It's Been a Busy Week!

It's still hot as Hades...in fact we set a few records over the past week.

But the sunsets are still fabulous...

And I saw this guy on my walk today...

Our lemons are just about ready to pick...

And we had several guests over the past week (don't get me started on seniors and stairs, senior falls, senior driving issues, senior forgetfulness...it was quite the interesting--but fun--time with a house full of elderly people visiting us!).

I will be glad when the presidential election is done and over with (don't get me started on Kamala's braindead economic policies like this and this, her braindead interviews, and the Dem's general dislike of the Constitution like this and this).  Ugh

Finally, here are a whole bunch of good safety tips!

10 YouTube Channels

Here are 10 YouTube channels to take a look at...

1. Buzz did a good update on trying to live on only Social Security (it looks quite challenging).
2. An FYI about the possible dock strike (FWIW we did a bunch of shopping today to stock up on food).
3. Frugal Finneas has a tiny, new YouTube channel but I like the efforts he is making to be frugal.
4. One of my favorite frugal YouTubers is Prepper Princess.
5. And my favorite weather guy is Ryan Hall.
6. I can't believe I have been watching Saturday Night Live since the late 70s!
7. Another favorite channel is the Geography King.
8. And Chef AJ always has good health-related topics on her channel.
9. Ask Leo! has a very informative channel on computer tech.
10. Finally, one of my favorite channels for daily, high-level news that mainstream media doesn't usually cover is S2 Underground.

Grocery Shopping and 5 More Things

Our weekly shopping trip to the local grocery store (Albertsons) cost a total of $36.78.  Nearly all of the items were on sale and while we don't usually eat canned soup and boxed cereal, for 97 cents each (soup) and $1.47 each (cereal), these are a good standby if we are sick or don't feel like cooking.  Things we don't use after a year get packed up and sent to the Philippines.  Note the picture is missing four bananas which I forgot to put in the picture.

Five more things...

1. The government is giving out more free covid tests at the link here.
2. The cats still haven't shown up and it has been more than a week.  I hope something good happened to them (someone turned them into house cats) and not something bad (coyotes).
3. We will probably do some extra shopping at Costco and Sam's Club this weekend as a looming port shutdown could have a drastic effect on what we will be able to buy at the stores in the coming months.
4. We are fortunate that our friends and family in Florida and Georgia are fine but it was pretty scary watching Hurricane Helene from the viewpoint of the stormchasers. Yikes
5. Tomorrow (Saturday) is National Public Lands Day (and free entry day to the National Parks). 

10 Things from This Week...The Mildly Annoyed Edition

In no particular order...

1. Food prices are still ridiculously high (who pays $7+ for 12 ounces of potato chips????).  
   
   
   
2. People are still annoying AF.  I've lost count of how many times people drive like lunatics, or come to an immediate stop when I am walking behind them at the store so they can do something on their phone (they don't even pull their cart to the side, they just stop in the middle of the aisle so no one can pass them and do stuff on their phone without even noticing other people might need to go down the same aisle as them).  Grrrrrr
3. And then when we went to leave this morning, someone was parked blocking our driveway.  I was on the phone with the tow company when the guy comes down the street and gets mad at ME because I was going to have his car towed for blocking my driveway.  He didn't apologize for blocking my driveway, just stomped over to his car muttering that he wasn't blocking anything and drove away.  Double grrrrr   
   
   
   
4. Also, the cats are missing.  We haven't seen them for four whole days and we have no idea where they went.  I was hoping they would return after a few days with their ears clipped which means they had been caught, fixed, vaccinated, and returned to their colony but so far there have been no sightings of them which is very sad :(
5. We are also worried for a few family members who live in Florida, right where the cyclone/hurricane is supposed to hit.  If any of you live in this area, please be careful!!!
6. On a better note, we have been laser focused on paying off the house and being more frugal than we have been.  I ran across these frugal tips, many of which we have done for ages.
7. Work is still great if not a bit overwhelming at times (a last-minute project came up...along with a 246 page guidance document for it...ayayay).
8. My friend sent me the name of a guy she was going to meet up with that she found on a dating app and wanted me to check out.  You would be surprised at how much OSINT information is freely available on the internet about everyone.  I told her to skip this one as a simple search turned up a couple of divorces and several domestic violence arrests.  Eeekkkk
9. I know a half dozen people who have been furloughed or laid off over the past couple of weeks.  One person every once in a while, is normal, several at once is really concerning!
10. Finally, from the 'this election is absolutely bonkers' file, we are stepping up our preparedness tasks just in case.

5 Things from Today

In no particular order... 

1. These are some scary looking pumpkins!  Or maybe they are some sort of gourd?
2. Look up in the sky tonight--it is the harvest full moon and partial lunar eclipse!
3. Today is the first day in several months that we didn't need the AC on 24/7.  We had the doors open all day and didn't turn on the AC until early evening.
4. For some reason, we have suddenly started going over our 1TB internet limit.  I'm not sure what has changed but I need to investigate this (apparently this happens to other people too).
5. Finally, a couple days ago, the cat came inside and ate (we don't like to leave the cat's food outside because the pigeons eat their food), then the cat hopped up on the chair under the kitchen table to take a nap.  A few minutes later I heard chewing and thought the other cat came in but when I looked, it was a pigeon that came inside the house to eat the cat's food!  I was flipping out, the bird was flipping out when I came in the kitchen, and the cat jumped off the chair, slid around the flapping bird, and bolted out the sliding glass door.  The bird was repeatedly slamming itself into the slider trying to escape so I grabbed a broom and pushed the door open wide so the bird could leave.  That was too much excitement for me so now we let the cats come in to eat then shoo them out the door so we won't have any more unexpected visitors!

10 Things from This Week

In no particular order...

1. It looks like some of our stores have zipped right past Halloween and are now on to Christmas?!?  I prefer to enjoy each holiday as they come, not some four-month long mega-holiday :(
2. I think we have seen the last of our 100+ degree days for this year.  It sure seemed like a very long, hot summer, but now the weather is so much cooler and nicer.
3. On the flip side, the past few days have been a sea of yellow haze in our area due to the California wildfires.  I didn't even walk for a couple of days because the smoke was so heavy in the air. Yuck
4. Politics is awful as usual.  I like Eric Weinstein's take on politics (he is brilliant but I think we are all doomed).
5. We will have guests coming and going for the next couple of months so the upcoming week will be lots of getting thigs ready and buying a lot of food to cook for everyone.
6. Work is wonderful and busy.  I am glad that I have this job now that I am older rather than when I was younger (I did the same work before, but in the background so I didn't have to deal with people).  There are so many personalities and politicking to deal with it is exhausting sometimes.
7. We are back to wondering if we should buy a new house and move or not.  Our new neighbors appear to be tweakers who are annoying in several ways (I hate to think of the condition they will leave the rental house in when they leave as the owners seemed to take such meticulous care of it when they lived there).
8. We found a new restaurant and it was exceptional (great service and their yellow curry was sublime).  So now Weera Thai is on our favorites list!
9. I am still morbidly fascinated by the rattlesnake cam.  I am not a fan of snakes but as long as they are on the other side of the camera, I find them interesting to check on every morning.
10. Finally, here is a cool bird migration website.  It even includes bird migration maps and data specific to your own area (apparently 16,000 birds flew over my city last night as they migrated south!).

10 Random Things

In no particular order...

1. From the looks of our stores, it's time for Halloween!
2. But it is still over 100 degrees here (it is very late in the year to be so hot!)
3. The Presidential debate is this evening...I'll have my popcorn ready.
4. Only somewhat related, September is Preparedness Month so...prepare accordingly.
5. This was a good video from Buzz on the first year after retiring.
6. We tried out a new restaurant yesterday that hubby found on YouTube.  The food was just OK (which is often the case when YouTubers rave about new restaurants) but the waitress saw me making a short video of hubby and the food when it came out--to send to his sister who always asks us about the restaurants we go to--and at the end of the meal the girl said she gave us a 10% YouTuber discount(?!?).  FWIW, we aren't in any way YouTubers.
7. Speaking of restaurants, some years ago when we could get lunch for both of us for around $10, we would leave a $3 tip and be good with that.  These days, lunch for two is $20 to $40(!) so the tip is exponentially higher for basically carrying out a few dishes.  Even worse, when the bill comes, it often has suggested tips printed on the bill that go up to 50% of the bill!  Blech  :(
8. I haven't been shopping (except for the Goodwill) for a few weeks.  There is just nothing I need or want to buy.  So today I walked over to the shopping center on my daily walk and went to Ross and Target and was...very underwhelmed.  Both stores looked understaffed, checkout lines were long, inventory was sparse in some places...retail apocalypse?  Yikes
9. Speaking of shopping, lots of Big Lots stores are closing.  It's always sad when a store that has been around for ages goes out of business. 
10. On the flip side, I am paying off our house as quickly as possible.  Each week when I get paid, I go to the bank that has our mortgage and pay several thousand dollars on the principal.  This week when I went to the bank, the teller did a double take look at her screen and said "wow you are paying off your mortgage so fast" and she clapped her hands.  I've never had a teller clap for me before so that was a bit odd.  Once this debt is paid, I never want to have any debt--car, house, consumer--ever again!