Daybook: Monday 17/07/17

Outside my window.....everything is sopping wet, but the sun is trying very hard to come out. I suspect it rained all through the night. It may have even stormed because my clocks were "flashing" this morning. It will take several hours for things to dry up so I will be staying indoors this morning.

I am thinking.....I only have two weeks remaining before company arrives. I need to get my butt in gear and get some work done inside. I should think up a menu and cook a few meals in advance for the freezer to help save my sanity for when our days are full and I have little time for cooking in the heat. I will need to clean the spare bedrooms and bathrooms, so that means making up a massive "To-Do" list.

I am thankful for.....having a car in good working order.

From the kitchen.....I baked a batch of doggie biscuits on Saturday morning. I am cooking meals from the recipes I printed out last week from the internet for my new diet. I placed all my printouts into page protectors and inserted them inside an extra binder I had. Last night I baked some garlic chicken and roasted some  par-boiled turnip, cauliflower, broccoli and mushrooms for my son coming over for dinner. The lack of potatoes  wasn't even noticed.

I am wearing.....the same thing I wore yesterday. I haven't had my shower yet, so I am in my denim shorts and a printed T-shirt I wear when working around the house. I would like to clean one of the bathrooms today before I shower and change.

I am creating.....my birthday cards for August.

I am going.....to No-Frills or Shopper's Drug Mart sometime later today. I am completely out of eggs and I am running low on whole milk.

I am hoping.....my sister's house sells quickly. Both she and her husband have decided to retire and downsize. They have put an offer on a lovely home up North where my father still lives, on the condition they sell their home in Guelph. It will go on the market at the end of July.

I am hearing.....the sound of my window fan here beside me at the computer, and the "ping" of new mail coming in on my Blackberry.

Around the house.....I got the vacuuming done downstairs yesterday. I also cleaned and sanitized my kitchen counters and stove top, took out the kitchen compost, and sorted out the recycling for the bins outside. I washed two super loads of laundry yesterday and dried one load in the dryer because of the rain. It kind of turned into a Domestic Sunday once I started, but I hope it continues through today.

One of my favourite things.....right now are some of the flowers that have come out this past week because they are big and spectacular. I have my Adam's Needle (yucca), snowball Hydrangea, and Clematis in bloom right now.

A few plans for the rest of the week.....do not include doctor's appointments. I had two last week and that should do me for a while. I will have to include another shopping trip at some point to pick up more veggies, especially since both green cabbage and cauliflower are on sale this week. I have also been making up a shopping list for ingredients I don't have for some of the new recipes I am using.

Here's a picture I am sharing.....

My clematis with Snowballs in the foreground.

A Day in Loyalist County

 After spending the morning touring the Tall Ships, we were ready for some lunch. Fortunately, there were lots of food vendors in the park. We picked a tent run by volunteers from the Loyalist Emergency Services so our food dollars would go towards their good work.

 I didn't take a lot of photos of the craft vendors, but I took these two of metal working and wood carving because I really admire those crafters as opposed to the ones selling jewellery and clothes.

It was lunchtime for these re-enactors as well. Here someone is cooking on top of his kitchen box.

Some cooking implements

These re-enactors lived here in their tents over the duration of the  weekend event.

I loved this bunting which was completely hand sewn.

This photo is too dark to clearly see a kettle on a cooking stove which used bits of wood. Beside it to the right is a standing cooking box which held his food, pots, pans and other cooking and eating utensils.

 

 These guys were very proud of their collections and loved to engage with the tourists to explain how everything in their collection was used. This was an unexpected surprise for me because I thought the day was only about the tours of the Tall Ships. We spent a very lovely afternoon in the encampment.

Tall Ships

 Last Saturday was a special treat. The tall ships were docked in Bath and I went as a guest of one of my friends who was gifted two passports for her birthday on Canada Day.

One of the street light posts on the main street in Bath.

In the park across from the water, vendors set up their displays of crafts. 

First tall ship we toured was a Canadian ship from Ottawa (a brigantine)

Some of the other ships we toured were from Canada, the U.S. and the Netherlands.

One of the many re-enactors from the Loyalist Days

Lots of ropes for the sails

This particular rope was the one that held the anchor for this ship

Each crew member had a kit bag that also contained his hammock

Other tall ships were not docked for touring but were anchored out in the water. Some of the ships were available for taking passengers out for a sail around Amherst Island.

One of the American ships ( Topsail schooner 3)

The Denis Sullivan had 10 sails

The Empire Sandy (Gaff schooner 3)  coming into dock having taken passengers out for a sail. It had just fired off a canon shot, and I was surprised I caught it on my camera.

I have over 80 photos of the day. We had such a wonderful time, and I will definitely be putting these pictures into a memory book later. I have some more photos of the vendors and the re-enactors in their costumes, but I will leave that for another post, as this one is getting kind of long.

Real Food

I will talk about Real Food in just a little while since it has taken up most of my time the last three days. But first, I will quickly try to recap what has happened to me in the past week.

Last Thursday I was able to get outdoors to finish mowing the rest of the property.  I spent the afternoon making up those four birthday cards that needed to get in the mail. Also on Thursday, I had a visit from long standing neighbours who were good friends to my husband and I for a number of years. They have both fostered and adopted children of the Children's Aid Society for as far back as we have known them, and in fact still do.  He is also a carpenter by trade and has done us many favours over the years. Shortly after losing Rick, he came to visit me and informed me that his wife had had a stroke. What a shock. These are not old people I am talking about. They are maybe in their fifties. She has been progressing well with physio, but when they came for the visit this past week, it was to tell me that he has cancer in his throat, jaw, head and in some of his lymph nodes. It is progressing quickly and he is already on morphine for the pain. I feel sick. They still have young kids at home.

On Friday, two friends of mine came over to the house, with lunch for all of us, and helped me clear a few flower beds of weeds. It was a huge big job. These were beds that I haven't been able to take care of for a couple of years. I had to take down some trees that had taken root because they were growing too close to the foundation of the house. We pulled out weeds that were taller than us. I told you I have some lovely friends.

On Saturday, the same two friends picked me up and took me to Bath where the Tall Ships were docked. With passports that were gifted to us by another dear friend, we were able to take tours of some of the ships and see some re-enactors from the Loyalist Days. I have lots of photos to share in another post.

We arrived in the morning and got to tour the boats early before the crowds got too bad, visited some of the craft vendors who had set up, had lunch at one of the many food trucks, talked with the re-enactors about their costumes and accoutrements, and finally visited some of the shops on the main street. We were inside one of the shops when we got a terrific thunder storm with hail and damaging winds. Many people were caught by surprise. We stayed inside until the storm passed and left for home after 3 PM. But we didn't go home because the sun came out and it was fantastic weather. So we decided to go to Napanee to the Waterfront  patio restaurant to have dinner. Besides having a gorgeous view of the water, we sat beside a huge water feature. We each had a different dinner salad  and each of us thought we had the best salad the restaurant had to offer. So delicious.

Sunday was spent on the phone with family, I did two loads of laundry and I downloaded all my photos of the day before. I had a nap in the afternoon, and rested.

Monday was spent outdoors pulling weeds again (more than two hours worth) from the driveway, and I trimmed grass from around the front lawn. My son and his GF came over after lunch for a visit. I did not write my Daybook like I planned, nor did I post my blog about the Tall Ships Adventure. On Tuesday, I had an early morning appointment with my GP, and this is where the Real Food Diet comes into play. For decades, I have been "pre-diabetic". My file has been flagged accordingly, so my blood work always requires a sugar analysis. Well, I knew it would be high. I think I even mentioned it in a blog just a little while back, that the Doctor's office would be calling me for an appointment soon. And they did. I have been eating a lot of carbs in the evening to feel better and to fill the void in my life. I was expecting a lecture from my new doctor about weight and exercise and yet another glucose test. But no. She surprised me by presenting this Real Food Diet,( also high fat, low carbs diet) She took my weight, BP, measurements and presented me with handouts and a web-site to research. She told me it flies in the face of everything I have been doing to this point, and I should follow it. It is such a challenge, that I am keen on trying it. She will see me in 6 weeks. It is NOT the Diabetic exchange diet that you may be following. In fact, it sounds counter productive. I can almost hear my arteries clogging up as I write this.

Calories come from meat and fat. Carbs come only from above ground veggies and berries.  I cannot have any grains at all....no bread, no cereal, no legumes, no flour. Occasionally I may have some root veggies, but sparingly. Some fruit like clementines and melons can be eaten, again sparingly. Fat is eaten as high fat dairy, extra virgin olive oil, avocado, coconut oil, butter and lard. I had another specialist's appointment yesterday afternoon, but the last three days have mostly been spent researching, printing recipes and coming up with a new grocery shopping list. Yesterday I bought cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, avocados, mushrooms, spinach, lettuce, celery, tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini and yellow squash, green onions, peppers,  shallots (turnip and  sweet potato as a change). I bought 2 lbs. of butter, 2 cartons of regular cream cheese, 4 pints of heavy whipping cream and  2 litres of whole milk. I already have mozzarella and cheddar cheese and I still have some specialty cheeses in my freezer from the Cheese festival. Today I washed, sliced, chopped, or shredded  most of the vegetables. I made the homemade mayonnaise which is used in a lot of the recipes. I boiled some eggs to keep in the fridge. I used a clear turkey broth I made for a soup thick in veggies and turkey with just a few pieces of carrot. It has mostly zucchini, green beans, cherry tomatoes, and broccoli. It is a good thing I have all my meat bought in the freezer, because I have had to spend almost $80 more.

I am drinking tea, both hot and iced with no sweeteners. I am allowed to take sweetener, but only with protein. So breakfast today was 2 eggs plus the egg white left over from making the mayonnaise, spinach wilted in butter and grated cheese and my cup of coffee with whole milk and sweetener.

Lunch was my bowl of soup and three sandwiches made with romaine lettuce leaves wrapped like a tortilla around a slice of turkey breast which was wrapped around a piece of cheddar.

Dinner will be leftover from last night....a salmon fillet, broccoli and mashed sweet potato. I will make a salad with the romaine, tomato, green onion, cucumber, avocado and cherry tomatoes with a olive oil vinaigrette.

I am crossing my fingers. I have avoided sugar in the past, and I know the longer I stay away from sugar, the easier it is to not have any cravings. The fat stays with me longer so I am feeling full for longer periods. It is so crazy, it just might work. Wish me luck.

Let's Review June

Again, I did not set any goals for myself for the month of June except to get outside as much as possible to keep the yard presentable. I tried, but I am not doing very well. I did get out, even on rainy days, to get at least one hour in. But we have had so much rain, that I am quickly falling behind. There are still areas that have not seen me at all this year. I have given up on those areas until I can get some more bodies to help. Yesterday I waited until afternoon to go out and try cutting the grass. It was still wet but I managed to do the front and back lawns up to the veggie garden, and then I ran out of gas. I will refill my gas can when I go fill up later today.

I did not get any veggies planted this year at all, but I did manage to harvest some strawberries. I used four cups to bake a double batch of freezer jam. I put 1 cup of berries in with some strawberry Jello to make a dessert one week. I used 2 cups to make Nathalie's strawberry cake, and another cup or more with whipped cream to eat with the cake. I froze a total of 10 cups (five bags of 2 cups each) to use in my baking later in the year.

 I had my brother and sister-in-law (Rick's brother) over to the house to visit. My daughter and two grandchildren came one weekend to visit. I usually have my son and his GF over for dinner on Saturday. I have gone over to my son's place for dinner once in June, and accompanied them to Kiwi Gardens to see the "Art in the Garden" tour. We went to dinner afterwards in Perth.

I made my two medical appointments. The first appointment with the eye doctor was last week and went very well. I do not NEED to change my eyeglasses, but if I decide to get a pair of computer glasses (I still haven't decided), then he will make them up according to my slightly changed prescription. My medical doctor's appointment isn't until next week.

I made cards. I mailed out 10 at the beginning of the month, then 3 for this past weekend, 12 for gifting, and 16 to sell....41 at least, unless I am forgetting some. I need to make at least 4 more this week

When it came to spending money, I had some successes and some failures. I spent $313.13  for household expenses, at least. But that isn't set in stone either because I didn't keep track religiously of every penny. I was sloppy. Groceries cost 164.06 and household expenses cost $149.07 The total for my household expenses comes from my non-food expenses at the grocery store at $74.39, my trip to Perth (admission, my succulents, and dinner out that day) at $41.90, the $15.83 cost for postage, and the $16.95 to top up my cell phone.  The phone is topped off automatically on my credit card, which I pay off with household expenses. I was able to meet all my expenses because I budgeted $160 for Hydro, but it came in at $103.84 (Yay) and I budgeted $200 for gas for the car, but I only put in $50 this month. I put $50 into my Emergency Fund and $50 into savings. I need to do better.

So I guess my goal moving forward is to find more ways of cutting down household expenses. I used to budget $25 per week per person. The cost of groceries has indeed gone up, but I need to clamp down harder on my expenses so I can put more away into savings, which is basically my gift fund. One thing I have done right (imo) is paying an equal amount every month to those bills that I only receive once every two months or once every three. That way there is no big surprise bill waiting for me in the mail. And I am basically only shopping once a month with the occasional need to pick up just a few basics like milk and eggs. Staying out of the stores is my one biggest frugal success.

So there you have it.....a month in review. I can tell this year will be quite the learning experience.

First shop in July

 I am going to write these posts out of order. First I will show you what I bought and how much I spent on Friday (which isn't even July yet, but close enough). Later on I will recap what I got accomplished and how much I spent during the month of June. I realized this morning that I still have not figured out my new grocery budget. It is a work in progress....not good.

My Friday morning began in the rain by my driving to Giant Tiger in Napanee. I wanted to take advantage of the grocery specials there. In the first picture you will see four bags of vegetables with the meat. Ignore them. I just wanted to take the photo so I could get everything in the freezer as quickly as possible. 

Meat cost me $56.00 even

 I bought two packages of my lean ground beef chubs for $10 each (that is a total of 8 pounds for $20). The bacon is not perfect, but cooked up in omelets, or on pizza, etc., who cares. It was only $1.50 a pkg.so I bought two of those. One box of boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $8, 2 boxes of Angus burgers for $8 each,  two pkgs. of beef hotdogs at $1.50 a pkg, and one pkg. of pre-cooked smoked sausages for $3 rounded up my meat purchases.

Veggies cost $15.41, including the four bags of frozen veggies pictured up top.

Pantry items cost $21.00

 Breton crackers cost only $1.50 a box, so I picked up my limit of 5. I opened the tin of red sockeye salmon right away and made salmon salad sandwiches for lunch. I will use the creamed corn to make my potato and corn chowder.

4 Liters of milk cost $4.27

This detergent only cost $1.50 per jug, which is even cheaper than I can make it.

Everything I bought at Giant Tiger, including the Canada T-shirt for $7, was sale priced except for the milk. I paid a total, with taxes, of $104.86

After returning home and taking photos and putting away the groceries, I made lunch and then proceeded to work on some more card-making. I was invited to my son's for a dinner birthday party for a friend. On the way to their house I stopped at Walmart to pick up some more specials and used some coupons.

My bill at Walmart was $47.64

I used a $5 coupon against the already low price of $32.98 for 20 kg of Pedigree (lowest price in town). I used a $2 coupon against the cost of the Pedigree DentaFlex. I bought a box of Multi Grain Cheerios to get a free box of Maple Cheerios (a Friday Freebie), and I used a coupon to get a free box of All-Bran Crunch. I bought the block of Armstrong old cheddar cheese for only $3.77 (an unadvertised special), and I paid full price for Walmart's own brand of Stevia. I had 4 coupons worth $15.95

I also dropped into Dollar Tree to pick up more art supplies and some Herbal Teas for a total of $12.39 with tax.

I thought my son was cooking a BBQ for the birthday celebration, but we had a lovely sit down dinner of salad and Penne a la Vodka with tomatoes, heavy cream and bacon. When did he get to be a great cook?? He had also baked the birthday cake from scratch.

On the way home I stopped in at No-Frills to pick up their weekend specials.

Not pictured here is a gallon of white vinegar. My total bill here was $35.76

I bought 3 bags of sugar for $1.50 each, 3 cans of frozen juice concentrate for 50 cents each, 2 jars of dry roasted  peanuts for $1.97 each, and 2 boxes of Celebration cookies for $1.50 each. The 2 liter size of Chapman's ice-cream was on sale for $1.50 each (which is a fantastic price) but I had a $4 coupon, so I picked up 6 liters of ice cream for 50 cents. I paid regular price for the oils (baking spray,olive oil and sesame oil), the white vinegar and the T.P. I also bought a ready made potato salad which I would eventually take to Amherst Island the next day, along with a carrot salad I made with the 2 lb bag of carrots, one green pepper and a Spanish onion. 

So far I have spent a total of $200.65  in one shopping day. That is nuts. However, I  have already put most of it aside for my company coming at the end of the month. I will also be doing some baking and putting that away in the freezer. My breakdown is such: food cost $143.28 and non-food items cost $57.37 (dog food, T-shirt, T.P. and laundry detergent) I have just recently started using the second half of the dog food I bought a month ago. I probably didn't need to buy another bag so quickly, but I now have a reserve and I was able to use a high end coupon with it. Because it was a holiday weekend, I was able to take advantage of a lot of sales. I am very happy with a full freezer and pantry. 

Daybook Monday: July 3/17

Outside my window.....it is a gorgeous sunny day and not too hot. The grass desperately needs cutting and trimming after days of rain.

I am thinking.....of all the fun I had this past weekend, but also the busyness of it all which prevented my getting any reading done. I have to catch up on my email and blogs.

I am thankful for.....all my wonderful friends.

From the kitchen.....I made a large carrot salad which I was able to bring to both potluck BBQs this weekend. I also made a batch of dog biscuits yesterday morning and a large pitcher of raspberry iced tea this morning.

I am wearing.....royal blue capris and a white printed T-shirt that says "Learning as a Journey". I have no idea where it came from but it is another "working shirt" as it is stained with paint and garden soil.

I am creating.....at least 4 more birthday cards this week for my own use. Before the weekend, I had 31 cards made (birthday and all-occasion) with envelopes and in gift boxes I also made. I prepared a gift pack of 12 for my friend's birthday on Canada Day, two gift packs of 8 cards each which I sold, and 3 for my own use. I attended three birthdays in the past three days.

I am going.....down for a wee nap this afternoon because I cannot keep my eyes open right now. All this partying has me tuckered out. Ha.

I am hoping.....the weather stays nice for a few days at least. There is so much yard work to do since all the rain (and the socializing) has kept me from working out in the yard.

I am hearing.....the window fan humming beside me, and the occasional road traffic.

Around the house.....my son is here doing up his laundry for the week. I did mine up yesterday morning while baking the dog's treats, and this morning while reading some blogs. It is hanging outside to dry. He dries his in the dryer to save time. It isn't ideal for me who is trying to use less electricity, but he only does it on weekends and holidays when it costs the least. I would ask him to cut the lawn for me, but he is working on his own project outside which will allow him to take all of his cactus plants home to his apartment. And THAT is more important to me.

One of my favourite things.....is my outdoor umbrella clothes line. I lo-o-ove clothes dried outdoors.

A few plans for the rest of the week.....include catching  up on reading and commenting on blogs, as well as catching up on writing more of my own. I have finally taken a look at my spending for June. I also did a major grocery shop for July and I need to post the results. I have two doctors' appointments next week, but none this week. There is no need to go anywhere, so there are no plans except to work outdoors whenever I can.

Here's the picture I am sharing.....this is the only Canada T-shirt I could find to buy this year. I knew I needed to buy a new one because I remembered the one from last year was stained. I left it too long and so by the time I visited the stores on Friday, everyone seemed to have sold out. I found this one in Giant Tiger hanging on a rack where it shouldn't have been. Lucky me!

For all you cat fanciers out there.