Homebody Getting Back to My Roots

Day 4 of tacos for dinner, for me anyway. Our neighbor brought down some homemade soup, which she does occasionally. DH has eaten that the past two nights. We have enough tacos for one more night.

DH said if we keep stretching our food like this our freezer food will last for 3 years!

My daughter picked me up in my car (that she borrowed because hers is in the shop) and took me to quilting group that meets twice a month at a local church classroom where we all sit around and yak while sewing or in my case, embroidering. I didn't feel like dragging the sewing machine out today. Usually I pack the car early and then drive in at the right time, but with daughter picking me up, and coming before I was ready, I was scrambling to get my current embroidery project together.

DH picked me up with the good news that our older truck will be ready to be picked up tomorrow so I am driving into town and he will either get a ride to the mechanic or will walk. DD will pick me up in the afternoon and drive back to her car dealership where her car also will be ready to pickup.

Hurray! I can work on decluttering and take a load to the local animal rescue shop on Friday.

DH ran to Ace Hardware and picked up 2 bags of bird seed, which is in the budget. Our chickens like it to and expect a few handfuls when I let them out in the morning.

Now if I can just get a good night's sleep.......

We had leftovers for dinner. DH made tacos last night, one of our favorite meals when we can't think of what to make. We always keep tortillas in the frig and the rest of the fixins can be easily had in our home.

I took my mom to the doctor today and she talked her into a flu shot! Her fasting blood sugar was back to prediabetic levels so that was good news.

Even better news was my husband's follow-up PSA after his prostate cancer diagnosis and being on Proscar for several months. Well it was way down to 2.9 and his risk factors were less than 1% for death within 10 years or even full blown cancer. His doctor was very please and so am I! The best news is that he won't be needing treatment and since our medi-share people denied coverage as pre-existing, this is really good news.

I joined a 2019 Passionate Penny Pinching Home Challenge. This is the year! By the end of 2019 I will have decluttered and cleaned my house along with being careful with DH's earnings.

Oh and the other good news is my 10 year old granddaughter, Ally, got the lead in Alice in Wonderland musical. It's the first time she has tried out for a lead. We are very excited for her. She has so much self confidence for a 10 year old it's amazing. I remember when she was about 2, she was talking very well. I had her at a park in a swing in South Carolina or North I can't remember which. Another woman and a child arrived and Ally said, My name is Ally and this is my grandma.......pause while she thought.....Cheryl! I'll never forget that, it was the cutest thing! I didn't even know she knew my first name. She's a great kid.

Okay sleep, then tomorrow is clean out the refrigerator and mopping all "hard floors". I also need to work on the week's job of the pantry!

I have to transition to writing during the day. I get so sleepy at night I have a hard time catching up and then blogging.

DH purchased a 3 pan set of JA Henkel's nonstick pans at Costco today when he picked up our prescriptions. We had looked at them before Christmas, but decided not to buy because we knew they would go on sale at some point, doesn't everything?

He spent about $100 between the pans and our prescriptions. Also DH's truck sputtered out and quit. He took it to our usual oil change place and he changed the oil and switched out the fuel line. Hoping that is all that is wrong.

But tomorrow I am driving him to his friend's house to pick up the truck that dear friend wanted him to have. It is a Toyota Tacoma, which is a bit smaller than his Dodge Diesel huge double cab thing I HATE driving. We think the Tacoma is about 10 years old, but has very few miles on it like a ridiculously small amount.

So both my husband and I had vehicles totaled in 2018 (truck parked legally next to the sidewalk in front of our house, and I was in a 4 car pile-up on 9/30/18) and I was given the 2004 Mercedes S55 AMG with about 75,000 miles on it, and DH is being given the truck. I feel very blessed and lucky to have these replacement vehicles. We used both insurance checks to start a vehicle fund, but now we don't need any vehicles. Right now there is $21,000 in that account, easily would cover 6 months of expenses. We need to make IRA contributions for both of us for 2019 and 2018 for me. I plan to have a meeting with DH on Sunday to go over what our plans are for the year.

DH is good about participating and giving ideas, but he NEVER initiates a discussion about money. In fact when I told him I wanted to have a meeting, he said "oh goody my favorite topic". I laughed. We have been married long enough that I don't expect him to suddenly change. All I can do is the best I can.

I told him he got a pass for the pans since we had already talked about getting them since we are doing this no spend year and his response was "I thought that was just for food". I started telling him everything we have plenty of and that I would not be buying anything we didn't NEED!

I have to transition to writing during the day. I get so sleepy at night I have a hard time catching up and then blogging.

DH purchased a 3 pan set of JA Henkel's nonstick pans at Costco today when he picked up our prescriptions. We had looked at them before Christmas, but decided not to buy because we knew they would go on sale at some point, doesn't everything?

He spent about $100 between the pans and our prescriptions. Also DH's truck sputtered out and quit. He took it to our usual oil change place and he changed the oil and switched out the fuel line. Hoping that is all that is wrong.

But tomorrow I am driving him to his friend's house to pick up the truck that dear friend wanted him to have. It is a Toyota Tacoma, which is a bit smaller than his Dodge Diesel huge double cab thing I HATE driving. We think the Tacoma is about 10 years old, but has very few miles on it like a ridiculously small amount.

So both my husband and I had vehicles totaled in 2018 (truck parked legally next to the sidewalk in front of our house, and I was in a 4 car pile-up on 9/30/18) and I was given the 2004 Mercedes S55 AMG with about 75,000 miles on it, and DH is being given the truck. I feel very blessed and lucky to have these replacement vehicles. We used both insurance checks to start a vehicle fund, but now we don't need any vehicles. Right now there is $21,000 in that account, easily would cover 6 months of expenses. We need to make IRA contributions for both of us for 2019 and 2018 for me. I plan to have a meeting with DH on Sunday to go over what our plans are for the year.

DH is good about participating and giving ideas, but he NEVER initiates a discussion about money. In fact when I told him I wanted to have a meeting, he said "oh goody my favorite topic". I laughed. We have been married long enough that I don't expect him to suddenly change. All I can do is the best I can.

I told him he got a pass for the pans since we had already talked about getting them since we are doing this no spend year and his response was "I thought that was just for food". I started telling him everything we have plenty of and that I would not be buying anything we didn't NEED!

My husband walked down to the liquor store and bought a beer. He made dinner for his BFF who lives around the corner. He had knee surgery and his wife went out of town to watch their granddaughter the rest of the week.

We took the dog for a good walk today. We worked a bit on end of the year stuff for the business.

DH made himself a grilled sandwich for dinner and I ate another leftover serving of lemon chicken.

Edit to add 1/2/19: Well apparently I was so sleepy last night I didn't actually publish my post.

That's okay. I ran to town to take my 10 year old granddaughter, Ally, to her doctor appointment for her allergy shots. My daughter's Ford Flex is in the shop again.

My two older sisters and I are having a grocery challenge, trying to keep our groceries to $200. Then older sister took a picture of dinner, so then I did too. It will make me be more creative and use what we have.

I was frustrated with the mail today. There is a collection letter from mom's cable company requesting $325 or $355 or something like that for her components. I mailed them all back via the UPS store several months ago, like June 1st! I'm not paying it. What are they going to do? Send my mom to collections? Who cares?? She is 89 and lives in assisted living AND I did return the stuff. I will call and be nice tomorrow.

Then Costco Citi card charged me interest and I paid in full minus a credit that came through. I always pay the full amount and I did!! So I have to call them tomorrow too!

Oh well, at least dinner was good. I picked some brussel sprouts out of our garden and sautéed with leeks, cauliflower, bell pepper and spinach. I mixed it with lemon walnut chicken I made a few nights ago. I ate every bit. DH put chopped honey baked ham on his. Then I made a free form apple tart that was delicious!

Again I am very sleepy! Oh and I stopped and bought beer and put gas in my car.

2018 Wins:
1. Mortgage under $100,000 (by $1), paid an extra $22,000 on principal.
2. Contributed maximum IRA funds for DH for both 2017 and 2018 in April 2018.
3. Able to cover all medical bills in full.
4. Celebrated our middle daughters wedding in May, gaining not just a new son, but a new granddaughter too. (Last of 3 daughters to get married).
5. Celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary with a paid for cruise to Alaska.

Losses:
1. Both my husband and myself had vehicles totaled. The truck was parked in front of our home legally. A well known tweaker was driving a barely legal truck that had a knocked out back window and no muffler, making for carbon monoxide poisoning. The guy was practically asleep after he hit out truck (all witnessed by our neighborhood watch captain who saw tweaker almost hit his truck), came outside and watched him careen down the street towards Dh's truck (which was given to him by his dear friend who just passed away). Then I was in a 4 car accident in which I was behind a vehicle stopped to make a left hand turn, two cars back hit the car behind me at full speed.
2. Did not make my 2018 IRA contribution.
3. Liberty Health denied DH's prostate cancer as "pre-existing". Now stuck because it would actually be pre-existing if we change. Not happy because they say he had cancer "symptoms". Ugh. Next year and the following in 2020 they will pay $50,000 then in 2021 it will be treated as though it was not "pre-existing".
4. Visited a bunch of quilt fabric shops and bought stuff on our trip up to Seattle along the Oregon coast. Came home from cruise and told DH to quit enabling me. He's the worst or best at that! I have vowed no new fabric purchases in 2019. In fact, no buying anything we don't need. Juneau and Ketchikan both had nice quilt fabric shops. We also got to see our former neighbors, a youngish couple, at our Ketchikan stop.

I figure if we can pay an extra $22,000 on our mortgage without even trying, I am shooting for an extra $30,000 this year.

Wow one day left in this year. It's my oldest sister's birthday also. We drove to town to drop off my daughter's family's laundry, then over to visit the widow for a while. We stayed too long and were really hungry once we headed home.

We decided to stop and get some lunch meat to make sandwiches after deciding against stopping at a local sandwich shop. We stopped at Costco and got roast beef and sliced cheese, and some hummus that was super cheap and a discontinued Fitbit that was also super cheap! We had those cheap Costco rolls at home in the freezer. My husband made yummy grilled meat and cheese sandwiches, then added tomato and avocado to them.

My fitbit died and I was going to try to go without one, but it was also my watch so I went ahead and got one. It was a discontinued Alta and was only $57.97 or something like that.

We ate leftovers of the yummy chicken I made last night for dinner. Before dinner, we went down and had drinks and snacks with our very good friends who live around the corner.

My husband works tomorrow so I am going to do as much as I can on the house. DH will be bringing home a lot of dear friend's stuff and we need to make room. I am a bit freaked as we already have a ton of stuff and I have been planning to work on decluttering like a real job. It's imperative I get to it immediately!

By the way does anyone know why even when I am logged in, if I want to comment, my information does not automatically fill? It keeps telling me if I log in it will do it for me, but I AM logged in!

Nothing terribly exciting to report. I basically did laundry all day. Then I made a recipe with chicken breasts and dumped the leftover pumpkin pie batter in a pan. It was all really good. I spent no money!

Good evening.

Today I had to take my dog to get a booster shot. Then off I went "to town".

I stopped at Target and bought $100 for next year's Christmas gifts. Then onto Joann Fabric to buy a tapestry needle and hand threader so that I can finish the Unicorn scarf and hat I made the 3 year-old. Onward to Winco, Costco and Smart Foods.

I spent about $200 and told DH the plan was to keep it until 7-10 days. I think we can, I think we can.....

The third day in a row we have had prime rib, mashed potatoes (tonight DH added egg and made a pancake), green bean casserole and the last of the homemade pumpkin pie and apple tart. Well we are done with that!

Will need to spend a bit of money on Lila, the adopted chihuahua, who is getting an update of some immunizations tomorrow. I think I need the flea/tick/heartworm medicine too. That's going to cost some bucks!

I had physical therapy today and visited my mom afterwards. Otherwise I did some light housework and some bookkeeping for our business.

I've been doing some more analysis of our 2018 spending and figuring out the 2019 budget.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas with those you love.

My daughter, son-in-law, Ally 10, and Pyper 4 all arrived about 10:30. They were so sweet and waited so patiently while I ran to grab my mom from the assisted living facility. It is only about 1.5 miles away. I literally made it in 3 minutes when I was working there.

My husband went to spend some time with widow of his mentor and he stopped and bought her a real at a local restaurant. I told him it was one Christmas out of how many, just go and spend time with her. She is really sad, of course she is, the death of her husband was a bit sudden even though we knew he had metastatic lung cancer.

So my son-in-law, who is a good cook, and I were finishing dinner. Then I saw my very good friend and her husband is DH's BFF (they text like teenage girls), walking their dog, walking by our house so I ran out and we chatted a bit. Her mother died on Christmas Day (the same year my dad died on Thanksgiving Day AND it was his 78th birthday!). So by the time I went back in the house, dinner was done. I just had to set the table and get everyone what they wanted to drink.

My husband got home while I was returning my mom to her AL apartment. She was very tired and kept thanking me for going to so much work. I kept telling her it wasn't that bad, I didn't do much, but her memory/mind is really diminishing. She asked my daughter who she was. Sometimes I'm not sure if she knows who I am until I say mom. She didn't know what town we are in even though she has lived in the same town as me for the past 30 years. It's really sad and I know I am going to end up the same. In fact every single thing I do that's a bit silly or I didn't remember something, my daughter freaks out. Something happened today and my daughter said, I have to text my sisters this. Oh good grief. My every behavior is scrutinized to see if my mind is slipping yet!

My 23 and me indicates I only have one health issue: Late stage onset Alzheimer's. So there you go!

I don't think I have ever been so ready to start the new year. My husband's on board for the no spend year and getting rid of whatever we don't need or use or LOVE!

I am making it my JOB to live as frugally as possible and take care of my home, yard, the chickens and the dog!

The granddaughters spent the night again, along with my daughter and son-in-law. Their friends live near us and it was my son-in-law's birthday. He was totally surprised so that was great. He turned 32. The girls and grandpa watched Mickey's Christmas and The Grinch. I popped them popcorn to munch on while they watched. I stayed busy until time to rock Pyper, the 4 year old.

DH took the leftover T-bone steak from Sunday night's birthday dinner and turned them into barbecued beef sandwiches. Yum. DH stated that he is impressed with how we have been eating leftovers.

I cannot find, in the freezers, the sweet potatoes leftover from Thanksgiving I was going to use to make sweet potato pie. We may have to use canned pumpkin, which is a staple in our house.

Today I made a free form apple tart and the beginnings (the crust and cream cheese/cook whip layer) of a raspberry jello "salad".

Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes. Today is actually my first son-in-law's birthday. He turned 32. My daughter decided to surprise him with a party. She threw it together pretty fast. They have a nice group of friends. So I rocked the 4 year old, Pyper, to sleep while 10-year old Ally went on her own. My stressed out husband was asleep by the middle of The Grinch.

We started Bird Box on Netflix before the girls got here, so I am finishing it up before I go to bed. It's a very strange movie, it was filed near Humboldt in the next county North. The geography is just like ours, trees, ferns, etc.

I made DH a grocery list today and he promised to only get the things on the list. This was pretty much a first. No impulse purchases. He said he started to go look at the canned lemonade we drink to see if it was on sale, and thought no I can only get what's on the list. It came to $26 and change...it would have been about $20 if we didn't have to buy brandy for the free form apple tart I am making. That was a huge breakthrough. He didn't go by the meat either!

Oh good grief, I am super sleepy again, well it is 10:30 !

I'm 61 today, figure I have about 29 good years left. I spent the morning doing laundry for my daughter's family and then went to town to have lunch with my daughter and family, my husband and the new widow. I am so glad she came. There were tears, but not an overwhelming amount. My granddaughters are a nice diversion. The friend paid for the meal for all of us.

I ended up bringing the 4 year old home with me as my 10 year old granddaughter, daughter and her husband were taking her to the ballet. I stopped at Target to wander through the toy section with Pyp, then made sure the stuffed Christmas animals were still hidden so daughter can buy them after Christmas. We just put a few ornaments in front of them.

I didn't think I would be hungry for dinner, but I was. DH sous vide a Porterhouse, steamed broccoli, I made coleslaw and put rolls in the oven. The family came to pick up Pyp and she and Ally (10 year old) ended up spending the night here. I opened presents, a pair of pajamas from both my daughter and my husband. This is hilarious because I texted to my daughters that whoever had my name for Christmas, I could use a new pair of pajamas or a nightgown. I specified the material, and my preference of no sleeves. I don't need another pair!

I have spent the evening after the girls went to bed with my grocery list, my computer and my menu planning book to get organized for next week. DH promises he will not buy anything not on my list.

Our menu for Christmas:
Prime Rib (gift from SIL's stepfather)
Mashed potatoes/gravy
Green Bean Casserole (Alton Brown's recipe on foodnetwork.com
Raspberry jello/cream cheese/graham cracker crust dish
Free form apple tart (Bon Appetit recipe from 1989 March issue)
Low carb praline pumpkin pie (foodnetwork.com)

So far my grocery list is quite short, but I need to finish menus for the week and add anything else we might need. I put french toast casserole in the frig to soak overnight. Ally specifically requested this so I found some cheaper cinnamon swirl bread to keep on hand.

This morning my husband agreed to the no meat purchase ban for 6 months, starting Jan 1st. He bought a pork butt today at Safeway for 99 cents a pound and it is on the smoker for SIL's stepfather.

When I announced I was not buying any fabric for a year, the only person who thinks I can do it is Ally! She does not think grandpa can go 6 months without buying meat. It will be a fun/good challenge for us. Our biggest area of personal buying for both of us, given up for 6 months (well I am committed to 12 months of no fabric buying). Both my daughter and son-in-law separately asked said, "what about white?" I told them I had full bolts of my two favorite white fabrics.

Ack bedtime! The girls tend to get up early!

I'm confused. Oh well it's the 21st of December and I received my new Zenni glasses that were supposed to come tomorrow. I am happy! DH was home when I got home tonight and had put the lasagna in the oven with some broccoli and mushroom sautéed on the side.

Omgosh I am so tired! I bought a new shower curtain for DH that is weighted so hopefully it will stay in place.

He brought me a gift card for Winco, my Christmas bonus for doing the books for our business!

Will write more tomorrow. Just so tired.

I have an upper respiratory infection. I have asthma so I always get a bit nervous. I cancelled physical therapy appointments for the week. My husband bought chicken soup (we already had some canned, which I had a can for lunch) and some popsicles of real fruit. I chose raspberry. I took it easy all day. I did manage to put the dishes away and reload. I washed the coffee pot since I didn't think we would have enough dishes to run the dishwasher. I generally run it every night if we cook.

DH's very close friend is going home from the hospital tomorrow on Hospice. It's really hard on my husband and I am trying to support him as best I can. We have been married long enough that I don't get "mad" or "need" him. Even sick I can take care of myself (except we didn't have any popsicles), and understand him being gone until late each evening. He came home early tonight because he is tired out after spending from 6:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. for the past two days at the hospital. Luckily it is raining so the car wash has not been busy and his staff is handling things.

I have been taking Zicam so I am hoping I feel better tomorrow. We are supposed to have our granddaughters Thursday night and possibly Friday. My daughter needs to take her husband down to the VA in San Francisco for dental work. But she had to have her car towed today because it "went crazy". She took a video of her dashboard and it was very strange. Hopefully it is an electrical problem.

The pest control people came today and we luckily had purchased another year contract for half price on a local radio shopping show. I gave the technician a $10 bonus. He is really good about calling to make sure I get the chickens in their pen before he gets here.

My husband made burritos on Sunday, I had one last night. Tonight I had peanut butter and jelly on an English muffin for dinner.

I changed my sheets today, but spent the rest of the morning working on getting my MAC to print. It stopped when we switched internet providers. I was on the phone with apple for a bit and eventually figured out on my own how to get the printer to print.

I also worked in our greenhouse, picking tomatoes and cutting the tomato plants out. Three of our four chickens were in the greenhouse with me having a great time eating and scratching for bugs.

My husband was late getting home as his BFF is back in the hospital with pneumonia. He has stage 4 lung cancer, so it's been really rough.

I resisted buying a new quilt pattern. I saw the pattern made on Pinterest and I just love it! The book is out of print, but there is a kindle version. It will still me there when my Year of Ultimate Frugality is over!

Well today I looked at the Sunday ads and saw that Target was having a "sale" on fit bits. Mine died a week ago and I used it all the time for walking challenges with my fellow Weight Watcher members. The cheapest was $99.

My mind thought, oh it's $99 okay I'll get it this week. And then I started thinking about this commitment I made and I decided against it. I do not need to participate in the challenges. It doesn't make me walk more, it was just kind of fun and occasionally I would not be in last place.

The thing I really miss about the fit bit is that it was also my watch, but I have two nice watches that need new batteries which will be way less than a fit bit. So I resisted.

Today was my second son-in-law's birthday. He is my oldest daughter's husband, they were second to get married after my youngest daughter, well 8 years after my youngest daughter. OD was almost 35 when she got married in March 2014. My middle daughter got married in May of this year, she is 37 and it is her first marriage. My baby got married 6 weeks before she turned 19.

My husband came to bed after a disturbing phone call. His BF/mentor has gone to the ER. He has cancer and has not been doing well. I have to stop typing.

I went to town to run errands. First I dropped of shirt pillow covers to new friend. She was so pleased and I told her I did not want to be paid as I thought about my own grandfather and my husband and the kind of grandfather he is. I felt honored that she asked me to do something so meaningful for her family. The very last shirt was a heavier denim stripe and I just could not bring myself to cut it. I told her if she really wanted me to I would and she said she believed in signs and that shirt must have another purpose.

I then went by my daughter's house to drop off clean towels and sat on my oldest granddaughter's bed and talked with both her and her baby sister. They still had their pajamas on and the 10 year old was reading to the 4 year old. Then we all went out and ate chocolate chip cookies that my son-in-law sprayed with whipped cream.

Then it was grocery shopping at Winco. I found a very nice page with categories to make your list. I ended up getting Winco brand sour cream and raspberry gelatin. I feel like I got something else store brand, but I cannot remember. I did buy a couple of impulse purchases that were not on the list. One was cake mixes for 88 cents. I bought 3. I like to have them on hand if the girls want to make cupcakes. My total was just under $92.

We took out flat meat and hamburger today. DH will sous vide the flat meat tomorrow and then we will make beef stroganoff for dinner tomorrow. Hamburger will be mixed with refried beans, mexican cheese blend and El Pato sauce and made into burritos which we will freeze for easy meals. I will give some to my daughter for her family too. They gobbled them up last time I made them about a month ago.

My husband went to the local college basketball games tonight so I just had a salad with a thawed barbecued chicken breast.

DH reiterated he is committed to sticking to our plan with the freezer since it is so difficult to find anything even though it is an upright.

I use Out of Milk for inventory and it is very helpful to keep track of what is in the freezer. In fact both that and YNAB are pulled up on my laptop at all times!

I pulled out a carton of tomato/red pepper soup from Costco. It has been in our pantry for a few years. We had 2 cheeseburgers, sealed and frozen that I pulled from the freezer too.This was for dinner tonight.

When I went to open the soup, the foil seal was undone. The soup was very separated and honestly it was post dated. All three cartons were the same, foil torn and separated soup. I threw it away.

There is a good reason right there to not stock up too much! I was so angry at myself. This YOYF is going to change all that!

I am using the Out of Milk app to monitor my inventory of both my freezers and my pantry. The wind was blowing so hard this morning, it was hard to walk Lila. We did not go far before we turned around and came back home.

After lunch, I spent the afternoon in my sewing room, sewing up shirts as pillow covers from the grandfather of a new friend who was in the 4 car pileup with me. I will deliver them tomorrow. It felt good to do something for her and her cousins. As I ironed her grandfather's shirts, before cutting them, I thought about my own husband as a grandfather and thought if her grandfather loved her and her cousins, like my husband loves his granddaughters, he was a very good grandfather.

I actually started my Year of Ultimate Frugality on November 1st. So I am using the right day# starting today.

Not much happened today. I had physical therapy, then I went to visit my mom at her assisted living apartment. We had a nice visit looking at her old cards. Some were really cute/funny from my now grown nieces and nephews. I was able to address the issue of a lady who lives there, that my mother had in her mind that my dad had been involved with. This is absolutely not true, but in mom's demented mind because they both were musicians, they had to know each other. I explained to mom that the reason N seems familiar is because she went to your church! I'm sure she is going to forget, but hopefully she will remember that N is a nice person and not to say anything abut my dad.

I paid mom's bill while I was there and dropped off the hearing aid batteries I had bought for her.

Once I was home I did a few things then started dinner. I decided to cook the red beets in my Insta-Pot. It worked great, I let them cool a bit, then put some olive oil and butter in the pan and tossed to coat. They were really good. I put the last of the pork roast in some brown gravy and it was delicious, along with some green beans and rosemary infused roasted potatoes. That was the 3rd meal out of the roast and DH said it cost up $.50 per meal. We also had leftover coleslaw and green beans.

Oh Lord I'm sleepy! Off to bed. Tomorrow is another day.

I spent most of the day in the kitchen. I roasted the last of the tomatoes from our greenhouse with chopped garlic and olive oil. Then I whirred in the vita-mix. I roasted the 4 pumpkins from our garden. I made pumpkin chocolate chip bread and I made spinach calzone.

The spinach was starting to wilt and I didn't want it to go bad. Same with the pumpkins. There were 3 that were starting to rot out in the garden. I split them open and left them for the chickens.

Onward!

My 4 year old granddaughter has pink eye. Let's hope my itchy eyes are not that. My eyes have been itchy lately from the fires in NoCa, but they are out and they were feeling much better. I am on the coast, a good 3-1/2 to 4 hours from Paradise, but we were still effected.

I ran to town today to show my new friend (who stayed with me after the four car pile-up 9/30/18 until my husband got there, and then pretty much stayed with us anyway until the tow truck came) the pillow I made from her grandfather's shirt. She asked me to make them for her and her cousins. She loved it after we unbuttoned the top button and the pillow form is white so it looked like the white undershirt he wore under his button down shirts. She asked if I could have at least one made by Saturday and since they take about 20 minutes to iron, cut and sew, I really think I can get them all done for her. I plan to make it a priority tomorrow.

I was not feeling well today so I cancelled PT. After meeting with friend at her work (and meeting her new "friend"), I stopped at my daughter's house to see if she wanted any of the good bread that was super cheap at the Franz outlet store. (Thanks for the reminder Trying to get Ahead). They did have $1 lunch rolls which I planned to pick up for leftover pork with barbecue sauce sandwiches we had planned for dinner. I did find the cinnamon swirl bread for $3 and a gingerbread bread for the same. They had loaves of good bread for $1.25. Apparently they had overbooked because the dates were like 12/21, which is good.

I then went by Target to pick up some Puffs tissues, some Zicam, and picked up Lip Smackers for my 10 year old granddaughters and a set of 3 shades of pink nail polish for the 4 year old. She loves for me to do her nails and then she does mine, which are interesting! Luckily nail polish on the skin around your nails comes off quite easily when picked (after washing your hands with soap and water).

When I got home, DH had beat me home. He came home from work early and finished making Lila the rescue chihuahua a big batch of dog food. I believe there was about 20 quarts. I mix it with a bit of kibble so this should last, along with what we already have in the freezer, for about 6 months. I ended up cleaning and rearranging the 3 freezers (one large, two refrigerator freezers) to accommodate the dog food and bread. We cannot buy another frozen thin until we get rid of some stuff. We have already spilled over into daughter's large freezer so we have to stick to this.

Okay bedtime. Tomorrow is another day.

I know I wrote a post yesterday and I could swear I hit save and publish. Oh well!

Yesterday I spent 53.78 at Grocery Outlet. I tend to stop in once a week to see what they have. I bought some frozen vegetables and filled up DH's diesel truck to the tune of $85.00.

Today I finally registered my new to me vehicle. I was in a car accident with a totaled Toyota Camry. I think this is probably my last car. I got it with about 76,000 miles on it and these cars (2004 M55 AMG Mercedes) apparently go up over 300,000 miles. Anyway we are treating it like it is the last.

We tend to pass cars around in our family. This car came from my newest son-in-law. It was his father's car. I could never have afforded to buy this car new. It has so many bells and whistles, it is confusing.

So my registration cost was $304.00. Luckily since it was a gift, we did not have to pay sales, which normally in California you have to pay sales tax on a vehicle if you buy it from a private party. The license plate needs a special wrench thing to get it off. We went to the import mechanic shop and they took the license plate off for us, then we drove to the DV.

Even though I had an appointment, we were still at the DMV office for well over an hour. The line is ridiculously long. I would never stand in that line if I had a choice to make an appointment instead.

We then went to pick up our own special wrench at the local building supply store (locally owned, we have no Home Depot or Lowe's), then onward to visit with DH's very close friend who has cancer and not doing well.

After that short visit, I dropped DH at our business and ran to my daughter's to drop off their laundry (that I do for them). My 4 year old granddaughter was home with my son-in-law. I brought over some Christmas craft things I bought last year from Michael's for 75% off. Pyp was really excited to put together the sweet shop.

Older granddaughter and my daughter got home and it was time for me to get home to dinner with DH. We ate carne asada for dinner that we had frozen cooked in the freezer.

Having lived in our house for 30+ years, it takes a minute to remember we have something. We have Christmas lights up (DH actually put them up on the first weekend in December), and yesterday afternoon DH found a timer thing and set up the lights on it. It worked! So they will come on at dusk automatically and turn off 6 hours later which will be approximately 5-11 pm each evening.

My Year of Ultimate Frugality was decided on suddenly so I didn't have time to make rules, just not to buy ANYTHING that we did not NEED! We have a tendency to overspend on food and for me, fabric. So I will be working on my rules and list them in the left hand margin.

My reason for this YOUF is we have to pay our house off before DH can retire. I have done really well this year paying extra on our mortgage and have paid over $20,000 extra on the principal this year.

DH started jerky this morning in our dehydrator. Jerky is incredibly expensive, but I hate the added costs when he has run out and needs to make more.

Oh let's see. What did I do today? I took my dog for a walk and realized if I wanted to make it to pick up my mom on time to drive her to town for a doctor's appointment, I'd better get ready. I have a tendency to underestimate how long it is going to take to get ready. Then I packed up the dog and off I went to get mom.

We finished with her appointment about 12:30 and I was so hungry. I wanted to stop and get something to eat, but I knew I had hummus and crackers that would be fast to grab as soon as I got home.

I made it home without stopping and spending money. I was not home 5 minutes when my husband drove up. I was shoveling hummus and crackers in my mouth and had made some salad to go along with it. I had taken hamburger out of the freezer that morning to make tacos for dinner.

We ended up going outside and working, it was such a beautiful winter day. I cleaned out the dead leaves in the strawberry bed and DH worked in the greenhouse, cutting and cleaning up the tomato plants. There is a ton of green tomatoes and a bunch of red ones too. I am going to roast the ripe tomatoes in the oven with garlic and whirl it in the blender for marinara sauce.

Otherwise I was lucky to get dinner made and the kitchen cleaned afterwards.

Day #2 was not exciting.

I had my second physical therapy appointment after a car accident I was involved in 9/30/18. It was a 4 car pileup. I was car #3 with the car that plowed into the other three car #1. The woman I was behind, who was stopped legally to make a left hand turn, was the only one who was not hurt. She pulled her truck into her home driveway and immediately ran over to make sure I was okay. I handed her my dog so I could call my husband. My poor little chihuahua climbed onto my lap and was shaking right after impact.

We became friends and she asked (after seeing my quilts on facebook) if I could make her and her cousins pillows out of her grandfather's shirt. Both her grandfather and grandmother passed away this year. She was really wonderful to me after the accident and stayed with me both before and after my husband arrived. The car behind me and the driver of the truck that caused the accident both went to the ER in ambulances, so I was really lucky. I did injure my left eye, which hit my steering wheel, and of course my neck and back are tweaked. My husband did take me to the ER and I was checked out, with nothing critical found. I declined an MRI of my eye as the pain had gone away and my vision seemed fine.

One week later I started having floaters in my vision, which were incredibly annoying. I finally got in with my own doctor who had been on vacation and she referred me for PT and to an eye doctor, who is also my mother's eye doctor. The medical assistant who called to schedule me asked if I had been having any flashes of light. Ummmmm......yes actually I had. They got me in that day and sure enough, I had evidence of tearing of my eye away from the socket. I was admonished to "take it easy", no jarring movements. Both the floaters and the lights have improved greatly over the past month, and I will check in with the eye doctor tomorrow when I take my mother in for a visit.

Nothing frugal really happened today except I ate leftover turkey pot pie for dinner, the last piece actually. My husband went to Costco the day after Thanksgiving and found turkeys for $15 off. He bought 4 turkeys around 20 pounds each for $5 a piece. He deboned and stuffed one on Sunday and baked it. We did not have that many leftovers from Thanksgiving as I sent a lot home with the young family next door who came for dinner. I also made two small casseroles of turkey enchiladas. I made enough pot pie filling for two pies and froze one along with a pie crust a la The Pioneer Woman's recipe on [url]www.food network.com.[url]

Here is my sample pillow I am dropping off tomorrow at new friend's work tomorrow:

Since I blogged. I am home and loving it, but I really thought I would be further along in some of my goals. Buy why would I be? You actually have to WORK AT THEM.

I am making a commitment to myself. This is hard because I never keep commitments to myself, but I am an all or nothing kind of person.

So I am all in. I am going to blog every day, even if it is 2 lines. I have 3 areas that I am going to keep my commitment to myself this year.

1. Year of Ultimate Frugality. I came upon this idea from a you tuber person, Coffee with Kate. She lives in the same state I am in so I relate to her. She brought up this idea of a Year of Frugality and I decided I am going to do it. This involves a year of buying NOTHING that is not needed or essential. For instance, I saw someone post or something about Evergreen Glade to help the house smell Christmasy, I initially thought oooh I have to get that since we have a fake tree. Is this needed? NO! so I'm not buying it. The Christmas presents that were purchased before November 1st are the only gifts my family is getting. (This is the date I started).

I have unsubscribed from all my online shopping portals. I will find ways to do things cheaper. For instance I make french toast casserole a lot and especially on Christmas. My 10 year old granddaughter asked if I was going to "make it like last year". Last year I made it with cinnamon bread. Cinnamon bread is $5.99 a loaf at Costco! I am going to make some cinnamon bread or cinnamon rolls and use that which will be cheaper than $5.99!

Since food is an area that can vary widely from family to family, and my husband loves to cook, my goal is as little food waste as possible. For instance we bought a bag of avocados at Costco, but there was no lettuce (the whole romaine scare thing), so I should have put them back, but I didn't so now I have 5 ripe avocados. We are making guacamole and freezing it! We made ham and beans from the Thanksgiving ham. We cooked the turkey carcass, my husband picked it clean and we made homemade dog food with it. I had a few apples from our tree getting soft. I chopped them up and gave them to our 4 chickens. They gobbled them up! I knew they would because they were actually jumping up and pecking them before they were ready to pick (some of the branches are hanging quite low).

I'm finding it easier to just not buy anything than have a "budget category" for something. I don't have a lot of will power when it comes to certain items, so it is much easier to just not buy anything than buy a little (fabric I am talking to you).

2. Weight loss. I am a WW member. I have been gaining and losing the same 5 pounds over and over. I have about 10 pounds to lose. I am giving myself until the end of March to do it. Then I will cancel my membership or go into maintenance. I really like my group and it so much more than just weight loss. I have done it before (gotten down to goal weight), but at that time in 2014 I still had 4 pounds to go! Then they changed the weight chart. That weight would be my goal weight now (highest amount I should weigh for my short height). So I am keeping that commitment to myself!

3. Decluttering. I had to get out of bed the other night to charge my fit bit or go to the bathroom or something. I swung out of bed and literally almost fell, catching my right leg in a box that had a bunch of crap including a plastic dishpan in it. In doing that, I pulled everything off my tiny end table which included 4 stacked books, hand lotion, my lamp, my iPad, some earrings and other smaller crap. It hurt like hell and since I already suffer from chronic pain, the last thing I need is more pain! I woke up the next morning and realize that my bedroom only has a narrow walkway around the bed. It is insane how much crap we have. Usable crap true, but do we need it? See #1. No we probably don't need a lot of it.

So that is the third area I am working on during my Year of Ultimate Frugality. I will donate to our local animal rescue thrift store that is only a mile from me. They accept donations Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings. They know me well enough that they take all my stuff because I throw yucky stuff in the garbage! I started with throwing away 13 pairs of shoes, 11 of them were mine, one was a pair of old sandals that were my daughters and a pair of worn out little Mary Janes that were my 10 year old granddaughter.

I am not sure what switch was turned in my brain, but the more stuff I don't buy, the easier it is.

I'm hoping the more I throw stuff away the easier it will get. The more I eat healthy, the easier it will be (actually I feel like I already eat pretty healthy, I just eat too much).

Today's is DH's 58th birthday and our 38th anniversary is in 2 days. Since January 2015 many changes have happened in my life. #1. I quit my job. Yes I am hoping this time that I don't have to go back to work. We are not prepared but I could not take the physical and mental stress anymore of being in charge of over 50 employees and almost 100 elderly residents.

I was very good at my job, but I had nothing left at the end of the day to enjoy my life. It was incredibly rewarding, but also incredibly demanding. I used up all my stores in my body and mind giving 150%. So I am starting week 9 of retirement.

Also my youngest daughter, her legally blind, former Marine husband and my two granddaughters moved back to Southern California where my SIL will be back on base as a civilian because of a job dropped in his lap. He had a good finance job up here in Northern California, but they really wanted to be back in the Temecula/Murietta area so off they went.

I have so many goals/responsibilities for being home. I realize I may have to go back to work at some point, so I am not wasting any time in doing what I should have done in 2010-2012 when I started my last position. My yard is looking great and slowly but surely I am reclaiming the house.

But today it's making a one layer German Chocolate Cake and potato salad, along with that Texas caviar? It is black beans, tomatoes, onion, roasted corn (leftover from last night), avocado and maybe some garbanzo beans, mild salsa with lots of cilantro. DH will be barbecuing steaks for his birthday dinner.

Just to refresh, DH has done virtually 100% of grocery shopping and cooking over the past 36 or so years.

I went down to SoCa for my granddaughter's birthdays (August 12, 18, turning 2 and 8) and will be returning next week for a trip to Disneyland with my daughters and granddaughters, and I think one SIL.

I need to read blogs and wrap my mind around the things I need to do to be able do stay home. It is definitely fall here in Humboldt and my 60 year old Japanese Maple is turning beautiful shades of yellow, orange and brown. Fall is my favorite time of year!

Have a great day!

Along with the usual lose weight, spend less, I have decided to commit to weekly meal plans. My DH still does all the grocery shopping and cooking, but after almost 34 years the meal planning has become very tedious for him.

I downloaded a really cute meal planning sheet from Pinterest:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/4574037098060326/

I did exactly what the link shows at Kinko's/Fed Ex last Saturday. It has been a total relief for DH and asked the other day where the planner was?? He also noted last night this is the first time we have stuck to a menu plan 4 days straight since he cannot remember when.

Without further adieu here is the list:
Sun Dec 28-Beef Stroganoff (not a drop left)
Mon Dec 29-Chicken fajitas (even my 6-y-o granddaughter loved these)
Tue Dec 30-Broccoli Beef stir fry (the rest of the hunk of beef pulled from freezer)
Wed Dec 31-Fish and Chips (granddaughter's choice)
Thu Jan 1 - Fried Chicken, black eyed peas and collards
Fri Jan 2 - Homemade pizza
Sat Jan 3 - venison and leftovers (I only like venison burgers so unless it is burgers, I'm eating leftovers or salad or something else)
Sun Jan 4 - Smoked Turkey, etc (my employer gives away turkeys every Thanksgiving, I took 5 because too many are always delivered)
Mon Jan 5 - Enchilada casserole made with guess what? Turkey!
Tue Jan 6 - Stir fry made with guess what? Turkey!
Wed Jan 7 - Steak Salad
Thur Jan 8 - Turkey Soup and homemade deli sandwiches
Fri Jan 9 - Homemade pizza
Sat Jan 10 - Leftovers

Got up this morning early and picked through the bag of black eyed peas and found 4 rocks! That is why I always pick through dried beans. They are doing their boil/quick soak before putting in the crockpot.

My focus is simple for 2015, plan meals and save 20% of our gross income for retirement. I received a $600 Visa card for a Christmas bonus and I plan to use that for new clothes. I also have some of my target gift card from last year! I think there is about $54 left on that. I am the boss and dress in casual business attire. I need to have comfortable cute stuff. I just ordered $136 from Ann Taylor Loft at 60% off. My day finds me doing everything from giving a tour and chatting with potential resident/families to being on the floor figuring computer issues, to taking out garbage and sticking it in the commpactor, to meeting with employees.....

I need to order some more support stockings. I ordered one pair from Amazon in a cute chevron print. They did help my ankle swelling greatly. My doctor had advised me to get some at my yearly exam. I think that will be it for a while. Support stockings are expensive. I need 4 more pairs.

Time go pay bills and call Vanguard for some information on setting up Roth IRAs for DH and me.