Week One Done
3:04 p.m. - 2008-01-08


Another rainy day in sunny California. I am being cozy today, reading one of a bunch of D. E. Stevenson books that I got from the library, and contemplating sewing. I still have to do my exercises for today, but my book is too good so will get to that later.

So far the diet and exercise thing is going well. I have worked my way up from only using one weight (3 lb) to using 3, 5, and 8 pound weights for the same set of exercises. On non-weightlifting days I do Pilates. Last year was not a good year for my exercise program and I am not sure why, I just lost motivation. This year will be different, I hope.

The spouse is continuing our budgeting program, where he tells me the grocery budget, and that amount of money has to last for a set period of time. I save all the receipts for his perusal. I don't know why, exactly, but I find this fun, the making the money last and cooking with budget in mind. This year, he is throwing in an incentive to make it more fun for me - any money left at the end of the budgeting period is mine to keep. The man likes his food cooked from scratch, what can I say. I save a lot of money making my own bread, and living close to the Costco, I can buy the milk cheaply for about $2.75 a gallon (skim milk). I have seen milk here for $4.69 a gallon so this is a big savings. And I know very well how to feed people cheaply - did I not grow up with the expert in this field, my mom, who manned the kitchen and fed a family of eight through good times and bad? Believe me when I say that I know how to cook a good pot of beans.

Now is the time of year to send in my seed order. We got a jumpstart on the garden by digging it up in the late fall, throwing out some chicken manure, and seeding some alfalfa. Hopefully this will make the soil better. We have a problem with tree roots getting into the garden beds so some years when he did not have time to dig everything up deeply, the yield was way down.

In the knitting department, I finished a sock. I made a list of all my unfinished projects and plan to work on them to get them done. This will not stop me from starting new stuff, because it is my hobby and I get to do what I want when I want. Mostly.