Littlesister

Jeepers, seems it is never ending for you. Hope you start feeling better soon. GS just got over bronchitis. He was also on Doxycycline. He got over it in just a few days, so hopefully it will clear you up fast. I can see why you love your dining room the best. You have it set up really nice. I love all the furniture and the table turned out really nice and matches well with all the other furniture. I agree with Mother, take pictures and tell a story about each item for your son and GS. I think years from now they would enjoy reading about your adventures. Went to heart doctor this morning. Both the EKG and the stress test was really good. Only thing was the heart muscle is stiff. But a lot of walking will fix that. But I don't walk in this freezing weather. So, will do some exercises in house and walk on the warmer days. I told him about my shoulder on the left side. It has been very painful right under the shoulder blade. He checked it and said it was muscle to use a heating pad and take Advil or Aleve. I have muscle relaxers so will take one tonight as the pain kept me up all night. He also changed some of my medications. The Norvasc caused me to gain weight as well as the Actos the endo doctor put me on. So, off the Actos and on Farxiga and on a combination of a fluid pill and blood pressure pill. He wants me to go on a mediterranean diet. I am already using that diet though. I was a little bit mad as I gained over 10lbs due to the Norvasc and Actos. And because of hypothyroid it is hard to get that off. So here I go again. Hopefully the Farxiga will get that weight off like he said it would. So just taking it easy today with heating pad for shoulder. Will work on some things later today. Waiting for pharmacy to call to pick up the RX's.

Jeepers, I really hope there is a solution to that issue. I know that makes it hard to find food that taste good. I never got Covid, and I thank the Lord daily for that. Though I don't know how other than the Lord was watching out for me back in 2020. Hospitals, pharmacies and everywhere else I had to go to get things that were needed for DH. And I never got it. I did follow all the guidelines for flu and took zinc, C and other vitamins as well. So, maybe that helped but I give the credit to the Lord.

Jeepers are you on any medication that could cause that also. Check online about the issues with any you are on. That might help also.

I love that table. The color is perfect. But no room for a wood stove in there. Your foyer is like mine. A closet near the end of it. Only difference is that your dining room would be mine formal living room and on the other end of living room is my dining room.

Jeepers, I do agree. It is hard to cook for one. It was hard when the kids all grew up and moved out and then only cooking for 2 was hard. I always had leftovers that I was going to freeze but DH always ate it for his lunch. So never really had much in leftovers. Now I am trying to get leftovers frozen but sometimes GS will come home from work and eat it. So still nothing left to freeze yet. Still working on getting those freezers emptied and then I will start making dinners and put in the kitchen fridge to start. I almost have that one done.

Sounds like a bit of price hiking going on. It happens here. Was talking with my DD a bit ago and she trigeminal neuralgia. It is very painful. It is causing pain in jaw up to her ear. She's on medication for it now but will be having a CT scan. It is a compression of the nerve by a blood vessel near the brain stem. Hopefully they can do something for it.

When you see the Amish, you know they have a store somewhere. Wish we had one around here. Stores are rated for whatever area they are in. If it's an area with high priced houses and such the A stores are there. Bigger and better. My area gets the B stores smaller less choices. And then the C stores which I don't see to many off around here are the ones that are smaller than the B stores but much less product to choose from. When we had the Sears store years ago. We always went to Newport news to that one. It was a two-story huge place. Better sales and much more to choose from. Worked on clearing out my closet today. Trying to organize it better and figure out places to put things other than my closet. Closet is a small walk in and not a lot of room once clothes are hanging in it. 2 shelves all the way around the closet but doesn't take much to fill those up. And I hate going through clothes to see what fits and what doesn't. It takes time and I am in a hurry to get it all done. I need to find a good place to put my first aid stuff. It is all together in a huge suitcase. Might change that out and put in rolling bin under the bed. The suitcase will not fit under the bed. Might be easier to organize it better to find things when needed also.

I really like the idea of doing this. I need to practice doing some of this stuff. There are things here that I have but never tried them out yet. Some of it is for outdoor cooking and such but I need warmer weather to do it. Can't handle the cold. My bones are screaming.

That looks great Anarchy. I need to move some pictures off phone to computer. To many baby pictures plus some of what I have canned lately.

I need to give this a try. But other things going on right now. But I am going to try it out. Just not sure what I will fix to put in it yet. But very much interested in this type of cooking. It seems sort of like a slow cooker with no electricity or stove.

Right now, it is 38* and sunny and no wind. It is going to get up to 48* by 2:00. So much better than it has been. Not starting the wood stove up today as I need to clean it out. So figured today would be a good time since the weather is better and a bit warmer. Giving kitchen a good cleaning today and getting things ready to start canning again. Need to get out more jars and get them washed and ready to go. The canners are sitting on dining room table. I didn't put those away since I would be using them again. Got the fan out of garage and put in the foyer. It did make a difference blowing some of the heat out of den down into the bedrooms more. Bedrooms were still cool enough that I slept good last night. It also kept the den from being too hot. So, works out much better. Still working on boxes out of bedroom closet. Lots of stuff going to Good Will. Just don't think I am going to keep all this stuff no matter how hard it might be to get things later down the road. I will be able to make do.

My GS likes pop tarts. Might try that for him when I get some projects finished. Getting ready to start another week of canning. Had to stop to work on house a bit. Tearing up a house to go through and downsize stuff and get rid of things is really making a mess of the house. So had to work on that for a couple of days. I do think we will be going back to the rationing stamps or something if WW3 does break out. Right now, I have enough food to get me through the first few months without rationing stamps. Other than milk, bread and eggs. But I already have powdered milk, eggs, and can make bread. I am also a type 2 diabetic, so have to watch what I eat. I try to stock more protein and veggies than anything else. Though for the past year I have been stocking a little for GS as well. He loves chicken and fish more so than beef. He's not much of a beef eater. Big issue is he loves his junk food, and I won't buy much of that.

My next-door neighbor just did have the funeral for her DH just before this mess happened with the weather. It was cold but not this cold. When my DH passed it was freezing cold and the air felt like ice. We had already had several days of freezing rain and after the funeral it was still a week later before my DH could be buried. The ground at the cemetery had water standing in some areas that covered some of the graves under water. Where my DH was buried it wasn't flooded, but the ground was so wet, and it was so cold they couldn't dig the graves. We had the grave side in the mausoleum instead of at the grave side.

I agree with the substitutes on many things. We need to know how to do that. There will be other things also we will need to learn how to do. I think we will be stretching more food and nonfood items in the near future. Washing our hair only using a dime size amount of shampoo as an example. Many other things as well. We need to not only know how to use substitutes in food but how to stretch all of our nonfood items as well.

Mother. Hope your day is a great one.

Miki, this cold is cramping everyone's style. Things outside I need to get done is not going to be done in this cold weather. Working on my bedroom today. Pantry is clean and finished. Need to make a couple of changes on furniture placement also in bedroom. But that will come after I figure out and get some things organized in there. So that is my whole day today. Just working on one room at a time. Was hoping to move some things to shed today but way too cold to get out to shed. So that's off the table for now. We need a heat wave. Jeepers stay safe heading back home from home. Need you back in Ohio before the next storm hits. Hope it is the last one.

They rationed food both in WW1 and WW2, I am sure if things get really bad, they will ration food in WW3. My go to store is Food Lion, it is the cheapest of the others not counting Lidi and Aldi's. I go to Harris Teeter depending on the sales and I rarely go to Kroger. You have to stick with the sales there or it will scare you at the register. I don't shop China Town (Walmart). I just don't like them. I went with GS twice to help him with something he needed and that was after not going in there for 5 or 6 years. I like Sam's Club and BJ's wholesale for things other than just food. I coupon BJ's to death as I can use coupons and their coupons. I think the most I saved at BJ's is over $270 in one trip. DH was with me, and he was buying garden things and other stuff. The bill came to something like $152. It was a good savings. But living alone now I stopped buying in bulk. But for the $20 membership, I can still get my propane tanks filled as it is cheaper there.

I hope she did also Mt. Rider. I think she plans to head back to Ohio tomorrow. Prayers for Jeepers to have a safe trip back home. Finished cleaning and dusting the pantry. Got some things put away and moved out some things that I had moved in there for Christmas decorations. So, all back where it needed to go. Still need to get the aero gardens out of office and back into the living room. It's all getting done little by little. GS is off I think tomorrow but might be too cold to get the rest of the firewood stacked. The wood stackers are supposed to be here tomorrow but might have to put them together. I ordered them from Lowes so not sure how they will be delivered. Hoping they will already be put together.

Been cleaning up in the pantry today. Got a bit of a late start as I had a couple of other things to get done. Dusting and moving the older stuff to front to get used first. Put a good dent in it with using up things in there. Tonight, I will just relax a bit and read by the wood stove. Temps will start dropping by at least 4pm. Leftovers for dinner tonight. I do have a jar of pork that didn't seal so will do something with that either tonight or tomorrow. Still have some unstuffed peppers to finish eating.

Mother, the only reason I said straw is because I already have some in garden shed. I bought some for another use and still have one bale left. And I think there is an old wooden box in the shed as well but either a cooler or cardboard box would work fine also. whatever I make to use those for it would be from my canned foods or freezer. So would be cut up small. I do have a wide mouth thermos. Never have tried oatmeal in it but that is a great idea. Might try that in the near future. Got a lot going on right now. needed a break.

Mommato3boys, that is a good way of doing it. Learning to prep for a scenario that hopefully won't happen, but we know I some point it will happen. Don't know in what way it will happen, but something will happen. Right now, it is very hard for me to follow a $20 a week list as I have a full pantry and freezers and working on meals from there. There are some weeks I don't do any grocery shopping. As I have shelved stable milk in pantry, I have everything I need to make bread and corn bread, and right now I have 3 doz. eggs in fridge. Going to make some egg salad and some boiled eggs later today. Also going to make some chicken and tuna salad. That will be my dinner for the next 3 or 4 days. Maybe lunch on some days. I do tend to skip breakfast and have brunch or eat breakfast and skip lunch then have dinner. Just depends on what I am doing that day and how hungry I am.

I think we forget because it is not part of our day-to-day task. I know I have things stored away that I have forgotten about. We buy things for the just in case, the what ifs, And I will need this for when it hits the fan. Then we pack it away till that time comes. I am thinking it might be time to get some of this stuff out as soon as I can get to it and start learning all these new tasks. My DH had made up some homemade laundry detergent for me and it ended up in the shed. I need to pull it out and start using it. It is in powder form. It was 4 or 5 buckets he made up. So, it was put in shed out of way till I needed it. I think I had used one bucket of it. So just need to pull out another when I can get back out to that shed. Living room is now cleaned up and ready for me to get my aero gardens back in there. I am ready to start growing lettuce and some other herbs again. Had to move it all for Christmas. Hoping when I can get the furniture situated and things moved around like I want and make room for things. I won't have to move the aero gardens out again.

Finished going through all the boxes in living room. Have some things to drop off at Good Will. Now to wait for the weather to warm up enough to put everything away up in the loft in shed. I got rid of a lot of Christmas stuff but glad all the kids wanted it. There was very little that went to Good Will. I just kept enough to decorate the house a little. Not doing the full-blown decorating that I used to do. As I will more than likely be heading to DD's house for Christmas as soon as they all figure out what they want to do. I'm just along for the ride.

That is true euphrasyne, I do like to keep things for fast meals and desserts, though I don't do the desserts now unless it is something I am taking to Church. I have a few cake mixes in pantry now that I need to check dates on. I might move them to the freezer soon. But thinking more along the lines of bagging them up and putting them in the Church pantry.

Sorry, can't do the dogs. They are our pets.