Sam Squared

         It was easier to write an update than respond to all the kind comments. No news on my sister yet. She's got some strong meds and more doctor visits, and is at least more comfortable than Friday. We don't really know what's happening other than it involves her breathing and GI system,  related or separate. For her privacy, and to not mix up anything, that's about all I'll say. The sister hospitalized last week when her COPD and throat issues became so severe has rechecks this week.       Later in the morning, I received news my cousin that recently started hospice care passed away late Sunday. She had no immediate family, all siblings died before her and she had no children. Her nieces, my second cousins, are setting up a celebration of life for mid August. In texts in my family group, my older siblings called her the cool cousin. She had a busy, adventure filled life but ended up back in her hometown in her 60's.    ...

     This was supposed to have been a weekend away cabin trip with sisters. Everything changed with hospitalizations and emergency rooms with lots of inconclusive test results...for both people and pets. I won't go into the people details, but suffice it to say when more than one person has to stay out for health reasons, and another can't handle any heat or humidity, and a 4th got called into work, it just was not in the cards to go out of town. We ended up having book club, dinner, and cards at the cabin sister's house. As one sister said, we're not the young sisters in our 20's and 30's any more.      Sunday I woke to a text that my daughter had the kitten in the emergency vet. He was fixed earlier in the week, but had been doing well. However, Saturday he was vomiting and lethargic. He's doing better but not quite the perky kitten, but no definitive reason for him being sick. A very big vet bill for all good test results. I was already going to be ...

                                  I copy the previous week, delete the old and updated as I go along the week as a way even when busy and not in a blogging mindset I'm accountable to myself.  Here's my recap of Friday, July 18th to Thursday, July 24. I just sort of list things as they come up, then edit before publishing.  Avoiding Spending/ Saving on Needs I am doing better hitting loss leaders and got terrific ones at both my daughters and my local grocery store.  Used a coupon that gave me  an additional $7 in rewards at Walgreens when I went back for more loss leader freezer bags and Diet Coke. While it needs to be used in increments of $5, I'll use today for two more laundry soaps to add to the laundry stores. My daughter's zucchini is coming and she brought a couple beautiful ones. ( Sadly, just about all my efforts are a bust- even the big plants already with tomatoe...

      Short post to hold myself accountable. Nothing, 0, zilch lost in weight since last week. In fact, the scale crept up a bit. Now granted, yesterday I had ham for dinner and feel like I might be carrying water weight due to salt. I think I'm going to need to do daily weigh ins so I can truly see the impact on food and exercise (lack of) choices.       It was sweltering yesterday and I didn't get near the amount of walking in as normal. Grandpup was at doggie daycare so no extra long walks required, which would have helped offset the salty meal. I can't give myself days off just because it's hot. Even if water weight, the scale still was disappointing and likely no progress. Thanks for being accountability listeners. New day today. 

           The 5 cubic foot chest freezer I bought this spring seems a good buy so far. Besides all the fruit for baking and jam making, I've been able to take advantage of loss leaders that I haven't bothered with since all the kids were out of the house. Working full time and it being the two of us, we ate simple meals at home, shopped for the week, and ate out frequently. Now with my retirement budget and wanting funds to stretch, my son's limited income and saving towards his own house (plus his high metabolism), and grocery inflation, maximizing on loss leaders should help over time to have a consistently more affordable grocery budget.       I'm buying very little convenience foods, but when a frozen pizza saves sucombing to ordering pizza, stocking the freezer is a win. Recent buys were 5/$10 Roma, not great but easy to cut in quarters and bake in the air fryer, and two large Lotsa Mozza at $5.99 each which are in my opinion, a be...

      This past week was the mid point of meteorological summer. I could handle many more days and nights of the weather of late. The highs just touching 80, but without humidity, and evenings that in the shade, a light sweatshirt feels like a hug. I guess I had an up and down weekend. I got both front and back lawns mowed. I use lawn lightly for the backyard, just weedy grassy patches in some parts and near jungle near the side trees. It took longer because of how thick in places as between helping at church and rain, I pushed mowing to 10 days from my last. The first batteries didn't quite make it, but happy that the spare were ready so I could finish.       I started down a tangent about my yard that I opted to cut and save for a post of it's own and hope to get my camera out, one of my July goals. Yesterday though I decided to take pup to the lake for a few hours. I had a time limit as I committed to feeding my sister's cats and of course, Little M...

                                 I copy the previous week, delete the old and updated as I go along the week as a way even when busy and not in a blogging mindset I'm accountable to myself.  Here's my recap of Friday, July 11th to Thursday, July 17. These start getting long, so feedback if you think less is more. I just sort of list things as they come up, then edit before publishing.  Avoiding Spending/ Saving on Needs I included twinkle lights, purchased and tucked away from Christmas clearance, with my great nieces graduation card and money. I've been doing this for college dorm bound girls. I'm told it's always a hit by the moms or the girls themselves.  The raspberries just kept coming and not only more than enough for jam, I been giving them away to keep produce sharing karma going. Brought my daughter an extra set of double size sheets I already had for her new bed. She's goin...

         I realized I might be leveraging my credit cards wrong if I want to use to reduce travel costs. I have used my Delta AmEx card for travel but have still been using the Unlimited Cash Rewards Visa  for other day to day expenses and scheduled payments with no fee. I figured the cash back was nice as it could be used for anything which still is true. However, I get a straight 5 miles for every dollar with the AmEx, any purchases, calculated out that comes to an average of 4.5% reward per dollar for future flights. I figured this out by looking a variety of flights using pay by cash or pay by mileage. Sometimes the return in points came to nearly 7%, but was also as low as 2%. It's complicated that certain flights can be purchased with fewer miles proportionate to $$ value. For example I looked at a flight that was $299 or 40,600 miles, but another that was $387, was 41,500, and yet another was $229, but could be bought with a mere 16,500 miles.  ...

        Its Wednesday so time to check in. I'm going to use midweek again to check in and keep the same goals as I've had previously.  Lose five pounds.  To be clear, this is 5 pounds for the month, not the week.  Weight since July 1, down 1.6 pounds total. Not a great week of weight loss but something.  Walk 10 miles per week. Barely   on target. I made a mistake of taking a walk Sunday too late as in my head, it was cooler still, but at the 1.5 mark, I was sweating and feared I'd struggle making it home if I didn't start back. I took a second walk later, after 8:00, after berry picking. I guess my motivation to manage the Athens topography and hills over motivated me.  Strength and weight resistance exercise two hours per week.  This has been closer to 1 hour, 2 /10 minutes session 3 days a week.  Ensure I have at least six fruit and veg servings per day with at least three being vegetables. Other than grad party, I ate ...

          Picture just for cuteness.       I had a nice weekend, just a little bit of a few things. My niece held a terrific party for her daughters graduation. Nice food and drink, good company, and even with the haze due to Canadian fires, perfect weather. I was a bit lazy housework wise on Saturday so  today tried to get things done (Sunday.) I'm still trying to get to the raspberries, but even 9:30 a.m. is too late as the buzzing is annoying, so I will go back to after 8:00 p.m. even though I picked nearly four cups this morning, the sun and warmth ripened more during the day. There's still more and more to ripen! I thought I was getting a walk in before it got hot, but the last mile I was dripping. I avoided getting the men's Wimbledon final as I wanted to watch the  free replay on ABC later as I don't get ESPN+ to watch live, but lost track of time and missed a good match. I followed the women's a bit by phone on Saturday, but...

         Last year at some point I decided I really needed wanted  to have at least one get away a quarter. To say need is a bit entitled, but the want is strong. Quarterly seemed like a pretty minimal wish. I'm finding it more challenging than I'd have hoped. I'm stretching to count some things as travel. He's how 2025 has or will shape up.  Quarter 1 January-March: Mini road trip and overnight to Southern Minnesota for a few local wine bars and breweries. That was it, planned after I had a lot of FOMO, Fear of Missing Out,  as I was transport for others to and from the airport.  Quarter 2   April-June: Five day trip to Memphis which came about as a companion for my sister (with another sister) as she works "fly in fly out" (another new term I learned) for her job in early June. I had points from previously booking my November ticket so air cost $11 and subbing  two and 1/2 days provided the spending money. Quarter 3 July -Sept...

                               I copy the previous week, delete the old and updated as I go along the week as a way even when busy and not in a blogging mindset I'm accountable to myself.  Here's my recap of Friday, July 4th to Thursday, July 10. These start getting long, so feedback if you think less is more. I just sort of list things as they come up, then edit before publishing.  Avoiding Spending/ Saving on Needs Ate all leftovers from various celebrations from weekend.  Stretched groceries out to yesterday though my plan to shop on route back changed and I still went to Sam's Club and Aldi for major stocking up. I avoided Trader Joe's temptations.  Did not use the car Saturday to Thursday this week. Walked to local store  to use the post office box. Chose not to go pick more strawberries. I've enough for both a batch of jam and two strawberry rhubarb pies or a large crisp, ...

      An extra post from my health goals update that I posted this morning. It did help to unload yesterday. For those that read, commented, or just scrolled by but came back again, thank you. Words matter and when trapped in head space, they can churn into messages and commentary that is at best unproductive and at worst, debilitating. It's two people really that are difficult to be near when cornered, plus the continuation of decades of "dings" from MIL. Honestly, I doubt she'd think they're dings, just her trying to be helpful and I'm just the difficult one.  There are people in my husband's family that are absolutely lovely so an added level that would make walking away sad. There's also some shared property in my kids names and responsibility there. All the words of wisdom are being taken to heart though so I appreciate you.  Blogging is like opening an escape hatch to let my feelings out before imploding.       I opted to get a few basi...

       It's a new month of Wednesdays; though I did not post last week, I started tracking. I'm going to use midweek again to check in and keep the same goals as I've had previously.  Lose five pounds. To be clear, this is 5 pounds for the month, not the week. If I could stretch to 6.5, getting that extra 8 ounces off, I'd be ecstatic. I weighed myself on July 1 but didn't get today-was down 1 pound since losing the post vacation weight gain. Better than gaining.   Walk 10 miles per week. Definitely on target .  Strength and weight resistance exercise two hours per week. This has been closer to 1 hour, 2 /10 minutes session 3 days a week.  Ensure I have at least six fruit and veg servings per day with at least three being vegetables. I had a carb heavy weekend but improved by Sunday.  Resume 16-8 intermittent fasting , meals/ snacks only between 12-8, but aiming for nothing past 7:00. The 8:00 gives me flexibility for nights like trivi...

         I'm getting these off my mind and onto the blog. July seems to be a cyclical downturn for my mental health. Maybe not bottling things up will help. Maybe it's because the last two July's have been challenging months. First, 2023 marked the 6 month of losing my husband. Literally everyone but me and my kids had moved on as if he was just a momentary blip in their lives. I was still in paperwork and other admin hell and so incredibly sad, lonely, and felt entirely overwhelmed. Dealing with getting the Equinox title transferred so I could buy the license tabs, which expired June 30, required escalation of having a letter sent from an attorneys office and wasn't resolved until September.      Last July a drunken relative ruined July 4th by letting loose every thought and opinion he had about how me and my kids either stupidly had handled things or what, if we had any common sense and would just move on, we should be doing by now, and said ver...

      The weather played games, or couldn't decide what to tell the meteorologists. We all ended up closer to home yesterday due to reports of thunderstorms throughout the day. We had a few bouts of downpours and MIL said they only had some rain and seemed annoyed no one came up. After the horrible 4th of July last year when the washed out day led to too many people inside all day, some of who drank way too much and said way too much ( truly awful- so far out of line to me and my kids) none of us wanted to chance it. I think that was about the time when I had to take a major pause on blogging. It was bad and we  all keep said relative at more than an arms length since.       I know my husband's family thinks we're both weird and ungrateful for not wanting to spend every spare summer moment at the lake. I don't care. My nephew had three people with him, the brother in law's kids each brought a friend, a family friend couple and my sister-in-law's n...

                             I copy the previous week, delete the old and updated as I go along the week as a way even when busy and not in a blogging mindset I'm accountable to myself.  Here's my recap of Friday, June 27 to Thursday, July 3. I'm going to admit that I  was a walking oxymoron of a frugal person. I'll stretch a bag of $1.25 navy beans into a huge vat of soup but spend $3.50 a pound for pick your own strawberries when Aldi is carrying them for $1.79 a pound. (There was no comparison to the quality of the fresh picked berries and if I'm going to go to work of making jam and pie, I want great produce.) Avoiding Spending/ Saving on Needs After Friday's anniversary dinner out, no other eating out or take out. July has to be different than June on that line. I have a coffee meeting and lunch with an old friend next Thursday but that must be it for the rest of July. Started July spending on...

      Welcome July photo from Pexel.com free photos      2025 is half over. Why do the months and apparently the years go so fast as we reach a certain age? June was a mixed bag of success towards goals, but no one but myself is counting on me to achieve them, so no harm no foul. Still, it seems at least thinking about what I'd like to get accomplished is a good thing. My list is sort of suggested guideline, not a mandate. Some of these are repeats from June, and some were June fails, but I'd like to keep them on a regular basis. A "C" next to a goal is a continuation as in it was not completed in previous months but still needs to be and has an end point. A "R" means it's a repeated goal.  Financial : Shave $75 off budget grocery/ HH target of $575. I say target not budget because I feel like I have less control on costs, but control on what I buy. Since last month was going well until the final stretch, this seems entirely doable. R I plan to combi...