Catch Up, Ketchup, Catsup

Since last writing, short version:

DH mother found wandering her city center somewhat incoherent, hospitalized with family present and ultimately put into board and care home where she is comfortable, chatty, relieved (she said she likes it, she doesn't have to pay rent and they feed her three times a day).  That in itself is telling.

 

Put a half dozen items to sell on Tradesy to test it out.  Only sold one item so far.  I get to set the price with automated 'help' but they are allowed to do sales or provide discount promotions.

 

Dropped many items to consignment store locally, minimal sold to date and I am not the one setting the price.

 

Almost done sorting and scanning pictures.  I bogged down on the family side.  I am hesitant to throw away originals even though I have the scan which was the point.  I think I need to envelope up some groupings and send them to family members  i.e. brother's wedding, DH sister pictures.  I will be keeping our wedding pictures and negatives.  I may do one album of the best of the best.  I did have a lovely dream with my Dad present (he passed in 2000).  I think looking at the photos and reliving some moments brought it on.  Again, hesitant to toss, so the special ones will be kept.

 

This picture is from 1999, visit from my parents to West Coast.  It was last time I saw him in person.  DH accompanied him to water's edge to test how cold. 

I love the footprints in the sand.

 

 

Attempted to read Wally.Lamb newest book We are Water.  Horrendously amateur.  I so liked his other books but perhaps I have outgrown fiction.  It has been some time since I have read fiction.  The last prior was Barbara.Kingsolver's Lacuna which was dreadful.  I later found out multiple (backroom) writers contributed.  The Wally.Lamb book was inane dialog of selfish, self-centered people and name dropping of Lady.Gaga to Maya.Angelou.  How horrendous.  Oh dear.

 

Finished signing up in early December on Health Exchange for our new medical coverage.  Our coverage will greatly improve on Jan 1.  Tax benefits will also be very helpful.

 

Saw Naturopath.  Won't outline issues in detail but I knew there was a problem.  Short story - gluten sensitivity and yeast overload.  Once resolved, system back on track and off gluten, metabolic issues could possibly resolve.  I plan at least 6 months of restricted intake to help heal leaky gut.

 

Spent hours on Amazon figuring out best supplements to obtain based on Naturopath suggestion.  Multi-Vitamin, Enzymes, probiotics, adrenal healing, gut healing.  Once last medical test done (by this weekend), then I start on that regiment.  Some I was already taking but others are adds.  Looking forward to feeling rejuvenated.   The gluten issue along with leaky gut can render one malnourished.  I really like this Naturopath.

 

Holiday season now passed.  We do not participate.  We figured out long ago to forego gifts to one another.  We had/have everything we need.  It relieved any issue of stress of what to get to 'surprise' one another.  I recall when it happened about 10 or more years ago, a good gradual process to get to that space.  We went to Hawaii just before Xmas one year (many years ago), arriving back home on Xmas day thus missing family traditional gathering on purpose.  We still get gifts for each of our Moms but small items.  Neither need anything so book for DH mom and this year I purchased an LL.Bean carry-all for my Mom (25% off sale with free shipping).  She really liked it.  My Mom says she wants for nothing and I believe her but the moms are hard to stop as we owe so much to them.  We skipped DH Mom this year, we already bought the book but are told she is not up for reading comprehension at this time.  So we held off.  Don't want to be insensitive clods.  So this year came and went, we ignored all we could.  It is hard in the grocery stores where sappy music playing and I found right about the day before Xmas that the songs were playing in my head.  I was ok with that.  We even walked funny to the Little Drummer Boy in a store, both of us at the same time spontaneously and then burst out laughing at ourselves.  It is ingrained but we are removed from it all.  The difference is we don't have children and all nieces and nephews are grown and most of family live pretty far away which allows us this freedom.

 

Both of us had our annuals and our eyes examined.  Taking care of business.

 

Have read Shauna.Ahern book Gluten.Free.Girl.  I follow her website, did before my own diagnosis, she is great writer, wonderful cook and recipe giver.  Now with diagnosis wanted to read with my needs in mind.  She made this transition seem far less frightening.  We also have her first cookbook to utilize.

 

Reading The.Joy.of.Living by Yongey.Mingyur.Rinpoche who is a very up-to-date Buddhist who works with neuroscientists around the world and they together are formulating insights into meditation practice and associated brain activity with happiness and compassion.  So far interesting read.

 

Next up to read is Bird.By.Bird by Anne.Lamott.  One of her older books.  On one of the blogs I follow, Susan.Black, 29.black.street, she uses quotes from her more recently which piqued my interest.  This is probably the first blog I started following, reading with enthusiasm which opened a world to me a handful of years ago.  I now follow quite a few blogs, perhaps 20 to 25 on my blog reader (a separate blog that this one) where any new entries pop to the top.  I used to go to each individually until I figured that out - dooh!

 

Weather has been moderate since our cold snap.  Not our usual rains and we didn't have our November/December wind storm this year (or we have acclimated).  We are still having mostly overcast days which further justifies our stance that it is time to head to the sun.  I think the continued lack of sun and warmth has possibly had some effect on my health.  I am less inclined to be outdoors, my Vitamin D3 levels are very low and now finding out perhaps I haven't been absorbing the D3 supplements I have been taking these past 5 or more years is sad (no pun intended).  So into the sun and warm we go, with many more days to play outside.

 

Until the next time, I bid adieu and Happy New Year.
 

Note: periods used between names or titles to hopefully keep unwanted traffic from this blog. 

Chilled

We had a wee bit of snow this week, huge flakes falling from the sky.  They melted as they touched ground.

 

We have freezing temperatures even during the day, barely reached 34 degrees.  Likely at our address, which backs up to a large nature park, we are usually at least 5 degrees less.

The forest that looms behind us.

Snow expected by this weekend.   Brrrrr.

Busy though.  Huge load to charity drop.  Some items to consignment.  Either way a nice sizable pile out of the house and onto their future homes to be reused.  I am trying to avoid tossing anything, I want to keep things out of landfill.  I know it drives DH batty that I want to find homes for these items even just giving them away.  I cannot abide by making usable items trash, seems so wasteful.  I spent good money on these items and I know there is someone out there who can use it;  to me that is a perfect formula.  The unperfect part is getting item to person without a huge amount of interaction with a huge amount of folks and people coming to the house.  I think the charity place will be seeing a lot of me.

 

Next up, sorting through photos.  Getting rid of duplicates.  Then scanning (digitizing) the keepers.  I started using digital photography in 2001.  I was not a big photographer before then.  I assume maybe digitize 300 or so photos.  It will be a great project for end of December.

 

DH and I sat and looked through some of the photos, had a great trip down memory lane. 

Book Drop

We have now exorcised the demon of book ownership sold over 600 books.  We didn't specifically count but did the math of the bookcases and the store that took them said it was well over 600.  This local store buys what they can resell.  When cashing out we get maybe $1.00 a book on average, if we took store credit it would be double.  What they don't want goes to Friends of the Library for their quarterly sale which happens to be this week.  We have gleefully participated in this quarterly sale where all kinds and sizes of books can be obtained for a dollar each. 

 

We also sold the requisite bookcases.  Two identical 4 feet by 7 feet by 13 inches.  They were a heavy visual weight in our great room which is now light and airy.  A happy new home was found via Craigslist.

Lighten the Load

Sitting here having a glass of Medoc wine and goat brie cheese on crackers.  Sounds fancy doesn't it.  It isn't our everyday go-to wine or cheese.  DH brought home both, I think his reasoning that a holiday is upcoming and his birthday is next week.  We rarely splurge and I approve that we should occasionally as one can get frugal fatigue.  Our needs are average to below-average and our wants are very minimal.  We have re-educated and re-trained ourselves to what is important and to have minimal needs.  We eliminated gift giving to each other about 10 years ago.  Now we aren't scrooges by any means, we just changed our thinking.  I recall the last year of gift giving of having the epiphany of saying I don't need anything else thus it was born that no more buying something to surprise one another or make grandiose gift buying a show of our love for one another.  What we do now is that Person A might have a hankering for something - one year for me I said I wanted a double kayak - my DH almost broke his jaw by how far it dropped.  One year he wanted a digital camera.  So we save up our wants and get pricing, double check our real need vs want and then go shopping.  We also have a somewhat utilized rule of 'out with the old before new comes in'.  For the digital camera, DH traded all of his bellows camera and gear toward the digital purchase.  With the double kayak, we have used it a lot and we get to spend some great quality time together - also we bought it used up at Lake Tahoe at the end of the season - thanks Val for housing it and transporting it for us!!  Love you!

Milk and Honey

Milk and Honey popped into my head this morning while making coffee.  Returning to the Land of Milk and Honey.  When I thought of it I had a warm calming feeling inside, a reassuring feeling that all is ok and this move is a good and correct move.  But why milk and honey, so I had to look it up.  It goes back to the Bible where it is referred to the land of fertility and abundance - well that is California (or was as it has been eight years since we left). 

 

To catch up, since the end of October. 

 

We initially were going to sell off all furniture and keep only what would fit in a cargo trailer that we would haul.  We moved up here with a professional mover, taking everything with us after a major whittling down of extra stuff.  Our prior home on the peninsula was all of 1,200 SF so it wasn't huge, about one-fourth or one-fifth of a moving rig.  That furniture is now even eight years older so it's true age is close to 20 years in some cases.  It has all served us well but isn't worth the cost to move it again.  But, wait, I really, really want to keep my beautiful outdoor furniture.  It is a lovely set from O.W. Lee and is a table with four chairs, a love seat and two armed side chairs and a coffee table.  Lovely bronze wrought iron with faux stone table tops, custom pads for all seating and leaning surfaces.  We paid $3.7k back in 2000.  This set has served us so well and the pads are just now showing signs of wear.  This set represents outdoor living to me, it represents being able to be outside, relaxing in the warm breeze of a summer afternoon.  Up here in the 48th latitude one can only do that for three to four months of the year.  We can only leave the pads out for maybe two months.  I did not want to give up this set out of everything furniture wise.  I kind of dug my heels in (in my head). 

The Spark

I believe October 25, 2013 marks Day One.  That is the day we actually said 'let's move forward'.  As mentioned in my prior post, we are leaving the PNW.  I still love the PNW, this is the second time I have lived up here.  I lived in Eugene, Oregon in the early 80's and have only good memories from that time.  The spark that brought us to the top of the US just below the Canadian border in 2005 is two-fold. 

 

The first spark was Summer of 2002, the company I then worked for had to relinquish a handful of accounts as the large ownership was required to get providers who supplied services nationally (not regionally as we were) so after the transition, it was time to take a vacation as I still had other accounts but no new ones yet.  I took two weeks off - I only ever did that one other time in my entire professional career.  We did a road trip, DH and I, and traveled from the Bay Area all the way up to Eugene, Oregon.  We had no reservations, we winged it.  A cabin here and a motel there.   We drove until we wanted to stop, we sought out waterways to play with our blow up raft, we stopped at off-the-wall cafes and diners, we had provisions for munching and a bottle of rum for cocktails every evening usually at some waterfront.  

 

Blogs and Fog

Since creating this blog, I have left it to sit as I needed it to be blank space for a bit.

I needed an identity to be able to comment on others' blogs.

I enjoy others' blogs especially creative sorts, frugal and minimalist ones, personal finance savvy ones where non-spending or reusing are the focus.  Tons and tons of other blogs such as women written/woman subject blogs about where they are in life, we can all so relate to those wonderful inner feelings we have, some women can just write it up so well and so succinct, those I honor with gratitude for putting it out there.  My reading does cover quite a range of blogs and news but I now need to ratchet it back as it consumes too much time and I am staring at the computer screen too much - I can see or actually I am starting to unsee a bit, the excessive computer time is affecting my eyesight just a bit.  I find that occurs as we head into late Fall and Winter.  It doesn't occur in late Spring nor Summer.