It was a cold, wet rainy day for Christmas--Yes! itwas 14 yrs since it's rained on Christmas Day the weather man said on the primetime weather last night! I did't think it had been that long. It was a lovely day thought here. Fire in the fireplace, I made pumpkin pie, a chicken dish with veggies, whipped cream,; S. brought cranberry jelly she made herself, a spinach,arugala salad and she forgot she rolls--but that didn't matter that much! And I used cloth napkins~ LOL!
We both had a good Christmas day! I was really glad she came but I would have done the cooking and decorating and fire anyway. I thought the fire was very cheering--I haven't had a fire in that fireplace in years.
Today it's very cold and clear and sunny. High country got lots of snow this year and it was all over the state so I hope that supplies all the watershed in Arizona.
Is it soup or bread I'm making today??? Don't know yet!
cheers,
Shamba
Friday, December 26, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
December 23rd
For December up to 23rd:
Merry Christmas! At least the house smells and looks of A Merry Christmas!
I know I'm writing about food and cooking all the time but then that's really what this blog was about to start with--my efforts at learning to use less and cook from scratch.
Apple spice candles, fresh made bread, and pumpkin pie and also a sweet potato pie are what this house has smelled of in the past two weeks! Pumpkin pie is in today for Christmas Day dinner. Apple spice comes from the candle and from tea bags named Apple Spice.
The fresh made break loaf is almost gone—recipe from Joy of Cooking and totally from scratch. It came out well and is quite good for sandwich bread. Sweet potato pie was made with pie shell, but it had Sprouts’ Market organic sweet potato puree in it. That was pretty good but I don’t think it’s as good as pumpkin pie with real whipped cream. The cream is in the fridge waiting to be whipped for Christmas.
Picked up more tomato cans at grocery store yesterday. I wasn’t going to go to the store again before New Years’ but I decided I needed some milk and a pie shell or two. I twisted my right knee and need to stay off of it at certain amount of every day so I got some extra things for Christmas.
L. can’t come for dinner; but S. can. She’s bringing salad and cranberry relish of some kind. Dinner is baked chicken and rice with vegetables and pie for dessert. S. might also bring some rolls. I’ll have to thaw some butter for that.
Managed stores: went through my flours and corn meal etc. I don’t’ need any flour for a while until I use up some of the whole wheat. I need to keep using up corn meal of the current opened batch. Made list of things to get when paid for January.
Got a pound or so of green beans and I’m going to try the dehydrator on some of them after Christmas Day.
Other worldwide news is as bad as it’s been for the past 4 months or so.
Officially we’ve had a recession since December 2007 and have probably another 6-12 months to go. No relief of the situation coming nine 2009 as it will get worse before better. Some commentators have remarked we have no bread or soup lines but have they been to a food pantry lately!! Aren’t thus our equivalents of bread and soup lines?? (The answer is YES)
I think that, at least since the past 6 months, we just have too much to be very afraid of to have any more capacity to take in something else we should be very afraid of! (Sigh*) and the idea that’s it–the climate change–is actually made by our own actions of what we think is the good life is another layer of guilt/fear/blame.It’s like if we–human beings are so dumb, greedy/evil what are we here for?
The last 4 months have really intensified fears that I already knew about before our financial crisis and it’s kind of overwhelming some days.
I'll end on a small conforting note: we're up an inch on our rainfall this year and more is coming this week. it's been wet and cold and sunny and cold and great weather for fireplaces. I picked up two bags of firewood--enohght for 2-3 fires each bag--and we'll have a fire on Christmas day.
Fireplace is still working okay. I could not heat the house with it, not even the living room either, but it's warming to the sould and spirit and mind.
cheers,
Shamba
Merry Christmas! At least the house smells and looks of A Merry Christmas!
I know I'm writing about food and cooking all the time but then that's really what this blog was about to start with--my efforts at learning to use less and cook from scratch.
Apple spice candles, fresh made bread, and pumpkin pie and also a sweet potato pie are what this house has smelled of in the past two weeks! Pumpkin pie is in today for Christmas Day dinner. Apple spice comes from the candle and from tea bags named Apple Spice.
The fresh made break loaf is almost gone—recipe from Joy of Cooking and totally from scratch. It came out well and is quite good for sandwich bread. Sweet potato pie was made with pie shell, but it had Sprouts’ Market organic sweet potato puree in it. That was pretty good but I don’t think it’s as good as pumpkin pie with real whipped cream. The cream is in the fridge waiting to be whipped for Christmas.
Picked up more tomato cans at grocery store yesterday. I wasn’t going to go to the store again before New Years’ but I decided I needed some milk and a pie shell or two. I twisted my right knee and need to stay off of it at certain amount of every day so I got some extra things for Christmas.
L. can’t come for dinner; but S. can. She’s bringing salad and cranberry relish of some kind. Dinner is baked chicken and rice with vegetables and pie for dessert. S. might also bring some rolls. I’ll have to thaw some butter for that.
Managed stores: went through my flours and corn meal etc. I don’t’ need any flour for a while until I use up some of the whole wheat. I need to keep using up corn meal of the current opened batch. Made list of things to get when paid for January.
Got a pound or so of green beans and I’m going to try the dehydrator on some of them after Christmas Day.
Other worldwide news is as bad as it’s been for the past 4 months or so.
Officially we’ve had a recession since December 2007 and have probably another 6-12 months to go. No relief of the situation coming nine 2009 as it will get worse before better. Some commentators have remarked we have no bread or soup lines but have they been to a food pantry lately!! Aren’t thus our equivalents of bread and soup lines?? (The answer is YES)
I think that, at least since the past 6 months, we just have too much to be very afraid of to have any more capacity to take in something else we should be very afraid of! (Sigh*) and the idea that’s it–the climate change–is actually made by our own actions of what we think is the good life is another layer of guilt/fear/blame.It’s like if we–human beings are so dumb, greedy/evil what are we here for?
The last 4 months have really intensified fears that I already knew about before our financial crisis and it’s kind of overwhelming some days.
I'll end on a small conforting note: we're up an inch on our rainfall this year and more is coming this week. it's been wet and cold and sunny and cold and great weather for fireplaces. I picked up two bags of firewood--enohght for 2-3 fires each bag--and we'll have a fire on Christmas day.
Fireplace is still working okay. I could not heat the house with it, not even the living room either, but it's warming to the sould and spirit and mind.
cheers,
Shamba
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Dec 1st and Dec 3rd
Dec 3rd:
Got my stimulus check and Mom’s the other day. I’ve also been looking at HD tvs to see what’s involved there—there are plenty of smaller ones. I certainly have no wall I’m going to mount one on! Anyway, I have a better idea of what they’re all about. My older analog set has bad colors on a couple of channels so if I’m going to buy one I need to know what’s involved. If I wait until after the analog cut off date, I ‘ll live with it! Maybe I’ll decide to live without it completely, who knows today.
Still checking Linens n Things for “deals” . I see good deals if you need or want any of the stuff. The linens and beddings should last for many years if you can use them. They are running out of stuff and won’t even have hardly anything by Christmas day much less after Christmas sales.
Mailed off paperwork to K. and Motorola for Mom’s estate. No more stuff from Motorola is due to the estate but they needed to have copies of death certificates.
All the landmarks of my life are disappearing, my brother, my mother, my friend C. not too mention the major, no massive and very longterm changes in the economy, social fabric and Zeitgeist of the USA during my lifetime.
Orlov says the “collapse” dates will be personal ones not just public/social ones.
I’ve decided the “collapse” didn’t’ just “Happen” but arrived around September. I felt like we were a town under siege by several powers (financial, economy, climate change, energy) and now the siege is over and we’re occupied by these powers. So, it’s happeng here now and isn’t going anywhere!
Cheers,
Shamba
December 1st:
I need to sit down with my list of “things to do to the house” and more immediate shopping needs and see what comes next on my list. Insulation, new windows/sliding door??? AT least I need to check and see how much these things will cost… at present I have no clue.
What have I leanred to cook this year? since about April May 2008 :
Breakfast cereals, oatmeal, grits, corn meal and cream of wheat tried granola—granola is a fair amount of work for how quickly it gets eaten.
Easy no yeast bread recipe—comes out well and I like using this bread.
Various kinds of clear soups—no creamed ones. Vegetables, veg with pasta or other combinations. I love green beans in soups.
My own stock
Corn Bread
Various Lentils, split peas and rice baked combinations
Variations on Pasta and tomato dishes: sometimes mixed with green beans.
Penne pasta and French cut green beans look really good together in the dish above.
Above recipes except for soup and cereals have been made in electric oven and in solar oven.
For the new year:
Yeast bread
Try winter squash to see if I like it
Pizza dough
Cheers, Shamba
Got my stimulus check and Mom’s the other day. I’ve also been looking at HD tvs to see what’s involved there—there are plenty of smaller ones. I certainly have no wall I’m going to mount one on! Anyway, I have a better idea of what they’re all about. My older analog set has bad colors on a couple of channels so if I’m going to buy one I need to know what’s involved. If I wait until after the analog cut off date, I ‘ll live with it! Maybe I’ll decide to live without it completely, who knows today.
Still checking Linens n Things for “deals” . I see good deals if you need or want any of the stuff. The linens and beddings should last for many years if you can use them. They are running out of stuff and won’t even have hardly anything by Christmas day much less after Christmas sales.
Mailed off paperwork to K. and Motorola for Mom’s estate. No more stuff from Motorola is due to the estate but they needed to have copies of death certificates.
All the landmarks of my life are disappearing, my brother, my mother, my friend C. not too mention the major, no massive and very longterm changes in the economy, social fabric and Zeitgeist of the USA during my lifetime.
Orlov says the “collapse” dates will be personal ones not just public/social ones.
I’ve decided the “collapse” didn’t’ just “Happen” but arrived around September. I felt like we were a town under siege by several powers (financial, economy, climate change, energy) and now the siege is over and we’re occupied by these powers. So, it’s happeng here now and isn’t going anywhere!
Cheers,
Shamba
December 1st:
I need to sit down with my list of “things to do to the house” and more immediate shopping needs and see what comes next on my list. Insulation, new windows/sliding door??? AT least I need to check and see how much these things will cost… at present I have no clue.
What have I leanred to cook this year? since about April May 2008 :
Breakfast cereals, oatmeal, grits, corn meal and cream of wheat tried granola—granola is a fair amount of work for how quickly it gets eaten.
Easy no yeast bread recipe—comes out well and I like using this bread.
Various kinds of clear soups—no creamed ones. Vegetables, veg with pasta or other combinations. I love green beans in soups.
My own stock
Corn Bread
Various Lentils, split peas and rice baked combinations
Variations on Pasta and tomato dishes: sometimes mixed with green beans.
Penne pasta and French cut green beans look really good together in the dish above.
Above recipes except for soup and cereals have been made in electric oven and in solar oven.
For the new year:
Yeast bread
Try winter squash to see if I like it
Pizza dough
Cheers, Shamba
Sunday, November 30, 2008
November 19th to 30th
November 30th and week of Thanksgiving:
Tried two bread recipes this week—no yeast bread recipes but they work very well.
Weather was cold and rainy for 2 days—it was so nice! And temps have been normal since then .
S. and I didn’t get together on Thursday due to many things. I just cooked some stuff for me and gave the cats including Traci’s cats, meat, too. So, they actually had a better thanksgiving meal than I did.
I went to paradise Valley Mall on Friday for a while (7.4 miles away but one way.) I’m beginning to remember mileage to my usual locations rather than time to get there; I remember it in a one way trip since that seems to be the easiest for me . Since I know how much 2 or 2.5 miles are from my measured walks, it’s interesting to know the distances and compare them to how far I know I can walk easily. That’s also easily without carrying much! Anyway, the mall wasn’t jammed with shoppers, but it was pretty full. There was enough parking available though so I had no trouble with that. I went there to walk the mall and also to see the crowds. I hadn’t walked for a couple of days so I got that in on Friday. Didn’t make it to Pam’s yoga class on Thursday either—my bad!
Papers came for the annuity beneficiaries, one more form to fill out but one more step in getting the estate settled.
Gas is now 1.99 at the closest station.
Cheers,
Shamba
Nov 21st
Made the rounds of Linens n Things and Mervyn’s today. LNT is getting lower and lower on stuff. Lots of sheets, fabric throws, blankets, bedding etc. I’ve got so much of that I don’t need any for the rest of my life, I think, after all the things I got from my parents and my mom’s stuff the past 5 years.
They still had manual can openers but I opted for a better slotted metal spoon than the one I have that’s wooden. I would have picked up another can opener but it’s the end of the month; payday isn’t until Dec. 1st.
However, that didn’t prevent me from picking up 2-3 scented candles at Merwyn’s that I will use for a holiday gift or two and keep the vanilla one for me. They are large and will last a good while. Sara really likes the pumkin spice one so that one’s for her. I don’t expect us to do anything more than that. She’s got enough to take care of with her cats and losing her second job at the dealership that went under last spring.
Atmosphere in general is murkier and murkier. I would like to go out the day after Thanksgiving and see how shopping is doing at a nearby mall or two but that’s using gas although our gas is almost under 2.00 everywhere. Still at 2.15 at the highest station near me.
Nov 20
DJA 7558.33; SP 753.78
Nov 19th
DJA 7997; SP 806; oil 53.62 Celebreated birthday twice this week! :)
Tried two bread recipes this week—no yeast bread recipes but they work very well.
Weather was cold and rainy for 2 days—it was so nice! And temps have been normal since then .
S. and I didn’t get together on Thursday due to many things. I just cooked some stuff for me and gave the cats including Traci’s cats, meat, too. So, they actually had a better thanksgiving meal than I did.
I went to paradise Valley Mall on Friday for a while (7.4 miles away but one way.) I’m beginning to remember mileage to my usual locations rather than time to get there; I remember it in a one way trip since that seems to be the easiest for me . Since I know how much 2 or 2.5 miles are from my measured walks, it’s interesting to know the distances and compare them to how far I know I can walk easily. That’s also easily without carrying much! Anyway, the mall wasn’t jammed with shoppers, but it was pretty full. There was enough parking available though so I had no trouble with that. I went there to walk the mall and also to see the crowds. I hadn’t walked for a couple of days so I got that in on Friday. Didn’t make it to Pam’s yoga class on Thursday either—my bad!
Papers came for the annuity beneficiaries, one more form to fill out but one more step in getting the estate settled.
Gas is now 1.99 at the closest station.
Cheers,
Shamba
Nov 21st
Made the rounds of Linens n Things and Mervyn’s today. LNT is getting lower and lower on stuff. Lots of sheets, fabric throws, blankets, bedding etc. I’ve got so much of that I don’t need any for the rest of my life, I think, after all the things I got from my parents and my mom’s stuff the past 5 years.
They still had manual can openers but I opted for a better slotted metal spoon than the one I have that’s wooden. I would have picked up another can opener but it’s the end of the month; payday isn’t until Dec. 1st.
However, that didn’t prevent me from picking up 2-3 scented candles at Merwyn’s that I will use for a holiday gift or two and keep the vanilla one for me. They are large and will last a good while. Sara really likes the pumkin spice one so that one’s for her. I don’t expect us to do anything more than that. She’s got enough to take care of with her cats and losing her second job at the dealership that went under last spring.
Atmosphere in general is murkier and murkier. I would like to go out the day after Thanksgiving and see how shopping is doing at a nearby mall or two but that’s using gas although our gas is almost under 2.00 everywhere. Still at 2.15 at the highest station near me.
Nov 20
DJA 7558.33; SP 753.78
Nov 19th
DJA 7997; SP 806; oil 53.62 Celebreated birthday twice this week! :)
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
November 11th to November 18th:
Nov. 18th:
Today I’m puttering around the house doing a variety of things.
Paperwork.
I’m sorting through the paperwork that has come in since last week about Mom’s estate and hers and my bills. I needed to sort into categories: Hospice, funeral home, hospital, Estate & Lawyer info, my bills, Mom’s bills, my financial stuff, things for my brother, etc. This is all now in properly sorted and labeled folders.
Paperwork gets so out of hand so quickly sometimes!
Expecting: Comcast stock forms and annuity forms to fill out and return.
Kitchen/Food
I went through kitchen stores: I need to use up some flour, get more white sugar for some seasonal baking, use up some brown sugar and the last of quinoa and pearl barley to use up in the next few weeks. They are all out where I can see them to use them up.
I added this week, dried bulk stuff: oats, red lentils, yellow split peas, some more whole wheat pasta on sale, more wheat germ, and canned sweet potatoes and pumpkin . Oh, yes, Swanson veg broth on sale again this holiday season, I keep pitcking up cans and cans since it’s so much less than usual.
I need to get: coffee.
Household Goods:
Got another small plastic bag of things for Goodwill.
Beautiful black and white D’artangnan disappeared for about 3 days but he came back and has stuck around since Saturday afternoon. I told him not to do that again without letting me see him at least every other day. I also went the place where the 3 irrigation pipes come together—they’re not used for irrigation anymore but for cat homes and transportation by neighborhood cats. I announced through the pipes that D. was to come home and tell me what happened to him—that was Friday. He came back on Saturday!
11-17
DJA at 8300; gas here 229 sometimes 2.15, oil at 54.95 Lunch out with Mildred and donna at the Bistro! I was treated.
11-13“Wall Street launched a massive rebound Thursday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average up more than 400 points after driving it below the 8,000 mark’ 8835
11-12
Oil today: 56.16.
“The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 411 points, or about 4.7%, to 8,282.66. It was the lowest close for the blue-chip average since it settled at 8,175 on Oct. 27.
Over the past three days, the Dow has fallen more than 660 points, or 7%. “
I got the Comcast issue of the estate under control for now. Have an appt with Richard about the AIG annuity on Friday. K. and I are beneficiaries and that should come directly to us; it will not be part of a probate procedure. That lessens legal costs, too.
Nov 11th
Sara and I are taking the day to fix ourselves a picnic lunch and go to the Arizona Falls, SRP takes care of it since it’s part of the canal/irrigation system. I’m taking veggies, pears and my two cameras and the binoculars I found in my mom’s dresser. Sara is bringing chicken salad, spinach salad, and we’re stopping for cookies and film camera batteries on our way out there.
From 9100 tio 8870; S&P 919; as here 2.47, oil at 62.41.
Today I’m puttering around the house doing a variety of things.
Paperwork.
I’m sorting through the paperwork that has come in since last week about Mom’s estate and hers and my bills. I needed to sort into categories: Hospice, funeral home, hospital, Estate & Lawyer info, my bills, Mom’s bills, my financial stuff, things for my brother, etc. This is all now in properly sorted and labeled folders.
Paperwork gets so out of hand so quickly sometimes!
Expecting: Comcast stock forms and annuity forms to fill out and return.
Kitchen/Food
I went through kitchen stores: I need to use up some flour, get more white sugar for some seasonal baking, use up some brown sugar and the last of quinoa and pearl barley to use up in the next few weeks. They are all out where I can see them to use them up.
I added this week, dried bulk stuff: oats, red lentils, yellow split peas, some more whole wheat pasta on sale, more wheat germ, and canned sweet potatoes and pumpkin . Oh, yes, Swanson veg broth on sale again this holiday season, I keep pitcking up cans and cans since it’s so much less than usual.
I need to get: coffee.
Household Goods:
Got another small plastic bag of things for Goodwill.
Beautiful black and white D’artangnan disappeared for about 3 days but he came back and has stuck around since Saturday afternoon. I told him not to do that again without letting me see him at least every other day. I also went the place where the 3 irrigation pipes come together—they’re not used for irrigation anymore but for cat homes and transportation by neighborhood cats. I announced through the pipes that D. was to come home and tell me what happened to him—that was Friday. He came back on Saturday!
11-17
DJA at 8300; gas here 229 sometimes 2.15, oil at 54.95 Lunch out with Mildred and donna at the Bistro! I was treated.
11-13“Wall Street launched a massive rebound Thursday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average up more than 400 points after driving it below the 8,000 mark’ 8835
11-12
Oil today: 56.16.
“The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 411 points, or about 4.7%, to 8,282.66. It was the lowest close for the blue-chip average since it settled at 8,175 on Oct. 27.
Over the past three days, the Dow has fallen more than 660 points, or 7%. “
I got the Comcast issue of the estate under control for now. Have an appt with Richard about the AIG annuity on Friday. K. and I are beneficiaries and that should come directly to us; it will not be part of a probate procedure. That lessens legal costs, too.
Nov 11th
Sara and I are taking the day to fix ourselves a picnic lunch and go to the Arizona Falls, SRP takes care of it since it’s part of the canal/irrigation system. I’m taking veggies, pears and my two cameras and the binoculars I found in my mom’s dresser. Sara is bringing chicken salad, spinach salad, and we’re stopping for cookies and film camera batteries on our way out there.
From 9100 tio 8870; S&P 919; as here 2.47, oil at 62.41.
Monday, November 10, 2008
November 10
well, let's see, pick whatever prediction you want below about the next year or so and beyond:
--this morning had some note as two of my sites about something really coming to test Obama in the first 6 months of his presidency; not just from Biden, from some foreign leaders and international intelligence chatter .... wonderful news. then again there's some feeling thatsomething might happen during the Election and Obama's inauguration.
Economic/Financial situation:
--Deflationary recession/depression;
--Inflationary probably Hyperinflationary economic contraction/recession/depression;
--Bailouts for 3 US automakers to be a "bridge loan" until the economy improves in the next year so before the end of 2009 people will be buying cars again;
--Contraction/Recession will last 12-18 months; roubini says this as well as others so does that mean it started in jan 2008 or started Fall 2008. that 6-8 months makes a difference to how people plan or think about it;
--After the severe recession--most blogs I read at least say we'll have at least 12 months of severity, more sever than anything in the post-WW2 era--there will be the oppotunity of a lifetime to buy stocks and equities;
--Or the severe recession after a year or so will morph into a depression, Depression 2.0 or Greater Depression depending on your point of view;
--Or at what would be the beginning of an upswing in the economoy, oil depletion on the downside of peak oil will be setting in and there will be NO upswing ever again for industrial society.
--If there's any kind of growth, due to the oil shortages, depletion rates and no if any new oil projects of ANY kind, it will be so very small it'll be negligible;
--After the recession will just come the Long Depression;
--Reduction to subsistence farming, rudimentary technology, real poverty everwhere in the world so that the world will be a much bigger place than it is now;
--You could also add in, madness, depression and suicide for many people facing the decline in their lives; disease possibilities ; starvation; great homelessness for many; more violence probably and just freaking out all the time.
--Public services, police, fire, emergency personnel will dwindle as local entities have no more money to spend on public services.
--then of course, there's climate change and how fast it's coming and when it will effect food supplies and what will it do to the weather in North America when there is no more ice at all at the North Pole anytime of year?????????????
--this of course doesn't cover the lack of electricty in southern Arizona where people will just go totally insane and kill each other and themselves over the crushing heat we get here ...
--I don't understand why some economists, financiers/bloggers prediction inflation and other prediction deflation ....
--If the US defaults, does that mean everything in our bank accounts dissapears like it never existed ....
--do I really need to get a new regrigerator since they might stop making them .... I could really use a new refrigerator--it almost freezes everything put into it! it's pretty old ...
Makes me wonder why I should pay my bills and keep going .. but I'm so curious to see how it all plays out! ;)
I stopped at Linen's N Things and Merwyn's today to see what stuff was available; they are both going out of business and big signs hang outside about liquidation sales. didnt' buy anything--I don't need anything but I think about putting stuff away for the future constantly and I wonder what people will do for Christmas shopping next year. I wondered that last hear at this time, too. :/
Circuit city doesn't have any signs up yet but the Phoenix stores are all being closed for good.
It's creepy to think how many other's may be going to be in the same situation even before Christmas/end of Year this year. :(
It's been 8 weeks since the mid-September stuff started and just about that long until the end of the year.
On a higher note: 70s weather is here and the cats are all doing well and so am I.
cheers,
Shamba
--this morning had some note as two of my sites about something really coming to test Obama in the first 6 months of his presidency; not just from Biden, from some foreign leaders and international intelligence chatter .... wonderful news. then again there's some feeling thatsomething might happen during the Election and Obama's inauguration.
Economic/Financial situation:
--Deflationary recession/depression;
--Inflationary probably Hyperinflationary economic contraction/recession/depression;
--Bailouts for 3 US automakers to be a "bridge loan" until the economy improves in the next year so before the end of 2009 people will be buying cars again;
--Contraction/Recession will last 12-18 months; roubini says this as well as others so does that mean it started in jan 2008 or started Fall 2008. that 6-8 months makes a difference to how people plan or think about it;
--After the severe recession--most blogs I read at least say we'll have at least 12 months of severity, more sever than anything in the post-WW2 era--there will be the oppotunity of a lifetime to buy stocks and equities;
--Or the severe recession after a year or so will morph into a depression, Depression 2.0 or Greater Depression depending on your point of view;
--Or at what would be the beginning of an upswing in the economoy, oil depletion on the downside of peak oil will be setting in and there will be NO upswing ever again for industrial society.
--If there's any kind of growth, due to the oil shortages, depletion rates and no if any new oil projects of ANY kind, it will be so very small it'll be negligible;
--After the recession will just come the Long Depression;
--Reduction to subsistence farming, rudimentary technology, real poverty everwhere in the world so that the world will be a much bigger place than it is now;
--You could also add in, madness, depression and suicide for many people facing the decline in their lives; disease possibilities ; starvation; great homelessness for many; more violence probably and just freaking out all the time.
--Public services, police, fire, emergency personnel will dwindle as local entities have no more money to spend on public services.
--then of course, there's climate change and how fast it's coming and when it will effect food supplies and what will it do to the weather in North America when there is no more ice at all at the North Pole anytime of year?????????????
--this of course doesn't cover the lack of electricty in southern Arizona where people will just go totally insane and kill each other and themselves over the crushing heat we get here ...
--I don't understand why some economists, financiers/bloggers prediction inflation and other prediction deflation ....
--If the US defaults, does that mean everything in our bank accounts dissapears like it never existed ....
--do I really need to get a new regrigerator since they might stop making them .... I could really use a new refrigerator--it almost freezes everything put into it! it's pretty old ...
Makes me wonder why I should pay my bills and keep going .. but I'm so curious to see how it all plays out! ;)
I stopped at Linen's N Things and Merwyn's today to see what stuff was available; they are both going out of business and big signs hang outside about liquidation sales. didnt' buy anything--I don't need anything but I think about putting stuff away for the future constantly and I wonder what people will do for Christmas shopping next year. I wondered that last hear at this time, too. :/
Circuit city doesn't have any signs up yet but the Phoenix stores are all being closed for good.
It's creepy to think how many other's may be going to be in the same situation even before Christmas/end of Year this year. :(
It's been 8 weeks since the mid-September stuff started and just about that long until the end of the year.
On a higher note: 70s weather is here and the cats are all doing well and so am I.
cheers,
Shamba
Thursday, November 6, 2008
November 6th
an exciting week, a new president since November 4th--President-Elect Barack Obama!
Gas is now 2.45 here; on Oct 31 it was 2.69. Oil barrel has been around 60.00 dollars. DJA went up to 9400 on election day; but it went down the day after and now is at 8837 right before the close on Thursday the 6th.
Made it to yoga classes 2x a week; that’s my goal for the next few weeks. I want to add Tai chi back in once a week. Life is so much more manageable with yoga with others in a classroom!
Picked up death certificates this morning and ashes; had lunch with B. yesterday after I saw a lawyer at her offices. Time to start doing the paperwork for the estate settlement.
I haven’t been cooking as much as I was but only ate out twice this past week. B. paid for lunch yesterday, we ate at an upscale fish place but it was very close to her job. I’ll have to go back sometime, maybe. Anyway, coffee was strong and excellent and the entrée I had was good with leftovers for today.
Temperature in house was 63 degrees this morning; I put on a sweater, I have lots of sweaters and a few more now from my Mom.
I've decided to use the whole cranberries in the next batch of corn bread.
cheers,
Shamba
Gas is now 2.45 here; on Oct 31 it was 2.69. Oil barrel has been around 60.00 dollars. DJA went up to 9400 on election day; but it went down the day after and now is at 8837 right before the close on Thursday the 6th.
Made it to yoga classes 2x a week; that’s my goal for the next few weeks. I want to add Tai chi back in once a week. Life is so much more manageable with yoga with others in a classroom!
Picked up death certificates this morning and ashes; had lunch with B. yesterday after I saw a lawyer at her offices. Time to start doing the paperwork for the estate settlement.
I haven’t been cooking as much as I was but only ate out twice this past week. B. paid for lunch yesterday, we ate at an upscale fish place but it was very close to her job. I’ll have to go back sometime, maybe. Anyway, coffee was strong and excellent and the entrée I had was good with leftovers for today.
Temperature in house was 63 degrees this morning; I put on a sweater, I have lots of sweaters and a few more now from my Mom.
I've decided to use the whole cranberries in the next batch of corn bread.
cheers,
Shamba
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
October 23rd and October 28th
October 28th
Markets seem to be holding their own past 2 days—no big swings or freak outs so far this week. Correction at 1:00 p.m.: big late-day move Tuesday, barreling higher and lifting the Dow Jones industrials more than 800 points as bargain hunters, buying in anticipation of a Federal Reserve rate cut, grabbed stocks that have been pounded lower in recent sessions. All the major indexes were up at least 9 percent.
Still pretty warm this week, in mid 90s. I moved the solar oven out onto the front porch today to cook. Used up last of white basmati rice and put in some yellow split peas. It comes out quite appealing with the white and bright yellow together. I put it with some romaine lettuce and salt and pepper today. It was fine that way.
Got reference to see a lawyer about estate procedures.
Cheers,
shamba
Oct 23rd Beautiful Fall Day in Southern Arizona
High just around 90 I think. It’s lovely outside. I could sit outside on the back patio and drink hot coffee at 2:30 p.m if I wanted! Now that’s the kind of weather I like all the time! J
Used Solar oven today but as an electrical oven. No sun at all during the day in the back for cooking and even in the front porch it’s limited after 1-2 p.m. So, I put in some rice and plugged in the oven in the back and turned the oven on it’s LOW setting. It has LOW and HIGH and you have to turn on the LOW switch before you can turn on the HIGH switch. So, far I’ve discovered the LOW is just fine for cooking the things I cooked all summer using the solar oven.
The rice cooked beautifully in the time it cooked in the strictly solar oven, about an hour. This is still so much better than me cooking rice on my inside stove, I may just keep cooking rice this way. J If I do I’ll use it for cooking everything else I’ve cooked in it. I think it might use less electricity than using the kitchen but I don’t really know that.
And it’s still warm enough during the day that I don’t want to use the kitchen if I can since the AC is switched off today. My daytime temperature for turning on the AC is 95 degrees and above. After almost 6 months of AC it’s a pleasure to have it off and come in and out without thinking about it.
Sprinkled about a cup of shredded cheese on the rice it’s last 5-10 minutes and put a pan of frozen peas next to it to warm up. This and some leftover chicken for late lunch/early supper.
Cheers,
Shamba
Markets seem to be holding their own past 2 days—no big swings or freak outs so far this week. Correction at 1:00 p.m.: big late-day move Tuesday, barreling higher and lifting the Dow Jones industrials more than 800 points as bargain hunters, buying in anticipation of a Federal Reserve rate cut, grabbed stocks that have been pounded lower in recent sessions. All the major indexes were up at least 9 percent.
Still pretty warm this week, in mid 90s. I moved the solar oven out onto the front porch today to cook. Used up last of white basmati rice and put in some yellow split peas. It comes out quite appealing with the white and bright yellow together. I put it with some romaine lettuce and salt and pepper today. It was fine that way.
Got reference to see a lawyer about estate procedures.
Cheers,
shamba
Oct 23rd Beautiful Fall Day in Southern Arizona
High just around 90 I think. It’s lovely outside. I could sit outside on the back patio and drink hot coffee at 2:30 p.m if I wanted! Now that’s the kind of weather I like all the time! J
Used Solar oven today but as an electrical oven. No sun at all during the day in the back for cooking and even in the front porch it’s limited after 1-2 p.m. So, I put in some rice and plugged in the oven in the back and turned the oven on it’s LOW setting. It has LOW and HIGH and you have to turn on the LOW switch before you can turn on the HIGH switch. So, far I’ve discovered the LOW is just fine for cooking the things I cooked all summer using the solar oven.
The rice cooked beautifully in the time it cooked in the strictly solar oven, about an hour. This is still so much better than me cooking rice on my inside stove, I may just keep cooking rice this way. J If I do I’ll use it for cooking everything else I’ve cooked in it. I think it might use less electricity than using the kitchen but I don’t really know that.
And it’s still warm enough during the day that I don’t want to use the kitchen if I can since the AC is switched off today. My daytime temperature for turning on the AC is 95 degrees and above. After almost 6 months of AC it’s a pleasure to have it off and come in and out without thinking about it.
Sprinkled about a cup of shredded cheese on the rice it’s last 5-10 minutes and put a pan of frozen peas next to it to warm up. This and some leftover chicken for late lunch/early supper.
Cheers,
Shamba
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Oct 22, Wednesday
DJA down to 8519 today; it was at 9400?? something on Monday. No kickstart to the market or economy seems to keep the engine going for very long. The market only responds positively to any efforts made for a few days or hours the past 5 weeks. Barrel Oil: $66.75; Local gas: 2.93
I noticed that the Tulsi solar ovens (hybrids) are back ordered until early to mid-November. I went to one site to check on a recipe, I’d seen earlier.
Gotta run,
shamba
I noticed that the Tulsi solar ovens (hybrids) are back ordered until early to mid-November. I went to one site to check on a recipe, I’d seen earlier.
Gotta run,
shamba
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Oct 14th 16th
October 16th
Got 2007 income tax off yesterday—I get a small Fed refund and Mom does, too. Plus we’ll get the 600 dollars everyone else had in the early summer.
Gathered up clean clothes to take to the Stratford where Mom lived. They can use her clothing after all.
Last pres debate last night—I learned a few more things about both candidates’ economic plans.
Last night on NBC broadcast news, the anchor said something at the beginning of the news that brought it home to me that the recession/depression/downturn has “officially” arrived. I don’t remember how he put it—Brian Williams, that is—but it was like most economists now recognize not just a downturn in the economy, but a severe recession. Roubini is not the only one saying the most severe downturn in many year.
It just seems like it can’t be denied anymore, a bad downturn, how long and how bad is anyone’s judgement call at the moment. But we’re in for it now.
Cheers,
shamba
October 14th
From financialsense.com today:
Earlier in Spring, I responded to readers’ emails asking where I thought the bottom would come? Then… I responded that the major bottom would only come when the Dow Ind was somewhere between 7,140 and 8,568. This marks a 50% to 40% drop from the all time high of 14,280 – ditto for other indexes. Most responded at the time that I was absolutely crazy. This has been the historical norm in almost all earlier panics, depressions, and recessions. We are told how the markets eventually recover – but…it took 29 years for the markets to recover from 1929! Do you have that much time to wait in this go around? I’m Fred Cederholm and I’ve been thinking. You should be thinking, too. Contact InformationFred Cederholm Creston, IL USA
Got 2007 income tax off yesterday—I get a small Fed refund and Mom does, too. Plus we’ll get the 600 dollars everyone else had in the early summer.
Gathered up clean clothes to take to the Stratford where Mom lived. They can use her clothing after all.
Last pres debate last night—I learned a few more things about both candidates’ economic plans.
Last night on NBC broadcast news, the anchor said something at the beginning of the news that brought it home to me that the recession/depression/downturn has “officially” arrived. I don’t remember how he put it—Brian Williams, that is—but it was like most economists now recognize not just a downturn in the economy, but a severe recession. Roubini is not the only one saying the most severe downturn in many year.
It just seems like it can’t be denied anymore, a bad downturn, how long and how bad is anyone’s judgement call at the moment. But we’re in for it now.
Cheers,
shamba
October 14th
From financialsense.com today:
Earlier in Spring, I responded to readers’ emails asking where I thought the bottom would come? Then… I responded that the major bottom would only come when the Dow Ind was somewhere between 7,140 and 8,568. This marks a 50% to 40% drop from the all time high of 14,280 – ditto for other indexes. Most responded at the time that I was absolutely crazy. This has been the historical norm in almost all earlier panics, depressions, and recessions. We are told how the markets eventually recover – but…it took 29 years for the markets to recover from 1929! Do you have that much time to wait in this go around? I’m Fred Cederholm and I’ve been thinking. You should be thinking, too. Contact InformationFred Cederholm Creston, IL USA
Monday, October 13, 2008
Oct 13,
Did half of my shoulder exercises this morning to strengthen rotator cuff muscles. I have to get back to doing those more regularly and doing more execise during the week. I haven't done anything but stretches somedays since Sept 23rd when Mom went into the hospital.
Use volcano stove last night to heat up some food and it was pleasant to sit outside in the very cool evening with the stove out on the back patio.
I have to start notifying official places like Social Security and life insurance about my mom's death although I can't do much until I get death certificates.
something to look forward to: it's cool enough to try bread baking inside. :)
DJA, is up today after IMF and other financial meetings over the weekend between US and Europeans. Of course, for how long, who knows?
cheers,
shamba
Use volcano stove last night to heat up some food and it was pleasant to sit outside in the very cool evening with the stove out on the back patio.
I have to start notifying official places like Social Security and life insurance about my mom's death although I can't do much until I get death certificates.
something to look forward to: it's cool enough to try bread baking inside. :)
DJA, is up today after IMF and other financial meetings over the weekend between US and Europeans. Of course, for how long, who knows?
cheers,
shamba
Oct 9-12, 2008
Many things happened in these days so one entry ends up for all of them as I wrote them over the 3 days.
October 12th Sunday
We had a lovely 75 degree yesterday—sudden low coming through forabout 3 days. We had a nice memorial for Mom yesterday, My cousins were able to come and many friends of mine and hers. K. and I had put up lots of pictures of her life and our childhood and old neighborhood and our various cats: Puff, Alex, Patch. Eveyone really liked looking at the pictures and just seemed to like talking to each other so that our short service started late!
The pastor did a nice job, theme was my mom’s life was peaceful and abundant and good.
It was a good day,
Nmaste, Shamba
Friday, October 10, 2008
International Trade Seizing Up Due to Banking Crisis (Updated)
I have been more than a tad concerned about near-paralysis in the money markets and imploding equity prices. But this e-mail, from a well connected international investor not prone to alarm or (normally) the use of capital letters says that the banking crisis is staring to bring international shipping to a halt.By way of background, letters of credit of various sorts are essential for trade. For instance, imagine the difficulty if you are, say, a Chinese manufacturer who wants to sell his wares to buyers overseas. How can he be sure the goods he ships will ever be paid for? Imagine the considerable difficulty and cost of chasing a deadbeat in a foreign country. Letters of credit. issued by banks, assure payment. They can also serve to finance the shipment (ie, fund the inventory while it is in transit).Not only are banks now leery of lending to each other for much longer than overnight, they are also starting to refuse to honor letters of credit from other banks. From the above-mentioned reader:
At the end of the day, if every counterparty is bad then you don't have a market and you don't have an economy. I spoke to another friend of mine this afternoon, whose father has been in the shipping business forever. Pristine credit rating, rock solid balance sheet. He says if he takes his BNP Paribas letter of credit to Citi today for short term funding for his vessels, they won't give it to him. That means he can't ship goods, which means that within the next 2 weeks, physical shortages of commodities begins to show up. THE CENTRAL BANKS CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN OR WE HAVE NO ECONOMY, LET ALONE A CREDIT SYSTEM.
We spoke later in the evening and said he had heard of another instance of a trade transaction failing, different parties entirely, this a shipment of coal, again due to the unwillingness of the seller's bank to accept an LC from the buyer.Update 12:10 AM: Confirmation comes from the Financial Post, "Grain piles up in ports" (hat tip reader Vox Sanus):
The credit crisis is spilling over into the grain industry as international buyers find themselves unable to come up with payment, forcing sellers to shoulder often substantial losses.Before cargoes can be loaded at port, buyers typically must produce proof they are good for the money. But more deals are falling through as sellers decide they don't trust the financial institution named in the buyer's letter of credit, analysts said."There's all kinds of stuff stacked up on docks right now that can't be shipped because people can't get letters of credit," said Bill Gary, president of Commodity Information Systems in Oklahoma City. "The problem is not demand, and it's not supply because we have plenty of supply. It's finding anyone who can come up with the credit to buy."So far the problem is mostly being felt in U. S. and South American ports, but observers say it is only a matter of time before it hits Canada."We've got a nightmare in front of us and a lot of people are concerned it's going to get a lot worse," said Anthony Temple, a grain marketing expert based in Vancouver....Access to credit is key to the survival of maritime trade and insiders now say the supply is being severely restricted. More than 90% of the world's trade by volume goes by ship..."The credit crisis has made banks nervous and the last thing on their minds is making fresh loans," Omar Nokta, an analyst at investment bank Dahlman Rose, said in an interview with Reuters.While shipping has always been a cyclical industry whose fortunes rise and fall with the global economy, analysts said the current crisis over the drying up of credit is something they have never seen before.Jason Myers, head of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, said exporters across Canada are getting caught up in the turmoil as customers delay payments, forcing them to shoulder the cost."What some companies are saying is we can't pay you until our customer pays us, so it becomes a question of who bears the financial risk and the cost," Mr. Myers said. "We're hearing about it more and more."What that means is that manufacturers are getting hit as revenue slows and longtime customers disappear from the order book altogether. As profits decline, investment in product development starts to fall, too, he said.The Canadian Wheat Board, one of the world's biggest grain marketers, has yet to refuse a customer because of poor credit, according to a spokeswoman. "As of this moment we haven't run into that problem," said Maureen Fitzhenry,
October 10th, Friday
Headlines from finance.yahoo.com in the morning:
Dow Plunges 350 Pts Over Credit Concerns in Roller Coaster Session
Later 450 points to 8100 or so … Oil is at 70$ or so.
October 9th
October 8th of last year, the Dow peaked intraday at 14,134.
Today 8666.24 Fall of 591.86 … :0 :O S&P 916.68
Or from cryptygon.com
“Dow Jones Suffers Biggest Percentage Decline in 20 Years
October 10th, 2008
The Dow Jones index fell 678.9 to 8579.2, its biggest percentage drop since Black Monday in October 1987 and its third biggest points decline in history.
In a staggering final hour of trading, the Dow fell more than 400 points after Standard & Poor’s downgraded car maker General Motors and investors were forced to sell off shares to meet margin calls.
The S&P 500 fell 75.0 to 909.9 while the Nasdaq closed down 95.2 at 1645.1, its lowest level since August 2003.
Trading volumes soared, sending volatility near to all time highs, as the Dow closed down 7.3pc. That came exactly a year after the index hit an all-time high on October 9, 2007….
October 9th
October 8th of last year, the Dow peaked intraday at 14,134.
Today 8666.24 … :0 :O S&P 916.68
October 12th Sunday
We had a lovely 75 degree yesterday—sudden low coming through forabout 3 days. We had a nice memorial for Mom yesterday, My cousins were able to come and many friends of mine and hers. K. and I had put up lots of pictures of her life and our childhood and old neighborhood and our various cats: Puff, Alex, Patch. Eveyone really liked looking at the pictures and just seemed to like talking to each other so that our short service started late!
The pastor did a nice job, theme was my mom’s life was peaceful and abundant and good.
It was a good day,
Nmaste, Shamba
Friday, October 10, 2008
International Trade Seizing Up Due to Banking Crisis (Updated)
I have been more than a tad concerned about near-paralysis in the money markets and imploding equity prices. But this e-mail, from a well connected international investor not prone to alarm or (normally) the use of capital letters says that the banking crisis is staring to bring international shipping to a halt.By way of background, letters of credit of various sorts are essential for trade. For instance, imagine the difficulty if you are, say, a Chinese manufacturer who wants to sell his wares to buyers overseas. How can he be sure the goods he ships will ever be paid for? Imagine the considerable difficulty and cost of chasing a deadbeat in a foreign country. Letters of credit. issued by banks, assure payment. They can also serve to finance the shipment (ie, fund the inventory while it is in transit).Not only are banks now leery of lending to each other for much longer than overnight, they are also starting to refuse to honor letters of credit from other banks. From the above-mentioned reader:
At the end of the day, if every counterparty is bad then you don't have a market and you don't have an economy. I spoke to another friend of mine this afternoon, whose father has been in the shipping business forever. Pristine credit rating, rock solid balance sheet. He says if he takes his BNP Paribas letter of credit to Citi today for short term funding for his vessels, they won't give it to him. That means he can't ship goods, which means that within the next 2 weeks, physical shortages of commodities begins to show up. THE CENTRAL BANKS CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN OR WE HAVE NO ECONOMY, LET ALONE A CREDIT SYSTEM.
We spoke later in the evening and said he had heard of another instance of a trade transaction failing, different parties entirely, this a shipment of coal, again due to the unwillingness of the seller's bank to accept an LC from the buyer.Update 12:10 AM: Confirmation comes from the Financial Post, "Grain piles up in ports" (hat tip reader Vox Sanus):
The credit crisis is spilling over into the grain industry as international buyers find themselves unable to come up with payment, forcing sellers to shoulder often substantial losses.Before cargoes can be loaded at port, buyers typically must produce proof they are good for the money. But more deals are falling through as sellers decide they don't trust the financial institution named in the buyer's letter of credit, analysts said."There's all kinds of stuff stacked up on docks right now that can't be shipped because people can't get letters of credit," said Bill Gary, president of Commodity Information Systems in Oklahoma City. "The problem is not demand, and it's not supply because we have plenty of supply. It's finding anyone who can come up with the credit to buy."So far the problem is mostly being felt in U. S. and South American ports, but observers say it is only a matter of time before it hits Canada."We've got a nightmare in front of us and a lot of people are concerned it's going to get a lot worse," said Anthony Temple, a grain marketing expert based in Vancouver....Access to credit is key to the survival of maritime trade and insiders now say the supply is being severely restricted. More than 90% of the world's trade by volume goes by ship..."The credit crisis has made banks nervous and the last thing on their minds is making fresh loans," Omar Nokta, an analyst at investment bank Dahlman Rose, said in an interview with Reuters.While shipping has always been a cyclical industry whose fortunes rise and fall with the global economy, analysts said the current crisis over the drying up of credit is something they have never seen before.Jason Myers, head of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, said exporters across Canada are getting caught up in the turmoil as customers delay payments, forcing them to shoulder the cost."What some companies are saying is we can't pay you until our customer pays us, so it becomes a question of who bears the financial risk and the cost," Mr. Myers said. "We're hearing about it more and more."What that means is that manufacturers are getting hit as revenue slows and longtime customers disappear from the order book altogether. As profits decline, investment in product development starts to fall, too, he said.The Canadian Wheat Board, one of the world's biggest grain marketers, has yet to refuse a customer because of poor credit, according to a spokeswoman. "As of this moment we haven't run into that problem," said Maureen Fitzhenry,
October 10th, Friday
Headlines from finance.yahoo.com in the morning:
Dow Plunges 350 Pts Over Credit Concerns in Roller Coaster Session
Later 450 points to 8100 or so … Oil is at 70$ or so.
October 9th
October 8th of last year, the Dow peaked intraday at 14,134.
Today 8666.24 Fall of 591.86 … :0 :O S&P 916.68
Or from cryptygon.com
“Dow Jones Suffers Biggest Percentage Decline in 20 Years
October 10th, 2008
The Dow Jones index fell 678.9 to 8579.2, its biggest percentage drop since Black Monday in October 1987 and its third biggest points decline in history.
In a staggering final hour of trading, the Dow fell more than 400 points after Standard & Poor’s downgraded car maker General Motors and investors were forced to sell off shares to meet margin calls.
The S&P 500 fell 75.0 to 909.9 while the Nasdaq closed down 95.2 at 1645.1, its lowest level since August 2003.
Trading volumes soared, sending volatility near to all time highs, as the Dow closed down 7.3pc. That came exactly a year after the index hit an all-time high on October 9, 2007….
October 9th
October 8th of last year, the Dow peaked intraday at 14,134.
Today 8666.24 … :0 :O S&P 916.68
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Oct 6-8th
Oct 6th Monday: DJA down 400 points then 500 point, below 10,000 –
update later: 550 … 600 … it’s 11:11 a.m my time and 2:11 EDT. At 11:35 a.m, 749 points!! I’ve been watching the bolded red headlines at Yahoo finance instead of reading the much smaller print that shows all the fluctuations in the market. So less than two more hours to go till close of business today … I laughed when I saw the 600 pt drop … too much tension in my life with my Mom’s death and this stuff going on ??? Probably, also I feel like I did my job for my Mom and I’ve done not too badly in being prepared for this stock market/economic/societal change stuff coming on for the past 2 years and now is more than mainstream. I think the laughter is like I can cry, wail and/or I can laugh. I do now wish I acted on my IRAs and deferred comp earlier … oh, well I prepared for what I could prompted by my own intuition.
12:21 p.m. my time. 800 points …. 40 some minutes to go till markets close today … and tomorrow …. Or not tomorrow …. 800 is more than the 770 something last week which was the biggest one day drop in years … In June the market did go down about 1000 but it wasn’t all on one day … DJA ended up today by being down on 300 something instead of 800 something.
The time for Ure’s (www.urbansurvival.com) event is Oct 7th 7:10 am UTC—London Time that‘s like middle of the night for MST which we are on. I think it’s about 12:30 a.m.
Many other sources besides George Ure’s site have been seeing something like this coming, too, and that includes financial astrologers (!) and technical stock analysts, and all across the spectrum of left to right in my readings.
October 7th:
Quote from finance.yahoo.com in big type headlines with a red border around it:
“Stocks Sink Again as Investors Look for Fed Rate Cut; Dow Plunges Over 500 as S&P 500 Hits 5-Year Low- AP “
“The misery worsened on Wall Street Tuesday, with stocks piling on losses late in the session and bringing the two-day decline in the Dow Jones industrials to more than 875 points amid escalating worries about credit markets and the financial sector. The Dow lost more than 500 points and all the major indexes slid more than 5 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 index saw its first close below 1,000 in five years.”
DJA closed at 9447. If this keeps on it’ll be 8000 by the end of the week. :O
Went out today to get flowers for Saturday and went through spam filled email boxes.
So, anything else going to happen this week?
OCTOBER 8th
It continues …. 9200? Something this morning ….
Interest rate cuts went down all over the world …. President is callingfor a G7 or 8? Emergency financial meeting this weekend … No official signs of bank holidays yet but they are still a possibility, I’m sure.
More later .... this is beginning to really upset people out in the public ...
update later: 550 … 600 … it’s 11:11 a.m my time and 2:11 EDT. At 11:35 a.m, 749 points!! I’ve been watching the bolded red headlines at Yahoo finance instead of reading the much smaller print that shows all the fluctuations in the market. So less than two more hours to go till close of business today … I laughed when I saw the 600 pt drop … too much tension in my life with my Mom’s death and this stuff going on ??? Probably, also I feel like I did my job for my Mom and I’ve done not too badly in being prepared for this stock market/economic/societal change stuff coming on for the past 2 years and now is more than mainstream. I think the laughter is like I can cry, wail and/or I can laugh. I do now wish I acted on my IRAs and deferred comp earlier … oh, well I prepared for what I could prompted by my own intuition.
12:21 p.m. my time. 800 points …. 40 some minutes to go till markets close today … and tomorrow …. Or not tomorrow …. 800 is more than the 770 something last week which was the biggest one day drop in years … In June the market did go down about 1000 but it wasn’t all on one day … DJA ended up today by being down on 300 something instead of 800 something.
The time for Ure’s (www.urbansurvival.com) event is Oct 7th 7:10 am UTC—London Time that‘s like middle of the night for MST which we are on. I think it’s about 12:30 a.m.
Many other sources besides George Ure’s site have been seeing something like this coming, too, and that includes financial astrologers (!) and technical stock analysts, and all across the spectrum of left to right in my readings.
October 7th:
Quote from finance.yahoo.com in big type headlines with a red border around it:
“Stocks Sink Again as Investors Look for Fed Rate Cut; Dow Plunges Over 500 as S&P 500 Hits 5-Year Low- AP “
“The misery worsened on Wall Street Tuesday, with stocks piling on losses late in the session and bringing the two-day decline in the Dow Jones industrials to more than 875 points amid escalating worries about credit markets and the financial sector. The Dow lost more than 500 points and all the major indexes slid more than 5 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 index saw its first close below 1,000 in five years.”
DJA closed at 9447. If this keeps on it’ll be 8000 by the end of the week. :O
Went out today to get flowers for Saturday and went through spam filled email boxes.
So, anything else going to happen this week?
OCTOBER 8th
It continues …. 9200? Something this morning ….
Interest rate cuts went down all over the world …. President is callingfor a G7 or 8? Emergency financial meeting this weekend … No official signs of bank holidays yet but they are still a possibility, I’m sure.
More later .... this is beginning to really upset people out in the public ...
Sunday, October 5, 2008
October 5th
Okay, sleep patterns last night very badly disrupted. I watched a movie s from 2-3 a.m. and slept from 4-9. Still feel pretty good though. I had washed the past 3 days worth of dishes and cleaned up the kitchen Saturday night. Everything was just accumulating everywhere since last Tusday evening.
Caught up with laundry, got extra cash, went through food on kitchen table (from Safeway store 2 days ago) and got them put away. There were no perishables in there though. I also checked money in the Bof A account (this was my mom's account) and picked up some canned cat food really marked down at Bashas'. I'm running out of sugar--how did that happen?
Got out my solar oven, made corn bread--:) . I haven't used it or cooked much on my own the past two weeks, this is always soothing for me these days so it was time to cook something from scratch again. I used the electric option today as well as the oven being in the sun. It's supposed to cycle between using the sun and electricity--anyway the bread came out very well.
Then I decided Bush's Vegetarian baked beans would go well with the corn bread and I didn't want to make it myself today. Now later, in the afternoon, I decided I wanted some rice for dinner with the corn bread and beans. Sun was all gone but I just plugged in the oven again so I didn't have to move the oven to the front of the house. Beside, it's makes rice so much easier and better than I can on the stove! :)
I moved some whole wheat flour and white flour to where I would see it the next time I look at the storage "shelves" Especially now that the weather is cooling off, 80s during the days, I want to try the bread cooking and pizza cooking I didn't get to this summer.
K. comes this week to come to Mom's memorial, I have some more to call about that and flowers to select this week.
Re: Urbansurvival.com's Fall october 2008 predictions, it's this weeks as a time frame for a rather big event that will be causing some distress for us emotionally for 5-6 months. no guarantees, something will really come about but I'm as prepared as I can be for anything big after all these months of storing, cooking, practicing more for cooking and batteries and cash.
I'll need all these things anyway, it turns out as planning Mom's memorial service and having company this weekend will take some extra from my usual routine.
I expect more stock market grief and financial grief as this event. that'll be bad enough so I hope that's all it is.
cheers,
shamba
Caught up with laundry, got extra cash, went through food on kitchen table (from Safeway store 2 days ago) and got them put away. There were no perishables in there though. I also checked money in the Bof A account (this was my mom's account) and picked up some canned cat food really marked down at Bashas'. I'm running out of sugar--how did that happen?
Got out my solar oven, made corn bread--:) . I haven't used it or cooked much on my own the past two weeks, this is always soothing for me these days so it was time to cook something from scratch again. I used the electric option today as well as the oven being in the sun. It's supposed to cycle between using the sun and electricity--anyway the bread came out very well.
Then I decided Bush's Vegetarian baked beans would go well with the corn bread and I didn't want to make it myself today. Now later, in the afternoon, I decided I wanted some rice for dinner with the corn bread and beans. Sun was all gone but I just plugged in the oven again so I didn't have to move the oven to the front of the house. Beside, it's makes rice so much easier and better than I can on the stove! :)
I moved some whole wheat flour and white flour to where I would see it the next time I look at the storage "shelves" Especially now that the weather is cooling off, 80s during the days, I want to try the bread cooking and pizza cooking I didn't get to this summer.
K. comes this week to come to Mom's memorial, I have some more to call about that and flowers to select this week.
Re: Urbansurvival.com's Fall october 2008 predictions, it's this weeks as a time frame for a rather big event that will be causing some distress for us emotionally for 5-6 months. no guarantees, something will really come about but I'm as prepared as I can be for anything big after all these months of storing, cooking, practicing more for cooking and batteries and cash.
I'll need all these things anyway, it turns out as planning Mom's memorial service and having company this weekend will take some extra from my usual routine.
I expect more stock market grief and financial grief as this event. that'll be bad enough so I hope that's all it is.
cheers,
shamba
Saturday, October 4, 2008
October 1-4, 2008
My mother took her last breath about an hour after I left her yesterday afternoon. The time was 4:20 p.m. I had to go back as they called me right after I got home from seeing her. She went peacefully and more quickly than I thought she would. She died the last day of the month of September 2008.
To make a long story short, M. and I will be planning a service for Saturday next weekend. My brother can come for 3 days.
I’m doing okay but seem to be very tired from all the tension of her illness, and all the other news out there!
Bailout/rescue bill passed the Senate first on Wednesday and House on Friday. It was packed with all kinds of stuff before the voting. We’ll see what this or doesn’t do for confidence in the markets. Public citizens were enraged by the bills but businesses and banks were for it as a confidence booster. I can see both points of view and I didn’t express an opinion. R. our broker really wanted it to pass. He ‘s sounds truly worried about how long this coming recession/downturn will last—he was afraid it would be longer than 2-3 years. Scary because of him feeling this way going along with all the predictions the last 2-3 years about this possibilities. Because the bill WON'T STOP THE DOWNTURN COMING but it will slow it down or make it not so bad.
Namaste and Om Shanti,
Shamba/sheri
To make a long story short, M. and I will be planning a service for Saturday next weekend. My brother can come for 3 days.
I’m doing okay but seem to be very tired from all the tension of her illness, and all the other news out there!
Bailout/rescue bill passed the Senate first on Wednesday and House on Friday. It was packed with all kinds of stuff before the voting. We’ll see what this or doesn’t do for confidence in the markets. Public citizens were enraged by the bills but businesses and banks were for it as a confidence booster. I can see both points of view and I didn’t express an opinion. R. our broker really wanted it to pass. He ‘s sounds truly worried about how long this coming recession/downturn will last—he was afraid it would be longer than 2-3 years. Scary because of him feeling this way going along with all the predictions the last 2-3 years about this possibilities. Because the bill WON'T STOP THE DOWNTURN COMING but it will slow it down or make it not so bad.
Namaste and Om Shanti,
Shamba/sheri
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
September 29-30th
Sept 30
Mom was very peaceful today; she also is quite unresponsive. Sghe talked a little last night to me but it was very hard to hear her much less understand her. I knew what she was saying:”I don’t know what I’m doing” or What can I do?
I told her she was doing exactly what she was supposed to and that she had done very well with her life. I told her that today as well. She was still somewhat agitated and restless yesterday and last night. She didn’t want too much next to her skin, sheet or robe or nightgown. Today she is much quieter with the white cat tucked under her hand.
--DJones actually came up today and was not as volatile as yesterday anyway.
--I went to get gas at the cheaper station at Bethany Home Rd and it was all out of all kinds of gas. They only had regular on Saturday; premium was all out and the guy said he expected a shipment but he hadn’t had one for the previous day either he was supposed to get. Station closest to home had enough of all kinds for a few cents more still it was 3.35.
--Got legal docs of Mom’s out to check on something. I’ve got everything I’ll need now.
--Made a big pot of veg soup this morning to keep busy.
shamba
September 29 Monday
Mom, Eleanor, is in Hospice of the Valley unit at Phoenix Baptist Hospital. She hasn’t eaten anything except a bite or two of chocolate pudding since Saturday noon meal. She just keeps saying she doesn’t know who she is and/or what I am supposed to do? She can be very agitated and distressed about these two issues.
Saturday she wanted me and the nurse to kill her, then that she was dying and was afraid and then a few times that she just wanted to stop and why can’t I just die. I told her is okay to die, and okay to be afraid and I was afraid too. I also always told her she was doing just fine and exactly what she was supposed to be doing.
I’ve been there every day with her for a few hours; but I am so worn out today I want to shut out the WHOLE F******* WORLD for a few hours. This also has to do with the finance news today—see below for that.
K. has to move from David’s to a half-way house; not more punishment/restriction but because of David’s connection with the Children’s Pool issue.
More news this interesting day (!):
--Yahoo finance headline at 12:00 noon MST:
Dow Plunges 700 as House Defeats Bailout Plan; Selling Intensifies- AP
--DJ down to 10,500; lots of acrimony about this not passing house between representatives. Most of the congressmen and women have been getting that most Americans don’t want this so they have every right to ask their representatives to do what they want. I don’t blame them but we will also get much worse sooner without the bailout.
And there will be freefall in the market until something is tried or we’ve hit the bottom.
--Congress isn’t supposed to get together again until Thursday! And tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah. So, that’s a holiday for them, too.
Got supplies last week from Sprouts of bulk items; I just keep buying food stuff! I want to get some more charcoal briquettes. I haven’t done any cooking since last Tuesday when Mom went to the hospital.
As for the October 7th date predicted by urbansurvival.com, a bank holiday?? I got a lot of extra cash from the CU last Friday and also made a large payment on what’s left on the credit card.
So much, can’t write it all down!
shamba
Mom was very peaceful today; she also is quite unresponsive. Sghe talked a little last night to me but it was very hard to hear her much less understand her. I knew what she was saying:”I don’t know what I’m doing” or What can I do?
I told her she was doing exactly what she was supposed to and that she had done very well with her life. I told her that today as well. She was still somewhat agitated and restless yesterday and last night. She didn’t want too much next to her skin, sheet or robe or nightgown. Today she is much quieter with the white cat tucked under her hand.
--DJones actually came up today and was not as volatile as yesterday anyway.
--I went to get gas at the cheaper station at Bethany Home Rd and it was all out of all kinds of gas. They only had regular on Saturday; premium was all out and the guy said he expected a shipment but he hadn’t had one for the previous day either he was supposed to get. Station closest to home had enough of all kinds for a few cents more still it was 3.35.
--Got legal docs of Mom’s out to check on something. I’ve got everything I’ll need now.
--Made a big pot of veg soup this morning to keep busy.
shamba
September 29 Monday
Mom, Eleanor, is in Hospice of the Valley unit at Phoenix Baptist Hospital. She hasn’t eaten anything except a bite or two of chocolate pudding since Saturday noon meal. She just keeps saying she doesn’t know who she is and/or what I am supposed to do? She can be very agitated and distressed about these two issues.
Saturday she wanted me and the nurse to kill her, then that she was dying and was afraid and then a few times that she just wanted to stop and why can’t I just die. I told her is okay to die, and okay to be afraid and I was afraid too. I also always told her she was doing just fine and exactly what she was supposed to be doing.
I’ve been there every day with her for a few hours; but I am so worn out today I want to shut out the WHOLE F******* WORLD for a few hours. This also has to do with the finance news today—see below for that.
K. has to move from David’s to a half-way house; not more punishment/restriction but because of David’s connection with the Children’s Pool issue.
More news this interesting day (!):
--Yahoo finance headline at 12:00 noon MST:
Dow Plunges 700 as House Defeats Bailout Plan; Selling Intensifies- AP
--DJ down to 10,500; lots of acrimony about this not passing house between representatives. Most of the congressmen and women have been getting that most Americans don’t want this so they have every right to ask their representatives to do what they want. I don’t blame them but we will also get much worse sooner without the bailout.
And there will be freefall in the market until something is tried or we’ve hit the bottom.
--Congress isn’t supposed to get together again until Thursday! And tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah. So, that’s a holiday for them, too.
Got supplies last week from Sprouts of bulk items; I just keep buying food stuff! I want to get some more charcoal briquettes. I haven’t done any cooking since last Tuesday when Mom went to the hospital.
As for the October 7th date predicted by urbansurvival.com, a bank holiday?? I got a lot of extra cash from the CU last Friday and also made a large payment on what’s left on the credit card.
So much, can’t write it all down!
shamba
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Sept 24-25
There is much news on the financial and economic and negotiating of the bailout but I can’t recount it all because Tuesday afternoon, Mom suddenly had trouble breathing, and the paramedics took her to Phoenix Baptist hospital. I went to the ER and met her there, someone from the Stratford was there with her, thank heavens. They are good people there.
She’s been there for a couple of days, heart tests, lung tests. Maybe the beginnings of congestive heart failure. She knows me but even talking to e she talks sometimes very incoherently. That’s news for her but it could just be the environment of a strange place.
I will say that the nurses/drs/everyone has been very nice there and it seems she’s getting appropriate care as far as I can judge those things. I met the cardiologist and coordinating physician of hers this morning. One had called me yesterday but I wasn’t home I was talking to Dr. Riess and filling him in on what had happened. I feel much better after talking to them today.
Cardiologist said heart and valves look okay. the right side of the heart isn't pumping as well as it should; it pumps to the lungs. A pacemaker is not necessary even with a slightly irregular heartbeat. She's got several new medications that are helping her, heart stuff; no I'm not sure what all they are. she hadn't seen the pulomonologist yet so we don't know what's happening with her lungs.
She also ate well at breakfast and not too much at lunch. She was dozing off when I left.
PS.Congress and bailout supporters still negotiating.
Cheers,
shamba
She’s been there for a couple of days, heart tests, lung tests. Maybe the beginnings of congestive heart failure. She knows me but even talking to e she talks sometimes very incoherently. That’s news for her but it could just be the environment of a strange place.
I will say that the nurses/drs/everyone has been very nice there and it seems she’s getting appropriate care as far as I can judge those things. I met the cardiologist and coordinating physician of hers this morning. One had called me yesterday but I wasn’t home I was talking to Dr. Riess and filling him in on what had happened. I feel much better after talking to them today.
Cardiologist said heart and valves look okay. the right side of the heart isn't pumping as well as it should; it pumps to the lungs. A pacemaker is not necessary even with a slightly irregular heartbeat. She's got several new medications that are helping her, heart stuff; no I'm not sure what all they are. she hadn't seen the pulomonologist yet so we don't know what's happening with her lungs.
She also ate well at breakfast and not too much at lunch. She was dozing off when I left.
PS.Congress and bailout supporters still negotiating.
Cheers,
shamba
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sept18-22
Sept 22. Monday, continuing discussion of the "bailout" plan. If this doesn't happen in the next couple of weeks, like by middle of next week or end of next week, the economic/stock market reactions are going to be going down the tubes. This is the very thing the bailout is supposed to help put off because it won't stop it it will just buy some time, or postpone the great downturn for a while. I imagine a while is something like a few weeks to 2-4 months. that's just my own impression from what I am reading these days. Actually, I've been reading this stuff for at least a yhear and more like 2 years.
Oh yes, much was made of a barrel of oil going up $ the most in one day trading in years." It did, it went up about $20.00 from closing on Friday at 104.55, today it closed at 120.92. Our gas is still lowers than before Ike; and has gone from 3.59 the day before ike to 3.47 or 3.45.
Income tax into Michael today.. At least we'll get our $600 apiece, mom and i, unless the government runs out of money before then! It's scary and yet fascinating at the same time.
September 21, Sunday
I finished my part of the 2007 income tax; just have to do all the adding of figures for Mom now. This always turns out to not be as bad as I think it will so why do I procrastinate with it?????
Text of Bailout has be printed and available for public, at least on the internet: they’re adding things to it like, foreign banks can be part of the bailout (WHAT THE F???? IS THAT ABOUT; that’s horrifying even to me and I don’t know enough about this stuff. I have to call Richard tomorrow anyway about money for Mom’s October bill.) Goodness, if my Mom knew what was happening she’d be freaking out; my dad would spin in his grave, or laugh, I’m not sure which. He doesn’t have a grave actually; his ashes are in a quietly wrapped plastic container in my house.
Also, this asks that the Sec of the Treasury be given any amount he wants anytime he wants, and the courts can look at this after it’s passed. Dictatorial powers to the executive branch through the Sec of Treasury? I read this somewhere I didn’t deduce it by myself…
They tinfoil hats are even more right than I thought they were! The “plot’ to take over the government of the US continues! Actually, I don’t believe in complicated conspiracies; I think its circumstances, sometimes swiftly moving unexpected circumstances that give rise to what the powers that be decide to do at that time.
September 18-19:
More stuff has hit the fan or it’s just splattering everywhere!
AIG bailed out by government; or rather, now owns 80 percent of AIG. AND the government now is going to form an entity that will buy up all the “bad debts” from the banks like the Resolution Trust did for the S&L problems about 15-20 years ago.
Paulson and Bernanke had a session on Thursday night with congressional biggies and they all agreed on the buying out bad debts. Also, the SEC said no shorts on about 800 stocks for 10 days. That’ll bring us up to the first full week in October when that expires unless it’s extended.
I talked to Richard on Wednesday after the AIG rescue but I haven’t talked to him since then so I don’t know what he thinks of latest development. He did say we’re going to 9000 probably—CJ rallied on Friday to 11, 400. Oil has come up to 104 or something; our gas has gone down 4 cents to 3.47. That surprised me.
Loaded up on cat food this weekend but I needed to anyway. Still buying at Safeway with my extra 10% off card.
shamba
Oh yes, much was made of a barrel of oil going up $ the most in one day trading in years." It did, it went up about $20.00 from closing on Friday at 104.55, today it closed at 120.92. Our gas is still lowers than before Ike; and has gone from 3.59 the day before ike to 3.47 or 3.45.
Income tax into Michael today.. At least we'll get our $600 apiece, mom and i, unless the government runs out of money before then! It's scary and yet fascinating at the same time.
September 21, Sunday
I finished my part of the 2007 income tax; just have to do all the adding of figures for Mom now. This always turns out to not be as bad as I think it will so why do I procrastinate with it?????
Text of Bailout has be printed and available for public, at least on the internet: they’re adding things to it like, foreign banks can be part of the bailout (WHAT THE F???? IS THAT ABOUT; that’s horrifying even to me and I don’t know enough about this stuff. I have to call Richard tomorrow anyway about money for Mom’s October bill.) Goodness, if my Mom knew what was happening she’d be freaking out; my dad would spin in his grave, or laugh, I’m not sure which. He doesn’t have a grave actually; his ashes are in a quietly wrapped plastic container in my house.
Also, this asks that the Sec of the Treasury be given any amount he wants anytime he wants, and the courts can look at this after it’s passed. Dictatorial powers to the executive branch through the Sec of Treasury? I read this somewhere I didn’t deduce it by myself…
They tinfoil hats are even more right than I thought they were! The “plot’ to take over the government of the US continues! Actually, I don’t believe in complicated conspiracies; I think its circumstances, sometimes swiftly moving unexpected circumstances that give rise to what the powers that be decide to do at that time.
September 18-19:
More stuff has hit the fan or it’s just splattering everywhere!
AIG bailed out by government; or rather, now owns 80 percent of AIG. AND the government now is going to form an entity that will buy up all the “bad debts” from the banks like the Resolution Trust did for the S&L problems about 15-20 years ago.
Paulson and Bernanke had a session on Thursday night with congressional biggies and they all agreed on the buying out bad debts. Also, the SEC said no shorts on about 800 stocks for 10 days. That’ll bring us up to the first full week in October when that expires unless it’s extended.
I talked to Richard on Wednesday after the AIG rescue but I haven’t talked to him since then so I don’t know what he thinks of latest development. He did say we’re going to 9000 probably—CJ rallied on Friday to 11, 400. Oil has come up to 104 or something; our gas has gone down 4 cents to 3.47. That surprised me.
Loaded up on cat food this weekend but I needed to anyway. Still buying at Safeway with my extra 10% off card.
shamba
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
September 15, 16, 17 Boom, Boom, boom, ..... doom, doom, doom ...
September 15th
500 drop on DJA; Lehman Bros. has gone belly up. AIG, WAMU Morgan Stanley are not in good shape. AIG should be the next to go. I’ts a huge insurance company that has my mom retirement annuity—sigh, I don’t know what that means. I’m afraid to find out! Oh, yeah, Merrill Lynch has sold itself to Bank of America.
This was given big headlines around the world, but had developed over the weekend as talks were to save Lehman and so it’s really no surprise to those who have been watching this situation over the past several months.
Roubini thinks our 18 months recession will be over mid-2009. Meredith Whitney now thinks housing values will fall over 45% from 2005 to whenever it stops falling. She’s said 30 % before, I think.
Automatic Earth still says 60-80% and more on the 80% side these days.
I have paid absolutely No attention to the campaigns since I watched the conventions. I’m not sure why, the hurricanes and economic stuff is more fascinating I think. Also, a lot of the talk on the campaigns has been about Plain and her lipstick and whether or not Osama and McCain are insulting each other. Sheesh!
September 16-17
A lot of Sh*t seems to have hit the fan since this weekend; AIG almost was ready to bankrupt but the government has stepped in to stop it. This is GOOD for us—Mom and me—as she receives an annuity from them! If they’d gone bankrupt, we would have lost the money—so it has become VERY personal at this time. I rthought that was the way it would be but I wanted to ask him that and some other questions. DJA is way down, 10,700.
Talked to Richard, mom’s broker, he expects housing won’t recover for at least two years probably longer; the stockmarket will probably or could go down to about 9000, He is more sure that it will go down to that than not. He said we’re in for a rough ride and is confirming everything I expected. He moved a fund of my mom’s money into the money market, that means it’s in cash right now. He’s been a busy man the past couple of days! I’ll bet!
News from friends about others they know losing in this market:
--Linda’s music friends include a lot of real estate people on the east Coast, Northern Virginia and Fredericksburg, VA. One custom home builder has gone under in the past year, all their personal money was used to try to save it but they lost it all. I don’t know if that means they lost their own home or not.
--A respected yoga teacher of many years came to our studio to do a workshop this past weekend. I couldn’t go but my friend Barb said that she has lost a lot or weight and her beautiful head of hair is much thinner. Her husband and she have both been ill the past two years, they are not young, and lost their several investment properties they had near where they live in Sedona. I was very sad to hear about her and her husband. She’s travelling and teaching again because she needs the money. She’s a wonderful teacher and I hope to see her again.
--D. in Tennessee said her husband has lost his job and they don’t know if they’ll have to move again or not.
--I’m waiting to hear about the enrollment in our health plan in the next month or so. How much will it increase?? :/
-- And oil was at 92 dollars or something wacko like that with the situation in the Gulf. ??
shamba
500 drop on DJA; Lehman Bros. has gone belly up. AIG, WAMU Morgan Stanley are not in good shape. AIG should be the next to go. I’ts a huge insurance company that has my mom retirement annuity—sigh, I don’t know what that means. I’m afraid to find out! Oh, yeah, Merrill Lynch has sold itself to Bank of America.
This was given big headlines around the world, but had developed over the weekend as talks were to save Lehman and so it’s really no surprise to those who have been watching this situation over the past several months.
Roubini thinks our 18 months recession will be over mid-2009. Meredith Whitney now thinks housing values will fall over 45% from 2005 to whenever it stops falling. She’s said 30 % before, I think.
Automatic Earth still says 60-80% and more on the 80% side these days.
I have paid absolutely No attention to the campaigns since I watched the conventions. I’m not sure why, the hurricanes and economic stuff is more fascinating I think. Also, a lot of the talk on the campaigns has been about Plain and her lipstick and whether or not Osama and McCain are insulting each other. Sheesh!
September 16-17
A lot of Sh*t seems to have hit the fan since this weekend; AIG almost was ready to bankrupt but the government has stepped in to stop it. This is GOOD for us—Mom and me—as she receives an annuity from them! If they’d gone bankrupt, we would have lost the money—so it has become VERY personal at this time. I rthought that was the way it would be but I wanted to ask him that and some other questions. DJA is way down, 10,700.
Talked to Richard, mom’s broker, he expects housing won’t recover for at least two years probably longer; the stockmarket will probably or could go down to about 9000, He is more sure that it will go down to that than not. He said we’re in for a rough ride and is confirming everything I expected. He moved a fund of my mom’s money into the money market, that means it’s in cash right now. He’s been a busy man the past couple of days! I’ll bet!
News from friends about others they know losing in this market:
--Linda’s music friends include a lot of real estate people on the east Coast, Northern Virginia and Fredericksburg, VA. One custom home builder has gone under in the past year, all their personal money was used to try to save it but they lost it all. I don’t know if that means they lost their own home or not.
--A respected yoga teacher of many years came to our studio to do a workshop this past weekend. I couldn’t go but my friend Barb said that she has lost a lot or weight and her beautiful head of hair is much thinner. Her husband and she have both been ill the past two years, they are not young, and lost their several investment properties they had near where they live in Sedona. I was very sad to hear about her and her husband. She’s travelling and teaching again because she needs the money. She’s a wonderful teacher and I hope to see her again.
--D. in Tennessee said her husband has lost his job and they don’t know if they’ll have to move again or not.
--I’m waiting to hear about the enrollment in our health plan in the next month or so. How much will it increase?? :/
-- And oil was at 92 dollars or something wacko like that with the situation in the Gulf. ??
shamba
Friday, September 12, 2008
September 11-12, 2008 Big Ike is coming ..
9-11-08 Regular Gas 3.51-3.52; Oil crude at . . Why so low? Govt or whoever/whatever keeping it down until after the elections, hoping Gustave and Ike aftermath won’t be too bad??
Ike is going to hit the Texas coast around Galveston-Houston Friday evening or night according to the Hurricane Center. It will be at least a Cat2; maybe a 3-4. It’s very large and spread out over a large area; it’s coming at high tide and this will add a lot to the storm surge. Gas has already gone up 20 cents a gallon in Nashville, TNording to my friend, Diana who lives there. She called and said overnight their gas went up thurriat much. But they live in a part of the country that gets all their supplies from the gulf Coast. Western US and Arizona get most of Gas from California; althoughAZ gets some gas from the Gulf.
According to Nola.com late Thursday afternoon, parishes in Louisiana are threatened by storm surge starting that afternoon! Recovery efforts have been closed down until the tropical storm threat from Ike passes by. Jeez these poor people!
And we have ANOTHER thunderstorm watch/warning that we’ve had twice a week for the last 3-4 weeks! All this rain is great but more than I remember in monsoon for a long time.
9-12-08 11.00 a.m
New online from different sources:
Masters’ at Wunderground Ike will be more powerful and destructive than Katrina or Rita or Gustav. Not just the category of hurricane but how wide an area it covers and winds and the energy it creates and how it pushes sea water or ground water into a surge. I certainly don’t understand all of that but Jeff Master’s says it could be one of the most destructive storms of all time. The whole of Galveston Island was supposed to be evacuated but only about 1/3 did.; as of the writing according to some estimates.
At TOD something about a military officer remarking on rescuing 37,000 people.
Aftermath of Ike, after all the other storms and stuff, will have a terrible effect on the ability to restore power after power crews have been out in Louisiana the past 2 weeks and parts of the East Coast had power problems after Hanna, TS , went through. 1:10 p.m. MST Downtown Galveston is filled with water already … 30 % of the city hasn’t evacuated and one bridge out is impassable and the other one has risk of high winds … there are only two bridges out of Galveston; Anniversary of Hurricane Carla, too.
People are making run on gas stations in the southeast, some station have rationed their own gas, sometimes they just run out. Governors in Alabama and Kentucky have declared states of emergency (have I got those right?) because of the gasoline problems.
Of course, it's going to price itself way up the next few days ...
From TOD: 19:55CDT KHOU-TV: Galveston has lost electricity. (7:55 p.m. CDT) Landfall from the eye isn't until midnight or 2 am. and look at everything that's happened so far. ...
Also, guy from wunderground.com says he expects a huge power outtages for Texas. I'm sure hemeans at least a few days if not more. 200 miles wide and 300 miles deep in from the coast--:0 Hope that area is over the worst of it's heat for the year.
shamba
Ike is going to hit the Texas coast around Galveston-Houston Friday evening or night according to the Hurricane Center. It will be at least a Cat2; maybe a 3-4. It’s very large and spread out over a large area; it’s coming at high tide and this will add a lot to the storm surge. Gas has already gone up 20 cents a gallon in Nashville, TNording to my friend, Diana who lives there. She called and said overnight their gas went up thurriat much. But they live in a part of the country that gets all their supplies from the gulf Coast. Western US and Arizona get most of Gas from California; althoughAZ gets some gas from the Gulf.
According to Nola.com late Thursday afternoon, parishes in Louisiana are threatened by storm surge starting that afternoon! Recovery efforts have been closed down until the tropical storm threat from Ike passes by. Jeez these poor people!
And we have ANOTHER thunderstorm watch/warning that we’ve had twice a week for the last 3-4 weeks! All this rain is great but more than I remember in monsoon for a long time.
9-12-08 11.00 a.m
New online from different sources:
Masters’ at Wunderground Ike will be more powerful and destructive than Katrina or Rita or Gustav. Not just the category of hurricane but how wide an area it covers and winds and the energy it creates and how it pushes sea water or ground water into a surge. I certainly don’t understand all of that but Jeff Master’s says it could be one of the most destructive storms of all time. The whole of Galveston Island was supposed to be evacuated but only about 1/3 did.; as of the writing according to some estimates.
At TOD something about a military officer remarking on rescuing 37,000 people.
Aftermath of Ike, after all the other storms and stuff, will have a terrible effect on the ability to restore power after power crews have been out in Louisiana the past 2 weeks and parts of the East Coast had power problems after Hanna, TS , went through. 1:10 p.m. MST Downtown Galveston is filled with water already … 30 % of the city hasn’t evacuated and one bridge out is impassable and the other one has risk of high winds … there are only two bridges out of Galveston; Anniversary of Hurricane Carla, too.
People are making run on gas stations in the southeast, some station have rationed their own gas, sometimes they just run out. Governors in Alabama and Kentucky have declared states of emergency (have I got those right?) because of the gasoline problems.
Of course, it's going to price itself way up the next few days ...
From TOD: 19:55CDT KHOU-TV: Galveston has lost electricity. (7:55 p.m. CDT) Landfall from the eye isn't until midnight or 2 am. and look at everything that's happened so far. ...
Also, guy from wunderground.com says he expects a huge power outtages for Texas. I'm sure hemeans at least a few days if not more. 200 miles wide and 300 miles deep in from the coast--:0 Hope that area is over the worst of it's heat for the year.
shamba
Saturday, September 6, 2008
September 6 2008
Sun disappearing on the north side, patio side of the house due to seasons changing. I just have to move it closer to the north wall to cook with the solar oven. Temp are still in mid 100s about where they should be anyway. Cooking house for solar are now 10:30 a.m. to 3-4 p.m.
I just plug the cord that came with the oven into my extensions cord and plug it inside the patio door and voila! I continue cooking electrically instead of solarly! This works well in the shade between 4- 7 p.m. and it cooks quite well.
I’ll just have to try it on the front porch on the south side as the season turns more.
I picked up some small light weight round dark pans at Goodwill again. I bought 3 more and they can be used in the regular oven and solar. I was at goodwill to take a bag of things there so I decided to cruise around inside the store—it was 50% off day, too.
Signs of the times:
--My webspace is going up $1.00 a month. They haven’t raised prices in 3 or so years.
--Our laundry machines have gone up from $.75 to $1.00. This is washing machines and they haven’t gone up in years either. Most Laundromats are more.
--Mom’s residence at Stratford is going to have new management. I hope this avoids any major changes, like price rises, until a few months down the line.
--Gas is down and crude oil is down. Hurricane Gustav didn’t do much damage to oil/gas infrastructure; Ike will be around early next week. We’ll see where it goes. Josephine fizzled out in the middle of the Atlantic.
--FannieMae and FreddieMac are about to become part of the National Debt this weekend.
--11th bank for the year has failed; another rather small bank in Nevada. That’s 2 in Nevada with branches in Arizona.
--My house and car insurance went down 29.00 a month! They’re using credit ratings for criteria and I have decent credit it seems.
-- I don’t know how much my health insurance will go up this fall; enrollment is in mid Oct to Mid Nov. for us retirees.
--and, of course, the Whiskas cat food is going up some . It’s a little over $11.00 for that 18 pound bag; it used to be 10. Something and sometimes was on special for under 10.
also, Mom just seems to be disappearing before my eyes the past 2 weeks. She's also, too aware of the process that she's "going blank" as she calls it. she asks what she should be doing and when she's going to get over "this". "This" being the lack of initiative she can't come up with for herself. It's all part of the Alzheimers' disease. Lots of this process hasn't upset me I just know that it's part of the disease but this remark this past week really made me feel that I'm losing her and how terrible it is she is so aware of the demise of her ability to control her own consciousness.
That’s enough for now,
shamba
I just plug the cord that came with the oven into my extensions cord and plug it inside the patio door and voila! I continue cooking electrically instead of solarly! This works well in the shade between 4- 7 p.m. and it cooks quite well.
I’ll just have to try it on the front porch on the south side as the season turns more.
I picked up some small light weight round dark pans at Goodwill again. I bought 3 more and they can be used in the regular oven and solar. I was at goodwill to take a bag of things there so I decided to cruise around inside the store—it was 50% off day, too.
Signs of the times:
--My webspace is going up $1.00 a month. They haven’t raised prices in 3 or so years.
--Our laundry machines have gone up from $.75 to $1.00. This is washing machines and they haven’t gone up in years either. Most Laundromats are more.
--Mom’s residence at Stratford is going to have new management. I hope this avoids any major changes, like price rises, until a few months down the line.
--Gas is down and crude oil is down. Hurricane Gustav didn’t do much damage to oil/gas infrastructure; Ike will be around early next week. We’ll see where it goes. Josephine fizzled out in the middle of the Atlantic.
--FannieMae and FreddieMac are about to become part of the National Debt this weekend.
--11th bank for the year has failed; another rather small bank in Nevada. That’s 2 in Nevada with branches in Arizona.
--My house and car insurance went down 29.00 a month! They’re using credit ratings for criteria and I have decent credit it seems.
-- I don’t know how much my health insurance will go up this fall; enrollment is in mid Oct to Mid Nov. for us retirees.
--and, of course, the Whiskas cat food is going up some . It’s a little over $11.00 for that 18 pound bag; it used to be 10. Something and sometimes was on special for under 10.
also, Mom just seems to be disappearing before my eyes the past 2 weeks. She's also, too aware of the process that she's "going blank" as she calls it. she asks what she should be doing and when she's going to get over "this". "This" being the lack of initiative she can't come up with for herself. It's all part of the Alzheimers' disease. Lots of this process hasn't upset me I just know that it's part of the disease but this remark this past week really made me feel that I'm losing her and how terrible it is she is so aware of the demise of her ability to control her own consciousness.
That’s enough for now,
shamba
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Augs 27, 28 and 30
August 27, 2008
Hurricane Gustav following in Katrina’s Footsteps—EEK!
Almost 3 years to the day (!) it looks like another hurricane is following what Katrina did.
However, we’re still more than 72 hours from wherever it’s going to land so it could change direction. AT the moment however, accuweather and the NOOA (?) National Hurricane Center shows it on track to hit the gulf Coast from the western edge of Louisiana to part of the Florida panhandle. It’s aiming, so far, right into the offshore Louisiana oil patches, the heart being that little spit of land coming out of Louisiana that is the end of the Mississippi.
I went to Sprouts today and bought all the bulk stuff I’ll need for at least another month! NO, not because of sympathy hurricane preparedness. J I’m still cooking with the solar oven and can make another recipe without looking at the written instructions. Is this progress? (The answer is yes.)
We’ve had lots of rain this monsoon. The past month we’ve had some real soakers going to for than the usual monsoon 1-2 hours of hard rain. We’re ahead on our rain needs for this year in our watershed.
Oil went up a barrel because of the Gustavo situation. It’s been really low the past month or so, funning 112-120 dollars a barrel. Our gas is at 3.61 this week. DJA has been in the middling 11,000 range the past month or so.
August 28, 2008
Gustav is still on the move—may be a hurricane officially Friday or Friday night. It’s going a little west right now so that takes it west of NOLA (New Orleans Louisiana).
Hannah has joined the group of tropical depressions lining up across the Atlantic from Africa—there’s another tropical depression right west of Africa tonight and about 5-6 other possibilities lined up right across the middle of the map of Africa! Hannah, if it becomes a hurricane is expected to hit the East Coast anywhere from Florida up north according to my interpretation of the possible 5 day track at the national Hurricane center.
Senator Barak Osama made his acceptance speech for the Democratic nominee for the presidential campaign tonight. Yes, I’ll vote for him. A t least he gives lip service to knowledge about the problems we need to face in the next few years even if what we wants to do about them won’t be possible for everything we want to and need to spend money on. Energy shortages, alternative energy, climate warming problems, economic problems … And he also said we should be able to come up with some kind of common ground solutions for the things like gay marriages/unions and abortion …. He’s right about that, too. I believe that’s especially true about abortion and I’m a fixed, longtime supporter of Choice and the Roe v Wade decision.
The Republicans start in on Monday.
There’s a growing fear of Russia doing something to cut oil/energy supplies to Western Europe. We have sent humanitarian aid but on military ships to one Georgian port. That’s just one move in this little Georgian chess game. That little move with Gulf of Mexico hurricanes doesn’t bode well.
Didn’t they invent chess in that part of the world, the Middle East?
The news is more interesting than ever the past few morning when I’ve gotten up to read my portion of doom for the day!
Cheers,
shamba
Aug 30
Gustavo is officially a Cat 4 just going over the west end of Cuba. It intensified very quickly midday Saturday Aug 30. ………….
Had big lightning show last night but no rain here. Huge areas of the sky would light up behind the clouds at a time. It was like watching someone walking with a lantern behind curtains through a window.
Clouds are everywhere in the sky today and that’s not a usual sight here summer or winter. They all seem to be heading for some consolidation point. Yes, there is a chance for storms tonight. We’re up something like 3 inches on our yearly rain!
Gas here today for 3.61 and it’s been down that low for about 5 days now; this is probably as low as it’s going to get for a while since Gustave Hurricane at No. 4 is within 48 hours of central to eastern part of Louisiana coast. It just finished over Cuba and has entered the GOM. Landfall is expected around Houma and Morgan city at the last info I read at oildrum.com and one of the weather sites. I’ve also been reading this evening a few comments on the above website about Gustavo is really projected to move closer to New Orleans than it has been the past day or so. So, is this the stake in the heart of Southern Louisiana and New Orleans? We always need a port there but maybe not a big city. I guess we’ll know about that Sunday morning.
And the damage to the oil/gas stuff? I don’t want to think about that at the moment. I’ve read enough about that for one day.
Oil/Gas for 75% of GOM production has shut down and evacuated workers. NYMEX trading usually opens on a Sunday at 6 p.m. but tomorrow it’s opening like 3 -3.5 hours early. (I don’t know where NYMEX actually is, if it has a location. It may be a cyber exchange and “opens” in relation to the many stock markets around the world.)
Trading on Friday closed at $115.46. I imagine it will go up by a bit after trading opens
Hurricane Gustav following in Katrina’s Footsteps—EEK!
Almost 3 years to the day (!) it looks like another hurricane is following what Katrina did.
However, we’re still more than 72 hours from wherever it’s going to land so it could change direction. AT the moment however, accuweather and the NOOA (?) National Hurricane Center shows it on track to hit the gulf Coast from the western edge of Louisiana to part of the Florida panhandle. It’s aiming, so far, right into the offshore Louisiana oil patches, the heart being that little spit of land coming out of Louisiana that is the end of the Mississippi.
I went to Sprouts today and bought all the bulk stuff I’ll need for at least another month! NO, not because of sympathy hurricane preparedness. J I’m still cooking with the solar oven and can make another recipe without looking at the written instructions. Is this progress? (The answer is yes.)
We’ve had lots of rain this monsoon. The past month we’ve had some real soakers going to for than the usual monsoon 1-2 hours of hard rain. We’re ahead on our rain needs for this year in our watershed.
Oil went up a barrel because of the Gustavo situation. It’s been really low the past month or so, funning 112-120 dollars a barrel. Our gas is at 3.61 this week. DJA has been in the middling 11,000 range the past month or so.
August 28, 2008
Gustav is still on the move—may be a hurricane officially Friday or Friday night. It’s going a little west right now so that takes it west of NOLA (New Orleans Louisiana).
Hannah has joined the group of tropical depressions lining up across the Atlantic from Africa—there’s another tropical depression right west of Africa tonight and about 5-6 other possibilities lined up right across the middle of the map of Africa! Hannah, if it becomes a hurricane is expected to hit the East Coast anywhere from Florida up north according to my interpretation of the possible 5 day track at the national Hurricane center.
Senator Barak Osama made his acceptance speech for the Democratic nominee for the presidential campaign tonight. Yes, I’ll vote for him. A t least he gives lip service to knowledge about the problems we need to face in the next few years even if what we wants to do about them won’t be possible for everything we want to and need to spend money on. Energy shortages, alternative energy, climate warming problems, economic problems … And he also said we should be able to come up with some kind of common ground solutions for the things like gay marriages/unions and abortion …. He’s right about that, too. I believe that’s especially true about abortion and I’m a fixed, longtime supporter of Choice and the Roe v Wade decision.
The Republicans start in on Monday.
There’s a growing fear of Russia doing something to cut oil/energy supplies to Western Europe. We have sent humanitarian aid but on military ships to one Georgian port. That’s just one move in this little Georgian chess game. That little move with Gulf of Mexico hurricanes doesn’t bode well.
Didn’t they invent chess in that part of the world, the Middle East?
The news is more interesting than ever the past few morning when I’ve gotten up to read my portion of doom for the day!
Cheers,
shamba
Aug 30
Gustavo is officially a Cat 4 just going over the west end of Cuba. It intensified very quickly midday Saturday Aug 30. ………….
Had big lightning show last night but no rain here. Huge areas of the sky would light up behind the clouds at a time. It was like watching someone walking with a lantern behind curtains through a window.
Clouds are everywhere in the sky today and that’s not a usual sight here summer or winter. They all seem to be heading for some consolidation point. Yes, there is a chance for storms tonight. We’re up something like 3 inches on our yearly rain!
Gas here today for 3.61 and it’s been down that low for about 5 days now; this is probably as low as it’s going to get for a while since Gustave Hurricane at No. 4 is within 48 hours of central to eastern part of Louisiana coast. It just finished over Cuba and has entered the GOM. Landfall is expected around Houma and Morgan city at the last info I read at oildrum.com and one of the weather sites. I’ve also been reading this evening a few comments on the above website about Gustavo is really projected to move closer to New Orleans than it has been the past day or so. So, is this the stake in the heart of Southern Louisiana and New Orleans? We always need a port there but maybe not a big city. I guess we’ll know about that Sunday morning.
And the damage to the oil/gas stuff? I don’t want to think about that at the moment. I’ve read enough about that for one day.
Oil/Gas for 75% of GOM production has shut down and evacuated workers. NYMEX trading usually opens on a Sunday at 6 p.m. but tomorrow it’s opening like 3 -3.5 hours early. (I don’t know where NYMEX actually is, if it has a location. It may be a cyber exchange and “opens” in relation to the many stock markets around the world.)
Trading on Friday closed at $115.46. I imagine it will go up by a bit after trading opens
Saturday, August 23, 2008
August 21 through August 23
Aug 21
--thought I’d try drying some berries or fruit of some kind haven’t done it yet though.
--Rep convention next week: Dems this weekend. Thank heavens all this political running will be over after going on for 2 years now. At least it will be over in 2 months.
Russians are digging in in Georgia, not moving out at all. WE signed missile shield thing with Poland and Czech government—Russians said they’d be very unhappy about that and they are showing it. Telling NATO they’ll no longer cooperate with them in any way at all! Not good the sounds of this
We are surrounded by the six THINGS, my six divisions anyway, that are coming together to get us in modern Western society. From left to right (yes, some political significance there) :
Climate change
Peak Food – agriculture, transport and prices and availability
Peak Resources—Mining, Forests, Water resources, many material related to manufacturing and production of all the goods we use
Peak Oil & Energy—, natural gas, electricity generation, gasoline, kerosene (Airlines fuel), heating oil, petrochemical products
Peak Money-SS, Healthcare costs,
Geopolitics & Politics—Iraq, Russian in Georgia.
Now that we’re surrounded they will all start to go up, in price and scarcity in availability …. Walling us in?
August 23, 2008
Got Mom’s blood work drawn this week and got her to see our dr, too. She’s only 96 lbs!! Her color and everything looks good, her hair looks good and her sense of humor is goo and she says she’s not feeling any pain anywhere. I’m always afraid weight loss means a form of her breast cancer has come back—but that hasn’t happened in past weight loss scenarios. She still dresses herself and gets her colors and patterns right. She asked me over and over, of course, how old, is so and so “gone”, why is she the last to die (!) and can she still take care of herself personally. These are questions she’s all asked me before so it’s no surprise. I’ve been seeing her more regularly and I sense she wants me to see her more often.
I now do what I never thought I would do with preparing food for myself; I get up in the morning and ask myself “What shall I cook in the sun oven today?”!! LOL! It’s so funny that this solar cooker has been the catalyst for being interested in cooking and fixing better food for me.
I went to the yoga studio last night to see the last installment of the Mahabharata—India’s epic poem that was put in this film form about 10 years ago. It was interesting and I could follow the main characters anyway in the story line since the second installment was shown almost a month ago. There were about 5-10 of us and we might form a small discussion group to talk about it. The whole Mahabharata is like 7 times longer than the Iliad or the Odyssey.
I figure the story with so many characters is like a Russian novel, you just have to keep going in the story and sometimes review the characters listed in the front of the book and you’ll understand more and more as you go along.
Monsoon has gone away and the heat is on today. Hopefully we will have one last round of monsoon storms that makes it here to the Valley of the sun before monsoon season is gone. It’s gone soon after Labor Day which is next weekend.
Cheers,
Shamba
--thought I’d try drying some berries or fruit of some kind haven’t done it yet though.
--Rep convention next week: Dems this weekend. Thank heavens all this political running will be over after going on for 2 years now. At least it will be over in 2 months.
Russians are digging in in Georgia, not moving out at all. WE signed missile shield thing with Poland and Czech government—Russians said they’d be very unhappy about that and they are showing it. Telling NATO they’ll no longer cooperate with them in any way at all! Not good the sounds of this
We are surrounded by the six THINGS, my six divisions anyway, that are coming together to get us in modern Western society. From left to right (yes, some political significance there) :
Climate change
Peak Food – agriculture, transport and prices and availability
Peak Resources—Mining, Forests, Water resources, many material related to manufacturing and production of all the goods we use
Peak Oil & Energy—, natural gas, electricity generation, gasoline, kerosene (Airlines fuel), heating oil, petrochemical products
Peak Money-SS, Healthcare costs,
Geopolitics & Politics—Iraq, Russian in Georgia.
Now that we’re surrounded they will all start to go up, in price and scarcity in availability …. Walling us in?
August 23, 2008
Got Mom’s blood work drawn this week and got her to see our dr, too. She’s only 96 lbs!! Her color and everything looks good, her hair looks good and her sense of humor is goo and she says she’s not feeling any pain anywhere. I’m always afraid weight loss means a form of her breast cancer has come back—but that hasn’t happened in past weight loss scenarios. She still dresses herself and gets her colors and patterns right. She asked me over and over, of course, how old, is so and so “gone”, why is she the last to die (!) and can she still take care of herself personally. These are questions she’s all asked me before so it’s no surprise. I’ve been seeing her more regularly and I sense she wants me to see her more often.
I now do what I never thought I would do with preparing food for myself; I get up in the morning and ask myself “What shall I cook in the sun oven today?”!! LOL! It’s so funny that this solar cooker has been the catalyst for being interested in cooking and fixing better food for me.
I went to the yoga studio last night to see the last installment of the Mahabharata—India’s epic poem that was put in this film form about 10 years ago. It was interesting and I could follow the main characters anyway in the story line since the second installment was shown almost a month ago. There were about 5-10 of us and we might form a small discussion group to talk about it. The whole Mahabharata is like 7 times longer than the Iliad or the Odyssey.
I figure the story with so many characters is like a Russian novel, you just have to keep going in the story and sometimes review the characters listed in the front of the book and you’ll understand more and more as you go along.
Monsoon has gone away and the heat is on today. Hopefully we will have one last round of monsoon storms that makes it here to the Valley of the sun before monsoon season is gone. It’s gone soon after Labor Day which is next weekend.
Cheers,
Shamba
Sunday, August 10, 2008
August 10th
Prepped: Picked up some sturdier measuring spoons and an easier to read cup measure marked down at Linens n ‘ things. I’ve also gotten some baking pans to work with my solar oven at the Goodwill near me. This Goodwill seems to have a great supply of various househoold and cooking things all the time.
Linens N things has some lovely things marked waaay down these days because of their business troubles. If you can get to one you might pick up some real goodies at much less than their usual price. I always liked to look in this store but I’ve been buying the last two visits. I picked up two useful little glass measure for small amounts under 2 tablesppons--it has metric measures and US measure. 00 cents and one I got for Sarah Multicats.
Also, got 4 bags of frozen vegetables from helping clean up apartment of friend--Mary alice--who has moved back to NJ. Also, got some papers towels and cleaning supplies from here. And some twine a good sized stapler, I only have two very small ones but they do work, and two roles of duct tape and one of packing tape and one electricians tape.
Cooked: Learned a simple rice and cheese dish that works well in the solar oven and made my own baked beans a couple of weeks ago. I used dried beans–so it was all from scratch. I was so proud of myself!
Storage: nonfat dry milk, more flour, canola oil. Rearranged small amounts of rice, lentils and split peas and pasta in a place where I will use them up first before opening something else.
Other info: K. didn't have to sell his car friend helped him to garage to get it fixed up and paid for it. whew! He's supposed to have some hours to work at a gallery starting end of august--we'll see. He sounds ok but kind of bored having to stay in the house so much because of his probation.
Ruth called, too. Daniel will be 3 this coming week! Levi's BD is on the 23rd.
Mom is okay; I had lunch with her yesterday.
cheers,
shamba
Linens N things has some lovely things marked waaay down these days because of their business troubles. If you can get to one you might pick up some real goodies at much less than their usual price. I always liked to look in this store but I’ve been buying the last two visits. I picked up two useful little glass measure for small amounts under 2 tablesppons--it has metric measures and US measure. 00 cents and one I got for Sarah Multicats.
Also, got 4 bags of frozen vegetables from helping clean up apartment of friend--Mary alice--who has moved back to NJ. Also, got some papers towels and cleaning supplies from here. And some twine a good sized stapler, I only have two very small ones but they do work, and two roles of duct tape and one of packing tape and one electricians tape.
Cooked: Learned a simple rice and cheese dish that works well in the solar oven and made my own baked beans a couple of weeks ago. I used dried beans–so it was all from scratch. I was so proud of myself!
Storage: nonfat dry milk, more flour, canola oil. Rearranged small amounts of rice, lentils and split peas and pasta in a place where I will use them up first before opening something else.
Other info: K. didn't have to sell his car friend helped him to garage to get it fixed up and paid for it. whew! He's supposed to have some hours to work at a gallery starting end of august--we'll see. He sounds ok but kind of bored having to stay in the house so much because of his probation.
Ruth called, too. Daniel will be 3 this coming week! Levi's BD is on the 23rd.
Mom is okay; I had lunch with her yesterday.
cheers,
shamba
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
jul 26-28 hot and still cooking ...
July 26,
Continued with solar cooking today: Lentils & Rice dish—I really like this dish—is cooking in the solar oven. I haven’t cooked this outside before so I’m unsure of the timing. At least an hour –that’s what I use inside—and a little more, I guess.
I’m also going to make some stock Today, I’ve decided. I’ve got too many vegetables in the crisper and I can’t make any soup without stock as I used the can of vegetable broth on the lentils. Still, one week until payday. But I have more than enough in the pantry to feed me if I do it right.
Stock: in an still simmering for ½ hour.
Lentils: after one hour, looking like the final product; needs about another ½ hour or so.
July 28, __ Decided I should be making trips to Sprouts Farmers Market store more than Safeway for regular food shopping. This is because of Sprouts bulk foods, of course more than anything else. Anyway, on payday Friday or over the weekend ,I’m going to make a shopping run there and see how much that runs me. I’ve been saving all my grocery receipts for the past 3 months. Of course, I’ve also been buying most of my extra/future food stocks from that money, too. I got some rolled oats today for less than half the cost of Safeways 2-3 lbs. containers. I just put the news ones in the old container though.
Continued with solar cooking today: Lentils & Rice dish—I really like this dish—is cooking in the solar oven. I haven’t cooked this outside before so I’m unsure of the timing. At least an hour –that’s what I use inside—and a little more, I guess.
I’m also going to make some stock Today, I’ve decided. I’ve got too many vegetables in the crisper and I can’t make any soup without stock as I used the can of vegetable broth on the lentils. Still, one week until payday. But I have more than enough in the pantry to feed me if I do it right.
Stock: in an still simmering for ½ hour.
Lentils: after one hour, looking like the final product; needs about another ½ hour or so.
July 28, __ Decided I should be making trips to Sprouts Farmers Market store more than Safeway for regular food shopping. This is because of Sprouts bulk foods, of course more than anything else. Anyway, on payday Friday or over the weekend ,I’m going to make a shopping run there and see how much that runs me. I’ve been saving all my grocery receipts for the past 3 months. Of course, I’ve also been buying most of my extra/future food stocks from that money, too. I got some rolled oats today for less than half the cost of Safeways 2-3 lbs. containers. I just put the news ones in the old container though.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
July 21-23
July 21
Got cake for Mom’s BDay tomorrow and candles but we’ll only use 8 for each decade of her life-although she’s 87 and almost needs one more candle. . I wasn’t up for making a cake from scratch when I haven’t done it for so long—another time.
Cooked roast in crock pot; yes, the cats get some of it. It’s enough meat for a while and I’ll probably freeze part of it.
Got more small white beans and ½ doz eggs at Safeway when I was looking at readymade cakes and pricing something else. I’ve got two potatoes outside in the solar oven and also a recipe for Roman Honey Cakes—I’m not sure how that’s coming out but it’s interesting. Very patchy sun today.
July 23, 2008
DJones up this week—toay 11, 64?.00; barrel oil down to less than 125.00; gas here dropped from 4.05 to 3.99 for regular. Wacko, it’s so wacko!
Then again it’s July in Phoenix with sixty something dew points all this week.
Checked out the Fresh & Easy store a couple of miles away. Smaller store but good prices for what I’d buy small selection than Safeway but good variety and better prices
Cheers, shamba.
Got cake for Mom’s BDay tomorrow and candles but we’ll only use 8 for each decade of her life-although she’s 87 and almost needs one more candle. . I wasn’t up for making a cake from scratch when I haven’t done it for so long—another time.
Cooked roast in crock pot; yes, the cats get some of it. It’s enough meat for a while and I’ll probably freeze part of it.
Got more small white beans and ½ doz eggs at Safeway when I was looking at readymade cakes and pricing something else. I’ve got two potatoes outside in the solar oven and also a recipe for Roman Honey Cakes—I’m not sure how that’s coming out but it’s interesting. Very patchy sun today.
July 23, 2008
DJones up this week—toay 11, 64?.00; barrel oil down to less than 125.00; gas here dropped from 4.05 to 3.99 for regular. Wacko, it’s so wacko!
Then again it’s July in Phoenix with sixty something dew points all this week.
Checked out the Fresh & Easy store a couple of miles away. Smaller store but good prices for what I’d buy small selection than Safeway but good variety and better prices
Cheers, shamba.
Friday, July 18, 2008
July 18th Another solar cooking and food day and steamy outside
another low is coming from he Pacific so the dew point is high today.
Put pearled barley, just covered with water in a pot in the solar oven. Two hours later, and with the reflectors on because of some thin cloud cover, it's hot and steaming and smells rather good.
the reflectors really ramped up the temperature in the oven, too. 350 or so Fahrenheit. I hadn't really tried the reflectors before today. If the sun isn't strong enough to cook, I can always turn the electric low power on and that will do the cooking. I did this one day to finish up whatever I had cooking in there--potatoes I think.
Anyway, I checked out the Sprouts that's moved near me in the past 6 months. I got some Red winter Wheatberries, I'm curious about what you do with those. I also picked up some grits and some ground coriander in the bulk foods and spices area. They didn't actually have many beans but many different cereals and mixes for baking and cereals or snack--like granolas.
Priced the produce and meat which was quite reasonable. It's a little further to go for food than Safeway but it's a good additional store/option to shop I think.
My copy of the Joy of Cooking and my Ayurveda cookbook have gotten workouts the past few months with this cooking/food storage thing I'm into. And what surprises me is that I like doing it all.
cheers,
shamba
Put pearled barley, just covered with water in a pot in the solar oven. Two hours later, and with the reflectors on because of some thin cloud cover, it's hot and steaming and smells rather good.
the reflectors really ramped up the temperature in the oven, too. 350 or so Fahrenheit. I hadn't really tried the reflectors before today. If the sun isn't strong enough to cook, I can always turn the electric low power on and that will do the cooking. I did this one day to finish up whatever I had cooking in there--potatoes I think.
Anyway, I checked out the Sprouts that's moved near me in the past 6 months. I got some Red winter Wheatberries, I'm curious about what you do with those. I also picked up some grits and some ground coriander in the bulk foods and spices area. They didn't actually have many beans but many different cereals and mixes for baking and cereals or snack--like granolas.
Priced the produce and meat which was quite reasonable. It's a little further to go for food than Safeway but it's a good additional store/option to shop I think.
My copy of the Joy of Cooking and my Ayurveda cookbook have gotten workouts the past few months with this cooking/food storage thing I'm into. And what surprises me is that I like doing it all.
cheers,
shamba
July 12-15-17
High dew point today and tomorrow due to system coming from Mexico which gave us our nice rain two nights ago.
Cooked with solar oven today; rice, vegetable—broccoli, celery, carrots, scallions; and corn bread. I have to be careful not to fix too much food at once. I now have enough rice really for 4 people although I will certainly use it for the next day or so.
Need to add to stores because I’m down to one container of these: granulated sugar, coffee, cornmeal, need yeast for bread making, and fresh milk.
I adapted a baked bean recipe to suit my own tastes; it was far too salty the way it was written. I like it much sweeter than that. So, anyway I wrote down what I did for the next time I make these and they came out pretty good!
July 15-17
Well, as of Thusday’s close DJ was up to 11, 466.66; And oil was down to 129.29; yesterday it was 134.60. and why? I have no clue! It’s only for a while anyway, however long it lasts. May be this is the beginning of the big rush up in the stock market before the big crash down sometime this fall? At least some think so but the fundamental issues have not changed at all—banking crisis, energy crisis, housing thing, debt and war.
Come to think of it, hasn’t human civilization always had these to some degree all the time? Somewhere in some human civilization even if not in the USA.
Anyway, picked up some basmati rice at fry’s. I wasn’t looking for food but I decided to go to an ATM there and check a balance and then I checked out some of the food and prices. Better selection of rices for a little less than Safeway near me; also, more of certain beans but not as much of a selection as my Safeway. Got some basmati rice anyway and some yeast. Yeast will be for pizza dough lesson next week.
Went to MAC’s farewell party from state library and came home and put rice and chopped veggies out in oven on patio. I’ll heat up the last of the baked beans and have that for dinner. J
End of entry today!
shamba
Cooked with solar oven today; rice, vegetable—broccoli, celery, carrots, scallions; and corn bread. I have to be careful not to fix too much food at once. I now have enough rice really for 4 people although I will certainly use it for the next day or so.
Need to add to stores because I’m down to one container of these: granulated sugar, coffee, cornmeal, need yeast for bread making, and fresh milk.
I adapted a baked bean recipe to suit my own tastes; it was far too salty the way it was written. I like it much sweeter than that. So, anyway I wrote down what I did for the next time I make these and they came out pretty good!
July 15-17
Well, as of Thusday’s close DJ was up to 11, 466.66; And oil was down to 129.29; yesterday it was 134.60. and why? I have no clue! It’s only for a while anyway, however long it lasts. May be this is the beginning of the big rush up in the stock market before the big crash down sometime this fall? At least some think so but the fundamental issues have not changed at all—banking crisis, energy crisis, housing thing, debt and war.
Come to think of it, hasn’t human civilization always had these to some degree all the time? Somewhere in some human civilization even if not in the USA.
Anyway, picked up some basmati rice at fry’s. I wasn’t looking for food but I decided to go to an ATM there and check a balance and then I checked out some of the food and prices. Better selection of rices for a little less than Safeway near me; also, more of certain beans but not as much of a selection as my Safeway. Got some basmati rice anyway and some yeast. Yeast will be for pizza dough lesson next week.
Went to MAC’s farewell party from state library and came home and put rice and chopped veggies out in oven on patio. I’ll heat up the last of the baked beans and have that for dinner. J
End of entry today!
shamba
Friday, July 11, 2008
Monsoon! .... and some updates ..some good some not ...
Wonderful Monsoon storm last night--actually it was more like 2-4 storms rolling through our area. It soaked the whole Valley quite well. We'll have very cloudy days and good possibilities of more storms--i say bring it on! Not too fast and too much at one time since it might flood the patio if that happens; but more storms I'm for!
guess I won't be using solar oven by itself the next few days but I can use the electrical backup; it still uses less energy and makes less heat that the inside oven. I love this thing!
And B. referred me to a parttime job at her law firm ... I've called about it. I have mixed feelings about working again at this time; I've got two more projects I'd really like to have done before I turn attention to job stuff again.
Mary Alice is moving to NJ in the next week. I'll miss her but I know she wants to go back to her NJ.
Other news from the past few days:
7-2- 143.67 oil
7-3-08 Opened at 144.40; closed at 145.29 markets closed early today
7-4-08
New recipe: Sarah thought I should be able to cook a frittata in my solar oven after she saw it on Saturday. She’s intrigued with the whole idea of solar ovens. So. I cooked a Frittata – used a recipe I’d had.. 2 eggs, leftover frozen vegetables, olive oil, salt & p. Put in one of the larger solar oven pans about 11:00 we’ll see how this works out since I’m not cooking it like an omelet in the first stages like you’re supposed to.
Managed stores for the week: Cleaned out all the old cleaning stuff and supplies underneath the kitchen and bathroom sinks—had too many old toothbrushes! Need more vinegar and bleach and some ammonia …
Went Linens Plus on way to Trader Joe’s and they had a lot of stuff on clearance. Treated myself to stainless steel measuring cups and a one cup measure all by itself. I have used up more 1 cup measures over the years and always have the other cup measures left.
July 10th
Food stores: Added some rice and more lentils; will need in a week or two, more coffee and oats.
Got some more backup dry food for the cats, too this week.
New food cooked in solar oven: Roasted ears of corn in the solar oven.
7-11-08 News on financial and economic is pretty dismal.
--DJ is just above 11000 this morning;
--Oil has gone up back over 145.00, was down in the mid 130s for several days;
--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are totally insolvent and about to be taken over by the Federal government—this has been Mainstream for at least the past 2-3 days.
Our gas hasn’t gone up for about 2-3 weeks; as a matter of fact the one expensive station went down 4 cents the other day.
Are we in for it now or what????? Oh yeah, some reports of Israeli’s in Iraq preparing to give it to Iran’s’ nuclear facilities.
cheers, shamba
guess I won't be using solar oven by itself the next few days but I can use the electrical backup; it still uses less energy and makes less heat that the inside oven. I love this thing!
And B. referred me to a parttime job at her law firm ... I've called about it. I have mixed feelings about working again at this time; I've got two more projects I'd really like to have done before I turn attention to job stuff again.
Mary Alice is moving to NJ in the next week. I'll miss her but I know she wants to go back to her NJ.
Other news from the past few days:
7-2- 143.67 oil
7-3-08 Opened at 144.40; closed at 145.29 markets closed early today
7-4-08
New recipe: Sarah thought I should be able to cook a frittata in my solar oven after she saw it on Saturday. She’s intrigued with the whole idea of solar ovens. So. I cooked a Frittata – used a recipe I’d had.. 2 eggs, leftover frozen vegetables, olive oil, salt & p. Put in one of the larger solar oven pans about 11:00 we’ll see how this works out since I’m not cooking it like an omelet in the first stages like you’re supposed to.
Managed stores for the week: Cleaned out all the old cleaning stuff and supplies underneath the kitchen and bathroom sinks—had too many old toothbrushes! Need more vinegar and bleach and some ammonia …
Went Linens Plus on way to Trader Joe’s and they had a lot of stuff on clearance. Treated myself to stainless steel measuring cups and a one cup measure all by itself. I have used up more 1 cup measures over the years and always have the other cup measures left.
July 10th
Food stores: Added some rice and more lentils; will need in a week or two, more coffee and oats.
Got some more backup dry food for the cats, too this week.
New food cooked in solar oven: Roasted ears of corn in the solar oven.
7-11-08 News on financial and economic is pretty dismal.
--DJ is just above 11000 this morning;
--Oil has gone up back over 145.00, was down in the mid 130s for several days;
--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are totally insolvent and about to be taken over by the Federal government—this has been Mainstream for at least the past 2-3 days.
Our gas hasn’t gone up for about 2-3 weeks; as a matter of fact the one expensive station went down 4 cents the other day.
Are we in for it now or what????? Oh yeah, some reports of Israeli’s in Iraq preparing to give it to Iran’s’ nuclear facilities.
cheers, shamba
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
July 9 Home from San Diego.
7-9-08 NOTES on K.’s case
He’s out! 5 years probation with some expected restrictions and 52 sessions—1 year—of anger management—paid for by the government. And, of course, a probation officer. No fines, no fees that have to be paid; there are often such things in this case but they have been eliminated or waived.
He looks pretty good, a few pounds less and he said he was hungry all the time. He’s come out of it pretty well though. And the car DOES run okay.
Anyway, that all a relief and everything that I thought might go wrong DIDN”T!
and it was extremely pleasant to be there will their cool, damp refreshing climate.
shamba
He’s out! 5 years probation with some expected restrictions and 52 sessions—1 year—of anger management—paid for by the government. And, of course, a probation officer. No fines, no fees that have to be paid; there are often such things in this case but they have been eliminated or waived.
He looks pretty good, a few pounds less and he said he was hungry all the time. He’s come out of it pretty well though. And the car DOES run okay.
Anyway, that all a relief and everything that I thought might go wrong DIDN”T!
and it was extremely pleasant to be there will their cool, damp refreshing climate.
shamba
Saturday, July 5, 2008
July 5
off to San Diego tomorrow for my unhappy trip--I don't want to go to this whole thiings and deal with the same fucking issues I have to deal with my brother over and over and over .
I'm NOT going back for anything for him, even if he drops dead.
Hoefully, I'll be back before I know it.
cheers,
shamba
I'm NOT going back for anything for him, even if he drops dead.
Hoefully, I'll be back before I know it.
cheers,
shamba
Sunday, June 29, 2008
June 29 Quiet Sunday ...
Went to concert last night. S. stopped in afterwards and sampled solar baked corn bread and she approved of it. She's intrigued by cooking and not heating up house.
Note for next week: Managed Stores: Picked up extra dry cat food. I had some canned on hand for them; they like canned of course, but it's also wet and a treat in the heat.
Mom is holding her own still this week. Cats are doing okay. Going to San Diego next sunday, July 6 for business with K. I hope that will be the last trip for those reasons!
And I'm feeling a lot better than I was last summer at this time.
cheers,
shamba
Note for next week: Managed Stores: Picked up extra dry cat food. I had some canned on hand for them; they like canned of course, but it's also wet and a treat in the heat.
Mom is holding her own still this week. Cats are doing okay. Going to San Diego next sunday, July 6 for business with K. I hope that will be the last trip for those reasons!
And I'm feeling a lot better than I was last summer at this time.
cheers,
shamba
Friday, June 27, 2008
June 26-27 end of the week
June 26th
Talk about a Dismal Thursday yesterday==DJ went down 350 pts. 1100 pts down in one month. Worst June for the Dow Jones Averages since 1930! L According to www.americanenergycrisis.com.
Oil closed at 19=139.64 after being in the mid 130s for several days.
GM and Ford stock at something like 50 year lows! Bankruptcy in the next 6 -12 months? One commentator who is very accurate these days say there will be a dramatic announcement about them both or one of them right after the election.
June 27th
11355.88 and 1278.82 Oil:: 140.21 first time above 140 to settle according to my observations. Not the first time during day trading though.
It seem so irrelevant who get elected this fall .... as to who could really change the direction things are going in. but, yes, I'll vote.
shamba
Talk about a Dismal Thursday yesterday==DJ went down 350 pts. 1100 pts down in one month. Worst June for the Dow Jones Averages since 1930! L According to www.americanenergycrisis.com.
Oil closed at 19=139.64 after being in the mid 130s for several days.
GM and Ford stock at something like 50 year lows! Bankruptcy in the next 6 -12 months? One commentator who is very accurate these days say there will be a dramatic announcement about them both or one of them right after the election.
June 27th
11355.88 and 1278.82 Oil:: 140.21 first time above 140 to settle according to my observations. Not the first time during day trading though.
It seem so irrelevant who get elected this fall .... as to who could really change the direction things are going in. but, yes, I'll vote.
shamba
June 25 th Little Closer to Doom it seems
Doom also seems closer in the summer heat--I have 3 full mor months of it to go. I count September as summer.
-Dow Chemical is increasing prices 25% on it product; as of June 1st it had just increased them 20%. So 45% increase in about one month! :0 Yikes—this is a lot of cleaning products and makeup products for one thing. I don’t know about hair dye and nail polish—I’m going to miss those two things a lot when they’re not available—sigh,
-Quaker oats processing plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa was closed June 11 because of the flood threats there. That’s why there were so few rolled and quick oat packages available at the store yesterday, I’ll bet.
I wondered what “thing” of the issues surrounding us—climate change, gasoline prices and/or shortages, electricity prices, local government budgets, consumer good prices increasing, food supply issues and prices, housing/real estate issues, financial system issues—would “get us’ first. I’m not sure what I mean by “get us” because as a national economy it’s the financial problems that have actually gotten us first, credit crunch and too much debt, too much leverage, etc.
But my personal “getting” isn’t the price of gas; it’s the price of food and possible shortages. I find this extraordinarily frightening. I suspect my next “getting” will be the price of electricity in my bill for July. New rates go into effect this summer with July and august as the most expensive electric season in my part of Arizona.
-Dow Chemical is increasing prices 25% on it product; as of June 1st it had just increased them 20%. So 45% increase in about one month! :0 Yikes—this is a lot of cleaning products and makeup products for one thing. I don’t know about hair dye and nail polish—I’m going to miss those two things a lot when they’re not available—sigh,
-Quaker oats processing plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa was closed June 11 because of the flood threats there. That’s why there were so few rolled and quick oat packages available at the store yesterday, I’ll bet.
I wondered what “thing” of the issues surrounding us—climate change, gasoline prices and/or shortages, electricity prices, local government budgets, consumer good prices increasing, food supply issues and prices, housing/real estate issues, financial system issues—would “get us’ first. I’m not sure what I mean by “get us” because as a national economy it’s the financial problems that have actually gotten us first, credit crunch and too much debt, too much leverage, etc.
But my personal “getting” isn’t the price of gas; it’s the price of food and possible shortages. I find this extraordinarily frightening. I suspect my next “getting” will be the price of electricity in my bill for July. New rates go into effect this summer with July and august as the most expensive electric season in my part of Arizona.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
June 24th
Went to buy vanilla, some eggs—to do some baking I thought but then I found numerous items at the Safeway for “buy one get one free” –fresh strawberries, some canned fruit, herbal teas—which I use all year round for just drinking general purposes, cold or hot, stewed tomatoes ( which I love).
I have used teas and made by own teas for medicinal purpose—I took a few classes on that years ago and still have the recipes. But then I’d have to have the right ingredients to make them. Often the general public herbal teas in grocery stores serve simple “medicinal” needs.
Then, I was horrified by some break loaves being 4.59 apiece! Eek! It was bread I like but I didn’t need any loaves of bread so I passed on that. Not all their bread was that high it was something I buy sometimes. My energy bars at the Safeway bakery I love have gone from 50 apiece to 59 cents apiece in the past 4-5 months—I could probably learn to bake those. Also, I was low on whole oats—all they had on the shelves today was quick oats but that could be just today. This was Quaker oats and Safeway brand both that were low. I bought the higher price because I didn’t want Quick oats anyway. Also, got box of cornmeal, corn starch, but forgot the vanilla. Also, got some more butter and olive oil and black tea.
Every time I go to the store, I find these 10 cans for $10.00 or other things like it and I buy 10 things or sometimes only 5 things because I know it can be used and it or similar things will cost more and more in just a few weeks, I know it will.
I was looking at bulk foods online yesterday just to avoid driving to a couple of places in Phoenix that I know of in the heat.
Weather Note: Our record according to last night’s weather news on NBC local was 18 straight days in 1974 of 110 plus temps. Last year we had 30 or so days but not in a row, that was a record, too. As of today we’re running 12 or so days.
Where am I going to put all these cans??? My "canned cupboard" is pretty full.
Cheers,
I have used teas and made by own teas for medicinal purpose—I took a few classes on that years ago and still have the recipes. But then I’d have to have the right ingredients to make them. Often the general public herbal teas in grocery stores serve simple “medicinal” needs.
Then, I was horrified by some break loaves being 4.59 apiece! Eek! It was bread I like but I didn’t need any loaves of bread so I passed on that. Not all their bread was that high it was something I buy sometimes. My energy bars at the Safeway bakery I love have gone from 50 apiece to 59 cents apiece in the past 4-5 months—I could probably learn to bake those. Also, I was low on whole oats—all they had on the shelves today was quick oats but that could be just today. This was Quaker oats and Safeway brand both that were low. I bought the higher price because I didn’t want Quick oats anyway. Also, got box of cornmeal, corn starch, but forgot the vanilla. Also, got some more butter and olive oil and black tea.
Every time I go to the store, I find these 10 cans for $10.00 or other things like it and I buy 10 things or sometimes only 5 things because I know it can be used and it or similar things will cost more and more in just a few weeks, I know it will.
I was looking at bulk foods online yesterday just to avoid driving to a couple of places in Phoenix that I know of in the heat.
Weather Note: Our record according to last night’s weather news on NBC local was 18 straight days in 1974 of 110 plus temps. Last year we had 30 or so days but not in a row, that was a record, too. As of today we’re running 12 or so days.
Where am I going to put all these cans??? My "canned cupboard" is pretty full.
Cheers,
Monday, June 23, 2008
June 23rd
June 21 “Extreme” heat continues—
Funny how we’ve had extreme here all my life and the local media never called it “extreme heat warning” and gave lots of advice on how to handle it. It’s a good idea, I think, especially for all the people who live here from where the heat isn’t so extreme every day but still it strikes me as funny that 111 is extreme heat when we always have our highest temps—from 110-115 in June for a week or two.
Of course, we are a lot warmer at night than we were 30 years ago and don’t cool off as readily anymore because of the amount of asphalt and cement we have here now.
-Chicken tenders are in the solar oven today to see how they will cook. Actually, they are strips of chicken breast that was on special at Safeway last week.
-Rubbed some Mrs. Dash on the chicken and put in a larger pan. I wanted to check on it about every 30 minutes to see how it was doing—I know it takes longer that way! But I want to see what it looks like. It’s different the way it evolves from cooking in the inside oven.
-Two small potatoes, some white onion sliced/chopped. Parsley flakes, some turns of peppercorn, some salt and basted with some butter a little into cooking after the butter melted enough.
-Put the potatoes in an hour after the chicken.
-Temp in the oven for this gets to 250 according to the thermometer in the oven.
-So far, if whatever cooking needs more than 250 degrees, double the time to cook it.
I’ll try to remember to get pictures of this when it’s done. And the cats get some chicken for dinner tonight!
_Took everything out at about 2:00 p.m.
--Little too long for chicken –started somewhere about 12 p.m. or little before. Chick was too dry
--Potatoes were okay, but not as tasty as I thought they might be—little squishy.
Note about potatoes: they were better cold the next day after they were cooked. More flavor completely.
Funny how we’ve had extreme here all my life and the local media never called it “extreme heat warning” and gave lots of advice on how to handle it. It’s a good idea, I think, especially for all the people who live here from where the heat isn’t so extreme every day but still it strikes me as funny that 111 is extreme heat when we always have our highest temps—from 110-115 in June for a week or two.
Of course, we are a lot warmer at night than we were 30 years ago and don’t cool off as readily anymore because of the amount of asphalt and cement we have here now.
-Chicken tenders are in the solar oven today to see how they will cook. Actually, they are strips of chicken breast that was on special at Safeway last week.
-Rubbed some Mrs. Dash on the chicken and put in a larger pan. I wanted to check on it about every 30 minutes to see how it was doing—I know it takes longer that way! But I want to see what it looks like. It’s different the way it evolves from cooking in the inside oven.
-Two small potatoes, some white onion sliced/chopped. Parsley flakes, some turns of peppercorn, some salt and basted with some butter a little into cooking after the butter melted enough.
-Put the potatoes in an hour after the chicken.
-Temp in the oven for this gets to 250 according to the thermometer in the oven.
-So far, if whatever cooking needs more than 250 degrees, double the time to cook it.
I’ll try to remember to get pictures of this when it’s done. And the cats get some chicken for dinner tonight!
_Took everything out at about 2:00 p.m.
--Little too long for chicken –started somewhere about 12 p.m. or little before. Chick was too dry
--Potatoes were okay, but not as tasty as I thought they might be—little squishy.
Note about potatoes: they were better cold the next day after they were cooked. More flavor completely.
Friday, June 20, 2008
June 20th Accomplishment finished the past two weeks
These categories are from Sharon Astyk's Independence Days challenge, link to her signt is on the right hand column. The goal is to try and do some tasks in each of these categories every week.
1. Plant something. No food garden. But I have several pots of aloes that have been thriving all by themselves in a portion of the patio. Now with new gates, woodwork on house painted, dead bushes cut down but not cleared away it’s time to do something with these feral (!) aloes.
I don’t think you should just pick pieces of aloes and eat them but I know that aloes like these are very good for rubbing the inside of a piece on a cut or insect bite or a small sunburn.
I’ve got lots of pots of various sizes and I have the right kind of potting soil I’ve had for several months. As soon as I repot these aloes, they’ll be growing like anything. Probably anything else I’d like to plant will never make it in these summer temps, so that will have to wait until mid-September at least.
2. Harvest something. Um, no.
3. Preserve something. No.
4. Prep something. One small bag of clothes to give to St. Vincent de Paul or Salvation Army or Good will.
Also, I cleaned out the shed completely and rearranged everything inside. With the new wall and door, it is more secure than it used to be. I don’t want to put too much inside as everything gets so dirty but all the outside tools can go in there now instead of being under the bed.
Patio is also a much more appealing place and has possibilities to be a very pleasant place with some decent landscaping and the wind bells hung up again.
Best of all, I got my new solar oven. Checked it over and read instructions thoroughly. Also, read instructions that I found online from a solar oven site. Both instructions have several recipes listed. Also made a copy of the instructions from oven manufacturer on my hard drive—the instructions come on a CD. They are written in Hindi English which sometimes sounds funny to my American English native ears—but the instructions are clear enough to follow quite well.
5. Cook something.
Did rice in one pot, and veggies in another pot the night I got the solar oven. I followed instructions I got with the oven and kept checking it every 10 minutes. Of course, to get the best results I’ll have to leave the oven alone once I put something in there, I knew that but it was fun to keep checking it and see how it looked on the patio.
Veggies taste better than if they are steamed. No more mushy steamed broccoli for me! It is also better to cook earlier in the day than at 4-6 in the afternoon here; that is the hottest time of the day in Phoenix.
Also, I can’t burn things in the solar oven easily. Over the years, I have ruined perfectly good pots that way on the stove. I put it on and walk away and don’t come back soon enough.
Corn bread from scratch and it fit in one of the oven pans and it cooked very well in an hour!
A recipe for this was in the oven instructions but I just used another one I already had and figured it would take about twice the time of the oven baked corn bread. I watched it and it was very good at just over an hour in the solar oven.
6. Manage your reserves. listed new items needed for next weeks food shopping trip; coffee, cornmeal, food fresh or dried, and always cat food.
7. Work on local food systems. No.
8. Reduced Waste: No.
9. Learned a skill. Yup, cooked some things successfully with the solar oven.
cheers, shamba
1. Plant something. No food garden. But I have several pots of aloes that have been thriving all by themselves in a portion of the patio. Now with new gates, woodwork on house painted, dead bushes cut down but not cleared away it’s time to do something with these feral (!) aloes.
I don’t think you should just pick pieces of aloes and eat them but I know that aloes like these are very good for rubbing the inside of a piece on a cut or insect bite or a small sunburn.
I’ve got lots of pots of various sizes and I have the right kind of potting soil I’ve had for several months. As soon as I repot these aloes, they’ll be growing like anything. Probably anything else I’d like to plant will never make it in these summer temps, so that will have to wait until mid-September at least.
2. Harvest something. Um, no.
3. Preserve something. No.
4. Prep something. One small bag of clothes to give to St. Vincent de Paul or Salvation Army or Good will.
Also, I cleaned out the shed completely and rearranged everything inside. With the new wall and door, it is more secure than it used to be. I don’t want to put too much inside as everything gets so dirty but all the outside tools can go in there now instead of being under the bed.
Patio is also a much more appealing place and has possibilities to be a very pleasant place with some decent landscaping and the wind bells hung up again.
Best of all, I got my new solar oven. Checked it over and read instructions thoroughly. Also, read instructions that I found online from a solar oven site. Both instructions have several recipes listed. Also made a copy of the instructions from oven manufacturer on my hard drive—the instructions come on a CD. They are written in Hindi English which sometimes sounds funny to my American English native ears—but the instructions are clear enough to follow quite well.
5. Cook something.
Did rice in one pot, and veggies in another pot the night I got the solar oven. I followed instructions I got with the oven and kept checking it every 10 minutes. Of course, to get the best results I’ll have to leave the oven alone once I put something in there, I knew that but it was fun to keep checking it and see how it looked on the patio.
Veggies taste better than if they are steamed. No more mushy steamed broccoli for me! It is also better to cook earlier in the day than at 4-6 in the afternoon here; that is the hottest time of the day in Phoenix.
Also, I can’t burn things in the solar oven easily. Over the years, I have ruined perfectly good pots that way on the stove. I put it on and walk away and don’t come back soon enough.
Corn bread from scratch and it fit in one of the oven pans and it cooked very well in an hour!
A recipe for this was in the oven instructions but I just used another one I already had and figured it would take about twice the time of the oven baked corn bread. I watched it and it was very good at just over an hour in the solar oven.
6. Manage your reserves. listed new items needed for next weeks food shopping trip; coffee, cornmeal, food fresh or dried, and always cat food.
7. Work on local food systems. No.
8. Reduced Waste: No.
9. Learned a skill. Yup, cooked some things successfully with the solar oven.
cheers, shamba
June 19th
Omigosh, my corn bread from scratch came out great in the solar oven!
Have to leave it in twice as long as I would in an electric oven, but it came out fine. I’m using the thermometer that came with the oven. I set it inside and watch the temp that way.
The batch I made fit perfectly in one of the larger round pans that came with the oven. It took just over 60 minutes to cook between 11 a.m. and noon.
How cool is this, cooking with this thing outside and not letting the heat build up inside the house. And we're running over 110 for the past 7 days and are going to go for another 4-5 the same way. it seems to me it's just our usual high June summer day. Our highest temps are usually in June.
Cheers,
shamba
Have to leave it in twice as long as I would in an electric oven, but it came out fine. I’m using the thermometer that came with the oven. I set it inside and watch the temp that way.
The batch I made fit perfectly in one of the larger round pans that came with the oven. It took just over 60 minutes to cook between 11 a.m. and noon.
How cool is this, cooking with this thing outside and not letting the heat build up inside the house. And we're running over 110 for the past 7 days and are going to go for another 4-5 the same way. it seems to me it's just our usual high June summer day. Our highest temps are usually in June.
Cheers,
shamba
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
June 18th Patio Improvements Finished!
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Okay, rice and greeen bean came out very well after one hour and 15 minutes in midday sun in June. it's gong to be 115 today but it's not quite that hot midday. anyway rice just needs less water and more time in oven than it got yesterday afternoon. I could smell the broccoli as I went outside to check on the oven! Picture of oven is above. A success!
New gate and new door to outside shed and painting on the wood on the backside of the house is done! Picture above of the two together.
There are more things to go but at least the list is halved from what it was almost a year ago.
There is one rather small thing that needs to be done but S. will come back next week and fix it and then paint it. It looks so nice, now I have to clean up the rest of it and see what I can do to make it a place you really want to go out and spend time in—of course that might wait until it’s cooler.
I’ve left the small wasps nest alone that’s in the dead pyrancantha next to the gate. It is a very small nest and they don’t bother me or the cats or anyone so I think I’ll leave it alone. I think wasps are pollinators—I’ll trim the dead bush back a little from the gate and leave the part next to the back wall where the nest is alone. The wasps have been there a couple of years and I’m not anxious to do away with them or their nest.
Cheers,
shambaJume 17th
Hearing about corn rationing—just more high prices and hunger to come in this world and probably here in the US. Thought I read somewhere about the US Red Cross disaster fund being exhausted. It wouldn’t surprise me the amount of disasters we’ve had in the past year or so but another “shortage” another empty cupboard. We’re—as a nation and world—are running out of cupboards that have anything in them—food stores, emergency money, money to pay mortages, money to pay debts or all kinds … sheesh!
The guys also came to put in the new gate. Certainly that looks much better and is easier to open and close than the old one—the old one was probably 30 plus years old, too.
And my solar oven came today! I unpacked it and everything inside it, looked it all over and read the instructional CD. Also, copied the instruction manual and recipes to hard disk.
Then I took it outside after cleaning it up a big, washing out two of the pots and now have just some rice and some green vegetables cooking. I started pretty late today so I hope the sun angle is adjusted right.
I’ll find out in about another 30 minutes.
Fun!
IT WORKED! I got pictures of the oven but forgot about pictures of the food! I had a little too much water in with the rice since I wanted to make sure I had enough—I do that with rice on the stovetop anyway. Threw it in a salad with the sun cooked celery—that was the easiest green veggie to throw in the oven tonight.. Cooked from abou 4:40-6:15 and I think it came out pretty well considering it’s my first attempt. Of course, I kept checking on it every 15 -30 min. It had to be realigned for the sun that time of day. I need to learn to put the pots in and leave it alone!
Cheers,
Shamba
The guys also came to put in the new gate. Certainly that looks much better and is easier to open and close than the old one—the old one was probably 30 plus years old, too.
And my solar oven came today! I unpacked it and everything inside it, looked it all over and read the instructional CD. Also, copied the instruction manual and recipes to hard disk.
Then I took it outside after cleaning it up a big, washing out two of the pots and now have just some rice and some green vegetables cooking. I started pretty late today so I hope the sun angle is adjusted right.
I’ll find out in about another 30 minutes.
Fun!
IT WORKED! I got pictures of the oven but forgot about pictures of the food! I had a little too much water in with the rice since I wanted to make sure I had enough—I do that with rice on the stovetop anyway. Threw it in a salad with the sun cooked celery—that was the easiest green veggie to throw in the oven tonight.. Cooked from abou 4:40-6:15 and I think it came out pretty well considering it’s my first attempt. Of course, I kept checking on it every 15 -30 min. It had to be realigned for the sun that time of day. I need to learn to put the pots in and leave it alone!
Cheers,
Shamba
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
June 17th
Hearing about corn rationing—just more high prices and hunger to come in this world and probably here in the US. Of course, we've always had hungry people in the US wealthiest nation or not, but it's just hard to think we in the US can't have overcome something like food distribution to everyojne in our country in the 21st century with modern technology and knowledge.
Guess we're just subject to nature and the physical laws of the world like all other creatures on the planet. we're especially subject to them, It seems, when we've fooled around with the natural processes of the planet too much.
Not too cheerful but there's a lot of not cheerful out there these days and with good reason, too.
Solar oven should come this week. new door isn't all in yet but the painting is done and the new gate may take until the end of the week. Patio is going to look better when all of this is done.
cheers, shamba
Guess we're just subject to nature and the physical laws of the world like all other creatures on the planet. we're especially subject to them, It seems, when we've fooled around with the natural processes of the planet too much.
Not too cheerful but there's a lot of not cheerful out there these days and with good reason, too.
Solar oven should come this week. new door isn't all in yet but the painting is done and the new gate may take until the end of the week. Patio is going to look better when all of this is done.
cheers, shamba
Junet 16th Monday
Oil Prices still in mid 130s—hasn’t passed 140 yet. Gas prices here have been about the same for a full 7 days.
Midwest Floods have just ruined a lot of Iowa and a chunk of Indiana. Soybean and corn crops particularly were hit with the flood in their fields. All those people didn’t have flood insurance either—is this is a tragedy beyond Katrina? In a way because of the agriculture affected. And we haven’t heard anything about the insurance claims or agents that are out in the area because of the floods. I’ll bet that will rival or surpass Katrina, too.
One blog today said that if oil prices were to double from what they are now that food prices would double as well.
The whole chain of being seems ready to come apart—oil prices, energy prices, gasoline prices, so hauling prices are more, food prices, all other kinds of goods are rising in price, service prices will go up, electricity generating prices go up, so utility bills go up. The Midwest floods will swell the communities below Iowa as the flood waters move down the Mississippi river. Will this cut off transportation because of freight lines and highways being under water?
On the Newes Hours on PBS on June 16th: 20 percent of the corn and soy crops in Iowa are a loss.
Re the impressive Tim Russert: He died of a sudden heart attack last Friday. His dr. said he had some heart disease and diabetes. He had a massive heart attack when placque broke loose in his arteries and clogged the blood flow to the heart. Maybe with a defilbrillator he could have been resuscitated maybe not—it was a sudden cardiac death. I don’t know if Mr. Russert knew how bad it was or was doing anything about it.
On the other hand, if the world is really doing to deteriorate and get really bad, how much do we want to stave off things like sudden cardiac death if there is no Medicare, health care or emergency services?
Shamba
Midwest Floods have just ruined a lot of Iowa and a chunk of Indiana. Soybean and corn crops particularly were hit with the flood in their fields. All those people didn’t have flood insurance either—is this is a tragedy beyond Katrina? In a way because of the agriculture affected. And we haven’t heard anything about the insurance claims or agents that are out in the area because of the floods. I’ll bet that will rival or surpass Katrina, too.
One blog today said that if oil prices were to double from what they are now that food prices would double as well.
The whole chain of being seems ready to come apart—oil prices, energy prices, gasoline prices, so hauling prices are more, food prices, all other kinds of goods are rising in price, service prices will go up, electricity generating prices go up, so utility bills go up. The Midwest floods will swell the communities below Iowa as the flood waters move down the Mississippi river. Will this cut off transportation because of freight lines and highways being under water?
On the Newes Hours on PBS on June 16th: 20 percent of the corn and soy crops in Iowa are a loss.
Re the impressive Tim Russert: He died of a sudden heart attack last Friday. His dr. said he had some heart disease and diabetes. He had a massive heart attack when placque broke loose in his arteries and clogged the blood flow to the heart. Maybe with a defilbrillator he could have been resuscitated maybe not—it was a sudden cardiac death. I don’t know if Mr. Russert knew how bad it was or was doing anything about it.
On the other hand, if the world is really doing to deteriorate and get really bad, how much do we want to stave off things like sudden cardiac death if there is no Medicare, health care or emergency services?
Shamba
June 12--And hot days beginning here ... but on to other things
Another one of those days when I feel the time when everyone is going to get really bitten or smacked by the edges of our various threats is coming very fast. Prior to last fall, I could feel them coming but couldn’t see them without being able to see over the horizon. All the things I’ve been reading about for the past 3 years were coming closer but still out of sight. But no they—various issues of resource shortages, gas, electricity supply, climate change, local government budget problems, Presidential election stuff—are all around us now and easily visible. I didn’t think food shortages and price rises would be part of this circle of “things” surrounding us. Food issues are is the most frightening though.
Gas is now 4.13-4.15 here. Price of gas is scary and the reported reactions to it worldwide—riots, demonstrations particularly in Spain and Portugal this week. Bangladesh, Nepal, and Egypt various other SE Asian countries have had more riot than demos in the past 2-3 months.
But the food reports are the worst. The US has no reserves of any kinds of foodstuff for various reasons over the past decade and also because we’ve sold a big chunk some of it to humanitarian aid just this past month. Earthquake in china, humanitarian aid situations in East Africa, including Sudan and Darfur,--these are still creating needs for food.
Now with the dreadful rains and flooding in the Midwest, the corn crop and soybeans are not looking good for this year. There have been bad harvests in other parts of the world this year and Australia’s drought has lowered their production the past 2 years.
Gas is now 4.13-4.15 here. Price of gas is scary and the reported reactions to it worldwide—riots, demonstrations particularly in Spain and Portugal this week. Bangladesh, Nepal, and Egypt various other SE Asian countries have had more riot than demos in the past 2-3 months.
But the food reports are the worst. The US has no reserves of any kinds of foodstuff for various reasons over the past decade and also because we’ve sold a big chunk some of it to humanitarian aid just this past month. Earthquake in china, humanitarian aid situations in East Africa, including Sudan and Darfur,--these are still creating needs for food.
Now with the dreadful rains and flooding in the Midwest, the corn crop and soybeans are not looking good for this year. There have been bad harvests in other parts of the world this year and Australia’s drought has lowered their production the past 2 years.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Gate and Door Coming
Gate man came to take measurement this morning. S. called about the price on a new shed door and some painting. Two things almost off the list as of today! yeah!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Carried tote bag with me to WalMart today...
I find that when I do buy something these days I am remembering to take tote bags or other bags to carry the purchases with me. Clerks in retail, not groceries, don’t seem to be surprised that I’m not interested in one of the stores plastic bags. Maybe there are more people doing this kind of thing.
I’ve ordered/purchased a solar oven! The one I was looking at months ago has gone way up in price—I knew I should have ordered it when I was looking at it then! But I got another one that has more accessories and is more expensive but the other one is now almost as expensive so I’m happy with my choice, or at least until I see what I get and try it out.
Got some small hand gardening tools that will help me repot all the aloes in the back patio. I pulledall the plant pots out of the shed and checked them over. I already have potting soil for cactus/ aloes so I think everything I need is here. The small cacti inside the house need to be repotted, too.
Flooding in the MidWest from bad storms the past week to two weeks. Wonder what that will do to crops, if anything? Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin have been socked pretty badly and that part of the country has been having tornadoes early this year. It’s like tornadoes have had a population explosion the past two months and the season runs through August or September I think.
New Hours on PBS tonight had 15 minute segment on oil prices and why this is happening—prices, demand outstripping supply—they gave the usual reasons.
I think I have someone to replace my shed door/door fram and get a new gate for me! Hooray!
Two more things off the big list of things to do.
Cheers,
I’ve ordered/purchased a solar oven! The one I was looking at months ago has gone way up in price—I knew I should have ordered it when I was looking at it then! But I got another one that has more accessories and is more expensive but the other one is now almost as expensive so I’m happy with my choice, or at least until I see what I get and try it out.
Got some small hand gardening tools that will help me repot all the aloes in the back patio. I pulledall the plant pots out of the shed and checked them over. I already have potting soil for cactus/ aloes so I think everything I need is here. The small cacti inside the house need to be repotted, too.
Flooding in the MidWest from bad storms the past week to two weeks. Wonder what that will do to crops, if anything? Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin have been socked pretty badly and that part of the country has been having tornadoes early this year. It’s like tornadoes have had a population explosion the past two months and the season runs through August or September I think.
New Hours on PBS tonight had 15 minute segment on oil prices and why this is happening—prices, demand outstripping supply—they gave the usual reasons.
I think I have someone to replace my shed door/door fram and get a new gate for me! Hooray!
Two more things off the big list of things to do.
Cheers,
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