I'm Back! Prepping For Winter and Beyond, Over One Million Views!
I am back to blogging! I recently retired, had a nice refresh and will start posting more now. Obviously there's been a lot going on in the U.S. and the world recently. I had some mixed feelings about retiring recently given the state of the world. The good thing is that Dave and I are both pretty resilient, I have a lot of skills if I do have to go back to work at some point. Time will tell. We recently got some of the weather from the bomb cyclone on the West Coast. Then our first major snow up in the mountains last month. Dave and I celebrated our anniversary up in McCall, Idaho. It was cold on Saturday and when we started to drive back on Sunday morning it had snowed about 4 inches-
Snowed steadily on the way back, turned to rain in Boise. Since then we've had some rain and dry weather. Sadly we went through an inversion for a few weeks with poor quality air and very cold! Today the sun is shining and most of it is blown out, but maybe coming back next week. Built a new sunroom for the coop-
The previous one used a somewhat flexible PVC pipe which did not turn out to be sturdy enough. Weight of snow I knock off as needed and wind. I had the idea for Dave to design something that would use the heavy PVC or 2' x4's. Dave came up with the idea of the one, then he built it. We can store off-season easily. It is much more stable. Chickens are already using it! I'm planning on probably getting a few more chicks in the spring. Not sure if I'll be working, probably part-time after the first of the year. We'll see how things go. Retiring from the federal government was quite the adventure! Lots and lots of paperwork.
Preparedness-wise I went through our pantry closet, pulled some things that I had bought. Made some donations to the Idaho Food Bank. I called to see if they also needed toiletries, as we had a lot of brand new mini toothpastes, etc. that we just didn't need. It's always good to think of others needing all kinds of things and they were happy to have them. I've been re-stocking the freezer a bit. Always watching for deals! I thought I had about the
effects of the new upcoming tariffs. I stocked up on some things online,
as well as some things locally. I already bought some needed things like
bed linens, clothing and misc. stuff. We invested in a sorely needed new mattress/frame, replaced old worn out couch cushions. The couch is a flex steel, but cushions were in really soft. We both need to take care of our backs. Those were good investments! Here's a good video about some things to stock up on soon, I really like this Youtuber, he's very non-political-
I had read about the Japanese budgeting system called Kakeibo. They talk about mindful and wise investments. Great intro video here-
Lots more on Youtube and books out there. It's
great being home full time, I have more time to do meal prep and I'm
losing weight which is great. My back seems to be doing much better
being home with not being stuck at a desk all day. I'm really happy that
one year after my back surgery my back is completely healed and doing
well. Also cleaned out my craft closet and donated
some
different decorative items I just didn't want anymore. Lots of them were
already thrifted items so not much of an expense initially anyway. Will
be donating more winter/holiday decor. Now I have the time to really
sort and sift! Dave did get me a fun retro Santa for my birthday that I was looking for to go by our front door, courtesy Lowe's
My lovely daughter needed me some Scandinavian style wool mittens I had requested a while back. She did a beautiful job!
I also recently invested in my first solar panel to go with my Bluetti
solar charger. They were doing a Black Friday sale and so I bought one. I
fired it up, even in part sun and shade it started charging!
We
did buy another car after our Mazda 3 started having some odd
intermittent problems that nobody seemed to be able to diagnose. It was
at the point where we just didn't feel like it was worth
investing anymore in it. We wanted something that would be super
reliable for a LOT of years. Even though we didn't want to get into a
car payment we felt
we got a really good deal. We
bought a used 2023 Subaru Crosstrek, only 8,000 miles on it. Basically
like new. We like the fact that actually has a little bit less
technology than the 2024 (better price). (The 2025's finally just came
out.) We didn't like their huge infotainment
screens. This one was smaller screen-wise and actually
had a CD player (yes, we're old school)! I don't think it's safe to be
scrolling through my phone while I'm driving. We did have the
front tinted windows tinting removed. Driving around on really gray
days, at night made it way too dark and we felt it was a safety issue.
It didn't cost much and luckily it came right off. When we drove it
around much better! We still have our old 2011 Outback, still going
strong!
Over One Million Views!
I was shocked when I saw this blog had exceeded One Million views! I started this blog in 2011 when we bought our current house. I wanted to really track our improvements. I was reading other people's blogs, getting a lot out of them and thought I might contribute my own little version. I had no idea I would go this long, and far with folks from all over the world reading it!!! While blogging is kind of a dinosaur to some when it comes to social media there are still actually a lot of us that like to read! I know a few people migrated to Facebook/Instagram and their blogs are just sort of sitting there unattended. I may get to that eventually, who knows? But for now I guess I'm kind of a storyteller at heart and we'll see how things go. I've never really made any money off of this which was never the point anyway. Now with the whole huge monetization of social media sometimes I do scratch my head. Anyway, thanks for the views! Bring your friends, bring your family!!!
