My Tireless Retirement - Week 234

 

I don’t have a lot to report this week.  It was a lovely quiet week for me with some mountain thunderstorms and rain about every other day so that has been nice.  In between storms it has been sunny and warm.  I’m noticing the leaves are starting to change on the trees.  It is definitely Fall here now.

 

I worked some more on the laundry shed retrofitting it to accommodate the little washing machine and dryer.  I had to cut holes for the water lines, power cords and the dryer vent.  Then I got everything all installed, hooked up and the shed itself moved into place on the existing platform.  It is working out rather well so far.

 

$1.27 per pound!!! 😁

Wednesday I got a bit of a jumpstart on my October grocery shopping list and went to Safeway to pick up some sales items for the pantry as well as two packages of boneless skinless chicken breasts on sale for $1.27 per pound!  I wasn’t about to pass that by.  This week Safeway had a lot of really good loss leaders so I took advantage of that so I could add several more items to the pantry.

 

My list for October is rather long as I’m trying to complete the restocking of my kitchen and get myself winter ready.  Having these great sales pop up really helped me to make a nice dent in that list without having to spend a bunch of money.  I was able to add eight individually vacuum sealed chicken breast halves and three packages of sliced strawberries to the freezer and then cross that part off of my list, along with quite a few other things.

 

I unpacked this cat I had brought with me 😂

Currently I find myself at that stage in my move where I’m unpacking much more slowly and deliberately as I select a bin or box and find the contents a home.  I also find myself coming up with better ideas for storing items and reorganizing things a different way.  I expect that to be something I find myself doing often in the coming months.  I feel like I made significant progress this week because I can now step into the shed and actually see what is left inside of it.

 

How was your week?  Did you find any amazing deals at the grocery stores?  How about that chicken?  I haven’t seen that price in a good long while.

 

A Simple Day In The Life

 

I thought it might be fun, maybe even a little bit boring, to share a day in the life experience with you all from time to time.  What do I do on a daily basis?  What occupies my time and keeps me busy.  What fun (or trouble) do I get myself into?  Is this something you would find of interest?

 

On this particular Monday I, for once, had nothing on my agenda.  I’m finding that Monday seems to be a good day for me to just enjoy a more leisurely day to unwind from the previous week and weekend activities.  I am under no pressure to do anything, which is a good thing, so I start my day in my nightie and a cup of hot black coffee.  Jack and I sit and snuggle and he gets a lot of good head rubs and chin scratches.  He is in heaven.  By about 9:30 or 10:00 he is ready to move and so am I.  In the time it takes me to brew my 10:00 coffee with cream, about three minutes, I collected the trash, got dressed and made the bed.  Then it was time to sit, watch some Youtube and enjoy that frothy cup of coffee.  It is easily the best part of my day.  The worst part, that last sip.

 

I decided giving the bathroom a good tidy up would be a nice idea so I grabbed my cleaning supplies out from under the kitchen sink and headed in there.  It didn’t take me long to clean the shower, the toilet and the sink.  Then I shook the rug and mopped the floor.  When the floor was dry I put the rug back in place and called that chore complete.

 

All spiffy clean 😊

This bench comes in handy when I need to shave my legs

After gathering up all the trash in the house I proceeded to waste a tremendous amount of time trying to find the key to the shed.  It’s on my “To-do” list to stop in at the hardware store to get a spare made, but I’ve yet to so.  Anyway I located it, in of all places, my can of miscellaneous screws.  The fact that I even had the thought to look in there for it seemed rather miraculous to me at the time.  With key in hand I was able to retrieve the trash bag and load everything into the car.  Normally I walk to the dumpster, but on this day I also had the car filled with cardboard boxes and packaging from deliveries I’d received so I chose to drive.

 

Back in the junk drawer where it belongs 😌

Homemade refritos are the best! 😋

On Sunday I had put some black beans and pinto beans into my little red Crockpot and allowed them to cook for several hours with the idea of making refried beans.  I used the same pan I had cooked a couple of hamburger patties in to brown the remaining half pound of lean ground beef I had saved for just this purpose.  After removing the meat I added a heaping tablespoon of rendered bacon fat to the fat in the pan and used that to make the refried beans with.  Once they were done I removed two cups for plain beans, added the meat and combined well to make burrito filling.  I removed two cups of the filling for a meal or two later on down the road and the rest was for the week ahead.

 

I made my big meal of the day, a beef and bean burrito with a salad on the side and a little bit of salsa too.  After eating I rinsed the dishes and did a preliminary clean up in the kitchen.  The dishes of beans and filling got labeled and leftovers were put in another dish for the fridge.  I like to use a piece of tape and a sharpie to label my Pyrex dishes because I don’t want to write directly on the lids.  Once the bowls were cooled down I put them in the freezer, the pink dish went into the fridge.

 

I'm calling that a success!

I typically only do my dishes once a day for a couple of reasons.  1.  It’s easier and a lot less work.  2.  It saves water and soap.  3. I have to wait for the hot water to heat up before I can wash up.  A lot of newer RVs and park models have switch in the kitchen that you flip up when you are ready for hot water and the twenty gallon hot water heater is ready in less than a half hour.  I then fill the sink with hot soapy water and let them sit for a bit before I wash them and rinse them.  The minute I am done filling the sink with hot water I flip the switch down so I don’t forget and the remaining water will stay hot for several hours.  It is more than enough for me to have a shower before bed.

Not too messy

He's the best! 😻

 

This particular day I was a bit late in getting those dishes washed up because I spent a considerable amount of time playing with and snuggling Jack.  I really love that I now have so much more time to spend with him and I can tell he really loves it too.  He is absolutely precious.  Once he had had enough and was ready for a nap I got those dishes washed up.

 

A mid afternoon sweet treat

With all of that work under my belt I settled in for some true crime on the TV and put my feet up for awhile.  I was exhausted!  Not.  While I watched my murder shows I wrote in my journal and did some blog writing.  It was a bit of a gray and cloudy day so I also lit one of my candles and enjoyed it while it filled the house with hazelnut crème scent, my favorite.

 

It's hard work being a kitty, he's so tired 😸

It was a quiet, lovely and slow paced day, but very good.  No rushing, no stress, no over thinking and no worries about anything at all.  Just calm.  Peace.  Contentment.  I finished out the day with a snack that evening and when I felt tired I got ready for bed.  Jack was kind enough to scoot over and make room for me to climb in bed.  He’s so sweet that way.  That was it.  Nothing over the top or spectacular, but as I wrote in my journal it was “another beautiful day in paradise”.

 

Setting Up My New Bedroom

 

The next room that needed my attention was the bedroom.  This house has only one and it was showing a bit of wear and tear.  The walls needed the paint touched up, but more importantly the carpet needed to be replaced.  It was worn out and the previous owners dog had left its mark so getting that carpet pulled up and out of the house was a top priority for me.

 

Time to go!

I bought replacement carpet from Home Depot and after pulling up the carpet and pad I touched up the wall paint, there was a can left behind thankfully, and I repainted all of the base trim along the floor.  Then I installed new carpet and pad.

 

Nothing quite like fresh clean new carpet! 😍

A new bed frame ordered online was the next order of business followed by a brand new mattress, pillows and bedding.  A fresh new start deserves a new bed and bedding.  I chose to downsize to a full size bed from the queen size I used to have because it fit the room better and as it turns out, it is plenty of mattress space for me and my kitty, who prefers to sleep dead center in the middle.

 

New bedframe

New mattress & cover

I had packed the night stand I had redone and used to have in my guest room simply because I like it and it fits perfectly next to the bed.  The room is still a work in progress.  I will be working on storage solutions in the closet and more décor, but for now it is nice to have a clean and comfortable room to sleep in at night.  I will keep you apprised of future updates as they happen.

 

What's For Dinner? New House Edition

 

Now that I am settling into a new daily routine I find myself taking on a bit of a change in not only my eating habits, but also the way I’m planning and preparing my meals.  I still create meals based on what I already have on hand in the house, but instead of having an actual meal plan or meal prepping batches of food I’m following more of a repetitive eating plan.  I learned about this from a Youtuber I enjoy watching.

 

One of the biggest changes I’ve made is to have one big meal a day about mid afternoon and then a small snack in the evening if I’m feeling hungry.  Because of this I only need to prepare about two meals per week.  One of the first meals I wanted to prepare once I had a workable kitchen again was a pot roast cooked slowly all day long in my slow cooker.  I wanted potatoes and carrots cooked in the roast juices as well as buttered green beans alongside of that roast.  Topping it with delicious mushroom gravy took this meal right over the top and was a perfect way to break in my new kitchen.

 

The next meal I made was stuffed bell peppers with baked potatoes and a green salad on the side.  I used red peppers and stuffed them with pork sausage filling and baked them in the oven with the potatoes.

 

One evening I used some of the leftover roast to make shredded beef quesadillas.  A small dish of salsa with a spoonful of sour cream made a delicious dipping sauce.

 

I took the last of the roast, chopped it up along with some mushrooms and onions and sautéed that altogether.  I added the leftover gravy, some milk, garlic powder and dried parsley and allowed it to simmer while I cooked a cup of bowtie pasta.  I stirred in a half cup of sour cream along with the cooked and drained pasta and served it with leftover vegetables on the side.

 

Something I haven’t made in a very long time was BBQ ribs.  Labor Day seemed like the perfect day to have this meal.  I slow cooked the ribs all day in my Crockpot and then added some BBQ sauce near the end of cooking.  I served it with macaroni & cheese as a side.

 

Once the leftovers were cleaned up I put together ingredients in my little Crockpot to make pasta sauce.  I was planning to make spaghetti for my birthday at the first of the month, but I had so many leftovers I decided to wait.  I enjoyed my spaghetti dinner with a nice salad on the side.

 

I also made this scrumptious BLT one day 😋

Like with the pot roast I am doing my best to stretch meat and turn leftovers into new meals.  As always I am making sure food isn’t going to waste, especially with prices being so high on groceries right now I feel it is even more important to curb food waste.  Getting creative with preparing meals and having an idea in my head or jotted down on paper of what I want to do each week helps a lot.  How do you think I did?  What meals have you been preparing?

 

My Tireless Retirement - Week 233

 

Today marks four weeks already that I have lived in my new home.  I guess time really does fly when you are having fun and I can attest, I am really having fun.  It has been a month of steady productivity setting this place up as my functional and cozy home, but it hasn’t felt like an overwhelming process.  My approach to moving and ultimately moving in has been to just take each day as it comes and to do what felt right at the time and so far it seems to be working rather well.  I call it my “free flow” approach to life.

 

It was amazing to me how much a simple little bookcase, one I’ve purchased before and then sold at my estate sale, can change a closet and make a huge difference.  I was able to re-purchase this bookcase at Wal-Mart and use it to store items that had previously taken up five different banker boxes.  Fantastic!

 

My final September shop

Another thing I managed to do last week was to complete the restocking of my kitchen.  I am thrilled that I was able to do this so quickly and for very little money as it turned out.  I’ll go into more detail about this project in my monthly grocery wrap up.  I think you will be impressed.  I know I am!

 

It required one of these.  Just wait to see what I did with it. 😁

The really big project this past week was to start setting up my new laundry area.  I’ll go into more details in a separate post, but so far it is coming right along.  As you can well imagine, having the ability to do my laundry at home rather than at a Laundromat is one of those things I truly appreciate. It will be a bit of a process to get done and I am eager to share the completed project with you.

 

Wednesday was a full on rainy day, perfect for staying home, lighting a candle and enjoying my new little home so that is exactly what I did.  It was nice to sit and watch the rain come down and flow down the road toward the big drainage wash nearby.  It was a lot like having creek front property.  I love a good rain.

 

Blessed with some freebies 😊

Thursdays are the day I will walk my trash down to the dumpster and then pop into the clubhouse to see what is on the FREE table.  I was told the local food bank drops off their leftovers on Thursday so it is fun to take a peek and see if there is anything I can use.  Last week I picked up a two pound bag of dry pinto beans, a pound of navy beans and a can of green beans and a can of diced tomatoes.  The week before, my first visit, I picked up a can of pumpkin, an onion and a package of powdered milk.  I don’t take too much and only what I feel I will use so there is plenty left for my neighbors to enjoy.  I also get a FREE copy of the local newspaper too.

 

I made some delicious refried beans 😋

And with that another simple week in retirement came to a close.