Working on Wednesday

Lots of nice rain yesterday. But, I see the forecast has us back up near 100 in a couple of days. Ugh. We've made it through day two of the invasion next door, LOL. No clue how many more days. I'm guessing somewhere between 12 and 28, haha. I'm hoping now that the twins are another year older (I think they will be 5 in October) there will be less screaming as a way of communicating. At least they brought no barking dog with them this time. That's a huge factor in all this every summer.

I used to eat Activia vanilla flavored yogurt quite often. Usually for lunch. But when I decided to cut down on sugar, I stopped buying it. I've tried plain yogurt, but no can do. I recently came across a recipe that uses plain greek yogurt, milk and sugar free pudding mix for flavor. Oh yes! this is awesome. I bought a container of Fage plain greek yogurt, (no added sugar) and I add in 1 cup of that, a cup of milk (I use Fairlife, which has half the sugar and twice the protein of regular milk) and a package of sugar free instant pudding mix. I tried cheesecake pudding mix first. So yummy! It's great for breakfast, lunch or snack. Tastes like a nice dessert treat. It gives me about 4 servings and some added no sugar cool whip is nice, too. Last night I made up some with banana cream pie pudding mix. It's good, too, but I'm liking the cheesecake best, so far. My other flavor I bought is chocolate pudding mix. Next time I'll get more cheesecake and also try vanilla. This way I get the benefits of yogurt again, in my diet, but without any added sugar. And instead of a bowl of ice cream (with chocolate syrup, of course) in the evening, I can have a bowl of this.

Not much else going on. As soon as dh is done mowing the lawn this morning and gets a quick shower, we're going to run into town to get his blood test done at the hospital lab. He wants me to go, because every year he goes into have this blood test done (PSA) and we check in at the desk, they say "oh, we don't have your info in our system, for some reason" and have to enter it all again, answer questions, put in insurance info, etc. He hates dealing with that stuff - immediately stresses him out. Hopefully this time it will just be matter of handing his insurance card and then he's checked in and they are usually quick to get him back for the blood draw. We shouldn't be gone too long.  Hoping his PSA level in low(ish) like last time.

Tuesday this and that

I had ordered some chocolate flavored protein powder that you mix with milk (or water) from Walmart that arrived yesterday, so I tried it out for breakfast this morning. I kept stirring and stirring and it sure wouldn't mix up very well. It really needed to be shaken or in a blender, I guess. I then remembered I had this "shake bottle" I had gotten with something else ordered awhile back, so I poured it in that and gave it a good shake and that worked to get the powder all dissolved and it tastes ok. Chocolately flavor, but not quite as sweet tasting as the Carnation, but that's ok. WAY less sugar (only 2 grams) and much more protein so this will be a good substitute for the Carnation instant breakfast, when I run out. Even if I can still find the Carnation (after I run out of what I just ordered last week) I'm going to switch to this, just because it's healthier. DD then sent me a link to a cheap little milk frother wand, so I'm going to add that to my Amazon cart.

In other Walmart news I got a notification in the mail that Walmart is discontinuing it's 5% cash back credit card. That is really a bummer. Apparently I will be sent a Capital One Quicksilver card as a replacement that only earns 1.5% cash back. I average over $300 a year cash back with the 5% and now that will only be about $90/yr.

DH was going to go into the lab at the hospital for the PSA blood test he needs done for his upcoming dr appt next Monday. I decided to call in first to make sure his dr office called in the order for the test. Nope, they didn't have it. So, then I had to call his dr office and leave a message. About 45 min later a nurse called me back and said she did fax it in way back when I made the appt, but she just did it again and it shows the fax went through. We're just going to wait until tomorrow to have him go in, now. But, I think I'll call back a little later today to make sure they got the order/fax. 

We've been getting some rain this morning and only 65 degrees today. Much nicer outside, that's for sure.

I can't believe it's already the end of July tomorrow.  We are less than 6 weeks away from our cruise!

Back to a Friday update

Friday morning my boss and I were basically watching our assistant guy in "live action". Maybe my boss is now convinced to fire him? My guess the past week or two, that I started paying attention, is that he clocks in at 7am (he's supposed to work 7-noon M-F) but doesn't start any work until around 10am, and then does very little. This past Wednesday morning I purposely messaged him about something, just to see how long it would take him to reply and if it would nudge him into work mode (it did not). He wasn't able to work Thursday (he's typically only been working 3-4 days a week). Yesterday right after he clocked in at 7am I messaged him a question. It took him about 10 minutes to reply and then no work. 

I guess my boss had been watching our order entry system. as well, to see if any of his work was showing up (he is tasked with adding invoices) and by 9am still nothing. She sent him a message, with me included, asking him what he's working on this morning, as we aren't seeing any invoices have been added.....he replied back about 10 min later that he was working on such and such mfg report. I'm sitting there with my mouth open....then where are the invoices you entered the past 2 hours? is what I wanted to say. Before my boss could reply anything he backtracked a bit to cover his butt and said he lost track of where he left off of on this report on Wednesday, so he's just been going thru the report list, invoice by invoice to see where he left off.....seriously? Boss messages me privately like seriously? I said to her he could figure out in like 5 minutes where he left off! Take a guess at how far you remember getting to on Wednesday, enter that invoice# to see if it's in the system, if not go back a little farther till you find one that is in there and you could search those invoice #'s in a matter of minutes, to find where you left off - NOT 2 hours.

My boss replied back to him that if he stops mid report between days, he just needs to mark where he left off. His reply was he didn't know if he could edit the report? (ok, how about a piece of paper next to your laptop and jot down the invoice you left off on?) I couldn't take it anymore and nicely as possible told him 2 different ways to search his invoices and even a screen shot that showed all his invoices entered on Wednesday and he could see where he left off. Boss said that was perfect. And you'd think that would make him realize that we can see what's he's entered??

So, for the next 16 minutes he got really busy and added about 23 invoices. Then nothing. He stopped working again, LOL. Boss said she was watching the invoices added time stamps, as well, and asked me if those were accurate times? I said yes, and added an invoice from a different report, just as a test, and showed her it was the current time. She said she plans to deal with him next week. I'm hoping that now that we have my sis to start working, this will give her the push she needs to fire his lazy ass. He clocked out at noon after his 5 hours and that's literally all he did - was work from 9:04 to 9:22. Insane. My boss told me she was also calling our IT group to see if they had any way of seeing his work history/keystrokes for today. (I doubt they will because she's told me before, we don't track stuff like that). It sounds like she just wants to extra proof (not that she really needs it).

Later that afternoon, I went back and figured out what he worked on for the past 2 weeks. He worked two 5 hour days the prior week, and four 5 hour days this last week. For 30 hours paid, he did about 5 hours of work (and that's being generous). I sent this in an email to my boss with detail on what he did each day. One of the days in the week prior to last, he added one payment posted, that was for one invoice. He clocked in for 5 hours and did less than 5 minutes of work that day.

I'm hoping this is a good week and she finally pulls the trigger and let's him GO!

Unexpected guests

We were kind of busy yesterday morning. Got out of the house at 8:30 (always 15 minutes late now with dh, LOL) and were back home with our load of groceries by 10:20. By the time we get it all brought into the house (or for the freezer out in the garage) and I get it all put away, that's another half hour. DH was hungry for a sandwich by 11, so I made him lunch. Around 12:30 he wanted to run into town for a quick errand and to get gas. I went into the gas station store and got a couple of ice cream sandwiches for the 12 minute drive home :)

Around 2 (I can't remember what time it was) I went to take a nap, but about half hour later our landline rang. It was an old childhood friend of dh's (who lives about 6 hours away), coming through our area in about an hour and wanted to stop by and visit and go out to eat dinner. Sure! DH asked him if they needed a place to stay the night and he said they were just getting a room at the motel in town. DH was like NO! No, that place is awful, LOL. Stay here! I guess they had already reserved it. DH then texted him about 10 minutes after hanging up, joking well, you can stay at that crappy motel but your wife is staying at our house! LOL. They were able to cancel their reservation, so that was good. It's a very old motel. Clean, but it's literally right next to the freeway off ramp where trucks come off the interstate to go to the truck stop down the road. It's very noisy to get a good nights sleep.

So, we had about an hour to get ready for guests. Really, there wasn't much of anything that I needed to do for the house. Picked up a few things. Made sure there was extra tp in the upstairs bathroom. Dusted that bedroom a bit. Mostly I fixed myself up, haha. Styled my hair out of it usual pony tail and put some makeup on. I also put on a dressier top, for going out to dinner. 

Well, the only restaurant close by is that one we used to like to go to, but haven't been for awhile as it wasn't as good anymore (I mentioned this a week or so ago in a blog post). We decided to try it again. It's not that it was now really bad - just not near as good of food as it always had been, for years. They must have a new cook or something, as everything was really good again. I tried a chicken sandwich, I had never tried there before and it was really good and we all said the fries were very good. DH always gets the fish and chips and he said it was the best he's had there. So, maybe now we can go out to dinner again once in awhile, and not have to drive an hour (it's about 15 minutes from us).

Friends stayed until about 10:30 this morning. They had a couple hours drive to go to a Celebration of Life for an old family friend who passed. Everyone who's slept in this guest bed has commented how comfortable it is, and they did as well. For breakfast I made some blueberry muffins. I had also got one of those small watermelons with our grocery order and strawberries, so I cut those up to also have with the muffins. I went back to using my good old muffin pan (instead of the new silicone one I bought awhile back) and no more burned bottoms. 

After they left this morning, I got all my flowers watered since I didn't get time to do it yesterday.  

Now, this weekend sure feels like it zipped by. I'm probably really going to want a nap this afternoon as I was up until after 11pm last night, but up at my normal 7am. Well, I was going to sleep a little longer but dh got up. Since I never know what time guests are going to get up, I got up, took a shower and had my coffee. They didn't get up until like 8:30 or 8:45 LOL. I could've slept in some, haha.

Power out

Between Wednesday night and yesterday we were without power for about 18 hours. Huge windstorm. We got very little wind, but it hit about 85% of our electric co-op's area, so we were down, also. Could have been worse - I think at least half of their service is still out. Hopefully, my reader/commenter Diane, fared ok in her area of the state.

I really just wanted my cup of coffee yesterday morning, LOL. If the outage was going to continue into today, dh was going to get out his old generator and get it hooked up. It will at least let us run a few things in the house. DH was chatting with a friend who has a small cattle ranch nearby and asked her how long the water trough's last for her cows, if there's no water (electric well pump, like us) and she said about 2 days, but if need be they just move the cattle next door to her brother's place, where he has a creek running through his property. 

The power came on around 3pm, so I was able to get online and worked for a couple of hours. I'm not sure what I would have done today, for getting payroll done. Tried to do it from my phone or ipad, I guess, or my boss said we could Teams and have me walk her through it. They were saying we might get more winds last night, but all is good this morning, and payroll will get done. I used my couple of hours yesterday, to pretty much get payroll all prepared to go.

My sis and I did get to train a good chunk of Wednesday, which was great. She's going to be great.  She had worked on a report, adding invoices to our system, for about 90 minutes and added more than you know who did in 5 hours that same day.....It sounds like her plan to do the 20 hours/wk is to work full days Mon and Tues and half day Wed and then she can do Thurs and Fri for her other p/t job. Works for me.

The 20 degree drop in temps yesterday was very welcome, even if we did have no power. Going out to water the flowers last night was so much more comfortable. We had planned to go into the city yesterday after I was done working to pick up a Walmart order, but with no power and them saying it might be multiple days, I certainly couldn't bring a bunch of groceries home to be refrigerated/frozen, so I rescheduled it for Saturday morning. I just noticed the weather temp notification on my task bar in the right corner of my computer - it says 99. It's only going to be 79 today, so where that's coming from, I have no idea.

Awhile back dh had bought 6 5-gallon jugs to store water in, for a power outage and to use to be able to flush the toilet. Well, he realized that isn't going to be much, if we are ever out for more than 2-3 days, so we decided we'd better still fill the tubs as well, when we know in advance we might lose power. Awhile back I asked dh about maybe we should get a whole home back up generator. Mostly it's not having water that is the worst part of it. We are considering that again, LOL. Also, somewhere I have a battery phone charger, but of course I couldn't find it. DH has a solar one, that he's never really tested out in full, but it was barely charging his phone. My phone was almost fully charged yesterday morning, so I was ok for the day. 

Well, I hear dh is up, so I will go back downstairs and make his egg sandwich, before I get started with my work day.

Replacements and rifles

I've decided to try a Walmart brand chocolate protein powder and see if that can replace Carnation Instant Breakfast when I can no longer get it. It's a bit pricier (well, before the price went up on the Carnation, because it's hard to get now) but it's about $1 per serving and you can mix with milk. It has much more protein, 30 g vs 20 grams, plus way less sugar. Only 2 g. I am hoping this will be a comparable substitute for me and end up better for me, anyway. It's not in the store, so I will have to have it shipped.

DH left his old childhood rifle with that other gunsmith FOUR months ago now. He has called on it 2 or 3 times. Apparently this other guy who took it to refinish the stock still has not brought it back. The prior call dh asked the gunsmith for his name and ph# (why he didn't get it at the time of the "deal" I have no idea - other than he's too trusting) he said he would have to look for the guys number, he has it somewhere. Then dh doesn't call again for like another 3-4 weeks/yesterday. He got the gunsmith's wife. DH asked her for the other guys name and phone number so he can try to get this resolved and find out when he's getting his rifle back. She says yes, hold on while I get his number. So, what does dh do....he sits there for THIRTY minutes on the phone, waiting for her to come back and finally hung up! He says they didn't get disconnected....

Then he comes up to my office in a complete rant about all this. I said WHY would you sit on hold 30 minutes? Obviously something happened - whether it was disconnected or whatever. I would have hung up after about 10 minutes, max. WHY didn't you hang up, call her back and say "hey, we must have gotten disconnected? I really need to get this guy's name and ph#". His reason was he was too mad right now to call back. He doesn't want to get upset with anyone because then they think he's a jerk...I said who cares? they've had your rifle for over 4 months now! You don't have to be a jerk, but you sure as well can just be matter of fact and forceful and not take excuses as an answer. Also, apparently the lady's husband, the gunsmith (who is supposed to be cleaning the rifle parts, that never got cleaned by the first gunsmith) is on his way back from California, so he isn't there right now. I said just call them back and say you are coming back up on such and such day to pick up your rifle, whether it's done or not. More than likely he's never going to see this gunstock part of it again, since he has no idea who has it and they don't seem to want to give him the guys name and number. He also did not get like a receipt or some kind of proof he left this rifle with the gunsmith. Again, too trusting. I told him the other day his problem is he wants everyone to like him.

I haven't heard from my sis this morning yet, on if she plans to get started training at 8am. I had told her if she wants (should!) rest up, we can start a little later, if she wants. I'm sure she'll be texting me soon. I hope that's all it is and her dad hasn't taken a turn for the worse. That is a bad break for any age, but at 92, he's likely going to go downhill :(

This is our last day of the very hot weather, but it sounds like tomorrow might be dangerous in some areas with some high winds and possible planned power outage(s), but this sounds like the high winds will be more east of us. High winds, hot electrical wires and very dry flammable surroundings aren't a good mix.

My sis just texted me and we will be starting in a half hour. This is good - we are both excited for this.

Tuesday this and that

I had a chat (again) with my boss about the assistant and his awful performance last week (as well as even yesterday). She is just biding our time with him, due to this mentorship program. She said if it were any one else they'd have been fired long ago (and I know this to be true) but at this point she's just looking at this as our company's "contribution" to this non-profit mentorship program. I said that is a good way to look at it, otherwise it's too aggravating, LOL. He's supposed to work 7am to noon M-F. My guess is he clocks in at 7 and then goes back to bed for 2-3 hours and then starts working, because he does nothing the first 2-3 hours. Hopefully my sis will be over her family emergency soon and be able to get started. I haven't heard any more from her since yesterday morning, so I don't know if they figured out a plan to help her stepdad going forward. I didn't want to text her again, because while I'm just asking as her sis - I didn't want her to feel like I was asking because I want her to get started working.

We're going to be grumpy for 2 weeks...4 weeks....however long Mr & Mrs DIL and grandkids will be staying for this summer. Dang - now I'm wishing the heat was going to stay at 100, LOL. That would have kept them inside and not outside screaming or hanging out in front of our gate. I'm sure by this point they've gotten another barking/annoying dog to bring with them.

DH was up early this morning, in order to get outside before it's 100 degrees again, and clean out the gutters. It didn't take him too long, they weren't that bad, but he likes to keep up on it. Pine needles abound around here, LOL.

I did just hear from my sis on her stepdad. Poor man! They got him back to the hospital they had first taken him too (apparently not the small one in his town) and they did a CT scan and turns out, after then sitting in a wheel chair for 9 hours to get the results, he had broken his pelvis in like 4 places. It's too damaged to be able to operate, so then he was transported back to the hospital in his town where he will be while he recovers. Sis said she will be back home this evening and wants to start our work training tomorrow, unless something happens before then. Then she just plans to go see him again on the weekend. I can't imagine the pain he must have been in until they figured this out. I told her don't rush getting started on my account, I'm sure she's going to be exhausted over this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work and interuptions

Off to a busy start this morning, but unfortunately not able to start my sis's training. Her dad (step), who she is close with, took a bad fall yesterday and she had to go down to where he lives (about 2 hours from her) and help take care of him. She's not sure how long she'll be staying, but likely at least a few days and will likely have to set up some home care to come in to help him. She has step siblings (who live nearby him) but they seem to assume she will take care of him, so now of course she's struggling to set some boundaries for herself and the expectation that they will also step up and help just as much as she can/will.

DH was out at 8:30 this morning starting to mow the lawn. Another 100 degree day, plus I think the authorities have said no mowing after like 1pm or something like that. 

I had devastating news yesterday. I don't know what I will do! I have been having Carnation Instant Breakfast most every morning of my life since I was in junior high school. Apparently it's being discontinued. Noooooo! Even my dh said "oh, no, what are you going to do?!  Usually I buy a "case" of 8 boxes off of Amazon every couple of months for around $40. The price has gone up to $56. Walmart isn't carrying the light start version. Then I read online that they are discontinuing it all. I did just get a case of 8 boxes ordered with Amazon that had a 25% discount if I put it on subscribe and save, so I just ordered that and put it on refill for one month, instead of 2 and will try to just stock up a bunch as long as I can. After that I will look into finding a copycat DIY recipe to try. I am not a breakfast eater, so this has always been my easy go to breakfast.

I just texted my sis to see how her dad is doing. Doesn't sound very well. I didn't realize he was 92. Xrays on Saturday said he didn't break his hip. She just called to try to get home health care to come in to help him and they said no, because he isn't mobile and they won't do any lifting (this is Canada, so I have no idea how their health services work). She said the home health person she talked to recommended him getting another xray as sometimes xrays on older folks can be murky. I said it sounds like he needs to be in some sort of rebab/nursing care place until he heals and can get mobile again. She said her sister in law is coming over and they are trying to figure this out, as well.

My boss is back from vacation, asked how the week went. I updated her, but said "don't ask about the assistant, LOL". She said give her some time to get a little caught up this morning before she has to hear about him. haha. And even this morning - he's been clocked in for 2 hours and not one thing entered by him in our system yet. He didn't do anything the first 2 hours he worked last Friday, then suddenly 2 hours in a few invoices started getting entered and for the next 3 hours he posted about 30 invoices and 2 small payments. The other day he worked last week, for 5 hours, he posted one payment, that was paying just one invoice. Literally like 5 minutes of work (and that's being generous).

DD and SIL have this week off work. I didn't get my usual first of the morning message from her, LOL. They were up early and off to do a hike. She told me yesterday they had to scrap their original plan hike. She read recent reviews/comments on this particular hike and several were saying their cars had been broken into/windows broken recently, so they decided not to go there. Like she said "people suck".

A good Saturday

Saturday was productive, as well as relaxing. As typical with me, mornings are my productive time. After around 1pm my energy level drops. I washed sheets and remade the bed with a clean set, made more hummingbird nectar and refilled the feeders. I'm having to refill more often with this awful heat we are having, as it just spoils the nectar so fast in these 100 degree days. While it was still somewhat cool outside, I got out there and used the miracle grow on several plants/shrubs. Two that got eaten by deer, and one that we think is just getting burned from the hot sun off dh's den window. Not sure if the miracle gro will help that issue. We have tried various shrubs there and every year, no matter what we plant, it dies. I think after this year we will give up and figure out something else to put there that is decorative. Maybe just a bird bath or some kind of statue or "yard art". We should just go to the antique store and look around at their collection of outside old farm stuff.

I took out the ingredients for the pizza that needed to be thawed. Another good pizza and this time I also added some Canadian bacon, which was good. There's a few pieces leftover and I need to remember to have a piece or two (they are fairly small slices) for lunch today. Or maybe that's what I'll have for dinner myself, and just make dh his bunless burger for dinner. I am still preferring to have my sliced apple with peanut butter for lunches each day. 

The Amazon driver (a girl we've had a time or two before deliver, and she does a good job) showed up with a box of a bunch of stuff I ordered. It was nice to see they put 8 items in one box! I now have my new air purifier set up in my office. It's on low and very quiet - I don't even hear it. I also got a couple of replacement filters to have on hand, so one for each of our machines.

Another fire started yesterday about 12 miles from us. Apparently the train is a big cause of a lot of the wild fires - the train sparks on the tracks and sometimes catches brush on fire. 

We played pool again after dinner last night. DH didn't have any racing to watch on his computer, for a change. I started watching a new funny show I found on Netflix that looks to be 3 seasons, called Loudermilk. So far I am enjoying it. If you like funny, sarcastic a-hole's, this is the show for you, LOL. I don't subscribe to Netflix, I use a log in from DD and so far it still works. This show should keep me busy for the next week or so, with watching it in the evenings.

The week wrap-up edition

I'd have to look back at the date, but I think it's now been another month since I called Social Security about my mom's final payment. On that call I was told she put in a request for them to send me a letter, updating me on the status. No letter has arrived, of course. I guess I will try again next week. 

I have a medical bill sitting on my desk I need to pay (from the lab work I had done). That must have triggered the dream I had last night, LOL. I was going to be getting a mammogram done in a few hours, wherever weird place I was in the dream, but suddenly remembered I needed to fix my deductible amount on my insurance. I was standing at a desk with customer service people, trying to fix it, before I went to my appointment, but it was just not happening, LOL. 

I ended up with a dull headache all day yesterday. No fun, but I'm fine this morning. 

We still haven't gotten the bill for the addition to our sprinkler system. If we don't have anything by the end of the month dh can call or text his friend to check on it. 

I think my plan for our next trip to Walmart is to go next Thursday after I get done with work. We'll also need to swing by the other grocery store for more hamburger patties. That way we don't have to spend half our Saturday or Sunday making the trip. Plus, the weather is supposed to be much cooler, starting next Thursday. And we can grab dinner for on the way home. I'm sick of making dinner. We at least used to be able to go to a fairly nearby restaurant every so often (like every couple of months) if I was just tired of cooking, for a nice meal, but ever since they changed owners, the food is just not near as good, so we stopped going there. There is one restaurant in our town, but while it tastes good, we always seem to end up with stomach aches after eating there. Unless it's breakfast, breakfast food is ok. So, we have no where to eat out, unless we drive 45-50 miles to the city.

Dinner last night was salad and sandwiches. I think tonight will be pizza again. I will try out the fresh mushrooms that I froze and see how those work. I'm sure they will be just fine.

Some of the stuff I ordered from Amazon with my large gift card is arriving today, via an Amazon driver. Ugh LOL. But, at least with those deliveries I've discovered (thanks to DD) you can see how close they are getting to delivering and go meet them out at the gate. It's several packages, including one that will have the air purifier I got my office, upstairs. 

We also got the Miracle Gro in town the other day, so after I eat breakfast this morning, I'm going to go apply that where needed. Hopefully it helps.

Training and more chocolate milk

My sis was able to get her new laptop hooked up and the sound/mic figured out, so we were able to get started for about 2 1/2 hours yesterday with some training. I just shared my screen and gave her an overview of our company and the process of an order from start to finish. As I was training her, my other assistant messaged me that he wasn't going to be able to work again yesterday. He's worked one day in the last week. My sis doesn't typically plan to work for us on Fridays, she's going to reserve that day for her other p/t job she has, so we will start up with the training again on Monday. I think it went well. She has enough work experience that she understands the general process and had some good questions to clarify things or get more detail. She also said she thinks she will really enjoy doing this type of work.

Sorry to those annoyed by my grammar in my blog - LOL. I'm casual and I write casual and often type how I/we talk. Kind of like when I see people type "y'all". Or a book series like Outlander, where the author is trying to convey the Scottish accent with a "Ye dinna mean to say anything?". 

Well, the Dairygold chocolate milk was turned down, LOL. He didn't like it at all, so I guess I will be giving freezing the Walmart chocolate milk a try in order to have some last between grocery shopping trips. Now I have 2 1/1 gallon cartons of chocolate milk to drink myself, haha. I don't usually drink that, but I guess I will be, so it doesn't go to waste.

I woke up with a pounding headache this morning and also spent a good half hour being annoyed by the cat. Some mornings he just content to sleep until I get up, other morning he's not. I got up about a half hour before my usual time, let the cat outside and took some tylenol and tried to go back to bed. 15 minutes later I got up and here I am. Hoping the tylenol and coffee kicks in.

Wildfires are starting to pop up here and there. So far the closest one is about 15 miles from us. The air is a little hazy from the smoke, but not too bad yet. Still hot as hell and will continue to be in the high 90's/100 range until at least next Wednesday. Then the forecast shows a drop to 88 next Thursday and 77 next Friday. That will be nice.

My little solar powered desk calculator that I've had forever suddenly doesn't want to work very well. I use this thing daily in my work and personal life. But now when I input the screen is showing half numbers. Then I remembered my mom had a similar one, but a little bigger, with her desk stuff. I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten rid of it, and I found it in one of my desk drawers. I can use my phone calculator app, but I find it kind of annoying to use, for some reason. But, sometimes for work I have to use it because I'm adding numbers over $1 million dollars, haha.

Deliveries

We ran into town around noon yesterday, as the USPS package notification slip said it could be picked starting same day. Small town post office. Only one person works the counter and when dh handed her the slip she said "oh yes, I know this package! LOL. It wouldn't fit into the carrier's jeep". DH said oops sorry! Then he blamed it on me as being the "amazon orderer", even though this is car stuff for him, LOL. 

We've been planning to run into town anyway sometime soon. Dh needed gas for the truck and for the gas cans (for mowing) and I needed some things from the store to help tide us over until the next Walmart trip. The store usually has a store brand of chocolate milk, but they didn't have any and at first I was seeing no chocolate milk at all and crap, haha, but then I saw the 1/2 gallon cartons of Dairygold chocolate milk -with dates of September!Woo! Hopefully he likes it. I'm not even telling him it's a new kind I'm trying. He's the type that instantly gets something in his mind that if it's different he doesn't like it. If this works, then this is the brand I will start getting, as I know Walmart also carries it and probably lots cheaper, too.

While I was sitting in the truck waiting for dh to fill up the gas cans my phone rings and it's my sis, saying the UPS driver is telling her there's $341 due in duty fees on the package she need to pay. (she knew I had already paid it). I said well, it shows right on the tracking that it's been paid! She asked if I had a receipt she could show him, but since I wasn't home I couldn't get to it right then. When we hung up I then texted her a screenshot of the tracking page where it says paid. She said the driver figured it out and all good. 

I don't know what is up with delivery driver's lately, but they aren't the brightest. Here's what dh went through trying to talk to the FedEx freight driver who delivered on Monday.

Driver calls and dh give directions from the freeway exit. Pretty simple. Get off the exit, get on the frontage road and go 5 miles to our street on your left and you can see your house (gave description). As it was getting close for when the truck would show up dh went out to open the gate in front of the shop. Sees the FedEx truck drive right on by, LOL. Calls the number the driver called from and said looks like you just passed our street. You can turn around at such and such (which is almost a mile down the road, as there is no other spot to turn around at). Dh goes out to the entrance to our street and the driver almost passes our street again! DH had to wave him down.

Driver is an older guy. He pulls up and opens the back and puts down the lift gate. Here's the conversation:

dh: ya, Bendpak wasn't sure if FedEx freight would have a lift gate, but the lady that called on Friday said you did

Driver: who's Bendpak?

Dh: um...the company that shipped this (the name is right on the big box laying on the pallet)

Driver: what lady? 

dh: a lady from FedEx freight called on Friday to set up delivery day

Driver: (getting his hand cart out) what is it?

dh: it's a part for a lift

Driver: what's a lift?

dh: a car lift? to lift cars up..........

Then the driver starts to put his hand cart under a different pallet of stuff. 

dh: umm...I don't think that's my stuff..Mine is this Bedpak crate right here on the floor next to it

Driver: oh ya...ok...

Dh again mentions that it was great he has a lift gate so we didn't have to have it delivered to the lumber store in town. Driver says ya, that's the address I had, no one told me the address got changed.

He then hands dh the paperwork for his signature and right there on it was marked "Delivery address change" and our address to deliver it to, LOL.

Chippermonkeys

A few years ago dh had made this little "chic-nic" table out of leftover scraps of wood. Cute, but it took up too much room inside the coop and they just pooped all over it, LOL. So, we've just been setting it on our patio in the summer with a plant on it. Until this summer when dh decided to feed the chipmunks. We now have Alvin, Simon and Theodore. I have renamed it the "chip-nic" table. When we had our black dog, who was obsessed with chipmunks, we would always say to him "are you watching for your chippermonkeys?"

And when I got up this morning, outside my bedroom window I saw my first ever squirrel since living here. We had sometimes seen squirrels when we lived in the house in town, but have never seen one out here. A minute later I was walking out to the living room to look out on the patio and see a magpie on the table, eating, and then as it flew away a squirrel went running across the patio! What the heck?! LOL.

Right now the magpies are outside making a fuss about something. I can see 3 in the trees across from my office window and one on top of the roof of our patio roof. I see the backyard sprinkler is on, so maybe that is what they are squawking about. Oh...Amos was on the patio, that's why, LOL. He didn't like getting yelled at and wanted back inside.

The laptop on it's way to my sis is getting closer :) Last night it arrived at the distribution hub in the large city nearest here and still says it will be delivered this afternoon, but doesn't show it out on truck yet. They live about 90 min from that big city.

OMG - I ordered some drip pans for dh from Amazon that shipped USPS and were supposed to delivery today. Some time ago (around the same time they started delivering Amazon packages) they put a form in our mailbox to fill out as where to leave packages, if too large for the mailbox. I indicated to leave at the gate, which is what they have been doing, even the other day, that's what they did. I just got an informed delivery email update on the drip pans package(s) that either they were too large to fit in the mailbox so we have to pick them up at the post office starting tomorrow. Why not just leave at the gate, like every other too large package? What was the point of filling out the form on where to leave large packages? My guess is they didn't even put it on the mail carriers car - just decided to leave a note to pick it up at the post office.

Amazon changing our deliveries away from UPS has been annoying. Most packages now either come via the post office or we now have Amazon delivery drivers - they are the worst! They always look sketchy and Dh has been hearing that some of them are just scoping out where they deliver to and then their buddies come and steal your stuff. Let's just say that most of the one's we've had deliver here barely speak english. Give me back our wonderful UPS driver for the deliveries! He told dh UPS is laying off a lot of drivers now.

Tuesday this and that

I noticed I'm getting low on my 2 prescriptions and it's been close to 90 days since I got them. I logged into the mail order pharmacy, where I've always been set up on auto refill, to make sure they are on the way. Apparently, since they are new prescriptions I had to set them up on auto refill. So, I did that this morning and the refills should be here in time. I also get dh's prescription (not running out yet) set up on auto refill. The only one I'd be concerned about not missing a dose is my heart medication, of course. But, last October or so, I had ordered a years supply as an emergency backup through a medical website, so I have those to use if for some reason the refill doesn't get here in time. I'm also going to start using up those pills anyway, and put my current refills in "back up". so that this year supply I got last Fall does not expire on the effectiveness of the meds.

Finally, yesterday around noon, the UPS package to Canada showed ready to pay the duty fee. It was not around $60 like the UPS Store clerk told my boss, LOL. It ended up being around $240 US. I just kept checking every hour or so and finally the tracking showed duty was owed. I paid it online and 2 or 3 hours later is showed it was now released from customs and on it's way again. Current tracking says it should be delivered tomorrow.

I need to figure out a way for dh to have chocolate milk for more than a week or week and a half after our shopping trips. Obviously I need to freeze it, but I tried that in the past and it's annoying to me. I've tried buying the organic chocolate milk with long use by dates, but he doesn't like the flavor. The regular chocolate milk doesn't have a very long date. He doesn't like the powdered or syrup added to milk, either. I've tried freezing milk once before, but it took days to thaw out in the fridge, so I was annoyed by that. I guess I just need to get a good idea of how long it actually takes to thaw and try to take it out at least a couple of days before I think I'll need more. Annoying. But, my plan to try next shopping trip, is to just buy some of the 1/2 gallon sized (maybe those will thaw faster?) to have a few stocked in the freezer. Supposedly it's supposed to thaw in 24 hours, but that was not my experience at all.

Dh is liking his new "bun-less" burgers. He usually has a double, so he's just having me put his cheese, lettuce, tomato and onion in between the 2 patties and he just cuts up with a fork and knife.

 

Tracking

I've been trying to track this laptop shipment on it's way to my sis in Canada - since it shipped it's just showing the same thing, picked up and to the nearby UPS distribution, no updates that it's even made it to the border (literally like 2 hours from where my boss shipped it LOL) and nothing shows up with a link to pay the duty yet. I will call the UPS store when they open this morning to make sure I'm checking for it correctly. The instructions on the bottom of the receipt give the website and say to enter the "shipment ID". On this receipt is a shipment ID and of course the regular tracking #. I've tried entering both and the shipment ID doesn't come up with anything, let alone the receipt printing is super hard to read. The 8's and B's look the same. The 0's also look like 8's It's an awful font for the receipt, that's for sure.

The weather is still hot, in the high 90's. No change for another week, it appears. Even late in the evening it's too hot to be able to sit out on the patio. Plus, we are having lots of bees this summer.

DH just got a call from the delivery guy, that is delivering the extra part for his lift he ordered (that the mfg gave to him for half price, due to the shipping issues he had) in about a half hour or so. He was just standing there in the kitchen, while I was making some breakfast, saying his luck it'll be 7pm tonight when they call to deliver and then the phone rang, LOL. 

The socks I ordered from Kohl's appear to be the same socks I had, so I was pleased about that - but - they are the bigger size. WTH?! But, they seem to fit my size 7 foot well enough, so I'm keeping them. Then I realized there are 2 ways they size socks, I guess? The page description of the sock says fits shoe size 5-10, but the "sock size" on the package says 9-11, but I guess that is the same thing. They fit and they are the socks I've been searching for, so I'm happy. The first set obviously lasted a really long time, as I couldn't even remember where I got them from, nor did they show up in any store's order history.

This summer seems to be going by really fast and now the cruise in September feels like it's coming up really fast. I also just remembered dh needs to go in to the hospital lab sometime next week for his PSA blood draw, before his appointment with the urologist on Aug 2nd.

Saturday morning, the son of the couple that bought the lot next to us, was out to check on things, I guess. I got to meet him. Seems nice and seems like this is really just going to be a summer home and vacation property for their family. He said his parents plan to come and see the property some time in September and also meet with a builder. That tells me the earliest they will start building is next year and depending on how big/custom of a house they are going to build, it will likely be the following summer before they get to live it in.

Ok, time to call the UPS store and see how to pay this duty.

Simple Saturday

There was a small deer outside last evening - look at her just eyeing those flowers! While dh was snapping the picture I was pretending to talk through a bullhorn "STAY AWAY FROM THE FLOWERS. BACK AWAY FROM THE FLOWERS".  There must have been some others around with her, but we didn't see any and a few minutes later she wandered down over the river bank.

I have the tracking info on the laptop shipping up to my sis. Apparently my boss couldn't prepay for the customs and was told to log into theupsstore website on Monday and pay it via a link that will be there. I will be taking care of this part, as my boss in on vacation all next week. So, far no link is showing, but the package is saying expected delivery Wednesday. My boss would have shipped in next day air.....but they wanted $800! LOL We can wait, haha. We are both so excited to get started.

The billing for the summer propane fill up showed up on my account. $1.85/gallon for a little over 300 gallons needed. I was looking at our previous billings and we sure seem to be consistent every year with around 300 gallons in July and then a fill up later January, that I prepay in Sept at a lower rate and that always runs around $1000, so we are spending about $1550 a year for propane. We don't heat our house with it, but we do heat the shop and have 2 water heaters using it, as well as our gas fireplace. I had been setting aside some money in savings each month to pay this bill and the one that will be due in Sept, since we aren't on the monthly budget plan.

DH tried a bun-less burger last night. Had all the fixins' on it he likes, just no bun and he liked it. Less bread will be good for him in more ways than one. 

I see my $125 cash back on Rakuten for the SoFi account is now posted, so that is good. I also have $28 in the cash back balance from the freezer purchase from Lowes.

We thought about going and doing something today, but it's still going to be just too hot out to enjoy being outside. Later next week we are supposed to be back up to 100 (instead of 95 LOL).

I don't know what I'm doing today. Not much. Since I had last Monday and Tuesday off, I did house cleaning then, so not much is really needed this weekend. Maybe dh will decide to go into town so he can put gas in the truck and then I can get the Miracle Gro. When we do get into town I'm also going to get a few things from the store. That would allow us to stretch out going back to the city for a grocery pickup, longer.

Friday here quickly

The benefit of a short work week - it's Friday already :)  Kind of payday? LOL. Apparently that SoFi account I set up (to get the bonus) deposits your paycheck 2 days early and sure enough the money is in my savings now. At least I know my direct deposit worked ok. 

One other thing I plan to do in the next month is get another quote on homeowner's insurance. Mine renews in August. I just got my renewal notice in the mail and it's showing the same cost as last year, but I remember that happened last year. They sent me this renewal notice in the mail and then right before it was time for it to renew I got another one, this one saying it went up like $200 or $300 per year. So, this year I'm going to get a quote from the insurance through my mortgage holder and see what their rate is, so I can at least compare and maybe get savings.

The work laptop for my half sis to use is getting shipped up to her today, so we should be able to get started training sometime next week. I should have tracking info later this morning, after my boss gets it shipped. My assistant messaged my boss this morning that he's not working today, Monday or Tues, LOL. Plus, before I went on vacation, I sent him an email Tuesday of last week, with instructions on fixing a mix up he created. Apparently he either hasn't read his emails or what, but it's not fixed. I'm so annoyed. I want to get this month this work is for, closed out and need that all fixed, so now I'm going to have to spend time doing it, since he's not working until next Wed.

We had our propane tank filled up yesterday. Usually the guy leaves an envelope with a slip in it showing how much, but he didn't this time, so I guess I'll have to wait and see on my online account, how much it is. Nothing is showing up yet, but he wasn't here until later afternoon yesterday, so likely his office doesn't even have the info yet.

It's still hot and miserable outside and doesn't appear to be letting off any time soon. We'll probably be having fire season get started now, for sure.

Ugh, I've developed a headache at the base of my neck. I just took some tylenol, so hopefully that kicks in soon.

More spending and saving

I managed to use my $10 Kohl's cash and get out of the loop of earning more Kohl's cash I felt like I had to use, LOL. I found a cute fake flower arrangement on clearance and some Burts Bees lip stuff to get it over $10. I think the free shipping ends today.

I've got a bunch of misc stuff in my Amazon cart, to use my $500 gift card on, but I'm going to wait until Prime Day to see if any of it goes on sale and maybe I'll save a little on my purchases. I usually don't have any luck with anything I want being on sale for Prime Day.

I received a $20 off an order of $49 from Chewy in the mail yesterday. That's a good coupon (works out to 40% off) and I'm getting low on cat litter and can also get some chicken feed. I just started my cart and need $2.02 to get free shipping, as well, so I added a small bag of mealworms for the hen. Total is now $30.87. At least they apply the free shipping with min. $49 order before taking off the $20. Since I only have one hen now and not using near as much feed, I decided to try a smaller, 35lb bag of organic layer pellets instead of the usual 50# bag I normally get at the same price. This 35# bag should still last me a long time. And hopefully be better quality food for Gladys :)

I thought for sure we had some Miracle Grow but dh can't find it. I'm like positive I didn't use it all because if I had, last summer, of course I would have ordered more if I used it all up. So, it must be somewhere that dh isn't looking and of course as soon as I get some more, he'll find it :/  We thought we were going into town yesterday or today (to pick up that part for his lift being delivered to the lumber store) so I planned to pick up some then, but now delivery plans have changed.

He had asked several times, when it was being set up to ship, if the delivery would have a lift gate? if so, it could be delivered here. He was told no, so that's when he made arrangements for it to be delivered to the lumber store in town, so they could unload it with their forklift and load it on dh's pickup. Well, he's been watching the tracking (FedEx) and it's been showing at their distribution place in the city since Monday. Finally, someone called yesterday about delivering it NEXT Monday. DH asked if there is a lift gate on the truck? Yes there is. So, he then got them to change the delivery address to our house. Good grief! LOL. For some reason I have a feeling it will still end up at the lumber store, LOL.

Saving and spending

DH needs some new t-shirts. He likes the Hanes Beefy T's I've ordered for him recently. I had ordered them through Walmart online, but when I was searching to see if they were the best price, I saw that ordering direct from Hanes seemed to be a little cheaper. Well, dang, it ended up being a lot cheaper. They were having a sale and it seemed the more ordered the more % off. If I signed up for their "rewards" with my email, I would get free shipping over $50. (otherwise $6.99 shipping). I was at like $42 (for 6 of the t-shirts he likes) so I decided to see what they have in women's tees and found one where I liked that the bottom was curved some. Well, with all the discounts I still ended up under $50, so I added another color and was still under 50. To get over $50 I ended up adding 3 tees for myself plus a lightweight hooded zip up sweatshirt. So, 10 items for a total of $54.60 plus I get back 2% from Rakuten and 3% from Paypal, making each item just over $5 cost. Good deal!

Last week I ordered myself some casual pants (for the cruise) and now I'm in the Kohl's Cash loop. Now I have $10 to spend. As long as I find something by tomorrow, they are still offering free shipping, otherwise it wouldn't be worth using the $10 to me because I hate paying shipping. I just don't know what to get that's in the $10 range.

The day back at work, after a week off (but only missed 3 work days, due to our office being closed last Thurs and Fri), has been very busy. Especially because I had to hit the ground running first thing, getting payroll done. Lots of emails to get to. It's annoying when I set up an out of office message and someone emails me wondering why I haven't taken care of something, LOL.

Way back, when we had our lawn sprinkler system installed - I'm not sure why, but I guess dh didn't get everywhere done, or he just missed putting some where he thought he'd need them, I don't know, but I guess he told the sprinkler guy some time ago, if he's ever out in our area again and has extra time, to stop in and add what dh wants. So, the guy (he's actually dh's childhood friend) called today and said they were in our town on a job and would be done around noon or so and then come to our place. So, a huge crew showed up and looks like they are done now. It sure didn't look fun doing this in 100 degree weather. No idea what this is going to end up costing.....Grrrr. It would have been nice to have a bit of notice/warning. But, it will be nice to have it finished and dh won't have to be using hoses and sprinklers on the areas he has been. Plus, one area behind our garage (that was already done) that always has a dry spot, they quickly diagnosed a sprinkler head that was buried, so they fixed that.

Watching the money

It's still a very strange feeling to have this IRA I inherited from my mom. I used to watch her balance on a regular basis, and now that it's my money, I do the same, of course. I don't think it's quite sunk in yet that this is mine. The portfolio (acquired over years by her investment guy) currently has 17 stocks in it. A couple of years ago the investment guy switched to a different investment company, which I think has been much better in terms of the fees. Previously there was a fee based on transactions, so every quarter when we'd have our telephone update/meeting, of course there were recommended changes of buying/selling. At one point it dawned on me, well ya, of course they want to buy/sell! It wasn't too much later that he announced he was switching and most of his clients (including me, for my mom) moved their portfolio with him. This company just charges a flat 1% fee. I've noticed the quarterly buy/sells have gone way down, which has also allowed the portfolio to become much more stable, in my opinion. (Not that it was doing bad before that, though). And less fees, means more money stays in the retirement account.

This group of stocks has done amazing so far this year. I had hoped for 10% growth for the remainder of the year (I got MY % of the account transferred to me in early March). 10% for the whole year. Right now, in the 4 months I've had it, the growth is almost 13%, for 4 months. While I know the stock market could be very up and down over the rest of the year, it would be really awesome if it even ended up at this 13% growth for the whole rest of this year. 

I had taken my first distribution, for this first year, when I got the account in March. So far, in 4 months the growth has almost put me back where the initial balance was, before I took the distribution. That kind of blows my mind, a bit. Since my goal is to use this money to pay off my mortgage before I retire, IF (and that's a big bold if, LOL) I end up with a couple of really good years in the next, say 5 years, I could possibly even be in the position to pay it all off before 7 years (retirement age of 67) goal. If I could pay off my mortgage at 65 and still work another year or two, that would be even more amazing, retirement funds wise. But, even if the portfolio earns just a minimal amount over the next 7 years, it will still be enough to get my mortgage paid and for that I'm extremely grateful. 

There are some very nice stocks in this portfolio...Nvida, Apple, Google, First Solar, Microsoft, Costco, Amazon are among the 17 different companies. About 20% of the portfolio is in 3 long term CD's, earning between 4.5 and 5.05%. The fact that I need to have it all withdrawn within 10 years and then for it to just earn back the next year what I took out, while an awesome problem to have, LOL, it's a bit overwhelming. And while it's great to have it keep growing, there's a breakeven point between letting it grow in these early years vs. the tax hit I'll take on taxes/higher tax bracket. I haven't worked that math out yet.

Oh deer

It was nice to wake up this morning and still be on vacation (and tomorrow, too). I didn't do a whole lot yesterday. Deer ate all the leaves off one of my shrubs next to the back patio 😠. I'm really surprised they didn't finish off with dessert of all the flowers right next to the shrub. So, yesterday morning I got my deer repellent spray out and gave everything a spray and hopefully nothing more gets eaten up. Today I'm going to give it a good dose of miracle grow. Another shrub out front suddenly took a turn to dying, so I'm going to give that some, as well. We just cannot get anything to grow in this spot out next to the front patio. I think we are on our 5th try. We replanted shrubs on each side last year and they made it through the winter and have been looking great so far this summer, so I thought maybe we finally have something that will make it. 

None of my annual flowers need any Miracle Grow - they have filled out like crazy.

This is the bush with most all the leaves eaten off now

Here's the one out front, not faring well now

And the same thing on the opposite side, doing great (at least for now)

The deer also ate most of a little plant we have out in our driveway island, planted for one of our dogs. Now I can't remember if I remembered to spray that one with the deer spray - I don't think I did. I'll do that this morning, when I do the Miracle Grow. The deer have a couple acres of grassy field next to us to eat, eat that! all the mowing DAN did 2-3 weeks ago has grown back and looks the same as it did before he mowed it, LOL. 

I had made myself notes to cancel 2 subscriptions - AppleTV+ and Ancestry. I'll get them again when the shows I want to watch come out again and do ancestry when the mood strikes, but that's usually a year or more. The person I messaged via Ancestry, that we appear to share 2nd great grandparents, in Scotland, never replied back. I still have the 2 subscriptions a couple more weeks, but wanted to make sure I didn't forget to cancel them.

Still nothing on my mom's Social Security payment. Last call I was told she was putting in a request for them to update me and I should be getting a notice in the mail.

Friday, I did get signed up for the SoFi account in order to get the $300 bonus and the $125 cash back from Rakuten. To get the $300 I have to transfer a total of $5000 within 30 days and via direct deposit, so I set my payroll to go into there, so that will cover that requirement of it needing to be direct deposit (I will change my payroll direct deposit back to my regular checking, after the requirement is satisfied) and now I just wait until payday (well 2 paydays) and then it sounds like the $300 will be credited pretty quickly. I'm sure the Rakuten will be awhile to get, plus then they only pay out every quarter. But, $425 for spending about 15 minutes of my time, is a good deal to me. Plus, I like these types of bonus offers that don't require getting a credit card.

Weekend whatnot

We were gone all day yesterday. Left the house at 8am for about an hour drive to go to a car show and spent all day gone. It was a hot day, that got to 85, but we managed to spent most of it in shade, so that helped, but we were booth pooped by the time we got home. I took a nap and then went to bed at 9:30. Somehow I managed to get myself back outside around 7:30 to water all my flowers. I almost just skipped it and would do it this morning, instead.

We ended up chatting with a couple of guys that were from our town (that we didn't know previously, but knew the name of one of them), but the car show had super loud music going and it was hard to hold conversations. DH likes to take pics and likes to talk to people, but this event was hard with the music being so dang loud. Anyway, it was something to do to get out of the house for a change. We did take a packed lunch with us, so saved not having to eat at a restaurant or fast food.

I think I found a couple pairs of pants on Kohl's website I'm going to get and see if I like them. I want something for the cruise, in addition to jeans (which is all I have, other than a couple pair of dress pants). I also found one cute top, so far. I hate trying to shop - go to "women's tops" and there's 800 pages and none of it I seem to like, LOL. I think I found my socks! My last pair (of these socks, I have others, LOL) got a hole this week. These socks I found on Kohl's website look to be just like what I have, so I'm going to order them as well and keep my fingers crossed. The only issue that has me worried is the description says they are regular sock sized to fit shoe size 5-10 but in the cart the description says fit shoe sized 9-11 (I wear a size 7). So which is it? I tried to read some of the reviews and a couple said they were too big - other's said they were the right size, so I'm hoping they are normal size. I just place my order for 2 pants, 1 top and socks and was able to stack a % off coupon and a $15 off coupon so it came to $56. I was very surprised to see it was free shipping.

There is some state land on the other side of the main road from our houses. Through the trees you can see a couple campers have been there since Thursday, camping. Gotta laugh - 90% state or fed lands in our county and you pick a spot to camp right near houses?! LOL. At least they have been very quiet and most likely they will be gone today. On each end of our neighborhood is state land of like 20 acres each (maybe one is 40). Might as well park there! You'd at least get to see the river while you are camping :)

Pizza Perfection :)

My pizza turned out perfect. I must have had a bad bag of roll before. I did take them out of the freezer an hour earlier than normal to make sure they had risen a bit and they were just right

I added fresh mushrooms, red onion and green pepper, as well as some olives on a couple pieces for me.

It was so good!

I should have added some Canadian bacon - I forgot I have that now, for making dh's egg sandwiches for breakfast. Next time :)

We had a quiet day and pretty quiet evening. A few gun shots and fireworks, but off in the distance and neither lasted very long at all.

I made the sugar cookies. I had no star in my container of cutters. Oh well, I just made them circles. I tried to freehand a couple of stars. They looked ridiculous, so I just kept them all circles, LOL. They tasted very "buttery". I used an organic butter I haven't tried before. After dinner I made a banana cream pie, more for dh than me, but I did have a small slice.

I feel like I spent most of the day in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, baking, cleaning, cooking, cleaning.

Today I need to get the rest of the container of mushrooms frozen. It appears I need to lay them on a tray and freeze them, then I can put them into a freezer bag. Worth a shot. Though they sure were good on the pizza fresh. I can only do it that way, with fresh mushrooms, if I totally plan out making a pizza a day or two after getting the mushrooms with my grocery order. I did also cut up the remaining green pepper and put that in a small freezer bag. The red onion I can use on burgers. I think I'll also freeze the other half of the jar of sauce.

How come when I'm trying to cut down on sugar, my facebook feed/video feed is filled with people making yummy looking desserts?! And of course they all look good. But one I do want to try is the peanut butter, mixed with plain greek yogurt, frozen and then covered in chocolate. I may look to see what might be a lower sugar chocolate option then melting chocolate chips. But they do look like a delicious "ice cream" type treat that is on the healthier side than eating store bought ice cream bars and sandwiches.

This morning I'm going to look into that SoFi offer more closely and read the fine print, to make sure it's workable for me and that I would make sure to follow the requirements to get the $300 from SoFi and the $125 from Rakuten.

 

Happy 4th!

My plan today is to make some 4th of July sugar cookies. I haven't gotten down my container of various cookie cutters yet, but there must be a star in there, don't you think? I added some red and blue sprinkles to my Walmart order yesterday and was happy I actually got them and they weren't out. This morning I took some butter out to soften. I may have to speed up that process a bit faster this morning, as then the dough also needs to chill in the fridge for an hour or two after that. I only have ever made these cookies at Christmas. An old recipe from my mom. If they turn out ok, I'll share some with Mr and Mrs.

My plan for dinner tonight is homemade pizza. I usually buy a bag of frozen mushrooms because buying fresh, I never use them all up. But then I had a thought they other day - obviously they can be frozen! So, I bought some fresh mushrooms and what I don't use on the pizza I will freeze for a later use. I usually put on my pizza sweet italian sausage, olives and mushrooms, but this time I also got some red onion and a green bell pepper to add. I'm trying the Rhodes frozen dinner rolls one more time - if it's still not tasting as good as it used to, I'll find something else next time. I hope not, because it really was a great tasting pizza dough.

Does anyone use Sofi for banking? This came up last week when I was doing the bonus payroll. I was getting an error message for a savings account direct deposit for one of our employees. To save time, I just set his payment to go all into his checking. My boss let him know and he told her it was his Sofi savings and he'll get it figured out (I'm guessing he used the wrong routing or acct#). He told her he was getting 4.6% interest on his savings. Funny, but then both myself and my boss ended up looking up Sofi on the internet at the same time, haha. I messaged her, this is appealing - they are offering a $300 bonus, plus Rakuten is offering $125! She thought it was appealing as well and didn't know about Rakuten, other than her daughter has mentioned it to her before. I decided to look into it more while I am off this week. $425 extra for just transferring some money there, for 2-3 months, is a nice bonus. 

I'm sure it will be quiet here. No family visiting neighbors and the fireworks we typically hear are way off in the distance. Perfect.

Wednesay shopping and errands

I was up at my normal time on my first day off. Doesn't matter, it's just when I wake up no matter for work or not. Plus we were leaving mid morning to go to the city for a couple of stops and pick up groceries. First stop was to drop off the ring the young guy accidentally dropped in our driveway. We also owed his grandfather $50 on the lift installation, as he had forgotten to add the cost of the oil he used, so dh put both in an envelope. We met the young guy where he works and gave it to him. He was happy to get the ring, as he said his girlfriend had given it to him. Dh also texted the grandfather to let him know we gave the $50 to his grandson to give him.

Then we went to Harbor Freight for dh to pick up some "wheel chocks". I didn't know that Harbor Freights website tell you which aisle something is in, so he had me look that up before we got there, so we were quick to find what he needed. He's also been wanting a particular floor jack that they never have in stock. When we went to check out the girl asked him if he found everything and he said well, you always seem to be out of the off-road floor jack. She said I think we have some in back...she looked on their computer and they had 9 in back, so they brought one out and we bought it.

Then I went into the grocery store for the hamburger patties I get there, and they were out. I forgot they probably would be out, due to 4th of July. Oh well, I do have almost 2 bags still, so that should get us through at least a couple more weeks for making dh's burgers for dinners. I saw they had 12 packs of Mountain Dew on sale, so I grabbed 4 of those to stock up on. (even though I already had some 24 packs with my Walmart order). Then we went to Walmart and got our order picked up. We've been using these collapsible bins we got at Costco to put the bags in and that makes carrying all the bags into the house much easier. We also stopped at Wendy's for lunch to eat on the way home and were home by 12:30 or so.

I had cleaned out the fridge this morning of old stuff that needed to be thrown out, so I had lots of room for all the new food. We are doing well with our new upright freezer in the garage and still plenty of room in that, so I don't think we really need to keep the chest freezer. We've been hanging onto it to make sure the upright was big enough for everything.

I took a nap for about an hour while dh was out working on something in the shop. I heated up some mini tacos for dh's dinner. I wasn't super hungry after having the chicken burger for lunch, so I just had some apple slices with peanut butter. Still YUM! Now dh is washing the pickup and I decided to get this blog post typed up. I guess I'd better go out and get the flowers watered. We had a sprinkle of rain late this afternoon, but not enough to water.

Forgotten money and sugary coffee

Some good news I totally forgot about until I was reminded by a postcard in the mail yesterday. We get a $675 property tax rebate again this year (it was a 2 year deal). We have to apply for it, so it was good to get the reminder card in the mail, as I had totally forgotten about it. I will put it towards my prepaid winter propane bill that comes up in September.

I sometimes watch this funny/snarky lady who does videos, mostly of cooking for her family. Last night I watched one of her making her morning cup of coffee. Holy sugar! She poured in so much white chocolate sauce (I can understand, though, LOL) and then 3 pumps of vanilla syrup and some creamer, which most likely also had sugar in it. That cup of coffee had to have at least 60 grams of sugar. I'm still working on my sugar reduction, but now my coffee is back to sugar free. I do want to use up the white chocolate sauce I have left, so I decided on Monday's, as a treat, I will add some to my coffee, but I'm adding about half what I used to put in (on a daily basis). I ran out of some of my more healthy treats about a week ago, so I've been slipping on those. 

But, we are going into the city tomorrow and picking up a grocery order, so I'm getting back to the less/no sugar snacks. I want apples and peanut butter so bad! I've been craving it, but ran out of apples like a week ago. We also have to stop by the house of the guy who installed dh's shop lift. We still owe him $50 (he forgot to add for the oil to his invoice) and also drop off his grandson's ring dh found in the driveway. Then dh wants to stop in Harbor Freight for a few things. I have our grocery pick up scheduled between 11am and noon and we can do the other 2 errands before that and shouldn't have to leave the house until like 9am in the morning.

Our cruise to Alaska in September is fast approaching and I need to get some things figured out now - like what clothes and if I/we need a couple new outfits. I also want to order a few "cruise essentials" which I see come in handy on a cruise from reading blogs/watching videos. Like magnetic hooks, plug in for extra USB ports, motion sickness patches, stuff like that. I'm going to use some of my $500 Amazon gift card to purchase those items I want to take with us.

We've decided to stay casual and skip the formal night(s) and just eat somewhere else on the cruise, but I'd still like to get a couple pair of casual pants that aren't jeans. All I have is jeans. Dh has quite a few non jeans khaki type pants and button down shirts, short and long sleeved, so he should be fine with clothes.

We bought a "cat cave" for Amos a long time ago, I have it up in my office. He uses it to scratch on and once in a blue moon will sit on top of it. The past 2 days he's decided he now likes getting inside it. He spent over 3 hours sleeping in there yesterday afternoon and he just got in it again this afternoon. Too funny. What made him finally decide he likes it?

Quick Monday post

DH subscribes to YouTube Premium. It used to cost $11.99 a month, now it's up to $13.99. Yesterday I read they now offer an annual plan that is $139.99/yr, so saves some over the monthly rate. To change to this yearly subscription, I had to cancel his plan and then re subscribe and that's where the yearly plan option was available. Now saving $28/yr.

I have some things in my Amazon cart to buy with my gift card balance, but I'm going to wait a couple of weeks for Prime Day and see if any of it goes on sale. I never have any luck with Prime Day, but I can wait to try again. Maybe the air purifier will be cheaper. I had hoped I could use my Amazon gift card balance to buy a Google Play gift card and then use that to pay for dh's Youtube Premium, but no can do, apparently. 

Dh just did his quarterly filters replacement on the furnace and water filters. Once he's all done he wants a haircut, which I just do with a set of Wahl clippers. He's not much hair left, haha, so it takes me less than 5 minutes to buzz his hair down. I'm sure he misses his head of super big super curly hair, LOL. 

I just remembered I have a phone meeting to do at noon. Not sure if it's just phone or video as well, but I'm prepared. Well, I think I have a meeting. The person who was coordinating the meeting time said he would send out invites and I haven't received anything. 

Two days of work this week. I got this!