The air quality is back to normal here as of yesterday and thank goodness. We still have the new air purifier going because the house still feels a little smokey, even after cleaning the duct work and the furnace filters (has a cooling function, but not air conditioning). It is working really well. We got a Japanese made Zigma, which can do 1580 square feet. It's very quiet and it is doing its job well. After 3 days, I think we will be able to turn it off tomorrow.

Yesterday we went out to a U-pick apple orchard, but we didn't actually U-pick. The apples we wanted that are ripe right now were Tsugaru and those ones are 3/4 of a mile from the parking lot. Honeycrisp was also available for U-pick and those ones are a 1/2 mile walk. Now they do have a tractor train, but because of social distancing they only fill every other car and only one family group per car. The line to wait would have been an hour.

Instead we paid the extra 10 cents a pound and walked out with 11.7 pounds of Tsugarus (my favorite apple) for fresh eating for us and 7 pounds for Mom. I spent $33.17 and Mom spent $20 even. She didn't go, we just got them for her. I did break my gluten free thing for the fresh apple cider doughnuts. They weren't as good as I remembered and I'm swollen today, so that wasn't worth it.

We picked corn and beans today and yesterday. We got 31 ears, five of which we gave to Mom. There was probably a canner load of green beans. I'll be canning tomorrow. Tomatoes, too, since I have a ton of ripe ones in the house. Raccoons had gotten into the corn, because some of the stalks were pulled back and partially eaten. There isn't any more mature corn out there and I don't know if we'll get the rest or not as it may be too hard to keep the raccoons out now that they have found it.

We'll be eating corn this week quite a bit and I'll freeze a few ears. I don't know if I want to bother with corn next year. I know my mom does, she wants more than we planted this year, but she didn't really help with the garden much this year at all. Maybe two hours total of helping to weed and get stuff in the ground.

Preparing the ground for corn is not on my priority list and is a job that requires my son and I to do most of the work. He is likely to have a job next spring and I don't want to do it myself. I'd rather give it to things that will last all winter, like potatoes, carrots, onions, and green beans (canned). We never plant enough corn to can it and if we did we wouldn't be able to plant anything else. Mom is really good at planning work for other people to do.

We had to buy a hand rail for the inside steps where we are going to be putting a ramp. They are so expensive, it is ridiculous. But trying to design one was driving DH insane so I just said to go ahead and order one. It will be easy to install and it will be done. That was $335.71.

As to things that are completely irrelevant to my life and finances, I finally got around to watching the first episode of the new season of Dancing with the Stars on Hulu, my one reality show. My favorite pairings are Nev Shulman and Jenna, Justina Machado and Sasha, and Jennie Mai and Brandon. Justina's personality is so much fun and she moves really, really well. Nev seemed like a natural. I thought Vernon (the football player) and Peta Murgatroyd had a very good chemistry and balance between them and he had some natural grace..

The basketball player was, as they usually are, awkward on the dance floor, and too, too tall for a natural posture with his dance partner. They had the best costumes, though. The ice skater, Johnny Weir was a natural, but I always feel skaters have an unfair advantage. He's a little untrusting of having a partner since he is a singles skater. You can see it and feel it, but once that has passed I think he has a real chance to win. The others were good but didn't stand out to me.

There was a lot of good potential with most pairings, but the cat lady needs to go. She got the lowest score so she likely will. It was weird not having a real audience and to see the judges so far apart from each other. I was very pleased to see Britt had made it out of the troupe and into being a pro. I've noticed her in the troupe the last few years and was hoping she'd get the promotion at some point. Her smile always seemed the biggest, she was the most energetic and enthusiastic, and I don't think I've ever seen a black female pro in competition on this show before, just males like Brandon and Keo, both two of my favorite dancers.

I wish Whitney and Lindsay were still on, but they are both Australian so may have had issues with travel like Len, who isn't judging, but will pop on via satellite a few times, it looks like. I am still ticked that Tom Bergeron is gone, but I haven't liked a female host since Brooke so I wasn't sorry to see Erin go. Tyra Banks does not seem at ease with the role of host, a little like she is trying too hard to be liked. I hope she settles down into a more comfortable rapport with everyone. It might have been a lack of audience. She just seemed really nervous. Hopefully she will get over that in the next couple of weeks.

It was a great episode, though, and a nice bit of escapism. I am surprised they let them make it though, with the Covid restrictions, because no one is wearing masks and the partners can't social distance from each other obviously. It's nice to see it, though.

There really is not that much going on this week financially. I am pretty much in a holding pattern waiting for payday, which is Friday, to come. Then the bills get paid, the funds get funded, the groceries get bought, and I settle down to wait for the next payday. Lather, rinse, repeat. I guess that is life for all of us these days. I really just want to go do something and there is nothing we can go do because none of the fun stuff is open. I miss our former world so much these days.

Heck, I'd be happy with the library being all the way open so I can go browse books. Using the online catalog is not the same. In real life browsing, you discover some of the best books by accident. You really can't do that on their system. And I can't use the library recommendation page, because all the books there are political and suck. It is weird because the book store is open to the public, but not the library. How is it different? Maybe volume.

Since becoming debt free on June 12th I seem to have lost my motivation. I know we need to be saving for things, but the more life unravels, the more I think we may never move away from here while Mom is alive. She can't be left alone anymore. I mean, she can for a few hours, but someone needs to be here on a daily basis. I don't know if we should be worrying about saving for a house. Maybe instead we should just be socking it to retirement and the EF. It's a tough decision, but we will always have this house to live in, even after Mom dies. We will only own 1/3 of it, but the will stipulates we don't have to move out until we want to, but make interest free payments to my sisters on their portions until it is paid or we sell the house and they get their remainders.

We did some looking at freezers and while we can order them, they won't be available until November or December. I don't figure we will have the money by then and when we do have the money, it will be several months further out at that point. So definitely no buying a beef this year.

Knowing we can't buy another freezer as soon as we have the money is going to change how I store food, though. We will can a lot more chicken and beef so I don't have to worry so much about the space I do have and may be able to get a lamb and a half a hog. And of course as much fish and shellfish as we can catch and freeze.

Sorry, I'm rambling all over the place. I have no focus. I really need to decide what I am going to do, so I can retarget my goals and find the oomph to follow them.

I cracked my daughter up today when I started singing "This is the dawning of the age of Apocalypse." I've been listening to so many parody songs about Corona virus that I am quite surprised no one has done this one.

Yesterday I sold that rabbit in the grocery store parking lot and then we went in and did a shop. I was able to find chicken so I bought 8 family size packages, 4 of legs and 4 of wings, about 3 pounds per package (bone in). We eat chicken twice a week usually so I was very happy to have that. There were no thighs though, which is my favorite, but I guess you take what you can get these days. And we found elbow macaroni, both regular and gluten free. I took 4 of the regular and one gluten free. There were about 15 boxes of regular and 2 of gluten free, but lots of spaghetti, egg noodles, and a dozen boxes of penné. I haven't been able to find any macaroni in weeks, so that made me happy, too.

I was thrilled to find a tomato sauce that was not Hunts. I've never been able to stand Hunts tomato sauce or ketchup. It's so sweet and cloying. This was the store brand but the organic version. They had 8 cans and I took them all. We use 2 cans in our macaroni so that is four meals worth. They did not have non-organic sauce that was not Hunts. They also did not have tomato paste except the most expensive kind that comes in the tubes. But I have paste. There were several cans of diced tomatoes. Nowhere near full, but way more than sauce. I still have tomatoes I canned last summer, so we don't need them. They did have several types of ketchup, too. We got 3 bottles of our preferred brand which is enough to get through the month. DH and DS use a lot of ketchup, but they may need to start cutting back.

We got enough milk for the month. I was able to get organic non-fat but DH had to go standard for his 2%. Their use by dates are May 5th. They did have the bottled milk, but they aren't accepting bottle returns until the Apocalypse is over.

They had the Laredo Stagg chili. We got all 11 cans. There was a ton of chili in the other flavors and brands. They must have just gotten a shipment in because chili has been one of the foods that have been consistently low last month, it was one of the first things to go after toilet paper, tissues, rice, and beans. DS eats a can for lunch each day when we can find it. He doesn't like any other kind of chili but homemade which I make when we can't find the can.

There is still no toilet paper, but we don't need it. I was just checking for others. I did manage to find a small box of Puffs. They had about 20 but with a limit of one or I would have gotten 2. 2 small boxes equals one big one. Still, with my skin as sensitive as it is during allergy season, I was happy to even find one. We still have 3 boxes at home, but with 3 of us with severe allergies we go through it fast and who knows when I will see it again.

I got 3 cans of chicken and stars. They had 2 flats, but I am the only one who eats it and only when I have a queasy stomach, so just wanted a couple on hand. They didn't have chicken noodle, cream of mushroom, and cream of celery, but did have one flat of tomato soup. Didn't get any of that though as I have tomato soup that I canned last summer. Just heat up and add milk. And we still have cream of mushroom for DH.

I did get some fresh fruit. I got strawberries that were in plastic containers, grapes that were pre-bagged, and some green bananas. They did have yellow ones but we still had 4 ripe ones from the last time I bought green bananas. I also got a lettuce for week one and then a cabbage for week 2 for greens and some bagged celery and bagged green onions. Normally I hate buying so much plastic, but it is a little safer now than open bins of fruit. I am using gloves, but still.

DH will likely have to go back after 2 weeks for fresh fruit and greens, but that's a quick in and out. We have enough other foods for the rest of the month, like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and radishes, which last a long time. I am really hoping to stay out of the store myself until May. I am so incredibly grateful for that sale on sirloin steaks and chuck roasts in early February right before I got sick. I stocked up big time at $3.49/lb for the steaks and $3.99/lb for the roasts and we didn't eat any of it, because I was too sick to cook in February and early March and we kept getting takeout. Ah, takeout, remember that? Seems like a hundred years ago.

We have some pork, bacon, sausage, a little lamb, 2 20 pound turkeys (one is for Easter) and a 14 pound ham. I will cook that ham eventually then bag it up into portions to use in pinto bean soup. There are also two salmon that DH caught last year. So other than chicken we just didn't need to buy meat. I am a bulk buyer by nature, as I buy a lot at really good sales and then we eat off that for three months or so. I obviously can't do that now, there are limits and rightfully so, but I am so grateful I could do it then.

I have this habit of bulk purchasing because my father went on strike twice when I was a kid and because my mother had done this, we had food while my dad couldn't work at the mill. He took a job at a gas station, but that was an enormous pay cut. I have always remembered this and it came in very handy to have this habit when we lived in the mountains and going to a store was a one hour expedition just to get there. Then when DH lost his job a couple years back and couldn't find a new one for 10 months, we had plenty of food to get through it. And now this disease comes. If we go into a full lockdown until the end of April we are good. Right now we can still go to the store and the doctor and the pharmacy, but that may change if things get worse. I hope they don't, but practically, I think they will.

The garden is coming along slowly but surely. Of course we can't plant yet, but when we can I want it to be ready to go, go, go. Hopefully we can get some work done on it this weekend.

Tomorrow is payday. We still have a payday. DH still has a job. I feel so awful for those who don't, but so much gratitude that DH does. And it looks like DH is going to be getting that promotion. They have started having him sit in (on the phone) on the meetings so he can be up to speed when the other guy retires. We had thought that was going to fall through and go to someone else, but apparently that was never the case. The old guy who has the job now will be retiring in a few months and is more or less just working a little and taking his sick leave and then vacation days after that while the virus is so bad so DH is already taking over some of that work, too.

I hope all is well with everyone out there in SA land. I know not everyone is in a good situation. I wish all of you were close enough to help if it gets bad enough. All I can do is pray for you and pray for the rest of the world. Except for Adam Schiff. He can f right off.

I finally made it to the library today to do my favorite thing, save money on books. I picked up four novels and 3 cookbooks. The one that I am interested in the most is Gluten-Free Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I can tell already that this will highly likely be a book that I actually buy if we like the end product of the recipes. I have three weeks to make these recipes and make that decision. It's a $30 book so not a decision I will make lightly.

It's a real catch all of gluten-free baking. I have been baking homemade breads and pastries for decades, but this is like learning to be a good baker all over again. The skill set is different. Fortunately this book seems to teach the skill set along with the recipes. Probably one of the reasons it is so highly recommended for beginners on Amazon. This is really something I want to get good at, because a loaf of Udi gluten free bread is very expensive, is only half the number of slices of bread as a regular loaf of bread, and those slices are also smaller. Making my own will save a lot of money in the long run, even if the ingredients are still quite expensive compared to wheat flour. I am finding bulk sources, though, to lower those costs.

I also have an apocalypse fic to read for pleasure, which is one of my favorite genres. I was supposed to read it last month for my book group, but the person who had it checked out had it overdue for 3 weeks despite my hold. Rude. Can't wait to take that into the bathtub and escape life for a while. I think one of the reasons why I like this genre so much is that they always have it worse than me, so I end up being grateful for my life even if it is one lived in chronic pain. Because, you know, at least I have electricity and the internet.

I am still exhausted, but DS and I had enough stamina to get dishes done today. We got 4 loads done. Everyone was sick for the past week, even DH, though no one as bad as me. I took it in fits and starts, though. It is the first productive thing I have done, besides make dinner, in a while. Tomorrow I will try to tackle laundry. There are at least 3 loads of towels to fold (DH did manage that much) and I need to put away the pile of clean clothes on my bed. I am done with the prednisone but I never got the energy rush of the previous times. That's a bummer because I have been only getting a few hours of sleep due to it. It would have been better to be productive, but Oh well. I just have 4 days left on the antibiotics. I hope that kicks it.

DD has been off wheat for 6 days now and continues to improve. DS's acne is clearing up. Neither one is having stomach issues at all and DD has not felt the constant nausea she's had for the past couple years, either. Can it really be so simple that this was what made her digest so slowly and painfully and bloat to a rock hard stomach? She doesn't have celiac at all, they tested for it, but obviously she does have an issue with wheat, otherwise stopping it would not have been so positive for her. If this is all it takes to stay out of the ER and stop spending so much of our medical budget on it, that's a miracle in itself.

Speaking of medical, it's weird to start having to spend for it again. We maxed out in July, I think it was, and everything had been free since. I know a few months of DD's physical therapy, which she starts on Wednesday will eat up a large portion of the deductible. Our HSA card is not working as they said it would. They said we could start using it on January 1st, up to the full amount of the yearly draw, but when DH tried to use it for 2 prescriptions, less than $25 total, but it didn't go through. He's going to try to get that sorted out tomorrow. We may just end up submitting everything each month, which will be a pain, but whatever.

Once I see what the exact new amount is of the Friday's paycheck on Thursday (things will change a bit due to the HSA withdrawals), I can complete my 2020 budget template and my January budget. They are pretty much the same, I will just be adjusting a bit. I think it is around $113, but it will also affect that amount of tax taken out, so I've got it roughly, just not perfectly. I prepared that part before Christmas, I think.

Tomorrow I will catch up the Medical Fund savings account by entering it all into the spreadsheet. I've let is slide, just making sure there was a hefty balance on the things we did buy, mostly OTC meds. Nowhere near the balance of nearly $2000 (haven't transferred the other $2000 in there, still in the online account), but now I have to reconcile the account. Which is fine.

DH and I really need to get on the ball to figure out our 25th Wedding Anniversary getaway. I was too tired to look at places, but it's mid-March, so maybe tomorrow. He has done some preliminary looking. All I really know is I want to be near a view of the water.

I also want DH to take me out to dinner for my 50th birthday mid-February. It will be a week after my mother's shoulder surgery so the kids will stay home to take care of her. I want a good ribeye or prime rib, a sweet potato, and either mixed veggies or their salad. Not their broccoli, they don't cook it long enough, and no bread. I don't want to have to cook myself so we will just go to Outback one county over.

I need to try to get myself to the library tomorrow. I haven't had a book since before Christmas, not that I could focus for long, but it has still been driving me crazy. I was so out of focus, I could not even concentrate on a movie plot. Watched a lot of mindless stuff, like Say Yes to the Dress, I Didn't Know I was Pregnant, and Paternity Court on Youtube. Yesterday, I was finally able to switch to documentaries and a movie (action adventure, so straight-forward plot).

Well, I'm learning a new instrument. My son talked me into buying a bass ocarina. It is a plastic one, not a ceramic one, because lighter is easier on the rheumatoid arthritis. An ocarina is a type of flute. It's shaped like a sweet potato though. If you play any of the Zelda games you've seen one. I have some experience with a regular flute and a one octave wooden flute and have messed around with the Tonette which is a one octave song flute as well.

It's also treble clef which is the same as the violin, strum stick, and the right hand on the piano and organ. Aside from the bass clef for piano and organ's left hand, I also know the alto clef for the viola. But treble is easiest to pick up a new instrument in.

I've done 4 lessons so far and can play a half dozen songs. I find it funny that no matter what instrument I have learned over the years they always start with Mary Had a Little Lamb and Hot Cross Buns. I've also mastered Ode to Joy (also early in every instrument), Frere Jaques, Long Long Ago, Jingle Bells, Gently Row, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and a couple others that I can't play at tempo yet, but can muddle through. Today will be my fifth day practicing and Brahm's Lullaby is in that lesson, so grown up music is coming.

When I do my new lesson, I always do all the songs from the previous lessons first and some of the fingering exercises. It helps to cement stuff in even as I move on to new lessons. I've found it is the best way for me to learn. I kind of do immersion when learning a new instrument.

One of the things that really helps me with this time of year and fighting seasonal depression is keeping my mind active and being challenged by something. That's why I tend to work on playing music or learning French more in the winter and early spring. I also take 5000 IU of vitamin D and use a happy light.

I started taking Moringa about ten days ago and it has made a huge difference with my RA symptoms. I also seem to be sleeping better, my skin is clearing up, and I have less muscle soreness from my fibromyalgia. It's not gone, but it is there. I am waking up feeling like I slept, which is really nice. I still tire out very easily and have to pace myself, but the enervating exhaustion is gone most days. I'm feeling better than I have in a long while. They tout it as a miracle tree, and I don't know about that, but it does help along with the Embrel and the Hydroxychloroquine.

And I've felt up to making meals a lot more often, too. Which helps with the food budget a lot. Tonight we are having herb baked chicken. Spice Islands has this Garlic Herb Seasoning that comes in a big container from Costco and it is our new go to seasoning.

I don't even miss Lawry's anymore or Paprika that much, which used to be our go to seasoning before my daughter had to quit using any spice that was hot (as opposed to warming like coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg). This stuff has been fantastic on chicken, beef, and salmon. I haven't tried it yet on pork or lamb or other types of seafood, but I can't imagine it won't be good. I've been looking for a long time to find an all purpose seasoning so this makes me very happy. It's the little things in life, you know?

I think I'm still kind of reeling from having lost so much of my blog and I know everyone else feels that, too. I've had a bit of a what's the point attitude, because I have no clue if they are actually going to start backing things up or if this can happen all over again. It's not like they communicate things to us. I always have to go asking and quite frankly I'm tired of it and still kind of angry. I think I'm just going to have to force myself through it and try to blog anyway.

But really nothing is happening. I spent 5 days in bed with the most recent version of the plague. I've gotten dressed, brushed my hair, and made food for the last two days (which was a big deal, actually) and still had a bit of a cough and a runny nose and laid down a few times, but it is on the upswing. I think. I go back and forth. Autoimmune diseases complicate the healing process. Physical therapy about killed me, but I didn't want to cancel.

I hope this is not a bad flu year as I am allergic to the flu shot. Not that it seems to work these last few years anyway. They used to seem far more effective.

I've been working my way through the Star Treks. I started with Voyager, because that is my favorite (Tom and B'lanna forever), then moved on to Next Gen and now I am on Deep Space Nine. Netflix has Enterprise and the original, so I will probably do those next. I'm less of an original fan but I did like it. Honestly, I was more of a Battlestar Galactica/Buck Rogers fan when I was little. I will probably work my way through the Next Gen movies after that, then the originals, and then the new stuff. I've seen it all, except the most recent new one, but I am enjoying immersing myself in this universe again.

I have also been watching Raising Dion. It's about a child who comes into his superhero powers. Only he's about seven or eight years old and doesn't have any control and they go wild when he can't get a handle on his emotions. The acting is very good. I especially like his mother, but the little boy is great and it has Jason Ritter, who I have a soft spot for on account of his father. I'm four episodes in. Netflix really has some great Originals.

I had a major freak out today when I thought I had lost several chapters of my book. I have eleven written and I thought I'd lost everything after halfway through chapter three. It's been so long since I looked at it and I was ready to start writing again, but wanted to reread it first. I forgot that I had renamed the file. I realized it when I went to my back up portable hard drive and found the other title, then went back to the laptop and then sure enough it was there under the other title.

I don't save to the cloud because it has been hacked so many times I don't trust it. I had forgotten for a minute that I had saved it to the hard drive, so sheer blind panic ensued.

Not much else going on. Oh, we purchased 60 pounds of Kerrygold grassfed butter ahead of the tariffs. Hopefully that will be enough to outlast them. It was $330 but we had it and since the tariff is 25% it was worth it to me to get that in my freezer.

I don't think I'm going to try to recover any of my missing posts. I write so many blog entries in a month that finding them all would be a massive undertaking and I honestly just don't have the energy to do that at this time. Even if I did find them, I wouldn't want to just dump them back into the blog. That's okay for maybe 10 entries, but I would likely have 100 or more. So I am just going to accept them as gone and move on. At least for now.

I am going down tomorrow to meet my grand niece for the first time. It is her first birthday party. I'm not looking forward to the drive, but it will be nice to see my sister and my nephews and niece and the baby. I am not looking forward to the drive there and back, though. It is always so hard on my body to be in the car for long periods of time. I'm already in an RA flare due to the weather.

Today was payday. It's pretty much on auto pilot at this point. I don't know if there is much point in my posting my payday reports. I haven't in a while. At first it was mostly to keep me on track on the budget, but I've been doing really well with it for a year now and don't think it is really necessary anymore.

Yesterday I took DS shopping for sweat pants. It took us 4 stores to find one pair that wasn't paper thin or didn't cost $55 a pair (When did Penney's get so expensive) or wasn't unraveling at the seams. Why is it so hard to find thick sweat pants of good construction anymore? We found one pair at Kohl's that was on sale for $19.56. The selection everywhere for men's sweats is garbage. There is barely anything as compared to women's sweats and the colors are almost non-existent.

Or you'll go to Target (where I hate to shop) and their sizes are their own compared to everyone else's so nothing fits that should. When my son is a large in every store but not even the XL fits at Target, you know they are screwing with sizing. I thought they only screwed around with women's sizing. Men's used to be standard.

We are going to stop at a store in Burlington on the way back from the party and see if they have anything there. It is a store we used to have here, but our branch of it closed, and we used to have really good luck there with clothes. If not, we'll have to try some sporting goods stores to see if they have anything. I don't want to spend $55 a pair for Nike or Adidas. DS doesn't give a hoot about brand names and they are far from reasonable.

I am seriously thinking about digging out my sewing machine and learning to make clothes once and for all.

It rained all day so I didn't get any gardening done. Actually, I didn't get much of anything done. I did take DD to the doctor and DS to the gym and I read a lot. This is the first time since I got so sick that I have been up to reading for a decent length of time.

My new regimen of eye vitamins seems to be working quite well. I take 5000 IU of vitamin A, 450 mg of vitamin E, 200 mcg of selenium, and Bilberry Ginkgo Lutein complex. The spots had been getting darker again for a while, but they are back to a light yellow/brown and are far less noticeable. I don't know that they are smaller, but when they aren't black they don't seem to interfere so much with things like reading.

I took my third Enbrel shot tonight. Again it seemed like things weren't as good after the first five days, but that could just be soreness from gardening. The brain fog seems to be gone, though. I have more energy, but not as much as I'd like to have. I feel capable of doing things, though. I have to remember to call the mail order pharmacy for the next set of shots in about 5 days. I found out my co-pay for the drug this month is $30. Not bad for a wildly expensive drug.

I really need to schedule a hair cut. My hair is back to length it was when it was at its longest. It just grows so fast. But it is getting caught in my armpits when I raise my arms and then bring them back down and it pulls my hair and hurts. And DH sometimes leans on it and that is not good, either. I am thinking of cutting off about a foot and getting to one inch past my chin. Which will really be at my chin because it bounces up with my loose curls. I will basically be getting it cut to the length of my bangs by doing that. I have money in the personal care envelope, so it is just a question of making the appointment and doing it.

I go to the doctor tomorrow. I think I still have a sinus infection going on. The pressure is out of my ears, but I still have a pretty bad headache above my eyebrows and the back teeth and jaw hurt, which is also a sign of sinus infection. I think the ones in my face are also in play, but not as badly. I just want to get this thing cleared up so I can maybe enjoy the spring.

I spent $1.09 on a candy bar today, but that came out of my allowance envelope. I have been trying to avoid having sweets in the house, but clearly today was not going to be one of those days. I kind of felt like a PMSing teenager needing chocolate. Sometimes I swear I'm menopausal even though I had a hysterectomy in 2003 and went through all that stuff when I was 33 to 35. I wonder if that is even possible because if I were normal, this would be the age I would have started peri-menopause. Like I need that on top of all my auto-immune issues.

I tried the cheese wrap today. It is called Folio's and it was the Parmesan one. Apparently they make a cheddar cheese one, too. I did find out some more info about them. They are only available in west coast Costco's, but they are available nationwide at Aldi's, though not really because Aldi is not a nationwide chain.

I used one wrap, 2 slices of deli turkey, some rather hot stone ground mustard, and some cucumber slices. It was great and surprisingly filling for its size. I imagine after swimming I would need two, but on a normal day one is fine for lunch. I did add more cucumber slices on the side, though.

I have found some youtube videos on how to make your own Folio's, which I may try, as homemade would be cheaper, but if it is too fiddly to make, I don't mind shelling out for these, because they are good and it makes my life a little easier.

I don't like being housebound. With DH having to drive the van, I have no way of going and doing anything and it is a little frustrating. I need to get my glasses adjusted because I fell asleep with them on again and rolled over on my face, I need to go cash some checks at the bank, and I need to make some doctor appointments, but I can't do any of that until the truck is fixed. It is going in on Wednesday, but I don't know if it will be a one day repair or take a couple. I hope it is only one day, because I want my mobility back.

We've only been a two car family for less than a year and a half after many years of only having one and already I have forgotten what that was like. I feel like I'm being a baby about it, having a case of I want, I want, I want. It really does curtail your freedom, though. If I weren't disabled, I could walk to a lot of places, but even walking the two blocks to the bus stop is difficult right now. Actually the walking isn't the problem so much as the standing and waiting. Moving isn't nearly as bad.

Back before my injuries and my rheumatoid arthritis, I could have walked the two miles to the doctor's office, even when sick. Now even walking the six blocks to the store is out of reach. Maybe it is just that not having the van right now is piling on top of my not being able to do much with my body.

I am going to have to cut down on my gardening this year. Even with two foot tall raised beds and the ability to pull up a chair to garden, it was hard in 2018 and I think it will be harder this year. Maybe I'll just grow peppers, tomatoes, salad fixings, and onions. Those give me the biggest bang for the buck without a ton of effort throughout the season and the least worry about pests. And of course the herbs, which come back every year. I am just going to have to realize that my limitations are getting stronger as I age and adjust my life accordingly.

I am considering getting a mobility scooter or an electric trike bike. Then I could at least go to the store. I would only need the electric motor on the trike bike on the way home as it is downhill all the way to the store. But perhaps the mobility scooter is the way to go. It would be nice to be able to go out in the neighborhood again when the weather gets better. They are pricey though. Even the used ones. We'll have to see.

Hits:

We paid of $10,750 on our last debt, the Monster Mom Loan. And that was only from April to the end of the year, as we weren't able to make any payments the first quarter of the year due to an $8000 hospital bill that nearly wiped out our savings.

We were able to pay all of our medical bills in full without taking out any more new debt or having to pay any interest. I did have to play with the credit card a little to manage that, but we paid it off before the interest would have come due. MIL helped us with a few of them, but we still paid over $20K out of pocket this year on medical expenses. I haven't figured out the full total yet as I am still entering things into the spreadsheet.

We found some doctors who took my daughter's medical issues seriously.

We have no new debt.

We have a fully funded medical account for 2019.

I started working on a novel and stuck with it.

Misses:

We ate out far too much. Yes, it was due to illness, usually, but sometimes it was due to failure to plan. We spent an average of $200 a month on eating out. Some months nothing was spent at all, but the other seven months more than made up for that.

My weight loss was a general failure. Although I was doing well before I caught the plague, I gained back all I lost while sick.

Exercise went by the wayside as well due to a lot of inflammation. I am slowly learning what causes the inflammation and trying to avoid it. Sometimes it is food, sometimes it is repetitive stress. I hope to slowly reincorporate exercise again this year.

I can't think of anything else and am just barely getting this in under the wire of 2018.

I am so wiped out. I really need to go the the doctor for myself, but that is not to be. Tomorrow is going to be a pretty awful day. DD has an appointment at 8 a.m., so no sleeping in. Mom has an appointment at 10:40 and then another one at 2:30 and at some point I have to squeeze in a run to the chiropractor's office. I will be sitting in waiting room chairs far too much tomorrow.

This paragraph is probably TMI, but I don't care.
You can skip to the next one. Thursday was supposed to be a day with nothing on it, but we had to schedule a redo for my daughter's pap smear, because apparently there were not enough cells in the sample. It's a rarity for that to happen, so of course it happened to her. So we have to go back in on Thursday and she really doesn't want to because it was really painful the first time.

Then also on Thursday Mom decided to schedule a doctor's appointment without asking me what I had going on, so I have to squeeze that in, too. Her blood pressure has been running high for the last week, so it is necessary, but it is at on office that takes forever to call back their patients. One hour waits are the norm, so it will be painful. On Friday Mom has more physical therapy. If I make it to next week, there is just PT on Monday and Friday since she will be dropping down to just twice a week, so maybe I can get in to see the doctor myself.

Friday is also payday, so I will have to do all the banking and then grocery shopping. The ads came today so I will sit down with them and try to plan a coherent list and plan out my two week meal plan.

On the plus side, physical exhaustion and running around like a chicken with her head cut off seems to have reengaged my creative brain. I've written 6000 words on one of my novels in the last two days and about 10,000 words in the last week. Not, mind you, the first book in the trilogy, but the third, because those are the characters wanting to be written. Whatever. I go with whatever gets the words out of my head.

I am drinking far too much caffeine though. I think I've got myself addicted again, but I'm not going to try to get off it again until next week when things calm down a bit. I'm also not eating that great, a lot of sandwiches, which is far too many carbs for me, but I am just too tired to try to do it right right now.

Anyway, I best get back to real life. No rest for the weary. Just thought I'd throw out an update for my sanity's sake.

The ashfall is getting pretty awful here. I feel like we are living near an active volcano or something. I had to go out to the garden today and wash off all the plants so they didn't starve. They were coated in grey brown ash. I wore a bandanna over my mouth and nose. I have given up on the green beans because I can't stay outside long enough to pick them. I will keep up with the tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers while I can. They are quick picks and I can get them and get back inside within 5 minutes.

It is still so hot here and it is awful because we can't open the windows. My asthma has really kicked up and I have to use my inhaler about every 4 hours or so. I've got a persistent cough, scratchy throat, and feel like my bronchials are affected. I have to use eye drops frequently, and nasal spray because my nose keeps blocking up. I thought last year was bad, but this doesn't compare. I am going to call the doctor tomorrow and ask for something stronger as an inhaler.

We have rain in the forecast for Sunday and Monday and I just hope it doesn't change. We need to be drenched to wash this garbage out of the air and maybe have a shot at putting out the fires. And someone in B.C. needs to get on the ball and start figuring out how to manage their forests properly. If they would slash and burn during the rainy season this would not be happening now, but the environmentalists had to push past the point of logic and now they don't do it right. I think people who have no clue about timber country should not be allowed to push their policies on the rest of the PNW.

I have been trying to keep the car sprayed off each day, but it just accumulates more. I don't want it to damage the paint, but I'm about to give up at this point.

It is all just so very frustrating. I want to be able to breathe and to go spend time outside without it hurting. I am going stir-crazy. Having the blogs down for 3 days did not help.

My rheumatoid arthritis started flaring up on Tuesday and steadily got worse through the week. On Wednesday I started fighting off a migraine, successfully with medication, and on Thursday I strained some muscles in my low back because I had to pick the green beans and apparently I stayed in one position too long. I also started seeing floaters in my good eye. Yippee. Who needs to be able to read clearly? *sighs*

I need to pick green beans again and I am just really not wanting to. DH worked on my back for a couple of hours last night so I am doing better, but I'm afraid if I pick them it will go back into spasms.

Just to add to the fun, DD started throwing up blood, so Wednesday night was an ER visit, and it seems like on top of all her other issues, she has an ulcer. We will follow up on that after she sees the endocrine doctor and I see the surgeon for a follow up on my toe next week. At least is wasn't a bowel obstruction. They took x-rays.

At least things are going well for DH at work and things are running smoothly on the financial front. Since going full force onto Dave Ramsey's plan, I can really see the difference in the budgeting and accountability, as well as the intensity to get this last debt paid off. I try to watch at least 3 of his live streams each week and I have read three of his books now and one of his daughter's books.

I am currently reading Zero Debt by someone else. It is large print so that helps with the eye issues. I am also working my way through The Tightwad Gazette. I had to turn it back in once because someone had put it on hold, but I got it back again a couple of days ago.

I have been reading a fiction book, too, but I'm about to give up on it, even though I am halfway through. I don't really like the main character that much. She's hard to empathize with. I may just stubbornly forge on as I hate not finishing a book. I don't usually read mystery novels, but when I do, I expect to be more interested in the outcome than I am here. I've been trying to read this book for 9 weeks. The only reason I checked it out was because the title was a funny pun. I should probably stick to sci-fi and romance novels in the future.

I wish I could read more, but my eyes can only handle it for so long with these stupid floaters swimming around while I try to focus. I am feeling a little negative because of the amount of pain I am in and the amount of swelling that is going on in my body right now. I would appreciate prayers for healing and for a more positive attitude.

We did our annual trek to the end of the driveway to watch the fireworks over the bay. Best seats in the house, no parking issues, great view and no crowds. Better yet, absolutely free. It was a pleasant, if humid, night, very peaceful.

I did deviate from the meal plan and made sirloin steaks and baked potatoes for dinner tonight. The store had a one day sale on the steaks and I had money left in the grocery envelope, so I went for it. We made them in the NuWave oven, perfectly cooked (to rare) after 20 minutes at 350. I love making baked potatoes in the pressure cooker. It is so fast and easy and I think they taste even better than in the oven. Both methods of cooking are pretty hands off, although I did have to flip the steaks halfway through cooking. But otherwise, no baby-sitting the food which is my favorite way to cook!

Looks like DH might end up getting more than 15 hours a week of OT coming up. There is a lot to get done and they keep losing drafters, one quit, one to a new job. He's getting tired, though, so I don't know if more than 15 is a good idea. But maybe, if he gets enough sleep he can. I told him if he works more, we need to make sure he is getting enough protein in him during the day. With more OT, we can add a little more to the grocery envelope if we need to so he can keep going as needed.

Gardening is good exercise. I have been able to be out in the garden 3 days running. So far I have weeded 10 out of 11 beds in the last week or so. The tenth one was accomplished today. I pulled out 25 snails from one strawberry bed. I had some happy ducks. I am glad I found so many or I would not have much of a strawberry harvest. I got all the dead leaves off and snipped all the runner vines so that the daughter plants aren't sapping the energy from the mother plants. There are a ton of flower buds and even some blossoms already.

So far I have planted two types of lettuce, purple kohlrabi, dinosaur kale, bright lights chard, broccoli, and banner green bunching onions. I did buy a variety of peppers and tomatoes, but I won't plant them for another week to 10 days. Right now I am leaving them outside during the day but bringing them in at night. If the forecast looks good at night in about a week, I will try leaving them outside overnight.

I have gotten my steps in every day since getting the fitbit. My goal is still not that high, just 2000 steps a day, but I hit 3000, 3500, and 4000 during this week, but some days were just slightly over 2000. I had a couple of bad days because of my hip and knees being inflamed, probably because I am walking more than ever. I will likely bump my goal to 3000 on Monday. Slow and steady. I can't mess myself up by going too quickly with this. I am just happy to be doing as well as I am.

The diet has been a bit up and down. I do wish we could afford to get our gym membership back, but we just don't have the money for it right now. Swimming always helps with losing weight, plus it seemed easier to eat right when I swam consistently DH is not getting the amount of overtime he was, either. I don't think he got any last week and only a couple hours this week. And of course this coming week is his jury duty so he won't get a full week's pay, there, either, let alone any overtime. We can't even think about things like gym memberships.

I did want to mention that if anyone is interested in trying out Thrive Life, right now they are having their semi-annual sale. I believe it goes through the 23rd. This is the cheapest it ever is during the year, even better than their fall sale. The link to my website is in the side bar under sites I enjoy. I recommend starting with the chopped onions and see if that just doesn't change your cooking life. That and the yogurt bites.

Anyway, I haven't done the budget yet for this payday or last even though I have paid a couple bills. I will try to get that figured out and posted tomorrow. I don't think I posted a payday report last week at all, so I will probably do a double one in one post.

DH and I have been watching some movies on Netflix this week. No spoilers. We watched Odd Thomas, which was really good. It was delightful in places and scary in others and then it made me laugh and cry in others. Quite an emotional roller coaster. It was the best of the three movies we watched. I kind of wished they'd have made it into a TV series.

The Cloverfield Paradox was a great sci-fi thriller, though so distantly related to Cloverfield that it was almost ridiculous to have it in the name, similar to that other Cloverfield movie with John Goodman, no real relation, just capitalizing on the name in a blink and you miss it similarity. I really liked it, though. It was set on a space station where the crew was trying to find a stable form of power that would save the Earth from a major energy crisis and of course stuff goes wildly wrong.

The third movie was The Call Up, which is about some people that get asked to play this reality video game and whoever wins get a $100,000 prize, but they can actually end up getting killed in the game, which they are unaware of, so making it to the end is quite a feat. I liked it, but it was a little predictable. Still the characters were great. I think the ending was supposed to come as a big shocker, but I figured it out. If I hadn't, I'd have probably put this one in second place. But all of the movies were really good and I'd recommend them if you like supernatural and sci-fi movies.

There is not much else going on around here, lately. I did some grocery shopping, but that's about it.

After I posted on the 12th, I managed to get out into the garden. I was just going to do a little bit and 3 hours later I had weeded 5 of the raised beds. I was super sore that night and the next two days, but today I felt less stiff and almost back to normal. It was clear again, even though the forecast said it was going to rain all day, so I got another 2.5 hours in on the garden. DS helped me today.

We only got 3 beds done, but one was a strawberry bed and I had a lot of fiddly work to do in it. I had to cut all the daughter plants from the mother plants so they didn't drain all the life from them and they could operate as self-sufficient plants. I also trimmed off all the dead leaves and any that were red with snow-burned edges. It is all nice and healthy green growth, plus flower buds starting already.

I have two more beds left to do, both strawberry beds, so more fiddly work. I am hoping that will take just one more session in the garden and then we can weed eat the areas around the beds and set up a watering system. I found one based on hydropinics that I would like to make. It'll beat using the big sprinkler that gets the house and the neighbor's driveway. With the sprinkler, we have to close the windows during the summer, so I'd much rather have an irrigation system and leave the windows open when it is hot.

Being outside and getting my hands in the dirt has helped my head tremendously. And the physical activity is good for it as well.

We got fitbits in the mail on the 13th, a gift from MIL, and though I have had some trouble with getting it to sync, it has still been pretty motivational. My first day I just set my goal as 1000 steps because I really have not been active in a long time. And it was kind of hard, but I got there. Yesterday I just wanted to beat that, but was really happy to get over 1500, and then today I got over 2000. Each day I just want to push myself a little more. Right now getting to 5000 steps seems daunting, let alone the 10,000 daily steps they recommend, but I will just keep trying to beat the previous day's steps until I get there.

I do like the food log and water log features as well, though, I do feel like I'm floating by the time I've gotten in all the water for the day. Still, it is helping, because I've lost 6 pounds in 3 days. My diet is firmly back on track. Now I just need to work on getting to sleep earlier.

Getting to sleep has been bad the last few nights, because DH and I totally got caught up in the new Lost in Space on Netflix. They did a fantastic job, but I tell you, those last four episodes were like a book that was too good to put down. Well, pretty much all of it was, but it was nearly impossible towards the end. I highly recommend it.

There was barely any swearing in it, which is virtually unheard of for a Netflix Original. I appreciated it. Although, I didn't appreciate it that when one of the two times they swore (I think that was all, and one was incomplete), one of them was from a child. Netflix likes to put swear words in the mouths of kids and I don't like it. I get that kids swear a lot today, but maybe they'd swear less if they didn't have kids doing it in the movies all the time.

I don't think there were any oh, my Gods, either. That is so overused today. It's like using like all the time or dude. It gets intrusive, so when it isn't there, it makes me happy. And there was no nudity, again, almost unheard of for a Netflix Original that isn't geared just to kids. Certainly not the orgy fest that was Sense8.

So anyway, all that to say Lost in Space was just some brilliant story-telling with a great cast and a nice way to waste ten hours or so of your time. And I loved the robot. The old series had good stories, but was very much a product of its time in the hokiest of ways, and just can't hold a candle to what this reboot has done. And I got a kick out of the old one. I liked it. But this was the best series I've seen in ages.

I am trying to shake off this dragginess I have been feeling for the last month. It started with the stomach virus, then I had two days of feeling okay before the head cold hit, which devolved into a sinus infection. Now I'm in the dregs of that, but doing much better, and yet all I want to do is sleep. I force myself up in the morning to take care of the animals, and then it is right back to sleep for 4 to 5 hours.

The thing is I am getting plenty of sleep, but I never wake up feeling rested. My head feels cloudy most of the time. I suppose some of it could be allergy season kicking in, but that seems unlikely to me. I have had some pain, but usually the Ibuprofen takes care of that enough to fall asleep.

I don't feel like it is depression. I mean things aren't hunky dory because of finances, and I've had to do a lot for my mother, and I'm frustrated about my daughter's surgery situation, but generally life is good. Certainly not anything I want to hide away in bed over.

The weather has been keeping me from being able to do anything outside, and that could be part of it. I don't get the sun like I need and while a happy light helps, it is no replacement for natural sunlight. I am just itching to get my hands in the dirt and start working in the garden, but right now it is a mud fest out there. It did stop raining, but the ground just squelches. I may go out anyway today because who knows when it will be dry again?

I just wish I could stop being so tired. I made it through day one again on my diet. Maybe cleaning up my food again will help with the energy levels. I hope so. From past experience I know weight loss helps with the energy levels, so hopefully that will kick in fast. I don't like sleepwalking through life.

Well, it is that time of year again. Twelve years ago today I started this blog. In that time I paid off about $200,000 in debt, which included three cars (two used, one new) and one mortgage. I still have $29,750 to pay back to my mother, but I've been free of consumer debt for a couple of years now.

Most of the debt that wasn't cars or the mortgage was due to medical bills and having to pay for 6 surgeries in 5 years with cruddy medical insurance. I think it was 6. It blurs together. But it kept me alive, so what are you going to do? I was determined not to declare bankruptcy although we easily could have. But that would have felt like giving up and I never wanted to do that.

I hope to get moving on paying my Mom Loan off, but it has been rough going with 10 months of unemployment during the past year and a half. Right now we are breaking even. I am hoping to contribute $1000 of the tax return to paying on that loan. Maybe $2000. The rest will go into the Emergency Fund, at least until DD gets her surgery and we pay our portion.

It feels like there have been many ups and downs in the last twelve years. Two years ago we were in a much better place financially than now and it is taking a lot to recover from all we lost, both mentally and financially. I'm not sure how long it will take, but with a lower income it is slow going. And since we don't own the house anymore, our only assets are the van and the truck we are about to inherit.

I just keep hoping we will really get back on our feet soon and that DH will get a better paying job soon. We need it to get back to where we were and to ever have a chance of paying Mom off and saving for a down payment again for a home of our own. I feel like we are currently just treading water. But treading water is better than drowning. At least we all know how to swim.

I know I am not posting a ton right now, but the push to get the last town storage unit cleared out had been ongoing. We had until February 28th to be out and it went down to the wire due to snow.

One of the only fun things about it has been finding all the loose coins. I've found another $3.24 in American money bringing that balance to $5.92 and another Canadian dollar, bringing that to $2.60 Canadian.

We will still have a lot to go through in our out of city units, but at least we will only be paying $225 going forward and not almost double that each month. With the amount of boxes in the out of city units to go through, I believe we will be able to eventually downsize to the one larger unit, which will be $125.

We will be able to wait for nice days now that the last city unit is done. Having to work in the snow or below freezing temps has not been fun. DH did finally find our wedding album and it is fine. I never meant for that album to end up in storage to begin with so it is nice to have it home again.

DH is getting overtime again. He got 10 hours for the week ending last Friday and he has worked both Saturday and Sunday as well, but those will be on the following paycheck. He may get 70 hours this week. All of the money will be helpful as the washing machine is not working right and we will have to get it repaired.

We have been jollying it along, using a hose to fill it, since it was agitating before the water would go in. Originally, it was only doing this at the start, but now it is doing it on the rinse cycle, which means stopping the machine and filling it again for the rinse cycle. Filling it once is bad enough, but having to fill it twice is beyond annoying and means you can't leave the house while using the machine and it wastes a lot of time in the day.

Hopefully there will be a little money left afterwards to go back into rebuilding the emergency fund. DH did get asked to do some safety training for unnamed oil company so he can be the project lead on a project for them. So that one starts after his current project ends and will mean an additional 2 months of work. Which should get him to the end of the six months contract through the job recruiter so that he can be hired on directly with this company or find another job without having to buy out the remainder of the contract.

I am glad he has more work coming, but living in a constant state of not knowing when he will have a secure job is taking its toll on my stress levels. Security has always been my number one issue in life and I really want it back. I don't want to have to worry from month to month if DH will still have a job. I know that a lot of people deal with this situation or worse because they have no emergency fund, but up until a couple of years ago we never had.

It has been tough to go from a life that was always secure to one that is not. It was awful to lose all of the money from our house down payment fund and most of our emergency fund and to be sitting here on the brink of not having an emergency fund at all. It has sucked to have medical emergency after medical emergency with limited or no insurance. I hate having to live like this. It screws with my head.

And just when it feels like we will have a little extra money again, the washing machine breaks and the sun roof on the mini-van starts leaking again. Once we get the money together, I am having the sun roof sealed, since they obviously can't fix it so it actually stays fixed. It will lower resale value, but by the time we sell this thing, it will be 20 years old, so I doubt it will have much resale value anyway. And the second sun roof will still work, anyway.

I won't buy a car with a sun roof again. We seldom used it when it worked because half the time the angle of the sun coming in would shine in the rear view mirror and blind the driver. And with working AC there was no real need for it. Even sitting in the car waiting for someone on a hot day, with the sun roof open, the sun just beat down on us. It just isn't worth it.

If it wasn't leaking into the seat belt holder it wouldn't be so bad, but every time I pull the seat belt out to use it when it has been raining it is soaked. It would have to be on the driver's side. Speaking of the seat belt holder, the other day when I took my seat belt off, it took my hair with it into the seat belt holder. Fortunately the kids were in the car and could pull it back out, because I couldn't move to do it.

So, it is time for a hair cut, I guess. Or I need to keep my hair in a braid when I'm driving. It's down to the bottom of my shoulder blades and it is starting to get caught under my arms when I put my arms down after having them raised. I am rolling over when I am sleeping to sometimes pull it as well if I don't sleep in a braid. I like having long hair, but geesh, it can be a pain sometimes.

I hate wearing a braid outside in the winter, though. It exposes my ears and the back of my neck and I chill so easily. It is long enough to donate if I decide to cut it to my shoulders, which will still keep my ears and the back of my neck warm, at least.

I have been considering getting it layered so it will work with my natural curl. It frizzes a lot when it is all one length and the weight pulls out a lot of the curl, but when it is layered it curls like crazy. It would also cut down on the heaviness since it is so thick. I probably should just bite the bullet and do it. I am getting too old for long hair, I think.

The last time my hair was this long I dithered for months and then got it cut so short I hated it. It wasn't an easy to care for cut, either, which is the main reason why I hated it. Plus it worked against my curls. I know if I layer it, I'd have to use product, which I don't care for much, but it would be nice to have a change. You can see why it takes me forever to decide, hmm? Seriously, does anyone else have this problem? I've been like this my whole life. Always wanting short hair when it was long and long hair when it was short.

Once I do get it cut, I'll make a decision on coloring then. I think most of what I will be left with will have heavy grey streaking. A lot of what is still auburn will be cut off, leaving mostly grey streaked auburn. They grey washes it out, though and makes it look duller. I am not one of those folks who can go blonde because it washes me out and the grey is doing the same. But I hate spending the time coloring my hair, even when it is my daughter applying it instead of me.

Well, enough time spent wasting my morning. I'm off to organize, toss, and donate. It will end some day.

Yesterday, I found 87 cents today, bringing my found money for the year to $2.13 American and $1.60 Canadian. People leave coins lying around in the strangest locations sometimes. This was on top of the toilet paper holder at Kmart. I washed it, though. Money is dirty enough as it is, but money found in a restroom could be even worse.

We bought curtain rods for my son's new room. We still have to purchase curtains. Kmart did not have a good selection of blackout curtains. We will try Fred Meyer and then Wal-Mart next. They always have a better selection there and tend to restock their shelves. I did pick up holders for the bathroom shower curtain. Several of the plastic ones we had had cracked or broken.

I didn't really like the ones we picked up, because they are metal and I wanted plastic, but Kmart was sold out of most of what it had. I mean, they are pretty, just not what I wanted. But since we likely won't make it to another store until Friday and the shower curtain is not really doing its job anymore, I went ahead and got them.

I did a brief stop at the library to pick up my holds. I got two cook books, one on Indian cooking for the crock pot and one was for instant pot cooking. I don't have an instant pot, I spent my Christmas money on an air fryer instead, but someone recommended to me that I read the available instant pot cook books before I do buy an instant pot. I am thinking of getting one for my birthday in February. Our library has about ten different instant pot cook books.

I was going to pick them up on Saturday, but that would have meant driving through the chaos and congestion that always seems to center around the library/courthouses when the protesters are out in force. Since we had both the women's march and the march for life this weekend, it wasn't going to happen. I was told it was worse than pride week with the amount of people in attendance, so it was a good call to wait until today. I never would have found parking on the weekend.

Hopefully, I will find a few good recipes in the Indian cook book. I am always looking to expand my ethnic recipe repertoire. I can make 8 Chinese food dishes, 3 Korean, 1 Vietnamese, 5 Mexican, 2 Indian, 1 Morrocan, 1 Jamaican, and 1 Japanese dish. Not to mention the numerous Italian ones. It is nice to have them to change up my extensive American dishes.

Not much happened today. I got caught up on dishes, did some laundry, and made a chicken and vegetable soup that was very good. There are several portions left, which makes my daughter happy since it is one she can eat, having no pasta in it. I really didn't feel like cooking at all today, but the eat from the pantry challenge is keeping me on the straight an narrow.

As soon as DH wakes up and we eat breakfast we will be heading out to the storage unit we are getting rid of. I think we will have it cleaned out by the end of this weekend, but if not we have until the end of the month. We are taking enough time to label each box with a number and then make a key in a notebook, so in the future if we are looking for the contents of a certain box, we just need to find that number.

It is also giving us a chance to look through each box and note what we need to do with it. If it is just continue to store or to go through and sort. We've already donated 10 full size garbage bags of clothes, mostly children's clothes, but some of it was stuff from high school and college. We have clothing donation boxes all over town so those are easy enough to get rid of.

So far I have one bag of linens to donate. That's more complicated because it will actually require dropping off at Goodwill in person, so we will wait until I have gone through all the boxes of linens. I know there are a few blankets that can go and there are some table cloths. All I want to keep on my table cloths are the sunflower one, the autumn one, and the Christmas plaid one. The others can go.

I have sorted through four big boxes of stuff so far that we brought home after last weekend. I got rid of two paper bags of old magazines I had stored with one recipe each. I tore out the recipes and put them in my recipe binder in page protectors and tossed the rest of mags to be recycled. I also put all of our photo albums and photo boxes on a book shelf here. That gave us three totes emptied to go back to storage and use to repack some of the damaged cardboard boxes with. The other box was a damaged cardboard box so it went to recycle.

Today I hope to get the furniture moved. There is not much in there, two large book cases, a couple cubicles, one of which will come home, an end table, two floor lamps, and a small TV stand. There might be a stand for holding DVDs as well.

There are 3 knickknack shelves that I want to bring home and put up. They would be perfect for holding my pint and quart size herbs and teas that I grew and dried this summer. They are all kind of spread out through the pantry and kitchen and it would be nice to have them all in one place.

Everything else is just boxes. I know some of it we will have to bring home to sort. We'll have to store them in the garage while we bring one in the house at a time. Mom will probably throw a huge hissy fit about that, she's prone to them these days, but they won't be there long. Just long enough to decide what stays and what gets tossed and what gets donated.

I am thinking about getting rid of our couch. It is a huge sectional and it takes up so much space. It rarely gets used. There are several recliner chairs that we could use instead and there would be a lot more space. I loved the couch at the time we bought it and it was perfect for our needs then, but most of us like to sit with our feet up now, so it doesn't make sense to keep the behemoth any longer. It is in really good shape except for one cushion cover with a broken zipper, but that can be pinned with safety pins to keep it closed. Plus, free is a price that most people will overlook flaws for.

The blisters have come off my garlic burns. I've got four fingers with peeling skin. On the bright side, it looks like I will have full finger prints on three of them and one with a scar running through it that won't be quite as large as I feared on the index finger. They are still sensitive in water, which makes scrubbing dishes hard. Wearing rubber gloves wears on them too much because they are fitted. I can type, though. Go figure.

All right, well, I think I hear DH stirring, so time to get the day moving.

I am so glad 2017 is over and 2018 is here. It can't possible be as big of a struggle as the last two years have been.

My daughter went to the emergency room Friday night at midnight in excruciating pain. They did an ultrasound and a CT scan and found out her gall bladder is full of stones. They did not need to do emergency surgery, but they think she needs to get it out soon. We don't have insurance until February.

So we will get her in to see a gastroenterologist ASAP and schedule the surgery for February. I can't even call until Tuesday and then I am sure it will be 2 to 3 weeks before we can even get in to see a specialist. I am glad that insurance still can't do squat about pre-existing conditions.

This visit is going to cost us roughly $2500, unless I miss my estimate of $1000 for the visit, $500 for the ultrasound, and $1000 for the CT, which is still less than paying COBRA. DH will have to work a lot of overtime to pay for that, but he is allowed 10 hours of OT a week without having to ask, and then if things get into a rush time, they will okay additional over that. Hopefully we can manage to get it paid without taking money out of the Emergency Fund, but we definitely won't be putting any money into the EF for a couple of months. *sighs*

I had to completely throw out my meal plan for the eat from the pantry challenge and start from scratch since DD can't have dairy, most fats, eggs, pork, only very lean beef, no refined white flour so no pasta (we don't have any whole wheat on hand) or bread or tortillas, no refined white sugar (she can have honey, molasses, and brown sugar), no fatty fish, and no brassicas. That means none of my go to vegetables of broccoli, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, cabbage, bok choy and the like.

So we will be eating more turkey, chicken, rabbit, white fish and shell fish. I do have that, but I don't know how long it will last. I will have to make some stuff for DH, because he can handle only so much poultry before he starts clucking about it and he is not the biggest fan of fish, though he does like white fish.

The hardest part for me is that I like to cook in butter and oil. I know it isn't terribly healthy, but it makes things taste good. I can use spray oil or lightly brush oil on things, but no frying. We have spray olive oil and we can brush on avocado oil. But I will be doing a lot of steaming in foil packets with lots of veggies and herbs and then putting fish on top so the veggie flavors rise up into the fish and the fish juices fall down to flavor the veggies.

DS and I have agreed to eat like this with DD as much as possible. The hardest part for me will be not eating pasta. I can take or leave bread, but I love spaghetti and Ziti and macaroni. I know DH won't eat like us, though he could stand to, but he will refrain from eating the junk she likes but can no longer have in front of her. He'll keep it at work or in the truck.

And speaking of the truck, DH has been using his dad's truck since before his dad died and DH will inherit it once the will is through whatever it has to go through. It doesn't actually have to go through probate here unless it is contested, but it does have to go through official filing and then I think there is a short waiting period. So we are basically a two car family now for the first time in five or six years. Which means our insurance will likely double. We did do our part of the filing, but we are waiting for the state to do its part.

There is a loan on the truck, but MIL will pay it off before we change ownership legally once the life insurance comes through. She has enough to pay off all debts, and because he was still actively employed when he died, though off on disability, she gets his full pension of $3000 a month and she gets social security based on his wages, so she will actually be sitting pretty. Not to mention there is some property in trust between her, her sister, and her brother, so we aren't going to have to worry about her after all.

I guess I will go back to worrying about us instead. *double sighs*

The funeral on Wednesday was beautiful. I was able to speak, which was a good thing, because neither DH nor SIL could manage, though MIL did. I got a lot of compliments on what I said, which was nice, because I did not go in with a prepared speech. I don't like speaking in public, but I didn't feel it could go by without one of us saying something.

My favorite of DH's cousins did not attend. Her grandson, who is only 5, has a brain tumor. They biopsied on Tuesday and found out it is a very aggressive cancer and the tumor was the size of a tennis ball. Wednesday he had the surgery to remove it and they were able to get it all, but they still had to see if it had spread to the bloodstream. I am at such a loss. I am so tired of cancer hitting my family. This year has been a horror.

I am still pretty sick, but Thursday was my worst day. I think I have turned the corner with this cold, but I've been wrong before and gone on a second downswing. Hopefully not this time, though. Unfortunately, both kids are down with it, and DH started sneezing like crazy today. He's dosing on vitamin C. I hope he can keep going, because I am not at the stage where I can do any of the household or farm chores. Well, I did manage to fold one load of towels and one of clothes and then had to rest before I could put them away.

DH's interview was on Friday. He was supposed to be interviewed by two people, but the second one had a death in the family and couldn't be there. So the first guy said he needed to talk to the second guy when he gets back and see if he felt he needed to interview DH, too, or just go based on the first guy's opinion. He wanted to know if DH could start immediately, so I guess that is promising, but I'm not getting my hopes up yet.

DH and I went down to pick up our turkey today. We asked for one in the 13 to 16 pound range when we ordered a few months ago, and it is 15.07 pounds. I also picked up some sausage since we didn't get any with our pork. They had chorizo, which I was excited about, because I've never been able to find a chorizo without some bad additives in it. So one day next week I will make chorizo con huevoes with rice for dinner. Or possibly for breakfast with cauliflower rice.

I also picked up some roasts for canning. The roasts from our beef all have bones in them and I like them for pot roast dinners, anyway. But I want to can some meat for stews and chuck roasts available at the farm have no bones so are easier to cut up. In the winter I like to have stew once a week and we've been out of canned beef for a couple of months now.

We're also going to juice up a bunch of the apples we got when we went to the orchard a while back. I clearly got too many. If I juice it, I can can it and it will be shelf stable. That is a relatively easy task, but it will still have to wait until I feel decent enough to do it.

I was really hoping to do a better job at blogging with daily blogs this month, but I just haven't had the energy, so catch up posts a couple times a week are just going to have to do it for now.

A couple of days ago the nursing home sent FIL to the hospital because he had a rash spreading all over his body. Turns out it is MRSA. And they did a scan of his lungs and the big cancer tumor is now 6 inches and their is a smaller one as well and they are almost completely filling one lung. The other lung is clear. They are talking about putting in a breathing tube. Right now he is just on oxygen, but if it worsens the tube will go in.

I'm not supposed to go up there right now because I have a cold and it is really hard. Same with my daughter. My son was able to go up with DH, though. If it gets worse I may go up anyway with a breathing mask on. And it sounds like it is going to get worse.

In a lot of ways, this is worse than when my own father was dying. His mind had gone years before. But FIL is still completely in his right mind. He is close to giving up because it has just been so hard. It is heart-breaking.

I still don't know what MIL is going to do. She doesn't know how to do anything financially. She's never worked and I don't think she is capable of it. The life insurance will be enough to pay off their house and their regular bills, but I don't know about the hospital bills at this point. We can't afford to take care of them.

Plus, emotionally, I don't know what she will do. They have been married 50 years. At least she is driving again, but that took a lot of doing. She doesn't like to make phone calls and deal with stuff, but she is going to have to.

Oh, plus, their disability insurance is breathing down their necks trying to make them prove that he is disabled beyond the point of working at any job right now. I've complained many times in the past about how sucky Aetna is, but this is a new low. If MIL even knew where the paperwork was for certain things, trying to deal with that wouldn't be so hard.

Please, if you are part of a married couple and one of you is clueless about all the finances and paperwork, have a conference with your spouse and get it so you both understand everything. This is not something you want to be dealing with at death's door.

Please pray for my FIL, MIL, DH, and SIL. Right now is the hardest time of their lives and I am helpless to do a single thing.

I think the phrase reduce, reuse, recycle needs one more addition. Remake. Today I remade a pillow. I have several old flat pillows laying around and I really needed a new big fluffy pillow, because I have to sleep with one between my knees as they are so bad. I've been sleeping with two lately and then one always slips during the night and I wake up.

So I found an old pillow case that was pretty faded and then I cut open a couple of the pillows, pulled out all the batting and proceeded to pull it apart and fluff out the really worn down bits. I stuffed the batting into the old pillow case until it was very full and bulging and then I hand sewed it shut. I made the stitches big enough to be picked out later if I need to add more batting in the future when it gets flattened down again.

I still have several old pillows and some other faded pillow cases, so I can make a few more of these. I don't know why I never threw the pillows out, but I always figured I'd have a use for the batting one day. Maybe for a quilt or something. But this works. Now my daughter wants me to make one for her, too. It maybe took me an hour to pull all the batting apart and stuff the pillow and was easy enough to do while listening to a podcast.

I have something I needed and I didn't have to spend any money for it. Anyone else done something like this lately? How have you remade something or used it in a new way?