Sunday photos 051726

 

Kitten who sleeps most of the day.

She got tired watching the birds out front.

This beautiful moth was out on our side porch sliding door one morning.

Cosmos

Dark colored cosmos

Things we don't buy anymore 051626

 

Things we don’t buy anymore

May 16, 2026

 

We have drastically cut back on the items we purchase since our retirements. 

First, we no longer buy bottled water.   Our 22 year old Frigidaire refrigerator finally gave out nearly two years ago and hubby spent about a week researching which one to buy to replace it.  So, we now have one with a water spout and ice maker.  Thus, we have no need to buy bottled water.   I DO buy a few bottles every now and then for the grandson (I spoil him!).   We make our own coffee at home every morning (or, rather, I DO!) and I buy a 3 pound bag of coffee beans at COSTCO and I grind them here at home as needed.   We use a stainless steel 12 cup percolator that I put on the stove every morning.

Second, I don’t buy pre-cut vegetables and I rarely buy pre-mixed salads.   I prefer to make my own.   Have you ever looked at pre-mixed salads?  Half of the time the lettuce is brown.   Ugh!  NO THANK YOU. Waste of money!

 

Third, I no longer buy smoothies.  My doctor told me it’s better to eat real fruit, so I do buy strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries.   If I have the two grandkids together on an early-release Wednesday, I take them to Whole Foods and they make up their own berry cup to eat as a snack at our house, but that’s a big splurge!

Fourth, I no longer buy any kind of flavored coffee creamer.   I’ve always had a fondness for the vanilla ones, but now I just buy half & half from Trader Joe’s.   Hubby likes the flavor and consistency of it and we have a Trader Joe’s about a block and a half away from our house.   Whole Foods is about 2 blocks away.

We only eat beef now MAYBE once a week.   We eat a lot of chicken and ground turkey.  We make turkey patties, “hippie” salad with turkey (turkey, kidney beans, green onions, and maybe radishes, along with Fritos chips.   I take out the Fritos from mine as I have to watch my carbs.) We eat a LOT of salads with chicken mixed in as protein.   NOT BEEF.

Fifth, desserts.  NOPE.  I have to count my carbs these days, so desserts are OUT and who can afford them anyway?   On rare occasions, I make an Amish zucchini chocolate loaf or a pumpkin loaf in the fall, but that’s about it.  The daughter makes a mean banana loaf.   I want to try more baking at home, but I DO have to watch my carbs! ☹

Sixth…WINE… Hubby was in the wine business for about 20 years and was a wine broker, but these days we buy a tiny box of 4 single servings of wine and it lasts us WEEKS.   We used to buy wine weekly.   Nope.   Can’t afford it.

Seventh, canned drinks like Arizona ice tea or fizzy flavored waters.  Nope.  Plain water or hubby now buys bottles of the seltzer water from WalMart for 79 cents each and we mix it with lemon juice or lime juice. NOT buying flavored canned drinks anymore!

What else?   I rarely buy paper towels as we have tons of microfiber cloths and I cut up old dish towels and reuse those.

Cleaning supplies?   Vinegar and Dawn dish soap, maybe some orange essential oil mixed into the mixture.   I’ve NEVER invested or like commercial cleaners.   HATE those stupid Febreze things and the sprays.   I’ve always used essential oils and I need to start using up the stash that I have!   Vinegar, Dawn, and an essential oil clean MOST THINGS.

Towels?   I recently did purchase two new bath towels from COSTCO because ours were so old that they hardly have any lint on them anymore! But, it was about 10 years since I bought any, so I figured it was time for a couple new ones.

I even wash our single car.   I HATE paying $10.00 and over for a drive through car wash!   I have a bottle of car wash soap that I use.  I do a better job than most car washes anyway, but there is one down by the daughter’s house that does a decent job for $12.00.

VEGETABLES:   Last year I grew a TON of vegetables.   I grew early tomatoes, green onions, radishes, turnips, cabbage (not this year), Swiss chard (yummy!), and green beans.   My peas did NOT grow.   I don’t seem to have luck with peas, but I bought a $2.00 bag of mixed soup beans at WalMart, separated the seeds by variety, and planted them and they did BEAUTIFULLY!   Easy peasy!  Unfortunately I am NOT planting squash this summer or pumpkins.  It just isn’t worth the extra water.

Any ideas/suggestions/ thoughts that you might have?   What are you doing to save money?

Oh, and hubby, back in 2018, purchased a Nissan Rogue HYBRID.   We love her!   I usually only fill her up once a month, and even though it is recommended to use the super unleaded gasoline in her (which I buy at Sam’s Club), I love how efficient she is!   I forget to check the gas gauge, but I did put in $30 worth of gasoline this past week, and that ONLY filled her up ¼ way…sigh…And that was at $6.49 a gallon here in California.

884 words

May 16, 2026

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Project Hail Mary and some random thoughts 051526

 

Project Hail Mail novel started and some random thoughts

May 15, 2026

Yesterday I blogged about a 5 star book that I read, “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and I also started to read “Project Hail Mary”.   All 476 pages of it.

I’m not sure that I have the reading stamina for this book, but I’m going to try.   It is highly recommended and rated. It has a 4.51 rating on Goodreads and 4.7 stars on Amazon.   Both are extremely high ratings, so I might be missing something if I don’t read it, right?

It’s written in…shudder…FIRST PERSON!   I usually don’t read books in first person, but I picked it up yesterday and read 12 pages straight without it bothering me, so I’m okay with that.  However, the length…OY! But, hey, I have nothing but time these days.   I’m ONLY picking up the grandson 3 times a week probably for another week while his father is on jury duty (he would be picking him up the other two days).  

So, here goes.

I seem to be wasting a lot of time these days on Instagram listening to child prodigies either sing or play the violin or piano.   I can spend hours just listening to them.   For me, coming from a musical family, it’s fascinating!

My garden is sadly neglected and I’m letting it go for the summer.   Last year I had to run out and hand pollinate my squash and I just don’t have the energy to do that this year and I mean, how many yellow squash can one family eat?   I did enjoy the 3 beautiful, round pumpkins which matured in mid-October.   I planted them May 5^th and the squash shaded them and they survived a medium-hot summer here.   This summer we are being warned about a very strong El Nino coming, which means more rain, humidity, and tropical storms.  So, I’m not planting a summer crop AT ALL.

There’s a word in Spanish:   la ganas…it means “the desire”.   A deep desire.  I just don’t have it this year AT ALL.  I’ve done something to my left wrist or it could be more arthritis, but I’m having trouble grasping items with it and it hurts ALL THE TIME.   If I move it a certain way, it’s a 10/10 on the pain scale.  I iced it this morning and that really helped, so I’ll be doing that again as needed.

I honestly need rest.   I get up in the morning, early, feed the birds out front, put food out for the visiting duck pair, check the hummingbird feeders, all 7 of them, come inside, feed the dog, feed our nearly one year old kitten, fix the coffee, then head out back to feed the birds and cats out there.  I always check on my wild sunflowers and the hollyhocks that are growing there and water them as necessary.   And, I check the hummingbird feeders out back, too.   We seem to have about 4-5 hummers who stay with us all year and the yard is divided into front and back territories for them. While the coffee is percolating (we use a stove top stainless steel 12 cup percolator), I usually come in and waste time on my laptop.

When I finish “Project Hail Mary”, I’ll post my thoughts on it.   In the meantime, I’ll be running errands and doing chores and picking up the grandson. By the way, I put in $30 worth of gas in my car yesterday and only got ¼ tank of gas. I think it was 4.65 gallons, so it would cost me over $100 to fill it up completely. AND, it only takes premium unleaded, so no cheap gasoline! It IS a hybrid and it gets about 30 mpg in the city, so that is a benefit, BUT STILL!

Any thoughts or comments?   What are you reading?   What’s a book you really enjoyed?

653 words

May 15, 2026

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5 star book reads

 

5 Stars Reads

May 14, 2026

I’ve always been an avid reader.  After I retired, I had all this time on my hands, so I read quite a few books.   I think I read over 20 one year.   I opened a Goodreads account and I bought books on Amazon and Thrift books.   Of course, I didn’t give them away, I kept them.

So, then I purchased a 2 shelf wooden little free library in which to stash most of the books I’d read plus others.  Twice now I’ve cleaned out over 90 books from the house (hubby gets tired of tripping over my stacks) and I’ve lost track of how many books I’ve purchased at library books sales, thrift stores, or online for the library.

Anyway, I’m now in a reading slump. I’ve been in this slump for over a year now.  I don’t know what is causing it.   I have the TIME to read.   I just don’t have the desire.   I think part of it is my eyesight.   It’s getting harder and harder to read a physical book, and I have a Kindle, but I also don’t read books there either.

That is, until I read “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and “Where the Crawdads Sing”.   Both books were 5 stars for me, especially the Afghanistan one.  Honestly, it took me a good YEAR to recover from reading that book and I had to read a couple of fluff Dean Koontz books to cleanse my reading palate.

I keep a reading journal now and I wrote that “A Thousand Splendid Suns” was the best book I read in 2024, which was the year I also read “Where the Crawdads Sing” and “The Women”. Yes, I’m down to reading about 4 books a year now! Between my sewing, picking up the grandkids three days a week, doing ALL the chores around here, and wasting time on my laptop, I just don’t have time anymore to read!

I picked up “Hail Mary” this morning and found that even though it is written in first person, which I usually abhor, I really was enjoying it, so I think that will be my next read.

I’ve been looking at snail mail clubs and trying to decide if I want to start my own club, which would be book oriented. I subscribed to four of them on Etsy, but I haven’t received my monthly letter and goodies yet.  I’ll let you know what I think of them after I get all four letters.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that these days I don’t have TIME TO WASTE on poorly written books or mass produced ones by authors.   Don’t EVER think I’ll read James Patterson!   I did fall for one book co-authored by him and Michael Crichton (apparently Crichton wrote the outline) and it was… GOD AWFUL!  “Eruption” or something like that.   I didn’t even finish it. And, I’m NOT wasting my time on romance or stupid romance/fantasy or fantasy. And, as stated above, I have trouble reading first person unless the book is well written.

Honestly, unless the book IS well written, I’m not wasting my time or eyesight on it.  I don’t care WHO the author is.

Who is YOUR favorite author and why?

 

561 words

May 14, 2026

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 Duck Wars

May 13, 2026

 

Not every year, and not every other year, but some years we get ducks visiting our front yard.   I’ve learned over time that they watch other birds and know where food and water is located.   I have plenty of feeders in the front yard as well as bowls of water, which I clean and refill daily as part of my chores routine.  I’ve been observing birds now for 10 years and I figured that they must be a successful species to have survived 65 million years, unlike us “newbies” to the world.

So, this year a mated pair of Mallards showed up one day.   The male can be quite vocal, so I now listen for his morning chatter.   They’ve been here over a month now and I expect them to be gone any day, since we are now in triple digits, but so far they appear every morning and late afternoon.   Mornings are reserved for eating birdseed and duck food pellets.   Afternoons are reserved for drinking water and dunking themselves into one of the large rubber water bowls that I had up at the horse ranch.   I love to observe the female.   She dunks her head into the water with pure abandon while the male stands guard.  He needs to stand guard because we have quite a few feral cats in the neighborhood who are always on the prowl for an extra meal.

This morning I heard frantic quacking, so I went out to see if maybe a coyote was around.   Nope.  There were three ducks instead of two!   An intruder?   YES!  And, it was another female.   The male got VERY UPSET, chased her into another neighbor’s yard and was quite rude to her.   His quacks could be heard all up and down the street.   He chased her down the street, he chased her into the neighbor’s yard, and he even flew after her in an attempt to rid her for good.   Nothing worked. 

She is now out front eating birdseed by herself.   The pair flew off in disgust.

Our local civic center park has large ponds and every fall the ducks and geese fly down here and some stay over the winter.  And, of course, the Salton Sea attracts many bird species.   I often hear the geese in the mornings since the park is only about ¼ mile away from our home.   I love to hear the geese and I look forward to them returning every year.

But, I always look out front first thing in the morning for the pair of ducks.   They fly in and land on the beautifully manicured lawn across the street, rest there, check for cats, and then waddle across to our yard for breakfast.  Since I’m already feeding various species of birds, I just add some birdseed and pellets for them and I check their water bowls.

Simple pleasures.

480 words

May , 2026

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Snail mail letter clubs?

 

Snail mail clubs?

May 12, 2026

 

 

I’ve been searching online for a couple of snail mail clubs to join, but honestly, I’m ready to give up and just start my own.

First, most of them are too damn expensive.   I don’t want to spend $10 a month for a photocopied, typed letter, a couple of stickers, and a bookmark.  Oh, and maybe a postcard with “original art”.   I’m NOT an artist, so that doesn’t even appeal to me.

What I want is an interesting handwritten letter.   I DID find a couple of monthly samples that I ordered on Etsy and I’ll do a YouTube video of them when I receive them and I’ll let you know what I think of them.

I also restarted my account on Postcrossing (a postcard exchange website) because, well, I enjoyed seeing all the postal stamps from around the world and I DI make a few friends when I was doing this last year.   It’s just that international postage is now…SIT DOWN!...$1.70 each!  I asked for someone’s address yesterday and thankfully got a man in Indiana, so that was a regular postcard stamp which is $0.61, which seems outrageous.

Anyway, I’ve been searching on Instagram, YouTube, Google Search, and Etsy looking for a REASONABLY PRICED monthly snail mail subscription.   They seem to range from $8.00 a month to $11.00 upwards to $15.00.   That seems a LOT for a 79 cent stamp and some items thrown into an envelope.

I found one gal who sends out about 500 envelopes a month.   NO THANK YOU.   I would love to write to about 5 or 6 people, but that’s it.  I DO write the 5 grandkids weekly and I make some handmade cards for them, I throw in some stickers and a bookmark of two, but I hand write (or print) my letters.   None of this photocopied garbage!

What do you think?   Do you have any experience with a snail mail letter club?  I did get one letter a couple of years ago from some book club and it was garbage, so I cancelled that subscription.   I’m pretty picky.   If I’m going to pay $6.00 upward, I want some… QUALITY, not QUANTITY.  Let me know your thoughts.   And, let me know if you would like a handwritten letter from me.

382 words

May 12, 2026

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Why don't people read physical books anymore?

 

Why don’t people read physical books anymore?

May 11, 2026

I have a little free/sharing  wooden two shelf library out in the front yard by the curb and NOBODY has been by for over two weeks.   I usually go out Saturday morning and refresh and replace books there, but lately it’s the same books there week after week after week.   I’m ready to give up.

I have advertised it on Instagram, on Facebook, You Tube, and even on our local “Buy Nothing” group.   MAYBE once a month someone will stop by, but lately it has just been crickets.

I actually began with two libraries:  one for adults and one for kids.   The kids one was one of the red plastic ones I bought on Amazon.   It was perfect for chapter books and smaller books for kids, but the larger ones never fit into it.  After a year of non-use, I cleaned it out, moved it to the front porch, and put my gardening supplies in it.  I just GAVE UP.I’ve spent HOURS and HOURS at the two libraries near me buying books, I’ve gone to bi-annual book sales, I’ve been to thrift stores buying books (see a pattern?) for this damn library and NOBODY EVER USES IT.

I give up.   If nobody comes by the first week of June, I’m going to have the son-in-law come and take it apart, cut off the post,  and I’ll bring it inside and use it as a spice rack.   I will admit defeat.

Don’t people READ BOOKS anymore?   I mean, I’ve put some great titles out there:   The Women, Chemistry Lessons, Where the Crawdads Sing, A Thousand Splendid Suns.   NOTHING.   Crickets and spider webs!   I have even bought books online through Amazon and Thrift books.   I constantly take photos of my shelves for people to see and NOBODY comes by.

I’m beginning to get it.  People want instant reads like ipads and Kindle.   I have a Kindle myself.   I never use it.  I was always one of those people who enjoyed having a book in hand. I loved the feel of a book, the texture of its pages.

Unfortunately, I’ve read some pretty BAD BOOKS lately.   I picked up a Dean Koontz book to read after reading “A Thousand Splendid Suns” to bring me back to reality.   And, I enjoyed it, so I picked up another one of his books which was just GARBAGE.   It was a complete waste of time. I hate and refuse to read fantasy books or romance fantasy books.   I don’t have time for that nonsense.  I’m not fond of books written in first person, but if it is well done, I’ll read it.

My TBR stack (to be read) is probably 100 books.   I’m going to go through them and cull them and donate them to one of the thrift stores in town.   I’ve already donated 91 books to one of the local libraries and I need to get rid of the piles in the living room.   So, that will probably be another 90 or so books GONE.   Poor hubby keeps stumbling over one pile of books, so I need to get them OUT!

I finally gave away ALL the kids’ books (mostly chapter books) because nobody was interested in them.   Yet, they’ll pay $2.99 each for them at thrift stores?   I don’t get it.

That spice cabinet is looking more and more appealing.

571 words

May 8, 2026

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