My Weblog

Yesterday was the day...........

I have had a turkey breast and a turkey in the freezer, waiting to be canned, for quite a while now. I certainly couldn't do it last winter because of my wrist and my leg. I didn't want to heat up the house in the summer--it was hot enough without doing that. So, early in the week I put the turkey roast in the fridge to thaw. By yesterday we were set to go. It cooked for several hours yesterday afternoon. Then I de-boned it and put the bones back in the pot to cook a while longer. They cooked with a lid, on an extremely low heat, all night. It's now amazing bone broth.

I've been wanting to make a certain meal for a while now. In some places it would be called turkey and dumplings. But the PA Dutch, my "tribe", would call it turkey pot pie. It is meat, maybe some vegetables, and broth with a bunch of rolled dumplings. I can never remember the correct proportions of flour to baking powder to salt for the dumplings. So, I grabbed a recipe off the internet. Then I proceeded to prove I'm a slow learner. I KNOW I'm used to very light salt. Yet, I put in the amount of salt called for in the recipe. For my taste, the dumplings are too salty. Nevertheless they're edible and one way or another, I intend to eat them.

I had a really difficult time rolling those dumplings. My rolling pin is a marble one with wooden handles. It's heavy. Given my faulty, formerly broken wrist, it was very painful to pick that rolling pin and move the dough mixture and lay the rolling pin on it again. Equally painful was the actual rolling. In my family, the dough is rolled pretty thin, except when a person with a formerly broken wrist is rolling it. One really needs to be able to exert some pressure on the rolling pin and, because of the pain, I just couldn't. So I have thicker than usual "dumplings". My mother certainly wouldn't approve of those. But, of course, she isn't here anymore, so they'll do.

Besides the wrist, my legs decided to give me trouble yesterday. Of course, I ended up on my feet a lot. And, when I finally got to rolling out that dough, my legs threatened to just give up and give out. But I had to push on. 

So, today, I am coping with a wrist that hurts no matter what I am trying to do (including using the keyboard), and my legs and knees don't want to work either. But I got the job done, after praying for strength. And tomorrow I will 1) set some turkey meat aside for sandwiches. I do love me some turkey sandwiches. And, 2) can the remainder of the meat and the broth for future use. So, when you can't find turkey in the store, I'll be eating my home canned turkey and feeling very blessed.

This turkey must have been the Goliath of the turkey world. I have never seen a turkey breast with so much meat. So grateful I bought that thing way back when.

Accidental cook

Last night I decided I needed some beef, in pretty much any form. I grabbed a pint jar of my canned ground beef and began trying to find stuff to go with it. Ordinarily I'd make sloppy joes with it but that didn't appeal to me. I fried up some spinach and some thinly sliced shallots. I added a can of mushroom soup and a little garlic powder. Finally I added some sour cream. I hate to tell you, but I didn't like it. I don't know 'bout you, but I've been watching my sodium for a long time. Seemed to me with that mix of ingredients, there should have been some detectable flavor besides lots of salt, but to my taste, I tasted only lots of salt. So, needless, I wasn't thrilled with the idea of eating the leftovers tonight. But I wasn't going to throw it away either. What do do?

I thought about it and realized that it was the mushroom soup that was so salty. Well, I couldn't remove the soup, but I could dilute it! Easy solution--poured in a little milk and suddenly I had some "fancy" hamburger gravy. Toasted some bread and made like an open-faced sandwich which I ate with some fancied-up hamburger gravy on it and enjoyed it.

Day in the Life

This is the 13th. I'm moving slowly, but at least I'm moving. I placed a grocery order. For those things I ordered, the full retail price would have been around $61. However I managed to snag sale savings of around $11.00. I might be able to bring it down further by $1 to $3. So, on budget.

I delivered my last 2 tax returns. I'm telling you, dealing with clients whose mental capabilities are deteriorating is a real challenge. She has been under extreme stress this year, both mental and physical, which has contributed to the problem. But, one of the things she could not seem to do was pull together the information for her taxes. This ended up making my job much harder, especially when one of the 2 tax returns is NOT the 1040 you are familiar with, and I do it by hand. Hours and hours went into that thing, through several variations, based on the latest information that came my way. I ended up with a total of about 9 hours on that. Ugh.

She also made me scared for her. I watched her try to park in front of the house. It's not often I see someone go up over the curb to do that..........I watched her walk up the driveway and then up the sidewalk. She claimed she was so slow because she had fallen a week ago and her muscles were still stiff from that. However, she is dealing with a serious lung condition. I think she was also winded and her balance was off. As shaky as I am, I felt as though I should go and "help" her and I actually felt as if my efforts would have been worthwhile. 

I haven't done any housework to speak of for nearly a week. The last time I did was the night I went after those kitchen chairs. I was so disgusted I didn't know what to do with myself. I cleaned two of them and then decided to take a good look at those cushions. Three of the 4 are not usable. The one she sat in all the time is still gray on the side she sat on. The are supposed to be tufted cushions. The stitching that created the "tufting" was machine stitched. Notice I said "was". Not anymore and I can't imagine any way I can fix that. There is no way that will fit under the presser foot on my machine. I discovered a huge brown stain on the bottom of one cushion. My guess is it's coffee spilled on the cushion/chair and left to dry there. Washing it now did NO good. And, the fourth cushion tore/frayed on one corner and some of the stuffing came out. I looked online for replacements. The only ones I really like cost $57 which is not happening for a long, long time.

After all that I was just defeated and took a few days off.

 

Not as productive as I'd like

I had a rough night last night. I went to bed at the usual time. Four hours later I was still awake. I came out and sat here and watched youtube videos til 6:00 AM. At that point I felt like I might be able to get to sleep. Unfortunately, I slept til 1:30 PM. That shortened my time for working. I have decluttered, shredded, and taken trash out. Additionally I've cleared off some of the counters in my kitchen. One set of my countertops is cluttered with Tupperware I can't get into the cabinet in which it's supposed to live. To deal with that cupboard, I'm going to have to get down on the floor.  i CAN'T do that until I find my kneeler. I've searched for that thing and I can't find it. It is certainly not in the place where I store it. Nor is it anywhere else I can think of that would be logical to put it. I'm starting to wonder if "she" took it with her.........

I don't want to go down on that floor. The kitchen is the room she kept that dog in when she was home. I've vacuumed and washed that floor repeatedly, but I can still see wads of dog hair either lying around loose or glued to the floor by the steam vac. Also, I just can't sit on the floor because of a coccyx that was broken when I was in the 3rd grade. On the hard floor, it causes excruciating pain. I can literally end up sitting on bone. And then I can only get up from there with proper pre-planning and prayer.

I've started working on the kitchen chairs. Each of the chairs had a cushion on it. It took me 15 minutes to get those cushions untied and into the washer and to clean the seat off one chair. The back of the chair is as bad as the cushions. I literally sprayed down the seat of one chair and scrubbed away at it three times before I was willing to call it clean. I can see that it's going to take a long time just to clean those chairs..........

Anyway, because I slept so late, I seem to have a bit more energy than usual at this time of night. Just wondering if I can get through 4 chairs before I can't muster the strength any more. I have the cushions in the washer and I really hope they will be clean when I get them out of there, but, forgive me if I don't hold my breath on that one..........

The struggle is real..........

I worked in this house til about 10PM last night. I finally just sat down and stayed put when my leg muscles had had all they could take. I'm nearing that same point tonight, but the truth is either I do it or it doesn't get done. I don't have to get it all done today, but I DO need observable progress. The problem is the to do list is growing, not shrinking. 

One victory I can celebrate is that I've gotten rid of one whole pile of shredding. Phew! The new shredder shreds more sheets at a time and has a larger bin, so that makes the whole process go faster. I 'm still shredding for 15 minutes a day. 

I'm also decluttering 15 minutes a day. Today I culled some books from the bookshelves. Still 8 shelves to go. I also have a large pile of donation stuff on the dining room floor that needs to be packed up and hauled off. 

I have brought my budgeting system up to the end of August. Not good enough, but a definite improvement over where it was. 

I have given the fridge a thorough cleaning. I have gone through every shelf, all the way to the back wall. I found all sorts of crap shoved to the back and left behind by "her". I also pulled out at least 10 containers with tiny scraps of stuff in them. Containers the size of the little salad dressing containers you get with a salad. And jars of unknown stuff I wouldn't ever take a chance on eating (or even opening and sniffing. 

And come tomorrow morning there are at least 10 time consuming tasks I've run into today, courtesy of "her" and "her dog".

Ugh!

And to make my joy complete, the influx of Californians trying to escape Newsome's policies and CA's taxes have driven our values so high that my house payment is going up more than $45 a month to accommodate escrow requirements for higher property taxes and higher insurance costs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reporting in

I have been doing my shopping once a week now for a few weeks. I think this is going to work. My goal was to be able to take better advantage of the weekly specials. I think that's the only way to get through the inflation--to learn to live off of what's "on special". 

I loaded my cart with $66,XX in groceries. With the discounts for specials and digital coupons, i knocked $17 off that total. I also have some paper coupons for $1.40. So I will get out of the store for about $43-44 out of pocket. I put 4 items into my cart that didn't have a digital coupon and weren't on sale. Of those 4 items I have paper coupons on 3 of them. i got a beef roast, fresh spinach, fresh zucchini, fresh yams, fresh grapes and fresh red peppers. I also got a supply of Greek yogurt, some honey nut Cheerios, and three single serving prepared salads. 

Last week I also ordered yams. I scrubbed them, wrapped them all in foil, and baked them in the oven. Most everything I would normally make with yams would be baked or mashed, so cooking them all at once enables me to just unwrap them when needed and pop them into the microwave. Hopefully that saves some on the power bill. And, if I don't get them all eaten in a timely manner, I can just mash them up (as if I were making mashed potatoes) and freeze them. 

Today I have been accomplishing some things in the house. I decided it was some time for some motivation.  I turned to an old source of motivation. I've got some episodes of hoarders which I'm watching during breaks. I thank my God that I don't have that kind of a mess with which to deal. What I have is bad enough, and only He gives me the ability to believe that this little old lady can make a real difference. I've done my shredding, carried recycling out, moved the recycling bin in from the curb, took the roast out from the fridge to the freezer in the garage, found a turkey breast I need to can up, brought it in, wedged it in the fridge to thaw, and I used a brush as well as a dry mop to try to dust down the kitchen walls in the area where you-know who used to sit. The dust was so thick you could see little dust balls but they're gone now. I started a running list of things that need to be done. I tried to clean under the fridge which is where the coils are. I didn't manage that. The pad I kneel on has been missing since "she" left. My knees won't take it, even on a pillow and there's no meat left on my butt and hips to allow me to sit on the floor. It's literally a pain in the butt, getting old............

Once I got down on the floor, I realized I'd need the chair to get up. I grabbed the chair she always sat on and used it. In that process, I realized that the chair cushions HAVE to be washed. They are supposed to be a blue plaid on a white background. But, the only description of them now is gray. And so it goes...........Everywhere I look there's another mess to clean up. I'll be busy for a long time to come!

How do you eat an elephant?

I am still trying to rid myself from dog hair everywhere and to clean the mess that you-know-who left behind. I actually took a scrub brush and a bottle of vinegar/water/dawn to the exterior of my fridge. I feel like it's presentable now. I'd gone over it with paper towels and rags several times and it still looked dirty. The front of the fridge has that "pebbled leather" finish that's supposed to minimize fingerprints. The scrub brush enabled me to deal with the crud in between the "pebbles". So, now it looks better. I do wish that person had, at some point in her almost 60 years, discovered that the proper use of handles and knobs leaves surfaces cleaner.............

But, that is not the elephant. The elephant is two stacks of shredding to be done. One stack is corralled in a large bin. But the other stack is free standing. Or, perhaps free-leaning would be a more descriptive term. It is so tall that I am scared there could be an avalanche. But, I got the new shredder here from Amazon. It weighs a ton and I had a pistol of a time getting it unboxed and moved to the office. It does a great job. I've been setting aside 15 minutes every morning to work on this. I can pretty much shred my way through about an inch and a half per day. I'll be so glad when it's ALL done! I estimate that will be sometime in 2022..............(there's loads more to be shreded that I haven't pulled out of the filing cabinets yet).

I found out that a client of mine has a shower chair stored in her garage. She wants to give it to me and I'm gonna say thank you very much and take it. (I just recently delivered 3 tax returns to her family that literally cost me $225 to produce just for the use of the software and they handed me $100.) I have to admit that I still have a lot of concerns about my balance. So, taking a shower has been a scary proposition for me. The chair seems like a good idea until things get better. I love anything that minimizes the stress in my life.

Another habit I'm working on is dragging something either to the car or to the outside trash bins everyday. I am literally scared to walk around outside. Remember outside is where I fell. Anyway, the trash pickup is on Tuesdays. And carrying one trash bag or donation bag outside per day sure makes Monday a better day.

 

 

Green P-e-a

My grandmother was not an educated woman. i believe she completed the second grade. After that she was put to work in the fields to help support her family. I doubt she earned much, but in those days it was a truism that "every little bit helps".  We lived, after I was 6, about 1000 miles away from her. She faithfully wrote us letters. They werequite something. In spite of her very limited education, she knew cursive. I remember her letters were always written with a dull pencil. And, not surprisingly, they were full of misspellings. She also misspelled in every day life. During the final 10-15 years of her life, she had a dog she'd named Blackie. Blackie didn't have a great life by today's standards. She spent much of her life on a leash that was attached to the kitchen table leg. She had to be taken out several times a day to take care of bodily functions. Grandma lived in Pennsylvania where arctic breezes and lots of snow are common. Needless to say, Grandma, standing there hanging onto the leash, wanted Blackie to get on with it. It was normal for Grandma to prompt her: "P-e-a, Blackie". Blackie had never been to school but she learned what P-e-a meant and complied. None of us ever had the heart to try to tell Grandma or Blackie that the word was really spelled P-e-e.

Kroger's loss leader last week in the Produce Department was Asparagus. I had some for dinner last night. It's been so long since I've had fresh asparagus that I had to look up how to cook it, but it turned out really good. And today, I have Green P-e-a, or so Grandma and Blackie would have thought.............

History Nut

I am a total history nut. I can't help it. Old places and antiques fascinate me. Throw in old "castles" in Europe and a cute young guy (just a little older than my oldest grandson) with an amusing accent, and I am hooked. I have been watching some videos on youtube of this "kid" exploring old abandoned manor houses, castles, etc. The kid speaks pretty good English, but with little knowledge of idioms. So, for example, he just picked up a fan like you might have used at a fancy ball in the south, trying to cool yourself, and referred to it as a "waver". The kitchens in these places have some version of a chimney or primitive range hood. He refers to them all as "extractors". He sees tapestries on the wall and calls them "wall rugs". I have used the phrase "back in the day" and heard that phrase used. However, I don't think I have ever heard it used to refer to anything before 1920 or 1930. He's walking around a 200 year old building talking about how something might have been used "back in the day". In some of these places, idiots have gone in and dumped piles of furniture, fabric, and papers in a room. He refers to the room as "overthrown". It's all a little amusing if you ask me. He frequently encounters rosaries--he calls them prayer beads. He also calls a crucifix either a cross or a picture of Jesus Christ. It also gets pretty interesting when he tries to figure out something he sees in a kitchen.

His accent is so cute. It does cause me to have to do a little problem solving along the way though. For example, I heard him talking about upholstered "shares". It didn't take long to figure out he meant chairs. (He has trouble with the sh/ch combinations.) Another sound he has trouble with is the th sound, which is pretty common with folks from Germany/Netherlands/the parts of Belgium with a heavy Dutch influence. I heard him talking about the "udders". I looked around for cows, then realized he meant "others". 

All in all I like this kid pretty much. He has a respect for the fact that the place he is exploring was once someone's precious home. If he picks something up, he tries to put it back in the exact same place. He handles things very carefully, being cautious about breaking things. He is touring places filled with thousands and thousands of dollars worth of antiques, but doesn't seem to have any inclination to steal even an ashtray. I've actually seen him "clean" (straighten) a couple of "overthrown" rooms. I appreciate his respect for other people's property, even though those people may have died and will never know the difference. I have been giggling, though, when he marvels that dead people just left all this good stuff behind. I wanna say "Hay, cutie, did you think they could take it with them?" Another thing I like is he never tells you exactly where he is or even shows you the exterior of the place he's exploring. That way, no one seeing a wealth of gorgeous antiques will know where to go to steal anything. 

Anyway, if any of this sounds interesting or amusing to you, go to youtube and search for Bros of Decay. Let me know if you check 'em out and it they bring a smile to your face or fascinate you with the amazing places they tour.

 

 

Joining shopper's anonymous now..........

Kroger had it's case lot sale last week and it's continuing this week. I will admit to you that I don't think it was near as good as in the past. I noticed no sale on a lot of basics but if you wanted to pay for prepared foods, you could do okay. I was particularly interested in canned goods. I have single cans of a pretty wide variety of goods, but after the first week of SHTF, I'm going to have to really work at it. I did manage to grab some Green Giant corn and peas and some Van Camp pork and beans, but those are the only "basics". I don't buy much in the way of brand name stuff; I stick mostly to Kroger brand. I've found that brand to be pretty good over all. I can't see spending more on something just because it is an advertised "branded" product. 

I have found that in general, Kroger is pretty good to shoppers if a product is out of stock. Normally they will substitute something that is deemed to be "higher quality". For example, they substituted Dole pineapple for Kroger this week. Also substituted Kroger's line of organic products for the regular Kroger stuff. They had "my" brand of frozen pizza on sale. I rarely buy frozen pizza anymore. However, they had Freschetta pizzas on sale for $3.99, normally $5.99. I haven't seen those at $3.99 for months and months. I bought 4. One I cooked up last night (with two more meal's worth in the fridge, and I have 3 whole ones, 3 meals each (at least) in the freezer. That'll carry me well into 2022. 

I am contemplating a change in my shopping routine. For quite a while now, I've been shopping every other week. I am considering changing that to weekly. I think it may help me to keep a tighter grip on the budget by having access to weekly sales. I want to build my menu more closely around whatever is on sale. I also want to see if I can walk the store to do my shopping instead of pick-up. I haven't even tried that since I got hurt. But, I miss being able to shop the markdowns.........

I finally figured out one of my Dad's jokes from years gone by. He'd tell this "joke" complete with miming and I never got it. I have been sitting down when I have a lot of work to do chopping veggies or meats (for canning). I did that the other day to chop up veggies for cole slaw. I found that getting out of one of my dining room chairs was hard. Dad used to mime a wobbly old man with a cane moving along very slowly, then trying to maneuver himself into a chair near his friend. When it was time for the wobbly little old man to go, Dad would struggle out of the chair, stand still til he got his sea legs back and then start wobbling away. At that point, the friend would say "Don't hurry off..........."  It finally hit me--these days I resemble that wobbly little old man and I finally got the joke about "hurrying off". I guess it's good to be able to laugh at yourself, 20+ years later. 

It is still hotter than Hades here, with daily temps up to 110 this week. Even at night it doesn't get cool enough to open up the doors and air the place out. I miss that.

Well, that's about it for now. 

Cleaning and organizing..........

And buying......... I discovered along the way that my manual can opener was broken. So I got a new one. Then I found my missing canning ladle, but half the handle was gone, apparently hiding behind or under the fridge. So I got a new one. Then I tried to take the trash out and had a horrible time pulling out the bag. It was hung up on a broken rim which obliterated the upper edge of the bag when I finally managed to extract it. So, I got a new one. Then I wanted to shred some zucchini. But nothing I could do would cause the food processor to turn on. I know from experience that chopping up vegetables manually makes my wrist scream. The food processor was broken. So I got a new one. I try to shred old client records and tax returns to maintain security of private information. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the shredder to run. It is broken. So, I need to buy another one. Old slew foot seems to intend to nickel and dime me to death...........

Apparently I have enough chicken to can. the Kroger store (Smith's) put chicken legs and thighs on a really good sale. My normal pattern would be to buy some and vacuum wrap it and freeze it. Then, later, at my leisure, pull it out and can it. So I ordered 2 value packs of legs and one more of thighs (since I'd just canned a value pack of thighs). I went to pick up my groceries on Tuesday and they were sold out of the chicken. I still have plenty to can in the freezer, among other things a turkey breast and a whole turkey. Maybe God thinks I have enough poultry???

Watching youtube, I finally got an explanation of effective meal planning to use what's in the house. I've heard any number of people tell me to meal plan, but finally got a step by step explanation of HOW. First thing is to know what you have. So, I'm working on a pantry inventory. I started with the rolling pantry. I took everything off, dusted the cans and jars (to get rid of the dog hair), and created a written inventory as I put it all back. Everything went back by category and by type. For example, all the soups are on one shelf with all the tomato soup grouped, then the mushroom soups together, and so on. I actually feel pretty proud when I look at that rolling pantry now.

Best part of the pantry inventory is that Smith's is having their quarterly can sale. For a change, I can make sure the stuff I buy is the stuff I need. And the dog hair has been banished from that corner of the kitchen! And I won't be buying a bunch of canned corn while I already have 3 cans on the shelf. 

I gave my "new" (refurbished) food processor a try last night. To tell you the truth, I was disappointed. I was trying to shred some zucchini, which would have been difficult for me to accomplish manually, but which I expected to be no problem for a food processor. I had just two zucchini to shred but I think it took me longer with the machine than it would have without it. The big advantage turned out to be that all my knuckles and fingernails were intact when I was done.  I'm sure it will do a dandy job of chopping. It may even do just fine on slicing, but the shredding thing was very frustrating...........