Valerean

As I'm actually writing this post on October 20th I hope by the time it publishes our county will have repaired the partially collapsed road near our house. While it's closed we are forced to drive many miles out of the way just to run our usual errands. Only we still have another month of hurricane season, and two more storms were named yesterday, and things here in the country generally move at a snail's pace, so I'm not optimistic. Losing the use of just one road is a bit of a preview of a much worse disaster, and what that might force us to do. If we couldn't drive to get what we needed how could we run errands, and what we could carry back and forth? I see us riding bikes and using backpacks, which at our age wouldn't be fun, but is still doable. My guy still rides his bike around the neighborhood for exercise, while I use my stationary bike. The nearest town is five minutes by car; that would be twenty minutes one way by bike in optimal conditions ...

As of October 19th (the date I'm writing this post) this is how my Art Quilter's Bingo card stands. I've stamped eight spaces, and at the moment I'm trying to decide which one I should next attempt with a project. My quilting pals have suggested thrift upcycle and add words . I'm thinking of embroidering a little poem of mine on something: What bliss to be a fish all rainbow hues no need for shoes Maybe on a slow stitched fish-shaped piece (or with a big, pretty fish in the background)? Something like this; just not black. The problem right now is my hands. At the moment I'm in a neutral place with my arthritis. in that it's not getting better, but it's not getting worse. I don't want to push myself to hand-stitch too much right now so I don't cause another flare-up. So if I try this, I will have to go slow.

Doesn't seem like there is much to be grateful for this year, until you consider the daily miracle of those we love in our lives. No matter how dark and hateful and horrible the world becomes, I always have a reason to be thankful on this day. I hope you do, too. Happy Thanksgiving from Valerean.

Since I griped yesterday about the holiday gifts I don't want, here are: Ten Things I Do Want for Christmas Coffee: I have all the tea I can possibly drink for the next year, but I actually don't have much coffee. I don't need a big package of it, as I drink only two cups per day. If you can find an interesting variety for cheap, I'd love to try it. DVD Movie or Show: I love historicals, mysteries and nonfiction documentaries about history. You don't have to buy this one, either, if you have a movie or show on DVD you're done watching, pass it along to me. Holiday Book Date: Here's the easiest gift ever. Go to a thrift or used book store, buy any book that you think I'd enjoy reading (the cheaper the better), wrap it in plain brown paper and write "Blind Christmas Date" on the outside. If you can't afford a used book, give me one you already own. One Yard of Fabric: This is a gift I often exchange with quilter friends ...

I'm going to try to make or thrift all of my Christmas gifts this year, but I know my family will go out shopping for new stuff. I am always grateful for any gift, but I think this year I will first give them a list of: Ten Things I Do Not Want for Christmas Anything Containing Sugar and/or Carbs: I will be immediately giving them to someone else because hello, you've forgotten than I'm a diabetic again. Exotic Teas: I do love trying new things, especially as hot beverages in winter are nice. However, I'm still working my way through 2023 Christmas's and 2024 birthday's teas. Let me finish those first. Fuzzy Holiday Throws: I actually like these cheap minky-like throws, which are super soft and definitely warm. Problem is I own about five right now and three are Christmas or winter prints. Jewelry: I wear a bracelet every day to remind me which hand is weaker at the moment. I have about a hundred of them, too. Occasionally I'll wear ...

Back in April I thrifted these New Balance sneakers, new with tags, for $9.99. They retail for $130.00, so I was quite happy to land such a bargain. I walk at least two miles a day every day with the pups. We also go out and walk malls, antique shops and thrift stores, which can add another one to three miles day. Here's what all that walking did to the sneakers, which are now coming apart from their soles. I probably walk in the rain with them at least three or four times a month. Also, the ground here is perpetually wet, and I have to walk through a lot of mud and across some roads when I take the dogs for their walks, which is the reason my shoes wear out so fast. If I had paid retail for these sneakers I'd be upset. But ten bucks seems to be about what they're worth, so okay. Time to thrift another pair of walking sneakers. Back in October I bid on this pair of Champion sneakers listed at $8.99, with a max bid of $9.00. I wanted to get my next pair even...

On the night Hurricane Milton roared into our little town I was sitting and making fabric yoyos at the kitchen table. We have a rechargeable LED lightbulb in the fixture over it that comes on when the power goes out, and I was in the center back area of the house, which is basically the safest spot unless we're dealing with a tornado. My guy was exhausted from doing our last-minute preps, and the storm had jogged further south, so he decided to go to bed. I tried to nap on the couch but I couldn't relax. Every so often I'd take my flashlight and use it to try to see what was happening outside. That's the worst part of having a hurricane at night -- when the power goes down, the world goes dark and combined with the rain and wind you just can't see anything. A few times I opened the back porch door a few inches to look outside. The sound of the wind (even for someone deaf like me) was horrendous, and it kept trying to fling the door out of my hands. Th...

For use as holiday gifts I thrifted a lot of journals, which arrived while Katherine was visiting. There are ten altogether. All are in like-new condition with no missing pages. Three are still in the store shrink wrap. I might keep this story inspiration card deck and prompt book for myself. All the cards are there, and I'm curious to see if it helps with the writing I do for practice. This guided journal is nice, too. I'd value the lot at $50.00 resale value; I got everything for $9.99. Savings: $40.01.

I don't like many frozen foods, but there were a few from Stouffer's that I liked in the old days, like Grandma's Chicken and Vegetable Rice Bake. It actually did remind me of a rice casserole my grandmother used to make. It now costs almost $15.00 for a large size, and I'm not paying that, especially as the quality of the ingredients Stouffer's uses has gone so far downhill. So I decided to see if I could find a copy-cat recipe and make my own version (there is a copy-cat recipe online for basically anything, I've discovered.) This recipe came pretty close. It maybe cost four dollars for me to make. I did tweak it by using cream of chicken instead of cream of mushroom, as that's what I preferred, and canned peas and carrots instead of frozen. I also used only about half the chicken in the recipe, as we're trying to cut down on the amount of meat in our meals. It was tasty, although not an exact copy (a bit dry, and it had a slightly different...

Last month I went out one morning to walk the dogs. Usually I cut across our front yard to get to the road, but fortunately this morning I was paying attention to my surroundings. Do you see what I saw? Yep. Spider web. It may seem small, but the anchoring threads stretched out for ten feet from top to bottom. I did not get close enough to get a decent shot of the spider, but from the spikes around its body I'll guess it was a crab spider . They are venomous, but their tiny bite is pretty harmless (like a bee sting.) You can see how tiny it is here in the cropped version of the previous pic. It's a little smaller than the diameter of a pencil eraser. I did not mess with it. All spiders are enormously helpful in controlling the local pest population. I am going to keep an eye out every morning when I walk the dogs, though. :)

One thing I really miss as a diabetic is bread. I can have regular bread as a treat now and then, but it takes a while now for me to work off the carbs. I have tried different keto breads, most of which are tasteless, and all of which are super expensive. That's why I've been on the hunt for a simple diabetic-friendly bread I can make in one small loaf for myself. This recipe has worked out to be the best of all the ones I've tried, including the 90 second microwave bread I've been making up until finding this recipe. Some tweaks: I use egg beaters instead of 5 eggs, and I opted for the baking powder version so I could avoid the vinegar. As a result my bread has a definite eggy taste to it, and didn't brown as much. I don't mind this, but if you're not a fan of the taste of eggs you should pass. It does not have the same texture as regular bread -- it's more like a cake texture -- and it's quite a bit heavier, so slicing it thin is a goo...

My favorite quilt "Even in the Shadows" by Lynne Raborn from this year's county quilt show. To see the other quilts in the show, go to the album I've posted online here.

Here's the bundle of fabric my guy thrifted for me. There are eighteen different fabrics and all but three are over a yard in length. They're a nice mix of apparel and quilting fabrics, with one canvas print, a pretty flannel and a couple of synthetics. Everything is odor and soil free. I have immediate plans for the pink polka dot, the blue and green geometric, the autumn leaf and the bakery prints, but I'm going to try to use up the entire bundle by the end of the year (more on that in another post.) The original owner home sewed five valance curtains out of this cute juvenile print. This plush piece is super soft, and just the right size to make into a pillow cover I need. Whoever these fabrics belonged to made their own clothing; there's an unfinished tunic in a light peach waffle fabric that I might try to finish and wear. I added up the lengths and the bundle is 22.57 yards total, which at $14.99 works out to .66 per yard. If I'd had to buy...

Along with thrifting my guy and I have been shopping at outlets and big lot/remainder stores like Ollie's, which is where I bought everything in this post. Laundry detergent has become a big ticket item for us, and I've even changed how often I do the wash in order to make bigger loads and conserve detergent. This Gain is different from the original scent I use, but we sniffed it and didn't mind it, so we brought it home for $13.99. Even with my 5% discount I pay $15.19 for the same size at Target. That's a savings of just $1.20, but hey, every little bit helps. Will I pay $32.00 for any hardcover novel? Nope. Will I pay $4.99 for a remaindered $32.00 hardcover novel that I've wanted to read for a while? You're darn right I will. I have been collecting recipes off the internet for years now, and I've kept them in a plain black binder that has seen better days. Also, it has no splash guard, so when I cook I have to put it on the other c...

My guy has gotten into thrifting with me, and last month took me on a little shopping spree which he also paid for, so I did not spend a dime for this lovely 9" cast iron grill pan, which will be great when I want to make salmon or paninnis. It's in new condition, and it's a Lodge, so it was definitely worth $9.99. Although I vowed not to buy any more fabric, I did see a bundle that had three different fabrics I needed for holiday projects. My guy talked me into getting it, and since he was paying, I caved in. I'll do a separate post on the fabric once I measure it, but it was also worth the $14.99 price tag. I stopped buying new clothes a few years back, and some of my worn-out t-shirts became a quilt over the summer, so I picked out three cotton shirts in new condition that I can wear through fall. From left to right the prices were $5.99, $4.19 and $4.19. I also selected a few more shorts; all of these were $5.99 each. I really don...

As summer ended back in September we took a trip out to the farm to get some fresh produce and admire the arrival of pumpkin season. I've mentioned often that I'm not a fan of pumpkin or any kind of squash, at least for eating. Seeing all the bright colors and different sizes of these seasonal beauties makes me hate fall a little less, though. It was pretty crowded that day, which made it tough to get some pics without people in them. That made me happy, too. I love seeing our community supporting the local farmers.

By the time this post publishes we'll have about a month left of fall. Halloween will be over, and Thanksgiving will arrive in two weeks. Mom and Dad's birthdays have passed for another year. Katherine might be still visiting us and attending some friends' wedding, but she'll have to return to Hawaii soon. This is when my life slows down every year. If I was able to stick to my work schedule, then I turned in the last project of the year yesterday. The rest of 2024 will be spent on planning the projects for 2025 and possibly getting a jump on the first in December. Sadly I won't be participating in that November novel writing month event (I'm not mentioning the organization again, either), which I actually had planned to do. Not that it matters to anyone but me, but a full boycott is the only way I can protest how sketchy and unethical they've become. I have about six and a half weeks before this post publishes; that's how far ahead I am ...

I haven't read Karen Marie Moning in many years, so when I saw she had a new release out, The House at Watch Hill , I decided to invest. I was hoping for a haunted house book, but it's a witch book that seems to be a spin off from her highlander and Fever series. Since I've read a couple of books from both -- the Fever series was pretty good -- I figured okay, give it a try. The premise: Zo Grey is out job hunting when she has a frightening psychic episode that later turns out to be her sharing her terminally-ill mother's gruesome death in a house fire meant to kill both of them. She then learns she has inherited a house and more in Louisiana. Since she's penniless and facing a mountain of medical debt, Zo goes to collect her inheritance, and discovers a small town rife with secrets, an elaborate network of witches and lots of mysteries, all of which revolve around her and her massive, multi-million-dollar inheritance. Technically it was a well-written ...

Be careful what you thrift for is my new mantra. I bid on and won this storage chest of sewing supplies, which I wanted to use for my own needles and sewing things. It arrived leaking pins, beads and buttons, with several drawers jammed by the same. I spent an entire day unloading it, sorting out the contents, and then unsticking the drawers. To my relief nothing was broken or permanently damaged by the poor packing job. Let's look inside some of the drawers while I tell you about it. The original owner knew what was good thread, and kept a colorful supply of Sulky and Gütermann on hand. These spools run between $1.24 to $3.99 depending on the type of thread. Like me the maker also saved old thread, bought thread on sale and otherwise practiced thrifty purchasing. There might be a few spools in this drawer that belonged to an older family member, as they date back to the 70's. Lots of buttons. The little collection was mostly for repair purposes, and...