Category: Miscellaneous

• I’ve been thinking a lot about my upcoming trip to Japan. It’s going to be a working vacation for me, but I will still be able to get out and explore as well as visit old favorites. K and I have been working on a list of places we want to eat and sites we want to see. And, Meiling and WenYu are going to join me for a couple of weeks – I’m very excited about that! We asked YaYu to come as well, but she is facing down grad school in the fall plus trying to buy a car, so a Japan visit is not affordable for her right now. I honestly don’t plan to do much shopping when I’m there, although I am going to buy a ton of CookDo to bring home, and as many KitKat flavors as I can find. There’s also an interesting cookie shop, Nakayoshi Sweets, located quite near to our son’s home and I want to check that out. I’m going to eat all my favorite Japanese dishes too, more than once if I can!

• It has become obvious my decision to leave Trader Joe’s at the end of January was the right one. I’m no longer in constant pain, I’m sleeping well again, my nails are growing back, and I’m eating better too – there was a lot of unnecessary snacking and coffee drinking going on during the working day there and I brought home a lot of snack-y stuff as well. I feel like myself again, more calm and relaxed, and I’m feeling happier too. I miss my coworkers, and I miss the discount, but it was the right time for me to leave.

• Kaipo has finally mastered staying home on his own and Brett and I can run errands together again as long as we aren’t gone too long. Our little guy has suffers from separation anxiety, but this past month, rather than putting him in his cage, we’ve left him in the apartment (with the doors to our bedroom and the bathroom closed) and he’s done very well. It appears he mainly sits on the back of the sofa and watches for us out the window, or plays with his toys and occasionally eats and drinks from his bowls – just the things you hope your dog will do. We honestly thought we would never be able to leave him alone (putting him in his cage was torture for us as well as him) but he’s two years-old now so I guess was ready for this next step. His grooming appointment in January was cancelled because of the snow, and he got pretty shaggy again but was taken care of toward the end of the month and looks handsome again.

• We finally got our copies of the wedding photos from Meiling’s and K’s wedding last summer. The photographer did a great job and captured so many great scenes and memories. The whole family agrees though our favorite is the photo of all of us – the only one missing is WenYu’s partner, but he had been unable to come.

• It’s definitely winter around here – cold and dreary. Mid-month temperatures were in the single digits for days and it snowed for a couple of days as well. Trader Joe’s was practically stripped bare the weekend before the snow arrived with people stocking up, but they were smart because the roads were an absolute mess when the snow arrived – we worked with a skeleton crew for a few days and closed early. The heat in our apartment was also somewhat ineffective with the front door and windows leaking cold air like crazy so we spent our days bundled up to the max. Brett and I have had the sniffles but so far have avoided getting sick (we got Covid boosters and flu shots in late December) . . . knock on wood.

• By some sort of scheduling miracle I worked every Sunday this month. Sunday is “extra pay day,” and I love earning that extra $$ per hour, part of which goes into our $10K savings fund. Sundays are always busy for some reason though – one Sunday this month (before the crazy pre-snow weekend) the store was so busy I spent an hour passing out peanut butter cups to people waiting in the long lines at checkout.

• It’s nice to be back on a regular schedule again with the grandkids (well, except they had a whole week off from school because of the weather). Brett now usually takes our grandson home to their apartment rather than bringing him to ours – he’s just about to turn 13 and doesn’t really need his grandparents to watch him any more. K and I decided to have a “reading contest” this year and are spending at least a half hour every afternoon with a book. She now reads chapter books so this is a great activity for her and I get some more time with my books as well.

• If you’re a fan of Edgar Allen Poe, there’s a terrific series currently on Netflix based on his stories and books, all set in the present. The Fall of the House of Usher is 10 episodes long with great characters, each named after one from Poe’s works. The episodes are also based on his stories. The acting is wonderful, and although the story can get a bit gruesome at times (not the focus of the show though) I highly recommend it. Other shows & movies watched/finished this past month were The Crown (Netflix) and Everything, Everywhere, All At Once (Amazon).

A few things too small for their own posts:

• I’m back at work – yeah! I’ve never missed a job so much or wanted to go back as much as I did to Trader Joe’s. Of course the week I started back was the busiest week of the year, and it was absolutely crazy. I only worked four hours a day (four in a row Thanksgiving week!) but I will go to two days per week of regular eight-hour shifts beginning in December, then three days a week in January. Four days/week was just too much – I won’t be doing that again.

• Unless it’s overcast or rainy, we’re enjoying loads of sunshine in the apartment again as all the leaves are gone from the woods behind us. It’s one benefit of the fall and winter seasons because during the spring and summer the living room is almost like a cave with all the sunshine blocked by the leafed-out trees. Overall, this fall was very different than last year when it seemed to arrive all at once, while this year it came in small bursts for several weeks. The colors were still lovely again though. Mornings are cold now but the afternoons are still mostly sunny, perfect for walking.

• I had my annual skin test done this month and a small cancer was found on my chest (not melanoma), so I’ll be have a MOHS procedure done in December to get rid of that. Otherwise I got an all-clear. All of that time in the sun growing up in Southern California and all of those bad sunburns are coming home to roost, but the Dr. said my skin is actually in very good condition, all things considered.

• We attended a Veteran’s Day Breakfast at K’s school on the 10th and afterwards visited her classroom and talked with her classmates. Our son had signed us up and also provided the school with the above photo of a very young Brett and Laura in uniform! The most exciting part for K’s classmates seemed to be learning how to come to attention and salute LOL! We had to do it with them several times.

• These days my favorite afternoon snack is a mug of hot cocoa with marshmallows. It’s sweet, chocolate-y, warm, delicious, comforting, and filling. I have one cup every afternoon and it’s satisfying enough on its own to keep me from wanting anything else until dinner!

• Just after a post about buying less . . . we bought something! Something big too: a new coffee table. After a quite scary incident involving our cheap, glass-topped table we decided a better quality, sturdier table would be a worthwhile purchase. After a long search we chose the one below from Pottery Barn. Not only is it sturdy, but it was on clearance with 50% off. The table is big with a “weathered” top (for lack of a better description) so it won’t show scratches, and we think it will be a great addition to our current living room and on into the future.

• From the too close for comfort files: there was a shooting in our neighborhood just slightly over two weeks ago, at a hotel separated from us by only a thin strip of woods. I was reading in bed and heard loud, repeated shots from that direction; a few minutes later loads of police and ambulance arrived followed by helicopters flying over our area for a while. Two people, a woman and her brother, were shot with a semi-automatic handgun (and have thankfully survived), and the shooter – the woman’s husband – was later found on foot in a nearby high-end housing development. The three had all come from Florida and were attending a family wedding at the hotel. The shooter is in jail, charged with attempted homicide, aggravated domestic violence, aggravated assault, and a few other things.

• We have finished all of our Christmas shopping! All we have left to do now is wrap it all, decorate the apartment, put together the candy bags, and finish the food shopping. We’re so excited everyone will be here once again!

Just like September, October has flown by. Lots happened this month, from surgical procedures to some other big changes, but we’ve also gotten a lot done including a good start on our Christmas shopping.

From scruffy to snappy: Kaipo was a month overdue by the time he got to his grooming appointment.

Kaipo’s regular groomer was hospitalized at the end of September but thought she would be back by mid October. We waited and waited to hear from her while Kaipo slowly turned into an absolute mess, but she never called. We eventually found another groomer who could fit him into their schedule this past week. The price at the new place was slightly lower than what we’ve been paying and we got a military discount on top of that, so we’re going to stick with this place. Kaipo loved his former groomer, but absolutely loves the new place (maybe more).

Here’s how the month of October went:

• Keep grocery spending under $500. We spent exactly $400 on groceries in October, $100 under budget! We had food left over from last month’s shopathon, which meant we didn’t have to buy so much this month (it also helped that I had a few days where I didn’t eat anything – on purpose and otherwise – and Brett stuck to leftovers).

• Aim for zero food waste. And, we did not throw out any food in October! We buckled down this month and paid better attention.

• Have one full no-spend week. The third week of the month was no spend but once again my Social Security arrived mid week and we made a food shopping trip that had already been scheduled into the budget. Otherwise we did not spend anything that week.

• Have four no-drive days. We had eight no-drive days in September – total no-drive days for the year is now 56. That’s eight weeks of not burning gasoline nor putting any wear and tear on our car, and we still have two months to go this year!

• Try one new recipe. While I didn’t try a new recipe in October I did make a dish I hadn’t made in years: Goat Cheese, Artichoke, and Smoked Ham Strata. I used a package of the gluten-free baguettes we picked up at Whole Foods in September and it turned out wonderfully.

• Walk 30 miles. Brett and I walked 42 miles on the apartment complex perimeter this past month. The weather has been just about perfect for walking (nice and cool, and actually cold on a few days) and we’ve enjoyed watching the fall colors (slowly) arrive.

• Visit one natural or historical site in the area. We took a leisurely drive down the historic Natchez Trace Parkway and back last week, about 60 miles or so each way, enjoying the scenery and fall colors, and stopping at a few sites along the way.

• Read four books. After an intense month of reading in September, I ran out of books at the beginning of October and had to wait 10 days for something to come off of hold! Sure enough, my next to longest wait was the first to show up and then boom, boom, boom . . . everything else showed up at once. I ended up getting three books read this month.

Each lesson of the Kanji app has a variety of ways to reinforce both new and previously learned kanji. There is a new lesson every day plus a review.

• Study Japanese every day for 30 minutes. I studied Japanese every day in October and now have a 276 days in a row learning another language. Currently Duolingo’s lessons are repeat/review but I’m listening and understanding better and faster, and I have learned some new vocabulary and kanji. I also downloaded an amazing kanji app at the beginning of the month and use that every day as well. I am now able to write many kanji I could only read before – if I get the stroke order wrong the app makes me start over until I get it right. Finally, I follow four different short/daily Japanese lessons on Instagram, great little short vocabulary and cultural boosters. I’m never going to master Japanese, but I can get better.

We added a bit more to our change/$1 bill jar – this month’s total was $30.74. 

November’s goals remain the same as October although I’ve increased my walking goal back up to 40 miles. It will probably be more though since I’m heading back to work.

• Keep grocery spending under $500. 
• Aim for zero food waste. 
• Have one full no-spend week. 
• Have four no-drive days.
• Try one new recipe. 
• Walk at least 40 miles.
• Visit one natural or historical site in the area. 
• Read four books.
• Study Japanese every day for 30 minutes.

I start back at Trader Joe’s mid November, just as things really start to get crazy for the holidays (no wonder they want me back LOL). There’s quite a bit of paperwork for me to finish up next week, but I think I can get it all done in time. Anyway, I noticed on my last couple of visits that Thanksgiving items have already appeared on the shelves and Christmas won’t be far behind. I say: bring it on!

August happenings too small for their own post:

• We enjoyed our summer break but school is back in session again in Tennessee and we are back on regular grandparent duty. M drives our grandson (7th grade) to school in the morning but Brett drives over in the afternoon to pick him up. K (first grade) is dropped off at our house when M & C leave (right after Brett gets back from taking me to work) and he walks K to the bus stop for morning pickup. Kaipo and I meet her bus in the afternoon while Brett’s picking up C. Kid friendly snacks are back on our shopping lists, kids’ TV shows rule the afternoon, and we are busy, busy, busy once again.

• August is traditionally no-tax on food month in Tennessee, so we’ve been saving a little more when we grocery shop this month (and tax in our county is high). This year however the tax holiday has been extended through October! It would be the perfect time for us to stock up but we still do not have a speck of room for extra groceries.

• I had a good annual wellness visit with my doctor earlier this month (pre Covid). All is good health wise although she suggested a few dietary changes, all medications were renewed, and a couple of other small issues were resolved. I’m set to have a colonoscopy in early October. The most surprising thing to me was that I weighed the same as I did a year ago, the first time that’s ever happened. Considering all the extras I eat at TJ’s when I’m there, I’m counting it as a win. Covid was a game changer this month, but I’ve recovered and am back at work at my old schedule. Several other employees had Covid at the same time I did – we suspect there was a super spreader in our mix, possibly a customer.

• I signed up to take a Japanese calligraphy class (shodō 書道, “way of writing”) beginning in early September. My daughter-in-law recommended the class as something I might enjoy doing. I’ve ordered my suzuribako (writing box), and have been practicing my hiragana and katakana once again. I can still read them all, but had forgotten how to write more than a few. Shodō will be a good way as well to remember the kanji I know, and learn new ones.

• We finally tried Trader Joe’s schwarma chicken thighs this month – wow! I can highly recommend. The package suggests baking in a hot (400 degree oven) or grilling, but several customers have mentioned using the slow cooker. I ended up baking them and they were delicious. I served the chicken with a quick Trader Joe’s salad: 1 package TJ steamed lentils, 1 container TJ’s fresh bruschetta, and 1 container crumbled feta cheese. That was another wow dish (and so easy)!

For all my whinging about summer now, I really do have wonderful memories of the season as a child. Growing up in Southern California, and ignoring the horrible smog that covered the greater Los Angeles area, I enjoyed terrific daily weather: sunny, warm, and humidity free. I lived in a town rife with swimming pools, and fairly near to to the beach as well.

Let me say a word about smog though before I start. It was awful, especially during the summer. I was severely affected by it (as was my younger brother), and there were days where we gasped for breath, days where we weren’t allowed outside, even at school. Swimming pool chlorine mixed with the pollution made a toxic cocktail in the summer and could again leave us gasping for breath. Simply put, the Los Angeles Valley during the 60s and early 70s was hell for anyone, especially those with breathing difficulties, but thanks to catalytic converters and other steps these days the air is clear.

Until I was 10 years old, I lived on a small, dead-end street with a tight group of neighbors and an even tighter group of kids (I’m still friends with a couple of them). We played together all summer long, from morning until dark: softball, four square, and sophisticated games of hide and seek. One of our neighbors had a pool, and they would hoist a red flag from a tree in front of their house a few days a week during the summer to announce the pool was open to the neighborhood. I learned to swim in that pool one summer, and remember my mom, seven months pregnant with my younger brother, jumping fully clothed into the pool one day to rescue my sister when someone grabbed the tube she was floating on and she began to sink.

Overpass beach and the San Clemente pier.

My best summer memories are of times spent at our family beach house in San Clemente. Designed and built by my uncle, the house was owned by my grandparents and available to the whole extended family, but our family lived the closest and used it the most. The mid-century modern house was located just a 20-minute walk from San Clemente’s Overpass Beach (named for the bridge that crossed over the Santa Fe train tracks that ran along the top of the beach). San Clemente offered the best summer weather and best surf and there were always friends around whose families also owned beach houses there. We’d walk down to the beach with Mom around 10:00 in the morning, then come back up around noon for lunch and a rest, then head back down from 2:00 to 4:00 before walking home again to clean up for dinner. After dinner Mom would drive us back down to the beach and we’d walk the empty beach over and onto the San Clemente pier, beach combing as we went for “treasures” that had been left behind (my frugal mother never paid for a beach towel; we used ones found on the beach during our walks that she would wash and hold out of circulation for a year). Summer evenings by the Pacific Ocean are cool, so almost every evening we had a fire going in our fireplace. The San Clemente library provided books for us to read as no TV was allowed at the beach house. There was also a big jigsaw puzzle to work on every evening and sometimes a Dodger baseball game to listen to on Mom’s little transistor radio. We also invented our own games that went on for years, but only at the beach house. The last day of the summer in San Clemente was always bittersweet – Mom got us hamburgers from the snack bar (still the best burger I’ve ever eaten) and rented a couple of inflatable canvas rafts for the day, but we knew we were leaving the next day for home to get ready for the school year.

Except for one year, we never spent the entire summer at the beach house, and we came up with other activities to keep busy on long summer days at home. I always entered the summer reading contest at our local library, starting in the first grade, mainly because I loved to read. One summer I volunteered at a local hospital as a “candy-striper,” but usually my friends and I would gather at someone’s home to watch TV (The Million Dollar Movie or Where the Action Is, with Paul Revere and the Raiders, were two favorite shows). I took swimming lessons at the community pool for several years – the smell of chlorine and popcorn still brings back wonderful memories – and I did a lot of swimming at neighbor’s or friend’s pools. Starting in middle school I spent part of each summer sewing clothes for the coming school year.

I attended summer school in the mornings once I was in high school (for more credits), but would often head to the beach in the afternoons with friends, sharing driving duties with whoever could borrow the family car that day. The closest was Huntington Beach, where we would lather on cocoa butter or baby oil (Sunscreen? What’s that?) and park ourselves on the sand with a transistor blaring our favorite radio station (KRLA). No day at Huntington was complete without a trip to the beach snack shop for either a frozen banana coated in chocolate and nuts or “strips,” deep-fried tortilla strips topped with salsa. Huntington was next door to Newport Beach and The Wedge, famous (or infamous) for its huge waves. I bodysurfed The Wedge a few times when it seemed manageable, although I wiped out most of the time. I once lost the bottom part of my bathing suit in The Wedge’s churn, but thankfully found it before I had to exit the water.

And yes, there were great summer family vacations as well. My mom loved to travel, and we made numerous trips throughout California, spent one summer traveling up the Pacific coast to Washington and back living in a Shasta trailer, took a surprise train trip over to the Grand Canyon for a week (best vacation ever), and drove back east in 1965 to visit the eastern side of the U.S. from Maine to South Carolina. Mom was a school teacher and required continuing education credits every few years, and she would enroll in courses out of state so that she could get out of the house for a while. While she was at school, my siblings and I stayed with friends and relatives; I always got to spend summers on my grandmother’s farm in central Indiana and be with my cousins. Those summers were nothing but pure bliss filled with delicious food.

Summers in Indiana meant a walk most afternoons to the Dog ‘n’ Suds for a cold mug of root beer and a frozen Reese’s peanut butter cup – still an incredibly delicious combination. There was just-picked sweet corn on the cob every night for dinner – yum!

I loved summer back in the day and eagerly awaited its arrival. The first summer I officially went to work changed everything though, and after that summer meant job hunting and drudgery. Climate change has made summers almost unbearable for me now. So, I’m more than grateful for those good times and wonderful summer memories from back in the day.

I don’t know when I stopped liking summer. As a child I loved hot days, swimming pools or sunbathing at the beach, car trips, popsicles, barbecues, and outdoor games played long into the evening before it finally grew too dark. These days, all I want to do is stay in an air-conditioned space.

We’re officially into the dog days of summer here in Tennessee. It’s hot, humid, and downright sultry, my least favorite type of weather. I’m grateful to have air conditioning in our apartment, and that my workplace is cool or sometimes downright cold enough to where I want to wear a sweatshirt. Otherwise, I don’t even think about going outside right now unless I have to. It’s the opposite of Portland, where I hibernated indoors away from rain and cloudy weather all winter. Here it’s the hot temperatures and soggy air that keeps me indoors all summer.

I’m already starting to think about when I can wear sweaters again. Another month or so and the leaves will begin changing color, and fall is glorious here. We’ll once again begin eating soups and other heartier meals. It’s those things I look forward to and that keep me plugging away.

San Miguel de Allende is going to be hot like this, maybe hotter in late spring. Sweaters won’t be needed there until maybe December or January, but there’s near zero humidity. This time of year, and the month before, are the “rainy season” where short bursts of rain cool things off and settle the dust. We enjoyed the summer when we were there.

I can’t wait to go back, but we’ve got two more Tennessee summers to get through. Sigh.

June happenings to small for their own post:

• June started out somewhat rough at work. Working three days per week was tiring, especially since I wasn’t on any sort of regular schedule and had to work through a few back-to-back days, which were downright exhausting – I really felt my age. Add in a bad allergy day here and there as well and things were turning miserable and had me wondering if I should cut back my days again or even quit. Encouraged by other crew members, I spoke with the scheduler and now have a more set schedule each week, with at least a day to rest and recuperate between shifts.

• Air-conditioning season has arrived in middle Tennessee. Temperatures have often climbed into the 90s this past month, and it has been humid to boot. High grass pollen days also meant that allergies were very problematic as well. Thankfully our apartment stays cool and comfortable most of the time using only ceiling fans, although the A/C has come on a few times. Our daughter-in-law lives on the third floor, and already without A/C her apartment gets broiling hot, so we have one thing to be grateful for in our small apartment.

• I check the Kauai Craigslist listings a couple of times a month or so to see what rental prices are like, and noticed our former house, the one with the horrid landlord, was available again. While rents seem to be coming down a bit overall, the rent on that house keeps climbing, and Horrid Landlord was asking $800 more per month than what we paid, the equivalent of currant rental prices on larger and nicer homes (and he continues to lie about the size of the house and the lot). Hawaii still owns a big piece of our hearts and we wish we could live there again, but we’re not crazy.

• Carrying raw chicken in the cooler as well as separate bags of marinade, then having to open the cooler the last morning to put the two together for the grilled lemon chicken Meiling requested that evening worried me; it seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. However, I read up on marinades and discovered the chicken and lemon marinade could be frozen together for a few days – hallelujah! Doing that means the cooler will not have to be opened at all for the three days we are traveling (I’m also freezing the steaks ahead of time as well), and all the food should arrive safe and sound.

• Some old and new Trader Joe’s products I tried and loved in June: 1) Squiggly Noodles. My favorite new (to me) product, these fat, chewy noodles put ramen to shame, and the sesame soy sauce has far less salt than ramen seasoning. 2) Jicama-mango slaw. This take on coleslaw is wow-wow-wow! Containing shredded jicama, shredded mango, and shredded cabbage along with a tasty, slightly spicy mango vinaigrette, it’s the perfect accompaniment to seafood. We’ve eaten it on fish tacos, mahi mahi burgers, shrimp burgers, coconut shrimp, and with Mexican or Indian dishes. It’s sadly only available in the summer, and I’ve got my fingers double crossed it will still be in the store to go up to Vermont because I want to put it on the pulled pork sliders. 3) Peanut Butter Crispy Rice Bites and JoJos with Strawberry Lemonade filling. The latter is like a peanut butter Rice Krispie treat topped with chocolate – only better; the former is just an unbelievably perfect summer cookie. 4) Bruschetta: Trader Joe’s has sold this for years but it had dropped off of my radar. I forgot how good it is and how versatile. Bruschetta may be making the trip up to Vermont with us.