My Tireless Retirement - Week 223

 

Hello my friends!  It has been another quietly productive week in retirement.  On Friday I got the garden fertilized and watered, cleaned up the chicken pen area a bit (stirred up a mouse in the process) and got the A/C units installed upstairs, one in each bedroom.  They will stay there and cool the house until Labor Day weekend, give or take.  Looking ahead at the weather report we were slated to have hot weather and we did.  With temps in the high nineties and tickling eh century mark I was super grateful to have those two units installed and cooling my home.

 

One of my rehabbed dolls in a holiday dress I made

Saturday was Independence Day and we stayed home with the kitties because they get anxious with the neighborhood fireworks going off.  The chickens seemed like they could care less, same with the bunny.  We celebrated with a grilled steak and a salad for a late lunch/early supper and some ice cream for dessert.  It was a nice, definitely not a quiet, low-key day.

 

Downstairs I kept the air cool with a new addition.  Last month I invested in a portable swamp cooler.  The upstairs A/C does a good job keeping the entire house comfortable, but when we have those marathons of one hundred plus degree weather the lower level can get stuffy, especially when the overnight temps don’t get low enough to cool it down.  Adding the cooler downstairs has been really nice to have.  I just fill it with cold water and add an ice pack to the tank to keep the air chilly.  It works so well I sometimes have to turn it off for a bit to warm up.  First world problems!  LOL

 

Another new summer addition to my home this year is a new set of ice trays, but not just ordinary ice trays, the ones that make the big round balls of ice.  I love them.  I also love that I just need to grab one ball of ice to keep my drink cool and it melts slowly so my drinks don’t get as diluted as with regular ice.

 

Empty bins!

Inside, I continued decluttering, I cooked, I cleaned, mopped the tiles and vacuumed the carpet, did my laundry and washed my bedding, including the pillows and mattress cover.  I binge watched the entire ten episode season of Dexter New Blood.  I also did some sewing and made some “new” cleaning cloths after cutting up an old bath towel I had in the rag bin.  I went around the edges so they won’t fray and sent them through the wash to test.  That will work!

 

A big project here last week was to completely go through and assess the LTFS.  Monday I was able to clear some items, pack it up and send it home with the BFF.  This will make it much more manageable for me as I often find the volume of it a bit overwhelming at times.  It is a lot of work to dust, keep inventory and rotate items to make sure the older products are up front and get used.  At this time we have no plans to add to it any further.  Unfortunately he wasn’t able to transport any of the frozen food, but thinning out the shelf stable food and some of the nonfood items feels much more balanced to me and I’m quite happy to share the load.

 

I still have plenty of home canned foods

Since then I have restocked my working pantry as well as the freezer in the kitchen from the LTFS to keep me going throughout the month and well into August.  I’m also going to focus on consuming more of the home canned items I’ve put up over the past two years.  I am so well stocked right now that I do not plan to do anymore canning for the remainder of the year.  After reorganizing and reassessing my current inventory it simply isn’t necessary at this time.  One, or two, can only eat so much.

 

I had to ask the BFF to stop buying me coffee 😆

As it sits I am feeling tremendously thankful and rather pleased after all of the hard work I’ve put into the LTFS over the years and I’ve really enjoyed the process.  Right now I feel like I’ve won the lottery as I’m able to use and maintain it, not just for me, but also another entire person as well.  For me, it is going to help a lot to bridge the gap from when I left my job to when I get my first Social Security check in October.  Knowing I do not have to worry about buying groceries anytime soon is absolutely priceless and I am so thrilled.  This is what a LTFS system is for and I get to put it to the test.

 

I am storing items for a future yard sale in this closet

I hope you all enjoyed a blessed and happy week as I did.  Nothing too terribly exciting happened and that’s AOK!  I’m rather content to just calmly and peacefully make my way through the week one day at a time.  I much prefer a drama free existence.  How was your week?  Anything exciting happen?