New Year Ramble 2025

 

   A New Year is upon us and I want to thank all of you who have been with me for the encouragement, prayers, kind thoughts, suggestions and for your friendship.  I know I have not been good about responding to comments or posting on a regular basis.  This past year has been a rough one and the new year has gotten off to a rough start also.  Praying that things turn around here soon.

   As you know, we took in Jeff's Aunt Helen's cat Remmie.  Remmie and I came to be quite the team and spent most of our waking moments with her in my lap or lounging on the headrest of my recliner.  About 3 weeks ago, Remmie got mad at Jeff, or so we thought, and peed all over his recliner.  We did everything we could to clean that thing, even getting the stuff from the pet store that is supposed to take out the smell.  Nothing worked.  I resigned myself that we would have to start looking for a new recliner for Jeff.  Then, out of the blue, Remmie started peeing on my recliner also.  Again, we tried to get the smell out...nothing worked.  Every time we brought the chairs back into the house, she would pee on them again.  Knowing that there was a very good chance she would target more furniture, we made the very heartbreaking decision to have her put down.  She had destroyed Helen's house peeing everywhere and we had done the best we could to give her tons of love, but given her age (18 years old) and her continuing behavior, we did what had to be done, as difficult as it was.  That was on the 2nd of January.  Jeff and I will now start the search for new recliners for both of us.  Jeff is so tall and has long legs, so finding one that fits him comfortably is not an easy task.

   The weather here has been pretty dreary, except for a beautiful day when it snowed.  I realized that this is how my emotions have also been.  Christmas made me acutely aware of the heaviness I was feeling due to not having Jeremy and Helen with us anymore.  Having to let Remmie go just added to that feeling.  It's like depression is right under the surface and if it was not for my medications to help stabilize my moods, I would spiral downward.  I can recognize it for what it is and know that I have to find a way out of it.  My home has suffered as I have had way too many days of just being in my recliner (before Remmie peed all over it) or in bed, and not getting things done.  I am determined to get things turned around again.  My moments of joy have all come from spending time with my family and I feel like I need to do more of that.  We used to try to get together at least once a month and do something fun.  It was something we all looked forward to.  I need to take the lead in bringing that back.  I have the tools to dig my way out of this, I just need to use them.

   Onto happier things, Monday Heather will be trying to secure us cabins for this Summer at a reservoir that we all like to camp at.  We do have a backup plan if the cabins get booked before we can get them. Reservations for that campground open up Monday at 9 a.m.  The cabins are air conditioned, which is something I need given it will be during the heat of Summer and I do not do well with the heat.  Maggie will be going with us and I will have someone come in to check on the cats and water the gardens and hanging plants.

   Jeff is off with Chris doing a police ride along this afternoon.  It is something that both he and Chris have been looking forward to.  I hope they are having a good time together and that nothing big goes down.  Honestly, I don't know how Chris can keep his cool when dealing with some of the people that he comes into contact with, but he is ever the consummate professional and always does. I hear about these situations because he will call me to decompress and not take all the frustrations home with him at the end of his shift.  I count myself blessed that he has chosen Jeff and I, along with his twin brother Josh, to do this with.  It just shows me how tight our family bonds are. 😊

   So totally random thought, but is anyone looking forward to getting those seed catalogs in the mail?  My thoughts are already to Spring and getting things started early in the greenhouse.  Of course I can't do any of that right now, but I do like to see what is out there, plan my garden and order my seeds so that I have them in my hands when it IS time to get going.  This year I really want to tuck more flowers into little niches in my food producing garden beds to add color and to attract more pollinators.  Jeff and I are also going to add a second composting bin next to the one we have now so that we can fill that one up and use the compost in the bottom of the first bin.  I hope that made sense. Last year's garden was a bust for the most part other than the tomatoes.  I had a glut of those!

   Jeff and I bought a Jackery solar generator to have as a back up for his CPAP machine if the power goes out here at home and/ or to take camping.  Jeff found a wonderful deal that included one set of solar panels for half of the regular price.  I researched the particular model and found that it had great reviews and would fit out needs beautifully.  It would also be able to power our pellet stove, so that would be a great back up for that also since it is only permanent heat source.  We do have a Buddy Heater with extra propane canisters on hand for emergencies as well.  Even though we bought it on sale, it was still a big chunk of money for us.  We still need to buy more wood pellets for our stove, had to pay a large amount on my life insurance that we had taken a loan out on years ago and now need to replace our recliners as well.  At the moment, we are sharing the love seat with the dog given that we got rid of our couch to fit the recliners in that space.  We have a very small living room so we cannot fit lots of furniture into it without it becoming super crowded.  Time to really get down to trimming the budget!

   I have been trying to eat mostly out of the pantry, fridge and freezer.  I do buy a few things like milk, eggs, bagels, fresh produce and the occasional fully cooked and marked down whole chicken from the deli section (which I can stretch into at least 4 meals), but the bulk of what we are eating is stuff that we already have on hand.  I am trying really hard to limit our eating out.  I will admit that both Jeff and I are really bad about this.  I have told him I have some big goals for saving money this year and I really need him to get on board with me since it will build up our savings up again and hopefully we can take some of that money and use it for a nice little vacation for just the two of us, possibly going back up to Canada where we spent our honeymoon and took our boys one Thanksgiving.  It is special to us and I really want to go and explore the Lake Louise area since we have not done that yet.  This year is our 40th wedding anniversary and we both wanted to be able to do something special to celebrate.

   I guess I should end this post here on this positive note.  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year!  Be blessed my sweet friends!