Tag Archives: rain

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.

Random bits

Posted in California, garden shed by

I did a preliminary on our taxes. Everything looks good. I’ll finish them up over the weekend I think. I always use turbo tax. It does cost but I find that they are efficient and all the right boxes are checked.

Yesterday I had PT quite early and she had me do some machines and later my knee was definitely aching. I guess I just need to keep strengthening the knee and will have to deal with some aches in the meanwhile. I’ll be sure to let her know next week though.

The rain is headed back our way tomorrow. I hope it holds off till I get back from Sacramento. But it looks like rain from Wed to next Monday.

I went off to the garden shed yesterday to rearrange the canning stuff. I couldn’t even get to them so I asked B to take some stuff out to the empty shelves in the barn. That way I can get to the other stuff in the shed. Mostly, the box with the Ikea Christmas tree and the bin of extra Christmas stuff can go out there. Other than that I’m not sure what’s in the other boxes. I’m going to try and get to that today. Here’s a quote from the author S.G.

“If you can’t see it and you can’t reach it, you won’t use it”.

Pretty good advice, I think.

A beautiful sunrise

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.

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, California, cooking, swimming, Uncategorized, Walking by

We had a ton of rain yesterday but this morning is clear. We had a lovely walk in the park and I did a mile. I’m not back up to 2 yet with my knee.

The pool was quite busy yesterday and will be closed all week. Maybe that’s why it was so busy. I got in and out ok but did ask the guy in the lane closest to the stairs whether I could share as I didn’t want to try and crouch down to get in over at the far lanes. So that worked out well.

This morning I have my mammogram, I know on a Sunday?? But they had an opening so I thought that’ll work out ok. I’m not sure whether I’ll go to the gym or not. I also want to bake some brownies today and then I have some more reorganizing in the kitchen I want to do. I also want to bake a loaf of WWW sandwich bread on the dough cycle of the bread machine and then bake in the oven.

This will be a different week with Thanksgiving on Thursday. My infusion is Wednesday and I’m hoping traffic won’t be too bad.

Frugal Friday

Posted in Blood test, books, budgets, California, cooking, reading, simple foods, swimming, Walking by

We have another rainy day forecast. It’s very weird for us to have rain in Northern CA this time of year. Usually, it’s around Halloween. But we’ll take it and it will help with fire season.

After overdoing the walking yesterday,:( I re-evalutated. I’ll just do 2 rounds tomorrow and see how that is for a day or two. I did swim this morning and it felt really great. It was raining a little but I’m in the water anyway so…

Well, I ended up going to Winco after the pool and it was not frugal. I spent about $125. But I pretty much got what I needed for the week ahead. Some salad stuff, fruit, almond butter, rye bread, cheese and misc. But other than that, I haven’t bought groceries. I think so far for the September budget I’m at about $275, and that was the Costco trip. I could put that back on August’s budget but I think I’ll leave it in September.

We didn’t have any lunch dates or coffee dates this week. Next week we might do a lunch date but I’ll wait and see how the week shapes up. I have my oncology appt Wednesday so that day is out. I’m hoping we can come up with my chemo plan for October. It depends on my next labs and what he thinks. We’ll see.

Last night I made a yummy chicken parmigania and spaghetti with some of my canned tomato sauce. Boy, was that sauce delicious. I did pick another big bowl of tomatoes so I may have enough to do another batch. I did another jar of refrigerator jalapenos. I must have 6 jars now:) I’m not sure what we’re doing for dinner but it won’t be a pizza. Maybe I’ll pull a jar from the pantry.

I just finished a library book “ The House in the Pines‘ by Ana Reyes. Yikes what a nail biter. Very scary and suspenseful. Not sure about the ending it seemed to unfinished to me and I don’t like that. I picked up 6 books to read, 3 of them are part of the Lincoln Lawyer series. Right now we’re watching the TV show on Prime and it’s very good.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cooking, Flylady, Pantry by

Another rainy day! At least we had a few days of sunshine which were so nice. We didn’t even walk this morning because of the rain. Usually, I will walk in the rain anyway but this morning I was just done with it. I figured I was going to the gym so I’d get my walking in there.

This morning I started on the pressure-canned split pea soup. Right now it’s in the canner going for 90 minutes. I got the split peas cooked first then turned them off while I went to the Auburn gym. It was nice because almost no one was there. Then after getting home I finished the soup with chopped carrots and onions( thanks B) and let that cook for another 30 minutes.

Our flowering cherry tree is in full bloom. It’s a cheery site on a rainy day. Plus the daffodils are up and in full bloom too.

Tomorrow, I have my eye doctor appt for a macular scan. I’ve been on the fence as to whether to do the surgery and so far it’s been no, I don’t want to deal with it all. I guess as long as my left eye can compensate, that’s good enough. If it were to get worse then I’d have to do something.

The rest of the week is just normal stuff. I don’t have any shopping to do and that’s a relief. We might do a lunch date on Thursday but we’ll see.

Another storm rolling in.

Posted in camping, cooking, swimming, travel by

Today was going to be our travel day. With the rain forecast and high wind warnings both here and in Capitola, I’m glad we decided to forego our trip down there. Now tomorrow looks quite nice but flooding just doesn’t recede overnight. In light of all this, I do think it was the right decision.

Today is a home day and I’m glad to be doing some home things. I plan on pressure canning pinto beans and that will take most of the morning. I want to reorganize my canned goods in the wine crate pantry and pull things that might be close to expiration so they can go to the food bank.

Now that I have the Ivar system for the canned goods complete, I can start to do more pressure canning. It’s great to be able to see what I have left and it’s all organized. I did use my raw silk curtain as a cover when I don’t necessarily want to see all the pantry items. I had B put up a small curtain rod on the top edge to hang a rod. Usually, I keep it open but I like the option of the visual of the raw silk. After this, I plan to pick one recipe to do like a ready meal. Probably a soup of some kind. I do have some split peas I need to use so maybe that will be first up.

I went to the gym yesterday and I plan on swimming tomorrow. The pool sent out an email that it will be closed for most of June and maybe July as they plan to resurface it. Their other pool is competition size and is used for swim lessons. I’ll need to check how they will do lap swimming and the times.

Friday Things

Posted in budgeting, budgets, home improvement, swimming by

We’re back in the rain today and all weekend:( I know we need all we can get but geez, it gets kind of old. Anyway, I didn’t go out this morning so I could do a few house things.

I made up a batch of hummus from the garbanzos I cooked the other day. I planned the next week’s menu using the pantry challenge. Tonight I will use the one frozen pizza I have in the freezer. I’ll make a salad on the side. I tidied up my office space and did a swish and swipe in the bathroom. I planned to vacuum but all the kitties are sleeping!

I had a nice swim yesterday and the pool was not super busy. I usually swim Saturdays but with the next wave of the storm is tomorrow and it’s forecast to be heavier rain and some wind.

Our UHC medicare supplemental has a gym membership with Anytime Fitness for free so I signed up for that. B is already signed up and is going 2-3 x a week. I plan on using the gym for the treadmill and weights when I don’t want to drive down the hill. Plus it’s free!

We went to Costco on Wednesday and it was not too busy at all. We usually try and get there right at 9 but this time we were there at 10 and it was great. Plus we didn’t need a whole lot. I was primarily going to get the 4 pack of Nasocort I use to help clear my sinus cavity. This was something the doctor said to try and it does help. We bought about $100 in just groceries. I’ll add that amount to the food budget but the non food I’ll keep out of the low spend challenge. Things like AA batteries, allergy stuff are just maintenance stuff and need to be bought regardless of low spend month.

My favorite youtube, Minimom had a good budget video the other day. She had bought a download from Etsy that is compatible with Google Docs. I checked it out and I’m curious but I tend to like my budget on paper. It’s on sale today so I guess I’ll need to decide.

That’s it for now, hopefully, the rain will ease up. It’s hard not to go stir crazy.

Frugal Friday

Posted in bread, budgets, California, home stuff by

It is miserable out with rain, rain, and more rain. I decided after I got up at 5:30 am I wasn’t going to risk driving to Roseville to swim. It’s not the rain, although that is a factor, it’s more the crazy New Years’ eve drivers going up to Reno or Tahoe. So I worked on my batch of pizza dough to freeze and one for tonight.

Barclay came with me to Safeway to get the sub sandwich things( our New Years Eve tradition) and surprisingly it wasn’t too busy. Then we thought we’d have a coffee date at Starbucks with peppermint mochas, but alas, they had no peppermint syrup so we just had plain coffee.

I’m going full steam on sourdough bread making and here’s today’s loaf: a walnut raisin loaf with some KA white wheat.

I ordered a bread slicer thing to get even slices but I’m not sure that I’ll keep it. I can cut pretty good slices with my bread knife, but I thought I’d try it to see whether I like it. Now for the sandwich bread in the Zojuruishi, it’ll probably be great. It won’t be here till next week, but that’s ok.

For January, I plan on doing a pantry/ freezer challenge that the Youtuber, Three Rivers Homestead started. Basically, you set how much you want to spend in the month, like for dairy or fruit/ veggies, and then the rest of your meals come from the pantry or freezer. I think I’ll put in $100 and see how far that gets me. I do need to go to Costco once for some non food items like laundry soap and allergy pills but I’ll keep it to a minimum and not add that to the grocery bill. The idea is to start using what you’ve canned or processed so you can reduce your pantry in preparation for the coming year.

All the Christmas stuff is away and at Safeway, I bought a bunch of Eucalyptus branches to put in a glass jar.

Well, Have a safe New Years’ eve. I’m working on my list of goals for the year, some for house stuff, yard and, some just for myself to work on.