Books. Lots and lots of books

In the last week I've read some books.

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt, by Caroline Preston. It has a very interesting format; it tells the story in a "scrapbook" style. Little bits and pieces of various things like movie tickets, telegrams, and photographs create a collage on each page. It was a very quick read since there are only a few actual sentences per page. It was fun, and I like the happy ending.

Labor Day, by Joyce Maynard. A novel written from the point of view of a 13 year-old boy, very recently made into a movie starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin. The boy is the son of what I had hoped would be the main character. It's the story of a family torn apart by heartache and sorrow and their efforts to become whole again. The story begins when an escaped convict from a nearby prison meets the boy and his mother in a Walmart-type store and asks if he can stay with them in their home until the police stop looking for him. I wanted to like the book more than I did. There is a lot of the boy's personal narrative; he's interested in girls but unsure how to approach them. He's discovered what to do with himself in the middle of the night. Ahem. He's interested, disgusted, and mortified by what his mother is doing in the next room with this man who during daylight hours is more of a father to him than his real dad has ever been. I had to turn the book back into the library before I could review it. I wish it had had more substance, and I wish the story could be told from the mother's point of view. I think I'll read another of Maynard's books to see if I think she's any good. Other of her books besides this one have been made into movies, so apparently there's something there for some people.

When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead. Very strange, but intriguing juvenile fiction. I'm still trying to decide what I think about it. It involves time travel in a very different way and at the end when all was made clear I thought it was very satisfying.

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. I kept checking to see, but this nasty book was, indeed, written by a woman. Filled to bursting with profanity and an obsession with genitalia and crude, coarse, meaningless sex. Ick, ick, and ick again. Do people really want to read about that stuff? I kept waiting for it to turn around and be "good", and for the characters to ever exhibit any redeeming human qualities at all, but it never did. The only time the female character was anything approaching moral or kind or feminine or loving was when she was pretending to be those things. Dark and horrifying, but not in a good way.

It's been the kind of week where I'm glad I didn't lay out any money for books. The library is like a free preview, a try-before-you-buy kind of set up. I won't read any of these books again (and reading books again is one of my favorite things!) but I do hope to see the movie Labor Day when it comes out on dvd to the library. I'm interested in the mother's story and would like to see it brought to life by Kate Winslet.

Another Monday,

time again to figure out what we'll have for dinner this week.

In the fridge/pantry I've got the following things* that need to be used up this week:

• a lb. of fresh spinach
• a big head of broccoli
• 3 links of sweet Italian sausage
• a 1 lb. package of bacon that's missing 3 slices**
• half of a head of green cauliflower
• romaine and leaf lettuce
• cheese ( parmesan, cheddar, provolone)
• ham
• several potatoes
• garlic croutons

Meal plans that will use up those ingredients for dinner:

• spinach/bacon quiche (spinach, bacon, provolone. I've got a pie crust in the freezer)
• Beef noodle stir fry*** (broccoli)
• White bean and sausage rigatoni (Italian sausage and parmesan cheese. The penne {rather than rigatoni}, white beans, and crushed tomatoes will come from my food storage)
• cheesy ham and potato casserole with caesar salad (potatoes, ham, lettuce, parm and cheddar cheese, croutons)

I think that with leftovers, a wedding reception on Saturday, and date night that will be all the cooking I have to do this week. I will also bake bread twice this week, and pressure-can some ham stock made from the ham bone after I cut all the spiral-sliced ham off it.  I don't really care too much for cauliflower, green or otherwise, so I might try to give that away.

My grocery list includes:

• 1 1/2 lbs. sirloin tip steak
• a container of feta cheese
• dry mustard
• orange juice and milk again later this week

and I think that's it!

*I always have what I consider to be "staples" on hand. Eggs, milk, butter, flour, onions, beans, canned veggies, breakfast foods, juice, various types of pasta, etc.

**The missing 3 slices of bacon went into a roasted brussels sprouts dish I made last night. It was really good. I don't know where I got the recipe but I didn't invent it. It had a couple of small apples, a small onion, a pound of brussels sprouts, the bacon, maple syrup, butter, salt and pepper, and then roasted in the oven. When it came out I stirred in some apple cider vinegar.

***From Nony here. I will use broccoli (that I have on hand) instead of the green beans, like she does.

Wild

From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, by Cheryl Strayed.

This book is the true story of the author's search for herself as she treks along the PCT. She does this entirely alone for most of the trip. This is a story of pain. Physical pain. Mental pain. And the devastating heartache and emotional destruction that comes to people who are experiencing life on planet earth.

In a lot of ways I identified with Cheryl Strayed. (Strayed is the surname she chose for herself when she divorced the man she loved after her mother died. There was this space for her to put the name she would change to on the form in the divorce kit. Okay.) I admire her for acknowledging and confronting and honoring her pain and not running from, hiding, or denying her pain. I was raised to "fix my face", to straighten up and carry on like nothing happened which only added an excruciating element of shame to the emotional and physical and psychic pain I've felt in my life. Cheryl Strayed doesn't try to hide her pain; she acts on it in ways that are both liberating and self-destructive.

The PCT offers her desperate hunger and thirst, extreme heat and cold, both ascent and descent which offer different forms of torture to her feet, fatigue and exhaustion, and fear. And yet also exhilaration, beauty, friendship, generosity, and, finally, peace.

I would like to read this book again and find the symbolism in her journey. The relationship between her extraordinarily heavy backpack that she names "Monster" that she carries up and down mountains again and again and without which she cannot continue, and her very real burden of guilt and grief. Between her blistered, bleeding, ruined feet and her broken heart. But the book is due back at the library tomorrow and I don't know when I'll get it back again. I'll remember it for a long time.

This book is full of the mother of all cusswords. Just so you know if you decide to read it yourself.

Whatever shall we eat?

This week's menu requires hardly any planning and no work beyond reheating until Saturday. My good Mr. Dub is doing his job out of town this week which means I'm pretty much on my own* and luckily have leftovers in the fridge. For dinner this week I shall have:

• the last bowlful of cheesy potato soup
• the last bowlful of Brazilian Black Bean Stew
• the last bit of leftover Mexican rice with the last of the leftover refried beans made into a burrito
• the last of a bottle of chicken made into either a quesadilla or some chicken salad
• perhaps a baked potato and some green beans
• and on Sunday when we are all together again with our son and beautiful new daughter in law we shall have baked citrus-herb chicken with some Brussels sprouts**.

* My Little Friend is here, of course. He generally makes his own dinners because he doesn't ever like what I make. He'll have fried egg sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, fish sticks, and whatever else he can find. We have all these items for him already in the house.

**New recipe! I got some Brussels sprouts in my Bountiful Basket and since I've never eaten or prepared them before went looking for ideas. I found a recipe that calls for roasting them in the oven with some chopped up apple and a couple of slices of bacon. Sounds delish.

I am still doing pretty well on my no-spend January. I have gone out to lunch a couple of times but have stayed within my weekly budget. This week from the store all I'll need is a jar of peanut butter and a bottle of orange juice. I'll need to buy another gallon of milk later in the week. So perhaps I'll spend as little as $7 at the store this week which means that I'll close out the month having spent only $100 on groceries, snacks, and a couple of lunches out. I've spent nothing at all on hobbies or crafts. And last week we were able to pay off the remaining balance on the only car we owed money on!

A Woman's Place

by Lynn Austin.

Set during WWII, this story revolves around the lives of 4 women who have very different lives from one another:

• Virginia (Ginny), a married mother of two school-aged boys who feels that her family doesn't need her and isn't interested in her
• Rosa, a fiery young Italian girl who marries a marine she just met right before he leaves for basic training
• Helen, an uptight, lonely and bitter old spinster
• Jean, an ambitious young woman whose heart is set on going to college and having a career.

These four women all get jobs at a shipyard that has been set up to build ships and aircraft carriers for the war effort and learn to love and help one another. A lot happens in the book, and although there is a lot of sadness (it is set during WWII, after all) it has a happy ending. 

Themes in the book include racism, women in the workplace, sexism, friendship, romantic love, faith in God, and loyalty. I identified most with Ginny and was pleasantly surprised at her happy ending. I liked that there wasn't any cussing or graphic sex scenes.There were some loose ends that never were tied up to my satisfaction, and I think it touches a little lightly on some very serious issues that might deserve more attention, but overall it was a quick and easy and pleasant read, which is probably what is was intended to be. It made me wonder what life was truly like for those women during WWII who were called to work in factories while the men in our nation were away fighting in the war. My opinion is that except for a short time in the world's history (during the 1950's) most all lower and middle class women worked at whatever job was available to bring money and other resources into the family but maybe I'm wrong. 

The 100-Year-Old Man...

...Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, by Jonas Jonasson.

This book was written in Swedish and translated into English, and I think it is probably a lot funnier in Swedish, but still very captivating and funny, in a "dry humor" sort of way. The movie version came out in Sweden last month. I wonder if I'll ever get to see it.

It's about a 100 year-old man named Allan Karlsson who climbs out his nursing home bedroom window on the afternoon of his 100th birthday in order to escape the birthday party that the nursing home director, "Director Alice", has planned for him and accidentally begins a grand adventure wherein he is charged (quite unfairly and hysterically, I might add) with the murder of 3 people. The chapters jump back and forth in time but I didn't have any trouble keeping track of what time it was as I read from chapter to chapter - it is clear from the story what time it is. Allan meets all sorts of real-life famous and influential and important people throughout his life, and has an impact on world history and events without ever having to care about anything. Naturally he would rather not be locked up in a Russian work prison for 5 years, but as long as they keep him busy and supplied with vodka every now and then, he doesn't find too much to complain about.

It is a long book - 516 pages in the large print edition I ended up with from the public library. But the story moves along at a brisk pace and the only reason I noticed the length is because there are more books in my queue that I am anxious to get to before I have to return them to the library.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a lighthearted and unique story that takes license with history. How funny and interesting to think about the possibility of it being true!

Another week, another menu plan

Here I am again, figuring out what we're going to eat. I still have plenty of food in the house and will try again to buy as little as possible, using up what we have in the pantry and store room, as I continue our January "spending fast".

• Cheesy potato soup with bacon bits and toast made with yeasted corn bread.
• chicken quesadillas made with bottled chicken, sauteed onion and bell pepper, and cheddar cheese and served with salsa and sour cream
• Brazilian black bean stew* with cornbread muffins
• pork loin roll-ups with tomato/red pepper/onion "salsa"
• leftovers (there will be leftover potato soup and black bean stew)

The only thing I'll need to buy this week is a Bountiful Basket, milk, and sour cream!

*new recipe!

Books and movies

In anticipation of the book club meeting that was held yesterday I called the library to request a printout listing all the books I checked out last year. I had looked all over my account information online and couldn't find the section where they keep track of my books. Because I couldn't remember all the books I read last year. To be truthful, I can't really remember all the books I've read this month.

It turns out the library doesn't keep track. As soon as you return them the information is erased from your account. Unless you returned them late, then they block you from checking it out again until you pay your fine. You can view all your "blocks" on your account, but none that you returned on time. So you see how being a responsible citizen and returning your books on time and/or paying your fine in a timely manner does you absolutely no good whatsoever.

So I'll try to keep track of them here. A list of books I've read and whether or not I enjoyed them, in no particular order. My only real New Year's Resolution is not to continue reading a book if I'm not enjoying it, so I may not list the ones I don't like, just the ones I finish in 2014. Also movies.

Books that I've managed to remember reading in 2013 and up to this point in January 2014:
The Bartender's Tale, by Ivan Doig. Liked it.
The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig. Loved it.
Looking for Alaska, by John Green. I find myself thinking about this story quite often, which is not exactly the same as loving it, but still important.
The Winter Sea, by Susanna Kearsley. Loved it. It had a satisfying surprise ending that may not be a surprise for the kind of reader who likes to figure out how the book will end while they're reading. I've never been that kind of reader.
The Story of Beautiful Girl, by Rachel Simon. Loved it.
Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery. Loved it, as I always do.
Welcome to Last Chance, by Cathleen Armstrong. Didn't love it. Two minor characters that I found memorable but didn't appreciate the book as a whole. Predictable romance with no deeper meaning or symbolism.
The Letters, by Suzanne Woods Fisher. Didn't love it. Same kind of book as Welcome to Last Chance although I liked this one better. Not exactly my cup of tea though.
The Light Between Oceans, by W.L. Stedman. Expected to love it but didn't.
Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. A children's book, I absolutely loved it.
While We're Far Apart, by Lynn Austin. Liked it.
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. Loved, as I always do.
Divergent, by Veronica Roth. Liked it.
Insurgent, by Veronica Roth. Liked it okay but not as much as the first in the series.
I Was Told There'd Be Cake, by Sloane Crosley. A book of essays, some of which I enjoyed very much.
I Feel Bad About My Neck, And Other Thoughts On Being A Woman, by Nora Ephron. Another book of essays. Enjoyed it very much.
And the Pursuit of Happiness, by Maira Kalman. Kind of a strange and unexpected format in that it's a picture book for adults, and I found myself sort of outraged when she puts Barack Obama and Martin Luther King in the same league. Interesting tidbits about Abraham Lincoln and democracy and the United States of America though and I liked many parts of it.
Horoscopes for the Dead, by Billy Collins. A book of poetry. I loved it.
Edenbrooke, by Julianne Donaldson. Didn't like it. So predictable. The good guy is always good in every way and always on hand to save the day, and nothing at all redeemable in the bad guy. No growth or maturation or newly found wisdom in the heroine. Move along, there's nothing to see here...
7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, by Jen Hatmaker. Loved it. Made me inspect my lifestyle and character and ethics in a new way.
Star Girl, by Jerry Spinelli. Interesting, intriguing, liked it okay but didn't love it.

It turns out I did read a respectable number of books last year! There are a number of books I started but didn't finish because they didn't hold my attention. I also know there were other books I read but I've forgotten the titles and authors of them.

Movies I've seen lately:
The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey (Saw it in the theater when it came out in 2012, saw it again on TV in December before we went to see the sequel. Liked it much better the second time and it helped me know what was going on in Smaug.)
The Hobbit, The Desolation of Smaug, liked it.
Saving Mr. Banks, loved it.
The Host, on dvd. It was interesting.
The Magic of Belle Isle. On dvd. Loved it.
World War Z. Scary but good.
Monsters U. Okay.
Despicable Me 2. Pretty cute.
Catching Fire. Okay.
Frozen. Awesome.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Loved it. I read the short story before we went the the movie (it's a super short story which I wasn't expecting). The movie has nothing at all to do with the book except that in both cases Walter Mitty daydreams a bit to escape his tedious life.

I will try to list the books as I read them this year, and maybe do a grand finale book review sometime in December. The year 2014 is going to be The Year of Books for me!

Monday's menu plan

It's January 13, nearly half way through the no/low spending month. Last week didn't go exactly as I expected but we ate most meals at home.  I baked bread for us, made homemade rolls for a wedding reception, baked muffins instead of buying donuts for a class treat for Jake, and stayed out of the store and fast food restaurants. I fought and conquered a nearly irresistible urge for a diet Dr. Pepper. It's been 6 or 7 weeks since I've had any diet soda, but I still feel kind of sad when I think about how I'll never have it again. For dinner this week we'll have:

• leftover beef stew with cornbread muffins
• the turkey tenderloin and mashed potatoes that we didn't have last week
• bean burritos and mexican-style rice
• baked citrus-herb chicken with steamed broccoli and roasted sweet potato
• turkey salad on crackers (made from some of the leftover turkey tenderloin, some chopped celery, craisins, onion, and a bit of mayo) with raw veggie dippers/ranch dressing and a sliced pear
• smoked sausage with macaroni and cheese and a green salad

My shopping list for this week should come in under $25 and includes:

• milk x 2
• a dozen eggs
• 2 bottles of apple juice
• 10 flour tortillas
• 1 box of crackers

I continue to be amazed at the amount of food we already have in the house and how long it takes to eat it up. I got a Bountiful Basket last week and that, combined with the home-canned and frozen food that's still in the kitchen plus the long-term food storage items we have on hand, makes me feel like we're eating like kings over here!

This week's menu plan and recap of last week

This week dinner main dishes will be:

• beef stew
• spinach/bacon/feta quiche
• smoky black bean and lentil soup
• baked rotisserie-flavored turkey tenderloin with mashed potatoes
• ham and beans
• turkey/dried cranberry salad on crackers
• leftovers

Last week a friend of mine gave me some ham and a large ham bone with lots of meat still on it. I used some of the ham last week in the potato au gratin casserole instead of the smoked sausage so I still have the sausage for another time. I will make a big batch of stock out of the ham bone and use it in the smoky lentil soup and also in the ham and bean dinner. She also gave me two frozen pie crusts that she had leftover from Christmas and I will use those to make two quiches this week - one for us and one for her.

Last week I spent $20.48 at the store! This morning I bought:

• a gallon of milk
• 5 lbs. potatoes
• 1 head of celery
• 2 dozen eggs
• a small container of feta cheese

and spent a total of $8.34. I am going to see if I can get through this week with that being my "big" grocery shop for the week! I anticipate that I will have to buy milk twice more before next Monday but other than that I'm going to try to get through the week just on what we have in the house. I have had a few moments in the last week where I felt an impulse to run out and buy fast food and a few other things that I wanted but managed to wait for those urges to pass, and they did. I hope to end the month with my shopping and eating habits better under control. Not that I have a problem with overspending, it's just that I am somewhat of an impulse shopper when I'm already at the store for something else, and I'd almost always rather eat out than in, and it's always possible to do a better job of managing your resources.

Goal for the new year

I found a free Kindle-based daily devotional program for the Book of Mormon that I hope to accomplish in 2014.

On lds.org I found this quote about gospel learning:
"The Lord commands us to actively 'seek learning, even by study and also by faith' (D&C 88:118). We seek learning not only because it is a commandment - we seek it because the desire to ask, to seek, and to find answers to life's questions was planted in our hearts by our Heavenly Father. He wants us to continually seek eternal truths because this is central to how we come to know Him. Through sincere study of the restored gospel, we learn of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We learn who we are, why we are on this earth, and how we should live in order to enjoy happiness and peace in this life and a fulness of joy in the next."

Monday's menu plan

I start my month of skimpy budget this week, even though it's not January yet.

• Chicken enchiladas with Mexican restaurant-style rice
• Bierock
• Homemade pepperoni/veggie pizza
• Bean burritos
• Potatoes au gratin with smoked sausage
• Hot dogs with potato salad and coleslaw

I have most of the ingredients for these meals in my pantry and fridge/freezer, but will need to purchase:
small package of corn tortillas
a couple of tomatillos
small head of green cabbage
one bell pepper
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. breakfast style sausage (I might have a roll or two in the freezer - I need to check)

I will also need eggs and milk before the week is over. I plan to bake all the bread we'll need. My goal is to spend $25 or less total on groceries this week!

Goals for January 2014

For some reason Blogger will not let me add any images to this post, so I will share a quote from Pablo Picasso without his picture;

"I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money".

I think I will get into why I feel that way at some later time.

I have made some financial goals for the month of January. These goals are a way for me to challenge myself and to be creative and imaginative rather than spendy. Hopefully at the end of the month I will also be well on my way in making progress toward some good habits. The goals are:

• Spend only $100 for the whole month on groceries by eating food we already have on hand, menu planning and shopping sales; 
• have 20 no-spend days in January by grocery shopping once per week, 2 bill-paying days, and combining errands and other shopping on the other 5 days; 
• spend no money at all on craft supplies by finishing projects I have already started or have the materials for; 
• check out books and movies from the public library for free entertainment instead of going to the bookstore or movie theater; 
• find one free thing to do each week to spend time with my BFF instead of doing our usual shopping-as-entertainment; 
• be diligent about tracking spending by writing down receipt totals and keeping receipts. 

Stay tuned to see what I'm going to do with all the money I save in January!

the wonder oven

I tried out my newly-made wonder oven today for the first time to cook a pot of dried pinto beans. I:

• picked through and washed the dried beans,
• soaked them overnight,
• drained and rinsed them,
• put them into my cooking pot with fresh water, a little salt and some pepper,
• brought them to a full, rolling boil and boiled them for 15 minutes with the lid on the pot,
• transferred the hot pot and hot lid to the wonder oven,
• immediately put the cover on top of the wonder oven,
• and waited about 5 hours.

When I took the cover off the oven and the lid off the pot I immediately put my candy thermometer in to see how hot it was after five hours. (You can see in the picture that there was lots of steam coming off the surface of the water/beans.) It registered 170 degrees Fahrenheit, which is safe according to a food safety chart. I tasted the beans and they are completely cooked with a grand total of about 20 minutes worth of cooking fuel, in this case my gas range.

First try is a success! I will divide this batch of beans into quart size freezer bags and freeze them for whenever I feel like having a bean burrito or some chili for lunch.

menu plan for this week

This week's menu includes:

• pork loin with carrots, potatoes, and parsnips cooked in the crockpot with a can each of cream of mushroom soup* and french onion soup* and a little water, served with gravy made out of the liquid in the crockpot at the end of the cooking time.
• barbecue pork on homemade buns* with crispy root vegetable cakes.
• enchilada soup* with cornbread.*
• ham and beans* with leftover cornbread.
• bean burritos* with cheese* and homemade pico de gallo
• dinner out!
• a no-cook day with whatever is left over in pantry and fridge that needs to be eaten up.

Today I have been sewing wonder ovens. I am trying one out for the first time tomorrow with a batch of pinto beans that I have soaking in anticipation of this historic event. Lately I've been cooking large batches of beans at once and then storing them with their cooking liquid in the freezer in quart size freezer bags and it's been a lot easier to pull some out for a quick thaw to make burritos or whatever else at a moment's notice. If the wonder oven works properly I will never have to hover over a pot of beans again. Which will be awesome. I have a feeling, though, that using the wonder oven will require some trial and error and practice. Like all cooking does.

*These are or contain ingredients that I keep in my long-term food storage.

clinical depression?

Or just your average run-of-the-mill slovenliness?

That load of clean laundry has been there since the weekend. And that blanket too. The blanket has been wrapped around my teenaged son every night for a couple of months now, and when I told him to strip all the sheets off his bed so we could wash everything it came out into the hall too.

If you know anything about teenaged boys then you know without further explanation that at this point the blankie can only be politely called "ripe". It doesn't have a fabric care tag and it was a gift from my beloved and I don't want to ruin it by washing it but since it's now basically ruined anyway I might as well just wash it and see what happens, right?

So that pile of stuff has been sitting there for going on 4 days now. I have stepped over it multiple times, even while cleaning (I had to get to the trash can there last night to empty it because today is trash day). I look it at, I know I should fold/put away the laundry and make some sort of definitive decision about the blanket, but it just seems so...well...hard. There is also lots of schmutz around the washer and dryer and all over the hallway carpeting because I haven't vacuumed it in weeks. Because that also seems hard. Because in order to vacuum I'd have to go downstairs and get the vacuum and drag its heavy self up the stairs and unwind the cord and use the attachments and first make sure the desk is cleared off and dusted (so that I don't  just make the vacuumed carpet dirty again) and all the papers are taken out to the garage for recycling and all the other stuff that collects on the desk is sorted and delivered to their rightful spots all of which also requires lots of decision-making. Then actually do the vacuuming. And then untangle and rewind the cord and carry the heavy vacuum back down the stairs and put it away in the coat closet. Doesn't that all sound so hard and difficult and like such a huge job?

No?

That's why I wonder if I am clinically depressed. Because to me "tidying up and vacuuming the hall" sounds like the kind of job I ought to get some kind of prize or award or medal or other significant recognition for doing.

An hour later and it's done. And although you can't tell (because it is a photograph) the washer and dryer are churning away drying the clean blanket (so far so good) and washing a load of white towels (because we've been out of clean dishrags and washcloths for days). I dug in and got it all done and now it looks like civilized people live here. I do feel marginally better and somewhat accomplished which is a minor miracle:

The week, sort of.

I couldn't decide if it should be "last week" or "this week". Whatever. A time frame spanning the last five or so and next five or so days.

Last week I went to a gardening seminary showcasing the "Mittleider" method of gardening. It seems like a pretty good and manageable way of doing things and has some different options, and after much waffling I have decided, partially, which options I think would work best for my values, abilities, climate, geography, available space and so forth.

I have been daydreaming quite a bit about the backyard paradise my backyard could become. Honestly it sounds like a lot of back-breaking and sweaty work. But what about this? What if I did a little bit at a time, experimenting and seeing what works for me in my own yard, and what I can truthfully manage, and let the backyard evolve over time (years?) into something useful, beautiful, productive, and awesome?

What if I don't dig up all the grass this week, get totally exhausted and sore and mad and overwhelmed, and then give up on it?

That sounds very much not like me at all. I'm all about jumping right in with both feet and trying to achieve what is impossible for me and then completely giving up because I can't do everything.

But I think I will try. I gave up on gardening a long time ago, but have recently felt an indescribable urge to get back into it. Maybe I'll just dig up a little bit of grass and see what happens this year. Up there in the picture is my oxalis which is a volunteer plant (it just showed up in our yard one spring) and has survived drought, winter freezes, summer scorching, and neglect for years now. I love it. There are two clumps nearby to each other. That other green stuff in the pic is some wild blackberry vines which are covered in thorns that make an angry red rash when you try to pull them out. The roots are deep and long and extremely strong. I worry that it will never be totally gone from our yard. Every spring more of it comes up.

This week's dinner menu includes beef stew leftover from last week, boiled eggs, cheese sandwiches, oatmeal (with homemade/home-bottled preserved apples), and maybe a pancake/bacon dinner one night. Because my good Mr. Dub is out of town learning all about a new way of fracking there is no need for me to actually make any "real" dinner.

Frugal living pays off. I added it up - even with one son in university and one son on a two-year mission for our church - (which are both on a "pay as you go" plan; no new debt is being acquired for either) we've paid off more than $35,500.00 of debt in the last 12 months. This includes:

• one of my Pretty Girl's student loans, 
• two cars,
• and a home equity loan.

These debts have been paid off in all cases years earlier than originally expected. All that is remaining on our debt is:

• our mortgage (we have quite a bit of equity),
• one car loan,
• and one more of Pretty Girl's student loans (even though these two loans are technically her loans, we are co-signed on them which makes them in reality our loans. Lesson learned - never cosign a loan).

That makes me pretty psyched. Whenever I get sick of scrimping and saving - which has happened a few times over the past year - I look back at the progress we have made in the last year, I re-read Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and The Richest Man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason, and I get myself back on board with the program. If I can manage to continue on this path we will be out of debt except for our mortgage before the end of this year, and will have enough saved to pay cash for our trip to Argentina next spring. Which thing we really want to do.

I am still feeling a little bit overwhelmed by my life. But I am also still feeling more optimistic and upbeat than I was even a few weeks ago. I am trying to take it easy on myself and not expect that I will be perfect, even when I expect myself to be.

Which makes sense to me, anyhow.

Coming Up For Air

 

I never blogged about it (let's face it: I haven't blogged about much of anything for a long time) but on Christmas day, 2012 I came down with the flu. I felt pretty awful for a couple of weeks, actually, and it started a downward mental and emotional spiral that I feel like I am just now beginning to recover from. It has been a period of darkness, despair, and grief, with a little bit of plain old-fashioned craziness sprinkled over the top for decoration. I recognized the craziness for what it is. Which is good. And also bad.

Anyway, I am beginning to feel better. I wish I knew that it was a permanent movement in the right direction but I am afraid that it's only a temporary reprieve. My body is now revolting in a lot of ways (vomiting and other gastrointestinal issues, muscle cramps and spasms, headaches, fatigue, sporadic moments of intense pain in different places, etc.) and I think it is due to stress and anxiety but I can't pinpoint where the stress and anxiety is coming from. Nothing is wrong, really, but I feel tense and keyed up and at the same time a great inertia. I read an article about stress which stated that unfinished tasks are a cause of great stress. There is something for me to think about.

Inertia, when used figuratively to describe a person, has as its synonyms idleness, slothfulness, and laziness. Which all sound like very bad qualities to have. And I am trying to ignore and silence the voice in my head that uses very negative and hateful talk against me to keep me down in the pit of my own making into which I have descended. See, I did learn something in therapy!

So I am struggling with some very old, very familiar demons, and they have essentially kicked my big ol' bum for the last two months. (I wonder if it was precipitated by the high fever/delirium of the flu? I don't know, but that's when it started.) These things have spilled out of the arena of my mind and heart, and are manifesting themselves physically at this point. Which is just so great, ya know?

Anyway, I've said more than I wanted to, and my desire on my blog is not to showcase my troubles.

It is still cool and somewhat chilly here, which feels awesome and also a little weird. It makes me want to plant a garden. But I expect summer will arrive with great fanfare and high temps very soon.

• I am still fighting the good fight against food waste.
• I am still trying to practice frugal living.
• I am baking bread once or twice every week
• I am heating up leftovers and eating them for lunch instead of grabbing fast-food a few times a week. It helps that I am cooking food that I actually want to eat.
• I am keeping the house mostly presentable if not entirely perfect. Dishes, laundry, picking-up & vacuuming (at least downstairs), and emptying the trash are happening on a regular basis.

The menu for this week is:

• Sunday-cheesy ham & potato casserole with green salad
• Monday-leftovers (I had leftover lentil soup with a cheese sandwich and Mr. Dub had a ham & cheese sandwich)
• Tuesday-beef stew
• Wednesday-bacon/spinach/feta quiche with fresh strawberries
• Thursday-leftovers
• Friday-dinner out?
• Saturday - taco soup with corn chips and toppings

I have tried a new thing - "homemade" foaming hand soap. Did you know that it is the dispenser that makes the soap into foam and not the soap? In the picture up there is some that I made using Softsoap Citrus Berry Blast hand soap. In my downstairs guest powder room I have some that I made using Bath & Body Works Aromatherapy Eucalyptus Spearmint hand soap, which is to die for.  Here's how you do it:

1. Get a bottle of foaming hand soap from the store.
2. Use it all.
3. Fill the empty bottle a bit less than 2/3 full with hot water.
4. Add any kind/scent of regular clear liquid hand soap up to a bit less than full. (You don't want to fill it completely full or it will spill out when you put the pump lid back on the bottle. "Eureka!" and all that stuff, you know.)
5. Put the lid back on.
6. Swirl it around for a bit until the water and soap are mixed together.
7. Voila!

That is 2 parts hot water to 1 part liquid hand soap. Swirl gently to combine. I have heard not to use opaque hand soap, like the "milk and honey" type, but just the regular transparent liquid hand soap. I'm not sure why - maybe it gums up the pump mechanism? But I might try it sometime because there is a type of hand soap that I get at Kroger that I really like that isn't transparent. I will let you know if it works.

This way of doing it makes a bottle of hand soap into three bottles of foaming hand soap. It lasts three times as long. And it's a lot more fun!

I am reading Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I tried reading a couple years ago for book club but couldn't get into it then. I am in a better mood for it now and am enjoying it quite a bit.

All hail the public library!!!

on vacation

I'm taking a break from blogging for a while. I don't know if this will be a permanent vacation or if I will be back. I find that I have nothing left to say that is fun or funny or insightful, and that I need more of a "real life" life.

I thought about shutting my blog down completely but I'm not ready to do that. Yet.

weekly goals

I went back and looked at the last list of weekly goals I made and I'm here to report that I didn't get it all done.

So, this week I'm keeping it simple. See the mess up there in the picture? There is a bit more than is visible there but I don't have a panorama setting on my camera, and you can get enough of an idea of what's going on in the room from the picture.

To clean it up is my goal for this week. I do have other ideas floating around in my head about things I'd like to do and undoubtedly will do, but my one and only real goal for this week is to take care of this mess in that room.