minus one (the SPEP). I scheduled it for next week but I think I’ll just cancel it and get it next month. My kappa Light chains went up another point. So now it’s at 21.5 . If the trend continues I’ll need to do something by January. I see Dr. L in October and see what he says. I can only hope it drops again next month but who knows.

All the bills are done for the month, so that feels good. It’s a good feeling to know it’s all taken care of for now. I’m still waiting on the Allstate bill to activate, and then my only choice at this point is to make the partial payments.

I’m planning on going down to the pool this morning and then straight home. I do need to get water at Costco, but it’s too heavy for me to get alone, so I’ll see if my daughter can pick some up after work.

I haven’t been reading much, although I did start my annual rereading of The Hobbit and LOTRs. I have books to drop off at the library, so I’ll check what’s new.

I scheduled my flu shot and COVID-19 booster for next week, so I’m sure I’ll be down for a few days. That’s usually what happens.

Update: all dropped off!

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.

Thankful Thursday

Posted in California, cancer, Gratitude, peritoneal mesothelomia by

I am very grateful my Ortho appt went well. Here’s the scoop. The meniscus tear doesn’t ever heal, but strengthening the knee by exercises helps you regain some mobility. I started back in with the PT exercises and have slowly been adding one a day. The PA seemed to think I didn’t really need the PT appts since I can do what I have from before. But she did say she’d be happy to refer me if I wanted. She also gave me the steroid shot. She said there is another type of shot, too, if I wanted, but that requires insurance approval and takes a while. I said I’ll try the steroid shots for now. Overall, I was quite hopeful that I would be able to get back to my regular routine.

I’m thankful my son offered to take B to his appt. As it turned out, he needed a blood transfusion, so it ended up taking 5 hours. They didn’t even get home till 6:15. I would have been a basket case. He’s still declining, and his onc called yesterday, so I talked with her about how things are not going well. She hasn’t seen him physically, so she was concerned about how frail he is. She did say that the immunotherapy can take a few months to kick in, but the flip side is that the immunotherapy could be feeding the cancer. It’s all very depressing. She was going to get the PET scan moved up so we could see what is going on.

I’m grateful for the rain we had the other day. It helped water the yard and took down some pollen.

It’s a hard time right now, and I don’t expect things to get better anytime soon, but all we can do is be hopeful. And for that I’m grateful.

Frugal Friday

Posted in books, bread, budgeting, budgets, California, decluttering, freezer cooking, frugalism, simple foods, velcade by

The week was overall frugal. I didn’t need gas yet in Santa Fe. I’ll fill up at Costco next week.

I went to the gym and library before my Velcade shot. Gettting books at the library always saves me from buying some random cookbook( a weakness(. I looked at two already, and there’s nothing I’d cook from them. They’re pretty books, but not how I cook. For instance, last night, we shared a steamed artichoke, and I made an us omelet to share with sprouts, cheese, salsa, and sour cream. We eat fairly simply.

I went to Costco after swimming on Wednesday and spent $250 or so. Some of that was snack/foodstuff for my daughter to take to work. She doesn’t get a full lunch break because of her hours, so I bought some beef sticks, egg bites (Kirkland brand), and something else I can’t remember. The two kinds of beef sticks were expensive, grass feed. I’ve actually never had one, so I can’t tell you if they’re any good, but as a high-protein snack, I could see it working. Organic eggs were 7.99 for 2 dozen.

Today is a home day because of Dex, but I feel pretty good this morning. I plan on vacuuming, dusting some, and doing a bit of decluttering odds and ends. I also have a pack of Kirkland I need to use, so I’m thinking of some meatballs I can freeze. We( my daughter and I have decided to mostly cut beef out of our diets. We don’t eat it often, so it shouldn’t be hard at all. But I have this to use and one other in the freezer, and I don’t want to waste it. If we go out together, we definitely would think about an In an-Out burger, but that’s pretty rare for us to do.

The rain is supposed to come by noon today, and it looks nonstop for days. I think I’ll plan on some soup dinners with homemade sourdough.

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgeting, California, cancer, frugalism, Uncategorized by

It was raining heavily yesterday down to infusion. There’s more rain coming in this morning too. I think the pattern will continue for the next few days. This morning my daughter will take B to his PET scan. Unfortunately, it is in Sacramento, so there will be traffic and rain. This will be his last appt. till the video visit next week.

Frugal-wise, I went to Costco to get the coffee. Spending $14 at Starbucks for a pound is not something I want to do very often. So with that in mind, I bought 2 bags at Costco. It was very busy at 1pm, which is a time I rarely go. I’m usually there at 9:30 and there are fewer people. It was okay and I got it done. I spent $180 and $$25 of that was champagne. The rest was food and $20 for TP and Toothpaste. So food ended up $124 or so. It’s not too bad overall.

I don’t think I need much from the store next week unless it’s some salad stuff. That’s the week before Christmas so I want to avoid stores if I can. I’m making our traditional lasagna and I might do a small ham.

I was able to submit my LLS for insurance. What a blessing. My grant is less than half of what it was last year, so I’ll probably run out of funds before my next sign-up period. I think they have so many people applying that a smaller grant allows more people to get some funding. It is still a huge saving for us.

Today, I want to go through the fridge and clean it. I have the leftover turkey chili I need to freeze and there’s a small amount of black beans too. Since I’m home for the day I can tick off some things on my list.

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, California, cancer, cooking by

We had RAIN! Such a surprise! It started yesterday morning @ 4am and kept going off and on till about 11 am. It was so nice.

I’m back from the gym and working on doing my folds in the cheddar/jalapeno sourdough. One more fold and I’ll put it in the bucket to do the bulk fermentation. The house is chilly so it could take all day. I have some chicken I want to use up. It was kind of a mistake order from Walmart a while ago. It’s not super great quality so I think I’ll put it in the IP with some seasoning and see how it turns out.

This week I have 2 appts. The dentist for a cleaning and then Dr. Laptalo. After the dentist, I might go down to the Roseville gym and the library. It’ll be too late to try and swim. We’ll see. I’ve been so uncommitted to things lately. I wonder where that is coming from? That’s definitely not my usual M.O.

No other news from cancer world. He did get a call from a UCD oncologist’s office and made an appointment. But it’s really only like an info appt not about treatment per se. We’ll do it because that may be the doctor who does follow-up after Stanford. But right now we don’t know that.

Here’s a Gus picture:

And here’s Chester

Rainy Saturday

Posted in books, California, cooking, home improvement, home stuff, husband, reading, Uncategorized, Walking by

We were able to get our walk in before the rain started. It’s supposed to rain all day and quite a bit. Well, we always need the rain maybe not the wind but certainly the rain.

Today is a home day and not a swim day. I plan on making a big pot of broccoli cheddar soup. I need to use the big bag I got from Costco. We’ll probably have that for dinner plus baked potatoes. I got the bakers at Costco too and plan on doing twice-baked potatoes. I usually start with 12-14 potatoes and then after I bake them, cut them in half and fill them with the cheese, and potato mixture. I usually end up with 12 half potatoes because I mound the filling. These do freeze great and are an easy meal with salad.

B got the new window in yesterday and it looks fresh and clean. We opted for no grids. All of the other windows( except the sunroom)have grids but as we replace the windows we are going for gridless windows.

We’re working our way through watching Inspector Lynley. We have the 3rd season to watch. It’s a great show and Lynley is a good character. I’m reading another Longmire book now. I am so impressed with the way he writes and how he brings in so much cultural stuff about the Cheyenne and Crow. Very different from Hillerman and the Southwest. In this one” As the Crow flies’, he takes part in a peyote ceremony. It was pretty accurate in his description. I’ve done peyote 3 times( B says, he thinks it was only 2) and it is a very mind altering/spiritual experience. Of course, I was in my 20’s and early 30’s and very much into the whole Native American thing. We also have had 2 teepees. The first one was given to us by a friend and it was painted with different Indian motifs. That one finally fell apart and we bought one from a company in Oregon. When we moved here we set it up and used it till it too finally deteriorated. We used to smudge our house and ourselves with sage as a way to cleanse negative energy. I haven’t done that for years but I still have some abalone shells that we used for that purpose. Longmire is in his early 50’s when he does peyote and also the character is very tuned into the whole spiritual side of the Native American, Cheyenne in his case. Anyway, I digress, they are great books!

Thankful Thursday

Posted in Blood test, books, California, cancer, Myeloma, Walking by

As always the library. I picked up my holds( more Tony Hillerman) and a new book. The new book is by a friend/author of my daughters. They met on Whatpad which is the platform my daughter writes on and sells her books on. The book is ‘A Bean to Die For” by Tara Lush. This is book 4in the series.

That PT is helping my torn ACL and I feel like my knee is improving. Whether it will ever be what it was, I don’t know but for now, I’m grateful to do small walks.

Although I wish my kappa light chains stayed in the normal range, they at least didn’t do a huge jump. But still, I’m now out of range which means the once a month Velcade is not going to cut it. Disappointing for sure. So I have my next Velcade at the end of the month. I’ll get labs soon after and if it goes up again, I’ll message my doctor and suggest we try twice a month. I think he will want to wait till after this next infusion.

We’ve had some breaks in the rain and it lets things dry out. More rain is due later and tomorrow. We didn’t go to Napa because of the weather so maybe in March.