My Tireless Retirement - Week 69

 

It is the last day of July folks!  Our summer is going by so fast!  How is everyone?  Is it super hot where you live?  I has been pretty toasty here.  Typical July for us, that’s for sure.

 

Staying inside where it was nice and cool was high on my priority list.  I found plenty to keep me busy, including some housekeeping tasks, but also a bunch crafting and some more crocheting.  I made the cutest diecut Santas to use for embellishing cards, tags, journals and scrapbooks.  It was a ton of fun making these.  I also made some of the cutest containers out of recycled Amazon boxes to store items in my sewing room.  I can’t wait to show you the updates I’m working on so stay tuned.

 

I like the ugly sweater one 😁
The detail isn't showing up as well as I'd like

In the summer I like to keep meals super simple and light, usually just a piece of meat and some vegetables or a fresh green salad.  I’m not opposed to eating breakfast for dinner either.  My favorite meal I made last week was spicy Italian sausages simmered in tomatoes, bell pepper, onion and some spices.  At the last five minutes of cooking I added one of my garden zucchinis I had chopped up.  My goodness, that was so delicious.  My next favorite meal hands down was Keto waffles.  I had four precooked sausage patties in the freezer leftover from the 4^th of July weekend so I took those out, reheated them in the microwave and had them with the waffles.  Perfect!

 

Sorry for the blur, my camera wasn't happy this week

I ran errands on Monday early in the morning, filling up my gas tank, still sticking to my $25 a month fuel budget, and picking up prescriptions.  Albertson’s sent me a couple digital offers as well as some digital coupons to go with those offers so I was able to pick up three packages of bacon for $2.69 each, a one pound package of vacuum sealed salmon for $5.51 and a two pound package of frozen shrimp for $7.98.  Thank you very much Albertson’s.  I don’t know how they knew I was hoping to add more seafood to my freezer as part of my winter stock up, but I’m sure darn happy about it.  I can now declare my winter stocking up complete, including my wish list items.  Whoo hooo!  Although, I wouldn’t be opposed to a really good sale on pot roasts.  LOL  I ran errands again on Wednesday to pick up a 50# bag of scratch grains at the feed store and take care of some banking business.

 

You think you're helping don't you?

It was a pretty good week I’d say.  I crafted and crocheted quite a bit, cleaned and oiled my sewing machine, wrote a letter and sent out a birthday card, organized a few things, purged a few things, as well as did the usual household and garden tasks along with a load of laundry.  I did some work out in the yard, cleaning up some debris after a big wind came through and trimmed my cherry tomato plant as it was getting pretty top heavy. Before I knew it my week was coming to an end and I wondered how that had happened.  August begins tomorrow and soon our summer will be coming to an end.  I feel like I haven’t done nearly enough or all of the things I’d originally set out to do, but when I look back and see all the things I’ve actually done I realize it has been another happy, busy summer so far.  I feel really good about that.

 

Here is a sneak peek of some of my new sewing room organization

I hope to make August a super great month.  How about you?  Any big plans or projects on the horizon?  Will you be doing any traveling or camping?  Let me know in the comments how your summer has been going.

 

Investment Cooking - Canning Sweet Relish

 

One of my canning goals for this summer was to grow enough zucchini to make up my favorite sweet relish recipe and can it up for my pantry and my long term food storage as well.  A couple weeks ago I had harvested enough zucchini from my garden to make up a batch.  This recipe is super easy and makes a great project for anyone who is a novice or experience canner.  I’ve been making it for ages and prefer it to anything I can buy at the store.

 

I used my grandma's old meat grinder to grind up the veggies

Onions & peppers

Sweet Zucchini Relish 

5-6 cups grated zucchini

1½ cups grated onion

1 red bell pepper, grated

1 green bell pepper grated

2½ Tbs. pickling salt*

2 tsp. ground turmeric

2 tsp. ground yellow mustard

1 tsp. ground black pepper

1½ cups granulated sugar

1½ cups apple cider vinegar 

Combine vegetables & salt together and let rest for 8 to 10 hours

My great grandmothers old pot

In a large pot combine zucchini, onion and peppers with salt, stir well, cover and allow to rest for 8 to 10 hours.  Next, drain and rinse the zucchini mixture pressing out as much liquid as possible.  Return to pot.  Add remaining ingredients stirring well to combine.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and allow to simmer, lid off, for 30 minutes.  Stir frequently.

 

After 8 hours I rinsed and drained the zucchini mixture,
then I added it back to the pot and along with the remaining ingredients

Simmer for 30 minutes

Spoon relish into hot clean and sterilized pint or half pint jars.  Clean the rim with a damp cloth and add a lid and a ring to each jar.  Water bath can the jars in rapidly boiling water for 15 minutes.  Remove jars to a clean towel and allow to cool completely.  Once cool, remove rings and wash jars with warm soapy water to remove any sticky residue.  Label and store relish in a cool dark space.  Makes approximately 6 to 7 half pint jars. 

* I use Kosher salt.

 

I use just enough water to cover the tops of the jars
I also try to start with water the same temperature as the relish
in the jars to help prevent breakage due to shock

In order to get the relish texture I like I use my grandma’s old hand crank meat grinder and run all of the zucchini, the onion and the peppers through it in rather short order.  I find draining, rinsing and pressing the zucchini mixture with a wire sieve works really well.  I like to can relish in half pint jars.  This is a small batch canning recipe, but if I had a large family I’d probably double the recipe and do it up in pint jars.  Or make more and can it in half pints to give at Christmas time.  That is, if you’re willing to part with it.

 

Once the water comes to a boil process for 15 minutes

This relish is fantastic on a hotdog or brat.  It is perfect to add to tuna or egg salad as well as a macaroni salad.  You can use it just like any sweet relish you’d buy at the store.  I’d like to think this relish recipe is better.  Try it and let me know what you think of it.

 

Allow to sit an hour in the hot water to begin cooling before
removing to a towel to finish cooling

To me this is a thing of beauty

Canning Tips:  Here are a few other things I like to do, but of course, you do your thing.  I “debubble” each jar of relish before I put a lid on by stirring the relish with a wooden chopstick.  Leave a ½” of head space in each jar to avoid siphoning.  Additionally, at the end of the water bath process carefully remove the canner from the hot burner and allow the canner and jars to cool for about an hour before you remove the jars to the towel to finish cooling.  This will help with the possibility of the jars siphoning out liquid.

 

This Month's Grocery Spending 2023 - July

 

In past years I’ve always spent my summers stocking up for winter.  Gathering food and household items at the best possible prices for the pantry and deep freezer in order to not spend much on groceries while paying the higher electric bills to heat my home in the winter.  It is a practice that has served me well for a very long time and I plan to continue doing so.  But, now that I’m on my own I have found I don’t really need to spend the entire summer stocking up.  All I need now is a few good sales.

 

This past month I had a few good sales and great luck with the markdowns.  Within a few shopping trips I was able to pick up meat on sale or markdown as well as some bread items to fill the designated shelves in my new freezer.  I even got a really good deal on some frozen shrimp on my wish list.  Yay!  I am fully stocked up for winter and I could be happier.

 

Chicken breasts on sale for $1.77 a pound and markdown ground beef

The meat deals were phenomenal.  I was able to stock up on steaks that were on sale as well as markdown.  It has been a good long while since I’ve seen prices this low and I definitely took advantage of it.  A New York strip steak for less than $3!  Boneless skinless chicken breasts and 97% lean ground beef for well under $2 a pound?!  Yes please and thank you very much!

 

Digital coupons for salmon & frozen broccoli + markdown steaks

Other than stocking up on meats I filled in a few gaps in my pantry and restocked a couple items I was low on, but for the most part I focused on fresh or frozen produce and dairy.  I had the opportunity to stock up on a nice variety of cheeses on sale for $1.49 a package.

 

Markdown bread products to stock the freezer

Gifted ribeye steaks

Digital coupons helped me save even more over the sales prices so my final totals on these little excursions to the grocery store were super low overall.  Plus!  My BFF gifted me with a cartful of groceries after the 4^th of July holiday.  That was a wonderful surprise.  After all was said and done my final grocery total for July came in at $XX.  I’m not sad about that at all!

 

I hope you were able to get some really good deals at the supermarkets this month.  I’m excited to see how low I go in August.  I bet it will be pretty awesome.  And fun too!

 

How I Manage My Quarterly Housekeeping Checklist

 

This month marked the halfway point of the year and the beginning of the third quarter of 2023.  It is hard to believe we are here already, but as they say, time flies when we are having fun.  As most of you know I’ve been on a very large decluttering journey that I began at the first of December in 2022.  After becoming an empty nester last summer it seemed like the next obvious step for me and I can say now, I’m really, really happy I did it.  It was six months of really hard work and a lot of decisions were made, some harder than others, but in the end, well worth it.

 

I keep my lists in my home management journal

I pulled out a fresh copy of my quarterly housekeeping checklist for this quarter and put the other one in the trash.  Not everything got done and that is completely fine.  I don’t need to finish every single task on the list within the three month timeframe because I can always to it in the next quarter.  So here it is.  The next quarter.  No shame, no guilt, no beating myself up for all the things I didn’t get done, but loads of pats on the back and atta girls for all the things I did complete.  Yay me!

 

I always try to start the new checklist by completing the tasks I didn’t get to last quarter so they don’t completely get away from me.  Some tasks on the list are pretty quick and simple, only taking a few minutes to complete while others, like washing walls, are a little bit bigger.  I break it down in smaller pieces so I’m not overwhelmed by those projects.  Last quarter I washed the living room wall where my fireplace is and the sections behind the TV all the way over to the door.  This time I washed the rest of the wall from the door to the corner, washing the window and cleaning the track and sill while I was at it, and then the wall behind my sofa and recliner.  Why only this far?  Because I set a timer for 15 minutes and then my time was up.

 

I took the curtains down and put them in the wash so they could run
while I washed the walls and cleaned the window
After they were dry it took only minutes to hang them back up

Last quarter, in the dining room, I washed all the wainscoting and the trim (in preparation of fresh paint) and then this quarter I washed the upper half of the walls and dusted the newly painted wainscoting.  My dining room isn’t huge so each time it took me less than 15 minutes so I also cleaned the exterior of the cabinets each time as well.  Next week I plan to wash the dining room window and clean the light fixture.  You see, I don’t need to do the entire room at once because I have three months to get it all done.  And I don't work on it every day either.

 

Tackling my checklist in bite sized pieces makes it more manageable and much more enjoyable.  My goals is to keep my house clean year round, eliminate the need for spring cleaning or any type of marathon cleaning and to get it done easily and quickly.  I’m not interested in making housekeeping into a career by any stretch.  I have other things to do.  By sticking with it I find it gets easier and easier as each quarter passes.  Decluttering helps a lot too!

 

I’ve handed out a lot of these working checklists over the years and I do hope they are helpful.  If you happen to be one of the many that have one I do hope you will use it, but only as a guilt-free guideline to help you along and be sure to set those timers.  Give it your all for 15 minutes, 30 at the most, and then move onto something else.  Once thing I do know about housework is it will wait for you.  I’m fine with that.

 

 

My Tireless Retirement - Week 68

 

Oh my goodness folks!  We’ve had some really hot days here.  I hope you all are doing well and handling the heat okay if it is hot where you live.  I did what any smart retired person does.  I only ventured out in the early mornings and late evenings as the sun was setting to get my outdoor chores done and came up with any excuse I could to stay inside where it was nice and cool.  I did go out in the hot afternoon briefly though just to check on the chickens and make sure they were doing okay and had plenty of water.  They did just fine as they usually do, but I still worry about them anyway.

 

"Whatcha doin' Mom?  Can I help?"

The kitties stayed indoors all day and kept me company.  Jack’s new spot lately has been the far corner under the bed in the upstairs spare bedroom.  He curls up and sleeps the day away unless I’m up there sewing and then he sprawls out on whatever I’m working on, bless his little furry heart.  Stella’s spot was always the bed in that room, but now that Jack is usually under it she is now annoyed and prefers the top of the bunny enclosure now.  Little Miss Daisy either sprawls out on the floor or hides inside her cardboard tunnel I made her out of an extra large Amazon box.  At least everyone is happy.

 

"Hello Edith!"

My main focus this past week was to do some yard work so I grabbed my leaf blower and cleaned up all of the fallen leaf debris.  Once the summer heat hits my big sycamore sheds its bark so I had quite a bit to clean up.  I cleaned up a bit of the garden, trimming off some leaves from the zucchini plants that got sun burnt as well as anything that was done like my cilantro and the grasshopper eaten marigolds.  I also had plenty of flowers to deadhead, weeds to pull as well as weeds to spray along my driveway.

 

A friend of mine gave me these potholders

Other things I accomplished was to get caught up on housework, give myself a much needed haircut and do some financial planning for the remainder of the year.  I also spent a sufficient amount of time in my sewing room working on various projects.  That was honestly the best part of my week and I made some remarkable progress on the project pile.

 

My latest canning project using up some of my garden harvest

Lastly, I managed to do some canning.  Watch for the post I’ll be putting up about that on Saturday.  I’m super happy with that little project and no failures which is awesome because I used Golden Harvest jars this time instead of Ball or Kerr and I was just a touch nervous about them.  But they seem just as thick and did fine in a water bath canner.

 

Buffalo chicken breast & a green salad

I hope you all enjoyed a fabulous week and all is going well.  Take care, stay cool, but above all make sure you are having fun.  Let me know what has been keeping you busy latel.

 

Alternate Power Sources

 

It has been a process for me, but over time I’ve been able to add alternate power sources to my home.  In case of an emergency, primarily a long term power outage, I’ve got ways to continue living and functioning within my home.  If need be I can also take them on the road.

 

I keep a two burner camp stove with one pound propane cylinders as well as a small outdoor grill with charcoal & lighter fluid in my garage for cooking.  I can easily boil water or prepare a meal using these items.  I also keep lamp oil on hand and I have a couple kerosene lamps to use for lighting as well as some candles and flashlights with batteries.

 

A few years ago I invested in a power inverter for my car that plugs into my cigarette lighter inlet and will produce electricity when my vehicle is running allowing me to recharge my laptop and cell phone or run pretty much any electric appliance I might need to use.

 

Last year I upped my game by purchasing a Jackery 240 generator along with a solar panel to charge it with.  It is lightweight and portable so I can carry it anywhere I might need to use it within or outside of my home.  The last time we had a long power outage I was able to carry it upstairs and plug in the router so I could access the internet, which came in handy for me to check the power company’s website for updates, but more importantly, it kept me entertained while I waited for the power to come back on.  I can also use this little generator to recharge my laptop, cell phone or plug in a lamp.  It has enough wattage to handle a slow cooker too so I can make myself a meal if I need to.

 

Last winter I picked up a USB LED light that has a clamp so you can pretty much use it anywhere.  It is super handy to clamp onto the handle of the Jackery and I can just plug it into one of the USB ports.  I put it to the test when I needed to cut the power in order to replace the thermostat and add a timer switch to my upstairs bathroom which has no window was completely dark.  It produced quite a bit of light with very little draw of power on the Jackery and was a great test of both items.

 

Last spring I was able to afford to buy a much larger generator and I chose a 1500 watt VTOMAN.  It will run my small appliances but it will also run my new freezer so when I decided to replace the one I sold I no longer had one of the concerns I had which was the possibility of losing the contents of my freezer in the event of a long term power outage.

 

While I am easily able to recharge my solar generator by plugging it into a wall outlet or the cigarette lighter inlet in my vehicle I had also purchased a solar panel at the time I bought my Jackery so I have another way to charge it.  A month after I purchased the VTOMAN I was able to purchase much larger solar panels for it as well.  During a long term power outage I could plug in my freezer and the solar panels which I’d set in my driveway to recharge the generator.

 

I had often thought of purchasing a gas fueled generator, but I had concerns about storing both the generator itself as well as the fuel and oil to run it.  The solar generators are much smaller and lighter and I can easily store them on a shelf in my garage along with the solar panels that fold up flat.  Plus they don’t make any noise when you are using them so they are also great to take camping.  For me, this was a much better choice over a gas generator.  Having alternative power sources gives me greater peace of mind in case of an emergency situation.  While we can’t prepare for everything, we can prepare for some things.

 

Spending LESS $$ - Dining In

 

Many years ago I used to love nothing more than to go out to eat at a restaurant, hit the drive-thru for some fast food or even order pizza.  As I get older however, I find that to be less and less appealing.  Within the past ten years or so I don’t seem to tolerate the greasiness or saltiness of the food that is prepared.  I usually leave a restaurant feeling ill and like I have a rock sitting in my stomach.  More recently, I find the quality of food offered at restaurants these days isn’t as good and the prices have gone up substantially.  The fun of going out to eat just isn’t there for me anymore.

 

In the back I have some fish fillets & chicken patties

What is fun for me now is to recreate those meals in my kitchen and eat them at home.  With company coming throughout the summer and lots of opportunities to feed people I picked up a few things at the store to help me prepare meals at home so we could “dine in”.  One of my children loves the chicken sandwiches and seasoned fries at Jack In The Box so I picked up frozen chicken patties and hamburger buns at the store.  I can easily cut up a potato, season it myself and make fries in my toaster oven while cooking up a frozen chicken patty.  The sandwich goes together with a little mayonnaise and some iceberg lettuce.  It actually tastes better, is fresher and no one goes away feeling ill.  Best of all it costs me pennies on the dollar to prepare that meal.

 

Another popular item is an Egg McMuffin.  I recreated that with a toasted English muffin, fried egg, deli ham and a slice of cheese.  We make all kinds of varieties of that sandwich.  Sometimes I use a sausage patty, sometimes the egg is scrambled with diced ham and cheese already in it and sometimes I use pepperjack cheese.  Other times I whip up a pan of scrambled eggs with ham or sausage and we use that with warm tortillas, grated cheese and salsa to make breakfast burritos.

 

I cooked ahead a dozen sausage patties to keep in the freezer

French toast using markdown bread, homegrown eggs,
milk on sale & homemade pancake syrup

A hearty breakfast after a morning hike is easy to prepare such as blueberry pancakes or French toast.  I made up a bunch of sausage patties using two rolls of sausage I got on markdown and cooked them all up in my electric skillet.  Now all I have to do is reheat what we need in the microwave while the pancakes or French toast are cooking.

 

These markdown burger patties came in really handy

We’ve made grilled burgers using ground beef I bought on sale, cheese on sale, buns on markdown and fresh produce.  Potato salad from scratch has been a wonderful side dish along with homemade baked beans in the slow cooker.  Grilled steaks, baked potatoes and salad meals all prepared from items purchased on sale or on markdown meant a great dinner on the deck and no monstrous bill at the steakhouse.  And it was delicious.

 

Taco salad

Homemade pizza night

Over the years I’ve created many a favorite restaurant dish simply by Googling a recipe.  There are so many really good copycat recipes out there, even for your favorite condiments.  I picked up frozen fish fillets to make a quick fish & chips supper one evening and made my own tarter sauce from scratch.  A can of Progresso clam chowder I had bought on sale for 99¢ was also used.

 

This big tub of organic spring mix on markdown proved helpful

Sandwiches & drinks in the cooler with a bag of chips

We’ve done a lot of outdoor activities this summer so far and packing the picnic cooler has been a big part of that.  I’ve made a lot of fresh Cobb salads, chef salads, chicken Caesar salads, Asian salads and taco salads to pack with dressing and homemade croutons, chow mein noodles or crushed tortilla chips as toppings.  One day I made sandwiches using markdown deli meat and bread I’d picked up at the store.  Another day we hodge podged together a bunch of leftovers for a sort of smorgasboard.  Sometimes you just need to put out a package of hotdogs, buns and a bag of chips.

 

Mushroom pasta alfredo

Chef salad

I also find that in the time it takes to drive to a restaurant and place your order you can easily make your own meal and sit down and enjoy it in the same amount of time.  Yes, you do have to wash the dishes and clean up the kitchen afterward, but at least you don’t have a big bill and you don’t have to leave a tip.  And with company you usually have helpers so it isn’t a big job.  Many a good laugh or a good conversation has been had while preparing a meal or loading a dishwasher.  Best of all no one is complaining about their stomach or the dent in their wallet.

 

Making potstickers can be a fun activity & they're delicious

Taco night!

Do you have any great tips for “dining in”?  What is your favorite restaurant meal?