Oregon

 I went to a library conference in March. It was the first in-person conference in two years, and it was lovely!  I had an absolutely wonderful time! The conference was held in Portland. I had a great time exploring everything around the hotel and in the Convention Center. The food was amazing!  The weather was beautiful most days, even if it did rain most days.

I met a lot of authors.  A LOT of authors. Some are very well known and some will soon be well known. I went to their talks, I met them in the exhibits, and I saw them in the hotel lobby. It was awesome!

Here are some of the highlights of my days at the convention in Portland:

I love how the publishers highlight their books of note - they stick these bookmarks in with the names of the honors that the book has received.

 

What trip to Portland is complete without a pilgrimage to Powell's Books?

The food! Look at this presentation! And this was a carry out container!

The stone lion!

The elephant statue!

The books I picked up!  So many books!

Salmon in a banana leaf with blue rice. 

I'd never had blue rice before. It was so good!

Chicken Schwarma. I first tried it when I was searching for food in Quebec. Ever since then, one of my favorite go to travel foods is Chicken Schwarma. I got this from a food truck behind the hotel.

Such an elegant mountain. This was the only view I had of it the entire time I was there - while the weather was beautiful it was cloudy.

I love this elegant lion so much, I went back to visit him on another night.

 

 

Juevos Rancheros

House Renovations

I think I've mentioned here before that our house needs extensive home renovations. We had a contractor come in to look at a couple of issues in the house. When we sat down to talk, he said "We're going to have to tear it back to the studs" and the magic words "black mold, asbestos, lead paint".  Three phrases no homeowner ever wants to hear in the same sentence.

We have been saving for this possibility for the 15 years we've been in the house.  And since we've been saving, we will be able to fix our house so that it will be handicap compliant and we will be able to age in place if we so choose.

There's just one problem.  We are going to have to be completely out of the house. It has not been a pleasant task. I've been sifting through stuff. Much has gone to the storage unit. Still more has gone over to Goodwill. And still more has gone to the Landfill. 

Did you ever see the Veggie Tales Episode about Stuff Mart?  That feels like our house. 

I swear that the junk is breeding down there in the chaos. No matter how much stuff I pull out, when I go down the next day to tackle more, I swear that there's just as much stuff as there was the day before.  Who knows? Maybe that little part of the house is haunted?  That makes the most sense.

Our goal to get out of the house is July 1. That's just 24 days away. We don't have a start date yet, but we do know that all of our plans are sitting in the county permit office.  It usually takes 6 weeks to get through the county.  If it takes longer, that's okay. It means that we can clean out our house without having to hire someone to do it for us.  

So much stuff.  There's just so much stuff.  Keep us in your thoughts for the rest of this month as we work to get everything out.

Thrifty Thursday

 How do you dry your clothes?  In the dryer? On the line?  According to The Spruce, it costs $0.45 per load.  (https://www.thespruce.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-run-an-electric-dryer-1387954)  That might not seem like much, but it adds up fast.

We do 5 loads of laundry a week.  If we dried all 5 loads in the dryer, that would cost us $2.25/week, which ends up taking the cost out to  $117/year.  "No big deal" you say.  That's a minimal expense.

That Spruce's estimates are based upon a 12 cents per killowat hour. In Maryland, looking at the rates for BGE, they charge a flat 11 cents an hour or if you have a time of use meter it is 7 cents for off peak hours and 36 cents for on peak hours. It's still not outrageous.

But, in a world where we are facing rising energy costs, how stable are those numbers? My guess is that the cost for energy is going to continue to rise over the next year. And I'm all about saving a few dollars here and there.  $117 may not seem like a lot, but that is two tanks of gas for our Civic, or a decent amount of groceries.  

We have a time of use meter, and we have been consolidating our dryer usage for as long as I can remember. We do laundry on the weekend, when the rates are low. We don't live in an HOA neighborhood, so we are able to hang our laundry outside when the weather is nice.  

When the weather is not nice, or when we lived in an HOA neighborhood, we hung all of our shirts on hangars to dry, and placed on the top of the door frames around the house to dry.  There is always some stuff that goes on a drying rack in the bathtub.  But, we try to run all of the jeans at once, and all of the towels at once. Sheets and pillow cases get their own special turn in the dryer.

We're not saving huge amonts of money, but small amounts here and there. And those small amounts of money begin to add up over time!

Monday was a very Monday Day

Monday morning, as I was leaving for work I pulled the door shut behind me and realized right as the door clicked shut that my keys were still inside my house. We don't have a keypad on our door lock, so I was well and truly stuck.  

Fortunately (or unfortunately) I had left a kitchen window unlocked.  Thankfully, this was not the one over the kitchen sink.  That one is a tighter fit, and the last time I climbed through that window, I barely got through.

I pulled a lawn chair over to the window, and I got myself part way through when I lost purchase on the chair and I was hanging at a tipping point, not able to go in or out.  I had visions of Winnie the Pooh in his Honey Tree.  Fortunately, there was more than enough wiggle room, I just needed to get past the tipping point.  Somehow, I managed to pull my left leg through the window - I looked a little like I was riding a horse, except that my horse was a window sill.   I finally managed to hitch myself the rest of the way in through the window.  Even on the inside of the house, it's still a bit of a drop from the window to the floor.  But, I got in.  I was a mess, and had to run and change clothes before I grabbed my keys and left for work.

Where was the cat?  Glad you asked.  As soon as I stuck my head through the window, she took off for parts unknown and wasn't seen again until I got home from work Monday night.

I got in the car, and the engine refused to turn over.  This was NOT the morning for this nonsense!

I ran back into the house, grabbed the keys to the OTHER car, it turned on and off I went.  I noticed as I was sitting at the light to get out of our neighborhood that the Low Gas light was on.  According to the range display on the car, I had 11 miles of gas left.  I work 8 miles away from home.  And I didn't have time to stop for gas on the way in without being late.

I got to work - with 1 minute to spare, and 3 miles worth of gas left in the tank.  

That moment felt a little like the scene in the Blues Brothers, where they are sitting in the car getting ready to go to Chicago.  I did have my sunglasses on.  No half pack of cigarettes since I don't smoke... but you get the idea. 

Oh, and the leg I pulled through behind me?  I've got a bruise that runs down my shin from my knee to my ankle, and it turns out that I skinned my shin half way down on the brick. So, it was not a flawless entrance by any means. 

The car is at the mechanic.  Wouldn't you know, husband got into the car Monday night and it started up with no problem at all.  Fortunately (for me) the mechanic couldn't get it to start yesterday morning. So no, I'm not losing my mind. Not today, anyway. Even better? Husband carpools to work. This was not his week to drive, so I have a car that I can use until the CRV gets fixed. 

Crazy, crazy start to the week. 

Random Pictures

 As I was heading out earlier this week, I had to stop in a parking lot to get this beautiful picture of the sunrise!  I didn't use a filter on this at all! 

Hydrangeas as the Farmer's Market for Easter!

The oldest child's graduation tailgate in the parking lot!

Sparkling Cider and Ginger Snaps!

Do we know how to party, or what?

I know you can't see it, but trust me - there's a Pileated Woodpecker in this shot - just to the right of the hole in the tree with her nest. It's about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the frame.  This tree is just outside of our carport.

Life as a cat is so difficult.  She absolutely loves fleece blankets.

I stopped at the reservoir to eat my breakfast on the way into work this morning. (Oatmeal in a travel mug.)  I don't know if you can see the goose and her gosling?  They are hiding down around the bottom of the big trees on the left.

Glorious sunrise! I pulled off to the right to take this picture.  (Just so you know I don't take pictures while I'm driving. I find a safe spot to pull over and THEN I take the picture!)

Husband and I went out to a big, fancy restaurant for dinner. This is our big, fancy meal. I wish I remember what it was.... the restaurant is a farm to table restaurant and you eat what the chef makes that day - and he makes what he can find at the market that morning.  Good food!

The High Cost of... EVERYTHING

I'm sure you've noticed the absolutely phenomenal cost of everything from milk to gasoline. It seems like you go to the store on Sunday, realize you forgot something for dinner on Monday night, stop in at the grocery store on your way home to pick it up, and the price has gone up overnight by a dollar.

Years ago when I started this blog, I was a stay at home mom with three kids and we were living on one income.  Much of that older content was about cooking from scratch and the other things that we did in order to save money and cut corners.

It's time to get back to my *blog* roots.

I'm going to take one day a week to post on what to do to save money.  While I'm not saving hundreds of dollars at the store, I'm saving dollars, and over the course of a year those dollars add up to hundreds of dollars.

If you're willing to play along, I'll be posting a tip (or two) on Thursday.

Together, we've got this. 

So Many Things Have Happened

 I don't even know where to start.  

My Mom is still with us. It's been 3 months since she entered Hospice Care. She's lost all mobility, and she is eating minimal amounts of food. But most days, her mind is still sharp as a tack. Yesterday, she was telling us that she was going to get a pair of crutches and "walk right on out of that place". We tried to let her know that using a walker was easier than crutches, but she is adamant that she is going to walk right on out.  My sister finally gave up attempting to reason with her and told her "Just remember to put your pants on before you leave."

Oldest son has graduated with his PhD.  He defended his thesis back in December, but he finally got to walk across the stage and get hooded earlier this month! So once that happened, his PhD was retroactively applied back to his defense date in December.  But, he wasn't officially a PhD until graduation.  Go figure?  He's had a job in his field. It was offered to him in November, and he started after he successfully defended his thesis.  So now, all 3 of the kids are offically launched!

Covid.  After 2 1/2 years of feeling like I was playing a crazy game of Dodge Ball, I finally got covid.  It wasn't fun. I felt like I had the flu. My throat was on fire.  (En Fuego!)  I woke up the first morning I had symptoms and said to myself "Wow, I feel like I just had a covid sho.... oh ****." One at home covid test later confirmed my suspicions. That was a very boring week of not going anywhere or doing anything.

House repairs and improvements...

The house is full of black mold, lead paint, and asbestos floor tiles. We're moving out soon and then the house will be stripped back to the studs. As long as they're taking everything out, we're going to have them add some extra square footage and make the house "make sense".

Did I mention that all of our stuff has to be out of the house?  We are cleaning it out like crazy people. We've given a lot to the "ill" sisters - Goodwill and Landfill.  Can you believe that I found a paperback first edition of the Handmaids Tale in the basement? What am I going to do with that? I don't feel like I can throw it out.   

And there is the even larger question - where are we going to live for the six months that it takes to fix all of this?

There's more.  Oh, so much more. But that's the stuff that's been dominating our lives lately.

I'll write more when I get a chance. Thanks for checking in!