I have been saving up my Swagbucks for a while and finally had enough Amazon gift cards to pay for about half of the deluxe model of Excalibur Dehydrator, the one with both temperature settings and a 26 hour timer with automatic shut off. I was trying to go for the whole thing to be free, but then my piece of junk dehydrator quit working. I am in the middle of herb drying season and while I can borrow my mother's cheap piece of junk dehydrator, and did, to keep limping along, it was the push I needed to just go ahead and make the purchase.

I had $121.75 in gift cards and it cost $225. I also had to purchase the fruit leather trays because they don't come with any model of the machine. Well, maybe the $500 professional one, but no. I ended up paying a total of $156.63. Part of that was tax of $20.76 and then the trays were $32.62 (for 9) and the rest was the part of the dehydrator not covered by the gift cards.

With the fruit leather trays I can dehydrate tomato puree, mashed squash, even chicken stock all to be ground to make powders. Dehydrated chicken stock put through a spice grinder makes boullion powder without any of those nasty chemicals from store bought versions. As well as very tiny herb leaves like thyme or flower petals like calendula without having to worry about them falling through trays.

Right now I have 5 trays of basil dehydrating which will be followed tomorrow by more calendula, lemon balm, and yarrow. I am hoping that I won't have to buy many herbs this year at all and I will be able to make salves and other herbal remedies. I'm already on my way with the calendula:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nf1XLNCzj0

I did dry all of my oregano in bundles up on the wall and not in the dehydrator. If you'd like to see how I process that I did a video of it, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4hUBym8C2c

Herbs are so expensive for such a tiny amount, especially if you want organic. I will really be saving a lot of money this year by growing so many myself.

I'm really getting into herbal healing, doing a lot of research and trying to figure out what works best for my needs. Heaven knows the store bought remedies are not working well for me. While I don't think herbs are going to be a miracle cure, so far from what I've done myself with essential oils, they do seem to work. I will approach it with healthy skepticism until I have first hand experience with all of it.

I went to Joe's Garden and bought some broccoli and cauliflower and green onion plugs and got those planted today to replace all the ones I've harvested. I also bought some more basil plants. I spent $25.38 there.

I haven't been updating much on the garden output as I've just been trying to keep up with it and getting it eaten and/or preserved. But I've been keeping a tally and so far I've harvested enough food to equal $602.50 if I bought the same thing in the organic section of the grocery store.

And the zucchini, summer squash, peppers, beans, corn and tomatoes are just starting to fruit and we still have potatoes and winter squash, cucumbers, watermelon, sunflower seeds, and cantaloupe to come. We have now paid back the amount we spent on building the raised beds and the money we spent on bringing in three cubic yards of good organic soil. I am beyond thrilled at this garden year.

We had two litters of rabbit kits born this weekend. There were five whites born on the 3rd and 7 reds born on the 4th. The red runt died, though. It had no sucking reflex and couldn't nurse. But we still have 11 healthy kits. One of the rabbits didn't deliver though. Sometimes when it is too hot the bucks will go temporarily sterile. This is the second time this has happened this year, though it was a different doe each time. I am glad I am breeding 3 pairs at a time.

I've got orders for fertile turkey eggs. The first one will be filled tomorrow. It's just two. Then I have an order for 12, then 2, then 12 again. It's only 50 cents an egg. I could charge more, these are heritage breed turkeys and rare, but I am in it more for breed preservation than for making money. It's nice having a waiting list. I just wish I had more than one female so I could fill orders faster, but we don't have the space for it so that will have to wait until we buy our farm and move.

I feel like I am starting to settle into a routine now between the garden and the farm chores and making all of my meals from what is available here and not by making a quick run to the store or getting take out. As the garden moves into heavier production more time needs to be spent there.

I have harvested a pound of snow peas from the garden this week, 2 bunches of kale, 1 head of lettuce, 2 bunches of green onions, and 3 kohlrabi. My broccoli is getting close to harvest size, which astounds me. It is all so early, but with this weather, I can't blame it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzII-hvqugA

I am enjoying the cooking this week more than I have in a long while. I don't know if it is just access to super fresh ingredients from the garden or knowing it is all food I grew and/or preserved myself, but it feels different. I haven't felt any resentment over cooking like I sometimes do. I mean I love cooking, but I am often irritated when it all falls on me. This last week I don't seem to care about that. It's like an attitude has shifted. Of course the children are helping far more than they ever have before so maybe that is why?

Some things were quite challenging since the hot water tank that feeds the main kitchen went out and had to be replaced. We couldn't use the dishwasher and every pot and pan that we cooked in had to be hauled down to the half-kitchen that had hot water. That went on for 5 days, but we got a new tank put in and had hot water again last night.

As promised here is the video of my meals for the first week of the challenge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEWnzVbQ7UA

I am looking forward to the rest of this challenge. It is good to be feeling so positive about it.

So far the Eat from the Pantry/Freezer/Garden Challenge is going very well here. The garden is really getting going so I am very happy with it. Tomorrow will be my seventh day on it, so after dinner I will post a video with all 7 meals so you can see what I've been doing if you want.

I had to shift some things based on what I had already and the kids wanting pizza, but for the most part I stuck to last week's meal plan. This week's will be:

Monday:
Southern Fried Rabbit (this got shifted)
Fried potatoes
Cole slaw
Grapes

Tuesday:
Lamb chops (for me and the kids)
Pulled pork (for DH)
Broccoli
Canned pineapple

Wednesday:
Rabbit enchiladas
Mexican rice
Salad
Canned nectarines

Thursday:
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Garlic bread
Snow peas

Friday:
Brined pork chops
Fried potatoes
Green beans
Applesauce

Saturday:
Homemade pizza (pepperoni, ham, bell peppers and onions)
Cole slaw

Sunday:
Rabbit bacon cheeseburgers
French fries
Salad
Strawberries (frozen if not enough are ripe yet)

I went in this morning and signed the last paper for the house. They said that the sale should be recorded and official some time tomorrow. I hope the money shows up in my account on Friday and not on Monday. I then will have to check with the credit union to make sure that I can use the money right away or see if there is a hold on it. I know with checks like that there can sometimes be a hold, but the title company wasn't sure about whether there would be a hold on a direct deposit or not. I wouldn't think so, but I will ask just to be on the safe side before paying off the van.

We did not have a payday last week, but I still made some payments from money saved over for this week's bills. These were all autopays.

$250.00 AMEX
__45.30 Life Insurance DH
__44.66 Life Insurance Me
__74.41 Car Insurance
__48.75 Homeowner's Insurance
_186.00 Storage
__16.17 Power Old House
--------------
$665.29 Total Money Out

I won round 1 of my transformer 6 month dietbet. Don't know what my winnings are yet. I also signed up for another 4 week dietbet with the same group I did the first one for. It has way more support being a smaller group. The transformer has over 1800 people in it, so it feels extremely anonymous when it comes to support. So that was $20.

I have to make a list of people to call tomorrow once the sale has been recorded. So far I'm thinking:

Power company
Phone company
Security company
Propane co-op (DH will have to do this one, it's in his name)
Home Owner's insurance company (should get a partial refund)

There was no cable or internet hooked up out there so that's not an issue. The water/sewer has been taken care of by the title company since it is owned by the homeowner's association out there. It was mixed in with the sale and is current and up to date.

I will probably go to Comcast in person tomorrow. It is faster than trying to get through their customer service line. I will be over there anyway as my daughter has a doctor's appointment in the afternoon. I will also drop by the insurance office in person since it is by the high school.

The rabbit kits are doing well. The runt died. Not sure if I said that, but it did. I knew it would. It was just too tiny. But everyone else is doing great. Here is a video of the babies and some photos:

http://youtu.be/gDTZI_s-AWc

I am pretty excited about some of the upcoming things on the farm. I sent a check off today for $330 to a local sustainable farmer who raises rabbits as well. He's going to be importing organic rabbit pellets from Modesto Mills in California and has offered to let anyone in the county get in on his order, no shipping fees. Since he wasn't sure how often at first he'd be ordering, I got a 2 month supply, or 600 pounds. Well, technically, this is more than a 2 month supply at the moment, because we have no kits and are just feeding the 13 adults and 1 junior who will be an adult in another month.

But we have kits due on Saturday/Sunday, so in about 4 weeks that consumption will go up to 300 pounds a month. This does a little more than double our rabbit feed costs, but with the new small animal slaughter house starting to butcher rabbits this spring, I will be able to sell WSDA approved meat if I use them. Rabbit meat from rabbits fed organically gets upwards of $15 a pound. So selling one rabbit would cover the cost of 2 bags of feed. I have interest from people who I have not sold to yet, because of not having the WSDA approval.

I do not mind raising the feed costs, since our old feed that used to be GMO free no longer is with the heavy introduction of GMO alfalfa into the rabbit feed supply a year or so ago. Which, by the way, has coincided with increased kit mortality in many rabbitries across the states. It may not show up in humans this quickly, but with something like the rabbit population where generations are born in a very short time span, it can very quickly be seen. Not proven, but the anecdotal evidence amongst breeders is pretty high. Just another reason to thank Monsanto for their constant interference in nature and scientifically proven (by non-M researchers) lower yields (despite advertising higher ones).

We don't buy alfalfa hay anymore as there is just no real way to track that unless we buy farm direct, which we may do this summer (and eventually will grow ourselves when we buy our 5 acre farm).

So anyway, I am happy to find organic non-GMO feed again for my rabbits. We will do a slow switchover, as a rapid feed change can kill the bunnies. But we have 200 pounds of the old feed left, so we should be good with a gradual switch over. Might have to buy an additional 100 pounds, but we will play that by ear.

Here is a short rabbit video I made yesterday. It shows the different nesting styles of my three rabbits who are currently pregnant.

http://youtu.be/nNU4PmlaP1Y

I made $80 in rabbit meat sales today. That brings the total sales for the month to $95 and $122.50 for 2015. That more than covers a month of feed for all of the animals, especially since we don't have any babies right now, but since I have a large amount of feed bought in previous months, I don't need to use it for that and it will go to the EF on Tuesday.

This week I also received my AMEX reward that is attached to my Costco card. It is $58.82. I have to go to Costco to cash it. I wish they would just let you cash it at a bank, but they won't. We will go there sometime soon, maybe Tuesday so we can avoid the holiday weekend shoppers. I don't really need much from Costco, maybe Ziplocs, but nothing else, so I hate to go all the way over there just for that, but oh, well. That money will end up in the EF as well.

We went to the farm today and got several pounds of pastured organic meat. For $280 I got 32.3 pounds of meat divided thusly:

8 2.5 pound pot roasts (20 lb)
4 pork chops (2.30 lb)
5 packages of bacon (5 lb)
1 rack of lamb (3 lb)
1 beef hanging tender (will have to look up how to cook this)(2 lb)

We will can the pot roasts later this week after they have thawed out.

Since we were down that way DH and I went out to an early dinner at Outback for a combination of Valentine's Day and my birthday. It was nice to have a nice dinner out without the kids. We rarely do. We brought home wings and bread for the kids and they also stole our leftovers. I didn't end up getting steaks after all on my actual birthday so I don't feel guilty at all about going out, especially since I set aside the money I would have used to buy steaks.

So yesterday I sent for 2 more $5 Amazon gift card from Swagbucks. I can order the last $5 one today. Then in a few days I should have enough to get a $25 gift card. So that will give me $50 total at Amazon. I am going to use it to buy a case of the olive oil based Miracle Whip that has no high fructose corn syrup in it. All of the stores around here quit carrying it and I won't go back to regular.

A case of 12 is $95 on Amazon, with no shipping fees. That works out to almost $8 a jar. So with $50 in Amazon gift cards I can get it for $45, which works out to a more reasonable $4 per jar. 12 jars should last me 2 to 3 years. I only eat it with tuna fish, which I don't eat terribly frequently.

Pinecone sent a letter that isn't even accurate to how much money you can cash out at now. They were all, you can just cash out with the $3 option and then add the quantity multiple times so we only have to send one check. But there is no $3 option anymore. I had sent for a $15 check and a $5 check. Now I know that means that I could have cashed out the $5 choice 4 times, but I wasn't even thinking about that at the time.

But considering how I feel about the changes, I probably would have cashed out $5 four different times a few days apart. So they got off lucky with me cashing out for 2 checks instead of 4. They will probably just send the $15 and $5 cash outs in one check. The letter didn't say that, but I'm assuming. It won't matter in the future. I will cash out every time I have at least $5 in the account from now on.

We've completed all the extra stuff on the house to bring it up to code. The wood stove fix was $567. The hot water tank replacement and install was $800. The cost to bring the outlet valve up to code and install earthquake/tornado belts on the hot water tank, also to bring it up to code, was an additional $326. He worked on it for 6 hours. His company is one of the very few who will install hot water heaters into this type of home. And the cost to take off the front porch, pour a concrete pad underneath it, and put the porch back on was $400. $1000 of that will be refunded to us by the buyers on closing.

L&I has signed off on what it needed to sign off on. So their bank will come out sometime in the next two weeks and if they find all to be well and find it appraises properly, then we are good to go for signing. We are hoping to sign by the 24th, though the official closing date is on or before the 26th. DH will only be home from the 12th to the 24th. It would be easier to do it in person than for him to have to find a notary up there at work. Though they did say he might be able to sign in advance.

Then we have to deal with the fact that the female half of the couple is pregnant and due in six weeks, but has already had to go to the hospital once to have early labor stopped. So that may upset the apple cart as well. It does make them more apt to want to sign early if possible, though. They really would like to be settled before the baby comes.

Anyway, I am counting down the next 3.5 weeks. I am finally starting to believe this is really going to happen. And getting a little excited about it, but not too much because the bank could still decide the house isn't worth that much, though it appraises $17K above what they are paying.

I want that check in my hot little hands so badly. I want to pay off the remodeler and the van, bring my EF to $15K and then dump the rest into savings for a down payment. I just want to be there with no more consumer debt hanging over us.

I have a doctor's appointment today. My cholesterol numbers were so good at my blood test that I am going to ask him about either stopping the medication or reducing it. I'd like to get off it. I want to see if I can try going without it for a month and then have another blood test to see if the levels are doing okay. Crestor is expensive and I've changed my eating habits enough now that I may no longer have issues with it. Or to get a cheaper medication. Another option would be to get the 40mg pill and cut it in half. It would be cheaper in the long run.

My insurance has decided it is going to cover my blood pressure medicine 100%. I was in shock the other day when I picked it up. Last year it was $40. That is so helpful to the budget. That is $480 a year I can put towards the farm down payment savings.

My ultimate goal is to get off the BP meds, too. But I think it will take me at least a year of weight loss to be at that point. And weight loss may not be enough. High BP runs in my family. We tried reducing them once from 40mg to 20mg and I felt awful, so definitely need to lose the weight before trying that again.

And if I lose enough weight, I can have a new sleep study done and I might no longer need the sleep apnea machine. I don't have too many breathing incidents, so this might really be achievable. Then I wouldn't have to buy filters, hoses, masks, etc., as they wear out.

Speaking of weight loss I am now 14 pounds down. I think finding dietbet was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I went ahead and joined a new dietbet, the six month one I was talking about. I did get the $30 back from my first game, but all but 2 of the people in that bet hit goal, so no extra back. This one has way more players, so if I hit goals I actually have a chance to win something besides my money back. I paid all six months up front. They do have a month to month option, but if you pay up front, you only have to pay for five months total. And since it was a $150 total bet and I had my $30 on account, with the discount, that brought me down to $95. Pretty reasonable for six months of online diet support.

I know others are considering doing another dietbet or starting one, so if anyone else is thinking of doing a longer dietbet this seems like a good one to join. It starts in a couple of days. Here is my invite link if you want to join:

http://diet.bt/xz91fE I think it would be fun to be in the same game as other SA'ers.

I won my dietbet. And I lost 13 pounds since December 31st. I don't know that I'll get much more back than the $30 I started with. It was a small group of 19 and 15 of us have hit our goals, and the other 4 still have a little over 24 hours to submit their final weigh ins.

I am thinking about doing it again, but I think I may wait a week, and join a larger group. Although there is a six month dietbet that I am thinking of doing. It's $25 into the pot each month for 6 months and the goal is to lose 10% of your body weight, which I need to do, and I think I can do. They take half the pot and it goes for the end, but each month you can win as well if you hit the goals, so there is monthly motivation as well.

I found it to be pretty supportive and better than paying for Weight Watchers or the like. With WW there is no getting your money back.

I am, however, thinking about going back to Curves. Our insurance will pay for the sign up fee. The only thing is that I don't really know if I can do it. My physical therapist says the only way I will know is if I try and see how my knees handle it. I may have to avoid a machine or two or I might not be able to do it at all because of my knee. I know they used to do a 2 week free thing many years ago, but I don't know if they do that any more.

The other thing I am thinking about is rejoining the gym, but with just me, not the whole family. Then I can swim, which is always easy on my knee, not to mention the rest of my body. It costs about the same as a Curves membership. But I really like the hydraulic equipment at Curves as there is no fiddling with it. And I don't really like the equipment at the gym because you have to reset it for each person.

I don't really want to sign a two year contract either as we would likely move before it is up, and that is what Curves used to require. I don't know if they still do. They gym just requires one year and then goes month to month.

I'd check out the YMCA and see what they have, but it's a 4 or 5 story building with elevators nowhere near the changing rooms so a long walk on a bad knee and both the pool and the gym are on different floors from the changing rooms. I wonder if we still have a YWCA. We did 20 years ago. I'll have to investigate that.

I've lost 5 pounds so far on my diet. That's exciting. My diet bet started today. I've got all my breakfasts and lunches prepared for 4 days. It made a nice difference with not having to think about what to eat.

Email notifications for comments started working again today. I got 54! I'm pretty sure that's a good six week's worth all at once. Yikes. Hmm, I wonder if that means the side bar editing is working again, too? There is some obsolete stuff there I've been trying to take off for ages, like links to sites that no longer exist. I wonder if the ability to add photos the SA way instead of having to set up a photobucket image url has been fixed yet?

Although my dietbet doesn't officially start until the 3rd, I had my starting weight approved yesterday and started eating properly and drinking extra water yesterday as well. This morning I had lost 2 pounds. So I am off to a good start.

I wanted to end the old year on a good note with a healthy day of eating and I wanted to start the new year off with it as well. It would have been easy to tell myself that I could eat whatever until the official start date, but that could have led to a lot of junk food bingeing and who wants that?

It's kind of like when you are trying to get out of debt and you see this big hill in front of you that you have to climb. You might be tempted to put off starting for a few days, get in a last hurrah of spending before you settled down and put your nose to the grindstone of paying off what you owe, but why? Why make it worse for the psychological thrill of buying a few more "extras" when you can start to get your life back today. No need to make the hill higher or the hole deeper or whatever metaphor you like. Once the mind is made up, it is better to just let the body follow.