Until It Stops Being Fun…

 

Last Friday was an unexpectedly tumultuous day at work and it appeared we were headed back into HR land.  Stuff happened that I was completely unprepared for.  I learned the full depths of depravity within management and it was beyond shocking.  I have never in my life encountered anything quite like it.  Why can’t grownass adults, just behave like grownass adults?  I just don’t understand.  My sleep has been way off lately and I was struggling.  I was mentally and physically drained, still in shock too, I think.  In all my years I have never encountered anything quite like the gaslighting session I had witnessed.

I was scheduled to work all day Monday through Wednesday to cover for her.  Our plan was to have a great week and prove to our supervisor that we all work so well together as a cohesive unit while making it all very enjoyable.  We were actually looking forward it.  Unfortunately having TTO on vacation, even in a completely different state, wasn’t enough to keep her crap away from us and things went dramatically sideways again.  I have to tell you, for me to even be in this situation in the first place was absolutely nuts!  Especially for a retired person that typically works very part time hours.  This situation just wasn’t going to get better and had kept dragging on and on with no end in sight so on the way home Monday I made a crucial decision and Tuesday morning I woke up feeling that “it’s time”.  I was done.

 

I told you a couple weeks ago I would know when.  Well, “when” arrived and I handed in my badge prior to the start of my shift Tuesday morning and called it good washing my hands of the whole thing.  I wasn’t even the slightest bit nervous about it.  I just walked in and did the deed.  Yes, I do feel sad that I am leaving my three fellow co-workers to deal with this crap on their own, but I know they can handle their own stuff and I’m going to be completely honest, I am so grateful it is over for me.  It was such a convoluted, messy, unhealthy, degrading, toxic workplace with a narcissist at the helm of the chaos.  No way was I going to be able to affect any kind of positive change.

 

The upshot now is that I have zero toxic people in my life.  I should have done this much, much earlier.  It stopped being fun about a year and a half ago.  Despite all of my best efforts and “hanging in there”, with the promise of a solution just on the horizon, I think I knew deep down inside there would never be an end to it.  Some workplaces are just plain noxious no matter what you do and there is no way to fix it.  Had I known a year ago what I know now I wouldn’t have stayed.  I am proud of myself for the efforts I made to at least try, taking a few for the team and for asserting myself and standing up against TTO as well as supporting and defending my teammates.  I’m not sorry about any of that.  It’s another life lesson that I don’t ever need to repeat as long as I live.

 

What’s next?  It’s hard to say.  I’m just going to take things one day at a time.  What I do know, it can only get better from here.  No BAD Days!!

 

It's Time To Start Doing It The Old Fashioned Way

 

If you aren’t already, I think it is time, probably past time, to really embrace doing things the old fashioned way like our very resourceful ancestors.  Back before all of the modern conveniences and instant gratification, massive importation of goods from other countries, disposable incomes, credit cards and buy now/pay later schemes.  Far earlier then before all of the cheap, low quality, disposable products took over our world.  If we are going to successfully navigate this economic crisis we are currently in we are going to need to make some changes.  No worries, because change can be a very good thing.

 

Buy Real Food & Cook/Bake From Scratch 

I can’t preach this enough because not only does buying the basics and cooking our meals from scratch save us a ton of money but it also saves our health.  Home baked bread tastes so much better and is much better for us.  Watching our portion sizes is always a good idea too.  Stop drinking soda, sugar laden (corn syrup) juices, pricey energy drinks, trendy kombuchas, etc.  Instead choose water or homebrewed iced tea and on special occasions make lemonade.  We can also send a message to the greedy corporations and let them know we aren’t interested in the crap they are peddling as food or the prices they want to charge us for their garbage.  That includes fast food too.  If you do anything, do this.  Your body will thank you for it and so will your wallet.

 

Minimize Fuel & Power Consumption 

Combine errands, car pool, walk or ride a bike, use public transportation or just park the car and stay home.  Set your thermostat lower and wear a sweater and slippers.  Consider using an electric blanket or heating pad rather than heating a bedroom.  Turn off lights that don’t need to be on.  Keep showers short and baths shallow.  Washing dishes once a day saves hot water and soap.  Run a full load of laundry and hang some items, if not all, up to dry.  Instead of mowing the lawn weekly, mow it every ten days or consider using a push mower that doesn’t use fuel or oil.  I personally have never owned a gas or electric powered mower.

 

Plant A Garden & Make Your Own Fertilizer 

Even if you only plant a few tomato plants in buckets or an entire yard full of vegetables it is worth doing.  There is nothing tastier than a homegrown tomato, thinly sliced between two slices of bread with a little mayonnaise, salt and pepper.  Oh yum!  Zucchini and yellow squash is easy to grow too.  And we can amend our own soil and make fertilizer by composting kitchen scraps, leaves and grass clippings, shredded paper, coffee grounds and tea bags.  Did you know urine is a nitrogen amendment?  Egg shells and coffee grounds help tomatoes to thrive.  Manure is a much better fertilizer than chemicals purchased from the store.  Ask friends and neighbors with bunnies or chickens for their extra manure.  I’m sure they would happily share.  Also check with your city for resources.  Ours offers free compost.  Dairy farms have an abundance of manure too.  With a little resourcefulness you can figure it out.

 

Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do 

If you don’t know how to mend your clothing then it is time to learn and there are thousands of videos on Youtube that will show you how.  There are also thousands of videos to show you have to repair just about anything.  We don’t need to constantly fill our closets or toss things out and buy something new.  We need to fix things.  We need to make things instead of always being in that buy, buy mindset.  Sometimes we just need to go without.  Quite often, we already have something that will work or do the job without the need to buy something else.

 

Borrow, Barter, Exchange & Forage 

Embrace your inner “freegan”.  For instance, if you need a tool that you will only use once ask someone if you can borrow one they have.  If you need help with a project or repair offer your services in exchange for theirs.  Helping each other makes our workload lighter, but also more enjoyable.  If you do borrow something be sure you are a responsible borrower and return that item in the same or better condition than when it was lent to you.  If it uses fuel be sure to replace the fuel that you use.  Foraging is also a great way to get what you need.  Not just with food, but I’ve foraged for firewood and building supplies out of the FREE WOOD bin at a business near where I used to work.  Facebook Marketplace is a great resource too.  I was able to get all of the rock and gravel I needed when I landscaped my yard.

 

Picnics, Potlucks & BBQs 

Simple, delicious and nutritious food, iced tea and/or lemonade make the perfect fare for picnics at the park or any nearby lake or stream.  Invite friends and family over for a potluck supper where everyone brings something.  Strike up the BBQ and have everyone bring their own cut of meat, burger patty or some hot dogs and a side dish.  Back in the good old days we even brought our own plate and silverware to save the host from having a sink full of dirty dishes to contend with.  When I was a kid this was just how it was done and we had fun!

 

Do As Much As You Can Yourself 

As long as you are healthy and able, do things yourself.  It is good exercise and good for our brains too.  Shop for your own groceries, do your own yard work, wash your car, clean your house.  Whatever you can do, do!   Remember, slow and steady wins the race.  Need help?  Don’t be afraid to ask and reciprocate with a home cooked meal or some baked goods when appropriate.  Hint:  Baked goods are always appropriate. 😄

 

Not everything needs to be done on a grand scale.  We don’t need to spend a lot of money to live our lives or have a good time.  We can scale back on many, many things to save expenses without feeling deprived.  How are some of the ways you are economizing right now?

 

Healthy & Delicious Meals From My Pantry #5

 

Last month I started my first pantry challenge this year and I had a lot of fun with it.  My first task was to eat up all of the leftovers in the refrigerator before they had a chance to go bad and then I got busy cutting up a ham I had bought on sale for 75¢ a pound just before Easter.  I sliced it into thick ham steaks and vacuum sealed those in recipe or meal size portions.

 

After trimming the meat around the bone I was left with a nice pile of diced ham that I then vacuum sealed in three individual packets.  What remained was the bone for soup, a small pile of ham scraps, mostly fat that I gave to the chickens and some smaller bits of ham meat that I used to make a Hawaiian pizza along with leftover bacon and pineapple I had in the refrigerator.  That pizza was delicious!

 

Hawaiian Pizza

While my pizza baked in the oven I vacuum sealed the ham bone to use in a future batch of split pea soup and then I took the chickens their treats.  Nothing about this ham will be wasted.  So many meals to be made.  The entire ham cost me $6.24 and after being cut into fourteen portions plus the bone that makes it come in at 42¢ a portion which in this economy is a screaming good deal!  I am rather pleased.

 

The jar of tomato sauce I opened and use part of to make my pizza sauce morphed into spaghetti and meatballs.  I used the remaining sauce with basil and garlic and added that to my small slow cooker with a half dozen large homemade meatballs and allowed that to simmer all day.  Then I served it with spaghetti noodles to make myself three separate meals.  I ate salad as my side.

 

Spanish Rice

A packet of Knorr Mexican Style rice became a delicious supper option.  I wanted to experiment with it and added a half pint jar of beef stew meat, a pint jar of drained black beans and a half cup of frozen corn.  I also added a half cup of cooked frozen rice from the freezer to extend it further.  It made six delicious servings and was so tasty topped with sour cream.  I served it with the remainder of a bag of frozen green beans that I buttered and seasoned.

 

Eggs On Toast

Egg salad and chicken salad sandwiches and eggs on toast was something I made quite a bit last month for a quick and satisfying early lunch on the days I worked in the afternoons.  I made a point to enjoy it with some of my canned fruit or a glass of V8 juice to complete the meal.  Very good and very economical.

 

Minestrone Soup

Chili Con Carne

Home canned soups and a jar of homemade chili were other easy and quick meals I enjoyed, along with homemade corn muffins, and a nice salad on the side.  Delicious, nutritious and very satisfying.

 

Chicken Salad Sandwich

Chicken Pesto Pasta

I was able to clear out the fresh produce in the crisper drawer.  I finished up an open bag of homemade frozen French fries, an open bag of frozen peas & carrots, an open bag of frozen green beans and some older cans and jars of fruit and vegetables as well as some bacon bits and some extra eggs.  An open jar of pesto was used to make a small batch of delicious chicken pasta.  I also used up some other open condiments and homemade salad dressing.

 

My Tireless Retirement - Week 215

 

How is everybody doing?  I am doing rather well myself and enjoyed another wonderful week in retirement.

 

On Friday I worked in the afternoon then went out with my gal pals afterward for drinks and appetizers at a local downtown establishment.  We have decided, in order to continue to go out and have fun, to seek out happy hours and partake of their drink and food specials.  We find that if we each order a different appetizer to share we can enjoy a nice variety without overspending and it is plenty of food to count as dinner.  Mostly we just laugh, act silly and enjoy each other’s company.  This last time we went to The Reef and enjoyed locally brewed beer.  After seeing the size of the appetizers on special we only ordered and shared a pu pu platter and a plate of nachos with guacamole, which was more than enough to feed us.  We left feeling pretty stuffed.  It was a good time and it reminded us how grateful we are to have each other in our lives.

 

Saturday I rode the bus to check out the dollar store, I hadn’t been there in ages, and poke around.  I found three packs of toothbrushes for $1.25 each so I decided to pick up a couple of those to add to my LTFS.  I also picked up three packets of seeds (beets, cabbage & yellow squash) for $1.50, a new crossword puzzle book, some stickers for my journal, and an activity book to take camping.  It was a fun little shopping trip and I spent less than $10.

 

Best gifts!  Plants, gel pens & mandarin oranges

Sunday was Mother’s Day and it was a lovely day spent out in the garden getting some bedding plants and two new perennials into the ground.  I also planted some of my new seeds.  This year I am just taking it low and slow as far as my gardening endeavors so I don’t get overwhelmed and I’m finding I’m enjoying the process much more this way.

 

I spent the day alone, but I did hear from my loved ones including my work “kids” so that was nice.  I just ran in and out of the house all day, played in the dirt and had an absolute ball.  For supper I grilled a steak on my cute little BBQ and ate that with some pesto pasta on the side and a salad.  Perfect!

 

I worked Monday and Tuesday, went out for ice cream with a couple of friends Tuesday evening, was off on Wednesday and didn’t do much, then back to work on Thursday for a very full day of activities with my beloved seniors.  And that was pretty much it for the week.  What kept you busy last week?

 

 

Better Flour

 

The best thing I have done this year was to upgrade my choice of flour.  I now buy either King Arthur or Bob’s Red Mill and what a difference it has made!  Neither one of these flours has additives, preservatives or anything weird in it.  The BFF swears regular flour has drywall dust in it (he’s joking) and it hurts his stomach.  I find it just makes me feel gross and sluggish.

 

When I upgraded my flour we stopped feeling ill after consuming items I make with it.  But!  And this is important!  My baked goods are SO MUCH BETTER!  They taste SO MUCH BETTER!  And!  Everything turns out nicer.  That Hot Milk Cake I made for Easter was SO GOOD!  I’ve never had it turn out so well before and I have made it a lot over the years.

 

When flour doesn’t have unwanted crap in it and only contains wheat, like flour should, it tastes better and our bodies digest it better.  It makes me wonder if people really don’t have gluten intolerance as much as they have an intolerance to all the crap that is put in our food.  It makes sense.

 

I keep unopened bags of flour in the freezer to maintain their freshness and once open I keep it in the refrigerator and that seems to be working really well.  I put my bags of flour into a vacuum bag and vacuum seal them before freezing because I don’t go through flour very fast and I want it to stay nice.  A five pound bag of flour fits perfectly in one of the large vacuum seal bags.  A five pound bag of flour will also fit inside a one gallon freezer bag.

 

It doesn’t seem right that we should have to pay extra for pure food, but in this particular case I feel it is totally worth it.  Fortunately pure unadulterated flours do go on sale from time to time or have coupons available to help lower the cost and that is when I stock up.  Focusing on healthier food options is truly making a difference.

 

Disaster Insurance

 

Disaster insurance exists in many forms – homeowner’s insurance, renter’s insurance, auto insurance, life insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance, etc.  There is also another very important type of disaster insurance and that is self insurance.  Self insurance is simply investing one’s own money into a variety of ways to make sure we are covered in the event of a disaster.

 

First and foremost, I have an emergency fund.  This fund is to cover any unplanned or unexpected expenditures that I cannot manage any other way without going into debt.  It can also cover my insurance deductibles and co-payments.  I keep this fund in a separate account at my bank in a high yield savings account.  Gratefully, I haven’t needed to use it and I hope to continue that trend.

 

At home I keep my long term food storage (LTFS) and nonfood storage well stocked.  This allows me to purchase food and nonfood items I use on a regular basis when they are on sale or at the lowest possible price and keep a quantity that will last at least two years.  Why is this important?  Because one never knows what the future may hold and by having this cushion I’ve been able to navigate job losses, extreme weather conditions, sudden inflation spikes, panic shoppers, health issues and so forth.  Having my LTFS allows me the peace of mind to better face whatever the future may hold.

 

Having a backup power source is something that has served me well over the years.  I keep a solar generator and solar panels on hand.  We are prone to power outages and it is imperative to have a way to plug in a freezer in summer or an electric blanket in winter until the power comes back on.  Solar panels allow me to recharge the generator even while it is in use.  My camp stove and extra fuel for cooking have come in handy more than once.  I also keep a kerosene lamp and kerosene, candles, matches, flashlights and extra batteries plus a few USB lights at the ready for lighting.

In the garage I keep a supply of water on hand for flushing toilets and washing hands.  I keep paper plates, paper towels and plastic utensils to eat with so I won’t need to wash dishes and waste water.  In my LTFS I keep a supply of drinking water as well as filters for my water filter pitcher.  Wipes, first aid supplies and extra medication are also part of my long term storage.

 

Disaster insurance takes many forms.  Take a look around your house and see if there are ways you can better improve your preparedness.  What is most important to you?  What are some of the ways you self insure in case of a disaster?

 

Portion Sizes

 

I was born in 1964 and I can tell, back in the day, we didn’t eat like people are eating today.  Ingredient lists were shorter and premade items, like bread, contained REAL food.  Eating out, even at fast food restaurants, was not the norm.  It was saved for special occasions and even then the amount of food served and the quality of that food was dramatically different.

 

A simple well balanced meal - pork chop, dinner roll, green beans

My mom made our meals for us every single day.  She cooked from scratch.  You cleaned your plate, nothing was allowed to go to waste, but we weren’t overstuffed when we left the table.  Portion sizes and the plates our meals were served on were much smaller.  So was our glassware.  We weren’t allowed to drink a tumbler full of anything, except water, and she didn’t supply us with endless amounts of Kool-Aid or sodas, again those things were only for special occasions like a party or a picnic.  If you were outside playing and got thirsty you just got a drink out of the hose.

 

A nine inch dinner plate with a six inch sandwich plate plus bowls

One cup & two cup bowls

I was visiting with a friend of mine recently that told me she and her husband were focusing on portion control rather than dieting and found that by going back to the old ways of serving meals they were more than satisfied at the end of a meal, their groceries were lasting a whole lot longer saving them quite a bit of money not to mention shopping trips.  They, like me, were also making sure to eat healthy, unprocessed food and found they felt a lot better after eating.  They are also losing some extra weight that neither one of them needs to be carrying.

 

After doing quite a bit of research to reacquaint myself with the portion sizes and meals of yesteryear I decided to step back in time and eat very similarly to the way I used to.  I’m digging out my old cookbooks and making “new” old meal plans.  I’m getting to eat food I haven’t had in ages and I’m really enjoying it.  It’s been really fun!

 

Six ounce coffee cup

This glass holds six ounces too

A lot of the dishes I already keep in my cupboard are some that have been around since the 50s, 60s and 70s so I was all set as far as having the appropriate sized plates and bowls to serve my meals on.  In the sixties a dinner plate was 8.5 to 9 inches in diameter.  Nowadays, the average dinner plate is 12 inches in diameter.  I got rid of all of my larger dinner plates several years ago keeping only two of those plates and I use them as platters now.

 

Way back when, a glass of milk was one eight ounce (1 cup) serving.  A glass of juice was four to six ounces (1/2 to 3/4 cup).  A serving size of soda was six ounces (half the can).  A serving of meat was four to six ounces, about the size of a deck of cards.  A baked potato was about the size of a computer mouse.  If you had a larger potato you just cut it in half and shared it with someone else.  You didn’t eat the whole thing.  Most of the old cookbooks have this all listed out for reference.

 

Brunch - homemade granola w/milk, hard boiled egg, dried plums

My great grandmother's muffin tin is much smaller than ones sold now

This fits in perfectly with my desire to focus on my health and to make the most of what I have.  I’m excited to get into the kitchen and be creative each day when I’m cooking.  There’s a bit of nostalgia, I’m enjoying my meals so much and having a lot of fun with it.  I’ll let you know as time goes on how things go and how I feel.  I’m thinking this is going to be a very good experience.