camping dreams, +0.8

 I've scheduled to take off three days from work, the first of which is my birthday, to go on a short camping trip.  I don't want to leave the dog too long and I can't take her with me, so one night, possibly two.  My target destination is in high desert, so I know it will be cold at night in September but I want to avoid the heat as that is harder on me.  One big concern is forest fires, and so I want to be flexible - if there's smoke, I don't go there.  Instead, I go to one of my favorite lakes, a place I used to visit when I lived here before, deep in the forest - though that may be rainy which isn't a lot of fun for me camping.  Both of them have hikes attached that I want to do, though the desert one is pretty challenging.  The lake hike is longer but I don't recall it being very difficult.  

They also both require me feeling ok, which of course isn't a given.  Yesterday wiped me out with three hours of scrubbing and scraping the patio exterior.  Even more than the joint pain, it's the lack of stamina that gets me down.  

Yesterday in between bouts of paint battling, I watched the movie Edie, about a 90-year-old (or so) woman who hiked a peak in the Scotland.  I am far younger and fitter than her, but I still worry about my stamina with a tough hike, and the pain especially in my feet.  But I want to push myself, especially on my birthday.  The view from the campsite in the desert at sunrise would be incredible and inspiring.  

the challenge is work.  I already took off the three days but I want to add the day before my birthday, and that day is packed with responsibilities that I'm not sure I can move around or reassign without creating a lot more work.  But we'll see.  I do like the idea of waking up on my birthday on the edge of a gorgeous canyon and then pushing myself physically.  Plus, the camping in the desert is a great deal - no reservations allowed and it's walk-in (which is a hassle because i cannot find my duffle bags for some weird reason, but that's ok), but there's facilities not far away and the price is a bargain.  

 OK, just weighed myself before taking dog out for walk and scale says I gained almost a pound in the past two weeks (don't think I weighed myself last week when I had company).  Sigh.  I just can't seem to break past this point.  And yes, I had treats last weekend, and I've had a bit more bread lately (100% whole wheat), but otherwise I'm eating mostly vegetables and protein.  I treat cabbage as a carb - making up a pot of meat and cabbage with another vegetable, no potatoes or rice to accompany.  And I've been eating a lot of cabbage, yesterday was for two different meals.  I'm eating more fruit because it's season and it's all around me, but not gluttonous.  I sometimes get wistful for how I used to be able to eat and other people can; most days are fine but sometimes I miss ultraprocessed foods and desserts.  It's frustrating to work hard (it feels like I spend so much time and energy preparing vegetables) and limit myself so much to not have results.  And no, I'm not going to the gym but I'm bicycle commuting and spending hours regularly in physical labor such as scraping paint and hauling compost, and the like.  

Oh well.  It is what it is.  I'm going to sit here for a few minutes and take my blood pressure and then walk the dog and then get on with my days.  I didn't get to canning pears yesterday, but I will today, as they're taking up much of my fridge.  And what doesn't get canned gets dehydrated.  There are still a few trays of green pears, but I anticipate using up all my jars today with canning so those will get dried.  Also today I hope to prime the patio exterior, if everything dries up well and I did a sufficient enough job with the prep.  There's just so much fucking flaking paint, it's a huge mess. 

I made some raisins in my dehydrator with some tasty grapes I got, but I don't think I"ll do that again - it is a very very long time to dehydrate, days.  And I had to poke each one with a toothpick.  Tedious work that.  

OK, off we go.  It's going to be a good day.  

hello, Saturday

 It's Saturday morning and I'm planning a productive weekend, even though I barely slept at all last night. Charging up with some green tea, then errands, then preparing the exterior of the patio for painting.  It's a job and a half.  Then kitchen things - can more pears (they are a lot of work, but scrumptious and I will enjoy them this winter), maybe dehydrate more prune plums (they are also very delicious) if ripe enough, cook through all the produce in my fridge.  Last night I was at a loss for a meal but very hungry, so I put together some cabbage and chicken sausage and it worked ok.  I think I'll make borscht, as those beets need to get used, and I have potatoes and cabbage also from my garden to use.  These things are not perfect from a supermarket - the outside of the cabbage is often split and/or bug damaged, and I don't care.  I have a lot of green beans to eat, and zucchini.  I plan to make a double batch of zucchini oat muffins sweetened with dates (though the dates I'm using up now aren't sweet at all) and perhaps dredge and bake some zucchini rounds with parmesan.  I think my latest batch of pickles may be done fermenting and I will move next to sauerkraut or maybe first some green beans ... except that it's going to be quite warm coming up soon, so maybe I'll wait.  Perhaps I'll freeze green beans to use up later.  

Last night it was cooler than it had been in a week, and I set up the patio - assembling the table, setting up the rug and chairs.  It looks quite nice if I do say so myself, in the brightly painted patio with the new cut out windows to let in more air and light.  It was so dirty and dark and I'm very happy to look out to see this clean bright area instead.  And I'll use it, just have to start thinking about it.  I will put it up for the winter to hope that the rug and furniture stays clean looking longer.  

ONce I finish the patio, I'll turn to cleaning the outside of the house, washing windows.  I need to repair mortar on steps but that can probably wait to next summer.  Then I need to do gardening chores - amend the soil, plant garlic and maybe some other winter crops.  Not all of this to be done this weekend, my stamina is in short supply.  But over the next few weeks.  Garlic will be planted in a month and then the rainy season is likely to begin soon after.  That's when I'll turn back into my house and hopefully finish the fucking kitchen already, and a couple of other things like change out some very ugly, dirty old light fixtures, replace old and broken outlets and light switches (and reverse a couple that are upside down).  I'll worry about all that later.  For now, I'm still outside, and it's not going to be hot for a few hours so I need to finish this green tea, do errands, and then move on with the work at hand.  

There is a possible new position opening in my job that would be a different kind of stress, more in line with things I've done in the past.  I think I'll apply.  I spoke with someone in that department yesterday and I like working with her even though I find her energy peculiar, like I really can't get a read on her.  But I'll give it a try.  They may already have someone in mind and that's fine, but making moves could be good.  and I can't be fired without cause so i'm not worried about being targeted for expressing interest.  

Oh, and I very much have to finish the book Autocracy, Inc. and return it to the library.  It's overdue but I haven't wanted to return it because it's very good and I want to finish it.  Maybe I'll have time later to lie in the hammock and read that.  

So, a full day ahead and my tea is nearly finished, so off I go.   

van life

 I keep coming back to the idea of getting a camper van to travel around and see all the places and friends after i leave here.  Most recently, it's because I want to spend extended time with manatees.  I watched Bad Monkey and I really liked it, and it made me feel a draw to Florida.  

When I was young, really young, I remember an orange van that I think my father converted.  I vaguely remember plywood drawers.  I don't know where we would have gone or why, and I think they stopped using it for camping by the time I was maybe two or three.  

But I like the idea of it, and I'm thinking that should be my next project: to get a cargo van and convert it for camping, and spend time driving around in it.  

The see the manatees and Badlands and more.  I've done a lot of traveling in the US (and outside), but I could definitely enjoy another long road trip, this time with dawdling.   

+.2

 Scale said I gained 0.2 pounds last week.  There was a lot of indulgence as Dear Friend was in town for a few days.  We ate mostly produce from my garden but also white bread and desserts, so I'm sure the scale will reflect that.  We had a good time, as we do.  And I have heaps of pears and plums to process as they ripen up.  Hopefully I can can a bunch of pears, as dehydrating gets pretty tedious after awhile.  The plums are from a woman out the road that I get a bunch of fruit from and they are super tasty.  Prune plums, she said.  

Just have to get through this week and then I have a three-day weekend, thank goodness.  And after that I plan to take off a couple of days and I'm hoping to go out camping.  But, it'll depend on the weather and fires and such.  Not going to expose myself to smoke or extreme heat.  But I am hoping to get to go and do some hiking.  Oh, actually, I just thought of a plan b if that plan doesn't work, another spot I'd like to go, and it's actually closer and less heat and fireprone, so, cool.  Sounds like I'll probably go unless something happens.   

What concerns me about eating desserts isn't doing it occasionally - what concerns me is that I was acting like a fentanyl addict about it and that I feel no satiety when eating things like that so I just want to keep eating it.  I didn't eat huge quantities or anything - we shared three desserts over two days - but I sure fucking wanted to.  And I finished off a garlic loaf by myself.  Yes, it was small, but it was a lot of white bread for me, and I never felt full from it.  I could have eaten so much more of all of that, and would have but for all the vegetables and legumes we had prepared.  It's really a bummer that even with a full year of eating no more than 10 grams of added sugar most days, that I still have to practice such restraint to interact normally with food like that.  And when I'm tired or stressed, I don't have that restraint to practice.  And now I'm craving like crazy.  

-0.4

 I am really struggling to lose any more weight and I'm still "obese."  It's frustrating because I deny myself so many things I'd like to eat, but I'm still stuck.  I have to keep telling myself that those denials are better for me not just for moving a scale number but for healthier arteries and brain and such.  And my triglyceride levels did drastically decrease, but it's still a bummer.  

So this little scale loss is considered a win today, even while I'm skeptical that it's a real loss that will continue into next week.  I just seem to be hovering around this weight for almost two months.   

garlic and pals

 When I harvested my garlic this year, I don't recall exactly how much there was - it just seems a lot because the heads were so large.  But some of the heads were quite small, and i processed those up today and started using them like in the pickled jalapenos.  It's quite a delight.  Soon I will process the rest and make four bags - 2 each for hard and softneck garlic, for planting and for eating.  

This process is saving me signficant money.  I remember spending about $40 for seed garlic last year and then $25 for local-grown garlic.  Not even counting the store garlic I'd bought before that, that's $65 that i didn't spend this year because of growing my own garlic.  I know that garlic in the store is fine and not that expensive, but this garlic is so much better.  Too often what I got in the supermarket was molded.  And this gardening is fun.  Someday I'll grow big onions - the ones I tried to grow this year stayed way too small. I spend a ton of money on alliums.  

I picked about 30 pears and there's a bunch more on the tree, but it's overwhelming for them all to be ripe the same day so I'll gradually pick.  Probably.  It can be hard for me to step away from a job like that.  I'll plan to dehydrate, freeze, and can.  I have some white grape juice/apple juice that I can can them in.  They turn pink when I can them because I don't water the trees which is interesting but theyr'e still tasty.  I have my dehydrators all set up and ready to go.  I started to prep the first ones yesterday but cutting aruond the bad spots left very little pear, so not worth firing up the dehydrator.  If it gets really warm again, I"ll run the dehydrators out in the garage.  It's nice to have them running near the kitchen to more easily check them, but it gets hot and humid.  

The pickled jalapenos look great and all the jars sealed.  One more thing to check off the list.  The fermenting pickles aren't doing much yet but there's still time for them.  Today I need to pick the tomatoes. I was going to freeze them to process later but if they're as ripe as I think, then I'll pop them into the tamale pie I'm making instead of a can of tomatoes.  Green beans and zucchini are also probably both ready for picking, and always cucumbers from that plant that has really taken off.  Cucumbers are easy, I can just slice and snack.  

I slept late and the dog whined to get up to snuggle.  I'd had to keep the door open all night because of her stomach issues, and thankfully she didn't bark at all.  She's watchign me now, so ready for me to get up and start moving towards taking her on a walk.  I have so much to do today - painting, laudnry, cleaning, cooking - and I do not have the bandwidth to do it all.  I feel overwhelmed with work, which bleeds over into life.  It's just relentless.  And my brain doesn't turn it off because I need to process problem solving in the semi-conscious state - I reach solutions by just letting the problems simmer in the background.  Problem is, they simmer on weekends and nights, and I never get a break.  

Three and a half years until I expect to be able to leave this job.  I'm approaching halfway there.  I just have to not die before then.  And I have to remain super frugal and aggressively pay off my mortgage.  That's a long time to stay this focused but I think I can do it because the reward of financial independence will be so sweet.  My expenses are cut pretty much to the bone - of what I spend each month, 74% goes to the house payment & utilities.  26% is everything else - food, dog, gas, garden, health, misc.  All of that is less than half of my takehome pay (43% last month), so the 57% left over goes to mortgage payoff and savings - now that my projects are hopefully done.  I know that I will have to get a new roof at some point, and there can always be unexpected expenses when one is a homeowner, but the big expected expenses are done.  New kitchen, new bathroom, repaired patio with just some more paint needed.  I'm in a damn good spot right now and I'm feeling good about that. And I can not fuck it up by losing this job or I'll be so fucked.  i need to get out of my own way.  

I do fear that my anger on Friday about my boss undermining me is what sent the dog's stomach into a tailspin.  She was so worried about me, and I know her stress goes to her stomach.  It also caused me sleep problems.  So, that's a lot, and not great.  

OK, time to walk the hound and start on this day.   

cucumbers, check. grape leaves, check. garlic, check.

 Walking around the yard I saw yet more cucumbers, and I knew what to do: fermented pickles.  So I have two jars now going with grape leaves and garlic and some pickling spice and dill.  Those should be good in a few days.  I'll probably make more to share.  I feel so fortunate to have a garden like this.  I also plan to lacto-ferment green beans, and to pickle jalapenos (which I'll pick up at the farm).  

It's supposed to rain tonight and I'm so fucking excited.  It's been months without rain, and I would so love to not water this weekend.  It's also not so hot now, in the low 80s.  After 100 degrees a few days ago, that feels wonderful.  I love having my AC off again, even last night in my bedroom.  I fell asleep diagonal across the bed because the dog was hogging, and when I woke up 9.5 hours later, I was in that same position, having been in the deadest of sleep.   I feel rested but my job is still just too damn much.  And I lost my everloving mind to be told that my boss backstabbed me, and then the dog stuck like glue to me, my little emotional support beast.   

***

It did rain last night though I'm not sure how much.  The air is still wet, the water still dripping off the short new patio roof (I'll need to install a gutter when I finish painting), and it feels too wet to be painting so I'll wait until it dries up a bit.  I think I'll go out to the farm that I like, maybe get another tasty watermelon and a bunch of jalapenos to pickle.  I sure do like my home-pickled jalapenos.  I have only one pepper plant with a lot of blossoms but it's a promise I don't trust, and I want to take the opportunity to stock up while I can on something I like so much.  Plus i have heaps of garlic I'm enjoying using.  I need to process it at some point - cut it on both ends, rub off the dirt.  I'll plant again in about a month and a half, and I'm just so pleased with how well it grew and how many huge cloves I have to plant.  

 Oh, and I have tomatoes that need to be picked.  Time to put on long sleeves and gloves because those plants make me miserable.  I may clean and freeze them for processing later when I have more, probably into puree - even though it's pretty labor intensive to make - because I used it the most since last year of all the things I canned.  Oh, and salsa, I can definitely make more of that.  

Thinking more about that qigong retreat that I really wanted to go to ... there was no way I could figure out expenses to be less than $2,500, and that is a lot of money.  It's worth it for something that I really want and that improves my life, BUT, for now I need to look at opportunity cost.  Every time I spend money, it is slowing my ability to pay off my mortgage and to be able to retire.  THAT is my #1 goal and what I want to stay focused on.  So for now, I can keep following along with free qigong videos and Youtube and I'm ok with that.  It's for about three and a half more years, but I'm not really denying myself, I'm just adjusting.  Focusing on gardening and house pleasures more.  Fermenting and preserving and the like.  

And right now, I'm watching a lot of ted talks, falling down the rabbithole.  Mostly about pre-diabetes and such. Which is fun because there's so much conflicting advice.  eat no carbs, eat plant-based healthy carbs, etc.  

Anyway, time to go to the farm and roll with the day, slowly and casually.  the dog really needs a break from me, so I'll take my time.   

giving myself credit

 I rode three unnecessary miles today because I really wanted a sandwich from a specific place, and when I was there, at a great bakery, and the salesperson was trying to ply me with samples I asked him to cut it smaller and wouldn't take it until he did.  So, one bite of dessert, one sandwich (with a lot of saturated fat, not going to lie), no chips or anything else, water from the tap, and three extra miles (probably more because I took some weird turns).  And for dinner the focus was cucumbers w/feta and watermelon.  

I do make good choices, fuck the haters.

**

So, that qigong retreat I was eyeing won't actually work out - with transportation (I looked at every possible option) it would make me gone like 8 days, which is too long to leave the dog.  It's ok.  I'll look for things closer and I can do things like that when the dog is gone.

There was this reel on FB of "we take our 16-year-old dog on car rides every day because it's good for her brain."  And it was a big dog like maybe a chow.   And it just struck me, holy crap, my dog could live that long.  She's probably about 10 1/2 now and she's not really showing any signs of slowing down.  She has old dog fur but I also haven't bathed her for about 9 years - for awhile her fur smelled like old dog, but she's back to smelling healthy.  She's got a big lump on her haunch but that stopped growing and it doesn't bother her, and I doubt it's cancerous.  She eats pretty well, though it is ultra-processed dog food as the staple, with fruit and vegetable treats. She's never been allowed sugar or other such things.  The daily cosequin is a gamechanger with her mobility and I don't see any struggles, and she leaps around like a baby deer still.  She also does a lot of stretching.  Her hearing and eyesight are great - I mean, she's definitely not seeming like an elderly dog at all.

And if she lives that long, it's ok.  I can still retire when I pay off my house, and then maybe we could have a year or two of me not having to work.  I don't absolutely hate this place, it's just not my home.  But it's ok to stay as long as I have the dog, even if that means I don't take have a timely third act because by then I'm like 63 years old.  It's all good, I'm well-positioned no matter what happens.  

Also, I slept in and I clearly needed it but I'm having a hard time shifting to work brain and it's already an hour after start time and I have a meeting so I need to get rolling.   I have a shit ton of big events coming up that I need to prepare for, and a lot of that is tedious so I don't want to.  But I have to.  And on the home front, I was able to paint last night after work because it was much cooler than 100 (only in the 80s), but my plan to start the morning painting has been thwarted.  Hopefully this evening.  And then Saturday and Sunday for a few hours each day, I'll keep making progress.  I cannot wait to be finished.  Just ordered a rug to pull it together.    

things that make me happy

 Not sure if my freezer is better now, or the freezer containers I use, or a better organization system - but whatever the reason, I am digging having some meals frozen and ready to go with just a little foresight (to thaw before reheating).  Today for lunch it's lentil shepherds pie, one of my favorite meals though I used russets and I just always want to use my favorite potatoes for almost everything (yukon gold or others like that).  It's so tasty.  

I think I'll grab some more of these glass food storage containers from Costco next time I see them on sale.  I also use mason jars, and I have a pint of red beans to eat with cornbread (also frozen), and 3/4 of a quart of black beans (with which I make flour tortillas).  It's time to start refilling it with some other favorites, like sukuma wiki (greens and ground beef), rice & beans & zucchini, and such.  Make a big batch, freeze some.  I started doing this again because I was frustrated with the nearby free food giveaway - people are leaving a real mess and a lot of trash, and it's not being picked up.  I did donate a bunch of water bottles during the heatwave and some vegetables dishes and soup, but I'm not doing as much as I used to because of that frustration level.  There's a trash can right there that people can use instead of throwing it in my yard or the street, and the disrespect by not doing that is demoralizing.  

So, yay for me.   

Also, I'm trying to get into qi gong because of all physical activities, this one resonates the most with me.  Yoga, tai chi - they're ok, but I bore.  But qi gong, something about it, really appeals to me.  I first was exposed to it when on a fermentation bootcamp and someone offered to show us a routine, so every morning we were up to join him.  Then later, I stumbled upon it at a Chinese garden I was visiting while at a wedding.  When Covid hit and I was living in a tiny apartment, that was a sanity preserver on video.   

But I have a hard time sticking with it, like I do with anything that is just movement without purpose.  Yes yes, I understand that it has a purpose -  exercise has so many benefits - but I mean like it's not about transportation (why I bike) or building a garden bed to grow food (why I shovel dirt, which is a damn good workout).  And exercise for the sake of exercise is never something that appeals to me.  I have tried many times but it's not.  I get no runners high, and it usually hurts, and it's so fucking boring, and I try but ... yeah.

But it's time to stick with something to keep me healthy.  OR at least try some more.  And it's time for more hobbies.  

I started up again, two or three days now, and I do like it.  and I liked today's instructor, and she's leading a retreat about a 14 hour drive from me in over six months.  It's not cheap especially when considering transportation, but it's for several days in a lovely place.  So I negotiate with myself - if I can stick with this for a few weeks and I like it, and Friend feels comfortable watching the dog for several days, I'll look into this retreat more.  

 

a length of rope, or a belt if fancy

I pulled out my favorite pair of shorts - not sure why I haven't been wearing them.  and they're too big, like falling off over my hips too big.  

My first thought was to cut a length of rope and tie it on, but that's a pain with toileting and such, so maybe I'll invest in a belt.   

I'm definitely to the point of life that I give myself permission to do less.  I wear zero makeup, don't iron clothes, have essentially a capsule wardrobe for work and really do not fuss.  I have very short hair because it's so easy to care for.  I guess people would say I've "given up" on life but I'd say it's just the opposite - yes, I did enjoy primping some back in the day, but I just really do not want to spend time and money on things like that. 

There are other things I work on giving myself permission for.  LIke, not growing tomatoes.  Good grief, I am miserable when I touch those plants - itching that Will Not Stop.  So yes, I like having homemade tomato sauce, paste, salsa, etc. filling my cupboard - but I don't need to grow them myself.  

I don't have to do everything.  I just need to do the things that I want and need to do.   

good grief I hate watering

 It takes me almost two hours to water the front yard and I hate it!  It's too big, too many plants.  They're supposed to be drought tolerant plants but they're still getting established and it's supposed to be above 100 degrees so I'm trying to not make them all die.  Good grief what a pain in the neck. 

***

 I finished watering too late to feel motivated to paint.  Too hot.  So I was lazy, but I also did some of The Things that I'm supposed to be doing.  LIke the compress on my eyes, the physical therapy of my hands that I blew off the past two weeks and I can tell the difference because my hands cramp again.  I read most of the magazines in the stack (MOther JOnes and Wired).  Got some laundry done.  Dremeled the dog's nails and holy moley did that need to be done - that's the longest I've ever gone and they were the longest I've ever seen on her.  Way too long.  Cleaned the laundry room sink.  washed the dehydrator Dear Friend brought that we've been sharing since 1996 because the pears are starting to fall and it won't be long until I climb up to pick a heap and then process them.  

 Little chores, not from the big lists, things that I just need to do.  It's rewarding. 

 

my sweet dog

 The dog was actually pretty good yesterday with my friend and her wife who stopped by for a bit.  I told them to ignore her and they did which was helpful, and then they could interact.  While we were eating dinner the dog shrieked at me like I'd forgotten something and I gave her a bully stick which made her happy.  But she didn't just gobble it down, maybe remembering that can upset her belly, and she's slowly gnawing her way through it.  Early this morning I kept hearing the dog door making noise so I went to check, and the dog was standing there pushing the bully stick into the dog door to make it flap because she wanted to get my attention to come outside to do yardwork while she gnawed on it outside.  

She is so hilarious and quite sweet.   

OUr walk was fine though so many dogs out and she had to shriek at every single one.  It's warming up, only 9 am and I really really need to get out to water the front yard but I'm taking a beat for some toast for breakfast.  I'm planning to take bottles of water and food to the little free refrigerator nearby, but step by step with this hot day (triple digits likely).   

not the worst medical appointment; zero loss/gain

 I had a medical appointment today a "care transfer" appointment (because in the two years I"ve been there, they lose so much staff) and it was not horrible.  She was humble, as she should be, as someone who has just graduated from nursing school and having a patient with complex medical needs.  She said she read a bunch on chikungunya and other things, so that's good.  That's helpful.  Her trying to tell me to take meds without a conversation was a bad look and I'm glad she's off that.  So, that's good.

An old friend is coming over this weekend and I plan to cook dinner. She can't eat a lot of things - no dairy, tomatoes, gluten, etc.  MOst of the things I eat.  That's ok, I"m not easily deterred.  I'll make about four different dishes featuring different vegetables from my garden (zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, kale) and if she doesn't like anything she can have other things.  I'll get some good local fruit for dessert.  

We grew up together, and we lived together in this town.  She'll say I moved here with her, but technically I moved here first and she followed.  But she did bring me to this state - when I left Germany many years ago, she said to come stay with her in a town an hour or two away, and I did for a few months, and then I came here, a bigger town.  She followed and she loves it here but moved abroad with her wife and family.  So she's back to visit. It'll be nice to see her, if I can get the dog to behave.  The dog doesn't care for her.  It's also an excuse for me to prepare several healthy dishes, get back into the groove.

I've happily gotten back a little into the groove of painting and finished painting the interior storage area, which is about 1/4 of the paint job.  And it's not finished, I should get another coat of paint on it, but it's ok.  I like the light sage green color.  The store where I bought the paint is out of that base and it's been like over two weeks since I've been waiting for it to come in and that's alarming.  I need at least two more gallons and I need to get the project done.  I'd getting hot this weekend but I'll still be able to do some work in the mornings.  I did some work today - I took about an hour off in the morning and painted and I'm really glad I did.  I work myself so hard, and to just take a break to do somehting for myself was very nice.  I got halfway through the storage and i finished the rest tonight.  So, yay me.  Hopefully I can keep some momentum and get things towards done.   

***

I didn't get enough sleep last night.  I was up too late messaging with a friend and then couldn't sleep, and it's my fault.  I absolutely have to stop anything that interferes with my sleep because it makes me into a monster.  I cannot process information, I am dangerous driving, I'm so extremely grumpy, I complain all the time, I don't want to help - I am horrible.  And I'm horrible to myself, I feel so sick now when unrested.  I can no longer run on fumes.  We were asked an hour before end of day to take on a big project that would require additional work outside work hours, and I just couldn't do it.  I'm far too tired.  

Also, I need to be careful in the future about the tomato plants - every year I think I'll be ok but I am not.  Touching tomato plants causes extreme itching for hours even if I wash off.  time to get out my long-sleeved shirt I use for tomatoes.  

 Back to sleep though, I need to get extremely disciplined.  No more nonsense.  And then once I get that better, I'll focus on other things.  I ordered a blood pressure monitor at the nurse's recommendation because my blood pressure has been trending upwards in office visits.  If it's lifestyle that's increasing it (work stress), then I will find tools to decrease it.  Qi gong, that sort of thing.  

It's just a lot of discipline, you know?  Growing my own food, preparing it, eating healthy all the time, sleeping, exercise, all that.  I have to use so much discipline at work, I don't have enough left at home.  I so look forward to when I can retire or at least have a less-demanding job. 

***

Scale today says weight is the same as last week.  I think I just haven't passed the vast quantity of vegetables that I ate yesterday. Cucumbers, zucchini, kale, green beans, and then watermelon.  Obviously it's weight over the whole week and I did have one slip-up (one candy bar) but otherwise I stuck to the healthy eating plan pretty well.  

It's supposed to be scorching hot the next few days and it's already 7:30 am so I need to get the dog out walked, then water heavily - and honestly by then the UV may be too high for me to want to be out in it.  I'd love to keep powering through with this painting project but I have zero interest in making myself sick again from it.   

 

weather

 Sunday was an amazing day weather-wise.  Overcast and low-mid 70s.  PERFECT.  I am not a fan of the direct sunlight, so this was great.  Unfortunately I pushed myself too hard with priming, and I've felt like crap the next few days.

Tuesday night, and something is flipping like a switch and suddenly I feel fine.  What is it?  Probably sugar.  I've drunk some juice which I never do.  I bought juice to can peaches in, but the peaches were damn juicy, so I have a jar of peach juice from what wasn't canned and then leftover apple and white grape juice. 

I'd forgotten how tasty juice is. Yum.  I just bottled and jarred it up and stuck them in the freezer.  I can thaw when time to freeze pears.  Hopefully that day will come.  

***

OMG, this job is relentlesss.  I've been working such long hours to just feel like I'm barely on top of things, and I'm still not catching typos and probably missing deadlines.  there's just not enough of my bandwidth to handle it all.  And yes, I want to support people going on new baby leave, but when I have to add their work on top of my already full work load, I am drowning.  This is of course a systems issue, not an individual issue, but when I heard that my colleague will take off one more month with new baby, my heart sunk, and that another parent will be taking off right after them for four months of leave, it's just overwhelming, Still better when I started and 25% people out on parent leave, but it's still a struggle.  And we butt up against other systems failing to properly handle worklload issues, and my favorite was yesterday getting in trouble with someone FOR THINGS HE AND OTHER PEOPLE WHO AREN'T ME said and did.  But ultimately it's a system failure as well.  Sure, blame me.  After hours of this I finally started deliberately aggravating him, because I may as well deserve some of it.  

when I say I'm counting down the days until I can leave, it's not because I'm a lazy whiny baby.  It's because it will save my life to leave.  None of this is healthy.  And yes, I could work fewer hours if I didn't make myself so available to help people do better.  Especially new hires, of which there are so many, need so much support to do well and they're being thrown into situations for which they're not prepared.  Do I just ignore it, or point and say they're drowning?  NO, that's what others do.  I throw a ring, I put out my hand, I pull them on shore and point out the riptides and shallow safe areas, etc.  But all that takes a lot of my bandwidth.  And then I'm running on fumes.  And it's not just from a generous place - I want them to do well because ultimately it makes my job easier if they do well.  I'm building them up in part because it benefits me; I'd rather they ask me how to do something than just do it wrong.  

HOw are others in my job not drowning?  Well, some of them are.  One colleague works WAY too much.  She volunteers to help out all the time and I try to intervene to protect her from herself because she is an angel.  Others have young children who require them to turn off work.  Others do a superficial job.  And some have been doing it for decades so things come easier, and they're more likely to blame others for doing it wrong than to step in to help.  They're tired, I get it.  And I'm fucking exhausted.  Someone who doesn't do my job had a question for me so I stopped by to see her - we'd never spoken before but she's in a role that is helpful.  She said she had no idea how on earth we can juggle everything, and I just said, "Yeah, I'm exhausted.  But also I don't have to take 3 am on-call phone calls or work weekends and holidays like I have in the past, so it's easier."  And it is easier than that job that just about killed me, but it's really tough.  We need like two more people hired, but their hiring process takes fucking forever.  I will say, the last two people hired have been excellent, so it's worth the wait hopefully.  

ANYWAY, i'm just really fucking tired and not being super healthy.  grateful for the food I have in the freezer that I can reheat for healthy meals.  Pulled out some borscht, some red beans and sourdough cornbread.  

I put in for some time off coming up in a few weeks, around my birthday.  We'll see if I can actually take that time off.  Also, I put a two-hour block off this morning, and I think I'm going to use that to make some canned squash muffins and start painting the patio storage area.  Seeing that big project needing to be done definitely makes me feel more overwhelmed overall because neither work nor home provide rest, only more work work work.  And i love to work but not all the fucking time.  I've reported 9-10 hours of work each day this week so far and that was probably an underreport.  I try to record it as I go along but it's been too overwhelming to do that consistently.  

So yeah.  Muffins, paint, then work.  I also have a fucking doctor's appointment this afternoon and I'm dreading it because she's a brand-new nurse who's trying to look at my lab work and match it to medications rather than looking past some basic multiple choice test.  It's likely to be a tense appointment and hopefully it pushes me to find better medical care, though the lack of health care providers here is insane and when I looked before this was all I could find.  Ugh.  Worry about that later, I've got some squash to mash.  

sardines

 One of my life goals is to start liking sardines and let them overtake my consumption of tuna and to become a staple protein source for me.  This is mostly for sustainability reasons and also to reduce mercury exposure.  I get the Wild Planet tuna which is sustainably harvested and all that, but sardines are just more sustainable as little fish.  I think that they may also be cheaper, though it's an apples to bananas comparison because of tin size and taste/utilization. 

A friend from grad school told me they're a fave in her house, with her South American husband serving them with rice and a squeeze of lemon, and it being popular with her fussy eater kids.  But I tried that and was not a fan.  I also don't rely on rice as a staple and don't really want to start.  So I want to try other things.  Today I think I'll try a pasta dish with them - I also don't eat pasta as a staple, but I love it and so maybe they'll make sardines palatable?   I think I'll do a pasta puttanesca and add them in.  Last time I made pasta puttanesca I loved the taste but noticed the hit on my blood sugar, so maybe sardines will tone that down, and eating it with more vegetables.  

I grew up eating a ton of fish, big fish - huge salmon and massive halibut.  I didn't much care for it, and I went years without eating it until I moved back to a coastal place.  I remember telling a boyfriend I needed more salmon, and I came home to a bathtub overflowing with large salmon.  (The culture did a lot of fish drying and I'm not sure what he was thinking about where I would do that as I was in an apartment with no such space, and we were up nights getting all that salmon processed into mostly canning and a little freezing because I only had the freezer on my refrigerator which was filled with vegetables and berries and other things I couldn't source there.)  (A neighbor dried his fish in his eaves, and my dog then - when I would let her out in the early morning hours - would quietly climb up his wood pile and leap to snag fish on her way down, then climb up and do it again.  I didn't know about her doing this for quite awhile - she was such a good dog I never had to tie her up and I could just let her out and she would roam the village a bit but never too far and would always come when called, though reluctantly when she'd find an animal skeleton just stripped clean and she'd climb inside a caribou rib cage to gnaw off every last bit.  When I busted her with the wood climbing fish stealing antics, I was so appalled and knew most people would shoot a dog who did something like that.  But when I went to grab her, I saw the old man through the window laughing.  He later told me she'd been doing it for awhile and it so entertained him that we didn't have to make her stop.)  (My dog was so good that when my friend's dog on the other side of the village would escape, I'd send my dog out to find her, and she'd bring her home and convince her to come inside while I called my friends to come get her.  My current dog has some of those same attributes of being so smart and helpful, but her crazy attack vibe from being a stray on the streets of New Orleans make her super unpredictable and I would never be able to trust her.)  (I have some really great memories of my time in that village, in part from the old man neighbor who told great stories.)

Anyway.

As usual, I'm obsessed with running numbers about retirement goals.  Timing of retirement really depends on a couple of things - housing market (if I can do well in a house sale and hopefully recoup what I've put into the house) and dog lifespan (I'm not making her move again).  And of course other big things like not losing my job, economy, the US not having a civil war, no unexpected massive expenses or health emergencies, etc. etc.  But if the big things stay as they are, I have two setpoints.  In just over two and a half years, i can leave this job and have some significant retirement benefits, so I'm definitely not planning to leave before then.  If I leave exactly then, I'd still owe on my house and my retirement savings wouldn't be quite where I want them to be to feel confident about not running out of money before I die.  So, it's fine if I recognize I'll need to work a few more years somewhere else, hopefully in a job that won't suck my soul in the same way as this one.  I wouldn't want to take social security at 62 because I will expect to still be working awhile.  I could take time off to do some travel, maybe do that degree in Iceland I'm eyeing, etc., but I'd need some more earning before retirement.  

If I wait one more year, and I get the raises that I expect for the next three and a half years, then I would be able to pay off my house and have enough retirement savings that I could just totally retire.  i would still want to downsize my house to something less expensive (or move to somewhere less expensive, though I do like the idea of a wee little bungalow), and hopefully the difference in prices would get me a sizable rainy day fund - to buy a new car down the line, new roof, etc. etc. - in addition to sufficient liquid and retirement savings to get me to 65 when I'll pull pensions, and then social security at some point.  

This makes it pretty clear how much I dislike my current job, that I would consider leaving the instant that I can even though that would make me forfeit a secure financial future at that point.  I recognize that I will not have nearly this much earning power at that point - any future jobs would pay half what I'm making now, if I'm lucky and they're not ageist.  On the other side of this, I know that this is not a community where I want to stay - so maybe I try out some other community where I think I want to stay, working a couple of years to meet people, etc.  Just to move to a new place as a single retiree - I don't trust my people-attracting skill like that.  

It's not just that I dislike it, it's that the job is really hard on me.  I don't have to be on call anymore like the job that made me sick a few years ago, but the stress is really rough.  But also, I see the worst of humanity all the time and it's taking its toll.

Oh, but on a different note - I was trying to figure out what the difference is for me between period of making friends and not making friends, and I think the difference is home ownership.  With a few exceptions, such as wonderful neighbors or energy audit personnel who become among my closest friends, when i own a house with big yard, that's where I stay.  I don't get out into the community where I can meet people as much, and I don't want to do things.  I thought it was just because I'm old and cranky and have a crazy dog, but like a friend here asked me to come visit her while she's immobilized with a broken foot, and I just couldn't get over that I needed to do house projects instead of help her out.  The house projects are kind of never ending though, but I just want to be home as much as possible.  I don't even like to do errands on the weekends if I can avoid them.  

Retired friends who were here visiting recently said they know that me having a big yard is important to me in retirement, but I don't think that's actually accurate.  I think it will be more important to me to be forced into interaction with people I may become friends with - like if I were in a townhouse, to have to go to a community garden to grow food.  

Also this about retirement: I really dislike reading now, but I think it may be because I have to read SO MUCH at my job.  When I can leave that, I may very well enjoy reading again.  So I'm not giving up on that entirely. 

Can I last in this job for three and a half more years?  Honestly, I don't know.  It is hurting my soul so deeply.  But, mostly it will depend on the dog and how long she's around.  If she lives until she's about 14, I can quit my job then and spend the last of her life with her full-time.  

I've always been obsessed with escape routes.  I'm just not the commitment type.   

+1.4

 Well, I have no idea why the scale has me coming in at gaining a pound and a half the past week.  I ate a lot of legumes and vegetables this past week, drastically cut bread and cheese.  Only real splurges were a peach cobbler made with almond & whole wheat flour and less than 5 g of sugar per serving, and then tacos and one scoop ice cream at a concert.  I skipped the rice and beans and waffle cone and didn't eat much else that day. 

So yeah, I know the scale is finicky, but it's still a bummer to work hard preparing really healthy food and avoiding anything else, being physically exhausted from movement and chores more days than not, and to gain weight.   

things can still surprise me

 Lifesavers were on sale at the supermarket so I picked up a bag.  I don't eat them a lot, but I can go through a handful if I'm working closely with other people and I have bad breath (usually from not eating), and sometimes I'll chain eat them when I'm preparing for something nerve-wracking.  Well, put that into the past tense - these suckers are 3 grams of sugar each!  When trying to stay under 10 g of added sugar per day, that's a pass.  I need to try the sugar free ones.  

I decided to can many of the rest of the peaches instead of freezing them.  (And I'll make one more small batch of jam because it's fucking good.)  I'd been stuck on freezing because I feel very strongly about not putting sugar in my canned foods.  BUT I CAN USE JUICE.  So I bought some juice, it's not cheap, but it works out to worth it because these peaches are so fucking good.  I've got enough pint jars for three loads in my small electric canner (it holds five jars), and tbh I have even more jars but I'd have to dig around more and maybe even open the boxes of them that I bought when I first moved in and have never opened because I've gotten so many jars for free.  I'm going to try it with a mix of apple and white grape and water and see how it goes.  I avoid juice, but it could be ok to sometimes drink some juiice when I open a can of peaches.  

I grew up eating a ton of fish, big fish - huge salmon and massive halibut.  I didn't much care for it, and I went year without eating it until I moved back to a coastal place.  I remember telling a boyfriend I needed more salmon, and I came home to a bathtub overflowing with large salmon.  (The culture did a lot of fish drying and I'm not sure what he was thinking about where I would do that as I was in an apartment with no such space, and we were up nights getting all that salmon processed into mostly canning and a little freezing.)  (A neighbor dried his fish in his eaves, and my dog then - when I would let her out in the early morning hours - would quietly climb up his wood pile and leap to snag fish on her way down, then climb up and do it again.  I didn't know about her doing this for quite awhile - she was such a good dog I never had to tie her up and I could just let her out and she would roam the village a bit but never too far and would always come when called, though reluctantly when she'd find an animal skeleton just stripped clean and she'd climb inside a caribou rib cage to gnaw off every last bit.  When I busted her with the wood climbing fish stealing antics, I was so appalled and knew most people would shoot a dog who did something like that.  But when I went to grab her, I saw the old man through the window laughing.  He later told me she'd been doing it for awhile and it so entertained him that we didn't have to make her stop.)  (My dog was so good that when my friend's dog on the other side of the village would escape, I'd send my dog out to find her, and she'd bring her home and convince her to come inside while I called my friends to come get her.  My current dog has some of those same attributes of being so smart and helpful, but her crazy attack vibe from being a stray on the streets of New Orleans make her super unpredictable and I would never be able to trust her.)  (I have some really great memories of my time in that village, in part from the old man neighbor who told great stories.)

 

Melissa Etheridge

 Recently Friend I went to a Melissa Etheridge concert, and she was fantastic.  She's considerably older than me but her energy level was amazing.  She's got rizz to spare.  But what's really striking is her generosity of spirit - whether using multiple picks so she can share more with fans, or telling really personal stories to explain songs that make every listener feel like in intimate conversation with her, I was really struck.  The Indigo Girls came on after her, after intermission, and there was no intro or anything so people weren't really paying attention, and then Melissa came onto the stage - having changed out of her stage costume, much more comfortably dressed - to get the energy level back up.  it worked.  (Though, they didn't maintain it - and for me, it was disappointing that the Indigo Girls didn't play a single song that I knew.  I used to be a big fan though I haven't kept up lately, but come on, you can give old folks a bone of "Closer to Fine" or "Galileo."  And Friend and I left midway through their set when it looked like Melissa wasn't coming back on.) 

I know that she's a performer but there is also something so genuine about her - though my misanthropic side makes me doubtful, she convinces me.

So I'm listening to her on Spotify this morning and it rolled to her concert at Topeka Correctional Facility, and listening to her singing with the women there, the songs she wrote for them - I definitely don't think it's a gimmick any more than it was when Johnny Cash sang at Folsom (one of my favorite albums).  I see she did a documentary about this, which I would watch.   

Hearing her also took me back to when I lived here decades ago and became a huge fan of hers, introduced by someone before she was a big name.  Her songs about passion and its effects - yeah, that resonated with younger me.  I was out there fucking around with the zeal of her songs, so I get why I so liked her.  It was a wild flood of memory as I sang along to every song.  

Over my life I haven't been to many concerts, and I don't recall any really striking me.  But something about Melissa Etheridge did.   

garden is popping

 Tonight I checked the zucchini - they're growing great, looks like they pollinated.  Have one largening up, a couple more a nice small size.  I ate a little cucumber and picked three more from another plant.  Beans are slowly growing, two cabbages are ready to be harvested.  I pulled some more dried up pea pods to harvest seeds; I need to pull those plants soon.  It's time to think about some winter crops and I have some space for them now.  The winter squash are growing nicely.  some tomatoes, though not what I'd expected.  It's good for me, I don't eat a lot of tomatoes, but I was expecting enough to can again.  That could still happen, it's not even September yet.  Some more carrots and beets when I'm ready for them.  Windfall apples and pears are falling in a natural thinning.  NO plums this year, not at all, which is fine because the past two years were so heavy.  Strangely, I saw like 20 apricot fruits on, and by the time I got out there to pick them even slightly green, they were all compeltely gone.  I'd previously seen some half eaten and thrown on the ground, and even those are completely gone.  Zero trace.  It's very strange but oh well.  

I haven't been to the farmers market in ages because of all I grow, and also because I drive out the road to a fabulous farm stand that gives me all I need.  These peaches, they give me life.  They are SO. GOOD.  I'm going out to get another lug tomorrow or the next day.   

***

I went out tonight and harvested cabbages, cucumbers, green beans, zucchini.  I eat so well!  I have cauliflower and tofu roasting right now for a tasty dinner.  I think I'll saute one cabbage with pancetta, snack on cucumbers or maybe make a salad with fresh tomatoes, saute green beans with tempeh and cashews, and saute zucchini as a side.  To what?  I don't know yet.  Maybe salmon, maybe some fava pasta.  Heaps of kale ready for harvest as well; that's always good in my favorite white bean soup.   

I made peach jam today over my lunch break.  It all did take less than an hour, which is pretty wild.  

Somebody at work is blaming me for saying something that I really don't recall saying - and even if I *had* said it, it wouldn't have had the impact she's saying it did (that she totally changed everything she was doing - without reporting any of that to me - and blaming me for the state of things that she said I ordered which I know I didn't and also don't have the authority to order, and this is based on a three-minute phone call that I do know I called for something else).  It's a super weird thing, definitely makes me find that person wholly untrustworthy, which is a shame.  Now I intend to CC her supervisor on EVERYTHING, only communicate in writing.  Super weird thing she accused me of telling her to do.  I apologized for any miscommunication and she also needs to apologize.  Actually, she doesn't, because no matter what I don't trust her anymore and she doesn't get to try to fuck me over.  People are weird. 

**

I have been thinking about what I want in a next house.  I could definitely use less living space - it's less than 1,300 sq ft but I could go significantly smaller.  I could also use a much smaller yard - I especially dislike having to do all the upkeep of the large front yard.  But I really like having covered backyard shelter (the patio that I just dropped nearly 4 grand "fixing") and I also really like having a two- car garage.  I always park my Subaru in the garage, and between that and not driving much when I can avoid it (I've got like 7000 miles after two and a half years), it's in excellent condition.  Having the second bay gives me space to park my bike, to have projects, etc. etc.  I need to spend time out there organizing and cleaning because there are some piles, but it's so wonderful to have that space AND the little shop attached.  Everything can be organized and labeled because there's sufficient space, it's wonderful.  And I can park my pickup in front of that door without being an access problem for car.  So I know that this is super luxurious and someday soon my truck will fully die - it's just been limping along for awhile - and someday I won't need to have racks to cure all the garlic and potatoes and squash and all the things.  but for as long as I can garden, I likely will.  I didn't grow up with a garage, most of the houses I've owned haven't had garages.  I REALLY enjoyed the one I had up north - I got an inexpensive EV that I could charge in the garage and keep out of snow and ice - I really dislike scraping windshields.  I could park my truck in the backyard in a big covered area because it was too treacherous to drive on icy roads.  I hate icy roads.  Really really hate them.  But the EV was a champ because of battery placement and weight. 

oof, maybe i'm a two-car household.  That seems crazy, but so long as I'm active with yardwork and dog, keepign that truck makes sense.  I need to do another dump run, I guess, from the projects, and Friend has things to go as well.  

Anyway, I have no idea what my future holds, though I am contemplating moderating my aggressive mortgage payoff with setting up a mortgage payoff fund that I grow for peace of mind as well.  Maybe put half of each month's overage into the fund and half directly to the mortgage, to watch one shrink and the other grow.  IF I'm still here in the three to four years when it's feasible to pay off the mortgage (if I can stay this aggressive with budgeting and saving), I could just transfer it on over and call it good.  I do very much like having a paid off house.  Only had that once before, but it's really nice.  

Looking at spending, last month I overspent in food but that's because of taking friends out - for birthdays, for visiting, etc.  I don't do a separate category for that because food is food.  Also, I spent big on fruit to freeze to eat all year (it's SO GOOD) and 25# of local grown and milled organic white whole wheat flour to use in sourdough which will last me quite a while.  (I bake on average about every 3 weeks and each bake uses about 2# of flour, plus there are other things I use the flour on, but I'd still expect this flour to last five months or more.)  Year to date I'm underspent in most budget categories but overspent in food and utilities a small bit; the only significantly overspent category is garden and that's because I only budget myself $40/month for garden, and I spent $255 on some extensive fruit tree trimming in February.  Which TBH, I may not keep doing.  I'm only here for a few more years and these trees went unmaintained for years and are fine.  I can do the low branches and from ladder myself as I got a chainsaw (which I still haven't used yet), if necessary.  Though I do enjoy the tree trimmer's company and I always learn a lot from him.  Frugality yes, but also quality of life. 

OK, time to get ready for work - have to go to an office today and do some things.