the walls are moving in ... it seems

Seldom in my life have I felt so squeezed I couldn’t find money in my resources for normal/expected increases in daily life. But I feel some economic walls moving inward the past couple of weeks. It’s like I’m watching them actually move and it’s totally unnerving.

Mostly it’s because of many things, property taxes are one. They went up this year, that was expected, but more than I thought. And this is the time of year that my health insurance opens enrollment. This year there are no new plans but the same as last year although I could change plans if I wanted. I don’t want to change but the cost isn’t staying the same, it’s gone up by $40-50 (?) a month. I expected some kind of increase but that seems a lot at once!

As soon as the health care act passed this summer, I received a letter from the state retiree’s plans that warned us all that this would only increase costs including our premiums. I wasn’t really surprised but seeing the costs going up is anxiety provoking. Of course, the co pays will go up as well.

Fortunately, I don’t have lots of meds to take but I have a chunk of stainless steel in my right hip joint that I can’t go with uninsured. As temporary as it was, that year or so with a hip deteriorating saw me going more and more disabled and that’s a frightening feeling. The replaced hip was like a miracle to me postponing aging and disability for a lot more years! (Knocking on wood!) My hip is good is good but it may required revision someday, and my other hip is wearing a little more all the time and maybe I’ll need that replaced someday.

And I’m a few years away from Medicare, and what form will that take by then or not???

And there’s some increase in my taxes coming in 2011 that I have to talk to my accountant about before the end of this 2010.

What I'm personally afraid of is having to do without way beyond what I know how to do! And then doing without even more and more and more down the line.
Doing without can be relative depending on what your normal economic levels are. I've done without at times in my life, but they are nothing compared with what others have had to do without, like really no money for anything but food.
I've always been able to have the right kind of food and enough of it. I cut other things out of the budget at times but never had to worry about food. Whatever I cut out was a matter of time before things got better and I could spend on those things again. And maybe now there will be no better times for a long time or not in my lifetime?

just some serious thoughts today,

shamba

Storms came but storms went ...

Black, thick low hanging clouds over the valley today. Foreacast said probabilities of off and on thunderstorms and rain throughout today with temps about 85degrees.

I had some errands to do so I plotted my route and started out . I didn't get very far before it started raining, then pouring then fogged up windows and thunder and lighning so I pulled over in an office parking lot to wait it out. I haven't done that in several years but I could not see anything for fogged windows and the rain.
then it started hailing, so I pulled the car around behind the building and some trees to keep the hail from hitting the car. About pea-sized hail, no damage but a lot of noise.

The parking lot was filling with water rapidly and the center of the lot was the low point and it was deep enough to have waves!

I must have waited 20-25 minutes before some rain let up and I could see how deep the water was ... about 6 inches but I didn't want to wait for another rain band to come. I put the defroster on to get rid of the fog, ran window wipers and proceeded to come home.

My house got a lot of rain but no damage but there are outtages and wind damage and who knows how many accidents all over town. Needless to say, I didn't get my errands run but the car isn't covered in dust anymore. Storms should move through by by early evening.

peace, shamba

Medium sized victories ...

Okay, I finally tried cooking and eating spaghetti squash today. Solar oven cooked squash, salt, pepper and some spaghetti sauce I really like made a decent lunch. I like this dish and it's really easy to make.

I'm in the process of packing up my shelves and shelves of books, rocks, sea shells and various other small souvenirs from trips over the years. No they're not going away, just until I get new flooring. My carpet is a little over "mumble, mumble" years of age and needs to be long-before-this-replaced! Doing anything about the flooring seemed so intimidating with all the stuff that has to be packed and moved around.

I figure I'll pack books, etc. and then arrange for flooring: I don't want any more carpeting though. This is easier for me than trying to decide on what I want, arrange for installation and then have a date to pack everything in a hurry. We'll see how it works out buf so far I've got 2 bookcases packed out of 5 (floor to ceiling books cases in the computer room). All the really breakable things in that room are almost all packed, too. Some spiny seashells need some spacial packing.

Any way, these seemed better than small victories in life so I called them medium sized.

peace, Shamba

Back to Some Regular Business ....

I've been eating rather much and not the best stuff the past month, burgers, burritos, picked up pizzas eating out with friends to try new stuff and new beer! and not enough green stuff. There were often vegetable that went with all these heavy meals but not much green. This really adds up on the scales and to the system generally within just a month or so!

So, a few vegetarian days and/or lentil/rice dishes will set some of this over indulgence right.

I just didn't want to eat the CSA veggies like I usually do so I lost some eggplant, basil, arugala. Fuzzy grey just doesn't look good on the pretty purple egg plants! Mea culpa!

However, the squashes, melon, great melons! peppers and chiles were eaten or frozen/dried for future use.

Seasons are changing even here in the desert. Lack of sun in the north patio is increasing every day very quickly, plenty left for solar cooking but it really moves every couple of days.

And because the seasons are changing there are herb plants available again at the neighborhood nursery so I picked up some: Italian parsley, thyme, Greek oregano, basil and one more oregano plant. I didn't even have any dried oregano, all gone!, and couldn't find the bottle of thyme I'd bought a couple of weeks ago. It will be nice to have some fresh stuff again. :)

Last year, I just kind of used the fresh stuff and watched how much they grew. This coming fall,winter when the plants really produce I will pick them and get them dried.

I just put leaves and greens put in the dehydrator and leave them sitting for a couple of days without the heater and they dry quite well.

Feeling much better than a couple of weeks ago. 90s instead of 103 is good and the evenings and mornings are almost cool, more like an absenth of warmth than cool yet.

cheers,
Shamba

A Post ...

Something like a malaise of heat and humidity overtook me the past few weeks. Of course, I'm still cooking, or eating someone elses' cooking, and things generally are going well.

this week my sinus headaches may have morphed into a low grade infection, maybe or not. I get one of these once a year. Usually, extra sleep and good food and laying off any dairy for a couple of weeks clears it up.

that's all for now ...

peace to all, shamba

Herb Garden Report

Last September, end of September, I got some herb plants; Greek oregano, Italian parsley and basil. I gradually added to this group over November to January; thymes, another basil plant, cilantro, chives and some catnip. I bought a bronze fennel mostly cause I liked the way it looked, pretty metallic touch. It could be used for herbs, though, too.

These plants transplanted well into containers, produced pretty well and thrived until about April-May. I was able to use them in my own cooking and dehydrated some of them. Mostly though, I just liked them growing there and smelling so good.

RESULTS:

The sunshade I put up in mid-May probably helped keep them going a couple of more months. The basil and cilantro went to seed and even clipping off the flowers they didn't do so well and died sometime in June.

The parsley went to seed, too, but it still produced some until about June-July.

The fennel just didn't make it through the heat and the catnips got exposed to the sun too much for a few days and they didn't make it. this was sometime in June.

I had two thyme plants, one was a very lemony thyme. One went just seemed to give up one day and the other one is still alive today.

the oregano plant produced less and less the past 3 months but was alive until I think it drowned the week we had 3 monsoon storms in addition to my watering the day or so before that happened. It just was so water logged after that week I thought that's what killed it.

Factors that I don't know how they affected the plants:

Type of pot they are in;

Whether the plant would do better in the ground and not in a container;

Regularity of feeding, since May this has been spotty;

Life cycle of the particular plant;

Should I be going only by the Low Desert Planting schedule that I have a copy of from a local organization or can't I just grow them whenever they'll grow?

CONCLUSION:

This was a success as far I'm concerned this time around; first time I'd done it, got pretty good production from the plants for 6 or so months.

I want to add some rosemary and get some lavender to grow at the other end of the patio. My friend, S. has lovely lavender growing in her yard and I want to have some, too.


I also had very good time doing all this and I'm going to do it again.



peace, shamba

Still living and eating ;)

I'm still living and eating but not writing much these days. Mostly I cook a one pot dish with meats, veggies and separately some rice or pasta. Sometimes it's just some veggies and rice for dinner. (I'm very fond of peanut butter/honey/jam sandwiches for lunches which, of course, require no cooking.)

Today, it's eggplant in one solar pot, sweet and red potatoes, onions in another pot and baby beets.

I haven't used egglplant much before this summer but I've been using simple preparations for what the CSA gives me.

peace to all,
Shamba