Sunday Morning 8/15/2021: Keeping Busy

There were several pretty sunsets last week, but Tuesday’s stole the show!

Good morning! Aloha kakahiaka!

We went to the beach last week! It seems like it’s been months since we’d last been able to go because of the weather, but Monday was a nice enough day that we headed down to Barking Sands for a hike on the Waiokapua Trail and then some time resting on the beach. It was partly cloudy there, and there was a breeze, so the hike was easier than it could have been in that respect, and we followed up with nearly two and a half hours sitting in our chairs under an umbrella enjoying a small picnic we brought along, reading, and just generally relaxing. The weather was back to full overcast the next day so we were happy we made the effort to go.

Beach day at Barking Sands last Monday. We had the whole place to ourselves.

COVID cases keep ramping up in Hawaii. Kaua’i is currently the least affected of the islands, but it’s very still bad here (up to 50 new cases a day right now) and how long and if the island can manage this is anyone’s guess. Brett and I keep talking about our future plans and wonder how everything’s going to play out. We hopefully will be able to get to Pennsylvania next year for YaYu’s graduation, but our planned trip to Japan, almost a year out from now, is no longer a solid yes. And after that, who knows? Travelers are beginning to return to Europe and a few other locations, but what the future holds remains a giant unknown especially with other variants popping up (there is now apparently a Gamma variant starting to make its move). We still plan to leave Kaua’i by April 2023, but what we’ll be doing and where we’ll be going is starting to look a bit fuzzier.

I’m adding another section to the Sunday post starting this week: Stuff we sold. We have so many things that we need to find new homes for before we depart, and this is a good way for me to not only track our progress but stay motivated to make sure something leaves our stash of stuff every week.

This morning I am:

• Reading: I’ve spent the entire week slowly reading The Survivors by Jane Harper, and finished it on Friday. After the last book set in the Australian outback, it took me awhile to adjust myself to a story set in a beach town in Tasmania, but the story was good, the writing excellent, and the mystery kept me going the whole time. I checked out A Clubbable Woman by Reginald Hill yesterday, the first in the Dalziel & Pasco Series. I read it years ago and loved the series but remember nothing about any of the books, so am looking forward to reading it again (hate the title though). However, as soon as that book was downloaded the library informed me that another book I had on hold was available, so it’s back to reading two books at the same time again.

• Listening to: Brett is fixing his breakfast indoors and opening and shutting cabinets in the kitchen – kind of noisy! Outside though there’s a gentle breeze blowing through the trees. Some chickens have settled in one of the yards behind us and they’ve been making a bit of noise this morning but that thankfully didn’t last long (fingers crossed they will only be here temporarily too). Otherwise it’s another quiet morning, and I’ve got a hot, fresh cup of coffee in front of me so all’s right with my world. The sky is partly cloudy but we’re going to pack a picnic and head back down to Barking Sands in a little while for some more time on the beach.

• Watching: Our Vera watching continues but we’ll finish all the available episodes this week and start something new. I am finally done rewatching Great British Menu (and will sort of miss it) and instead of another cooking show I’m watching old Father Brown episodes while I do Swagbucks so I can enjoy memories of Blockley.

• Happy I accomplished last week: I had four Etsy sales this past week and had each order in the mail the next day. I had to get creative with a box for one order but eventually found something that worked. I also got one new listing for the shop done this past week, and got my business license ordered and paid for online, although I’m still waiting for my tax license (I have to pay Hawaii’s GET tax). I took photos and listed another item, an antique Japanese cedar transom (ranma), on our local buy & sell yesterday as well as Craigslist. It got a lot of looks on Buy & Sell, but no bites. Craigslist yielded several interested buyers though and the ranma should be leaving the house this afternoon! Brett finally opened an eBay account and listed the vintage navy cloth patches he used to collect – those were sold in a day for three times what he thought he would get for them (he set up an auction but really didn’t have the patience for it and since the offer was so large he took it). I have our Big Shop list done for this coming week; we’ll go over it once more tomorrow and remove a couple of items (we hope).

• Looking forward to next week: We’re hoping the Big Shop on Tuesday will be enough to cover our needs for the rest of the month, or most of them anyway so we can stay out of the stores. I really do enjoy food shopping and meal planning although it’s become more effort than usual these days as we try to stay out of stores and not interact with the public as much as possible. Fingers are crossed we also get another day or two of good beach weather. We’re also hoping to pick up some more dragonfruit at the farm stand this week. Affordable, tasty dragonfruit are one of the best things about summer here.

• Thinking of good things that happened: Besides going to the beach, getting a short time by the fire pit outside (before getting unexpectedly rained out), and enjoying some comfortable and cool-ish temperatures all week, there were no real standout good things. It was just a very nice week overall!

• Thinking of frugal things we did: The OTC medication I take every day as part of my stomach regimen has been coming through our regular prescription service at $10 for 90 days of medication (two pills per day). I discovered this past week that I can get the same medication at Costco for just $10.99 for 250 tablets, so I won’t be renewing that prescription! It’s not a huge savings, but it will help, and it will be easier to carry plenty along when we travel. We had a bunch of leftover mint after making a couple of salads last week, and thought we’d get some rum and club soda and use the rest to make mojitos. We realized however that the more frugal choice was composting the leftover mint (mint had cost $2; rum & soda would be $18.99 + tax, and that’s with rum on sale). We had another nearly no-spend week, with just two quick trips for produce at Big Save and the farm stand. Not a big week for change and $1 bills: we put just $.56 into the bag this past week ($.10 was a dime I found at the golf course). I earned 1,884 Swagbucks, but can feel myself approaching burnout once again so am going to throttle back and not push myself so hard for a while as I’m currently ahead with my earnings. Nothing was thrown out and all leftovers were eaten or used in some way, including making some very tasty lemonade from a dozen lemons that needed to be used up quickly.

• Adding up what we sold this past week: Nine hashioki were sold and shipped this week as well as a set of wooden Japanese soup bowls. I’ve now sold approximately 20% of the hashioki, but that means there are still around four hundred left to go versus five hundred LOL. They are thankfully getting lots of views, with many of them favorited, so hopefully there will more sales happening in the future. Brett was thrilled to get so much for the cloth patches so quickly. Total downsizing income earned this week: $255

• Grateful for: I am so thankful we were able to get to the beach this past week. In spite of getting out almost daily for long walks at the park, we had almost forgotten how nice it is to enjoy the simple pleasure of sitting outside and doing nothing except reading, looking out across the water, and listening to the sound of the waves.

• Bonus question: What do you hope to leave as your legacy? It’s fairly simple, really: One hundred years from now it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in my bank account, or what my clothes looked like. But the world may be a little better because I was important in the life of a child.

Definitely a first-world problem, but just a couple of weeks into growing out my hair and I’m going nuts! It’s already a giant white puffball most of the time now, curling up around my neck, etc. and driving me mad for the most part. Brett is also growing out his hair and it’s even wackier – it flips up over his ears and he sometimes looks like he’s wearing a Dutch cap. We keep telling ourselves to stay patient but we’re both currently miserable with our hair right now. And, can I also just say that after months of learning and working with this new WordPress editor it’s still driving me crazy? I find the whole thing to be very temperamental and non-intuitive. For example, I can be going along and doing an editing task without a problem, and then out of the blue the editor responds by eliminating the entire paragraph I’m working in (thank goodness for Command Z!). It just sets my teeth on edge every time I go in to use it. Definitely another first-world problem, but here I am. You go with the WordPress editor you have, not the one you wish you had, I guess.

That’s all for this week: the good, the bad, and the ugly (well, nothing was really ugly). We got a lot done, made some money, and enjoyed some better weather. Here’s hoping that next week is just as nice!