Win your battle with finances

Shutting down this blog

2012-01-14T18:20:00.000-08:00

From this poing forward I will be updating only one blog - my Simple Garden Made Easy. If you're interested in following me please use the link on the right and click follow. It's not an easy decision for me but I think it's better to cross off all negatives from my past and focus on positive. Hope you'll come visit me sometimes this year and than you all for your support for past 3 years.

The Big Waste

2012-01-09T09:21:00.000-08:00

Last night I watched a foodnetwork show The Big Waste and it nearly brought me to tears. Huge piles of perfectly good food tossed out by stores, farms, wholesale places and restaurants. I saw a preview of it while watching another show and it got my attention - I had to see just how much food people waste every day. And I expected it be allot. But never in my mind did I expect what I saw - 5 billion eggs wasted in the US alone every year; every day a football stadium can be filled with tossed good to eat food. Piles of not expired food that had a blemish or a scratch or just wasn't pretty enough for people to buy in the stores were tossed out. I have to admit, it's the piles of fresh tomatoes, peppers and other produce that was wasted on the farms that really knocked me down. In my garden we don't waste anything - I even picked out green tomatoes and used them in chutney or let them ripen with time so we could use them, and on the screen I watched enough tomatoes to make hundreds of jars of marinara going to compost because they "don't look pretty" or have a crack from dry weather. One U-pick farm owner said that they have 40% waste. This was insane and very surreal experience for me. I guess you really have to experience hunger at least once to really appreciate what you have around you and not to allow anything like that happen. What makes it really sad is that we have millions of people who are going to bed hungry because they can't afford food and definitely can't afford good fresh produce but instead of letting them have food it goes to waste. I know that our local supermarket have policy of not giving away food that they want to throw away because of the fear of lawsuits but there has to be some common sense here. It's time to wake up people. One day there simply won't be enough food to go around considering explosive population growth and we have to start saving that food now.

Joining Money Saving Challenge!

2012-01-02T17:07:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the new year everyone. As I promised in the past my intent this year is to restart my savings and hopefully stash some for the future. You probably notice a banner on my right side with a little piggy bank - it's a link to Precious website. She's the one who's starting this challenge. Now my participation will not be as drastic as hers. While I understand that she's nervous about future and constant raise of prices I don't really think that penny pinching to the point of restricting yourself on everything is in my agenda. In my view that will only make me miserable. I've done enough penny pinching in the past few years and had to refuse myself anything other than basic necessities in order to pay off debts. While that tactic worked on paper balance it nearly drove me insane. I can no longer live that way. So I will try to save but within reason. My areas of savings are going to be:

Growing as many veggies as I can fit into my garden to supplement our food source.
Using farmer markets and local farms to get organic protein sources like meat and seafood.
Use natural resources whenever possible to reduce bills - solar for energy and natural light to do most things around the house eliminating the need for extra use of lights at night.
using home made cleaners whenever possible.
Minimizing extra spending on eating out and entertainment.

This doesn't look like too many things but in reality this is what i need to focus on this year. I know that in the past year we've spent way too much on eating out, travel and out of pocket expenses. I hope to minimize that damage. What I really need to do is to save at least $10K in the next year so I can get a new (used) car. Hopefully my current one will last that long. Since I was not able to sell it because it's really not worth what I wanted for it I had no choice but to keep it for now. So my target is to save enough to pay the new one in cash. I also have secondary target - additional $5000 for future savings. Ambitious plan but hopefully it will work - one step at the time.

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T09:42:00.000-08:00

Wishing everyone to have a Very Happy New Year! May the new year bring you joy, comfort and may all your wishes come true!

In our family we have our own traditions - in this case it's a mix of several actually. My husband celebrates Christmas so we do a traditional brunch on xmas morning with his family. I'm on the other hand still following my old traditions of celebrating New Year - just like most people do Christmas I set up tree and presents but they won't be open until Midnight hour of new year eve. it was always important for us and this year will be no exception.

Set up full table with your best foods available to have with all your friends and family there and have few bites to eat and drink to toast the old year good bye.
Meet a New Year at Midnight with a full plate and a glass - welcoming abundance of food and drink for the whole year and hope that it always stays full.
count down to the stroke of 12 and lift a glass in toast and kiss your wife/husband and wish all good things to come.

It's said that how you meet new year is what you'll have whole year. In this case I'm hoping for clean warm home, happy family time together and hopefully without all issues that have been dealt with in 2011. It's also customary to make a list of what some call new year resolutions. In my case it will be very simple list - reduce stress, enjoy life more and have some positive changes that might help in a long run. I have some others that I will add and follow through next year and hopefully will be around more to post about them :)

Happy New Year!

Alternative protien choices

2011-09-15T17:59:00.000-07:00

One way of saving money is trying to use whatever nature has in stock. And in summer season in addition of all wonderful veggies I also pick mushrooms. We have them for dinner but mostly it's to stock up for winter time. It's a great protein substitute and taste great. Plus it's free and benefits in both ways - lean protein and exercise picking them while on our walk. Of course I do have to caution those who are not very familiar with them - DO NOT EAT THEM IF YOU DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THEM! there are just too many look-alike that can easily give you upset stomach or worse kill you. But for those of course that do know what they're doing (like yours truly) the results can be wonderful. These are boletus separans - or summer porchini. I dried them out and put in a dry bag (NOT PLASTIC or it will spoil!) and it will keep dry until I use them in soups. And these are called Honey Mushrooms. Back at home we called them "pidpenki" - meaning growing under the stump. Great to taste and can be marinated for winter, but also have to be careful to cook for at least 15 min or they can cause stomach upsets. Now these are slightly different and come from Milky family. There are many varieties that produce white milk but this one also has very distinctive smell - slightly fishy. It disappears when cooking and comes out pretty tasty. It's called Lactarius Volemus. Some people confuse these with Lactarius Corrugis - looks similar on the top but the L.Corrugis is darker brownish and also dark orange on the underneath area - gills. Both are perfectly edible of course. And of course some of my favorites - Chicken or Sulfur Shelf, and "licichki" - Chantereles that many people can buy in stores like Wholefoods. Both very tasty and can be precooked and stored for later in the freezer. And with the amount of rains we got this year woods are filled with choice mushrooms. Just need to find time and energy to pick them :)

Home made & canned supplies

2011-09-12T18:18:00.000-07:00

Well some plans are good but when Mother Nature interferes all I can do is ride along. We won't have all the produce I was planning on for this year, but I did get to stock up on some things before Irene. Precious asked if anyone else was doing any home-preserved things like jam or sauce so just to make her feel better I have some pictures lined up :) Strawberry Jam in small jars and syrup/jelly in pint jars.

And some home made chili for those long winter days when I'm traveling and my honey is not in a mood to cook anything himself but wants nice warm meal. I prefer canned chili instead of frozen because it taste different after freezing and I don't like that. On the right next to small jars with chili are my 8 jars of eggplant dip - ethnic food from my past that we used to call "eggplant caviar". It takes acquired taste to like it. :) On the right side and on the back if you can see them (there are 3 rows total and you'd have to zoom in to see details) are marinara sauce, salsa and pickles. I was only able to do 15 jars of marinara instead of planned 30. Not alot but better than nothing. If anything a jar of marinara tossed with pasta and quick protein like fish or chicken will make it a meal. Beats paying $3.99 for organic stuff in the store.

Damage from Irene

2011-08-30T21:24:00.000-07:00

Well the slow and destructive Irene made her way through and did more damage than we anticipated. We've been without power since Sunday about Noon and without water as well. Not fun. Unfortunately we also couldn't turn on our solar system because it's connected to the main line and can electrecute repairmen. Kind of defeats the purpose of having it for "emergencies" if you ask me. So we lost all of our fridge items and most of the freezer. Only few turkey/chickens did not defrost. The rest went to garbage. And then we had actual damage outside. As in one of our huge oaks decided to make landing. Pretty, isn't it. We'll be cleaning it out next weekend.

And we had to say goodbye to our CSA farm as it's under 18" of standing water and absolutely everything has been lost. There is no salvaging any of the veggies from the farm. Let's hope next year will be kinder to us.

So how was your huricane experience? any problems? Hope everyone stayed dry and safe.

Welcome Irene

2011-08-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

We're on pins and needles waiting arrival of the hurricane Irene. If the storm keeps up it's strength and plows through us with 100 mph winds there will be alot of damage. So this weekend we're storm-proofing our house by securing everything outside, clearing out deck and moving things to the shed and cleaning out gutters so the rainfall won't overwhelm the house and cause water damage. At least we're on the other side of the ridge and not right on the coast where it will do most of the damage. Never the less, our area is expecting to get hit with about 5 to 7" of rain. That means floods. And combined with winds many things will be ruined. One of the areas that we tried to save was our CSA farm produce. It's a peak season for gathering so we spend 4 hrs picking up all tomatoes, peppers, potatoes and many other things. Tried to save what we can. Many crates were filled and I had to take home quite a bit too - two crates of peppers and two with tomatoes; eggplants and some greens and two crates of potatoes (not in picture because it's all drying up in the garage). Because with 5" of rain had it been left alone it will rot on the spot. Farm is flat so water can't go anywhere. It's all going to be ruined. There will still be many things lost because we simply couldn't pick everything. Too many zucchinis and cucumbers; squashes and all greens and cabbage that was not ready to be picked. All popcorn and all sunflowers will be gone after it's all over. But we tried. Some will be preserved, some eaten and some will go to the farmer market come Tuesday. For now I have my kitchen full of produce that needs to be washed and chopped and cooked and preserved.

Stocking up for winter

2011-08-20T16:11:00.000-07:00

Now that things have started to settle down I resumed my stockpiling routines. With the economy not showing any signs of getting better (and honestly I think it will get alot worse) I think it's very necessary to have good pantry stockpile. No, I still won't buy anything that I don't use even if it's free or money maker - I only get what we use on regular basis. And since we try to stay away from one-time-use or plastics it also narrows down to what I'd keep. So for now I'm searching for food deals like pasta and rice (not mixes because those have added preservatives). And looking for deals on toilet paper and laundry detergents. I also started canning some of my garden bounty - made fresh batch of marinara sauce. If I can make enough to last through winter it will make me very happy. Normally to get organic marinara is about $4 per jar. I'm planning on making about 30 or so jars. You do the math on savings. Add that to the pile of my own potatoes and onions that I also have for winter and I can make many meals out of this that won't cost anything. That's true savings. Of course I'll be sharing some of the bounty with others but that's for later.

Edit: for those who are interested here is my recipe for marinara:

· 2-3 lbs of fresh chopped tomatoes (if don’t have fresh use 2 large cans of stewed or crushed tomatoes)
· 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
· 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
· 1 large clove garlic, minced (or 2 medium)
· 2 teaspoon dried oregano
· 1 teaspoon dried italian seasoning mix
· 1 teaspoon salt
· 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
· 2 tablespoons olive oil
· 1/3 cup finely diced onion (one medium onion)
· 1/2 cup white wine
Directions

In a food processor place chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped parsley, minced garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper. Blend until smooth.

In a large skillet over medium heat saute the finely chopped onion in olive oil for 2 minutes. Add the blended tomato sauce and white wine.

Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Note: it’s up to you if you want to peel and seed tomatoes but I keep them natural because skin has good vitamins. You can also avoid using food processor at the start, and cook up tomatoes as is with all ingredients and just use hand-held immersion blender at the end to get to the proper consistency. Also if you just cut tomatoes in half and cook them for few min the skin will peel right off on it's own so you just have to "fish it out". Add 1/4 cup of brown sugar if tomatoes are not very sweet (i use organic heirloom and they're too sweet so i add more wine to offset it). Add more herbs to your taste (i used fresh herbs instead of dry this time around). Enjoy.

Cheap meals

2011-08-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

One of the major benefits of having even tiny garden is that it really cuts down on cost of food for us and I can make tasty meals with just minimum investment in the grocery store. Just few examples here. Quick stir-fry with onions, peppers, yellow and green beans, yellow and purple carrots - all I had to do is add sliced sausage and cook up some rice on the side. One package of sausage is $3.99 and I got 2 lunches and 2 dinners out of this meal.
Home made pirogi - home grown potatoes for mash and asparagus - very cost efficient because flour is not expensive and I used 1 egg for dough instead of 3. Dollop of sour cream is optional.
Slightly more expensive choice - fish! But still better than going out to eat because carrots, zucchini and beans came from the garden. So $6 for fish for both meals is pretty good.
One of my summer favorites - scalloped potatoes, salad with heirloom tomatoes, cucumber and onions. Just added sliced sausage that was cooked separately and you have full meal. Personally I skip sausage because it's too heavy for me and I prefer lighter choice.

Another one of our staples - lean pork tenderloin. Comes to about $5.99 per package that I marinade, brown on sides and finish in an oven at 250 degrees for 20 min. Young potatoes and swiss chard came from the garden. Sliced pork was divvied up for 2 lunches and 2 dinners once again. It really doesn't get fresher and tastier and much easier on the wallet. The only thing I could wish for is that we had longer growing season to have fresh veggies year round. But for now at least we can enjoy it while the season lasts.

Need ideas on...

2011-08-06T14:24:00.000-07:00

... on what to do with dry beans? I planted few bushes of black and pinto beans in the garden as an experiment just to see if they'll grow well. Well they did and now I have plenty of dry beans. Except that I'm not a fan of beans other than chickpeas. Which I will try growing next year to see how they'll work out. For now I have two types of dry beans and have to figure out how to use them.

So does anyone has any good ideas on how to prepare them?

Garden Savings pouring in!

2011-08-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

Summer is my favorite time of the year. Not just because it's nice and sunny and warm but also for abundance of choices of fruit and veggies. I just can't get enough of them. In my small garden I cramed seeds into every nook and crany and also planted some stuff like squashes and potatoes at the CSA farm. Well it's definitely worth it! Besides having the best tasting dinner because it just doesn't get better when it's fresh off the vine -it's also very cost effective. If I had to buy all this in store each week I'd be in real trouble.

Here are some of my first tomatoes, banana peppers, beans, okra, and two small squashes. I don't really count cucumbers because it's too hot and dry for them to be proper size. But still taste good :)
more peppers, spaghetti squash, green and wax beans and my zucchini - at least they were producing before bugs destroyed plants. Definitely have onions! Red, yellow, sweet white and shallots. Will be set for couple of months at least since I cook everything with them. My Yukon Gold potatoes! nothing beats young potatoes with dill and a salad in summer! So far I only pulled 4-5 bushes. That's about 5' plot. And I've planted good 100 feet. Will have more than enough for winter!

Ah the smell of fresh picked herbs! A bit overwhelming if you get it all at once but considering that you're paying 2.99 for a sprig of thyme in a store i think it's more than worth it.

Absurd parenting???

2011-07-26T17:10:00.000-07:00

Is it me or some people are just absolute "nuts" when it comes to their children?? And I don't mean it in a good way. I mean OCD and absolutely insane tottering over them. More and more I keep seeing this around and wonder why are these parents going nuts and what are they trying to accomplish? because it's definitely NOT helping in anyway to the actual child to have their parents ask for most ridiculous things and expect everyone to fawn over their kids. I'm sorry but I absolutely do not intend to wrap my world around someone else's kid. And they're not going to be "the star" of my existence. Requesting special diets of extremely exotic or hard to find foods (no, kid is not allergic to anything); asking other parents in park to clear out play area so their kid can go and play with sand or go on a slide (once again, nothing wrong medically with the kid) or requesting for way-out-of-reach gifts for toddlers - when the heck did this became normal???

We were in the fancy restaurant in Maui having late dinner and a family with a kid was placed not far from us. Parents ordered normal food for their own choices and then mother decided to go into litany of things her "darling boy" would want to try - that included gently poached lobster and biscuits with caviar. Besides the point of being nearly 10pm and that the kid should have been in bed long before - who in the world orders lobster and caviar to a 5 yrs old kid???? Oh and not just any juice but only coconut water would be acceptable. Seriously?? of course that "darling" boy did not eat anything he was given and instead went for breadstick from neighboring table and when it was taken away from him he threw a hissy fit which also spoiled our dinner (and everyone else's to boot.)

couple of days later I went to a pool while my DH was upstairs hiding from sun. There were tons of people out and of course most of them with kids, which once again I'm yet to understand the idea of bringing toddlers to a five star hotels when they can't possibly understand or appreciate their surroundings so next trip I'll be looking for adults-only settings. So while I was there one woman loudly declared that in order for her boy to play the staff has to clear out playground. No, he's not autistic or alergic or has any medical conditions - she just didn't want him to share the play area. Are you nuts??? Seriously, what is wrong with these people??

I guess in our current society it's normal to go overboard with gifts, toys and electronics even if the kid is still in diapers and can't really use any of it - but when do you tell them to stop and smell the real world??? They are not doing these kids any favors because when they start to grow and don't have everything handed to them on silver platter - many things go terribly wrong and these spoiled brats have very hard time adjusting to reality and too many grow up completely useless. To me this is really twisted part of the whole thing.

Married!

2011-07-10T00:16:00.001-07:00

It was a very long flight and 6 hrs time difference but it was worth it! Rained in the morning and was very very windy so couldn't do much to fight the wind-blown look for the pictures but can't describe how happy we both were that day. It was perfect!

Finally vacation time!

2011-06-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

Today is my last day of work before vacation - two weeks in Hawaii! Still lots to do in the house of course before we take off but at least it's all good stuff - cleaning house, cooking up for my sister who will be staying here for 2 weeks babysitting my cats (and it's a good vacation for her as well). Last night I did a huge grocery shopping - $326 to restock my pantry and stock up on all things she can eat while we're away. Not trying to overwhelm her, but our pantry was very low and I needed to get it back to normal state - full of sauces, pasta, choice of rice and grains (quinoa and amaranth are norm for us); snacks that I normally try to avoid like chips etc. Plus lots of fresh fruit and berries for her to choose from. For breakfast I stocked up on Chobani Greek Yogurts; some breakfast sausage and cold cuts if she wants them. The good part is that if she doesn't eat it my DF will be happy to "clean it up" when we come back. Lately we've been eating mostly seafood/rice/veggies so I haven't been restocking all things that were used up so it was good time to get it all at once. Probably could have saved more $$ by going to different stores but honestly the time i'd waste driving around is more important to me today.

Sunday I'll pick her up from airport (overnight flight from LA) and then she can rest until evening dinner with my DF's family. And Monday we're off to LA! We'll stop by there for one night to see my grandma and then Tuesday to Hawaii. That's when real vacation begins of course. Hopefully weather will be nice and we'll get to walk around nature for a bit and take some picture. So next update you'll see will be post-Hawaii and I'll be married :)

Back in 2 weeks!

It's benign!

2011-06-14T13:07:00.001-07:00

Finally some peace of mind for me! On March 7 I was told I had a lump in my breast. Bunch of xrays, ultrasound and finally a biopsy - two weeks of waiting for results and it's here - IT'S BENIGN! Picture me doing very happy dance. Now I can really relax and look forward to my wedding and honeymoon in Hawaii :)

Good/Bad day

2011-06-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

Another point of thinking that I'm on a roller coaster ride. First we went to the shop to see if they were able to save my dress. And it looked much better than last week but no where near as it should be. That so-called "seamstress" should be banned from touching anyone's dress ever again. And get her head and eyes examined. She attached new part of the skirt but of course it's not centered so it's very skewed to the right side. Ok I can fix it myself at this point. I'm not risking her doing anymore damage than she already did. I have one good weekend to get it right. It's not going to be perfect but it won't be as ugly as it was last week.

now for bad news - we came home from the store with dress, had dinner and I went outside to unwind in my garden. I like to sit there, pull some weeds and watch how it grows. To my horror my garden has been ransacked. Not sure what kind of animal got inside the fenced-in garden but it's destroyed all my spinach, salads, broccoli, peas and swiss chard. Unreal. Everything has to be pulled out of course even if some of the leaves remain because of the animal saliva - if it was eating my plants then nothing on that bed is safe anymore to eat. At least not raw anyway. Completely devastated my garden :(

Am I cursed???

2011-06-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

At times I really start wondering if some people are naturally blessed and if some are cursed and starting to think that if you think of all bad things that had to happen to us since we were kids - it's gravitating more and more toward the "cursed" side of the balanced scale. And yes, with each occurrence of something bad I kept thinking that it will get better. But I'm really tired of facing yet another bad thing. In two weeks we're supposed to head out to Hawaii for our wedding. And now there is very real possibility that I will not have my wedding dress with me. As in at this point it would take a miracle to fix it.

You'd think that it's not that hard to get a dress and you'd be wrong. We ordered a "petite" size and they said that because it's "petite" it would take longer to get it but was supposed to be ready by end of May. Well it arrived and it's NOT petite size. Ok so needs some alterations. Shouldn't be difficult to trim the bottom even if it has underskirt. Just the bottom because everything else fits ok. A week later we came to see it and try it again before taking home. And that's when the "bad" thing started again. The moment I saw the dress my heart sank to the ground. It was ruined. Maybe it's the detail-oriented side in me that had to spot it right away but there it was - the bottom of the dress was altered and not in a good way. In addition of chopping off the front to get it to be at my toes level the seamstress "volunteered" her services and decided to alter the valances that are layered on the dress. And completely destroyed the symmetry layout of the dress. The bottom now looks "chopped" and plain ugly. So after a nice cry and screaming matches with the boutique owner they assured us that it will be "fixed" by today. Well we came in and it looks even worse than on Saturday. Another upsetting hour later they agreed to remove the offending layers and take another dress (but of course too small for me normally to just exchange it) - they'll remove unaltered layers from new dress and will reattach to my dress. They have until Monday night to get this fixed. But at this moment two weeks before wedding I have no dress and possibly no wedding. Not in a good mental state right now.

When nature visits

2011-06-07T19:43:00.000-07:00

Despite long commutes to work, being far away from everyone and driving an hour to get to the nearest mall there are some parts of living where we are that I absolutely love - unexpected visitors all the time and when you least expect them.

This beautiful girl came this morning and surprised me while I was on my patio watering my potted plants because it was going to be a hot day I wanted to make sure they won't wilt during the day. One minute I'm bending toward a pot and then another I'm 3 feet away from one massive mama! She was just on the other side of patio with only railing between us but she was very calm and more interested in my strawberry patch than me. Her cub was with her but I was too slow to get a picture of him. By the time I darted inside to grab camera he was in wooded area and she was moving toward him as well. Oh well, at least I got her on picture. Fabulous!

Harvest time!

2011-06-04T17:39:00.000-07:00

Nothing beats having fresh picked greens for dinner that are available anytime you want to pick them. And taste so much better than store bought. Today was our first good harvest day - picked 3 types of lettuces - red curly, light green "sweet" lettuce and Romaine baby lettuce. Also got some herbs like dill and parsley, bunch of snap peas for stir fry and few handfuls of first strawberries to finish up with desert.

Add it up with some fresh fish, couple of choices of good cheese and rustic bread and you have very yummy meal. And thankfully summer is only starting so we'll be enjoying our harvest time for quite some time.

Hydroponic success!

2011-06-01T23:54:00.000-07:00

Guess what we had for dinner tonight?
Yup, our own home grown baby Bok Choy that grew in the hydroponic system. Took about 5 weeks since sprouting and was very tasty. The good part is that I don't have to worry about bugs or weather conditions outside and have this year round. Definitely like it so far!

ouch!

2011-06-01T18:08:00.000-07:00

Whoever said that having biopsy was quick and painless - lied! In the last rounds of tests that included your standard mammography they found a small lump in my breast, so the doctor not wanting to take any chances sent me for a biopsy. IT HURTS! ok, it didn't help that most of the local anesthetics don't work on me so it really hurt especially that they didn't just use small needle - they did what they call "core" biopsy. And drilled in 2 places. OUCH! Local never really took and even though they tried to give me a cocktail it just didn't mask it. mental note - don't do it again. Won't know results for a while but hoping it's all good.

Major food savings for summer

2011-05-07T11:18:00.000-07:00

I just spent two hours planting potatoes that will feed us all fall/winter time. And I'm sure you'll remember that I don't have whole lot of space of my own. So how did I get to plant them and where? - at my local CSA that I used in the past. I've helped them before with weeding and picking so we struck an agreement - I will plant my stuff with theirs and in exchange I will help each weekend for couple of hours. Since for me it's more of a relaxation than anything else I see it as a double win - I get to play with greens and have space to plant anything I wish - squashes potatoes, sunflowers etc and will get plenty of food all summer/fall and winter. And they get help with theirs stuff. Since they were not going to use that section of the land it works great for everyone.

So stay tuned and we'll see how much 'goodies' I'll be able to bring home :)

Fresh addition to dinner

2011-04-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

Finally I can start adding some of the goodies from garden to our meal. First harvest - asparagus and parsley to add to pasta, marinara and chicken dinner. I know, seems so small but it's only first to go so hopefully very soon it will be mostly eating our own organic produce. Spring is VERY late this year so have to be patient. But I just can't wait!

More vet bills

2011-04-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

Shadow is sick again. Started throwing up during the week so had to take him to the vet on friday after he stoped eating. Got him full of fluids, anti-nausea meds and xrays that showed nothing spectacular or gave me any answers - $202 bill. 4 days later he's not getting any better so bringing him back and he'll be there under observation. Don't even want to think what it will cost me but just want my sweet baby boy healthy and happy again.

Supermarket Sticker shock

2011-04-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

Did I hibernate all winter and just woke up to really see prices in the supermarkets or did they rapidly go up?? I know I've been getting really high bills for groceries but because we eat alot of seafood and mostly organic produce I didn't really look at individual prices. Ok, I should have probably mentioned that I'm not looking at Shoprite prices as I refuse to shop there anymore - for a very good reason as they treated me once as a full-fledged criminal for forgetting my wallet and attempting to pay with a check for groceries over $160. Who knew that they have a limit of $100 per check/transaction?? So while I waited for my DF to come up with my wallet and my CC they had me under virtual arrest so after that kind of a treatment I refuse to step into that store. Therefore I shop at Weis only.

Anyway, on my last trip to Weis I bought "ugly ripe tomato" - the same type that I grew myself in my garden last year and gave them away to anyone who wanted any because we were drowning in them - picture below is very similar to what I bought (one of my daily harvests last summer). One large tomato - organic of course just like mine - $5.40 at the check out. Are you kidding me??? Ok, so it's out of season and all but really? I just don't remember produce being this horribly expensive. When did the prices go up so high? Maybe I should rethink my weekend occupation and start selling my own produce. We've given away good 20lbs of tomatoes last summer to all guys at my DF's work and some people at my work. I should have sold them and had enough for Christmas spending account. Sheesh!

Free meals!

2011-04-15T16:30:00.000-07:00

It's finally feels like spring today so we went for a walk around the lake. It's not a long walk overall and it was very refreshing to be out and about. It was even better when we got to the stream and found out that Morels decided to come out couple of weeks ahead of their schedule. Normally we don't get to see them until first week of May. So they're still small but they are out and that means that for the next 4 weeks I'll be able to go pick them and have yummy free meals! Hopefully the area behind my back yard won't get ravaged by deers too much (they love morels) so I can find some here without traveling too far. This batch I sliced in half and mixed with white button mushrooms and sauteed with butter - great to add to burgers or just over rice. Just a little bit more time and I'll be able to use more items from my garden to offset the grocery bill. Lately it's been through the roof and it doesn't help that we're buying organic fruit and veggies and mostly seafood, so I'm really looking at choice of reducing that cost. Adding fresh fungi is great because they're good source of protein and tasty!

Test or guess?

2011-04-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

I'm at a small cross-road dilemma. My doctor wants me to take genetic test to see if I have BRCA 1 & 2 gene - to determine if I have a high risk for breast and ovarian cancer. Based on the family history I can understand why she'd want me to do this, but I also understand that it would cost $3000 to get tested. I'm not sure if I want to plop that much money out for test or if I should just wait and keep regular testing going. She's telling me that if I have that gene then she'd want me to do radical surgery - hysterectomy and double mastectomy all at once. And if I don't have a gene then I can get away with regular testing and hope everything will be ok. Ok, so it's not so small dilemma - money or not this is a huge thing to decide. Do I want to take my chances or should I do preemptive strike and have a surgery? I also have to keep in mind that recovery will be pure hell since I'm immune to painkillers - they just don't take away any pain and I still remember nightmare I went through from first surgery (really wish they did hysterectomy back then) and really don't wish to experience it all again. This would be much more serious and much longer recovery. Not to even think about all the hormonal changes my body with go through and that my DF is definitely not happy with the suggestion. So alot to think about.

Stop arguing with me!

2011-04-08T14:58:00.000-07:00

I'm very frustrated this week and it's driving me up the wall to the point that I really starting to think we need a different officiant for Hawaii. Ok, backpedal for a minute - my DF is doing all planning for the wedding this time around. He found location, hotel, ceremony package - aka officiant, music, flowers, photos. Of course all that was with my input on what I'd like to see and so far we're on agreement - beach wedding, sunset, flowers etc. So far so good. Except when it comes down to the actual ceremony planning. I know what direction he gave to the woman who will be performing ceremony - use a non-religious romantic setting with focus on love and respect. So why is it so hard to get a copy of the script to see it ahead of time? I don't want to be surprised on the spot or possibly worse, being upset because I might have a problem with the language that's being used in it. I want to see it ahead of time. So STOP ARGUING WITH ME AND SEND IT ALREADY! Considering that we're paying $1300 for a 15 min ceremony I don't think it's unreasonable request. Her last email was 'don't worry I'll use nice and romantic non-denominational spiritual ceremony" - which makes me very uncomfortable right there. There are many interpretations of what "spiritual" means to people and I don't want to be caught off guard by something that might possibly ruin that special moment.

Follow up on Hydroponic idea

2011-04-03T16:23:00.000-07:00

You've seen a preview of the idea that we were planing to do and here is more information. Two weeks ago we went to the county fair show where we looked at different ideas of landscaping, local plants and ideas for gardening. One of the items really caught our eye - hydroponic system to grow greens like lettuce, arugula, swiss chard etc in the water solution instead of soil. This is actually something we were thinking already because I really like my greens but at growing it take lots of space in my garden. So if this really going to work then we'll have home grown greens year round and I'll have more space in my garden beds for root veggies, squashes and tomatoes etc. So my honey took some time to look on the Internet for various systems available and decided to build me one himself. Last week he ordered some supplies and was putting it all together this weekend. It's great for small spaces as you can see it's all set against the window and because it's stacked it gives quite a bit of growing space but not take alot of floor space. It's all connected with flexible tubing, on the bottom is a tub with nutrient liquid and a pump that brings it up to the top and then it runs down through all 4 levels. One side of each level is slightly raised so gravity takes over. So now we need to wait until we get some holding materials and start planting seeds. This is all experimental of course until we learn how to balance nutrients, what to plant and what works best. But in the meanwhile I'm really looking forward to seeing some results :)

Spring-summer house projects

2011-03-27T12:14:00.000-07:00

This spring and summer are going to be very busy for us. Yes, that's on top of doing the wedding. At least we see it more of a vacation as we'll be eloping in Hawaii so it's short ceremony for just two of us and then it's rest and relax. But in between we'll be busy bees during most of the weekends. I mentioned in the past that we started moving forward with the solar project - adding solar panels to the roof so we can cut down on the electric use and maybe even sell some back to the state. Well we finally got all permits. Don't even start asking what a nightmare it is to cut through all red tape BS in NJ! Finally it's all approved. Once the snow and ice melts (we're still covered in snow up here in the mountains) we'll have someone out to check the roof, inspections, deliver materials and then start installation. Hopefully it won't take all spring. I'm really looking forward to seeing some results.

Second project we're starting is more related to my gardening hobby. We are of course planting all outside beds but I realized just how much space is wasted in planting greens like salads. peas, beans and strawberries so we did a bit of research and we're starting to build hydroponic-aeroponic system that would be housed in our enclosed porch along the windows. It won't take that much space because we'll do stacked method (one row above the other) but it will clear out some of my garden beds so I can plant more potatoes, tomatoes and heavy veggies like squashes. Of course once it starts building I'll keep updates and pictures. It should look like something like this:

Hopefully it won't take long either and my DF said it will be relatively cheap. If it works I'll have fresh greens year round.

No more dress shopping.

2011-03-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

I give up on trying to find something inexpensive and pretty that would fit 4'10" -180lbs frame. So we're going with this choice. The store gave us discount so it came up to just about $500+tax but it's better than original price. And it's lighter than many other dresses we tried and the one that my honey likes (it's beautiful on me but extremely heavy and not for 90 degree Hawaii weather). And we picked out our wedding bands. Going with the Celtic motif.

Mine of course signifies eternity and is a continuation of the design from my engagement ring.

Dress nightmare

2011-03-18T17:34:00.001-07:00

Ok, I didn't like shopping before but now I can officially say I HATE DRESS SHOPPING! It doesn't help that I look like a beached whale in white. :( But I'll let some of the pictures speak for themselves. And these are the better ones unfortunately. First one is your typical dress. Looks awful.
second looked better but weights a ton - not for a destination wedding. Wish I could hide my fat arms from the view.

after few dozens I decided to try for simple non-white dress but the result was just as bad. Last one looked slightly better - but being about $500 more than my budget allows me it's not really an option. At this point I'm definitely open to suggestions.

Preparing for garden season

2011-02-12T16:49:00.001-08:00

For those who are interested my "other" side - gardening, I slowly started to update it again. This weekend I started on my seeds and will be planting more as it gets closer to warmer season, so if you're interested in following on it please use my other blog:

http://simplegardenmadeeasy.blogspot.com/

Last year was my first "trial" garden as we build it and I tried to plant various veggies. This year will be more structured to fit what we eat most. It's also part of my goal to cut down cost on food - I'm planing to grow all veggies for our consumption at home and only buy milk/bread/eggs/meat/fish in the store. Hopefully it will work.

Huge splurge in plans

2011-02-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

No, I didn't "fall off the wagon" when it comes to savings target, but believe it or not I will be spending very large amount in the next few months. Why? Because we finally set the date to get married. We'll be going to Hawaii for two weeks at the end of June. But to keep the costs down we'll only do a private ceremony that will only be for two of us and no one else. We will stop in LA to meet with my grandmother so she can finally meet my DF in person. We'll do a family dinner with her and then when we come back we'll do another one for his side of the family. My sister will fly here to babysit my cats (and rest herself) so she'll be part of the second dinner.

So even though it will cost quite a bit for airfare and hotel - ticket to Hawaii from NJ is NOT cheap - but we're still keeping it all within $5000 overall. This would include garden/beach ceremony, rings, pictures, gown, hotels, flight and spending $$ for anything for those two weeks. After postponing it all for past two years due to being unemployed I think it's a good compromise between traditional wedding and eloping in the office (my choice personally). This way he still gets his "romantic" moment that he can remember but it's still not horrendously expensive. Did you know that average wedding is set at $25-30k?? No way! Weddings are just a one day "show" while marriage is for the rest of the life and I'd rather spend part of that money on something simple and yet have good honeymoon that we'll remember.

Changing diet

2011-02-06T16:34:00.000-08:00

In the next few weeks/months I have to get my body back to normal working order and to get that done I have to completely change my lifestyle. Of course some of you know that I eat healthy and would ask WTH?? - to which I would say my reaction at first was just like yours - WHAT THE HECK??? I don't eat junk food, almost no processed foods or at least as limited as it can get, all my meals are home cooked and mostly organic (even if it's far more expensive than my budget can afford at the moment) fruit and veggies. So what's my doctor's problem, right?

Well apparently I have to re balance my body. It's not processing my sugars properly and thinks i'm storing fat for later so I have to cut it down. I am not allowed any fruit that have sugar in them - say no to grapes, melons, pears, etc. but only allowed 1 apple a day. For such a fruit junkie like me it's a horrible thing to hear. I'm not even allowed carrots anymore because they're high in sugar. I'm always craving sugary fruit so to go without it is extremely hard.

Also I'm not allowed any fatty foods - no cheese, no butter in my dishes, no fatty meats like steaks or ground beef or ground pork, no sausages and instead lots of fish and seafood in general. Baked or steamed but no oils. Talk about your budget busters.

Another thing that I have to cut down is carbs overall, especially simpler types like bread, pasta, white rice - and instead eat many more green leafy veggies, squashes and lentils. So many changes but hopefully they'll help my body get back into working order again. Hopefully it also would help me with weight because my prior diets and exercise did not drop a pound. So here's hoping for the best.

No More Credit Cards!

2011-01-28T15:22:00.001-08:00

If you heard wild squeal that was me paying off last credit card bill. No more CC debt! It took 5 yrs with 2 of them being unemployed and over $30,000 has been tackled. For those who are new to this blog it probably won't make much of sense, but for those who know background story they'll understand why it's so important for me to pay it off. At any rate it's all done and now I can start living my life again without worrying about credit cards. Now my next steps will be rebuilding my savings - emergency funds first and then hopefully normal savings. I already started contributing 15% (plus 6% match) to 401K so if I stay on this path it will be in good shape. I have temporarily stoped using coupons and will "unfreeze" my spending to include occasional eating out and will update my wardrobe but will return to more frugal living in about 6 months - after July. It will make more sense later.

But in the meanwhile I have slightly different problem to deal with - my health has been deteriorating rapidly since fall and I was told I have pneumonia. On Monday I had blood work done and received a call that it's not good - my immune system is completely shut down, I'm pre-diabetic, my iron and vitamin D are extremely low (and yes, I take multivitamin every day) and my thyroid is not working - and according to nurse that called me these are "smaller" issues so I will find out full details next Monday night. For now all I can do is wait and hope for a good resolution to this. Hopefully there is something that would help.

Walking Pneumonia

2011-01-14T13:22:00.000-08:00

Well i know the name for my bug. It went from bad case of flu to bronchitis to pneumonia. I'm on a nice cocktail of drugs right now but getting better. Xray showed that infection is clearing up now. And still going to Paris. Leaving for airport in few minutes. Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures from there.

Nasty bug

2011-01-08T17:22:00.000-08:00

For past few weeks I've been trying to shake off the bug out of my body. Literally. First time it hit me when I was preparing for my trip to Orlando for work at the end of October. Thought the flu/cold season started early or something. I did not get a flu shot because regardless if I do take the shot or not I still inevitably end up with the flu anyway. So I skipped it this year. And then the bug happened. And it's nasty. I don't mean just sniffles and sour throat. I mean severe vertigo, unable to keep most of the foods down, severe dehydration (even when you try to drink liquids), heart palpitations, so congested that you literally unable to breathe. To make things worse I'm allergic to penicillin and tetracycline which is the used as a base for most antibiotics. Z-pack is not effective on me for some reason either. So I'm stuck doing this the natural way - lots of liquid, warm bundling, hot teas, soup etc. Couple of weeks later I though I got better. Nope, it got worse. And then again. And now again. Yup, I'm on a 4th round of this bug. Last round I ended up turning blue because I couldn't breathe and was at home alone, unable to crawl upstairs to reach cell phone to call for help. Wasn't pretty. Hopefully that this will be last and final round. I'm taking over the counter stuff like NyQuil and Sudaffet Severe Cold but it's really not doing much. Monday I'm going to call local doctor to see if they can do something about it. Last time they said I should try steroids but I really don't want to mess with that stuff as the side effects can be much worse than the bug itself - they really can affect your heart. But at the same time I have to find a way to get better because next Friday I have to be on my way to Paris for work conference and be all "bright and shiny" for that week. So either steroids or my body doing it's own fighting but it has to be done one way or another. If anyone knows of really great home remedies I'm all open to suggestions.

Bye Bye Visa#1

2010-12-20T19:01:00.000-08:00

Yup, another one bites the dust! Visa #1 is finally PAID OFF! Only one card remains. I wish I could say that it would be paid off too before the end of the year but unfortunately that just won't happen. Too many expenses sneaked up on me and had to be taken care of first. But it will be paid off by the end of January! so in few more weeks I'll be completely DEBT FREE! I'm counting days and hours until that happens.

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-17T18:42:00.000-08:00

Well the guy I recommended got a job and accepted it and he's starting January 3rd. I hope it works out well for all of us. But for now we still have couple of weeks before so want to wish everyone Happy Holidays and hope your new year is going to be better than this one.

Good or bad decision?

2010-12-09T18:11:00.000-08:00

I'm in a state of total confusion and for once I don't know if something I did was a good thing or not. Normally I don't bother dwelling on things I do -whatever happens happens. But not this time. Backtracking a bit, I use to work in the Australian based company in 2006-07 that later closed it's US office and all 30+ people were left without a job. I loved that job, the office environment and people who worked there. It was like having a second very close knit family. Most of them were in that company for many years - from 5 to 20 range. It was general understanding that the guy who run the office was the "bonding" factor and managed to create that wonderful atmosphere. Well afterward most people of course found another jobs, older ones retired etc. This guy tried running his own bicycle business (he's an avid cycler) but it didn't work out well. He's doing some consulting work on the side but as far as I knew he was still looking for permanent place 3 yrs later. So when my current boss was let go I took a copy of his resume from linkedin and send it to my HR. At the time I thought he's great to work with and if I can help why not? Now I'm not so sure it was the right choice. He did a phone interview and now they're calling him for a second interview next week. I should be very happy, right? But instead I'm uneasy. And no, I'm not worried about his skills - I have no doubt that he'd be great at the job. But I just realized that he's been part of my facebook contacts all this time also, and more than once I'd make a comment about something that would irritate me at work. Like some of the people who are very incompetent but still manage to get ahead. I'm sure he'll remember them. Now I have to worry about past biting me in the back. So do I give him benefit of the doubt and hope he'll "forget" my rants? I hope for the better but I think it would be smarter to be cautious for a bit on what I'm posting. I'm still going to be happy if he gets a job but I also hope he won't ruin mine at the same time.

Round and round we go..

2010-12-03T06:16:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it feels like nothing ever changes. We keep going in circles. Just when you think you're about to get back on your feet something throws you back down. I was going to pay off another one of my cards this months. But instead of paying it off I ended up with more bills than normal for my budget and they had to be paid first because my daily card has much higher APR than my ongoing balances (they're at 4%). So what threw me off this time? Vet bills. Yup. My furballs can be expensive. My new boy Shadow had to be fixed which I was going to do via state program. Except right before being fixed he managed to come down with respiratory infection. So instead of having $20 bill I ended up with over $245 for labworks, xrays and antibiotics. He did get fixed though at the same time. But it was stunning blow to my wallet. And then my baby girl is back with tummy issues. Just a week after his bills I had to do blood work on her - $110 just to find out that once again there is nothing definite they can tell me on what's wrong with her. I put her back on Albon but so far it's not helping. She's been very stressed out by our new baby Shadow so that might triggered a setback. Hopefully that will be resolved.

And then there are holidays that can be very expensive. I know that I should have had a special account for all presents and all but being on super tight budget did not leave room for presents during the year. So now I'm paying the price for it all at once. 3 birthdays are being celebrated at the same weekend. and then they will want Christmas and boy do they have expensive taste! for my honey's family they send out a list of "gifts" they want us to buy - no gift cards or choosing something that we think would suit them. No, it's $$$ electronics etc. I'm pissed at them for it because they know I don't have $$$, but they are affluent and don't care much about how it will impact others. of course it's all one way because from early on i told them that I didn't want any gifts from anyone so for 5 yrs they did not have to buy anything. We however do have to buy their gifts. And it's never just one item. Whatever. I keep saying to myself that I'm doing this just to keep peace in the family. Hopefully it's all worth it at the end.

On other updates my job is in turmoil. They let go of my boss - fired him. So now they're interviewing others for that position and I'm in limbo waiting to see who I'll be reporting to in the future. In the meanwhile my workload doubled and I'm doing extras that normally is not on my plate. Hope the SVP of division sees the results. Come next April is the end of fiscal year and they decide on bonuses so i hope extra work counts toward good for my status. I have another trip to prepare for - Paris in January. All work of course. Hope it will go smoothly.

Hello Orlando

2010-11-07T15:54:00.000-08:00

Yup, another trip starting tomorrow. I've only been at this new job for 4 months and already had 3 trips - Baltimore, Lisbon (Portugal) and now Orlando. Well can't say they didn't warn me - travel would be at least 30% of my job. At least they keep it interesting and I get to meet great people. And it helps that each time there are different locations so it's definitely fun for me. Though I've been in Orlando before and not interested in those general attractions like Disney and other parks, I will enjoy some quiet strolls in the garden after conferences. Let's hope the flight goes smoothly and hotel is without problems. For some reason I'm a little nervous about this trip. Can't really explain it. Anyway. Car is picking me up at 5:45am on Monday morning and I'll be coming home Thursday at 8pm. And then preparing for yet another one - Paris in January. :)

Update on Shadow

2010-10-22T16:43:00.001-07:00

Guess who's been growing like weed in the garden?? Yes, it's our new baby boy Shadow - he got his name shortly after he got adopted by us. Couple of days after I brought him home, I had to go to Lisbon for a business trip, so my DF was taking care of all furballs for a week and since baby had to be separated until they're used to him, DF kept him upstairs in the bedroom. So they bonded. And afterwards he followed my DF everywhere and they are literally inseparable now.

I'm starting to feel a little bit jealous now of their bond. He sleeps on top or on the side with him, he cuddles while DF is working on his computer, snuggles while watching tv and of course still follows him with every step. Isn't he a cutie :o)

Different Priorities

2010-10-20T07:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes life gets too complicated. Too many things happening all at once and it can feel very overwhelming. Almost like you're drowning with all the things being thrown at you. I'm sure many of you been there done that. So have I. Because of that I have chosen to rethink my priority list and make it very simple. There are things I added and things that I removed. So what is important to me now? Let's see...

- Emotional peace and physical comfort of my home life - my DF, my sister and my furbabies are my first priority. No questions about it. In the morning I like to wake up without worrying about how to take care of my babies and in the evening I'd like to come home and relax, all of us huddled on a couch under the blankets together just cuddling for a while. Yes, there are "things" that always need to be done around the house but things can wait. Emotional well being is more important than "things".

To get to that state of "well being" I choose very simple approach. First we live "unplugged" once we're at home. While we do have TV we rarely watch it - occasionally we'll watch Iron Chef or something on Discovery channel. I don't bother with most programs as I find them boring. My life had too much drama in the past and I don't need to include someone else's drama on top of that. DF likes his new tech stuff (as if he didn't get enough of that at work) but that's also rare. We don't blast music or have any other gizmos at home. We like to cuddle in front of the fireplace in the evening instead. There's something about hot blasting fire on a cold night and hot cup of tea that just makes you very relaxed. We like to cook together - besides experimenting with different types it's a great way to spend evening. We keep it playful of course but at the end we get yummy food and good time making it.

Second on my priority list are my friends. I've learned over the time that there are only a handful of people that I can trust to be there for me when things get tough. While I was unemployed I watched those who I thought were my friends vanish because I couldn't afford to go out to as often as I did in the past. Don't know if they thought I'd ask them for $$ or what not but they showed their true side and if they decided to vanish I won't bother worrying about them. Life is too short for that. My sister of course has been here for me through everything just like I've been for her in the past and will be in the future. That's one constant that I don't have to think about. I did cut off ties with most of my other relatives though because I've had enough of their mooching ways and drama. Life is so much easier and simpler without it.

Next on my list is my commitment to animal rescues. I've been supporting two groups actually - KISS is where I got all my furbabies and where I volunteer on the weekends. I've been with them for over 4 yrs now. I can't foster babies (because I won't be able to give them away afterwards) but I can help with supplies and adoption time. And in addition to that I also help another group - Milo's Sanctuary in Los Angeles. I also got my sister to help them as well. They are very unique group - they don't just rescue stray cats and place for adoption - they rescue and help injured, blind and sick cats. Some cats they saved were horribly abused and tortured by humans (some by so-called doctors in UCLA who do experiments on them) and now these angels are given second chance in life by Milo's. I'm not there to help in person but I can help with fundraising and getting my LA friends to volunteer. I think helping animals will remain on my high-priority for the rest of my life.

And my last priority is my job. I love my job. I love what I do and I love working with people but at this point of my life it's on the lowest level for me. Yes, I need to work to be with people, and to be able to pay my bills. But I will never see it as a "career" - it's a job. It pays bills. If it's gone I'll find another one. I will never stress over it again like I've done in the past. If it takes two jobs to pay my bills so be it. Jobs come and go but my life won't turn around it. It's just means to support myself and not a main driver of my life.

So now I'm enjoying my life. Hopefully it will remain stable for a while or get better. Time will tell.

You're not "broke"

2010-10-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

this might seems like a random post but it's really not. I'm seriously ticked about someone who keeps yapping how broke she is. well girlfriend, YOU ARE NOT BROKE!...

.... if you're going out to eat every single night of a week instead of taking few minutes a day to make yourself and your husband a meal.
.... if you have $45 for mani/pedicure each week
.... if you have outrageously expensive cable with every premium channel possible included
.... if you go shopping in the mall every weekend with your girlfriends even though your closets are bursting from all barely-worn clothes already
.... you get your hair blowouts and style every week and then color/highlight/cut every 6 weeks.
.... your birthday bash that your hubby threw for you and that you think you "deserved" cost more than a down payment on a new car for most people
.... you get up and go flying to Colorado on a whim for a weekend skiing with friends because you feel burned out
.... you have a weekly maid coming and cleaning up after all your shit WHILE you're at home all day already!

No, you're not "broke". You're just LAZY, SUPER SELF-ABSORBED AND SELF-CENTERED BITCH who needs to open her eyes and see what really "broke" means in this world! I would love for you to go just for one week hungry because you can't buy food, without place to live, without luxury car and with only one pair of clothing that you got on you. Then maybe you'll understand what "broke" is. So for now JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!

Fall is here

2010-09-27T18:16:00.001-07:00

The colors on the trees are changing to bright yellows and reds. All of the sudden one morning you wake up and see entire hill side flared up in gold. Temperature at night dipped down into low 40s and when you get up at 5am air feels very chilly. Yup, the fall season is here very early this year. It actually started in early September. I just didn't get to post about it before :) This gorgeous view is the lake where we like to go walking on the weekends. Though these past few months have been so nuts that we really haven't been able to go out all that much. But last weekend we finally dropped all "have to do" and went for a walk. And I'm glad we did. I needed that peace and quiet that only nature can provide. Unfortunately I missed out on mushroom season this year. :( Even though I knew to go look for Maitake as soon as the first temp dipped below 50 I just didn't get time to get around to it. So when we went walking we saw some of the old patches but nothing really worth taking home. Hopefully we'll pick some next year.

New member of the family

2010-09-05T15:22:00.001-07:00

Meet our new boy that I brought yesterday afternoon from the adoption day. He's part of the 11 litermates that were rescued from one house that was overrun with cats. The moment I picked him up from the crate for the display he had my heart so I said if he doesn't get adopted today I'll take him home. It's either fostering or making him permanent eventually - for now he's just visiting while we're trying to figure out if our two other kitties will accept him in the family. He doesn't have a name yet because we haven't been really able to figure out what would suit his purrsonality. He's really calm and loving boy, wants to play on occasion and doesn't like being alone - he grew up in large family so it's understandable that he's used to alot of company at all times. So far he got a bath, cuddled with my honey wrapped in a towel and went to sleep in his arms. Then slept at night with us between two pillows very quietly, only purring from time to time. He's very likely will grow up into a lap cat. But time will tell of course. Let's see if we can get other two turn around and accept him first.

Bye-Bye Discover...

2010-09-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

...Card that is! Yes, I finally paid off Discover Credit card! I paid it off last week so today I got new statement with ZERO balance on it. So now I'm down to 2 cards left to pay off so it's slowly moving in the right direction. I would have paid off another one by now but "thanks" to my freaking junker of a car I got stuck with $1554 in additional bills instead last month. Sucks to say the least. But I also put it on the market so hopefully it will vanish out of my life sooner than later. Of course having to go to work long distance is not going to be easy - I'll have to commute with my honey and he'll drive me to and from work for a bit until I can save enough for down payment on another car. Hopefully it won't be too long. I think I'll look for Toyota RAV4 like his as it has decent mileage in city and highway and would have 4w drive system to make it through the mountains in snow and sleet in winter time. But for now it's all wishful thinking of course. Right now I'm taking one day at the time.

Not a veggie really...

2010-08-06T18:32:00.000-07:00

I posted this under my Garden blog but thought it would be a good idea to share here as well since not everyone goes to the other one. So enjoy.
_________________________________________________________
Sometimes we get to see visitors around the garden that really like our produce. Like squirrels who love strawberries, deer that would eat anything green if it could reach it and groundhog that demolished my unprotected green beans. Today we got another type of visitor. One of them came around last fall and we got nice imprints because it was right after the rain. But today we got full frontal imagery.

He just came out in our back yard this afternoon while we were on the deck so grabbed a camera and took some pictures. Unfortunately he got spooked and run away so couldn't get clear shot. Isn't he pretty? I love when we get wild animals here. It's so sad that most people in cities will never get to see one upclose unless it was locked in a cage. I'd rather see one in my back yard munching on berries :) And right after him we got few more visitors. They're still small and cute with all those spots. I assume we'll be seeing them more often now that they're older and can move around more frequently.

Yarn for kitty-blankets

2010-07-31T20:25:00.000-07:00

Almost every day I see horribly selfish and self-centered people who are only concerned about their profits and “how does that help me” scenarios. This is very depressing to see, especially with the younger generations that keep yapping “me, me, me” and show very little interest outside their narrow life. But there are some rare moments that sometimes leave me absolutely stunned by people’s generosity. Today is one of those days. As you know I work with KISS group – a cat rescue group that help save abandoned and abused cats or those that are marked to be killed in other shelters. Part of my work with them includes gathering supplies like cat food, litter, towels, copy paper etc. And you've seen me post some pictures of the "haul" when iI got coupons for free kitten chow in the past. So I tend to go through the sales and circulars, and find best deals to get as much as possible to the group. I also signed up for local Freecycle group and keep an eye on what’s posted. It’s a great site by the way. From time to time I post few things when I need to de-clutter my own home and instead of tossing something out I end up giving to someone else. And sometimes I pick things up from others – like used up towels that won’t be given to people but can be used in shelters (trust me when it comes to washing pets and drying them they won’t care if the towel is faded or not!). On occasions I ask for specific items like cat coupons if I know that something really good came out in that week’s circular (i.e. free cat food). This week I asked if anyone had extra yarn that can be used to make kitty blankets. It doesn’t have to be new yarn – we’ll take reused. Ladies at the KISS group will make them with odd ends and combine colors and it will still look nice at the end. They make these bed-blankets and give them away with each adopted cat. And in the response to my post I got two replies. It’s more than I hoped to get – I was hoping that at least someone will reply that they have a ball or two of extra yarn. One woman send me message that she has some extra and that I can come up and pick it up. She gave me her address and said it will be waiting for me by the front door. When I got there I was stunned. 3 LARGE GARBAGE bags full of yarn!

There was also a second person who contacted me and said she also had extra yarn as well, so I went and picked up her bag as well. Nothing as massive as the first one but nice shopping bag full of yarn. So I added them all together and dumped them on a couch. And of course I still have to go through them and sort out for different types and split them by color but that part is easy. I just have to separate acrylics from wools (we can’t use wool types like mohair) and deliver them to KISS ladies. They’ll be thrilled with the new color choices! I wouldn’t even try to estimate what it would cost to get that much yarn in a store but it can be pretty pricey when you buy it on your own. And before anyone asks - no, I will not use any of this for my personal hobbies. I do knit and crochet but I buy my yarn separately.

Lots of Updates!

2010-07-31T18:44:00.001-07:00

I know, I know, it's been very long time since I've posted anything. I'm sorry for the delay :( but it's also been a little nutty here. Not just the new job but other things. Anyway. One step at the time.

Job update first - I LOVE IT! It's very intense and definitely keeps me busy with many facets that I have to learn and it's NOTHING alike to what I've experienced before! From the very first day it went haywire and it hasn't stoped yet. On a first day I got introduced to everyone and learned that they already scheduled me for a first trip that was going to be 2 weeks after my start date. So first day - making travel arrangements, ordering business cards and getting their "logo" shirts tailored to my size - they use specially made polo tops for group events and since I was going to be in one in two weeks they had to order them for me pronto. Day two was not any less exiting. I was told about my work plan for the next year and it sent my head spinning. OY. You'll see it as the year progresses (hopefully it will remain in a good way) because I'll be posting frequent updates. So fast forward to now I came back from my first trip which happened to be in Baltimore and I can say it's EXHAUSTING! I hope the others will be easier once I'm more settled into the new trade and learn things in more details. It's definitely overwhelming. But at the same time the networking opportunity was amazing and I'm glad I went because I got to meet really great people that I'll be working with in the future. And I had to do a quick presentation with the heads of departments who seemed to like what I'm doing so far so it's a plus on my side. Not a bad start overall. Commuting is a pain because it takes me 1 hr and 10min to get to work without traffic and of course if it's raining or if there's an accident it takes longer. So round trip is long but tolerable. It was a huge shock to see just how much smaller my first paycheck really was comparing to what I was making before but after adjusting budget it's definitely workable and of course much better than being unemployed. I guess I just have to accept that I won't have extra money to do whatever I feel like doing for a while until I can get a raise or something. At least it really helps that my DF pays 2/3rds of the house bills himself so I can manage my portion. However some of the advantages of the new job like fully covered medical and extensive networking opportunities are definitely worth it! Paycheck alone is not everything.

Anyway, backing away from new job and into personal life update. Two days after I accepted new job offer my sister called me with a news. She was originally supposed to fly here and stay with us for a week and watch kitties so DF and I could take couple of days off and maybe go camping or take small mini-vacation. Well of course after I accepted job no vacation was in the plans anymore. She was still going to come over and stay with us but just to relax. That part didn't change. She did come here for 4th of July and got some rest. We had very nice BBQ where I made smocked baby back ribs and we grilled sausages and made burgers. Overall it was nice relaxing week. What did change is that she's been told that she has to have surgery. And she was going to have in mid-July. Which also means I couldn't fly to be with her as I will just be 3 weeks into my new job and can't take time off. Well apparently she didn't want me to fly there anyway. it's the same thing I went through 3 years ago with my surgery - having mass removed off of the ovary. Except once again she left things go way too long and ended up being nearly forced into the surgery because it grew to over 5" and was pressing inside on her other organs causing her lots of pain and preventing her from eating normal food. Long story made short - she had surgery on July 23rd and only our grandma was waiting in the hospital because there was no way of talking her out of it. My sister did not want anyone to be there and hated the idea of grandma being there because it's more of a headache than help (which turned out to be very true) because while she wants to think she's being helpful she herself needs help to get around things and with basics. I mean you can't really do much at that age (she's 85). Anyway, that part is over with and done. Surgery went well, they put her on liquid Percoset from the start to limit pain so she didn't have to go through hell I went with morphine (we're both immune to it and it doesn't remove any pain at all) and she was in the hospital for 5 days before they released her so she's at home recovering now. She'll be out of commission for few weeks because of the extensive damage but she's doing ok. There was small setback when she developed fewer and had some swelling on the scar but it seems to be getting better. She'll go back to the hospital on Monday to be checked out by her doctor. So keep fingers crossed that she'll fully recover in the next few weeks without any further complications.

And then there's home front. Thankfully it's been on a better note than the rest but still quite busy. With me traveling and all and garden being in full swing it really takes up alot of my time plus we've been doing some more house fixing while weather holds up. My honey has been fixing things up and while I was in Baltimore he had a company come and do appraisal on what it would cost to install solar power system on our roof. I'm very happy we're going in that direction because I'd love to be off the grid completely. We're already on our own water well and septic system, so if we have our own electric system that would power up the house and not be dependant on state then it would really make us independent. What's more we'll be able to sell some of the extra power back to the state if we don't use it up during the day. Well this is still work in progress because final decision hasn't been made yet. I'll keep you updated on if/when this happens. For now I really hope we do go off the grid so that if there are power outages from storms like NJ had this year we won't be completely in the dark.

And of course for last update on my furbabies. As you know my baby girl has been very sick for the past two years and despite countless tests they couldn't tell me what was wrong with my poor sweet baby. She kept getting worse and worse and started visibly losing weight - she got down to just above 5 lbs! They actually started hinting that I might have to get her cut up to see what's going on inside. That's when I put a stop to that doctor. I refused to cut into my baby girl. She's only 3.5 yrs old! NO WAY! I called for another opinion. Thankfully something possessed me to do that because after talking with few people, I got connected to another vet tech who said to try and change her diet and maybe try simple antibiotic. At that time I got some Albon from KISS founder - she uses it on her fostered kitties when they get tummy issues, and started my sweet baby on 2 week regiment. I stoped giving her regular food and instead I cooked up fresh chicken and made her broth (no salt of spices of course), chopped it finely and made into a mush and she was slurping it down. After couple of days I added baked chicken breast - she LOVED IT! Within a first week I saw visible improvement. Diarrhea disappeared and she had semi-solid poop. She stoped throwing up after each meal. She stoped crying out in pain and showed renewed interest in playing again (she really loves playing with rose petals!) so she was definitely getting better. In the second week I started adding her regular chicken food (Medleys) and turkey but did not give her any more salmon - one of her favorites. She ate like a little starved oinker but still no diarrhea! She was getting rounder, putting up some more weight on her tiny body and she was definitely feeling better. We decided to keep her on meds one extra week because she's been so sick for such a long time that it was better to keep going until she was on it for 21 days. By the end of 3rd week we had a solid pooper! And after we took her off the meds and just on her regular food (but still no salmon) she was just as happy and playful baby as when she was prior to getting sick. A week later I tried giving her salmon - and result was instant. Diarrhea. My poor baby girl is allergic to fish! I could have spared her this suffering if the doctor had run this very simple test. To say I was pissed is not to say enough. Anyway, fast forward to now - she's much rounder and very happy girl who gets fed twice in the morning 5:30a and 7am - by my honey first when he gets up and then myself at 7a when I leave for work and then in the evening when one of us gets home. She only had one episode of diarrhea after she got very very scared (our fault) but it was one time thing and stress related so that's all good now. She was fine the next day. And for now she's doing pretty well. Let's hope it will keep it going that way.

And lastly it's my garden update. If you've been following my new blog you've seen overload of veggies. My DF calls it "garden on steroids" because of the constant veggie gathering. It's definitely been feeding us and next year I plant to expand it a bit and add few things more to try. So far it's been amazing. If you haven't read it then scroll down to the link and take a look. I'm quite happy with it :o)

I got a job offer!

2010-06-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I got a call from a place where I interviewed twice in the past two month. They offered me a job as a PM. Job itself will be interesting but conditions are pretty lousy - would take 35K cut for me but at the same time after being unemployed for 2 years I won't argue. They did offer to add one more week of vacation instead of more money, making it 3 weeks total so that's pretty good too, and they're completely covering all benefits! 100% medical paid by them and good 401K match - first 6% full coverage. Not great but I'm still happy. They're sending me all paperwork and want me to start July 1st.

How much would you pay for Sketchers?

2010-06-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

Two days ago I finally admitted to myself that I need new sneakers. Why? Because I've been wearing my heavy fall boots around the garden and going hiking and it's 80+ degrees outside. So I went looking for sneakers. Maybe it's because I haven't been in stores for so long or maybe from being forced on such a tight budget that I couldn't bring myself to buy a pair of shoes and pay $100 for them. Or $75 on "sale". I wanted to have good quality so they'd last (my last pair lasted over 4 yrs with tons of use and abuse) but I think these prices are way too high. So instead of buying them in regular store I went to discount store - DSW. They sent me a coupon for my birthday - take $20 off when you buy any pair that's $49.95 or more. Well I figured with the coupon like that I can get a pair for $30 and that's more reasonable. So I went to the clearance section and found myself a nice tan colored pair of Sketchers that had a tag for $49.94 and I was happy with that price because I know they run up high in other stores. I liked that they were not one of those hideous neon colors that only young teens would wear so I took them.

Don't they look nice? Quite comfy actually. Anyway, I went to the checkout counter thinking that I just picked up a great pair of shoes for under $30 feeling very happy about that score. The girl that worked there took them, scanned, took my coupon without any word, scanned and then said that my total came to $9.96. I just stared at her. How??? I know it's 1/3 of what I expected to pay. So I tell her there must be a mistake, it's too low of a total. She smiled at me and said "they are marked for additional discount as clearance so it's not $49.94 as sticker price shows it - it has red tag so additional 40% has been taken off. " Ok, I'm not going to argue! I only hoped to keep it under $50 for total but a great pair of shoes for under $10?? I'm taking them!

Garden info moved!

2010-05-23T17:32:00.000-07:00

Ok, I started another blog - completely dedicated to my garden so that way I won't bore everyone else who's not interested. This one will remain but if you want to follow up on my garden use this link instead - http://simplegardenmadeeasy.blogspot.com/

Here I will keep updates on what's growing, harvested or being replanted. Come visit me and hope to see some of my followers there as well :)

Weight update

2010-05-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

Well it's been over two months since I've started my diet plan and so far it's not very successful. There are many reasons that are out of my control that affected the result. So far I lost only 5 lbs. On Monday it was down to 168 but today it's back to 170, which I know most likely because I ate so much food last night so I hope by Monday it will go down again. However it's a slow process because my back has been out of commission for a while. Simple things like bending, sitting down or getting up, twisting to see who's talking or something behind me can throw it off. It's an old injury from a car accident 10 yrs ago that left my lower back broken, and from time to time it reminds me about the past. Well when we had last frost I managed to twist it and it hasn't healed since. So no exercise for me these days. Most I can do is walk gently around the house or in the garden. I can squat and sit on the garden box to do weeding but I can't even bring laundry downstairs - my boyfriend has to do that for me. So while 5lbs loss in two months is not good it's also still a positive result. I didn't gain it back. Will do another update later in summer.

Edit: This is how I used to look 10 yrs ago. I was my normal 105 lbs.

I want my body back!

Getting older.

2010-05-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

Another day and another year older. Today I turn 35. I know biologically it's not "old" but I feel old. Feels more like turning 70 for some reason. Maybe it's because I'm so stressed and tired all the time, I just don't feel like energetic 30+ yr old should feel. Well that and being depressed doesn't help either. For the past few years I've avoided doing anything on my birthdays. My last 'round' number was 30 - and I was more concerned about my mom being sick since she just got out of the hospital after 2 months in ICU after cancer surgery so of course there was no celebration. And that year my birthday present was transferring $30,000 in her credit card bills to my accounts. Not exactly present I was looking for. BTW, I'm down to the last $6K to pay off.

But today I'm hoping for a better day. My boyfriend is taking me to The Manor for romantic dinner. No gifts of course but I'm always up for intimate dinner with him in a beautifully set garden. Weather is cooperating and should be 80 during the day so evening will remain nice and warm. I'm looking forward to that part. And toward having some oysters. It's been over a year since we were in that place and last time my experience was spoiled by having 2 yr old twins who threw mashed potatoes in my hair and spilled champagne on my boyfriend's pants. Was not pleasant dinner but then IMHO they shouldn't have been there at all. You don't bring kids to such upscale place to ruin dinner for others. At least this time they're not invited so it's just me and my boyfriend so I'm looking forward to a nice night out. He even bought a brand new suit so he'll look nice for me. We'll have Kir Royale to toast and enjoy quiet dinner with candle lit settings. Definitely something to look forward to tonight.

THANK YOU for Kitten Chow!

2010-05-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

From the bottom of bottomless pits that are growing and munching on yummy food every day - THANK YOU to all who helped me gather coupons so I can buy all this goodness for the KISS furballs.
4 cases of 12 packs each as special order and 28 packs bought separately that are going to KISS tomorrow morning; 12 packs already delivered and still 60 to be bought and delivered in the next few weeks (store manager refused to do another large coupon order). Alot of food but it's always needed so thank you again for your generosity. If you're in NJ please stop by the Rockaway Mall Petsmart center to see these cuties and say hello to dedicated ladies who take care of these furballs every single day. Adoptions are held every 2nd weekend on Saturdays.

Frost in May - bad for garden

2010-05-10T07:41:00.000-07:00

It's almost middle of May and we got hard frost tonight. Maybe it's because we're in the mountains it or whatnot but I did not expect it this late in spring. So yesterday we had to take some emergency measures to try and save my garden. We already lost one of the fruit trees to hard frost in April when it was beautiful and all in bloom so we covered up remaining trees with flannel sheets and tied them up on the bottom so they don't go flying away. And covered some of my peas on the patio with a warm blanket too because they're attached to the railing and couldn't be moved inside. For the garden beds we had to get a bit creative. covering them with plastic was a bit challenging because we have these horrendous winds that keep ripping things off so we placed some stakes in the beds and stapled plastic to the stakes and all around the border. There are still some rips because wind is so strong but at least it will try to protect plants. It will have to remain this way for at least one more day until frost advisory is lifted. I hope that some of them will survive or I would have to replant my entire garden. I don't think my border peas by the wall will make it eventhough we tried covering them up with composting leaves. We also spread some of the leaves on the potato bed and onions but there was no way to keep it down with all that wind. So after it calms down outside I will go around all plants and see what made it and what I will have to replant. It's really too bad that we got it so late in spring when everything was growing so nicely.

Happy Mothers Day ladies!

2010-05-09T16:12:00.001-07:00

Every year on second Sunday in May we celebrate Mothers Day so today I'm wishing for all women to be happy and healthy and take a day for themselves. No matter if you have kids or furry ones or even a SO that's acting like a 4 yr old at times you're still a mother. You're nurturing, caring and worrying all the time so today I hope someone else is taking time to thank you for all that worry and work. I wish I could see my mom today but of course that's not possible so I have to settle for a picture from my sister's "visit". [picture deleted]
And I'm sure mom would have loved these beautiful flowers - she always loved flowers and I used to bring them home all the time so she always had them on the table. There is one bouquet from my sister, one for me and one from our brother and one from grandma (via sister of course since no one else can visit mom's grave). But eventhough we can't be there in person we're always with her in spirit just like she's always with me in spirit. I miss you mom.

Container garden

2010-05-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted any updated pictures of my garden here on the blog but there is a reason for it. I'm waiting for it to be in "prime time" so I can do a comparison to when it was just empty boxes :) Yes, I know it's evil. But while you're waiting for my actual garden to grow (and trust me it's growing beautifully), I've decided to show you another part of my garden that I grow inside the enclosed porch in containers. Now that it's very warm and sunny outside I've relocated them to the outside porch but if for some reason we get unexpected cold spell they can easily be moved back inside. So what do I have in those containers? Well going from left to right there are carrots, thyme, blackberry bush, basil, many containers of tomatoes, peas, parsley, scallions, strawberries, chives, oregano and bell peppers. And just for tease, look what I picked this afternoon for snacking.

Yup, my own home grown sweet and crunchy radishes. Yumm!

Salad anyone?

2010-05-01T12:23:00.001-07:00

Guess what we're having for dinner tonight? Our first home-grown baby spinach and mixed salad leaves are ready for picking. So we'll have some grilled burgers and a tossed salad to go with it. And this time I won't have to worry about pesticides or chemicals because I know there is not a drop of them were added to the soil. It's all organic baby!
Oh, and that green row between the wired wall and the wooden box you see - it's all my green peas growing up very fast and mixed with gladiolas. Can't wait to have them fully grown. Love fresh green peas!

Yeay for Morels!

2010-04-18T17:25:00.000-07:00

It's only middle of April and today we found first morels in the woods while walking around the lake. Normally we find them in May when it's much warmer but I guess because we had 85 degrees already it got everything moving much faster and ahead of schedule. Thought today was only 46 outside it really was a nice surprise to find these beauties. The big one all the way on the left was 5.5" which is pretty big for black type. In the south where you get yellow morels then you get them large and chunky - perfect for frying.

We picked 18 nice fresh black morels on the spot but didn't really look for others because we were already on the way out at that time. However, when I got home I took a look in the small wooded area at our back yard and found whole lot more morels growing there!

Overall there were 59 morels for our dinner tonight. And guess what, I won't have to look for them at the lake anymore! Now and until end of May if I get a whim of tasting some 'shroomies all I have to do is go outside on the back yard and pick them :) Doesn't get any better than this!

Groundhog in the garden

2010-04-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

I got an unwelcome visitor this morning - groundhog or as they call them in this area - woodchuck. Large one too. Apparently it made himself a nest under the large shed and lives there. Maybe it was sleeping all winter that we didn't see him before. At any rate seeing him was very depressing for me. Why? Because just last week we made second part of the garden - outside garden bed unprotected by fencing and all where I planted potatoes and onions. Well this groundhog thanked me for potatoes. He was sitting right smack in the middle of the bed and munching on it. By the time I grabbed the camera and went downstairs to take a shot - he was on the side of the garden area happily walking around.
I guess I need to rethink my options of what I can grow outside of the actual garden. Maybe some smelly herbs like mint and chives and rosemary would deter critters from eating my veggies.

Spaghetti and Meatballs.

2010-03-31T22:15:00.000-07:00

Now that's one dish that probably everyone makes all the time, but in my case it's one of the rare ones. I really don't make it all that often. It's just a bit too heavy for my taste. However, once in a while it's a good alternative to chicken or fish, or when it's cold and rainy and my boyfriend wants something "comfy" to eat I would make it. And I'm sure many of you out there have your own special recipe, but for those who want to try mine I'll list it out. There are few nuances in my way of cooking that probably would not occur to do for others. I've seen many people do meatballs either baked or in plain tomato sauce, or if they were being fancy they'd use jar of prepared sauce like Bertoli or something like that. Well I do mine from scratch but there are shortcuts also if you want them. And it might surprise some with what I put in my sauce.

First I start off with sauteing finely chopped onions with a spoonful of olive oil. One medium onion will do just fine. After couple of minutes I add a cup of diced tomatoes (you can use canned diced tomatoes if you don't want to take time to chop), 1/2 cup of carrot juice and 1 cup tomato sauce. Let it cook for few minutes to break down tomatoes. Add 1 small can of broth - either chicken or beef. Which one and when? Well that would depend what meat I'll be using for meatballs. If I'm using ground pork or beef then it will be chicken stock. If I'm using turkey then it's beef stock. Odd, isn't it? well it's because I want different flavors to mix together and it creates quite a unique sauce at the end. And if I'm using a meatloaf mix then it's veggie stock. In tonight's dinner I used ground pork so I added chicken stock. Add spices - black pepper, smoked paprika, bay leaf, italian seasoning, ground coriander, a dash of ancho chili powder (you can use chipotle as well), soy sauce (I use it instead of salt), couple of squirts of worcestershire sauce. How much to add - that depends on your taste. I like to have alot of flavor so I add at least 1 tsp of each (except for chili - that really is a dash). Add 1/3 cup good red wine - I used Merlot and as always use only good quality that you would drink at the table. If it's not good to drink it's not good to cook because it's more likely to spoil the taste of your dish. If you're not sure how it taste start with little of each and add after cooking for few minutes to adjust the taste. Add 1/3 cup of apple cider or natural apple juice. Cooked it down for about 15 min on low heat to really incorporate all flavors.

Now while that's cooking down, make meatballs. As I already mentioned I used 1 package of ground pork. I added finely chopped onions, 1 egg, 1/2 cup of seasoned panko bread crumbs, more italian seasoning, smoked paprika, soy sauce. Mix it all well and form meatballs about 1" in diameter. Carefully place meatballs into the sauce to avoid splashing and make sure that they're all completely covered in sauce. Cook them on simmer for about 30 minutes. While they're cooking away, prepare some of the pasta. I like Angel Hair instead of actual spaghetti because it looks the same but not as heavy and takes very little to cook. I cook it in large pot of watter with a drop of olive oil and sea salt for about 3 min to "al dente" and then finish it off in the pot with the meatballs and sauce - letting it absorb the sauce and get perfectly soft. Now by the time your meatballs are ready and pasta incorporated some of the sauce it will not have too much of extra sauce left so be careful not to burn your meal. Serve with whatever greens you like and enjoy :)

Heart Walk for AHA

2010-03-24T16:20:00.000-07:00

Every year I try to do something to benefit couple of causes - Susan G Komen or Heart Association. Last year I did walk for SGK but this year I'm signing up for Heart Walk for American Heart Association. I will walk 3 miles around the lake in a beautiful park, but the goal of this walk is to raise awareness of the heart disease and raise funds for their research. If you can join me in walking then it would be great or you can pick another team to support or just make a donation to AHA directly. Either way any help will be appreciated.

Garden time!

2010-03-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

It's spring time so it also means preparing my new garden area! This year I'm actually going to have a real garden - not just couple of pots on the balcony. My boyfriend has build me 5 planting boxes, with the largest on sides being 4'x10', mediums are 4x8 and middle is 4'x7'. He even slanted them so they look like they're curving around the house (there's a chimney wall that makes that curve).
And while we're waiting for weather to get better (it's been cold and rainy again after wonderful 68 degree weekend) I also play with my potted plants that will be transplanted once it's warmer. Strawberries are fully awake and growing like crazy.

And we got new addition - 4 blueberry plants, one raspberry and one blackberry.

And just look how well sorrel is doing! I know, most people here are not familiar with it but it's so refreshing to have a sorrel soup in spring. I will have to transplant it of course once we get soil in boxes so it has permanent place.

And of course I have lots of seedlings taking root in trays - tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, cucumbers and greens. They are still very little but by the time it's warm enough to plant outside in May they should be just fine. I just hope they'll pick up fast, hope for very warm summer so we can have self-sustainable garden this year. Who knows, maybe I'll even get to can few tomatoes and pickles.

Weight Update

2010-03-10T10:47:00.001-08:00

Well it's been another roller coaster when it comes to my weight in the past 2 month. It's like a yo-yo up and down. When I have bad days I crave sugary things and eat alot of fruit. When it's really bad day I turn to my last resort - almond M&M (can't stand the ones with peanuts). So for couple of weeks my weight was slowly going down. 1lb or 2 lbs but then I would gorge myself on sugar and it would go straight back up. Last week I hit 177 on the scale. And I know exactly why - two packages of M&M, heavy stew and middle of the night eating that did not help. Even though I still work out with weights and do my regular routines it just couldn't counteract all those bad foods I was stuffing myself. So after having few sleepless nights I knew I needed help so I asked my boyfriend to hide all sweets. I know they're in the house but I don't know where and not about to go looking for them. Probably up high on shelves where I can't see (he's 6'2" so it's easy for him to reach things). I stoped drinking hot sweat tea because I realized that caffeine was not helping me with insomnia and that each cup of tea had way too much sugar - 3 spoonful and on a normal day I'd go through 4-5 cups of tea. So I stoped. Drinking plain watter now or a little bit of juice. Though I try to limit juice because it's also high on sugar. Last night I got on a scale and I was back on track - I was under 175 lbs again. Let's see what next few weeks will show.

Harsh truth of unemployment

2010-03-03T09:21:00.000-08:00

Once again today I had a face-off with someone about being unemployed. You probably all heard that last bits of news that last night government extended deadline to file for unemployment for those who exceeded 26 weeks of their state payout. Just to clear something out - this is only extension when it comes to filing time and there isn't any additional monetary extensions to those who already run out. So for those who been unemployed for long time (like yours truly) this new ruling doesn't help. Anyway, back to what rilled me up this time. In the pharmacy I had to get refill for a prescription. It's a 3 month refill that costs me $278 each time. I don't have insurance to cover it (and most insurances don't cover it anyway as I've been paying for it for past 8 yrs most of the time). So the pharmacist mentioned that she's impressed that I would pay for something so expensive. I told her that it's not a choice and that I have to use it but being unemployed I sure wish I had other options because it's a major drain for me right now. You know what her response was?
-"oh you're so lucky to be unemployed. I'd love to stay home being paid for doing nothing. You get almost the same amount as you bring home so why not stay home."
That's when I lost it. Simple. How stupid does someone really has to be to think that I'd WANT to stay home??? And you really want to know just how good the pay is?? No, it's not 60% of your salary. Not even close. In my case it's actually not even 35% of my salary. If it was full 60% I wouldn't have asked my sister to help me pay my bills and would have been able to actually increase my saving account. Instead I'm wiped out broke, had to use whatever my sister can send me and now she took out a loan so I can pay for food. I no longer can help my boyfriend with any of the household bills. So I'm fully depended on the two of them - one for food and another for shelter. Am I really happy to stay home and do nothing?? You've gotta be kidding me.

And then she keeps telling me that it's people like HER that pay MY unemployment. Really?? Want to really compare notes on what our taxes have been??? Let's see, you're just above minimal wage, married with kids who's getting large tax refunds every year from all credit loopholes because you're breeding like roaches, while people like me were paying 40+% taxes (including property and school taxes even though I don't have kids in school) by being single and earning higher wages. Yup, you're paying my unemployment. You want to know what my unemployment payout for the year was? 30K and yes, I do have to pay at least $3500 in taxes this April as well. Yes, I know that no one ever discusses hard numbers because it's so private. Well this is private to me too, but just FYI - I paid more than that in taxes just in the past 2 years alone. Far more. For the 2008 when I was unemployed for last 5 months I paid 17K in federal taxes (plus 3K for state). It would have been much higher had I worked whole year so it gives you idea just how much I was siphoning out to the government. And considering that I've been working my ass off for the past 15 years and the past 7 of them I was in "high pay" bracket I'd say I earned my unemployment "benefit". Oh no, you're not paying for it. I paid for it over and over already and those refunds that you get - people like me paying for it too. Had I kept all my taxes and not paid them I wouldn't have to file for unemployment because I'd be VERY comfortable all on my own.

And you know what's even worse?? Looking for a job in places like stores and local small businesses, applying and hearing them laugh the minute they see my previous salary statements. Oh I'm well aware that they can't possibly match what I earned and I'm not asking for it, but they laugh anyway. Because it's so funny to see someone who had close to six figure salary applying for a minimum wage job. Very funny. Except I'm still not laughing.

Lazy cook cheese dumplings

2010-02-22T09:13:00.000-08:00

This dish was a typical morning breakfast when we didn't have whole lot of time but knew that it would be long day and needed hearty breakfast to sustain us. It's also very easy to make. And if your kids don't like to each cottage cheese they actually might like this dish. You'll need:

1 package of Farmers Cheese
1 egg
1/2 cup of flour
1 tablespoon of sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt (or less if you're on low sodium diet).

Mix all above together until it forms a dough like consistency. Pinch small parts out and shape them like you'd do potato gnocchi. You can add 1/4 more flour if needed if cheese was too watery. Boil a pot of watter, salt it like you'd do for any pasta and cook your cheese dumplings until they float. Drain, sprinkle another spoonful of sugar (or honey if you like) and add a spoonful of sour cream - it will melt together with sugar and will be like a sweet glaze. Enjoy :)

RiceSelect and Asian style shrimp

2010-02-15T22:58:00.000-08:00

Have you tried any of the RiceSelects products lately? Yep, those large fancy containers with couscous and different rice mixes. Or not so large package that's usually hide somewhere on the bottom shelves that people don't notice much. Well I noticed. See, there is a company called Mambo Sprouts that I really like, especially since they have really good coupons. Like $4 of any 2 packages of their RiceSelects products that came out in their Winter booklets. They also have many other organic choices but today my focus is on this particular coupon. Because if you look at their regular large packages and their prices you'd think it was just too darn expensive to buy it so you'd go with something cheap like Carolina rice or something like that, right? But if you look at smaller packages then you'd notice that while it's priced at $2.69, after this coupon each package is only $.69 and it's whole different picture. And you have choices - long grain rice good for daily cooking or short grain good for risotto. This is what this package looks like. Where else are you going to find risotto style arborio rice for such price? Thanks to some coupon exchange ladies at Grocery Board I got several of these coupons printed and sent to me so I really took advantage of the sale and stocked up on rice. I divide package into 3 uses so each time it's freshly cooked and it's more than plenty for the two of us. And since I've been on Asian style cooking these two weeks I might as well include one recipe - Asian Spicy Shrimp!

Now this particular dish I didn't actually cook - my boyfriend did for the Valentines Day dinner. He was actually very good about whole set up and all so our evening looked like this:

But I won't bore you with details so here is how to make this yummy dish.

You will need about a pound of clean fresh shrimp (you can substitute with thinly sliced meat if you don't like shellfish), red/yellow bell peppers sliced in strips; 1 onion chopped; 1 clove of garlic finely chopped or pressed; 2-3 scallions sliced on a bias and if you like you can add finely chopped chili pepper (he skipped it). For the sauce you need hot or sweet sauce depends on what you like (he used Shirachi sauce) - 1 teaspoon; 2 tablespoons of soy sauce; 1 tablespoon of starch; 4 tablespoons of cold fish broth (he just took shells and boiled then in water for couple of minutes with some red pepper flakes and couple of drops of fish sauce and chilled it down) - now it has to be cold to dissolve starch properly. Since he skipped on chili he improvised and added lemon zest and a squirt of lemon juice to the sauce for freshness. Mix all sauce parts together before you cook the rest of the dish.

Take your wok and heat up couple of spoonfuls of oil - they ask for peanut oil but we used veggie and a drop of sesame for that asian aroma. Quickly stirfry onions and peppers for about 3 minutes and then add garlic for another 30 seconds. Take it off from the skillet and put aside. Place your shrimp into the skillet and stirfry until it's starting to turn pink. Add your sauce and quickly stir. It will thicken up as it heats up. Add back your veggies and scallions and cook for another 30 seconds to finish off shrimp. Serve over white rice and enjoy!

We had it together with Kir Royale cocktails, fresh oysters on half-shelf (he hates them but since it's one of my favorites he got it for me) and finished off with chocolate dipped strawberries. It was good!

What a fool..

2010-02-13T11:39:00.000-08:00

Ok, I will say it out loud - I've been the biggest idiot and my actions lately show that. For the past few weeks I've been severely depressed and started to look at the world through black glasses. Everything seemed off to me, every little detail irritated the heck out of me and I started snarling at people who were trying to help. First at my sister and then at my boyfriend. I even started to doubt that he loved me anymore and wondered what we're still doing together. Well he does love me. I just stumbled on a stash for tomorrow hidden in the addition small fridge I found red roses, bottle of champagne, chocolate and a dvd. Now we don't use it normally so it's always off and it struck me as somewhat odd that I heard a murmur when I went to that kitchen to grab juice. So tomorrow I will have to be "surprised" by his preparations. He choose a dvd that he knew I liked when we saw it in the theater - The Proposal with Sandra Bullock (hilarious!) and my favorite choice of champagne. He does love me but I'm sure he's having hard time trying to be supportive since I keep snarling at him for every little detail. He's not very verbal when it comes to expressing any kind of emotions (after meeting his family I can understand why he's this way - they're all acting like robots for most of the time) and I haven't made it any easier. Well hope tomorrow we can finally get few things squared away and start working through some of our issues.

Happy Cupid Day

2010-02-12T22:11:00.000-08:00

Normally Cupid Day is remembered with gifts, cards and other "merchandise", but this year do something different instead. Make a really special dinner for yourself and your partner; go for a walk in a park (yes with the snow too and have a snowball fight while you're at it); don't expect flowers, candy or cards but ask for a foot massage and a neck rub. Make it a true lovers day and not a commercial event on the calendar. This year I'm not doing anything special with me being not exactly in a romantic mood lately and all, but I will try to do something different for myself. Maybe I'll go to the nursery and just volunteer to play with flowers. Or go visit KISS. I haven't seen them in a while so I think spending a weekend with furbabies-babies will be good for my spirit. For those who are paired up - hope you're enjoying this weekend with your partner. For singles out there - take time to enjoy weekend anyway, do something nice for yourself and remember that you have to love yourself first before letting anyone else love you back.

Car update

2010-02-04T12:09:00.000-08:00

Just got off the phone with the mechanic and it's not a complete disaster. The part of the engine that needed replacement has been ordered and with the part and labor it shouldn't be more than $250 total and I should have car back either Saturday or Monday the latest. "whew".

Bye-bye car

2010-02-03T13:12:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse than it's already is - it did. My car died on me today. Engine Service light came on as I was going to the store and just as I pulled into the shop's parking lot it died completely. No clue what it is but the mechanic thinks my engine went bye-bye. He'll call me tomorrow with details on what can be fixed and how much it would cost. They dropped me at home and ever since I can't stop crying. I have no more strength to fight this. That's on top of my unemployment going bye-bye, my medical bills piled up that I can't pay and taxes that I calculated I have to pay - about $3500 since nothing was withheld during the year. At least with taxes I can file form to postpone payment for hardship. The rest is in the air. Oh yeah, the hole can get deeper for sure just when you think you reached bottom. I need a miracle.

Edit: My sister just called and told me that she took a loan from her 401K to cover these repairs and my bills as well. At least I'm lucky that I have her to rely on when it gets tough, though I really wish I didn't have to.

Stuffed Cabbage

2010-01-29T08:48:00.000-08:00

Another recipe that probably not very familiar to american public - stuffed cabbage. This is however one of the typical dishes we used to make in Ukraine in winter. It's easy to make and makes many meals at once. You will need:

1 large cabbage - check to make sure that there are no cuts through the leaves because you'll need them whole.
1 package of ground pork. You can use ground beef too of course but it taste better with pork.
1 small onion finely chopped.
salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, paprika and cayenne to taste
1 small can of tomato paste - 6oz
1 cup of rice.
stock or broth.

Take your cabbage and remove the core - be careful not to damage leaves. If it's your first time removing core start with small cuts and expand in circles. Put whole cabbage in a pot with cold water and bring to boil. Cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes, loosening leaves off the cabbage as it becomes soft. Once the leaves start to look semi-pliable and more translucent then you can remove them from the pot. Don't over cook them or they'll start falling apart on you! Set them on a plate and let cool down few minutes so you can handle without burning yourself.

In a small bowl, combine ground pork, chopped onion and cooked rice together. I always use ratio of 2/3 meat to 1/3 semi-cooked rice, but in the old times at home when meat was a rare commodity it was more rice and less meat. Either way it will taste good. I pre-cook rice separately until it's almost ready but still al dente. Season with salt and pepper and add few dashes of Worcestershire sauce to make it more juicy. You can add some soy sauce and less salt if you like (which is what I do) to keep it healthier. If you like spicier add a dash of cayenne and paprika pepper. Add 1/2 of small can of tomato paste and mix it all very well until it's all uniform. I use hands to mix because it's easier. Spoon works too but takes longer. And yes, it gets messy :)

Take your cabbage leaves and with a paring knife carefully trim the bulging part of the stem from each of the leaf from the middle of the leaf toward the fat end. Be careful not to cut the leaf itself. This will help you bend it easier without snapping, plus stem is not very tasty so you want to cut it out. Then take a spoonful of the filling and place it in the middle of the leaf. Fold the end that had the stem to cover the filling, then fold both sides toward the middle and then fold the top - making it like a small envelope. Do that with all large leaves and as many smaller ones as you can muster. It can get hard working with small leaves so don't get frustrated. Just set them aside.

Take the same pot that you used before for your cabbage and drain that watter. Place all remaining unused cabbage leaves on the very bottom of the pot - this will serve as a protection barrier and will keep your stuffed cabbage from burning. Now place each stuffed envelope on the bottom of the pan in even layers - with the seam side down so they don't start opening up. Make sure that the top layer is even. Take a small plate that would fit into the pot and place it upside down on top of your envelopes. Then take either broth, veggie stock or just watter and mix it with remaining tomato paste and pour into the pot, making sure that everything is covered with the liquid. I usually use 1/2 chicken broth and 1/2 beef broth for taste but when I don't have either water works just fine. Add couple of bay leaves. Please a cup of water on top of the plate to weight it down - otherwise it all starts to float, unwraps and makes one giant mess. Bring it all to boil and cook on slow heat for about an hour.

Carefully remove them from the pot, put a dollop of sour cream on top and enjoy.

p.s. if you have too much filling remaining afterwards, you can add one egg and some breadcrumbs and make them into meatballs and then cook in the same sauce that was left after your cabbage leaves were done.

Pirozki

2010-01-21T09:12:00.001-08:00

This week I made something that was a blast from my past - pirozki. They are pockets of dough filled with either meat, various potatoes mixtures, mushrooms or can be vegan. In this case I used a mix of mashed potatoes with sauteed onions and baby-bella mushrooms. To make the dough you will need:

1 pkg active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup milk
8 Tablespoons butter, cut into bits
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 whole egg
2 egg yolks
4 1/2 to 5 cups flour
1 whole egg beaten (to glaze before baking)

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Heat the milk to luke warm and add the butter to it. Stir the milk and butter mixture into the yeast. Add salt, sugar, egg and egg yolks, mixing well. Gradually stir in enough flour to make soft dough. Turn dough out onto a floured board and knead it lightly until elastic. place in a greased bowl, turning the dough to grease top, and cover with a clean towel. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, approx 1 1/2 hours. Punch dough down and divide into 48 balls of equal size. On a floured board roll each ball out to a circle 3 1/2 inches in diameter. Place a heaping tablespoon of filling on each circle, then press firmly to seal. Gently shape the pies into elongated ovals. Place the pies seam side down on a greased baking sheet. Cover and allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 40 min. Preheat oven to 350 degrees f. Brush each pie with the beaten egg. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden.

They are good as a quick lunch, for a snack or with your dinner as a side dish. Enjoy!

Cooking anyone?

2010-01-20T22:00:00.000-08:00

At Amiyrah's blog she posted a quote of the day: "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." And I thought "how appropriate giving my being at the cross-roads of life" of all things.

See, for the past few months I've had just a little too much free time on my hands so to kill that time I've been spending far too much time in the kitchen than necessary. It's not just cooking lunch/dinner for us but more of experimenting with different foods. So far I've revisited my roots and remembered traditional eastern European dishes that we used to make back in Ukraine; I've done more Chinese style stir fries with chicken and beef and veggies; I've played with shrimp and sausages; I did few Italian dishes and many others. And of course with all holiday cooking on top of it I just thought more and more about taking some cooking classes at one of the culinary schools. Well today I actually checked on the course-work for the FCI - French Culinary Institute - a place that I hoped to visit one day. Of course it's no Le Cordon Bleu but it's relatively nearby so I hoped to learn from them about making more upscale dishes. Well it's just not going to happen. For the 6 month of classes they charge over $42K. Insane. I'm sure it's worth it but at this point of my life it's just not going to happen. So I guess I'll do more experimenting at my own kitchen instead. Maybe use some of those pretty pictures from recipes books that I have all over my house as inspiration and try to recreate them. Either way I'm having too much fun with this just to give up. So I'll keep trying.

Weight tracking

2010-01-12T10:27:00.000-08:00

Part of my new year resolution is to lose weight this year. And I mean it. I need to be healthy, to avoid any more complications and to stay out of the hospitals. So I'll be tracking my weight for everyone to see on this blog as well. I'm starting at 175lbs and by all measurements it falls in a category of "obese" considering that I'm under five feet - only 4'10.5". My normal range should be 105-115 max but for now my goal is to get down at least to 130lbs this year. Just to get from "obese" to "overweight".

My daily routine now includes working with weights, tai-chi and going up and down the stairs as many times as I can muster. From the nutritional side, the hardest part will be giving up fruit. I know for many people it's the opposite and they have to force themselves to eat more fruit and veggies. I have to force myself to eat more protein, stay away from simple carbs (no more sugar in my tea) and slow down my intake of fruit. See, for the most part I'd be very happy just to munch on grapes, pomegranates, oranges and watermelon all day, but that's not a balanced diet so I have to include more protein and starches. Oh well. Let the fun begin. :o)

Happy 2010 everyone!

2010-01-07T11:29:00.000-08:00

Well the new year is here and hopefully it will be better than last year. Though judging by the first few days it's still going to be a rough one. There are many things going on at the same time so I'll try to post updates more often than I've been doing in the past few months. I have few goals this year that I hope to accomplish:
1. Pay off most of my bills within this year.
2. Find a good job (any job right now will be fine but a good one would be better).
3. Make my own garden to have fresh produce all spring/summer long
4. Lose weight - I'm officially obese with over 70 lbs over my normal weight limit so this one is important.
5. Have a daily exercise routine to stay healthy (related to #4)
6. Get back into coupon world. I've been slaking in this department lately and need to get back to it.

To start with, a follow up on my medical bills from my fall - the cost to me is $902 for first ER visit and then $100 copay for second to remove stitches. I don't have actual bill for second visit yet but it won't be "free" as they told me originally. They lied and I found out that I'll be billed for the second visit after they were done removing my stitches. Ear looks ok by the way. A little "bumpy" where the scar is but ok. Only hurts when I'm out in very cold weather. In addition to my ER I had to visit my OBGYN and have ultrasound done as I always do every year - with my family's history it's not an option to skip. Test was clear but the cost to me was $95 for visit and $245 for actual ultrasound. Oy. She did want me to do another surgery for fibrosis but that's not pressing so it can wait.

The second part is even more depressing - my sister's job is in limbo right now. Yesterday they got a notice that the project they were contracted on was canceled. And while they'll try to reabsorb as many people as possible into other parts of the company it will be based on seniority and experience and skills. While she has skills she's only been there for 1 year so she's definitely on a chopping block right now. Keep your fingers crossed that she makes it because she's been keeping me afloat for the past year and if she tanks I drown too. If she goes on unemployment she can't help me anymore. Hopefully she'll find something new fast or hope that they'll keep her in the current company.

Then there is my personal life. As you all know my boyfriend proposed over a year ago and we've been postponing our wedding until I find a job. Well it seems that he's been very worried that it's been 1.5 years since I lost my job and haven't been able to find new one so now he's backtracking on getting married altogether. Technically we're still engaged but last time I asked him if it wouldn't better to elope and just get it over with, he was just too much defensive about the whole subject so we're not getting married anytime soon. Even though I haven't even once asked him for any help when it comes to bills and have given him 1/2 of the mortgage and I buy all groceries for the house (which is allot considering that last month alone our bill was over $700 with all the extra foods for all holidays parties) he's still very jittery about me not being able to support myself. He knows my sister has been helping me but it's not much help in his view. Whatever. Plus he's quite overwhelmed with all expenses that came with the new house, which I guess he didn't really think was going to happen so right now he's too touchy to bring it up again. At any rate we still act like everything is fine when his folks come over, which is often because apparently they seem to like my cooking and having all this space for their kids to run around like crazy. And I'm spending day and night looking for jobs. I just joined another NJ networking group that one of my old coworkers recommended so hopefully it will help. It's geared up toward management so hopefully I'll get some leads soon.

Anyway, long list of ramblings but as I said I hope new year will be better than last one.

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-17T15:51:00.000-08:00

It's Holiday season once again and I just wanted to wish everyone to have a very happy and safe season this year! For those who celebrate Christmas - Have a very Merry Christmas! For my Jewish friends - Happy Hanukkah and enjoy your festival of lights! And of course I hope you all have great time with your families and friends.

Personally I'm looking forward to dinner time and christmas brunch - not because it has any religious meaning but because I'll have my sister here from LA and my boyfriend will have his family over for whom this is one of the biggest religious holidays. And I will make challah and latkas - not because my grandparents were jewish but because I like taste of latkas and challah makes wonderful french toast for brunch. In my family we've had four different religions and with my boyfriend's family it makes five and I choose not to follow any of them . Instead I take what I like best out of all of them and combine into my own traditions. I like christmas tree because it's pretty and we exchange presents but we don't open them until December 31 midnight hour. And we'll have roasted turkey and roast beef and I will have chocolate presents for my best friends' kid and my future SIL - because that's what you give to kids for Hanukkah to make holidays sweeter just like I'll be making tons of christmas cookies for my boyfriend. As I said it's all about combining the best parts of all religious and non-religious traditions for a whole new ballgame. New family = new traditions. The main part is that we'll be enjoying every moment of it this year and hope you will all do the same!

Snowed in!

2009-12-06T07:28:00.000-08:00

Isn't this pretty? It started snowing yesterday around 10am and didn't stop until this morning. I took couple of pictures both yesterday and today and wanted to share them. This one is from the second floor balcony shot at 2pm yesterday with about 1.5 inch of snow on the railing.

Then this morning the same angle of the shot with a bit more snow.

And some shots of the house all snowed in too. This is the front of the house all white and pretty.

And the back porch with our wood supply buried in snow. Definitely making a snowman today!

Hello ER

2009-12-04T10:28:00.000-08:00

Edit: added a picture on the bottom of the post.

I know I haven't been sharing much lately for many reasons - new home, stuff to do to settle down, depression etc. But I did want to share one somewhat eventful evening. The night from this Wed to Thursday is one night I really wish I could erase from my memory. It was slow and boring day with your normal chores of laundry and dinner and cleaning. I was pretty tired and was going to try to get some sleep earlier than usual so it was just coming up on 10pm when I finished folding laundry and turned on shower to run off cold water (it takes couple of minutes to warm up) and went downstairs to feed my furbabies. It's a routine for me - always feed my cats before going to bed. My DF was already in bed tired from long day and was half asleep. So I opened the door to go down and made one mistake - I didn't look down. My cat Midnight has a habit of sitting by the door just in off-chance that one of us will come out and he'll sneak in upstairs to cuddle with us. I know that habit. I should have expected him there but I guess I was too tired and didn't see him. So I stepped on his tail. Which happened to be right on the edge of the staircase. I slipped of course as he yanked it out from under me and we both tumbled down the stairs. Unfortunately I landed on my poor baby who was already freaked out from the fall. He got pined under me and clawed his way out - by using my back, arm and ear as a support. Of course I hurt my back in the fall so oblivious to his scratches I was howling like mad from pain in my back. My screams brought DF out of the bed and down the stairs to see what happened and why I was screaming. He found me on the floor by the stairs, my head covered in blood (and so was my shoulder and neck) and freaked out. He thought I hit my head because he didn't see Midnight who lacerated me so he immediately dialed 911. So as I hear him telling dispatcher that he found me on the floor covered in blood all I could think is that I had to stop him. I knew my insurance doesn't cover ambulances or hospitals so I kept telling him "i'm ok, cancel the call" over and over again. I didn't see the blood that was gushing from my ear and didn't see how I looked - I only thought that it was my back so I kept telling him that "I'm ok, I didn't hit my spine and they don't have to come". I thought I was ok. Well they came in anyway. Apparently once you dial 911 they have to investigate. I've never had a police and paramedic arrive so quickly. Once they were there they figured that it was not my head - it was my ear that was bleeding like no tomorrow. Midnight tore it up when he clawed his way out so it was gushing everywhere and because I turned my head to another side I ended up with blood covering my entire head, my hair and clothes. No wonder DF freaked out when he saw me. They checked me for broken bones, I told them I didn't hit my head but I was in considerable pain in my back and couldn't stop crying. They let me go to the bathroom to wash up some of the blood off (my ear was prompted with an icepack to stop the bleeding). Boy did that look awful. But nothing paper towels and soap didn't take out. Except hair - I couldn't wash it so I pinned it up for now. I changed from jeans to comfy sweats (they were blood stained) and then came out. Paramedics kept asking me to take to the hospital but once again fear of their bill had me refuse the ride. So I signed their refusal form (apparently required) and DF drove me to ER himself. It's probably the cleanest ER I've seen. No people waiting. We got immediate attention. They checked my vitals and then turned me in to a doctor to stitch me up. 8 stitches for one small ear. Unreal. He also glued some of the superficial cuts on my face and arm and back. And I learned that I'm immune to a local anesthetic. Because he gave me plenty of shots to numb the area but it only worked for couple of minutes and I started feeling him pocking my ear after 3rd stitch. That part was not fun. It hurt. Thankfully they gave me Percoset right away so by the time he was done it started taking it's toll and I was ready to sleep. They also gave me some kind of a shot from scratches (apparently required when animal is involved) and some antibiotics. So armed with two prescriptions - Percoset and antibiotic - we went home. At 1am. It took a while for DF to calm down, then for me to find Midnight to make sure my baby was ok (he scooted under the couch and wouldn't come out when paramedics were there) and only then I went to bed. Yesterday was not very fun because antibiotics making me very queasy and nauseous but today I'm definitely better. I didn't take painkillers this morning because while it hurts it's still tolerable so no need for extra drugs. I do need to go to the doctor tomorrow to check on my stitches as it's a little too red and swollen and then back to ER to remove them in 7 days. I was very happy to take shower again this morning and finally wash up blood from my hair - I was not allowed to shower for first 24 hrs so that made me feel human again. I don't even want to think what my ER bill will be when I comes but for now I'm glad they were there. Hopefully I won't need them again any time soon.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

2009-11-26T11:26:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to stop by and wish everyone to have a very happy Thanksgiving weekend. Hope those who celebrate have a good "turkey" day with all the trimmings and those who are on the hunt for good deals - happy hounding on Black Friday. Sadly this year's turkey day for us has been postponed until Saturday as half of our guests are sick with flu. Hope they'll recover enough to be here on Saturday. Otherwise we'll be stuck with 19 lbs bird and tons of trimmings. I'm planing to cook for 8 people so if they don't show up we'll be eating leftovers all next week.

And once again this year no shopping for me on Black Friday or any other sales for that matter. Being still unemployed doesn't allow me much room for other than food and necessities so I'll have to skip all the deals, even though I would have dearly loved to renew my wardrobe or at least buy couple of nice pieces for the holidays. And as some of you might already have heard our bright congress passed a new "extension" for unemployment but forgot to fix the loophole that cancels it out - all extensions expire on December 31st so even if they allowed 14 more weeks we won't be getting that help after all. Oh well. I guess I'm grateful that it lasted as long as it did already but with no prospect of job the outlook for my future is very grim. But I'm keeping my chin up and hope for a miracle anyway. Things happen for a reason and I guess one of them was to get me back to "earth" and downsize and live on only basics once again like we did in Ukraine. Back to old roots sort of. So far I'm still covering all my credit card payments and can buy my food and pay 50% of our mortgage (with the help from my sister of course) so while things are not great they could be worse and I just keep saying it's not the end of the world. I'll be ok.

New house = new set of expenses

2009-11-02T07:42:00.000-08:00

OY. That's probably best way to sum-up what I feel when I take a look at our new budget. I had no idea that having a house will be so expensive. Oh I definitely knew there would be higher bill for heating, electricity but it's everything else that we "need" right away. Ok, so some of it was really not a "need" but my DF went ahead and got some things anyway. Like a riding lawnmower and a snow blower and leaf blower.. and ok, some toys for my garden like rake and shovel and fencing materials and yet-to-be-bought wood for my garden boxes. At least I keep saying that they are one-time things and hopefully they'll last long time. And I know we didn't have to spend $$$$ on riding lawn mower - we could have taken cheap push type but with almost a full acre of property it takes him 1.5 hr riding it so with pushing kind it would probably be full day job and neither one of us wanted that. And a leaf blower he got after watching me rake back yard all day to the point that I couldn't lift my arms the next morning just to wake up and see it all covered again with leaves. As for the snow blower it's a toss-up. We hope there won't be any large snow storms this year but at the same time if it come - who wants to spend hours shoveling their driveway so they can get out? Hopefully it will turn out to be a good choice.

But there are also other expenses that I didn't count or didn't think right. There is no more "call your maintenance" when something needs to be fixed - we are the maintenance. Thankfully my DF can do most of the things himself at the house. But it still incoming expense for every little bolt and screw etc. Rusted leaky mailbox - had to buy it and replace old one ourselves so now mail is dry and secure. Part of the porch support gave out - had to get some wood to replace it. Got a fireplace and stocked up on wood but chimney needs to be cleaned as it wasn't used for a long time so need to be sure before using it again. And don't start me on the heating bill.. This is really one time when I seriously miss my 1bedroom apartment. I didn't have to pay for heat - that was part of the complex. And my old $4 electric bills? Forget about it! All appliances here are electric, he likes his PC to be up all the time, he wants to watch his TV when he's at home (don't start on what cable package costs here - he wanted it he gets to pay for it) and so on.

And can someone tell me why are we paying these huge taxes when we get absolutely NO service from the town? I mean if you pay over $9000 in taxes a year you'd expect something in return, right? Like maybe garbage being picked up, or recycling taken out once in couple weeks. Or maybe a local hospital so if we have emergency we can go there. Nope, we get NONE of it. We had to hire our own company to pick up trash and have to drive to the recylcing center to drop off what we want to recycle. Our nearest hospital is 45 minutes away. So much for emergency services. We're paying insane amount for nothing. I guess it's the "privilege" of living here. And we're paying for someone else's kids to go to school and have their sports games on the weekends that clog up roads for "fund raisers" so they can have school dance in the meanwhile. I know they say "it takes a village to raise a kid" but seriously this part of the village is sick of raising someone else's kids. If you choose to have one - then you pay for all their expenses including school and games.

I know it's just frustration in me talking right now and hopefully after everything settles in I'll start to relax a bit more. And it adds up to the frustration that I know I should be able to afford all these bills on my own and not think twice and yet I'm barely able to contribute 1/2 of the bills. I guess I should be thankful that my DF is better set with stable job that covers it all but somehow it's not really helping. I've been independent too long to depend on someone else now. Now I just need to be patient.

No more CVS trips

2009-10-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Or to be more precise no more going down the street anytime I want something from CVS. In the new area where we moved the closest CVS is 35 min away. Not a trip I'd take likely to pick up a $1.99 freebie. Their sales would have to be spectacular for me to get up and drive all the way to CVS. Otherwise it just doesn't make sense when you calculate mileage/gas and time it takes for each trip. Unfortunately there is no Walgreens in this area either. There is however RiteAid but I don't really follow their sales so it's not much help. Maybe later I'll be more attentive to what they have but their sale system leaves alot to be desired. It's not like CVS or Walgreens where you can get rebates in your hands in form of ECB's or RR right away. Maybe it's a good thing because I really needed to re-evaluate what I'm getting and where. For now ShopRite is my nearest store. And I really hope they'll have good holiday sales soon because I'm running on empty here and don't want to keep buying things at their full price.

Experiment Update

2009-10-16T18:09:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to post an updated picture of my experiment with Maitake.

As you can see it's definitely getting bigger and it looks like I'll have at least 3 separate entities when it's fully grown. The ridges are more pronounced and I can't wait to see "leaves" when they start develop.

Snow in October? Seriously?

2009-10-15T15:11:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of days I've been trying to break ground on my new garden area. Today my future SIL came over to help out. We expected some rain today and cold temperatures but it didn't stop her. I think it was just an excuse to get away from twins for half a day :o) but what we didn't expect was to work half a day in the middle of a snow storm. It started in the morning and didn't let up all day.

And as you can see it actually started to stick to the ground. Which would have been just fine if it was Nov/December. But in OCTOBER? Seriously??

Experiment

2009-10-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

I've decided to run an experiment in my home - trying to grow Maitake in the kitchen instead of searching for them in the woods. First, because NJ changed laws recently, I no longer can just go and pick mushrooms from the woods. You have to have a permit to do so and you can only get it if you can show that it's for a research or something like that. "it's my dinner" no longer works as an explanation. So the alternative was to create a patch that will grow at home. I got two different types. One is Maitake and another is Morells. While I can start first one right away, the other one will have to wait until spring time. For now Morel patch is sitting in my fridge. But the Maitake has already started growing. As you can see there are several growing "balls" the size of a golf ball that formed on the patch. I will keep taking pictures of each stage so we can see how it progresses. And at the end it will be dinner of course :o)

Grocery shopping nightmare

2009-10-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

Well it's been few weeks since we've moved into a new place and we started doing things together like "proper" couples do - taking care of the things in the house, chores and shopping for groceries. That's where unforeseen disaster-in-waiting got me floored. One time was enough for me to learn that I will not go food shopping with my DF from now on. We can go to Lowes and Home Depot and he can pick up whatever he wants from there as it's mostly his toys but no more food shopping with him. Even with Lowes he doesn't care if the item is on sale, if there are coupons for the store and whatnot. He just plunged obscene amount for a riding lawn mower and about to do the same for a snow blower. But I'm going to keep my mouth shut on these two items because he keeps saying it's "one time investment". OK. His money to squander. I would not have wasted couple of thousand dollars on such things but I guess I'm not a guy so I don't "understand" such things.

But when it comes to groceries I do know how to shop. And as I normally would have done before we went shopping I made my list of things I needed, cross checked them against sales and coupons and added few items that were on sale like pasta and potatoes that were not on the list originally; and off we went to the store. About an hour later we emerged from the store with me shaking to pieces and completely dazzled on what the hell happened there. Oh we got things from my list like ground beef, greens, eggs, milk, veggies, some fruit, apple juice, water (our well is still stinks of chlorine after treatment and i refuse to drink water with chlorine inside so we buy water to drink instead). I even included some Alexia chips that I knew he liked and some cookies that were listed on sale. But it didn't stop there. He watched as I got what I thought was needed and then took over the cart. We went back through the lanes and I just watched with horror as he piled up cart. Seafood department - fresh shrimp that he wanted, and never mind that they're 8.99lb and I could have picked up a bag of frozen shrimp for half the price just a week before had he said anything about it. Chicken breast at 4.99lb - nope, he doesn't want split breast that we can get for 1.99lb because it has skin and bone in it and he wants this particular type. Cascadian Farm cereal - he doesn't like the type that I got last time so he'll buy it today without waiting for sale (we had 4 boxes at home but they didn't have fruit and nuts in them). Bottle of Scope - he didn't like that other stuff that I have in the bathroom (Listerine) so he's picking it up NOW. Can he wait until sales or at least until I get a coupon over the weekend as I knew it was going to come up? Nope. Full price it is because "we're already here so let's get it". The list goes on and on. There was chips, dips, snacks and soda and none of them on sale of course. He just kept grabbing things that he saw and liked and wanted to get them right away. At least when he was reaching for couscous I stoped him and got large jar of it from RiceSelect that I had a $3 coupon for - it's organic but you get 10 times as much of it as you'd get from one small package of NearEast and I can make my own sauce to flavor it. Maybe it's me being without money for over a year that forces me to count every penny on what I spend; or maybe it's his "i make enough so we can buy whatever we want now" attitude; but regardless which side you look at this has got to change. Next shopping trip I'm doing tomorrow I'm going during the day and doing it by myself. I can't watch him squander several hundred dollars on crap like that. Yes, I like shrimp and chicken too, but I can wait until it's on sale and stock up on it. I simply can't watch him pay full price for things that I know will be on sale at one time or another. When there was a large sale for soda before Labor day we could have stocked up. He said he wanted to stop drinking it so no need to buy it. Guess what he does now? Buys the same soda for 4.99 a case. Insane.

Got old Oak Parks?

2009-09-30T04:14:00.000-07:00

I just had to share this picture with you guys. If you have very old oak (the older the better) parks in your area, take a walk around them and look under the trees for these tasty hens. They are called "hen of the woods", Grifola Frondoza if you want to use Latin name or if you want to go Japanese then it's Maitake.

No matter what name you use it's one very tasty, hearty and very good for you mushrooms. They can grow pretty large (some up to 50LBS in size) and if you can find them then you can stock up on "meat" for entire winter. They freeze very well, go great in sautees, soups and stews and have great benefits. Right now they're even being studied as anti-cancer fighting machines. So go look for them because they'll be here for couple of more weeks and they'll be gone afterwards. They come out on the same spot each year after first cold night in early fall and last until end of October. And if you're lucky, you'd end up like this guy with a trunk full of good edibles.

If you're too afraid and not sure if it's worth it - go to any expensive (yes, expensive because to buy Maitake on the market is not cheap) Asian restaurant and try their dishes.

Apple picking

2009-09-27T11:41:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we took a morning off for some rest and decided to go pick apples. Since it's now only few minutes away from where we live it was a nice and quick trip. Unfortunately it was also very quick when it comes to being in the orchard. We went early so there were no crowds but it took us only few minutes to fill the bags. I was hopping to stay there a bit longer because I love being in the orchard. I'm used to picking apples and we always go later in a season for late-fall variety but this time we went and got Cortlands for apple pies, Golden Delicious for eating, Gala and Jonagold. And this year apples are HUGE! Especially Golden Delicious. Just for kicks, here is a picture of an apple that was bough in a store - typical average sized apple.

And here is the same apple next to the one from orchard - Golden Delicious. That one is the size of a small baby's head! For another comparison we weighted them in. Store bought was .4lb while from orchard was 1.4lb. And this is one of many that we got. They've been pretty uniform when it comes to size.

We'll be keeping them in crates on the enclosed porch for winter and they should last at least few months. And they taste FANTASTIC!

We're moving!

2009-09-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

It's been insane busy here for the past few days. We've closed on the new house, got our new keys and spent that very first night sleeping on the floor in the new house :o) Can you say "exciting!" ? I also unloaded my minivan - removed two rows of seats and lined floor with tarp and been transporting lots of my stuff in it to the new place. We'll have to hire someone to move my heavy furniture like dining room set (heavy oak table and china cabinet) and the bedroom set. I don't want my DF or his brother killing themselves over this. But all the light stuff I can do on my own. Half of the books already packed, and so is most of my clothes and bath stuff. Couch was taken apart and is in the van right now. I've been using those reusable shopping bags to transfer stuff. It's just perfect size for me to carry and being able to sling on shoulders helps with the weight transfer. Very few boxes are being used and I didn't buy one single box - they all came from my local CVS store. They were happy to give them to me.

And I already started unpacking some of his kitchen stuff at the new place. All surfaces are cleaned now, shelves lined with grip liner and pantry started up. It's going to be quite busy here for a while but what a way to spend a day!

Another expense

2009-09-12T22:05:00.000-07:00

As much as I hoped to avoid it, this just had to happen. I really didn't want to spend over $100 on something completely unplanned but here it is anyway. Today I finally cave in and went to the doctor. I mean, it's been 9 days since I got the flu and while the fever finally went away I can't seem to shake the coughs or chest congestion. Oxygen level became a serious issue after one particular fit when I apparently turned blue and freaked my DF once again. So he drove me this morning to the doctor. She listened to my lungs, checked my vitals and asked about last few days. She said that I should have come in on the first two days of being sick. She also was worried about my pressure being high - 99/145. When I told her that today was one of my "good" days she asked me why I was not in the hospital and if I really had a death wish. She didn't go as far as telling me it's pneumonia - only acute bronchitis for now, but said that I was close to it and if I don't start feeling better in next 3 days after very heavy antibiotics I should check in and get better treatment since she's not specializing in pulmonary (she's general practice) she doesn't want to take any further risk in misdiagnosing my case. She also gave me inhaler to help with attacks in a short run. Well let's hope that the antibiotic will kick in fast and furious and that I'll be just fine in the next 3 days :o)

Moving To-Do list

2009-09-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

We're closing in 5 days on the new place - next Wednesday actually, so I'm starting up a list of things that will need to be done in both current place and new place. This is very exciting and scary at the same time.

Current place:
1. Start packing books, clothes, toileries and china that don't get used very often.
2. Go through all papers and shred all sensitive stuff that won't be moved.
3. Prepare all papers from the complex management and review lease agreement on what they expect at the closure.
4. Cancel all utilities.
5. Go through all stuff that was brought over by my sister and see if anything can be used or tossed so we don't transfer needless crap.
6. List all items that we don't want on freecycle - includes books and clothes that I can't fit into anymore.
7. Move my stuff over to the new place - this will be slow process because we'll be moving ourselves for the most part. Only will hire movers for heavy dining room set (solid oak) because it requires at least 4 very strong people to do this.
8. Clean up the place after the move to minimize damage to my security deposit.
9. Return all keys and do a walk through.

New place:
1. Clean every surface of the house - kitchens, bathrooms, floors etc.
2. Rip off wall paper from dining room and prep for painting.
3. Pick paint colors for all bedrooms and dining room (livingroom, den, media room and family room don't need to be painted).
4. Paint everything before end of Sept (there is a reason for this deadline)
5. Move DF's stuff over from the storage
6. Line up kitchen shelves and pantry as well as bathroom shelves and drawers
7. Start arranging furniture and kitchen supplies.
8. Start moving my stuff over to the new place.
9. Start preparing garden area for next year
---a. Allocate and dig up 2 feet of soil
---b. Line up bottom with chicken wire and connect to the fence from groundhogs
---c. Replace top soil with added compost and sand and nutrients for next year's beds
---d. Build 4 square beds with walks in between
---e. Plant winter crops.
10. Decorate the house using both my and DF's pictures and things, mixing them in to make it comfy and cozy.
11. Prepare house for DF's birthday and housewarming gathering in the second weekend of October.
12. Resume hounding for groceries and restock my pantry (it's pitiful right now).
13. Find a chest freezer, a dehydrator and a composter (freecycle and craigslist)
14. Set up utilities (oil, electric and cable) - DF will be taking care of this himself but it's on the list just in case.
15. Visit local farms and stock up on local organic produce that can last all winter - onions, potatoes, squashes, apples and set them up in crates on the enclosed veranda for winter.
16. Breathe and enjoy the new place ;o)

Remember

2009-09-11T11:40:00.001-07:00

Remember those innocent souls who went to work on a bright summer day never to come home.. who died in senseless act of terrorism...

Remember those who killed as a reminder that evil is always lurking around just waiting for a chance to strike. There is no point of reasoning with evil as it's ultimate goal is death and destruction no matter what cover-up story it chooses to use for its goal.

But always remember those who serve every day to protect us so we can sleep at peace every night.

Oysters galore

2009-09-10T16:41:00.000-07:00

Everyone buys Oyster Mushrooms in their stores when they're in season, but did anyone wonder how they grow? Here is a picture of one log that I stumbled on yesterday on my short walk in park - it's covered with oysters. Because of the last year's ice storm, many trees were destroyed and area is covered with logs such as this one and they're prime breeding ground for mushrooms. Of course I picked them, cleaned, sauteed and froze them for winter meals. I don't think I can convince my DF to eat them any time soon so vacuum packed they get and off to the freezer. I definitely need a bigger freezer now.

Pro/Cons of being sick

2009-09-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

It's 12:37am and I'm sitting in my chair wide awake. Completely exhausted from very long day but because of constant coughing I can't seem to fall asleep. So being bored since everyone else are snoozing I've decided to make a list of side effects and benefits of being sick.

Pros:
1. - Lost 5 lbs in 4 days - this one is definitely a benefit for me since it took me a year to loose 7 lbs last year and it all came back in less than a month afterwards. I'm not going to complain about this one for sure (though wish it was easier on the body).
2. - no food cravings of any kind - I guess this helped #1 but it's really great not to crave sweets or spicy foods in the middle of the night.
3. - staying in bed and reading as much as you want - not sure if it's really a benefit but since I'm in bed or my chair most of the day I guess it will have to do.
4. - DF is being forced to be more self-sufficient. Somewhat a benefit since I can't really get up to do much around the house; so when he wants something he now gets it himself.
5. - Relative quiet - it's actually part of the bad side effect of the flu but right now I can't hear on my left ear and my right one is constantly buzzing so much of a neighbor's noise is being canceled out.

Cons:
1. - Up and down with fever leaves me completely exhausted. One minute I'm cold and bundling up in heavy blankets and then I'm sweating and being forced to take yet another shower to wash it all off.
2. - Raking cough that leaves me breathless. This one is very hard on lungs and for me it's been really tough. Lungs feel like they've been set on fire and someone forgot to hand me an extinguisher. Nothing seems to make it less painful.
3. - Very dizzy and feel like my room is constantly spinning. Probably a side effect and partly related to hearing loss.
4. - Half deaf - Hope it's only temporary and it will go away once the fever abates. This one hit me after especially bad fever hour.
5. - Forcing myself to drink lots of chicken soup that supposed to help me heal makes me nauseous instead. I think I'll start hating chicken soup soon instead.
6. - House looks like a tornado hit it - I just don't have strength to clean right now and my DF is not very helpful either.
7. - DF is also sick and turned into a 2 yrs old cranky pants. I've been doing my best to ignore him at this point, because if I don't we might not get to the wedding after all.
8. - Being confined to a bed or a chair most of the time. It's great that I can read but I really wish I had more energy to at least walk a bit in the park to get fresh air.
9. - No appetite for food. Everything taste bitter in the past few days.
10. - Hair loss - this one is weird but somehow not surprised since every time I got sick in the past my hair would start falling out. I just hope it regrows afterwards.
11. - Spoiled 4 day holiday weekend that was supposed to be fun and was gorgeous weather. Darn! I was really looking forward to a good BBQ in the park.
12 - days turned intolerably long and nights even longer.

Well I guess there are definitely more cons than pro's so in a long run I hope it will be all over soon.

Sick with Flu

2009-09-05T17:49:00.000-07:00

For the past few days I've been out in bed with the flu. Eventhough it's early for the season and it's warm and gorgeous week we managed to get sick. Or rather my DF got sick on Monday first, stayed in bed on Tue with fewer, went to work on Wed for some kind of award ceremony about his invention; and then laid out in bed Thu through today. It didn't hit me full blast until Thursday. First night wasn't too bad - just stuffed up head and runny nose and chills from fewer. Yesterday was much worse, to the point that I freaked my DF out of his wits. I couldn't talk, walk and was not coherent and was gasping for breath. I thought I was going to pass out and end up in ER. Thankfully it passed and after a miserable night in sweats and chills and raking coughs I managed to get up this morning to take a shower and felt slightly more human again. I did have to remind my DF that ER or visit to a doctor is not realistic right now considering that my insurance doesn't cover them and I can't pay out of pocked for such expenses. I also did remind him that when I asked him to elope so he can put me on his insurance he didn't want to do that. Well he's re-thinking that option over after last night's fright. But I'm better tonight, can't really talk but at least I was able to clean up kitchen after two days of using dishes and not washing up; and made more chicken soup. We've been sipping it every day and it really helps when you're out with chills from fewer. Since DF is starting to feel better I'm looking forward to the recovery as well. He's only couple of days ahead of me so by Monday I should be much better.