My 2020 Challenge

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alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: My 2020 Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

I have such a wonderful and caring DB and DSIL. Yesterday I received a card from them that stated, " Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday. We are getting our shopping done early this year." My brother stated that he had paid the first two installments on my property taxes. What a huge blessing! I came to tears. He does not know about the other things that I need done around here. I do not tell him things because he then thinks he has to take care of them. I know if I need help all I need to do is ask him but as I have said before I like to take care of my own needs. The payments he made came to $1760.00. This will allow me to get back on track for the rest of this year as well as a head start for next year.. ie paying my taxes before my DB does..lol.

Last week I was eating a ham sandwich and realized the gluten free bread had a nice texture especially for GF bread. Unless you have eaten GF bread you might not understand what I am talking about, some GF bread is not edible in my book. The taste and textures vary and can be disgusting. The one I liked is called Ancient Grain from Canyon Bakehouse. It reminded me somewhat of the bread that is used at Arby's with their Market Fresh turkey and swiss cheese sandwich. Once in a blue moon I cheat and buy a sandwich there even if it the bread is not gluten free. The sandwich is huge and I usually dismantle it and remove a lot of the meat. There are about 3 servings of turkey on each sandwich. So I eat one half of the sandwich and save the other half for another meal and the extra meat goes in a salad or another smaller sandwich. So I decided to try to make one at home using the GF bread. It was great! The sandwich includes turkey, swiss chees, sliced tomato, onion, and lettuce with a sauce. I have not crunched the numbers yet to compare overall cost but this is a keeper and it is gluten free and more in compliance with my diabetic diet. This afternoon I am going to experiment with making my own Fritos bean dip. I love it but the cost is ridiculous. More to come, I hope, later today.
Janet Alliesmama
HappyDaze
Posts: 4186
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 11:11 am

Re: My 2020 Challenge

Post by HappyDaze »

alliesmama4 wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 11:43 am I have such a wonderful and caring DB and DSIL. Yesterday I received a card from them that stated, " Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday. We are getting our shopping done early this year." My brother stated that he had paid the first two installments on my property taxes. What a huge blessing! I came to tears. He does not know about the other things that I need done around here. I do not tell him things because he then thinks he has to take care of them. I know if I need help all I need to do is ask him but as I have said before I like to take care of my own needs. The payments he made came to $1760.00. This will allow me to get back on track for the rest of this year as well as a head start for next year.. ie paying my taxes before my DB does..lol.

Last week I was eating a ham sandwich and realized the gluten free bread had a nice texture especially for GF bread. Unless you have eaten GF bread you might not understand what I am talking about, some GF bread is not edible in my book. The taste and textures vary and can be disgusting. The one I liked is called Ancient Grain from Canyon Bakehouse. It reminded me somewhat of the bread that is used at Arby's with their Market Fresh turkey and swiss cheese sandwich. Once in a blue moon I cheat and buy a sandwich there even if it the bread is not gluten free. The sandwich is huge and I usually dismantle it and remove a lot of the meat. There are about 3 servings of turkey on each sandwich. So I eat one half of the sandwich and save the other half for another meal and the extra meat goes in a salad or another smaller sandwich. So I decided to try to make one at home using the GF bread. It was great! The sandwich includes turkey, swiss chees, sliced tomato, onion, and lettuce with a sauce. I have not crunched the numbers yet to compare overall cost but this is a keeper and it is gluten free and more in compliance with my diabetic diet. This afternoon I am going to experiment with making my own Fritos bean dip. I love it but the cost is ridiculous. More to come, I hope, later today.
Janet, I am very happy for the blessing that you received from your brother and his wife!
"All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed. After all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog."

Charles M. Schultz
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: My 2020 Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Thanks Sheila. They are a blessing to so many other people as well. Very kind hearted.
Janet Alliesmama
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: My 2020 Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Not sure when I will be back to work on my challenge. I had a computer crash and had to have a new hard drive put in. It took forever to find someone to work on it and then forever for him to complete the work. I have a lot of work ahead of me trying to find a lot of lost things as well as still need to update things on other sites. Scheduled for cataract surgery in the near future so need to get a lot of things done around my house before then. Also Fall and winter will be here before we know it and there are a lot of things that need to be done. I want to get things more organized and stocked up since I think this winter is going to be a really hard one with the weather as well as the covid-19. One thing I learned without having my computer I got a lot more done around the house. So I am cutting back on time wasted on my computer. At least for the foreseeable future.
Wishing everyone well with the pandemic and life in general.
Janet Alliesmama
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: My 2020 Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Good morning. It has been a while. I am still having computer problems despite having a new hard drive put in. I had to buy a new Windows 10 to try to get things going again and it will not download like it should. I will be sending it back to Amazon.

I am trying to get back in to black belt frugaling. My apple crop, that would have been significant, and would have given me months of free food, was stripped clean by my resident squirrel, Dennis the Menace. I saw him jumping from tree to tree with a green apple in his mouth and thought what the heck? They are not even ripe until Fall. I checked my tree, which is far enough from the house that I cannot see it unless I really strain my neck, was almost completely bare. They are very tart this time of year. I do not know if he has tasted them and whether or not they will just rot away somewhere where he is storing them. ggggrrrrr. It is too late for this year but next year I will have to install a slick metal around the base of the tree about 3 feet tall to hopefully deter him. My pear tree has been seriously affected by the cold wet spring and has developed some kind of bacterial infection. It does have tiny pears on it but not sure how to treat the tree and if it will snap back. I have had too many medical problems to look in to how to treat the tree. My peach trees have some peaches but they have not ripened enough to pick yet. I did not get a garden planted this spring due to the cold wet spring plus there was difficulty in getting seeds in time to plant. A Fall garden was something I had hoped to work on but due to to having cataract surgery I decided to put it off. Also I need extensive back surgery and my back is not up to gardening right now. So many plans and nothing is happening. I am 75 with multiple medical problems but I do have desires to do these things. It has been soooo hot with heat indexes up to around 107 F and sometimes 110 Fit is too miserable to be outside.
Janet Alliesmama
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: My 2020 Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

A few days ago I bought a rotisserie chicken and Teddi and I nibbled a lot of meals off of it. I finally put the bones and skin in my crock pot and cooked it for several hours and was able to pick enough meat off of the bones to give Teddi two more meals. I then cooked the skin and bones for about 7 hours to make broth. I strained the broth and have a lovely bowl of chicken broth that I plan on using to make hot and sour soup. I boiled a can of bamboo shoots the other day and tomorrow will finish making the soup. I boil the bamboo shoots to take away the tin taste you get with canned bamboo shoots. The suggestion was from a Chinese cookbook. It said to boil them for 20 min then rinse and strain. They have to be cut in to long strips for the soup.

Breakfast was keto sausage gravy over gluten free toast with decaf coffee and whole milk. The milk was from my shelf stable milk stash.

Lunch will be a BLT. I fried a pound of bacon a while back and froze it for making quick sandwiches like BLT's. I am using gluten free bread. The thing that irks me is the cost of the bread. Walmart sells it if for $4.98 which is reasonable for gf bread. However Walmart is not as close to my house as the other stores in town. Our local grocery chain sells the same bread for $6.98. How very sad that they are taking advantage of people who need this bread for health reasons. I am hoping to be able to get back in to making my own bread. I do not have a working bread machine or oven so I am going to try to make it either in a table top cooker that states you can bake in it or a large Nesco cooker. I am torn between getting a new stove with an oven or chest freezer. Cannot afford both. Right now with the heat index being so high, sometimes up to, 110 F, I will work more with the smaller table top baking equipment. I can even put the Nesco and counter top cooker out in my garage to bake and that will help keep the heat down in my house.
Janet Alliesmama
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