Our dishwasher broke down.  I swear if one more thing goes wrong after this I'm going to go a little bit sideways.  Seriously, between the car repairs, as well as all 8 tires plus one spare tire, the roof, the bathroom, the furnace being replaced, and now the dishwasher, which will probably take what I have just scraped together to rebuild the start of an emergency fund with, I dont' want to take it anymore.

Our garbage bill has gone up by $13 a month.  They are forcing us to have a green bin and it has no option of only going out once a month at a cheaper rate as opposed to twice a month at a more expensive rate.  With garbage we have the option of every week, every other week, or once a month with a sliding scale.  Now we can only do recycling every two weeks instead of every week and it all goes in one can, including big cardboard, which we now have to cut down into pieces small enough that they won't get stuck in the can and keep all the other stuff from coming out when the truck comes for it.  So they won't take big Amazon boxes on the side anymore.

But it is the forced payment for the green bin that irritates me.  We compost most of our green material from the yard, except weeds, and most of our food, except bones and citrus peels.  You can put takeout food boxes in there since ours are either cardboard or biodegradable in WA state, but we no longer generate that really, either.  We can't opt out.  I mean, you can give them back the bin, but you still have to pay for it.  They are doing it because they aren't making any money recycling anymore in America because we don't have the facilities anymore and they can't sell it out of country for profit anymore.  The only place they can make money is composting and selling the finished compost back to the county.

Except I've made the mistake of buying their compost before and it is full of little pieces of plastic, glass, rocks, ribbons, sticks as big around as my thumb, invasive weed seeds, and it was full of shelled snails.  It was obviously compost that never got hot enough to kill weed seeds or snail eggs.  So it wasn't even finished compost.  Years later we are still trying to get rid of the horsetail and the shelled snails that came in with the load of county compost.  So I am not thrilled with paying them to make compost that they then want to sell when they do not even do it properly.  Or screen it which you are supposed to do to sell it as compost and not soil.

Some yards are too small to even generate enough yard waste to fill a bin, certainly not in the winter time and also don't have enough food waste either.  It's just crazy.  These things are the same size as a large garbage bin.  I don't know what they are thinking.  On top of that since we are on a sewer system, most houses have garbage disposals for their food waste.  Okay, that is an awfully large rant for $13 a month, but with all the other bills going up, I did not want another $13 a month disappearing from my wallet, especially at a time when we decided to send another 1% to the 401K.  I think I may have to reverse that, though.  I was hoping, but seeing how much it actually took out, I don't think we can manage it after all.

On top of all of that, I've had bronchitis, pnuemonia, and now the flu without a break.  I have been coughing since October.  And to top it all off, I lost my voice yesterday, which was my 55th birthday, so I couldn't even talk on the phone to the people calling to wish me a happy birthday, such a bummer.  And I looked like crap from being in bed so I didn't want to do video chats either.  The chocolate cake was good, even if it did have a Valentine's Day heart on top.  Story of my life, being born 2 days before Valentine's Day, but I so wasn't making my own cake.

I did get some great presents, though, that will make my life easier, so that is the good.  My kids got me six yellow kitchen towels to replace the white ones that were getting dingy.  They are bright and match the sunflower curtains I got last summer for the kitchen window.  Then they got me a bag bag, for putting plastic grocery bags in.  We get them when we forget our reusable bags or when we get take out, which is not so much anymore, and for our produce bags, and this will keep them all in one place.

I reuse the produce bags for all kinds of things, so even if we end up not having grocery bags anymore, I will still have it for that.  It has sunflowers on it and matches the curtains nicely.  Then they got me a paper towel holder made of cast iron and it has porcelain sunflowers on it.  It stands up and I'll be using it on the table, since I have one on the counter already.  I do a lot of meal prep at the table and I don't like having to keep getting up to grab a paper towel if I get juice or blood on the table in the middle of cutting stuff up.

My mother did a bunch of my canning for me, which was such a help.  She can't really afford to buy people gifts anymore, so she does helpful things instead.  I made up a bunch of beef and onion broth and then some chicken broth the other day and she canned it all.  I hate baby-sitting the canner and it was three loads worth.  And tbe promise that she'll do more canning for me.

My mother-in-law got me a 7 quart enamelled cast iron Dutch oven in an ombre blue.  It doesn't quite match my 5 quart one because they don't make the same color in the 7 quart, but it is a color I really liked as well.  And it is made in America.  I will be able to make some huge one pot meals in this, including putting pasta or rice in huge pots of sauce, so I can do dinner, plus individual tv dinners for the freezer from one cook session.  She also got me a large stone that I've been wanting for the garden.  It is really heavy and is about a foot wide and 8 inches tall and is carved with the sentence, "Nothing is Written in Stone."  I've been wanting it for a long while because it fits my sense of irony perfectly.

From my husband I got an enamelled cast iron covered casserole dish.  It is made by an Italian company and is actually made in Italy.  I couldn't find one I liked made in America, but at least it wasn't made in China.  I will buy Chinese if I don't have another option or if it something they came up with in the first place, but I prefer to buy stuff I cook with from elsewhere.  At home or from one of the five other countries that make really good stuff.  It came in this really pretty blue color and it is what we ordered, we double checked, but they sent us this really ugly mud brown color, so we will have to send it back and get the one we ordered.  I was disappointed.  I was looking forward to making enchiladas and mac and cheese in it and lasagna and baked ravioli.  And now I won't have to use aluminum on top, since it has a lid.  Hopefully, the replacement won't take long to get here and they won't mess it up again.

He also got me a 3 quart balti pot.  It is shaped like a wok, but flat bottomed and the handles are part of the cast so no parts that can break off.  It is used in Pakistani and Indian cooking traditionally.  They didn't have the color I wanted anymore, so I had to choose between charcoal grey and ugly, so I got charcoal.  I do wish they had had the turquoise, but oh, well.  It is also cast iron and enamelled.  I can use it like a wok, but it will be nice for making curries.  I can either do a slow one on the induction cooktop or a faster food version as the balti pot is intended for on the gas top stove.  It'll be nice for whipping up stir-fried rice or a quick shrimp and veg dish at lunch, too.  In fact I will probably use it most for shrimp and veg dishes at lunch.

I am trying to get away from aluminum bakeware and cookware as much as possible.  I do still have stainless steel pots, which I am keeping, but I have been slowly switching away from things that have proven to be less safe or unsafe over the years.  Even utensils.  I got a couple of bamboo whisks to try and a big wooden spoon that it long enough to use in the Instant Pots without burning my hand when I use them to make stew or chili and not as pressure cookers.  I also got a stainless steel spaghetti claw for use in the metal and enamelled pots and a wooden one should be here any day now for the two pots that we can't use stainless steel in.  I still have silicone spatulas and I won't get rid of those.  As far as we know, silicon is still save, but I am working or replacing everything that is plastic.

My husband also got me a meat slicer so now I can cut up my own meats and cheeses.  We will be able to save so much money now, buying stuff from the restaurant supply store and cutting it up ourselves, and then vaccum sealing the extra cut up meats and cheeses for later use.  And I also got some egg molds for use on the griddle.  I can make 6 round eggs at once, like the kind you get in Egg McMuffins at McDonalds, so we can batch cook egg muffin sandwiches for the freezer and egg biscuit sandwiches as well.  We have a giant electric griddle so should be able to cook sausage or Canadian bacon on the side as well.  A normal sized electric griddle might not fit these molds as they aren't the little single egg ring situation.  They are these ones: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09R53PL6C?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1 so quite large on the griddle space.

I am going to have fun with all my gadgets.  I know a lot of women might be annoyed with kitchen stuff for their presents, but I love to cook and these are the things that I wanted.  Oh, and he got me a little poster that has been my computer background forever and a tin plate that will eventually have a home in the garden on one of the gates when we finish getting our fence built.  It says, "Some girls are just born with the garden in their soul."  And it has a cute picture on it.  So all and all I am feeling rather spoiled.

Also, techinically good, I have kicked the caffeine habit again.  Hopefully, for the final time.  We have only eaten out once in February and my MIL paid for it.  Gluten free pizza is expensive, but it was good.  It is the only day we will eat out this month.  We are going to try really hard to stick to one day out a month for the rest of the year unless we have to go to Virginia Mason Hospital in which case we don't really have a choice.  But that is usually only twice a year for a couple days at a time.

Another good thing is that on my blood test on Monday all my levels were incredibly good.  And my glucose was 88.  88!  My last glucose was 123, the one before that 118.  So I have to say that this Jardiance is really working.  I am so happy.  I'm sure getting away from the out to eat food has helped a lot with this, too.  I will go back in four weeks and get tested again.

My weight loss has stall, but it has not gone back up.  The steroids really messed things up and they haven't wanted to move even though I've been off them a while now.  But I am going to try to drag myself out of bed tomorrow and go grocery shopping with my son so we can get some vegetables, chicken, shrimp, clean pre-seasoned rice mixes, and gluten free noodles into the house.  I want to make some stir-fries so that we have some good food, but something that it won't take me long to throw together or cook.  I am tired of not having it together lately.  My husband has been doing his best, but burgers and steak fries and spaghetti can only be eaten so much.  I want better, healthier food, so I can feel good again and maybe beat this illness and also start losing weight again.  Pasta and hamburger buns are not helping with that.

The paycheck was deposited a day early so I was able to get all the banking done today.  That was nice.  Since the repair guy will be here tomorrow DH is working from home.  Hopefully, my son and I will be able to get to the restuarant supply store and maybe to Winco.  Maybe just one.  I really do not to get fresh veggies.  We are down to carrots, onions, potatoes, and celery.  Maybe radishes.  And a handful of oranges for fruit.  Definitely not enough for the week.