Five Friday Things

Who would have thought it would be Labor Day already.  The weather around her certainly hasn't shown any evidence of cooling down. And around here, kids start school mid-august (crazy to this Virginia gal), so there's not a bunch of immediate changes in any direction this weekend. My goal is to hang around on the weekend enjoying the peace and quiet and hit a friend's barbecue Sunday:

1.  While I haven't done any money earning or cash back stuff to speak of this month, I have accumulated a bit of slush. My insurance carrier (Humana) gave me a fifty dollar gift card for having what they call a diabetic eye test (the one where you are either dilated or get the bright light computer version) and a twenty five dollar one for my most recent A1C blood test. I also have a fifty dollar gift card on the way for taking my Cologuard test, and a 25 dollar reward just for wearing my Fitbit and showing I exercised each month. Believe me, I will take it all. I also earned ten dollars from a survey app(I do surveys and questions on my phone sometimes when out on the swing with the dog) and forty dollars in gift cards for doing a one month trial of Hulu. This money will go in the travel/fun savings pile.

2. On Thursday my gals group went to a little wine bar for our happy hour. This little wine bar is actually in a house, and the back yard is a nice patio. We usually end up going to restaurants that have happy hour specials, because some of the gals make it their dinners and/or take the extras home to share with the other half. Wines, wine blends, a humus plate and a small cheese and cracker plate were enjoyed by all-and it's the first day in almost two months that was temperate enough for us to enjoy the patio! 

3. I didn't work out for two weeks while my recreation center was undergoing it's summer maintenance (didn't want to drive out to the others), so jumping in was a little slow this week. But I'm back in the groove and I did 1.9 miles on my cross trainer today-while watching and listening to a Great Courses Plus class on Food as Medicine.

4. I spent a half a day looking at various gift worth recipes including liqueurs and now have a plan to make raspberry, chocolate, cranberry and perhaps even salted caramel liqueurs for those family members who partake, because of course they have to steep and do their "thing" in jars for a couple months.  While fall does not inspire me to "cook" as such I do enjoy adding some baking and food gifts to my endeavours. And since I don't drink coffee, I may have to come up with a pumpkin spiced tea of some sort. 

5. Supposedly the Farmer's Almanac is talking about a polar vortex for everyone east of the Rockies. Since Denver is mainly temperate and goes between seventy degrees and thirty degrees I'm not concerned (although I have some post Christmas going south travel plans in the mix).  But we do get the winter darkness, more so than some folks more southern and as such I want to make sure I have plenty of stuff to read, craft and watch after a hard day of retirement socializing when the sun goes down at six or earlier. My watch list is 25 deep on both Amazon and Netflix including my courses and I will NEVER get to all of them, so not really concerned on that front. Since I've gone over to the dark side fully, all I have to do is download a book (free from the library or purchase) when I want to read it. So my primary stock ups include tea, hot chocolate and brandy-and enough craft items to get projects done in the winter and gifts. Although I tell you, it's hard to pick out bulky wool yarn for late fall and early winter when the average early fall temp right now is 94 for the next ten days.

Happy Labor Day, one and all!!

Making it Monday

Yesterday was the Affordable Art Festival here in town. Every year there is a one day festival where all of the art is one hundred dollars. Most of it art that sells for between a thousand and five thousand dollars. I had been hoping to go and look at some glass, but the temperature was just under a hundred degrees, so I wimped out on my field trip day! 

I had made up for it on Saturday though, by going to the scarf studio with my gals group where we spent a couple hours drinking and painting templates that will be turned into beautiful, soft scarf in a couple weeks. This was such fun, although since the template was less than the size of a piece of printer paper, we had some adjusting to do. With the help of paint pens and pencils and paints and stamps and stencils and who knows what else, we each created something that we hope will be as beautiful as the scarves shown in the photo, all designed by others.  I went with fall colors and chose a soft gray background for mine. Eventually we'll need a scarf reveal! 

Because I was the group coordinator, I went with a preset template, but I brought blank templates home so that I can make a couple of these more artistically for gifts..

Hopefully ours will be as beautiful

At the scarf studio the system is really easy. as I said the piece of paper on the left is about half of a piece of printer paper befor enlarged and printed.

I've put my sweater aside except for an hour of TV for now-and maybe knit group. I will finish it if only it's because it's my first sweater and I hope a lesson for many others to follow but I've decided I don't love the bright colors and want to start working on fall things.

I do wish I had left more of the dark blue showing . I may need to add it in somewhere.

This morning after staring at colors and fabrics for a good week, I began sewing my landscape quilt. I'm quilting each section in a different color and stitch (I think) and when done I will add more fabric to make sand dunes over the water, starfish and a  setting sun and I'm not sure what else! 

I also pulled out two unfinished fall quilts from last year. I don't love the way either one finished but I think I'll like them alot more when they are stitched and quilted and done, and if not I know other people who love them-especially the one with the gold background.

And I'll work on a fall shawl or scarf while watching Mindhunter!

Christmas and Birthdays and Family Vacations-Oh My!

I'm part of a couple retirement boards and a couple frugal boards on Facebook. Both have had some discussion threads lately on how to deal with gifts, birthdays and family get togethers in retirement. Since I am doing rough Christmas planning now (remember I travel and I make a large number a gifts that require early shopping and such) I'm sharing my own experiences, as it were-which makes this post a little long, thruth be told.

Admittedly this topic can be a toughie, and not just because of finances. Financial and gift giving expectations vary from family to family and from parent to kid. And sometimes its not just the gift giving. It's the going out to dinner as a family, vacationing together and the like. All are fraught with the "who pays and how much" issue as well as other family dynamic things.

For myself, I come from a family history of mainly spending moderation, even when more could have been afforded. Both in terms of my husband and myself and the two sets of grandparents. My kids got a fair amount of Christmas gifts growing up, but at least half of those were of the "winter clothing replenishment type" rather than toys. Both my in laws and parents generally got my kids one or two gifts. Some years an aunt or uncle might send a gift, others not, and it all worked out (we almost always lived in different places than the rest of the family and rarely could travel at Christmas because of my husband's job). If they wanted to, and were able to spend more money, they did it in other ways. Like when my parents  paid for my kids to fly down to them during the summers. Or the year my in laws paid for two condos so the greater family could ski (and also announced there would be no Christmas gifts).

Which I guess is my way of saying that if you always do things in moderation, it's much easier to adjust expectations. I would imagine that if you were a parent or grandparent who gave at will, and then changed how you did things (for moral or financial or downsizing or whatever reasons) it could be more difficult to make that adjustment. If that makes any sense. And I say that as someone who considers gift giving their love language and would NEVER suggest giving up gifts or only giving to the young ones as such.

When it comes to family, in my world we have two gift giving traditions.  On my husband's side for years we exchanged gifts with fourteen people every year. Often small gifts but gifts nonetheless. As the cousins got to college age, they got together and suggested a gift exchange with a small value. So now, every year the greater group draws names (in such a way that the person you draw is not in your immediate family-so I would never pick my son, son-in-law or daughter). Because some of us are of that "gift giving is my love language" persuasion, we occasionally  send very small, almost token gifts to all of the 14. But some of us don't and that is fine. And some of us do so one year and not the next and that is fine. One year a sister in law gave out five dollar Starbucks GC to all the adults. I've made handmade soaps and given one to each person. But it's an as you want to do kind of thing. 

To be real here, I think if one of the adults had suggested said exchange, we might have gone on talking about it for a few years. But since all the kids entered college at the same time, and presented it from their perspective and we wanted them to be comfortable, it worked right away-and we now can't imagine anything else.

On my side of the family equation we always have and always do give gifts. But the gifts are not equal (we have everything from my sister in law's mother who is 90 and on a very fixed income with a reverse mortgage to a sibling who makes six figures to retirees to kids in college and high school). One year everyone got together and got me a two hundred dollar serger. The same year, my sister got my brother and orchid plant or two. Gifts are usually moderate and vary. Which is why my choice to do moderate experiences, consumables and handmade gifts as mentioned yesterday, will fit right in, and honestly not be a major shift in the family dynamic. In fact, I do try and do an experience gift with myself and my sister in law and sister every few years. Sometimes it's more expensive (high tea at a castle) and sometimes it's not.

When it comes to gift giving in the immediate family, again, it depends on the family. I have, admittedly cut down on what I used to give my kids when they were younger, and my gift giving between the two siblings is uneven-or has been. Before my daughter entered her masters program and stopped work for three years, she and my son and law were making more than I did, and yet my son has been struggling.  They often have different needs. And this has never been a problem and the kids have never worried or thought much about the "equality" thing.

 Three years ago my daughter set maximum a limit on our small family of four for gifts of 75 dollars.  I do that, and contribute to stockings. But I don't have grand kids to also gift, just grand puppies. And if someone needs to spend less, it all works out, at least in my little family. I also try and do something small for each kid each month when I can-often just going to their wish lists on Amazon and checking it out. My daughter loves succulents and one month I got her succulent earrings and a zip bag with them painted on. I have also made small things and gifted them or sent. 

If you haven't guessed, I am not a fan of concentrating gifts on holidays. I could talk about setting expectations or ruining the reason for the season but the bottom line is whether we are kids, adults or in between most of us can simply take in only so much with being overloaded.

As adults, kids and son in law get a check for the amount of years, and a small gift on their birthdays. When they were at home, they got smaller gifts and a party or a big gift. Usually their choice. And most of their parties were at home, not at a party place. I am very much not a fan of the "spend a couple hundred bucks on a wall climbing party for twenty kids" lifestyle and hope that if my son ever has a grandchild he never does such a thing.

So there you have it. My personal experience on gift giving in retirement.

When it comes to travel, it has been a very long time since my kids went on a vacation with me-since we got back from Europe actually. Schedules and occasional finances have prevented us from going to the beach for a week, for example. The last time we went on vacation my daughter was still single, came to me in Europe after her dad died, and we took a two week vacation to Venice and Florence on my dime-but my daughter was in between employment and and my son was a full time student.

We do go to Texas as a family and celebrate Christmas for a week in my daughter's house. My son in law was eager to take over the celebration and I was happy to let it go. I contribute to the groceries and it works for us. But we are a small family and when my mother and father in law were still doing the Christmas thing, they got the prime rib and everyone else brought something, and helped clean up.

One of my goals in the New Year is to have said family vacation in a beach location. I plan to rent a big enough condo or Airbnb house with rooms for all, assist son with transportation if needed, and let everyone share in the expense from there. But again, we are a small family with no human grandchildren, only canines. So the money, and the logistics, are different.

There you have it-the way the frugal retiree does holidays, gift giving and the like. Just one person's thought's for the day. I don't know for sure what I would do with grandchildren. But I am in general big on experiences and one on one time. So I THINK that I would give each kid one or two small or a single needed gift and then do a one on one day with each kid, be it making cookies, going to a museum or whatever. But that's just me, and obviously ttheoretical.

I should also talk about weddings, or my daughter's wedding while I'm writing on this topic I suppose. They are indepenent adults paying for their own wedding, which is by choice a small one with mainly family at a moderate venue (an outdoor location with an indoor chapel nearby as needed), and an at home brunch the next day where everyone is invited. Both dads are no longer living and both moms are widows on pension, but both feel the need to contribute, needed or not. I plan to pay for the food and the reception and since there is no rehearsal dinner the other mom is paying for the dresses of the five family flower girls and another meal in the rotation of days. It's affordable for both of us, and makes us part of the process. And I cannot wait for the ceremony. 

and so it goes..

Tightening the Proverbial Belt

Great minds being what they are, I had this post almost finished when I realized that at least two other bloggers on my sidebar were talking about money saving/budget issues this week after I visited both Laura's and Tom's blog as well as a couple others with the same general theme. So be it!

Anyway, so yes, I'm about to do some budget adjustment here. In spite of the fact that I'm no longer the tuition helper person in charge and have more flexible funds. One the one hand, there's no real impetus for this in any immedaite sense. On the other hand, looking to the new year, I'm wanting to take some adventures that will be higher cost than my usual travels (looking at cruising and train travel as opposed to car trips), I want to upscale a couple hobbies.  My car is at the 100 thousand mile mark more or less-that point where a car needs work if you want to keep it (which I do). I'd like to purchase a couple bigger ticket items/type things (like a shampooer so I dont have to hire someone to come in and a smart TV in my bedroom, which I swore I would never do, and new sofa and love seat and possibly a sleigh bed) And in general I'd like to add some savings, be it for emergencies, to help the adult kids or whatever.......so here we are.

Whether this is a good or bad thing I am not sure, but in terms of lifestyle positioning, I am mainly at the place where there's not alot of cutting to be done.  Rent is stable. I negotiated my cable way down (and we are not giving up cable until they live stream international sports). We keep our home 78 in the summer and 72 in the winter-I might be able to go down to 70, but that's my limit. I have what is a fairly cheap smart phone plan and will have my smart phone paid off in a couple months. We probably use more water than we should but we have a large garden and we live in Colorado-drought country and high water cost country. No car payment. Health and exercise are as low as they can be now that I am on Silver Sneakers

Which puts all the savings and adjustments on the so called irregular expenses (for lack of a better term). Food and restaurants. Clothes. Entertainment. Household expenses. Gifts. Hobbies. And all the other good stuff. Not too worry, this is not as dfficult as the previous paragraphs might sound. More than one of those categories (hello clothes, fabric and dining out) have been used and abused in the past year. 

To that end I am:

• joining a challenge to shop second hand whenever possible and buy new as a last resort (with some fairly obvous exceptions like food, unmentionables, gifts), and work within that yearly capsule.
• changing my social life so there are more coffees and coversatiions, five dollar movies, day trips and craft days and less expensive lunches and food filled happy hours. For my waist as well as my savings, if you will.
• trying to only by art supplies for specific projects (which unfortunately still requires some cash, especially as I stock up for cold weather, dark evening crafting.
• rethinking the gift giving to everyone but my offspring. I'm blessed to be part of a family that prefers consumables, hand made speciality gifts and experience to things. So I intend to concentrate on those.
• planning to continue to take advantage of the (almost free or free through taxes) things I can find, in the house and out of the house, and craft down my stash for entertainment in front of TV in the evenings.
• Coming as close to no spending except for previously mentioned items until after the holidays-barring travel payments in advance that need to be made.

All of which, of course, will be accomplished, after I return to Colorado in October. Because weddings. Wedding clothes. Hotels. Post wedding brunch. And whatever else I have forgotten as part of that journey. 

A Score or Two!

One of my favorite stores is the ARC thrift store. Especially since I'm both trying to embrace  being more sustainable and limiting my clothing shopping habit. On Tuesdays they have a senior day when almost all the tag "colors" are fifty percent off. Since I rarely do errands on Saturday, I was surprised (in a good way) when I realized that everything in the store was-again-fifty percent off.

Let me tell ya, I would have spent hours there. But since I had places to go and people to see, I limited myself to  half an hour or so of browsing.  And ended up with five tops, plus a fall centerpiece. For much less than twenty dollars.  The bright green one is, well, bright, but it;s really really soft. And the red Christmas top which was not on sale but five dollars will mean I finally have something red to wear to those Christmas events (I had a green, but not a red).

As if that wasn't enough, I had been checking out my favorite store's online sales every couple days or so because  I wanted to get some fall colored clothing but preferred thrift shop or clearance prices. I ended up with the two tops below, for ten dollars each!  I'm pretty much done clothing shopping until sometime in October unless I find a really good price on a cardigan sweater or a nice purse at the thrift shop (I have a big tote and a little bag but nothing medium sized these days). Aside from the jewelry needed for the MOB dress. 

My last adventure of the day was to pick up strips of fabric for that landscape quilt. All of which were on sale, and there was a twenty percent of coupon on my purchase.  All in all a pretty good day for a last minute Saturday of shopping. 

Today I need to get those sale items from the grocery and my son has asked him to go with him while he is re-measured for a suit. Hopefully we will find some sale deals on the latter to complete the happiness.

Oh, and in the interest of continuing the capsule idea and limiting my wardrobe to stuff I love, I did remove tops as I put tops in the closet. Perhaps not one to one, but nevertheless.

Friday Things on Saturday

I haven't actually gone missing. Somehow my rib area and the attendant muscles that run from the front along the side have me in pain. This is muscular not cartilage or an injury, but pain nonetheless.  I'm honestly not sure if I did this overdoing it and moving wrong on the cross trainer or by doing something crazy while I was asleep (I rotated the mattress and am back to the extra firm newness).

Anyhoo, I've severely limited my activity the last few days. I had to stay home Thursday and Friday anyway for a legal piece of mail that needed to be signed for (delivery date unclear) and then today I passed up my opportunity for a day of driving from yarn shop to yarn shop around the state because I didn't want my complaining and occasional whimpering to affect the trip. I do plan to do a few errands today and spend a small amount of time on the machine just to keep the muscles from stiffening too much.

I'm off to do a few weekday things on Saturday thanks to the above soreness-getting some groceries, doing a couple errands, walking or working out. Before I do, a few thoughts and notes from the week:

1.  While I'm not sure what the fitness gurus would have to say about this, I'm only "working out" every other day as of this week. I'll increase the time I'm doing so, get as many steps as I can on the days I'm home and walk when I'm up to it and in the mood in the neighborhood. This meshes with my desire to make my at home days really at home days-as opposed to "at home but leaving for an hour or so each day to work out or do errands". I understand many folks are of the do something out of the house daily persuasion. I'm off the be completely at home immersed in something (or nothing) persuasion, or be out among the world all day.

2.  A side effect of those "completely at home" three day a week goal is that other days will be busier and that is fine. My Wednesdays include a morning church service, working out and then heading to knitting and happy hour.  I just need to remember to take my own food when possible on the busy days, so that I am not hitting up the local Chick Fil A or Which Witch (I love egg salad and rarely make it myself). For the sake of the wallet and the waistline.

3. We are wanting to order in at least once a week and eat out once a week, without increasing the food budget as such.  So I'm taking some money out of the "food at home" and adding it to the "food out". Since we don't want to starve and we do want to eat healthy my solution is to buy almost exclusively in bulk from those sale items on the front page, and cook everything more than double so that I can freeze meals. Tomorrow I'm putting two boneless chucks ought on sale and making Italian beef sandwiches, which I'll freeze. Along with the cheese bought on sale to go with.

4. That one room a day cleaning thing is not working for me cleaning wise-I need to accept it for what it is. Instead, I've mainly moved onto the "doing things as they need doing and mainly doing them as part of something else" kind of attitude-and letting someone else vacuum twice a week.

5. I'm trying really hard to be less of a flitterer when I work on projects. My attention span needs to have at least two things going (one of them portable). But in the past I have had a quilt, a knitting project, a sewing project, a major writing project and more. I've decided for now to work on only my landscape quilt experiment and my practice knitted top. I need to see some finishes in the creative process occasionally, if you know what I mean. Especially as we move to the holidays and gift giving creativity.

6. My son has lost more weight and is cleaning out the tools and such of his former landscaping world. I am eliminating clothes in good condition and replacing them as part of my capsule clothing thing as well as downsizing other stuff. We've been listing them on a couple sale apps and Facebook Marketplace. Today I decided that everything but the bike will be donated if it has not sold by the end of the week. I'm not a keeper and I am more of a "I care about the stuff being out of the house more than making money" type of girl than the opposite. I prefer the stuff out of the house, no matter the method.

7. While I still love traveling by myself, I've realized I don't love DRIVING by myself as much as I used to necessarily. So as I look to more travel for the rest of this year and in the new year (bye bye college tuition!!!), I have one cross country drive (aside from the Texas adventure), one train trip and I'm actually exploring the possibility of a cruise-even if I have to pay a single supplement. I'll let ya know.

8.  One of the sustainability or re-use areas I come close to failing at are "wipes", mainly because of my lack of ability to bend and reach, but also laziness. I have facial/body wipes beside my bed, I use Bona floor wipes on my wood floor and I use the occasional Clorox wipe on kitchen counters and the like. Replacements for these won't happen overnight. I've purchased a bunch of washcloths for the nightly cool down required in the summer, but also I made a basket for recycling of said wipes-to see if I can paint on them and use in collages or use them for paint wipes and the like. Next, to look at reusable covers for said mop.

9.  My dress may not need to be hemmed, and if so I will cut it along a lace design and have a scalloped edge at the bottom (no fray check needed because of the stitching on the lace). That's what all the dressmakers would have done and charged me an arm and leg. I'll try it with a slightly higher cushioned sandal and see what happens. On the other hand, the son who wore a gray suit with sized forty pant a year and a half ago at a wedding will now need a size 34 pant in navy blue. His expense, but I may have to do the measuring.

And so it goes.....

Its Not a Sewing Room, It's a "Studio"...and Frugal Friday

My so called sewing room is the smallest-non bathroom type- room in the house. By choice, believe it or not (I want to be able to move around the room on the wheeled chair). It is, however, more than imperfect.

This room used to be the adult son's and I had what is now his bedroom. After about six months we jointly agreed to change it out-so that he had room for the dog and to make a kind of "studio apartment" in his bedroom and because of the aforementioned reasons on my end. We moved without doing any decorating-leaving the walls in said sewing room as light green. Not a color I would have chosen to begin with. Add that to a lack of light (I have a giant age-old tree out my window that keeps the house cool, but cuts of any natural son) , and you have a room with not alot of natural light. I supplement/cover for this issue by taking pictures on a white board or white fabric and having one of those lamps that has three natural light bulbs.

The biggie though, issue wise, is that when I moved into said room I was mainly a quilter. Since that time in 2013, said room has become the occasional office. As well as a home to jewelry crafting, art and collage, general sewing, knitting, tabletop weaving, family history scrap booking, art collage, essential oils and the stuff needed to make body products, and writing and general crafts of various types. Sewing room is a pretty simplistic description.

Along with all those crafts, lord love us, comes the inventory. Because really, everything but the writing requires inventory. I've been pretty good on the fabric front. I sold the huge majority of quilt fabric before moving from Dallas (because, six months in storage) and have not gone crazy in the replacing-opting i stead to purchase fabric by project much of the time. of course, all that smartness and semi minimalism has been ruined by the other inventory-yarn, felted wool, watercolors, acrylics, craft paints, card stock and various papers, craft paint, wooden bird houses, jewelery and supplies. Where do I begin-or is it stop!

Getting rid of any of the aforementioned is not a solution. So my weekend and part of next week will be filled with two things:  streamlining storage when I can, and preparing said workspace  for any and all of the crafts.  While not purchasing any new storage containers or tools (famous last words). I'll let you know how it goes when I come up for air!!

Meanwhile a few frugal things in the retirement life:

1. I joined a use it up challenge for fabric items. I hesitated to do this even as I'm getting ready to purchase some unique fabrics for my landscape/art quilts, but I ave some remnants that I think can be put to good use. And work on "fabric and yarn in", "fabric and yarn out".

2. King Soopers has 4x Fuel points or gift cards through Tuesday, including prepaid Master and Visa. I plan to start using these s well as other cards and gather up the fuel points since travel season will be beginning in September.

3. I made my every months list of things I can do, make, bake or enjoy around the house with no or minimal (like thread for finishing) cost. I also updated my list of free and almost free things to do around town, after consulting my town's Facebook page and other sources. Between library activities and rec center activities and just getting together with friends, I always enjoy seeing the list. I wont get to all of it, but it's nice to have and not just from a frugal standpoint. If I ever have one of those rare  "I don't know what to do" or "I need to leave the house for awhile" moments, I have some alternatives.

4. I started the Fall and Christmas "make/buy/go and do" list so that I can budget for gifts and crafts and space out my calendar when it comes to concerts and such.

5. Other than a desperately needed third pair of sandals, I have not spent a cent on clothes. Even though many of those 60 buck shirts are down to nine dollars or less at my favorite stores. I'm not having a no clothing spend moment as such, just trying to hold off and only choose what I REALLY love and need. 

And so it goes on semi-frugal Friday.

Saying No to The Zone

Thank you everyone for your responses yesterday. I especially appreciate Janette's take on the mental health issue because it is very much out of my area. I only had one regular reader who left something profane and said something about how this was not what she came to read. To her, and anyone else, I did make it clear that I would continue to advocate and express on the blog, especially on topics that I consider to be areas of human rights: refugees, racism and the like. Hopefully a blog a month or so will not keep you away.

I honestly cannot believe I am about to discuss something housework related here on the blog. Seriously people. Housekeeping is NOT my life. I can list twenty five million things I would rather do (and often do instead of) than housework. I am such a poor housekeeper that my husband used to deep clean the house on Sundays when I would take the offspring to church. Even when I was working part time or less. If I ever do another post on love language, let me tell ya..............

However, some cleaning has to be done. Such is life. I donut want to hire it out, although I revisit that every so often. And I am the only person who is not working at the moment in this house (I don't allow this situation to come into play or affect much, just a few things here and there). Which is why one of my two monthly goals at the beginning of July was to try out the fly lady zone cleaning system and report back how it worked for me after a month.

Unfortunately my vote is no. I understand there are many people who love it, the theory being that your house is divided into zones and you work on one zone each week of the month. I suspect my dislike falls into a few areas...my rooms are VERY different in terms of cleaning and decluttering needs even if I move the zones around a bit. I want to expend the same little amount of energy weekly. There are somethings that I feel need to be done more than monthly, but may not need to be done weekly. My weekly cleaning is simply twice a week vacuuming and sweeping of hardwoods (something that should probably be done more often by a woman with two dogs but there you go).

Instead I'm sticking with my own system. Which as they say, is the same yet different. Every day I try to spend the time to bring the kitchen half way back to normal after dinner. We try to pick up as we go, and when I think about it I wipe the bathroom sink at the end of the

morning.

Other than that I allot fifteen minutes or so to a room a day. I guess my zones are daily rather than weekly. Today's room was the hearth room-that fireplace space with the small dining table in the middle of it and two chairs on either side of the fireplace. I attacked with the feather duster, I wiped windowsills and baseboards, I changed the table cover, and I dusted the book case with real dusting cloths. And that's it. Next week on Monday I'll dust again, but the other fifteen or so mutes may be spent on something else. And twice a week someone in this house will vacuum and sweep (using a Bona dist mop sprayed with the Bona spray liquid).

Anything other than the above gets included in quarterly or twice a year cleaning (my sister cleans her own areas and works on all the outside beautification). And that's it.

I do declutter, but I only need to do that in my bedroom and the sewing room and each holiday I do the holiday stuff. And that's it. I realize that to many of my readers this would be barely considered cleaning. Many of you deal with the potty daily, even. But so it goes. 

As an aside, I've started going outside in the morning with the dogs, sometime between nine and ten after I've had my breakfast. In my nightgown more than often. It gives me time to read and enjoy the outdoors before the heat comes in now-and I'll probably continue it as long as the weather works, which in Colorado is most of the year. I do have that umbrella for the table for rain, and I'm getting a table top heat to complete the all weather patio until we decide if we really need a Sunbrella or rolling shade. 

I'm

All and all, it's the lazy, crazy dog loving life for me!

Thrifty Craft Store......

...Or is it crafty thrift store? Either way, I briefly ignored my plans to remain home all week and took a foray downtown on Saturday to one of my two "thrift stores for crafters". Be warned, between my excitement and my shopping while photographing, at least half of my photos are partially blurry. Which only adds to the excitement and interest I suppose.

This place takes donations of EVERYTHING, including art supplies. There were partially used tubes of acrylics and oils, and good quality paintbrushes. There where household paint and stenciling supplies. There were stickers and paper craft and yarns and fabric and threads. There were craft books and really, truly, too many things to name. Almost all of the prices were at least seventy five percent off and sometimes more.. .......so brand new scrapbook paper and card stock were ten cents. I bought skeins of wool yarn for a dollar each (matching skeins, actually enough to do a project). This place is fantastic. Fantastic I tell you!! 

I came with a budget and I was good, so I held myself to less than thirty dollars. I tell you what though, I can see myself cleaning out a weekday afternoon, heading back and seriously looking at all the recycled stuff I could use in my projects. Not only that, but this place is in the middle of Denver's art district, so I can definitely see some lunch and galleries on a slightly cooler than 95 degree day in my future!!

Meanwhile, I have to say it. I am extraordinarily depressed and lost as to what has happened to our country in the past few years. So much so that I am actually sitting here thinking about not leaving the house, even for church, and just sitting here and praying and meditating in my own way. There is a root cause, and it's hate. Specifically hate of the other-something our current leadership encourages it seems. I mean really, would you go to YOUR workplace and tell someone to go back where they came from? If not, how can you support someone who does so regularly and publicly and on national TV. I just do not know right now.

Aside from this it's been a lovely day. I was happy to see my son who struggles sometime with the dark places head out to the lake with friends. I downloaded a kindle book in my recent mystery series. I've knitted and started on a sewing project.

And yes, I might actually go to church this afternoon.

Friday Ramblings

My poor dog jumped off my bed yesterday evening and sprained his leg. He was sitting on his blanket on the bed while I was getting some things done, and when I left I called him to follow me. He does this all the time but he must have landed wrong because there was a horribly painful yelp and he's been limping since. He begged to for a walk but got about five minutes out and asked to turn around. Poor baby!

I just returned from King Soopers (Kroger to the masses) after picking  up my click list order. Unfortunately I forgot a couple things and they wouldn't let me order ready made fajita mix from the meat/deli section so I did have to run in and get a couple things first. Even so, the time savings as well as the impulse buy savings is huge! Every time I don't do this, I wonder why.

After KS, I ran to Joanne's ...........and bough nothing. A frugal move I suppose except for I truly need fabrics and pretty threads for an art quilts/landscape quilts I'm working on  like the one shown. I just couldn't decide what to get, so I am sketching out my plans and filling them with pencil so when I get to the store and go online I have at least a rough idea of what I need. 

Just for inspiration-I plan to make a beach scene for my first try with shells and such.

This is the time of year when I usually begin my intensive annual sew and sell mini extravaganza-or should I say sew or knit and sell. In addition to gifts and contributions for my church annual bazaar sale, I usually do some intensive sewing and then prepare to sell as we get closer to the holidays. Most of it is team related stuff, but some of it is also holiday related stuff-Christmas napkins and table runners, Denver Bronco throws and quilts, scarves and such in the local high school colors. No question that I make money on the  deal, and it is not hard work Just trying to check my motivation here, if you get my drift. I have a one week volunteer gig in September that is mainly me supervising and sitting, so I definitely have some down time to do the knitting part. Whether I have the inspiration is another issue.

I did order both a second bathing suit and pool shoes from Amazon today-my way of acknowledging that any major exercise in the future will be in the pool or on the reclined cross trainer. I'll save my proverbial walking shoes for leisurely nature walks, beginning golf lessons or casual sightseeing at my own speed from now on.

As often happens after one lives in a place and leaves, I realize how much I have yet to see of the Dallas/Fort Worth (and other Texas) areas. Nothing new really. I did pretty well in my 20 years in DC other than not seeing the White House. While I'm in Dallas for the two weeks before my daughter's wedding, I plan to play tourist. To take a hop on hop off bus in both places. To go see the Amon Carter museum of art. And to take my son to this restaurant. Just for starters.

This weekend I begged of my church women's lunch. I'm going to sew, knit, read, enjoy my Weight Watcher' fudge ice cream and fruit with whipped cream, kick up my feet and spend lots of quality time in the house and on the pergola with said injured dog.