Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

The long and short of my appointment with the cardiologist is that I am going in to the hospital on July 7nth for an angiogram, which may or may not turn into an angioplasty or if things are very, very bad when he gets in there, open heart surgery.  But he thinks it is a blockage he can clear or just put a stent in. 

He was concerned enough to get me on the schedule as fast as he could, making an opening for me where there wasn't one, though, on his own schedule since the hospital had a free OR, because the flow rate had dropped from 45% to 43% between appointments with the lung doctor and him, based on the tests I did there and there has been no change in the enlarged chamber.

The risks of the angiogram are stroke, heart attack, and damage to the artery for the big 3 and those are 1 in 1000 risks, and then there are a litter of smaller ones.  But I can't keep living like this.  It's not living.  So if it has 999 out 1000 odds that I'll get through it just fine and improve my quality of life, I want to do that.

Meanwhile he gave me 4 meds to take, nitrogycerin when I feel any squeezing or pain in the heart, baby aspirin, a second blood pressure med with a non-sulfa based diurectic, and a beta blocker.  So that is where I am.  I still tire easily, but I am starting to feel the beta blocker working and am not having as much squeezing.  I don't know if these are forever drugs or not  It still happens, but not just because I change positions.  And I am sleeping better because my heart is not working as hard.  Even my fitbit and my c-pap tracking app agree with that.  So that's as much as I know right now.

So you may or may not have noticed that I haven't posted for a month and there is a reason for that.  I've had a series of tests on my lungs by pulmonary, and the breathing test showed that I couldn't blow out as hard the second blow as the first blow and then we waited and the same thing happened.  There were other test with the breathing and they weren't that great, but the damage wasn't really to the lungs, despite the shortness of breath that had been a near constant and the cough I can't ever seem to get rid of or my oxygen saturation being only 1% above COPD since 2020.

They had previously done two tests on my heart a couple of weeks before the breathing tests.  So I got the results of those as well as of the breathing tests on the day of the breathing tests.

An electrocardiogram (ECG, but sometimes referred to as an EKG) was first.  It was where they put some leads on you and monitor the electrical signals that make the heart beat.  That one was simple and painless and wasn't stressful at all.  

The second was an echocardiogram (you will hear it referred to as an echo on medical dramas) where they stick a transducer wand into your rib cage and press up hard under and into your breast and you really want to smack the technician because it hurts and you think he's going to break something.  I ended up with bruises.  It transmits and recieves sound waves that bounce off the heart and created an image and a sound on the screen.  He was having trouble with it making an image, so they ended up having to inject me with some chemical (gave me hives an hour later, had to take 6 Benadryl) to make it more visible or something.  Then he wasn't digging so hard into me.  It probably isn't so hard with men or flat-chested women.

Anyway, the news wasn't good.  I have an enlarged right chamber of the heart and my left chamber has a flow rate of 45% and it is supposed to be 55%.  She said I may have a blockage and maybe it can be removed or maybe they will have to put in a stent.  First they would have to do a stress test and since I can't do a treadmill test because of the hip and discs in my back, they will have to use chemicals to induce the same thing in me.  Oh, joy, more chemicals.

So they referred me to cardiology and I figured great, that'll be 3 months before I hear from them, because that's how long it took when I had to get the heart monitor and then an additional couple of weeks before I actually got an appointment to get it fitted and it turned out to be a big ball of nothing, even though I was absolutely sure something was going on with my heart.  Because there was, just not something that could be picked up on a monitor, hence me going to pulmonary.

But no, cardiology called me that night with an appointment on the 14th, which kind of freaked me out, because they moved that fast, which made me think it was even more serious than I was thinking, based on how long it took before.  But we were still under Covid restrictions before, so maybe it doesn't mean anything that I got an appointment in two weeks.

Anyway, the pulmonologist thinks the damage was either caused by Covid itself or possibly by a rare side effect of the vaccine I took, which was supposed to be the safest one, since I had these tests done back when I was fainting and my heart was fine then.  That was chocked up to be the aural migraines.  But those two debilitating bouts of Covid and maybe the two minor ones are the more likely causes of the heart thing in my mind. The vaccine could have thrown in its 2 cents worth as well, something about people with autoimmune diseases being more prone to that.  I think.  And I was kind of shocked, you know?

Most of the time when a viral infection damages the heart it does heal with time, but they know so little about Covid still, this version of it that was deliberately made worse and worse so they could study it, but seem to know nothing about the long term effects of it. What little they do know isn't good, she said.  I don't want to jump the gun, but it is hard not to think about it.  I've read some of the reports, because I'd rather go into this with my eyes open.

And it might not be Covid at all.  It could be my rheumatoid arthritis drugs damaging my heart.  Because they can.  So I might have to go off those and just live with constant pain.  Of course, I do anyway, but if I have to go off them, I'll have to live on pain pills and my doctor is super stingy with them.

The only really bright spot lately is that I found a prescribing nurse psychiatrist for my son and he's put him on a higher dose of his meds and they are extended release and he is doing so much better.  Once all this heart stuff is figured out, I will go and see him, too, because my meds are not right, either.

It's a lot.  It's really a lot.  It seems like there are only four or five people left on the blogs anymore.  But if those of you that are left could keep me in your prayers and thoughts, I'd appreciate it.  

Just thought I'd give an update on how my other funds are doing, too.  Some of them are funds that are much shorter term, some of them are long term, and some of them are very long term and won't be included like the medical fund or the garden fund, because those are rolling funds, money in and out constantly, at least at this time of year with the garden fund and always with the medical fund.

$2500 Bulk Meat Fund  This is earmarked for our steer which is due to be butchered in July.  I allowed for a few hundred more than last year since the cut and wrap fee has gone up slightly per pound and the kill fee has gone up $10.

$400.00 Car Maintenance Fund  This is for things like brakes, oil changes, line flushes, wind shield wipers, fluid replacement, air filters, cabin filters, new tires, engine work, etc.  Some of the minor things we do ourselves.  Things that are necessary to make the car run.

$50.00 Car Expenses Fund  These are things like registration with the tabs for the license plates (just got done paying so it is low), paint job, body work, detailing.  Basically cosmetic things that will make the car look nicer, but aren't necessary.  I put registration in here just because I didn't want to make a whole envelope just for it.

$480.00 Fishing Expenses Fund  This fund pays for licenses and gas for fishing.  I am not sure if we are going to be doing any fishing, shrimping, or crabbing this year.  DH has a bad bacterial infection in his leg and it is causing him a lot of pain and swelling. Plus with all the overtime, I don't know if he can take the time off.  So this money may end up getting swept up into the House Expenses Fund.

$1100.00  House Expenses Fund  This covers things like Repairs, Insurance, and Taxes.  Since the latter two are covered for some time yet, everything I am saving here is going towards the bathroom repair.

$600.00 Summer Things Fund  This is for buying a pop up canopy, a propane grill, and eventually, maybe next summer, I'll start saving for a hot tub.  I'm not sure if I'll even buy any of this stuff this year.  The B.C. wildfires have already started and they are sharing their smoke with us down here.  I figured we'd have another month.  Now I don't know if we'll even get the rest of the garden in, because you can't work in that even with masks on.  And with DH's leg, we weren't able to rototill the last patch of land we need for the tomatoes.  And this was supposed to be my big tomato and pepper year.  It's been windy a lot the last couple of weeks so hopefully it will blow this stuff out to sea,

$65.00 Hawaii Trip Fund  This is a far on the horizon trip.  I am not saving large amounts for it at all.  Usually $5 to $10 a payday.  I just want to feel like I'm putting something towards it.  If the bathroom hadn't happened, I was going to start saving up in earnest for this at the start of next year.

$65.00  Electric Vehicle Fund  Like the previous fund, this is a far on the horizon fund.  Both vehicles we have are functioning perfectly and we plan to drive them until they can't drive anymore or the parts to fix them are no longer available.  Or Washington outlaws gas vehicles altogether.  When that time comes I want to be able to purchase a vehicle in cash.  Two would be nice, but by then we might need a truck anymore.  2030 is when we can't buy new gas powered vehicles in my state anymore, but I bet used ones won't be far behind.  Unless there is a very big change in our leadership and we break away from the lockstep of California and Oregon or we get a huge influx of centrists or republicans, I don't see gas powered vehicles continuing on much past 2035 or 2040.  In 2040 I'll be 70 and won't be wanting to drive much anyway and it will probably all be AI driven cars anyway.  But I have to wait for the bathroom to be fixed and I will start saving for this equally with the Hawaii trip.

$60.00  DD's Phone Fund  This is just DD's contributions so far.  I will be contributing, just not yet.  We are doing DS's phone first since his fell apart and he took a loan from MIL to get a new one.  We are contributing $500 towards his and $500 towards hers, but I wasn't expecting it and it wasnt in the budget yet.  Hers was planned for this month, but had to become his.  Hers still works, though, just the battery is only at 50%, but she never goes anywhere when she's not with me and it last through waiting at the doctor's office so she's still good.  I will be able to make my full contribution towards her phone in July and then she will have to save up the rest and add in her birthday money.  To be honest I might contribute more to her, since she doesn't make as much as her brother does doing chores since she is disable and can barely do anything.

$60.00  DS's Phone Fund  Again this is just DS's contribution so far.  I will make a $150 contribution on Friday and then on the payday after that $350, so our contribution will be done in June for him.

$11.00  Furniture Fund  This will start off by going for a new adjustable bed frame and mattress in the full size, and then will go toward a recliner that lifts you to a standing position.  I am downgrading my bed from a king to a full and then will add a recliner.  DH sleeps in his own room because he gets up very early for work and I have bad insomnia, it takes me forever to fall asleep, so if I get woken up that's it for me.  And I can't run on 4 to 6 hours of sleep.  I can barely function on 7 to 8, because even with a c-pap machine I don't get enough sleep.  And he's a tosser and turner which also wakes me up.  So there is just no point in my having a king size bed.

Plus, they have ruined by bed by sitting on it and creating a wallow, so that when I raise the feet it is lopsided.  Also, it is the side of the bed I sleep on, so my legs go down into it and it is hard on my hip.  The other side of the bed is too close to the window and I'd have to walk sideways to get into bed that way and because of my hip I can't walk sideways.  So the wallow is why I want to get the chair, too, so that they can sit in the chair instead of my bed.  Well, and I want it for when I need a change, because of my hip and tailbone.  Then anyone coming in to talk can sit in my computer chair.  It wouldn't be so bad if my husband and daughter didn't weigh so much, but it is a lot of weight to put in one section of the bed, day after day, when beds are meant to have the weight distributed and the foot is usually the weakest part of the bed frame.

Anyway, those are all my current funds.  At least I am earning interest while I save up.  It's still not much, but it is much better than it was.  I don't know if I trust the banks enough yet to put it back into C1-360.  My credit union is nice and safe.  Between these funds and the almost $10,500 of my emergency fund, well, that is a lot to lose for me.  I can't remember if it was last week or the week before when the government seized another failing bank, so that stuff is still going on.  They are keeping it much quieter, but it happened.  So I am still willing to forego the higher paying account for the time being.

I updated my sidebar.  There has been some serious progress made in DH's 401K since the last time I upated retirement and of course that has propelled net worth forward a great deal.  DH has been working 80 hour weeks since the last week of April, so that has doubled his contributions and it has doubled the amount that his work has put in as well.  So 3/4 of the rise is due to contributions.

The rate of return for the year isn't great compared to any time in his working life except the two Obama years in a recession and last year (also was in a far worse recession by definition even though they won't call it one), but it is almost 8% for the year at the moment, which I will happily take over the negative of last year, or the 2% and 3.5% we earned during those two Obama years, which at least were still positive.

I remember how excited I got when our net worth hit $100K and then $150K and now $175K. We will soon be closing in on $200K.  I know they say once you hit the first $100K stuff starts to pile up more quickly, but it is really weird to see it.  Usually at the end of June is when they dump in more company stock, too.  I'm not sure how much DH will get.  You get a certain percentage just for working there, based on how many years you have worked there, but it doesn't vest for 3 or 4 years, and then you get bonus shares on top of it based on how many hours you have worked beyond your regular hours, and how high up in the company you are, if you have gone above and beyond your duties, etc.  And sometimes there are bonus shares if someone has retired and sold back their shares, which you have to do when you retire.

Anyway, DH is now fully vested in both his company stock and his 401K, so it is all his.  He loves his job and he isn't going to leave it, but if he suddenly had to he could roll over the full 401K and sell back the full amount of stock.  That's always a good place to sit.

I also updated the Emergency Fund.  It was off by $500.01.  That was a payment to the mold guy.

I had a great dream last night that my mother won the lottery, the biggest jackpot ever recorded, and we never had to worry about money again.  A nice retirement was assured.  Wouldn't that be piece of mind?

17 years ago today, on April 9, 2006, I started this blog.  I'm sure the time stamps will say it is April 10th since they still haven't got those sorted after several years, but it is indeed April 9, 2023.  Very few of you have been around that long or close to that long.  Fewer than that, still post consistently.  But once in a while a familiar old name will pop up.  And there have been so many new people along the way.  I miss the busy days.

I never thought when I started this blog I'd be where I am today.  Out of debt and with a positive net worth.  I thought this post was going to be longer, more involved, but I haven't really had time today to think it out.  

I just know that I have hit some major milestones in the last few weeks with both net worth and retirement.   Net worth has gone over $200K and retirement that does not include company stock has gone over $100K.  Those are also numbers I never thought I would see, especially with how awful much of 2021 and all of 2022 was.  But we are seeing them.  I hope we will make those losses up.  It's going to take a lot, but we were buying the whole time, and that's what does it after all.  Buy at the lows and you will earn at the highs.

I've learned more than I ever thought I could when I first joined the blogs here.  I just wanted to find a way to keep my head above water and get out of debt.  Now I have a positive net worth.  I didn't even know those existed for people like me.  But they do.  I hope that maybe my struggles to get here have helped some people along the way.  I know that yours have helpled me.

Blessings, my SA family.  We are small, but we are mighty, and I couldn't have done it without all of you.

I've got a longer post planned for tomorrow, since that is a major milestone for me financially, but this morning I hit a personal milestone that I just wanted to share outside my family.  Today I hit a weight I have not seen since 2021 around this time.  In a lot of ways it reminds me of building my first emergency fund of $1000.  And then to have to spend it on an emergency and then to have to build it all over again.

To be honest, I wasn't sure I was ever going to see this weight again just like I wasn't ever sure I could ever build that fund back.  I mean, in the course of things, it's 23 pounds lost since the beginning of the year, but it is a barrier that has been crossed.  Instead of the middle number on the scale being above a 5 it is now a 4 and that is a major psychological boost going forward.  And I did get that fund rebuilt, faster than I had expected, because this time I had a bigger reason.  The numbers hadn't lied to me in either case and I had numbers I was striving for.  Seeing them was fantastic.

It is a boost I've needed.  Honestly, the days creep along and you feel you are going nowhere, but I have been.  It's been 14 weeks and I've lost 23 pounds.  That's an average of 1.6428 pounds a week, which is well under what it is safe for me to lose, according to my doctor.  I want to lose 2 pounds a week.  Dropping it to 45g of carbs, I lost 3 pounds this week.  I might have to alternate days at 60 with days at 45, because I don't want to go so fast my skin isn't absorbed by my body.  Last week I was too lazy to make veggies and my weight didn't really move much.  It's a tight rope walking act and I have to not only walk on the rope, I also have to carry the balance bar.

Just like with finances.  You have to have the budget, but then you have to follow through on it with it on paying your bills, keeping your emergency fund intact, and following your spending and saving plans.  I don't know when I will ever get my Emergency Fund back up above $20K.  I know that the bathroom rebuild will have to come first, though.  We won't hit financial ruin or anything, we'll pause if we need to.  I won't drop it below one month's income for anything.

As for the rest, I have put my body and my diet and my blood sugar firmly on the front burner, because leaving it on the back burner for everyone else come first as long as I did, nearly sent me down the path to death.  I have to be selfish enough to take care of myself well, so that I can be here to help other people learn to take care of themselves to the best of their abilities.

We did two grocery shops in the last 3 days.  One was on Friday, which was payday and one was a smaller one today.  Both had items I needed to stock up on.  The items at Fred Meyer had some sales that if you bought five you could get them at a discount, so some of the quantities will seem high.  The large amount of avocado oil from Costco is so we can replace the oil in our fryer and also we are low on the bottle we use for cooking.  The fryer takes 2 1/2 bottles of oil.  We do run our oil through a filter to make it last longer and we top it off as well with the other 1/2 bottle of oil.  We never cook raw foods in it, either.

We have been using canola, which I hate to use, because they didn't have avocado in stock for a long time, at least not in the big bottles that didn't cost as much as the little glass bottles.  I couldn't find sunflower oil, either, though I prefer not to use oil at all.  Mom doesn't like it when I use lard, even though the stuff we have has no smell.  My daughter is allergic to coconut products, and we don't like the way the oil makes the food taste, either, even the super refined stuff.  Anyway, here is what I purchased at each store.

Large pack of organic blackberries at $5.99

3 4-packs of organic broccoli steamer bags @ $9.39 each

1 mega pack of 10" flour tortillas @ $7.39

4 bottles of avocado oil @ $19.99 each

1 jug of pure organic maple syrup @ $11.99

1 large pack of organic red grapes @ $7.99

1 large organic ceaser salad kit @ $8.99

1 bag of mixed color bell peppers (6) @ $9.39

Total money spent from Grocery Envelope: $159.74

My son wants to eat a lot more broccoli for his meal prepping, so that's why all the broccoli.  And I've been eating a lot more salad and so has DS and DH, so the giant salad kit is more appropriate.  We can go through one of the smaller bags from the grocery store in one meal, so at least this one will last a few days.  And the dressing only has 1g of carbs per serving in it.  DH leaves me the dressing and he has 1000 Island dressing that we buy, which is still pretty low in carbs, but is like 4g per serving.  DS using green goddess that we buy from the store as well.  Peppers go on the salad or in the stir fries.  The blackberries are for me, as they are a good fruit for diabetes, even though I am only borderline, I have to watch it with what I choose and berries are one of the best choices.  The syrup is for DS's protein pancakes and DH's toaster waffles, and the grapes are for my daughter.

Now on to the larger shop at Freddy's.  This included some non grocery items, which are grouped together at the top.

5 6-packs of Puffs tissues with lotion @ $8.99 a pack, minus $2.00 off per pack

6 3-packs of Rubbermaid Takealong containers for meal prepping @ $4.99 each

5 bottles of Palmolive Free and Clear dishwashing liquid @ $2.99 a bottle minus 50¢ per bottle

1 double size bottle of Dawn dishwashing liquid for Mom @ $6.49

4 t-bone steaks value pack for $23.58, marked down from $30.16

4 t-bone steaks value pack for $25.87, marked down from $33.64

3 pounds Kroger ground turkey @ $10.99

1 Cook's ham @ .99/lb for $5.83

1 Cook's ham @ .99/lb for $6.02

2 Hass avocados @ $1.98

2 Franz Extra Crispy English Muffins 2/$5

1 6 pack organic microwave popcorn $4.49

1 jar McClure's garlic dill pickles $11.99 (Very clean, no food dyes)

6 zucchini $5.20

2 cucumbers $1.58

Fresh green beans $1.81

1 8 oz can Herdez spicy red salsa $1 It was $10 for $10, but I've never tried the hot before.  The medium is good, but a little mild so I was thinking about mixing a large bottle with a small can to get it somewhere in the middle and see if I like that more or if I like the hot just as hot.

5 large bottles of Herdez medium red salsa $2.19.  I'm saving something, but the  receipt is weird there.  It says I'm saving $1.30, but then it says I'm also saving a $1 by doing the $5 for $5 event.  So maybe it was already on sale, and then there was an additional sale.  Anyway the total per jar is $2.19.

2 5 lb bags of organic mandarins @ $6.99 each saving $1 per bag

1 bunch bananas

Around1 pound organic uncured Canadian bacon from the deli @ $12.83

Around 1 pound organic pepperoni @ $13.51

1 loaf McKenzie Farms Buttermilk Bread @ $5.99

Total Money Out: $258.00

I chose the round up the change for the food bank option, which was only 15¢ this time, so other was the toal would have been $257.11

Total Money Saved: $82.11

Amount from Grocery Envelope at Fred Meyer: $165.68 (not taxed)

Amount from Household Envelope sepent at Fred Meyer: $91.43 (includes tax)

Total grocery money spent so far this pay cycle:  $325.42

That leaves me with $154.98 until May 12th, but they've been deposting the paycheck early lately.  Instead of the 31st, we got it on the 29th.  The time before that, we got it on the 16th instead of the 17, the time before that the 1st instead of the 3rd and it's been weird like that since before Thanksgiving.  The official payday has not changed, but the deposit has been in our account early almost every time.  I think there has only been once it was actually deposited on the day.  I didn't shop until Friday.  I am trying to keep it Friday to Friday, just in case they suddenly go back to Fridays.

I am waiting for the hot sheet to come out tomorrow at the restaurnant supply store.  Most of the time there is very little change in a two week period, but there can be one or two items that are new and I am hoping for either potatoes or carrots, so I can can them.  But tomatoes will do.  They go on very good sales there, so I can buy them and still have some money left to buy things like salad kits and fresh fruit.

Anyway, that's my tracker for now.  Hope it is helpful to someone to see what the prices are in a high cost of living area.

I am going into April with a positive mindset, because nothing can be as annoying as March was.  Everything broke in March except me.  The microwave quit working.  2 of the jars of potatoes I canned after I came out of my episode detailed below had the bottoms fall off and make a mess all over both canners.  They were 1976 jars so were old, but they've held up for a long time.  I think I will have to buy new jars this year.  My daughter fractured a bone in her foot, sprained both ankles, and hurt her knee and her hip in a fall when she lost her balance trying to kill a spider.

My son had a depressive spiral because the Adderall shortage means he goes 4 or 5 days every month without his medication, so withdrawal.  You can only renew those meds 2 days before they run out because they are a controlled substance, but it takes a week to fill orders because the pharmacy can only get one shipment a week and it goes to whoever has it backordered first.  It is screwing with a lot of people who have ADHD.  So that triggered his BP disease and he went down dark for a couple weeks.   And the government isn't allowing more of the medication to be made right now, because they suck and want to interfere with everything all the time.

Back to things that are broken.   One of the electrical outlets quit working.  And a giant tree branch from the neighbor's cedar tree broke off and fell on our swinging bench and broke the back of it.  It was old and I was thinking about getting a new one or replacing the slats on the old one with something stronger, although the bathroom rebuild derailed that for this year, but still.  Oh, and the plastic over the bathroom ceiling filled up with water and had a dead mouse in it, so we had to have someone come set poison out in the rafters because none of us can do it.

And we called the roofer to check for a leak and there was a loose shingle near a vent pipe, so he fixed it and put some sealing stuff around the pipe.  20 year warranties are so worth it.  So just one thing after another.  Hopefully the stuff put up there to keep mold from forming again works, because I hate to think the work that was done was undone by this stupid leak. 

I had my first full blown manic episode in years.  It lasted 3 weeks.  I've had a day or two of mania here and there, but not the full on psychosis with hallucinations and delusions.  I've never had it like that.  I mean I've hallucinated with migraines, but that was only visual and it was just colors and auras.  I've never heard voices or seen scary things.  Usually I just have a ton of energy and creativity.  The doctor upped my med by 100mg and I am fine now.  My husband had a field day dealing with two BP people at opposite ends of the disease at the same time, poor guy.

There is one positive from March in that I hit the losing 20 pounds mark.  No, actually there is two.  My last glucose blood test was 100.  99 is normal, so just one point away.  My doctor is really pleased with me, since I started at 139 and it has gone down so much with this diet.  That really helps me say I am just going to will positivity into April.

DH and I spent a lot of time yesterday planning out the fencing for Garden 2 along with where the gate placement will go.  It will have two gates, one on either side of the house.  That will be the first priority, because it will have the foods most likely to be eaten by dear.  The second priority will be fencing half of Garden 1 and putting in two gates there.  While I would like to fence all of Garden 1, that will be a longer term project and we have cages that go over the beds there.

So we will have a big expense with buying the 2 x 4's and 4x4's needed for the fencing and a big roll of chicken wire (150 feet), which is cheaper than fencing wire.  Wood prices have come down, but not as much as I would like, especially for treated lumber.  Then we will need 2 gate framing kits and the 2x2's for the gate, plus wood for the frame, plus a cattle panel to cut in half to make archway's to put the frames and gate in.  Plus I will need 8 more cattle panels so we can have a total of three rows of arched treillises.  We have 4 already.

I've been saving a lot of money for the garden projects.  I have $875 saved and once I go to Costco to get my rewards from my Costco Citi credit card, I will have an additional $898.  The 34¢ will just go in the coin jar.  So a total of $1773.  My MIL has a check for me for $30, not sure why, but she is giving us all $30 checks, and of course every payday I add my spending money of $50 to the garden fund so it grows.  I don't spend my spending money on anything.  The garden is where I get most of my enjoyment in life.  It's my hobby during spring, summer, and fall, so it is where my personal money goes.

If we need to we will spend the tax refund money on it, too.  DH still hasn't done our taxes so I am not sure what our refund will be, just that we are getting one.  We won't be able to deduct medical for 2022 as we didn't exceed the percentage needed to do so.  We probably will for 2023, though.  We did tithe 10% and contribute 15% to retirement, which helped lower our taxes quite a bit.  This year we are doing 16% and once we are dong saving up for the bathroom repair, I'd like to up it a little more.  Eventually, I want to get it to the point where we are maxing out the 401K and then using any extra money to put into Roth IRA's.

Or at least buy some solid dividend stocks.  I'd like to buy more Louisiana Pacific, because the quarterly dividend has gone up consistenly in the last 2 years despite the stock market being erratic and before that it was nice and level at least.  I'd like to get some other reliable dividend stocks like Coca Cola and other blue chips.  I also wouldn't mind saving up a year's income in the Emergency Fund and for a vacation to Hawaii.

Of course I'm already saving up for a vacation to Hawaii.  That envelope has a whopping $35 in it.  My electric vehicle fund also has $35 in it.  I know those are far future goals, but I am trying to put small amounts in there.  When they get a big enough amount of money in them I will create sub accounts at the bank and transfer them in.  I don't like keeping a lot of money in the house, except some emergency money in the ammunition safe I inherited from my dad, which has enough room for my budget binders, too, so none of my envelopes sit out. 

We are going to have to buy or make a lot of tomato cages, though, since I plan on planting 30 tomato plants this year.  Maybe more if I have the space.  I need to can a lot of tomato sauce and I'd rather grow than buy tomatoes for it, since organic tomatoes are expensive.  Since they are a dirty dozen food, I'd really rather have organic.

I have 4 aluminum raised bed kits that will be shipping mid-April.  So far the shipping labels have been printed for 3 of them.  I really hope they aren't waiting on the fourth one befor they ship.  I really wanted to get another 2, but I am not sure I will have the money for it this year with all the fencing needed.  It may have to wait a year.

The deer have been a real problem already.  I had two really big, pregnant does standing in one of my raised beds a couple days ago.  My raised beds are two feet tall.  I don't know what the heck they thought they were doing.  These are probably the same ones who were bedding down in my onions last year.  It was the same bed.  And they are leaving scat all over the back yard.  I've almost stepped in it about 5 times.

I need to put the cages back on the beds, but the stakes that held them in place have wandered off so I need to find them.  I'm sure DH took them for some other project and forgot to put them back.  He is really bad at putting things back where he found them or where they belong.  Tape measures are his biggest issue.  We have 5 tape measures and they each have a designated spot.  2 in the house and 3 in the garage.  Are they ever in their spots?  Nope.  I had to buy my own screwdriver set and keep it in my room, because he lost most of the house set.  I don't let him borrow it.

I hope to get the fencing up before the deer decide to have their babies in my yard.  I don't want to freak out mother or scare them away from their fawns.  It's not overgrown back there this year, though, so it is far less likely.  No places to hide.  And we will be taking down the apple tree, so there will be no late fall source of food, either, to attract them back.  Without anything to eat, hopefully they will find another yard to bother.

We will work on more fencing throughout the summer and fall and try to get the entire area that is currently in gardens and the area that will be turning into gardens in the next year or two completely fenced off.  I don't think I will be able to contribute too much more money to the project this year.  I am saving up for the steer still.  I have $1470 and I want to have $2500 just to be on the safe side.  It will probably be closer to $2200.  I need it by July.  Whatever I don't need will be rolled over into the bathroom rebuild fund, which currently has $450.

I may borrow from the Emergency Fund just so we can get the walls and ceiling put up, painted, the lighting and electric turned on, the ceiling fixture picked out, the flooring put in, and the sink cabinet and sink and toilet put in.  And a new door, but that can probably wait a while.  We double checked with the mold guy and he said he didn't detect any mold on the door.  But it is very warped so eventually it will get changed.

Doing the shower can definitely wait.  I'll buy all the tile at once, though, so that if they discontinue it, I'll still have it for the shower.  We changed our minds on the tile design we want, though.  We found something we liked better and it was cheaper, too.  I am still looking to see if I find anything I like better, since we sitll have time.  DH is building the sink cabinet and we want a new sink, not to put the ugly old one that my mother picked out back on.  But that is not too expensive, I've priced the one I want.  I'm still trying to find a faucet that I like, though.  I might just go with a kitchen faucet instead of a bathroom one, because they have a nicer selection and it will be taller for a basin sink.

Well, that about wraps it up.  After not posting for a month, I wrote a book.

Let's see if it works from Edge.  Because it isn't working from Chrome.

Testing

I am just so sick of it all.  Everything.  Just every darn thing.  One after another after another.  Murphy can just be drawn and quartered and whipped and boiled and hung from the neck until dead and take his stupid law with him to the grave.  We cannot catch a break.  Every time it looks like we will, like we are getting ahead, like we will have a little extra money to start saving for some big goals and a real family vacation, we get slammed by something else and we were already slammed really hard this year with the black mold.  Fighting to keep our heads above water just seems so useless.

If I have to go back into debt over having to buy a new furnace because this company will not do their job properly after five or six service calls so far this winter, I swear I will go catatonic.  And now they don't want to honor their contract.  Nowhere in the contract does it limit visits per year or per contract.  Lifetime free service waranty my a--.  

The last of the black mold has been removed from the attic and the area was all treated, so I just need to transfer $782 from the emergency fund to pay the credit card and that part of the black mold disaster is over and we can decide whether or not it is worth it to submit a claim to the insurance or not.  The new policy starts April 1st and the rates went up $200, so it will not cost $1000 a year instead of $800.  The year before that they were $600.  Way to go Washington state insurance commissioner, looking out for the people, as always.

There has never been a claim submitted on this homeowner's insurance in all the decades my mom has had it, but we just know they will jack the premiums to kingdom come if we put in a claim.  So we need to figure out if it will be worth it.  So far, the costs have been close to $6000, but the insurance may not pay the $850 for the dumpster rental, so maybe $4550.

Then there will be the cost of replacing the bathroom that was torn out and they will pay the minimum they can get away with, so it will probably be the cheapest sink, cabinet, shower/tub, walls, paint, flooring, toilet, light fixture, door, water resistant drywall, etc. on the market they will reimburse, not what we will actually spend on it.  We can't actually put a shower/tub combo in, because the house was built around the original one and you can't fit one through the doorway, even with the door and frame off.

So we will have to do a tile shower that runs the area the old combo was in, because the way the space is set up, you can't put in a corner shower and get into it without blocking the toilet the one way or climbing over the toilet to get into the shower the other way.  It is a small bathroom.  And if we put it in straight, we'd have to build a wall, making the shower area two narrow for a fiberglass one and also being right up against the toilet, which violates building codes.  A tile shower will be better in keeping mold at bay anyway.  I don't know if they will pay for any tile, and definitely they won't pay for the price of the tile we want, but anything towards it would be good.

Then they will want to know why we can't use the old toilet and the old sink.  Which we could use the old sink, but the cabinet that held it was infected with mold, so we'd have to get a custom made cabinet which would cost more than a new sink and regular cabinet.  And the toilet needed to be replaced, so we might be out on that one.  But they had to cut up the shower/tub to get it out.

I'd say if they will pay $8,000 or so then it is worth it for the claim, but otherwise, probably not.  There is $1000 deductible, so we are out that regardless.  I am hoping to cash flow some of this.  I don't want to run the emergency fund into the ground.  I'd be happy to get the bathroom finished enough to have the the flooring, sink, and toilet in, and the walls painted, and then we can use it while we wait on the shower until we have the money to start working on that.

This was really not the way I wanted to start out the new year.  It's not all bad, though.  My son had his sinus surgery and it went way better than the doctor expected.  The doctor had thought that at the most he would have a 40% tops improvement in his breathing, but he wouldn't know until he got in there.

Well, when he got in there, though, there was a lot more cartilege to work with than he thought and he was able to repair the collapse with that and barely had to use any artifical cartilege at all.  They didn't even have to pack it.  The doctor is confident that he should see somewhere from 90 to 100% improvement.

Tomorrow will be one week out and even though his nose is still swollen, he is breathing so much better.  He can take the tape off tomorrow.  We won't know if it has changed the shape of his nose or not until all the swelling goes down, but the doctor seemed to think it would just make him symmetrical again.  We go back in another 3 weeks for a follow up,  and since it will be his birthday we will stop at the Red Lobster on the way home for his birthday dinner.  It'll be the first time I've set foot in a restuarant in...well, I can't even remember when.  I need to remember to put that in the next budget.

So the grocery ads are an abysmal flop this week.  I mean there is a possibility that there is a good sale on Ribeye steaks at Freddy's this week, as it is 50% off, but they don't tell you off of what price.  I hate it when stores do that.  They just want you to go there and find out.  Especially when there is no other reason to go there.  It is on DH's way home from work, so he will stop in and check for me tomorrow.  If it is a good price we will buy a value pack, because we do a like a good steak once 3 to 4 weeks, but I'm not willing to jump through hoops to get them.  If they are what I consider a decent price then I will give him some grocery money and he can pick them up on Friday.

So, with the bad ads in mind, I went back and looked through the fridge and the backup fridge and realized I don't need as much as I thought I did.  I just need some green onions, lettuce, tomatoes, fresh cilantro and parsley, 5 or 6 carrots, and 2 turnips.  Maybe some zucchini or yellow squash if they look good and aren't dinky and fresh green beans if they look good, frozen if they don't.  I still have plenty, and I mean plenty, of onions, garlic, and potatoes that I grew myself, as well as cucumbers, radishes, a giant parsnip, a puple cabbage, 3 carrots, a bunch of celery, a jalapeño, a fennel bulb, and 9 bell peppers (6 for stuffing, 2 for fajitas, 1 for pizza).

As for fruit, we have 9 lemons, but I plan on making lemonade with 8 of them, 1 lime, 6 pears, but 1 is questionable, 2 avocados, and 2 Pink Lady apples.  I plan to buy some sweet apples since those are tart for making curries, and a case of oranges since these will probably be the last oranges of the season before they start being not very good again.  Maybe some bananas or possibly something else if anything has a good price and depending on where it is from.

For staples, I need yellow cornmeal and unbleached pure cane sugar.  For seasonings I need sweet paprika, smoked paprika, and Hungarian paprika.  I'll only get one this week.  Spices have skyrocketed.  Maybe I'll just get the sweet.  I'll probably have to order the Hungarian anyway, but I am on an Amazon freeze this month.  I also need a big container of Italian seasoning.  I need a big container of fine grain pink Himalayan sea salt, but that will probably have to be ordered, too, and it can wait until next month as I just filled the large shaker up with the last of my old container.

We are good on cheeses and yogurt and peanut butter.  Well, I might need an 8 oz brick of extra sharp cheddar.  I forgot to check for that.

I have a vague idea of what I'll be planning for suppers this week, but I'll sit down and flesh it out tomorrow morning.  It's late and I need to get to bed.

Real time: 12:45 a.m. PDT Real Date: 2/9/2023

Have you ever had one of those mornings where even making toast seems like too much work?  I swear if I don't start getting more than 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night, I'm going to go to become a Mombie zombie.  But life went on and toast was avoided and eggs were made and cucumbers sliced and life was brought back into this tired lady's veins.

The grocery ads came out today and I will sit down with them and see what meals I can plan around them.  I don't need to buy meat unless they have some tremendous sale or the have steelhead trout at a reasonable price because we love that.  Mostly, I just want to see what fresh produce is on sale and if there are any sauces that might trigger some dinner ideas.  I am so bored of the usual meals.  I want something more exotic and flavorful without being so spicy that my daughter can't eat it.

I can't exactly make February a no eating out challenge since my son has his surgery in Seattle and then has a follow up appointment a week later, but that will just be DS and DH.  DS can't eat before surgery and will probably only want a milkshake afterward, if he doesn't sleep the whole way home from the after effects of anesthesia.  My husband will need lunch and maybe dinner on that day.  On the follow up day they can eat before they go, but they will need at least one meal on the trip.  I know they can pack food, but it is a hassle they would prefer to avoid and we don't currently have a cooler.  But it won't be out of our pocket, because MIL pays for all travel expenses related to medical visits to Seattle for us.  She even pays for the hotel if we have to stay down there, so that takes a big burden from us since we have to go down there so often for our daughter.

Every other day of February I want to do no eating out.  We have to tighten our belts if we are going to get that bathroom rebuilt the way we want it to be, which also means no more willy-nilly Amazon purchases.  They all have to be perfectly planned and budgeted for.  Speaking of Amazon purchases, my new set of pans came and I love them.  We seasoned them and they are working so nicely.  The instructions were garbage, so we followed the advice of someone in the reviews and it worked a treat.  I am so glad I returned the other pan and bought these.  They weren't expensive, but I think I will be very happy with them.  So far I have only cooked veggies and eggs in them.  I'll get back to you after I have made meat in them.

Anyway, time to go look at the ads and then make up a meal plan.  Remember when I used to do those?  I knew my motivation was around here somewhere.

It's been a long several days, but we got to come back to our house on Saturday and it was so nice sleeping in our own beds again.  Next time we will definitely spring for the nicer hotel with hopefully better beds, but we did not know how long we were going to have to stay away for and there isn't really any family we can stay for that is set up for more than one person and still be near DH's work, and of course the kids had doctor appointments.  Thankfully, it was not too many days.

I was just grateful the city was able to put us in touch with someone so quickly.  One day it was just some weird orange mildew on the ceiling and the next week there were black splotches creeping down the walls.  We had to have the floors and walls completely gutted.  We had been planning on replacing the toilet anyway and the shower/tub combo had to come out because we had to see if there was mold behind it.  The sink, cupboard the held the sink, and the cabinet the held the mirror all had to come off, because the wood was probably infected with mold spores.  We will also have to be replacing the door and frame and all the trim.

Fortunately the floor tested negative for mold spores.  The floor was a little squishy around where the toilet had been from the leak we were going to replace the cracked toilet for (we had caulked it), so we will have to replace about 1 foot of floor, but so much better than it could have been.  All of the studs in the walls are free of mold.  They put the stuff that is supposed to keep mold from growing on it onto it.  Mold remediation alone is $1500 and tear out was on top of that.  We had to go half and half with Mom on it and our share is $1925, but some of that was dumpster rental, which I think was $850, but we have it for the month, so we can finish filling it up and there are a lot of things around here that can go.

Anyway, the costs are a big Ouch.  That'll be quite a hit to our emergency fund, but I don't know what bigger emergency there is than getting black mold out of the house.  Bad news is there is still more, but it is up in the crawl space.  It is closed off from the rest of the house and it is where the roof leak was that my mom refused to believe was a roof leak for two weeks and blamed on my son's showers being too long just causing the vent to drip water, at least until the storm that caused a five gallon bucket to half fill with water in six hours.  So that has quietly been growing for a couple years

That will have to get fixed next.  The guy said it wasn't too bad, but since it had to be a separate job, it would be at least another $1500, plus taxes, but it can be completely taken care of by mold remediation, nothing will have to come out.  It's just a flat fee of $1500 per job.  Sucks, but it's not a DIY thing and we did do a quick shop around and most places were higher and the city did not recommend those and honestly, neither did a lot of the congregator websites.  Most reviews and the city said the others did shoddy work and these people guarantee their work for 10 years barring further roof leaks.  So for us, that will be $750 more.

It's rough when we were just starting to put money back into the Emergency Fund, but we have to do what we have to do.  I am not going to use my spending money that I have been saving for a year and last year's and this year's birthday money and my Christmas present money on this.  Everyone else got to spend theirs through the whole year and I have given up my stuff for other people too many times when I am saving for a goal and I am not going to give it up for this.  So I am making other plans to try to cash flow some of this without taking too much from the EF.  I can stop contributing to it, but I want to not pull too much.  So for Feburary I will at least have that $500.

I have already made plans to purchase a beef in July so I am locked into that, so I can't change that.  I have to keep putting money away for that.  He is charging the same amount per pound this year as last.  He put away plenty of his own hay last year so he did not have to buy any feed, so his prices have remained stable.  Kill fee, cut and wrap have gone up, but I know how by how much, so I can budget that and it allows me to figure out where else in the budget I can pull from.  This is from things that are primarily wants that we were finally going to get to this year.

In March I was going to save $650 towards a propane grill and put $500 for the Emergency Fund.  That $1150 will go towards the bathroom.  April is a three paycheck month.  The plan there was $500 to go to the Emergency Fund and $2000 to go for the first family vacation since 2013 (I think).  What's one more year on the vacation? *sighs*  So that's $2500 more for the bathroom.  So far we are $3650.  In May the plan was to spend $850 on outdoor summer furniture and $500 to the Emergency Fund or $1350.  Now our total is $5000.  In June I would have put $500 towards the family vacation, $500 towards the Emergency Fund, and $638 towards a Snowblower.  That brings us to $6638.

I think we can manage on that, but I know these things always run high.  If worst comes to worst, we will get the walls and ceiling built and mudded and paid for.  That will keep the house solid again.  DH can do the light switch and the light and we can take off the door and frame.  Then the people who screwed up the paint last time and caused part of the problem with the orange mildew and doing mold remediation incorrectly (or possibly not at all as the new people said they saw no evidence of it being done) will be coming back to repaint it for free, which will seal the room.  We can pick out a light fixture and be done with that.

Our next priority will be to get the plumbing, floor tiling, toilet, sink, shower pan, and shower floor tiling done.  I'm not quite sure in what order that has to go with the floor tiling and the toilet and sink plumbing, but I know the shower pan has to be installed by a plumber.  We have the tile picked out for the shower walls and the tile picked out for the bathroom floor and shower floor which match and I have picked out the sink vessel I want and am narrowing down the faucet.  A vessel sits on top of a cabinet instead of down inside it like a traditional sink.

DH is going to build the cabinet for the vessel to sit on, so we can have something solid instead of the easily breakable cardboard and not really wood stuff they make these things out of today.  And it will have a sturdy roll out step stool in the bottom, because my son and husband use that bathroom the most and would like a taller sink to wash up in.  They have some beautiful non-wood-colored stains these days if I can't find a natural wood finish I like.  One of the bathrooms and the main kitchen have solid wood pine cabinets with a pine varnish already, but I'm not sure if that is the look I am going for.  I don't want to do white, but I need something that will go really well with the blues and greens of the sink.

It's going to take a lot of time, but as long as we get it to where we can use the toilet and the sink, the rest can take time.  There are still three other bathrooms in this house.

I'm and doing okay on the eat from the pantry challenge.  In 19 days we have only spent $27.32 on fresh produce and a half gallon of milk, which are within the parameters of my challenge.  Also within the parameters of my challenge are that if I find a really good sale on something, I can buy it, but I can't use it during the challenge.  That's okay, because I don't want to.  Most of it is for canning, the rest to be eaten during the next 3 months or so.

Some really good sales have come up.   One involes 25 pounds of carrots that works out to .67/lb and the other is 20 lbs of tomatoes that works out to .88/lb.  I still need to can carrots and I'd like to make some more tomato sauce to can.  Now that I am feeling better I want to get on with it.  I may go back a couple of times if I feel like I can get through it.  The sale ends on Sunday and then a new one will go up on Monday.  This is at the restaurant supply store.  It is cash only.

Plus there is a really good sale on chicken thighs and I want to stock up.  Chicken is the major thing I am lacking in my freezer and so far it isn't being rationed.  I am down to 3 packages of bone in skin on, and one package of boneless skinless.  We like to eat chicken twice a week.  I want to stock up while it is on sale and before they start putting rations on it, too.

They've already put rations on eggs, milk, distilled water when they even have it, certain cuts of beef, some fresh fruit, like last week they had bags of oranges, but you could only get one and they didn't have any loose oranges, and some of the, canned goods most notably corn, peas, mixed corn and peas, beans, and several types of chili.  Dry beans was one but they had 2 pound bags instead of 1.  Rice was not rationed.  Some things they don't have at all.  Others they only have frozen. Makes me glad we are expanding the garden this spring.

Friday is payday and I think I will go in on Friday and get 8 packages and then send DH in on Saturday to get 8 packages and we'll break them down into vacuum sealed bags of 8 pieces and see how much room we have left.  8 packages is how much I can take before I start getting side-eyed and commented on, even though there is usually a ton of chicken left with these sales.  Since the store is close, it's not a big deal to go there a few times.

Honestly, I want to go back until there isn't room in the upright freezer, but I want to make sure there is plenty for other people, too.  I want to do a third run, but I don't know.  If I decide to, I should take a bag of spot prawns out to thaw.  We have two big plastic bags full of ziploc bags of spot prawns taking up a lot of space.  That should give us a lot of room for chicken.  I don't want to start filling up the chest freezer, because we need to be making space there for when we get our next steer.  Maybe I'll pop in on Tuesday, the last day of the sale and get some.  Then others will have had the whole week to get chicken and I won't feel like a hog.  Still, I have to shop economically to feed my family with food prices going up so high.  There is nice and then there is foolish.

I mentioned above that distilled water was one of things being rationed here, assuming you could even find it.  We are lucky to have a few gallons of it at the moment and we are keeping an eye out for more.  We use it for our c-pap humidifiers and I use it for nasal rinses, so it is kind of a necessity for us.  So I am going to work into the budget for late February or early March, a distilling machine so we can make our own distilled water.  It takes about 4 hours to do a gallon of water.  So we can easily refill our gallon jugs and not have to worry about these shortages.  It'll cost around $150, so it'll take 150 uses to pay for itself, and we go through a jug every week if I have a cold, otherwise it'll last 2 weeks.  So it could take a while to pay for itself, but we will never have to worry about it for the life of the machine.

I have decided to just get a cheap frying pan for now and save up for a more expensive set later on.  At least the one I am getting is supposed to be rated to 500 degrees and our induction burner doesn't go any higher than that, so hopefully DH can't kill it.  He usually cooks stuff at 375 or 400, but the pans he ruined were only rated for 350.  I am getting the Blue Diamond one, which is under $30.

In other news, I have now lost 15 pounds.  I haven't exactly been on my diet, either.  I don't eat as much since having Covid, though.  I think my stomach shrank during that time.  I think just eating food at home for 19 days, eating from scratch mostly, trying to cut way back on my sugar and wheat, eating more vegetables and protein, and always taking a lactase enzyme when I eat dairy, even butter, has made a difference.  The enzyme is new in the last three weeks and has made a big difference in how I feel.  I no longer wake up nauseous in the morning if I had cheese at night trying to calm down an acid stomach because it always has, but I didn't know it would make my stomach hurt the next day, too.  I haven't had an acid stomach in weeks, though.

I haven't had much dairy, in a long time anyway.  I don't drink milk, I've been using gluten free flour and chicken broth instead of milk to make gravy for a long while, and I've had very little cheese, just a sprinkle on salads once a week, but I used to snack on it like crazy.  I will have cheese if I make pizza, but that's maybe once a month and mozzarella isn't so bad as others, the process takes out most of the lactose.  So most of the time butter is the only dairy I eat these days and I feel a lot better for it.  Or I eat goat or sheep's cheese because they don't have lactose.  Goat butter is good, but too expensive to be a real option.  I may try ghee since it takes out the milk solids.  They sell that by the tub at Costco.

I am still eating fruit, but I have really cut back on how much, just one serving a day and not even every day, because I know that fructose can be just as bad as sugar to someone who is borderline diabetic.  I am trying to stick to things with a lot of fiber though, like apples, oranges, and berries.  The first two are at least seasonal.  Blueberries are on sale a lot right now.  I know they are coming from Chile, but they are one of the better choices.  The apples are coming from cold storage in my state and the oranges are from California.

I am meeting with my doctor on the 26th to talk about the diabetes stuff some more and have a weight check.  I am just glad that my scale at home and the scale there are in sync with each other, so there will be no surprises if I weigh myself at home in the same clothes I will wear to the doctor's office.  We will also talk about a couple of my meds while I am there and maybe going on metformin as well.  I hate to add another medication as I am on so many already, but if it will help it may be inevitable.  What I don't want is to have to start checking my blood sugar.  I need to call about whether I need to get a new glucose test before my visit.  If I do, I really hope it has improved with all the changes.

My back has started feeling better with all the changes, which is really nice because I haven't been to the chiropractor in several weeks, not since my chiropractor had to have a triple bypass.  It'll probably be sometime in March before he can come back to work and it'll probably be just one day a week to start.  He's doing well, though.  We worry about him.  I've known him for 32 years, my husband for 35, and my kids their whole lives.  They call him Uncle Dr. ______.  He lives so healthy, but it is the family history.  He had problems about ten years ago, too.  Scared us to death back then, too.  At least they caught it in time, though.  His wife takes good care of him.  She's five years younger and in very good health.  She looks 15 years younger than she is.

I took DD to the gastro doctor today.  It was time for her yearly check.  They are going to send her for an ultrasound because she is having pain in the same place where they removed the tumor.  I'm not sure why they are doing an ultrasound instead of an MRI like they were doing before, but whatever. The fear is the tumor has grown back on her liver and is bleeding.  The tumor isn't supposed to hurt unless it starts bleeding.  She hasn't had an MRI since her surgery and I always thought it was the plan to do one a year after her surgery, but that didn't happen because of the issues back with Covid and hospitals, and she wasn't in pain so they pushed it.  Then she kept getting sick.  After that, I guess it got forgotten in the shuffle and the order expired and then they wanted to see her again before they did anything and now they just want to do an ultrasound, so I don't know.  It was an exhausting appointment.  It lasted over an hour.

But their new building is very pretty.  Their handicapped parking leaves a lot to be desired.  I don't think it should be compact parking slots when most handicapped people using van accessible slots have, you know, vans, which are not compact.  So the person using a walker or wheelchair on the passenger side can get out, but the driver can't, or vice versa if you have to park the other way because that's the only slot there is, unless you park halfway into the hatched lines, which if you do that, you may be preventing the person on the other side from getting into their vehicle if they have a walker or a wheelchair.  Not thought through well.

Also the handicapped push button for the doors in and out of the building is quite a ways away from the door opening, which if you are hobbling on a cane or walker is not the wisest thing.  Fortunately the doors stay open for a good 30 seconds, but making people walk those extra steps when they may not be able to, is not the best set up.  There were closer places they could have been placed.  But no one ever asks handicapped people about the designs of these things.  That was not an issue today, though, as both of us were walking pretty well.  When most of your clientele is elderly, though, you'd think you would think about that a little more.  Oh, well.  The world is made for the able bodied.  We are used to being an afterthought.

Well, this rambled off being about financial topics a while ago.  Let's bring it back.  I got my cash back for my Costco Executive membership.  It doesn't pay us back for the whole membership fee, we just don't shop there enough for that, but it is still worth getting to go in there an hour before other shoppers.  The store is pretty empty and checking out is faster.  It was $59.03, so we'll use that on our next Costco purchase.  We won't get our cash back on the credit card until March, when our membership renews, since that is tied together.  You'd think it would be tied to when I first got the credit card, but no.

Payday is tomorrow.  The budget is done, I just need to figure out how much I need to withdraw from the credit union tomorrow and then go to sleep.  I will try to get up a payday report tomorrow but last time it took me a few days, so no promises.

Real time: 11:19 p.m. Real Date: 1/19/2023

My husband has well and truly destroyed my 12 inch skillet.  For the third time he has left it on the burner without turning it off after taking the food out and the surface is now completely destroyed.  It won't clean and it is completely roughed up.  I don't feel safe cooking on it as it feels and looks like it has ruptured the non-stick ceramic coating.  It was such a good pan before this, too.

The 12 inch skillet is my most used pan, because I can cook enough in it for the four of us as either a meat dish or a side dish, so I went on Amazon to see what pans I liked and what was not made in China.  I settled on one made in Italy and the USA.  It has really good reviews as far as Amazon goes.  I am just going to replace the one skillet for now and if I like it I will save up for the set of 3 sizes.  We use the 12 inch a lot and there have been plenty of times I have wished to have two of that size going side by side, like when I am cooking pork chops and I'd like to be frying potatoes next to them.

The problem arises in that I have budgeted everything out for the foreseable future and obviously I'd have to make a change.  So I took a look at the upcoming budget for Friday and while there were some things I could push off, if I could get it to three weeks and make do with my ten inch skillets for the next month, because Amazon Prime is no longer Prime and it takes a week to deliver not one to two days, that would be okay, but the 3rd of February was a no go as far as changing the budget.  That one was set.  If I didn't change the 20th of January, I would have to wait until the February 17th budget to order a new 12 inch skillet and wouldn't get it until the 24th of February, putting it at almost 6 weeks from now.

So I came back to the 1/20/23 Budget and decided there are a lot of things that I am just setting the money aside early for next payday, like license plate tab renewals for both vehicles for May, fishing licenses, and property taxes (for March).

Plus I am putting $200 in the Gift Fund, but that was because it is my Birthday next month, followed by DS's birthday in early March and MIL's birthday in late March.  DS always wants his money early so he can order what he wants to arrive by his birthday, so having it ready early is helpful, because he often orders stuff from either England or Japan.  So I could have postponed myself, but I already did that at Christmas and I don't feel like doing that again.  After March there are no birthdays until August, when there are two, well, three, but mom never wants anything so I just give her a small potted mum that she plants in the yard. I only have to worry about $310 for that and then the rest of the gift fund goes for Christmas.

After I went over everything, I decided to push off the fishing licenses until the 2/17/23 Budget since the season won't open until spring anyway, and I will buy the skillet with that.  I budgeted for two licenses at $128.20 and the frying pan is $109.00.  It's more than enough to cover the sales tax and at least with prime I still get free shipping even though it still takes a week to get here.  So yes, I can do it.  I am glad I could wiggle this into the budget, because I really did not want to wait.  I would have, but it would have been irritating.

In the past year I just would have bought it and figured out how to pay it when the Citi bill came in, but this year I am trying to make a more conscious effort to not do that.  Can't guarantee that my husband won't, but I did talk to him about it and he's going to try.  We'll see how long it lasts, and if he can stop destroying my kitchen things.

Speaking of kitchen things, we used our Burger Master 8 in 1 Burger Press for making 1/4 pound hamburger patties yesterday.  We ordered it a while ago and it only recently came.  We still have so much ground beef left from our steer and figure this will be a great way to use it up, because not only can we use it for making burgers, but also for hamburger steaks with onion gravy.  I did fill it a bit too full, but it still worked.  It just took a little more force to break the burgers apart from each other.  They do lose the hexagonal shape when cooking to become more round.  We did weigh them once they were frozen and they were 4.3 to 4.6 ounces, so definitely overfilled them, because they looked too small to be quarter pound burgers, but that is because they are taller and not as pushed down as store bought patties or McDonald's patties.

Anyway, I am really going to like having this.  Our Costco hasn't been carrying the sleeves of grass fed hamburger patties and neither have our grocery stores been carrying the smaller sleeves of it.  We can make the patties in advance and I can divide them up into baggies of six patties, which is what we eat, 2 each for the guys, and 1 each for the girls.  Then 2 go into a seperate baggy each time we make them until there is enough for six.  I am going to work on going through a bunch of the packages of meat, but not all of it, just to get these so we can eat them more quickly.  I plan on buying a new steer this summer.

We also have had the 10 in 1 for making sliders for a while, because it wasn't on back order.  It is the perfect size for making sausage patties.  Since Costo hasn't had the precooked sausage patties for 3 months now, I've decided to make my own, since we have all that sausage from our hog.  I am going to add in some paprika to kick it up a notch and maybe some sage and ground fennel seeds.  It is pretty bland for breakfast sausage.  Since I will be the only one eating the sausage this way, I can do what I want to it.  Right now, it is about the same level of heat as mild Italian sausage, if that tells you anything.

It is much easier for me to cook ground meat patties from frozen.  I never know when to turn thawed patties over, I always do it too soon, and the meat falls apart.  At least with frozen, I know that if I flip it too soon, it won't fall apart.  Once I have them nice and browned and cooked through, I can freeze them again and just warm them up in the microwave as needed.  It makes my mornings so much simpler.  So those were very good purchases I made last year, that I didn't, but should have budgeted for.

I don't usually do a retirement update a few days after doing a retirement update, but I was checking the 401K to see if they had finally put in the contribution from the 1-6-23 paycheck.  They used to be so good about it, it would be in that Friday or no later than the following Monday tops.  If there was a Friday holiday or a Thursday holiday things would be delayed, but that was understandable.  But things were back to normal.  There's no excuse for a week long delay unless someone is on vacation, but DH said no one in payroll was.  Oh, well, nothing I can do about it.

However, it had been deposited, but the balance was quite a bit more than would account for just DH's contribution and work's contribution, which is at the higher percentage now, so that's pretty awesome.  Their contribution was $288.12, when it was something like $116 or $118 something before.  Now the 18% on our part doesn't start until next Friday, so our contribution last week was still the same, $921.98, for a total contribution of $1210.10.  It had risen an additional $821.29, so that account is up a total of $2031.39 in a couple of days.  So the 401K is now at $80,612.97.

So I decided to check my IRA and that also went up substantially compared to how little it is in there.  It is back above $12K at $12,013.39.  I know it is not by much, but it has been a long time since I have seen it out of the 11's.  When all this free fall started, it was just about to touch $14K so it has a long way to go to hit where it was and I'm not sure what is going on right now.  Maybe it is the new Congress, maybe not.  Things always seem to rise on new hope, at least for a while.

$80,612.97 401K  Balance

+12,013.39 IRA Balance

---------------------

$92,626.36 New Retirement Total

I am well pleased.  The rate of return for both accounts YTD is approaching 5%.  I hope that train keeps chugging up the hill and then hits flat land at 15 to 16%.  I was getting that in 2016 to 2019 and in 2020 got 12% and even still got 10% in 2021.  It was 2022 that just killed us.  I know it is early yet, too early to be hopeful or excited, but if we can turn this disaster train that has wrecked the economy around, if there is even a little sparkle of hope, I'd like to grab onto it, even if it gets dashed out later.

Since I was barely on my feet January 1st, I had not gathered the data in for our retirement accounts' standings.  To begin with, we started out 2022 in pretty good shape.  There had been some ups and downs in 2021, but for the whole year over all, we'd done well.  So we started out 2022 with $57,978.02 in the 401K and $13,925.02 in the IRA.  So between the two our retirement was at $71,903.04.

We do not contribute to the IRA so the losses are much more obvious there.  We ended the year with $11,437.47 or a -14.05% loss for the year with it.  We did contribute to the 401K, 16% of his salary, actually, with a contribution from his employer.  I don't remember how much and it changed mid-year and is changing again this year, going back up to 5% where it was pre-Covid, which will be great.

As for the 401K, it ended the year at $75,752.20, which at first glance might seem great.  It's a lot more than $57,978.02, right? That's $17,777.18 more than we started the year with, right?  Nope, because what came out of DH's paycheck, which was $23,000 and what came out of work's contributions, which 6270.23, we didn't come close to breaking even.  In fact, it flat our ate $11,493.25 of our contributions. Or that's what it feels like.  I know we bought stock and all that, blah, blah, blah.  It's still what it feels like.  And we had no gains, we had losses, and our losses were worse than the IRA percentagewise at -14.59%.

All in all, retirement ended the year at $87,189.67 or $15,286.60 higher than I started, about 55% of what was contributed.

It's not all bad news, though.  Since I was checking all of that today, I did notice that both the IRA and the 401K are up for the year so far.  The 401K is up 3.81% and now sits at $78,627.86 a rise of $2875.66 in just 12 days, and they have not yet added the contribution from the January 6th's paycheck, so that's all just interest.  I can't help but be a little excited since I haven't seen something like this in a year.  The IRA was 4.43% so it has risen by $529.64.

Together that is $3405.30, which brings the retirement total up to $90,594.97!  We cracked the $90K mark. If this year can just give us a positive rate of return, we will hit $100K in retirement.  They say when you hit that number things really start to change for you with your retirement adding up.  Of course, "they" weren't living in a recession, almost depression.

I still have some calculations to do to figure out current net worth, but will update that when I have it.

Oh, and we have bumped our retirement contributions up to 18% from 16%.  That will have us contritubing $27,000 this year.  Well,  just under since it won't start until the paycheck on the 20th.  That catch up contribution amount is $30,000 if you are 50 or older, so we could go up to 20% of our pretax income to get that, but I'm not sure we are ready for that.  I know we can do 18%, because we were doing it.  2% of DH's income was going to the FSA card before and since it isn't doing that this year, we decided the best place for it to go is to retirement.  We'll still get the tax savings through the year, just in a different way.

One of the reasons I decided to do that was because it was $115 that was taken out every two weeks pretax for the FSA card, but without it, we were only getting $28 a paycheck extra.  The rest was going to taxes.  Well, screw that, government.  That money is going to work for us for the rest of our lives, not go to you and your irresponsible spending habits.  We didn't need an extra $28 before and we don't need it now, but $115 each paycheck will go far for retirement.

So that's that, 18% for the next year, unless for some unfathomable reason they give him a raise this year.  I can't imagine him getting another one so soon, the one he got last year was so big.  I wouldn't expect another one before the summer 2024 and even then, not like this last one.  Even if it is a small one, if we raise the retirement percentage by whatever it is and continue to live on what we lived on before until we max out and put anything that is left in an IRA, that would be good, too.

My computer keyboard is being wonky as...well, I don't swear, but if I did, you can fill in the blank with the word of your choosing but mine has an f in it, because I am that annoyed at it.  I need to get a can of spray air and give it a good whooshing.  So I will try to get this posted again without erasing it.  My analysis will be at the end.

$361.23 Tithe

_500.00 Utilities

_400.00 Groceries

_400.00 Homeowner's Insurance

__75.00 Household Expenses Envelope

__70.00 Groceries

__50.00 DH Spending Money

__50.00 My Spending Money

__30.00 DD Spending Money

__75.00 DS Spending Money

_100.00 Computer Fund

_123.70 Emergency Fund

_100.00 Car Maintenance Envelope

1110.40 Citi

---------------------

3612.33 Total Money Out

For the groceries category, I still funded it even though we are doing the eat from the pantry challenge this month.  We are still allowed to buy things like fresh produce, milk, and a couple of other items.  Obviously not $400.00 worth of items, but whatever is left of that money will go into the Meat Fund, as we have started saving up for a steer for the freezer.  It currently has $120.00 in its envelope.

Homeowner's insurance isn't due for a couple of months, but I wanted to get it saved and in the bank right away.  I don't want to have to deal with it popping up suddenly, so I planned for it right off the bat.  I'll do the same with property taxes next payday.  I pay half for this stuff and Mom pays the other half.  Whenever she is ready to pay it, then I can transfer it out of savings and writer he a check.

You will note that I made a deposit to the emergency fund this payday.  The plan is to do $500 every 4 weeks.  The majority will come out of the second paycheck of the month, but I still made a deposit.  It is nice to start moving forward again.  I'd really like to get back to 3 months of income again.

I feel a bit better now that I have a balance of $200 in the car maintenance envelope.  We really wiped it out with getting all that maintenance work done two months ago.  I feel like we can handle anything small right now, but I'll feel a lot better when this gets back up to $500 and then $1000.  So much could go wrong with older vehicles, even though we keep them in tip top shape.

We did too much spending on the Citi card in the month of December.  With Covid we ordered too much take out in weeks 3, 4, and 5.  We could order and pay online and my mother would go pick it up and leave it at the top of the stairs for us and then call us that it was there.  It was pretty easy when no one had the stamina to cook.  Next payday will be about the same payment as this one.  This month I am determined to not do that, hence the pantry challenge.  And then I hope to stay in this habit, because we really do feel a lot better eating homemade meals.  And it'll save us the $100 or so it costs to get takeout for four adults these days.

I did buy a budget binder in December and it came a few days ago.  I transferred a lot of the money from my Dave Ramsey wallet, leaving only grocery and household money in there.  I was carrying too much money around in the envelopes and if something happened and I lost my purse, I did not want to lose all that money.  So I have nice pvc envelopes now for my different categories and most of them have stickers on them to show what they are.  I have a whole bunch from my scrapbooking days, so I didn't have to spend on those.  It's cute and fun and more importantly, safe.

So that's about it, really.  Thus endeth my payday report.

I've already had to adjust my budgets for the year a little bit.  Number one, I forgot that my driver's license was due this year, so I need to get that renewed by February 12th.  It's $72 for a freaking driver's license now.  I feel sorry or poor people.  That's a lot of money to have to come up with just to be able to drive.

It will be inconvenient and quite possibly painful, but I feel I need to actually go in in person because my photo is 9 years old and I really don't look like that anymore.  I renewed it online once already, when we went from a four year license to a five year license and now they are going for an 8 year license, which is why it is so expensive.

By the time I get to the end of year 8 that photo will be 17 years old.  Also, a new photo will give me a chance to hide the dark patches under my eyes when they unexpectedly made me take my glasses off for the first time and I was unprepared for it because they never had before.  Seems silly to do facial recognition on a face that will always be wearing glasses and will thus mess up any software being used to try to find someone.

And the other reason I have to adjust the budget is that the deadline for signing up for the FSA debit card was during the two weeks my husband was flatened by Covid and he didn't realize until today, so we don't get that benefit this year, where they take the money out of his paycheck pretax all year, but we get to use the $3000 up front that they put on the card at the beginning of the year.  It also means we lose what was left on the card from last year, which was $20.14, so not world ending money, but we did pay it in.  That's a real bummer.

But DH's mother did give us a check the last week of December for $5000 and we put it all in the medical fund, so we will be able to pay for DS's surgery in full.  I also put $500 in it last payday for things like prescriptions and any doctor's visits we have before then, which we have had.  But the deductible for the surgery will be $2000 for DS, plus $1000 out of pocket max, I think, so $3000.  And then between the other 3 of us we have to hit an additional $1000 for the deductible and $1000 or maybe $2000 out of pocket max.

So, what that boils down to is I will be contributing $500 a month to the medical fund for a little while, until I'm sure we are over the hump for the year, and then probably $250 a month to build it up for next year.  We can't guarantee that MIL will give us money every year.  We didn't figure she would this year, because of how bad the stock market did, but she still has to withdraw $15,000 no matter how bad it did.  I just wish, as I do every year, that the majority of the money didn't go for medical.  Or in this case all of it.  We would be so much further ahead if it didn't.

Well, DH's paycheck will be slightly larger, but not by too much.  They were taking out $115.38 a paycheck for the FSA card, but now that they are not, and the government gets their cut in taxes, it is only $28 and some change more per payday.  Shocking how much the government steals from us, isn't it?  Well, maybe we'll get some back for all the medical expenses this year.  We can't claim anything from pretax dollars.  In reality, 10% of that boost in pay goes towards the tithe, too, so I'm really only working with $25 and some change there.  So that adjusts the budget a little bit there, as well.

Tomorrow is a doctor's appointment for my daughter and then I have to do the banking, or the credit unioning, I guess, but that just sounds really wrong.  I've set up the final budget for the month with the changes and bumped Feburary's around a bit, too.

We are doing really well on the January pantry challenge.  No eating out and no buying groceries.  I've lost two pounds, probably from the decreased sodium intake, plus I'm just not as hungry since I'm not eating much sugar and far less wheat and slowly lowering my carb intake on most days.  That puts me at 13 pounds lost since changing my eating habits when my glucose hit 139.  Or maybe it was 129.  I don't remember.  Anyway, it was scary high.

I'll check in tomorrow, it's still Thursday here, 1-5-23, don't know what the time and date stamp will say, with my payday report.

Covid kicked our butts so hard.  I am finally feeling almost normal again.  I still tire very easily and if I go out in the cold my cough comes back and my lungs don't feel like they will ever be the same when I exert myself.  This is my fourth go around.  The first and the last were very bad, the two in the middle not so much.  This last one, though, was worse than the first and I thought the first was horrible.  But we are functional just in time for Christmas.  Having to sleep through Thanksgiving instead of having one was a bummer for all of us.  It will be an easy Christmas, though.  A ham in the crockpot, potatoes in the Instant Pot, green beans and corn in the microwave, maybe some fudge.  No hard work, but plenty of good food.

As for goals, I've been thinking about them a lot.  I've also been debating about bumping the 401K up to 17% from 16%, but I'm not even sure it is worth bothering at this point.  It's better used in the budget right now.  So far these are my savings goals for 2023, in random order.

1. Refund the Emergency Fund--Add $250 every 4 weeks to the EF.

2. Purchase a Propane Grill with Smoker--Save $250 for 12 weeks and I will have $1500.  I may not spend that much, I probably won't, but I don't want a garbage one.  This will put me at March 17th and I may find some good grills on clearance as they prepare for the new season of grills coming in.  I am not averse to buying a separate smoker as they are not all that expensive.

3. Save for Beef Fund--Save $500 a month for 5 months, ending in May, for a total of $2500 to buy a whole steer.  I may not need this much but with costs going up everywhere, I tacked on an extra $500.  I'll contact my guy beforehand and see where prices are going.  I may need to extend into June for $3000.  I will also be saving excess grocery money, so it may not take the whole time.

4. Save for Snow Blower--Starting in May or June, depending on when Beef Fund is completed, save $500 a month for three months to purchase a snow blower for next winter and a chain for locking it to the back porch.  The garage is too far away if we get dumped on like we did last week.  1.5 feet in two days that has lasted for several days.  This has happened several years running now.  And several times a winter.  Never used to, but it does now.

5. Starting March 24th save $250 a month for two generators, one for the garage freezer and a more powerful one for the house.  I still have to price these.  I am not sure how much they will cost yet, but I hope to have enough saved by October to have both.

6. Get some kind of covered seating area and some more chairs so we can eat outside more in the spring and summer.  Not sure where I will fit that in.  Maybe start the generator savings later.

After I've saved up and purchased these items any money leftover and any money that was being saved towards those goals will go to the Emergency Fund.

Actually, things might be thrown off a bit.  Mom will need help with house taxes and insurance.  I'll have to look up what those were last year, but this is still more or less what I will be doing, maybe offset a bit.

Longer Term Goals--Things I Want to Save for in 2024

1. Emergency Fund--Go a Little More Hard Core and Get it Up to 6 month's expenses.

2. Start a Fund for Future Taxes and House Insurance--It'll probably be a few years yet before Mom dies, she's healthy, just old, but when she does the taxes will no longer be at a senior rate and they are around $6K and we will have to assume the home owner's insurance.  I would like to have $7K set aside for this so that our first year we don't get slammed.  Even $14K would be helpful, but might take longer than one year.  Of course when the time comes I'll just work it into the budget, but I want to pay it from the beginning not be on a payment plan.

3. Save Up to Upgrade our Electric Panel Fuse Box Thingy--No idea on the cost of this, but I can ask DH how much it cost when his mom had to do it.  We have one fuse box in the basement and one upstairs and the wires are ridiculous.  And I am pretty sure the loads are improperly done.  So we need to get an electrician out to fix everything and bring it up to code and have it so everything is upstairs and done right.  The problem will be convincing my mother.  Plus she built a bookcase around the fuse box, which isn't allowed and may have to be demolished.  This one may have to wait until after she dies, but I'd really like to do it sooner, for safety reasons.

2025 and Beyond

1. Start a Fund for an Electric Vehicle--This probably won't get much contributed to it on a monthly basis.  Both our vehicles are in great condition and they haven't made a good mini-van that is fully electric to my knowledge.  Although we may need a different kind of van that is wheelchair accessible for DD at some point, and I have no idea if those will ever be electric.  We intend to drive both vehicles until they die of old age or we can't get parts anymore, but neither is at that stage.

2. Start a Fund for a 26,000 Watt Whole House Generator--This one is $10K probably with installation costs.  It ties directly into your natural gas or propane line, so you don't have to fill it with gas.  I want the one that automatically turns on when the power goes out and turns off when it goes on.  I don't want to have to fiddle with that.  The only issue would be if the gas line breaks or you've run out of propane.  This one is less urgent than others.  Our power always gets restored quickly since we are on same lines as the hospital.  We've never been out more than an hour or two here and usually it's much, much less.  But as the infrastructure crumbles and domestic terrorists keep trying to sabotage the grid, having another source of power for my home is something I'd like to have and a lot cheaper than solar powers at this point.  Maybe save $2K a year on this one.  We can't do anything until we get the electrics upgraded.

3. Solar System--I'd like to have one that meets all or most of our electrical needs on a daily basis for most of the year.  It may not be practical and we may not get our money back out of it, but the kids will inherit the house so it will be worth it for them.  I'd like to save about $4K a year for this, too, when the time comes.  Again, we can't do anything for this until the electrics are upgraded, because it will tie into that to run the house.

4. Remodel the Kitchen--Not by a Lot.  I just want to take out the stove and put in two wall mounted ovens on top of each other, one a baker's oven.  I can't bend down to the floor to put things in the oven anymore.  My grandmother had one of these and I loved it.  Take out some of the cabinets that don't have cupboards above them and put in a 6 burner range that vents down through the floor, into the basement, and then out through the side of the house.  I want to be able to have canners on two burners, be heating lids on another, and heating water to blanch on another while there is at least one more burner free for someone to cook something if they are hungry.  One burner at least will be blocked by two canners, so covering three.

5. Remodel Every Bathroom in the House.  The ceiling of the guy's bathroom needs to be replaced now, though with some kind of water resistant drywall.  The mold remediation did not work and the situation has gotten really bad and now black mold is appearing on the ceiling.  The painters who did the mold remediation have still not come back to fix it even though under the warranty they are supposed to.  It's been a thing.  Plus their entire paint job has practically peeled off in there because they didn't scrape off the previous paint even though they were supposed to.  I think we would be better off cutting out the ceiling, renting a drywall lift and putting a new piece in place.  Then scraping it and repainting with mold resistant paint.

The bathroom that DD and I share needs a new shower installed.  We both want a walk in shower with no tub.  The tub shower combo we have now has a crack in the tub that we sealed up with boat sealant, but I think there is still a leak somewhere because the floor is bowing, so I think we will need a new floor in the next couple of years, which also means new flooring.  We might do tile.  I'd also like to paint it a color I like and put in some shelves, a smaller mirror that isn't so tall, so I can actually reach the top to clean it, a different light that is not a long bar of special lights that are hard to find and are incandescent.  We also need to get a new shower head.  The sprayer on the one we have is awkward and doesn't move with you.  We need to replace the faucet, too.  We have a new one, DH just hasn't had the time.

In Mom's bathroom the shower doesn't work right and ends up leaking water down into the basement.  There is also an old jetted tub that is very short so you can't stretch your legs out.  There is nowhere to install a handicapped rail to help you get up and down, and the jets only sometimes work and the sink and vanity are very ugly.  So once the house is ours, the tub and shower will be torn out.  I'd like to move the toilet to where the shower is now, and put the sink where the toilet is.  I'd like to put in some shelves.

Then where the sink is now I'd like to put in a sink and chair like they have at the hair salon for washing hair.  My back is so messed up now that bending over the sink to wash my hair is a production.  That way both my son and daughter could wash my hair and not just my husband.  My shoulders and wrists have a hard time with it these days, because it is so long, by the time I get through two washes and a conditioner I am in agony.  Gotta love reumatoid arthritis.  Then where the tub is now, we want to put in a tile shower with a lip and showerheads on both sides.  We might have to run conduit to do that and an equalizing pressure dohickey, but it will be nice.

The other bathroom just needs a different bathtub.  Mom put in a seated bathtub, but it is horribly uncomfortable.  It seat rises up in the middle so basically it splits you where you sit and it has painful air jets instead of water jets.  So we want to put in a tub with water jets instead.  That'll cost $20K so who knows when that will happen.  We may never have all that extra money and just use it as a soaking tub as we do now, since the only good other tub does not have handicapped rails in it and has the moldy ceiling wih the peeling pain.

So lots of saving money, lots of things on the horizon.  Some more important than others, some more likely than others.

$3584.10 Paycheck Amount

$1188.48 Christmas Bonus after Taxes (was $1700)

$1048.66 Extra Bonus for Being Exemplary (was $1500)

-------------

$5821.24 Total Money for Working Budget

So DH did very well for himself this year with the bonuses.  The company did very well for itself so they had extra money to divvy up and while everyone got a Christmas bonus based on a percentage of their pay, DH got an extra one based on those who did work above and beyond, showed leadership, and handled every curveball thrown at them.  He's now fifth in line for the top role at the company.  He needs a lot more experience and a longer work history with this company, but in about ten years he will have that and people above him will be retiring, except his direct boss.  They are giving him more responsibility with that in mind and he did great with it this year.  Anyway, I am done bragging now.  On to the budget for this paycheck.

Remember I run a $0 dollar based budget.  Every dollar, every penny has a job to do.

$582.12 Tithe

_500.00 Grocery Envelope

_500.00 Medical Fund

__75.00 Chiropractor

_150.00 Gas Money Envelope

_100.00 Car Maintenance Envelope

__87.15 Life Insurance DH

__60.46 Life Insurance Me

__48.71 Long Term Care Insurance

__30.00 Spending Money DD

__70.36 Emergency Fund

__651.27 Three New Tires for the Truck

1154.21 New Computer

__50.00 Spending Money DH

__50.00 Spending Money Me

_200.00 Chrismas Money Me

_496.23 Winter Jackets for 4 of Us

_313.22 Snow Boots for 3 of Us

_773.87 Citi for Auto Pays (Phone, Internet, Netflix, Hulu, Sirius, Etc.)

---------------------

5821.24 Total Money Out

The bonuses were paid on the 15th and we used a lot of that for the coats, snow boots, and tires.  Just in time, too.  I was the last one to get their Christmas money because I did not want a present, I wanted money.  I am saving up for something.  The new computer took up the rest of the money, plus, I think, a little more, but I haven't done the math there.  I'm going to start saving for the next computer now.

Anyway, that is the budget for this paycheck.  It feels good to not have run the credit card up this month.  Even with everyone being so sick with Covid we didn't get a ton of take out because no one was well enough to go get it and I am not going to pay for delivery.  So the card didn't get charged up.

$10,285.51 Balance Forward

+__,_82.11 Amount Added

---------------

$10,367.62 New Balance

I finished recording and in one case writing out a check (to Mom) for the November 11 budget and then closed out that budget and then I paid all the bills and attributed out the money for the November 25th budget and then closed it out as best as I could without actually being about to go the bank to take my cash draw.  But the important stuff has been done and it won't wreck anything in my finances or my life if the cash does not get taken out any time soon.

After I finished with that I set up my December 2020 Budget.  I thought I had done that, but no, I had not.  We should have hopefully dug ourselves out of our hole now, so that we can put $500 per paycheck into the medical fund this month.  I would like to do this for December and January and then drop it down to $500 every other paycheck until I have the medical fund where I want it and then we will stop contributing to it until I deem it necessary to do so again.

In January we will be able to start contributing to the EF again every month so long as we stick to the new 2023 budget.  We will be able to start contribting $500 a month to the beef fund.  Last time it was a total of close to $2000, so this time I plan to save $2500 due to inflation.  I will check in closer to butcher time, though, to see where things stand in case I need to save more.  I hope not.  That kind of defeats the purpose of buying in bulk, even for grass fed beef.

I need to set some money aside for house taxes and insurance, too and then go full bore on the EF and get it up to $30K, which is not where it was before, but is where I'd like it to be.  I've got a long row to hoe.

I'd say I was starting to get back on my feet again, but that's not really true.  It's more like I'm able to get back into a chair again.  We all ended up coming down with Covid except Mom and it was worse than 2020.  I had the worst symptoms of everyone, but my nose and my son's nose would not test positive until Thanksgiving, so we were the last ones to get put on the medication.  At least that means DH was semi able to help me, since he was feeling a bit better, because I was so weak on two of the days I needed someone to help we walk to the bathroom and back.

The paxlovid has helped a lot.  The fireball body fever is gone, the lobster face and the pot it was boiling me in is gone, the cough down to my navel is more up in the bronchials and throat, the blinding headache has turned into a mild one, my ears are unblocked, my nose is unblocked and just runny, I'm only sleeping 15 hours instead of 22, and I can have a conversation, and hold both thoughts and plots in my head, which means I can watch a show again.  But I still sound like a foghorn, feel exhausted, fall asleep almost every time I close my eyes, and am still weak and can't be trusted to carry a bowl from the microwave to the tray table in my room, not even a plastic one.

Eating properly went out the window and I lost 5 pounds while sick.  The first two days was just chicken broth.  The third day was eggs and chicken broth.  Then it was Thanksgiving and that was the day I was positive.  That day I had a pudding cup because my throat was so sore, started my dose, and I slept the clock around, woke up, took my dose, and slept the clock around again.  After that I started eating half a can of soup once a day and a pudding cup once a day.  The medicine tastes bad and it takes the taste out.  Today I had half a sandwich with some actual protein with lettuce on it for breakfast and the other half for lunch.  That's all and that will probably be all.

I figure it is the best I can do for now.  I am trying not to make DH do too much for me.  He is trying to work from home.  I can make a sandwich and put it in a plastic container with a lid.  That way if I drop it on the way to my room it isn't ruined and doesn't need to be cleaned up.  I did, by the way, drop it, but I just pushed it to my room with my foot and alls well that ended well.  Sat down in my chair and picked it up with my reacher, because if I put my head below my knees, the dizziness is off the charts with this thing, and it was none the worse for wear.

Mom has been good about getting our prescriptions and she picked up some cans of soup and sandwich makings from the store.  I'm glad I had cash leftover from the previous payday, because the Thanksgiving payday was not going to happen.  I'm not even sure if we'll make it there at all this week.  Maybe on Friday.  DH is supposed to be safe by then to go out in public again, so if he feels up to it he can drive to the bank.  But he doesn't have to.

I have $160 in the beef fund (I used quite a bit of what I had in there when I was canning meat), I have $82 left in the grocery envelope, and I have $75 in the household envelope, and if we need to touch it, I have $550 in my allowance folder.  I would not want to touch that since I am saving up that money towards either a new computer or stuff for the garden, I haven't decided yet, since my computer is not that old.  It would obviously be replaced, but I know how that can go and would rather not do that.  Anyway, wiht the first 3 things, there is $317 we can tap, so that should be sufficient.

So we should be okay, whether we can make it the credit union this week or not.  Probably even if we can't make it there until the payday on the 23rd, so it only is an issue with cash, everything else is either writing a check or making an online payment or is an automatic payment.  Life in the 2020's, you know.

I have about had it with my mom and the thermostat.  She keeps jacking the heat up to 75°F.  Last night it was like being in a sauna.  You know when you are in that stage when you are too tired to get up and go halfway through the house to go turn it down, but you can't really sleep because you are boiling so you lie there and lie there and lie there until you finally force yourself to get up and then turn it down to 70°F because it is 38°F outside, and 68°F makes my arthritis act up in the winter (but not the summer, somehow?).

Then the minute she gets up she jack it right back up to 75°F because she's cold.  And you want to know why she's cold?  Because she sleeps with her bedroom window open, because if she doesn't she's too hot to sleep.  Maybe the reason she is too hot to sleep, and so are the rest of us, is because she turns to furnace up to the temperature of when I first want to start using the A.C. in the summer.

During the day, if the rest of us are cold we put on long pants, long sleeved shirts, sweaters, and either slippers or shoes before we think about turning the heat up.  My mom will wear her short sleeved shirts and her mid-calf pants, maybe socks, maybe not.  She won't think about putting on better clothes so we can keep the furnace down.  If we tell her to put on a sweater, she'll put on the thinnest sweater she owns.  I mean, it's a spring cardigan that is so think you can almost see through it.  She has thicker sweaters.  When she sits in her chair all day watching tv she has a stack of throws next to her to pull over her when she gets cold, but she'd rather turn the heat up.

I just know when the gas bill comes she's going to throw the world's biggest fit about how high it is.  She only pays ten percent of it, too, but you'd think she paid the whole thing by how she squawks about it.  It's going to be bad, because natural gas prices have been skyrocketing even without her sudden need to this year to live in a sauna.  She keeps this up and that bill is going to double and we can't afford that.

I just had it out with her that if everyone else is in the house is having to put on tank tops and shorts, than she is wrong about the heat and she needs to turn it down so people can wear regular winter clothes and she needs to dress appropriately for the winter.  I know it is technically fall still, but the weather is winter weather here.  She even has a little space heater that will warm up just her area and doesn't use a lot of electricity that she refuses to use because that takes up electricity.

I can't get it through her head that natural gas is a lot higher than electric right now, that it's not two years ago when it was the other way around, and that she needs to realize how bad things are going to be this winter with gas prices.  Stuff flips around every so many years, and she says she knows this, but she still keeps jacking that thermostat up.  And it'll be us making up the difference on the bill because she's on a fixed income.

Okay, end of rant.  She just got me worked up today.

DH hasn't been feeling so good for the past few days.  He called me from Lowe's Saturday night and said he really didn't feel good.  He'd been fine when he left the house, but he had to stop after getting what we needed, wood glue, and couldn't go look and see if the had a couple more lines of Christmas lights that matched some we bought last year or to take pictures of any standees and text them to me.  I said fine, get the glue and come home.

By the time he dragged into the house he looked like a different person.  He insisted on fixing the wooden railing that he broke that leads up the short set of stairs from one part of the house to the other and then I made him go to bed.  He's been in there pretty much since except to eat and he's barely been eating.  A couple cans of cream of mushroom soup, a can of chicken noodle, lots of water.  And sleeping otherwise.  We had a couple covid tests on hand so I had him take one and it came back positive.  So I took one and it came back negative, but my nose had some blood in it that got on the swab which can cause a false negative.  I've just been dragging hard since yesterday, but I don't seem to have any symptoms but extreme fatigue.  But the kids seem to be going downhill now, too.  And we have no more test kits and I am too tired to drive to go get some.

DH is going to call the doctor's office tomorrow and see what he needs to do, since it is early enough to get on the Covid meds still, and they will probably want to do their own rapid test to confirm and then if they do and it does, I will call them, too, and ask if I should still come in for my appointment on Wednesday about blood sugar testing or wait and make an appointment for the week or two weeks after Thanksgiving.  If so, that'll give me a little more time to lose weight.

And speaking of weight I have lost ten pounds.  Today was a bit difficult because I was dragging so hard I did not want to cook.  I resorted to instant mashed potatoes, microwaving a pack of gluten free brown gravy, using a frozen steamer bag of broccoli, and dumping out a jar of chuck roast into a bowl and warming it up and calling it good.  It was not the most gourment of meals, but it had protein, low carb veg, and starch.  I refuse to give up on my nutrition now that I have got my diet back under control, though.

No fruit today.  I had grapes the past two days with dinner, just 12, and it just felt like I was eating straight sugar, within 5 minutes I felt light-headed and dizzy and like I needed to go lay down before I fell down.  So maybe it is just the grapes and I need to try something else, or maybe it is fruit entirely.  I will try a half cup of blueberries tomorrow with my dinner.  If they trigger it again, I think fruit will just have to be a very rare thing.  I can get everything fruit would give me from bell peppers and tomatoes and squash anyway.

We have cancelled our Thanksgiving.  I may make it on Saturday or Sunday if I am feeling up to it, but Thursday is out of the question.  It is too much work right now to do alone and I can't even drive to the store to buy the bread for the stuffing and I don't feel up to making 4 loaves of bread, either.  3 for the stuffing, because the loaves are smaller, and 1 to eat, because we are out of bread.  I don't even feel like walking out to the garage to get potatoes, I'm so tired.

Well, that's about it.  Good night, everyone.  I'm going to bed.

Just skip this one if you don't want to hear about my kid's upcoming surgery or what new thing I'm facing with my health.

My son has a surgery scheduled on Valentine's Day with an ENT at Virginia Mason to try to rebuild the part of his nose where the cartilage has collapsed.  I can't remember if I talked about this before or not, but depending on whether the doctor can harvest enough of his own cartilage to transplant or if he has to use artifical cartilage he should see a 40% to 80% improvement.  Even 40% will be such an improvement.  So his surgery will probably hit the 2/3 of the deductible right there as well as the out of pocket max for regular and specialist, although we will probably have another $1000 we have to max out for one of us because the family max is $3000, but the personal deductible max is $2000.  It's a weird system.

At least $3000 of that will be covered and I'm hoping we can save the rest in the medical fund between now and then.  Right now I've only been putting enough in to cover our monthly output, because we've had so much monthly output.  DH and his crowns,  DD and her cavities.  Our dental sucks.  Vision isn't is pretty good unless you are nearsighted and farsighted and have an astigmatism.  Raise your hand if you are me.  And we were wasting so much money over the summer and early fall while I was too sick to cook or shop and the guys were pretty much unwilling to and I was too weak to reorder their thinking.

But I'm well now. Or am I?  (Cue unsettling move music here.) Dun, dun, dun.  I got my fasting glucose results back.  139.  It should be between 70 and 100 mg/dL.  Now last time it was 124 which is the high range of 100 to 125 where they try to monitor it with dietary changes and exercise, but of course between my fall and being sick I could barely get out of bed for more than half an hour and on the days that I could it was to walk outside and tell my son what to pick and what to water and then sit in a chair to get some sunlight if it wasn't a scorcher.  I couldn't do much else before crawling back into bed.  And I certainly didn't eat right with all that takeout.  At least my choelesterol is really good.

So now that I have finally kicked that miserable illness out the door, I'm really facing diabetes.  I found out yesterday when my labs came back and I'll see the doctor again on the 23rd where I will start tracking my blood with a monitor.  I may not be diabetic, but I've had some symptoms for a while, so I could be.  This is the thing that is motivating me.  I have watched people die of this.  I don't want to die of this.

So I got off the phone with the receptionist, finished making dinner, and I had my spaghetti dinner, only instead of having 3 cups of noodles, I took 1, and had 4 meatballs instead of 3.  There was a diced zucchini in the sauce, maybe 2 cups worth, and I also made broccoli and there were salad fixings, so I had both of those.  I felt hungry around midnight, but I drank a bunch of water and it passed, so was probably just thirsty, then went to bed at one.  I'm trying to get to bed earlier, but I was going to bed at 3 before the time change, so I've progressed by an hour. I am getting up earlier.  Maybe no caffiene, very little sugar, and eating right will help.

Today I carefully planned out my food.  There are two methods of eating for diabetes.  One is almost completely vegetarian, which I know makes me binge because of fruit, and also I am allergic to lectins so beans, lentils, and almost all legumes are out of the question, which really limits you on protein, and one is controlling your carbs, but making sure you get just enough of them.  The second is the only one that I have ever lost a substantial amount of weight on.

I used some of the sausage from our pig (no sugar) to make two small patties for breakfast, each 3 oz on the food scale.  I had one soft-boiled egg, and half an English cucumber.

For lunch I had 5 oz of ling cod fish brushed lightly with melted ghee (because I can't stand oil on fish), seasoned with salt, pepper, and sazon and put in a foil packet with zucchini and sprigs of thyme, some sage leaves, some flatleaf parsley, some oregano and some finely minced garlic (home grown) and a couple tbsp of water, and placed in the oven to steam.  It was so good.

Then dinner was where I got the majority of my carbs for the day from.  I had two 4 oz beef kielbasas from this really clean brand Kiolbasa, 1 yellow potato diced, seasoned with salt, pepper, and thyme, and tossed with 2 tbsp of filtered bacon grese since I was cooking at 400°F (205°C).  I was planning to have some of the leftover broccoli but I ended up knocking it on the floor.  My hands just let go sometimes.  I have twitches.  I decided screw it, and made a big, big salad instead.  I had 3 tbsp of ketchup on the potatoes and 3 tbsp of 1000 Island dressing on the salad.  So I had 63 grams of carbs not counting the salad and the other green vegetables.  I was told to aim for 60, so if I had only done 2 tbsp of salad dressing I would have it.  But close enough.

I am steaming some hard boiled eggs tonight in my little cooker so I will have them if I need to snack or even if I don't feel like making breakfast.  Just having an egg or two to eat will wake up my brain.  I can't afford not to have regular meals anymore just because I don't want to eat breakfast in the morning.

I have gotten into some really bad habits.  Pepsi first thing in the morning, when I'd been off it for so long.  That alone probably has driven my glucose up, even with fasting that morning.  Eating way too many empty carbs, junk food, doughnuts, chocolate.  The only thing I wasn't eating was potato chips, because ever since Lays started using oil other than sunflower oil (Ukraine/Russia war) their chips don't taste the same and I don't like them, so I was off chips completely except if I made pico de gallo, then I'd eat Tostitos.

Anyhow today is day one with no Pepsi, very little sugar, only what's in the ketchup and dressing and those are 5g and 3g per tbsp respectively.  I'm sure I'll be going through withdrawals, but since I am already having painful symptoms from my pneumonia vaccine, and where the lady who did my labs left a massive bruise where she blew the vein in my arm trying to get into my vein and then blew the one in my hand with an even worse bruise and then had to call someone else to find a vein in my other arm which took her five minutes, what's one more?  I can handle it.  Just call me a pincushion.

I am not worried about fat.  The doctor said not to worry about fat, just carbs.  He said that animal sources of fat were actually better for me than plant derived fats, but olive and avocado oils have other health benefits and should always be included in one's diet according to the most recent studies.  I mean, I'm not to go eating a cup of butter or anything like that, but lard, or tallow, or bacon grease in one or two tbsp increments is fine.  And no deep frying anything.  I've always felt that way about animal fats, though.  I've been reading anecdotal stuff on it for years.  Plus all Eskimos survived on was whale blubber and whale meat and they were healthy.

I feel better, though, after one day of eating right.  My brain felt less foggy today.  I wasn't wanting to eat constantly, only when I'm hungry, which is at meal times.  I didn't feel like my blood sugar is crashing.  I didn't feel dizzy or light-headed at all today.  I feel a lot more tired at the end of the day, like I'm ready to go to sleep at a decen time and not late.

I don't know if my insurance will cover a glucose monitor or even how much they cost.  If they cover it, it won't cost anything.  And if I can drop it my number down to where it belongs and get a good start on getting my weight down, maybe we won't have to do anything more.  I hate having to get shots every 4 weeks.  I don't want to do it daily.  I have no idea how much insulin costs, but I know it is expensive even though it shouldn't be. I know there is some sort of pill now, too.  But maybe I won't need anything if I do this right.  It's just going to monitoring for now.  Hopefully, I can fix this.

I'm not telling my mother.  I don't need her to be twitting me about my weight, just like she and dad used to do when I put on the freshman fifteen in college, or didn't lose my baby weight after giving birth to my second kid, or her alone in later years after dad died.  I don't need any negatives from her.  She's the reason I stress eat so much.  That and all the medical issues that arise in my family.

I am sorry for any typos in this.  My space bar is sticking and I don't have any compressed air to clean it out.  I think I've got them all, but I'm not sure.  Our retirement accounts are starting to turn around.  Don't get me wrong.  The IRA is still -18.04% for the year, because it plunged even lower than my last report, but it's come back up by a little over a thousand dollars. That's a loss of $2707.65 in an account we don't contribute to at all right now. It will have to climb a lot higher to erase that percentage and I don't think it can do it by year's end.

The 401K went from over -25% for the year to -13.59.  The loss for the year, only because we have been contributing, is -$9488.88.  We won't make up for that this year, either.  There are only four contributions of $1152.48 to be made, mostly from us, but some from the employer match.  Even if DH gets any over time, it won't be enough without a tremendous rise in the stock market.  I haven't been watching since August, though, because the whole year has been so awful, so I don't know what it was doing.  But judging by our contributions versus where we were at the end of August, it still ate half of them, so I'd say it wasn't the greatest.

Still it is up since the last time I changed my sidebar by $4920.33.  That brings the amount in retirement to $83,848.84.  I also transferred $1000 out of the emergency fund to fix a leak in the van's sunroof.  Never again will we have these on a vehicle we buy. This is the second time we have had to do this repair. I mean the van is 12 years old, but they should build it so this never happens.

When it rains hard the water leaks down into the seat belt wells and soaks them, so when you pull your seatbelt out it is drenched.  So it etiher goes against your jacket or sweater, so you have a wet piece of clothing or you keep towels in your car to put between you and seat belt which is not comfortable and kind of a distraction. And if it freezes really bad, like 17°F or less (-8.3°C), the seat belt will get frozen in the ice after it fills up with water during the day before the temp drops, whether it is rain or melting snow.  If we hadn't just shelled out over $1200 on vehicle maintenance and replacement filters and whatnot, we'd have had the money in our car maintenance envelope. But we did, so we didn't have it.

Anyway, that reduces the EF to $10,285.51.  Which means the total of net worth changes by $3920.33, going from $146,216.13 to $150,136.46.  So we have hit a major milestone goal for us, crossing the $150K barrier on net worth. This was such a long, long time coming.  I feel like we are lucky we even got here considering the last year, where everything that could go wrong with the economy, did go wrong.  So while it is amazing to see it, I'm still kind of scared it will disappear on me before the end of the year, and hoping like crazy it doesn't. But I will know we hit it once and that we will be able to hit it again somehow, some way, if we have to.  And know, as they say, is half the battle.

Saturday, November 5, 2022

I really had forgotten what being well felt like and what it meant to be exhausted from working hard instead of simply existing.  It's a better feeling, a feeling of accomplishment, of pride in what you have done, even if, in the end, every joint in your body aches the same.  Still, this girl got stuff done.

In the morning I divided the last of the chicken bones into the two Instant Pots and got the broth going, cleaned jars, and set up my area, and had DH put the heavy double decker All American canner up on the stove because that thing weighs a lot, but you get what you pay for.

Then we went outside and did some garden work.  You will not believe me, but I did not want to run back in the house and get my camera, because my legs are barely working as it is and photos uploading are always a crapshoot around here anyway, but my darn yellow zucchini had a big old flower on it today.  And those tiny flowers that were on my pepper plants?  Those are now tiny peppers.  What on Earth, people?  Maybe I really should go get some green house plastic.  The pepper plants at least would survive all winter, I think.

Anyway, we got the tarp put down on the potato plot and we added four feet in one direction and two feet in the other to increase the size.  DH worked on taking out a tree stump that had been left in the way of where we want to build a raised bed next year.  He dug down to get as much of the roots as he could, but there was a tap root so he could only go so far, but he got out all the tap roots.

Meanwhile, DS dug out some wild blackberry canes while I cut them out of the climbing rose bushes.  I don't even know where they sprang up from.  We haven't had this variety of wild blackberries in our yard before, but our neighbor does.  This was nowhere near theirs though.  It was literally in the middle of the back yard.  We can't get all of it out, but without taking the roses out, which we will in spring to move them, but we should be able to dig them out then.  There wasn't too much of them and I will poison those if I have to.

I am not playing the wild blackberries are taking over my yard game.  I am already playing the keep the morning glory that the other neighbors let run rampant and won't keep in their own yard so it runs all the fences in my yard and constantly crawls into my garden all summer out of my yard game.  I think next year I will poison those, too, neighbors nice hedges be darned if they get any on it.  I hate to poison, but there is no winning with either of these plants.  Morning glory should never be planted outside of a planter that is on concrete with no ability to get to dirt.  It is so invasive and impossible to control if you don't hack it back all summer.

My son has started drinking coffee again so he is saving the coffee grounds for me to bury in the raised beds.  I will do so as long as the ground isn't frozen.  We haven't had a hard freeze yet, but I am sure it is coming.  Well, that's about it for this update.  Still planning to post that payday report.  Just have so much other stuff on my mind.

Me from the future:  I forgot to post this on Saturday and just left it open with about 50 other tabs.  Glad windows didn't randomly decide to restart.