Start of a new week

I managed to wake up at my normal time this morning. But, I'm not feeling in the working mood yet. My sis won't be working for me today, since it's Canadian Thanksgiving. That's good - I'm not feeling in the mood to train or answer questions, LOL. I can just muddle along today with emails and work on some easy stuff, I guess. Hopefully it will just be a quiet work day.

I kind of wish our Thanksgiving was early, like Canada. Would make the time to get ready for Christmas longer and not having 2 major holidays back to back. Sis has her own turkeys they raise, so I'm sure that's what they feasted on. She said a week or so ago they took all but 2 to the processing place. They decided to keep 2 as pets, LOL, as apparently they are quite entertaining.

Yesterday was just a relaxing, be lazy day, pretty much. We did try the carne asada for dinner. I've never had it a mexican restaurant, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I thought it was pretty good. DH said it was ok, but nothing like he's had at restaurants (a couple, in particular, and not around here, haha). It was from Costco, so of course a big package. I separated the rest into 4 "meals" and wrapped in saran and then put those in a freezer bag, to freeze and use later. 

Amos agreed it was just a relaxing Sunday

Not much else new. Another nice sunny day on tap in the low 70's. DH said he heard possible snow in the valleys at the end of this week. If it is it won't be much or stick around. Still too warm.

I can't believe in 6 weeks we'll be decorating for Christmas already, again! This year has gone by so fast.

A broken day

Our trip to pick up groceries just seemed annoying, all around, LOL. About every other trip, after getting our order picked up at Walmart, we then stop quickly at another grocery store, where I pick up their frozen hamburger patties (I don't like Walmart's patties) and sometimes some frozen salmon. I know Costco has frozen patties, so I said to dh we can either stop at Costco for the patties or the other store. And grab whatever else we see. He opted to try Costco and we stopped there first. We got there at 5pm, they close at 6. Not any less crowded than any other time, sigh.

We found the hamburger patties, so I got 2 bags. That should last awhile. DH grabbed a few other frozen things to try. Some breakfast sandwiches, some battered frozen fish fillets, and we got some more of the mini tacos. I said no more - this stuff is all such large boxes, we'll use up all our (2) coolers space and have no room for our Walmart frozen/cold stuff. But, he wanted to look for some carne asada meat that a friend told him about, so we found that over in the meats section. I had also been wanting to find/try these "caramelized onion with white cheddar" chicken burger patties dd recommended, but last time I couldn't find them. I didn't realize there was another frozen section of stuff over by the meats and that's where I found them. I also remembered to bring my $25 Costco gift card I had received for my glasses taking so long, months ago.

So, we ended up spending twice as much time (and money!) at Costco as planned. We get to Walmart around 5:40 with only one other car in the waiting area and they got taken care of just as we arrived. Then we sat there, for like 10 minutes before anyone came out. Usually they are very quick. Two girls brought our stuff out and it just seem chaotic. Probably because there were 2 of them. We kind of have a system where I tell them to put the bins of cold stuff down on the ground at the tailgate and then I go to work putting the stuff in the cooler and cooler bags I have. Then they go over to the side and dh starts putting all the rest (which is most of the order) into the back seat (folded down) of the truck. Sometimes this all goes smoothly and fast. Other times it just seems chaotic - seems to depend on the Walmart employee, LOL. Usually there is just one that brings the stuff out.

And, since dh wanted that carne asada meat (not frozen) I of course didn't have the other stuff he wanted to make this meal - rice, refried beans and tortillas. I didn't want to go inside Walmart to get that stuff (it's too big and I'm not familiar enough where everything is). By then it's a little after 6pm and we are both getting hungry. We pulled into the other smaller grocery store and I ran in and grabbed those extra items needed, but still another 10 minutes. Finally we get over to Wendy's with a line around the restaurant. Slowest service ever there. Usually they have a very quick drive thru line. We were there like 25 minutes and it was 6:50 before we got our food and headed home. I think by then both of us had had enough of this trip, haha. That's why I don't like combining having to stop a bunch of places. After the almost hour drive each way, anything more than an hour in the city makes for a long trip.

Then going home this semi truck pulled over right in front of us on the freeway. So, of course dh had to complain about that for the next 5 miles. The only thing the evening had going for it was it was sunny, 75 degrees, and pretty fall colors for the drive :)

When we went and picked up our Walmart order 3 weeks ago, we were gone a total of a little over 2 hours - it was perfect, but we only stopped at Walmart and Wendys and getting our Walmart order out and loaded went really fast that time. It has seemed like going in on a Saturday, leaving our house at 4, was a good plan.

I guess I will be trying to figure out how to make him a carne asada meal for dinner tonight. Plus, it's a huge amount of meat, so I'm going to have to freeze the rest of it.

I think once dh is up this morning, I will make blueberrry muffins for breakfast. We haven't had those in awhile. I was going to just have him try one of  his new egg sandwiches he bought, but I'll wait and try that tomorrow morning, when it will save me time, because I'll have already started working by the time he gets up. 

For the first part of the day I got laundry done, dusted, and cleaned the bathroom and the shower floor. This time I just went back to using the long brush on a handle and some "Soft Soap" cleaner, like I used to use before I got the steam mop. Again, he complains about the smell "it's killing my sinus's". I said too bad - you complain if it's just steamed water. I have to clean it with something! If you don't like it, go out to your shop or open your den window. His excuse was that he took the screen off the window. Well, put it back on for the day. Geez. I've really had enough with his super sensitive smelling. 

Then, when I was dusting, I was picking up my "cowboy boot" cookie jar off the bar counter top corner and was setting it down on the kitchen counter and it slipped out of my hand and the lid fell off and broke into too many pieces to fix. That was a bummer. I have had that cookie jar for a very long time. My mom had gotten it for me on a trip down to Arizona, years ago. I think I might try to find one of Ebay. Or maybe I can re-purpose it - put some fake greenery in it or something. Do you remember the Reba tv series? In that show she had the same exact cookie jar sitting on her kitchen counter and it never had the lid - I guess I match that one now, LOL.

Another grounding sucess story

Oh! The (cruise) friend I had suggested she try the grounding mat for her pain issues - she updated me yesterday. She said her hip pain (she'd been dealing with it since before the cruise) was gone in 2 days and her arthritis pain in her lower back is getting better. She feels better and says they are sleeping better and she's not in constant pain anymore. Success!I'm trying to get my half sis to get one - she has a lot of back and hip pain, too. And she was going to order it last night but apparently Canada is the only country they don't ship to....weird. She found a Canadian website, for apparently the same products but twice the cost as US$ and no free item when ordering. I told her, knowing what I know now about how much it helps me, I'd gladly pay double what I originally paid for mine.

I slept in this morning. It's still been hard getting up at my normal time, but I figured it's Saturday and it won't kill me to sleep in an extra hour or so. I'd rather get up at my normal time, even on the weekends, as it give me some quiet time, with my cup of coffee (and my blog LOL) before dh is up and about. But at least, all day, I do feel like my normal energy level. It's just been hard to wake up.

It's very foggy out this morning, but supposed to be a sunny 70 degree day when it burns off. 

I had ordered a bp monitor and pulseoximeter from Amazon that arrived yesterday. DH is now wanting to monitor his blood pressure, ever since friend brought over hers and left it for a bit. Well, he didn't like the one I got, LOL. Her's has an arm cuff that the first part that goes over your arm is kind of stiff and I guess it's easy for him to put on himself and then finish wrapping to the velcro side. The one I ordered the arm cuff is all soft and loose and he said it's really hard for him to get it wrapped around by himself. So, I told him I'd return it and find the one online like friend has. I found it through Walmart (twice as much haha) and ordered it and printed out a return label for the Amazon one. It was going back UPS. We hardly even see the UPS guy anymore as almost all of our Amazon orders now ship through the USPS. But, I saw in my UPS delivery account, he was delivering to us on Tuesday with some lawn mower maintenance kit. I happened to go ahead and just put the return label and tape of the box right then. About 15 minutes later dh yells up to me, in my office, UPS just went down the street to deliver to neighbors, can you get that return ready real quick and I'll give it to him now? I said already done and gave it to him.

We are going in to the city later this afternoon, to pick up groceries. Around dinner time, like we did last time on a Saturday, and traffic on the busy road was less and overall seemed like a good time for us to go. We'll grab Wendys' for dinner when we are done to eat on the way home.  Going at this time, vs in the morning, dh doesn't have to get up early (for him) and I don't have to get up and start getting ready to go out as soon as I get up. We now have our whole day to do our normal stuff and will leave around 4pm to head to the city and instead of me spending from 4:30-5 or 5:30 getting dinner cooked and eaten, we spend it getting groceries and eating on the way home. Works for me ;)

On tap for today - cleaning house. I need to get our master bath shower floor cleaned. I want to use my steam mop, as it's so easy to clean it and I like how it sanitizes it (or at least I feel like it's much more, with the hot steam) but every time I use it dh complains there's a weird smell in the house. So, I guess I'll just do it the old/hard way - with soap and a scrub brush. Boo.

Sky view

I finally got to see the Aurora Borealis....because it's now getting dark before my bedtime, LOL. Got some neat pictures

DH went out on our back patio a little later to look and said he could hear a mountain lion nearby, so he came back in LOL.

We are still wondering what is going on with that 2nd 2 acre lot DAN supposedly sold at the same time he sold lot right next to us sold. Three months later the property is still showing DAN as the owner. The big for sale sign on the tree is still there, but there has never been a new listing put out for this lot. Bizarre. That lot was supposedly being purchased by the 80 year old guy.

We must have missed meeting the couple that bought the lot next to us. Their son had told us they were coming up to see it in September, so it must have happened one of the 2 weekends we were gone in Sept, for our cruise.

Yesterday some crew was out, putting what we think must be fiber optics cabling in the ground along the main road, out in the easement area. There have been little orange flags along the side of the road for what seems like years now, LOL. We were told that was to mark where fiber optics will go in some day. Not sure what else it could be, but the telephone companies website that has some info on where they are adding fiber optics right now/near future, says nothing about our area. It sure would be nice to have better internet one of these days. 

I am glad it's Friday. This has felt like a long week, for some reason.

I remembered

About halfway through the day yesterday I remember what I wanted to check on prices with Amazon Prime sale. A blood pressure monitor and a pulse oximeter. Then we can return the one's a friend lent us, and have on hand. I also had recently heard we could get more free Covid tests from the gov't, so I ordered those to have on hand, as well. When I went downstairs to grab some lunch I saw the BP monitor and pulseox on dh's desk and then it triggered my memory, LOL.

I had also checked on the Optase eye drops I use, the first day of Prime Days and it wasn't on sale. Then it showed in browser history and showed it was 20% off yesterday, so I also got 2 of those. That saved about $4 per bottle. I also ended up getting most of dd's Christmas presents from the Prime sale, haha. I got her a board game she had on her list, a puzzle and a cribbage board. I still need to get her a birthday present, but it's too soon to order/have delivered and the Christmas gifts I will just have come here to wrap and we'll likely see them Christmas. 

Starting around 7am yesterday morning neighbors dogs were barking and barking. Honestly, now that they only have 2 dogs instead of 3, the barking sounds just the same and just as annoying. Off and on all morning. What the heck! When dh went out to get our mail, down at the entrance to our street, he figured out why. There was some road construction (repainting the lines) going on and they had part of the road blocked off, with a pace truck, that was using our street to pull in and turn around each time, so hence the dogs going nuts constantly. Oh, and the workers are too stupid to stop the paint line a bit BEFORE they are crossing over to turn around, so now there's yellow paint going across the lane and into our street. Nice. Hopefully they are done using our street today. I haven't heard any barking yet and it's almost 8am.

I see that the computer I shipped back to Dell last Friday is finally arriving at their place in Texas today. Kind of annoying that it was shipped ground (and takes a whole week). Hopefully they fix it fast. I was told it would be sent back via overnight shipping. So far dh using my mom's old computer is working out ok, but of course being old, it's a bit slow. But, I'm glad I kept it, as a back up. Just never thought I'd be using it as a back up for a brand new computer. It's fairly compact to store, since the CPU is built into the monitor.

I want to get into Costco again soon. It's been quite awhile since we last went and I'd like to go and get stocked up on some stuff for the freezer and other stuff. I wish I was more familiar with what all foods they sell (and how much the quantity of it is). Like eggs....I'm sure they sell eggs, but how many do you have to buy? I don't want like 5 dozen LOL.

Prime Day and what am I forgetting?

I had a few items in my Amazon cart Monday evening, but hadn't ordered yet. Glad I didn't. I forgot about the Amazon Prime deals starting yesterday. DH wanted some DeWalt saw blades and by waiting 12 hours, I saved 44% on them! I was also going to order a can of chocolate protein powder to try (because the kind I tried and liked from Walmart apparently isn't being made now anymore) and it was like 22% off. Then I decided I'd better check on a few things I buy every so often and also saved on kitchen garbage bags, Miralax (amazon brand) and omeprazole.  Then last night I thought of a couple of other things to check the prices on and said I'll look them up in the morning. Now for the life of me I can't remember what they were.

I was messaging with my boss in the morning. She said it was raining there and I said it was nice and sunny and going to be 75 at my house. She said take the afternoon off - enjoy the nice day. So I did! First thing I did was take a short nap, haha. Then later in the afternoon I went into the small grocery store in town for a few things to tide us over. Milk, bread, lunch meat, etc. I was in shock that they had some donuts left at that time of day. They might typically have a few, but never maple bars and they had 2 maple bars and several other kinds. These donuts are always so fresh and delicious. I got dh a maple bar and myself a glazed. I also picked up some chicken and waffle fries from their deli and that's what we had for dinner. With donuts for dessert. I haven't gotten anything from the deli in quite awhile and we always get the baked chicken instead of the fried. But this time the only baked chicken they had was smothered in bbq sauce, so I had to go with the fried.

I forgot about Monday being a bank/federal holiday, so I guess I have to do payroll today and not tomorrow, as I thought. Good thing our payroll company sends me an email reminder of when payroll is due, LOL. We have a new hourly employee who started like 3 weeks ago. When I did last payroll they hadn't clocked in with our timecard system. My boss said she talked to him about it last payroll. I just realized he still is not clocking in. What the heck?! LOL. It's not that hard to do/figure out.

work, dinner and tv show

I got caught up in a work project at the end of the day yesterday and suddenly realized it was 4:50 LOL. I never work past 4:30 haha. 

I hadn't planned anything ahead of time for dinner, so I ended up just making us breakfast for dinner - fried eggs (fried in olive oil) and wheat bread toast. We've been skipping the bacon or sausage due to dh's gallbladder, or lack thereof. 

 I do have ice cream in the freezer and dh will have that in the evenings sometimes. I now have no desire for it. As long as I have my yogurt/pudding dessert, I am happy and satisfied.

I had a super annoying dream last night. I was at Costco and trying to do a big shopping trip. DH was with me and he took a cart to get stuff on his own. It seemed in my dream the place was 3x the size it really is and alot of it seemed to be outside, almost like walking down streets. I just could not seem to get anywhere or find anything. I also had like a 3 year old boy with me, so that was slowing me down. I started wondering/stressing where dh was and that he was going to be annoyed it was taking me so long. I even woke up a couple of times and when I fell back asleep I carried right on with the annoying dream. Finally, hours later, (I was exhausted) I had to go check out (but I still didn't find the frozen stuff) and it was dark. I didn't know where dh was and I was trying to call him, but for some reason my phone was missing the call feature. LOL. Then I finally woke up and the stupid dream ended.

Anyone remember the old tv show from the 60's "Family Affair"? I started watching it on Amazon Prime. That was a cute, sweet show. When I'm done watching that, I'll have to find some other old shows to watch. So much better than most of the tv shows on today.

I can't seem to stop coughing this morning, since I've gotten up. DH is starting to feel better, but still feels like I do. I'm beginning to forget what it's like to NOT cough :/

Last week dh mentioned chocolate chip cookies sounded good (I haven't baked anything in months) so after work (I think it was last Monday or Tuesday) I had the ingredients so I made up some cookies. I realized I have missed baking every so often, especially on the weekends. Whether it be cake, cookies or pie. I don't want the sugar at all, but I do miss baking every so often. Last time I made banana bread I tried using the monkfruit instead of sugar, but didn't really like the results.

Do you have any good low/no sugar dessert recipes?