Salad Day

Just took a break with a friend at work and there was a bunch of left over Greek salad/hummus in the break room - score!  The food was from Zoe's and I just love their Greek dressing!  It had lettuce, tomatoes, diced red onion, feta cheese and Kalamata olives.  So good.

Thursday, DH had an appointment in the city early Friday.  So his folks were going to run by and feed the dogs for us, he went to see Granny and I met him over there on my way out of town - to home.  We visited with her an hour and he went on north and I went on south.  He got home Friday after apt and playing golf with is brother.  I enjoyed my house just me and the dogs.  Was nice.  We watched TV in bed!

Then Saturday I went to my other friend who passed from cancer (in August) - to his celebration of life.  It was fun driving up with and visiting with my sister.  We took DH convertible.  We also got to see lots of our friends, but it was really draining.

Maybe that is why I am just feeling out of sorts.  Sluggish and lethargic.  Plus I am puffy and yucky from eating bad.  I am starting back over on the no sugar thing.  I had gone with out eating red met until Saturday on the way home I stopped for a snack and ended up eating fast food, yuck.  So starting over there too.  Had not eaten red meat for almost a month.  I don't know why I am having so much problem right now eating for wellness.  I went to yoga last night, other than walking and being really busy doing projects around the house (DH mowed without me Saturday - surprised me so much!) I had not worked out officially since last wed yoga - so I went last night and sweated like crazy - then came home - had a light meal and watched tv show - then bed.  I am tired of this schedule, in 3 more weeks I will give my 2 week notice - so 5 more weeks in total.

At least it is still in the 90's and hot!  It was good weather to stay in and organize...last weekend I organized and cleaned out my spice cabinet.  This weekend I cleaned out and scoured the freezer part of the fridge - I need to do free standing freezer next weekend.  And we have a nice 8 by 8 ish storage closet off our garage - I cleaned that out, organized and swept the floor/shelves and re-arranged.  Got rid of a carload of knick knacks...and DH is clearing out his giant collection of encyclopedias so we can offer then for sale at his sister's store and empty out several of our bookcases.  We looked at the small yard house(new house) once again and decided that the storage was just so lacking - we could not do it.  So, we are staying in our current house.  But, DH agreed that we could continue to purge.  If we actually considered this house - we must both be in agreement that we could do with less.  So, I am going to continue to pare down excess and DH agreed, because someday we will want to move and find house with smaller yard (and probably less storage).  Mainly right now, I get tired of cleaning around stuff!

And for my own part...I am going to store nothing in our attic except 4 Christmas and 2 fall totes.  I told DH I was purging down so much, that if/when we do move, I will easily be able to quickly look and decide what I do NOT need to keep.  Experience, not things is my mantra. 

I do not regret that I plan to finish a few cheap money/labor intensive projects around my house that we will get to enjoy and that will make our house and yard look great. 

Oh, I forgot to tell this...my friend at work brought me a bag full of pears.  They are really delicious green pears with a pretty thick skin.  I got them all up and put in bags in my freezer for smoothies because they are pretty small just to try to halve.  I made DH and I pear and spinach smoothies and my little $80 bullet from Walmart did great!  We did not detect the skins or the spinach.  I was very happy with my inexpensive blender. 

Then, Monday we had peach, apple and banana smoothies and they were yummy.  I am going to get another giant supply of apples this week and so I wanted my apples still in the freezer used up.  Hope you are reaping some great produce as this harvest moon approaches!

Free Produce

Last night had dinner with a long time friend, hadnt seen in forever.   Its was delicious and fun catching up.  The place we picked has beautiful patio looking over downtown and the river.   Its finally cooling off, the fire put felt good.   White lights in the trees, yummy dessert.

Got up early and had coffee with my Granny.  Went to bank for her.  Ordered some slippers she found.

Headed back to hotel, walked the dogs.  Since DH did not clean put his office Friday, he did Sat morning.   Took a chair and some other stuff to nephew.  Yay!

Then we drove out to my friends on the country.   Picked bucket full of tomatoes and handful of okra.

And a bucket of apples!  Looked at all his nice trees he has planted.  He has 200 acres.  Thinks he has planted 100.

Home to walk the pup to tire her out some.  Tomatoes and egg salad dinner. 

Good bye summer

Feast

We have had 2 fire alarms at the hotel since Saturday.  Sat morning someone burned some popcorn badly enough to fill our entire floor with smoke.  I grabbed the dogs and my purse and ran outside, DH following.  Then Monday night at 12:30am it happened again.  It just lasted a few seconds and stopped, so we did not leave the room.  I think the one on Saturday gave some of the kids on exchange working the summer at an amusement park the idea...I hope it does not become a repeat thing.  We are growing weary of the hotel, we have made it through 1/3 of our stay.

I enjoyed a great hot yoga class last night.  My girlfriend brought me even more homegrown tomatoes!  So, after yoga I had my usual smoothie and I also had a beautiful hearty perfectly ripend tomato and some of my refrigerator pickles I make every summer that remind me of my mom.  She cut hers much thinner and peeled the cucumbers and added onion.  I did not have onion Sunday when I made mine, I just peal a strips spaced about 1/2 inch apart and cut them thick.  Then I usu add salt and pepper and a pinch of celery salt and sugar and AC vinegar and water.  Sunday I did not have celery salt, but added splash of balsamic vinegar and lemon pepper seasoning, and splash of Cajun seasoning.  This is great summer food, easy to make in our tiny extended stay kitchenette.

Look at my cute doggy wanting a bite of my veggies!


Have a wonderful Wednesday.  This is my Thursday, as I am taking Friday off to oversee the finishing of kitchen floor at RH and I am leaving Thurs right after work.  DH is going to bring our suburban and park it at RH in his shop.  We have decided the extra belongings we had stored in it - we will not need and if he needs suits/shirts/ties for work - it will not be until Sept and he will have enough notice, that he can just bring some up one a trip beforehand. 

So, I will have tiny bit of unpacking to do Friday or Sat and few light chores, but I am mostly planning to relax at RH and tidy up, do a little cleaning after kitchen floors are done.  And I finally get to put down my rug I have had rolled up for 4 years - not wanting to trample on it with all our moving stuff in...Can't wait!

Free Produce

Having a great week!  Got some wonderful free local produce given to us.  Plus, I have a chance to get out to the country Sat to get 5 gal bucket of free apples.  I want to make apple butter again.  I did it in the crock pot.  The hardest part is the cutting up of the apples.  And canning is a lot of work too.  So, this week we ate leftovers and used meat out of the freezer and saved a trip to grocery.  Blew the grocery budget last week, nearly $200 at Aldi's.  Who does that?  I need to get better about planning and using what is offered for the weekly sales and supplement produce with farmers market in season.  But, I shopped free, pantry and freezer this week.

I am getting over the huge hit to my budget I took this past weekend.  Very much a want, not a need.  Oh well.  I have worked a lot of overtime this summer, so no big deal.  I just dug a little deeper into what things I could pare down and came up with a few more things to list on ebay, Craigslist, FB marketplace and Poshmark.  Everythng is so SLOW right now to sell, it seems like.  But, today I finally made an ebay sale.  Often a sale will seem to spur other sales.   

I have been feeling really good after having a bad week last week.  Have a challenging medical condition.  I pay attention to food, supplements, stress, rest and medication.  I have been on some really serious medicine for it since mid June.  Side effects include my hair getting really brittle and falling out, mouth sores and muscle soreness.  I think side effects are better.  I feel either really good or really bad, no middle ground.  I have given up soda (1 year), dairy (2 years) and artificial sweeteners (6 months).  I try to eat only once or twice a day and have smoothies the other meal/s.  I only have coffee on weekends.  I have black tea during the week. 

Fall and cooler weather makes me happy.  We turned our AC off last night and opened the windows.  I walked with my friend and enjoyed our chat.  Then went home and relaxed last night.  I love the chill in the air.  Have a great weekend!