My Tireless Retirement - Week 85

 

Hello my friends.  I hope everyone is doing well and had a fabulous week.  It was another busy one for me, but in a very good way.  I’ve been working on getting the green tomatoes I brought in ahead of the frost into the bag in the freezer as they ripen plus enjoying them with my salads too.  What a great thing to still have garden fresh tomatoes in November!

 

A couple weeks ago I had brought in some rosemary and allowed it to thoroughly dry before I crumbled it into a small quarter pint sized jar for my spice cabinet.  It totally smelled like Thanksgiving while I was doing this.  I used a parmesan cheese lid I had washed and saved for this jar so I can have easy access next time I decided to use rosemary in my recipes.  I love to add rosemary to my stockpot whenever I’m making chicken or turkey broth and it also goes really well with pork.  Roasted vegetables too.  I am very happy I added a rosemary bush to my garden last spring.

 

Along with taking care of my herb and tomato harvest I was doing some preparing for the next garden season.  I winterized the garden beds, planted garlic and mulched a lot of the leaves that had fallen onto the ground.  I also planted daffodil bulbs in the flowerbeds near the bird bath.  I’ve always wanted daffodils in my yard for ages so now, come spring, I will finally have them.  I think next fall I will likely add more tulips, some more daffodils and maybe some crocus.

 

I made a really good pot of soup last week

As my age 59½ nears (March 2) I’ve been doing a lot of financial planning and working with my advisor lately to make sure I am able to make the most of those retirement dollars I’ve been squirreling away all these years.  Neither one of us was expecting or could have predicted the current rate of inflation the past two years, but fortunately it does not appear it will have too negative of an impact for me.  As he told me at our last meeting, what I have going for me is that I have no debt, my monthly expenses are very low (even in the wintertime) and I choose to live simply.  Amen brother!  The goal, according to him, is to make sure my financial needs are adequately covered so I am not feeling stressed about finances at all.  Instead I can focus on taking good care of myself and improving my health.  I like his way of thinking!

 

After filing a complaint with Albertsons about their “shrinkflation” tactics as well as several instances of what I perceive as price gouging where I gave several examples and told them I would not be shopping there anymore if this continued they actually contacted me and asked for more input.  Then they promised to turn it over to their pricing department and thanked me for contacting them.  I was shocked.  Not wanting to be someone that just sat around and complained about stuff I wanted to take action and make a stand.  Do I expect anything to change?  Not really, but you never know.  If enough of us do something, then yes, we can effect change.

 

I ended my week with a quick trip into Albertson’s for a 5# bag of potatoes and two pounds of butter they had on sale.  I also ordered more photos at Walgreens so I picked those up along the way as well.

 

It was a busy work week as I filled in for employees that called in sick and helped with the Christmas Bazaar.  It was nearly a full time work week, but I had a lot of fun so it didn’t feel like it.  This week I work today and have the next six off for the Thanksgiving holiday.  I’m not complaining about that at all.  I plan to continue working on my photo album project.  I hope you all had a great week last week and enjoy a wonderful holiday with your loved ones this week.  Take care and don’t eat too much! 😉