Monthly Archives: January 2024

January No Spend Challenge Is Complete

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My No Spend Challenge – January edition comes to a close today. In all, it has been pretty easy even though I have spent more than planned and shopped more than anticipated. You can read my last update here.

Meanwhile, here are some things to note:

  • Eating out was heavily curbed this month. I did end up eating out more than I liked because it was either that or go hungry for hours. In one instance, the power went out while I was working from home. There was nothing to pack for lunch when I had to dash into the office to work that day. Unless I wanted to take a can of green beans or something random – I guess that would have worked! That said, food on the go amounted to under $50 for the month. 
  • Supporting small businesses that I like is an act of service in my mind. That’s why I ended up buying two books at Wheatberry in Chillicothe and spent about $17 at Peddlar’s Junction, a vendor mall in Athens. That was for an adorable hand carved wooden owl, a great old hammer for my fella, and a set of vintage salt and pepper shakers representing the Washington Monument and US Capitol Building. I had admired them before and they were on clearance for $1. Like I could turn down such a deal when I really wanted them. 
  • Car vs. Deer in early January caused almost $8,000 worth of damage to the Nerdmobile. I was perfectly happy to shell out my $100 deductible to liberate my car from the garage and get me back on the road in my own wheels. 
  • Groceries. Man, can we talk about this for a minute? I needed a lot of stuff at the grocery store last week and wanted a few more things that I simply refused to buy because sticker shock wouldn’t allow it. Six dollars for some sad, wrinkly strawberries is not a deal. I’m looking at you Kroger. Produce in general has been overpriced, even by winter standards, and it’s not in good condition when it hits the shelves because it IS winter and it is shipped so far to get here. When I started doing this no spend month challenge back in 2018, I could get by with under $20 for groceries every couple of weeks. That always included some produce, eggs, and whatever random thing I needed to cook with the random things I already owned. Now, it’s more like $100 and that doesn’t include a lot of extra fun stuff. Tell me, how do people afford to buy potato chips and frozen junk foods? Yikes! Anyway, no spend month or not, I don’t compromise my health and bought plenty of nutritious foods to fill in the gaps with what I have in the freezer and pantry. 
  • A Valentine’s gift for my fella. It’s our first Valentine’s Day together and I hope he likes what I picked out. 
  • My Book of the Month membership charged me for a credit to get a book this month but I didn’t redeem it. So I did pay but didn’t shop for a book. That credit will be waiting for me when I’m ready to shop with it. 

That’s about it. 

In past years, January was much more austere and I followed the rules much more closely. I would never have stepped foot in Wheatberry or bought the carved wooden owl. I would have perhaps planned better by keeping an apple and a granola bar in my bag so I wouldn’t have to stop for fast food. I bought one bottle of water while out this month. That wouldn’t have passed muster even three years ago. In all fairness, it was the day I hit the deer and my reusable bottle was left in the car. I needed hydration so this was more of a health issue than anything else. 

I have also been out to eat and to the movies a couple of times on my fella’s dime. I typically drive because I enjoy it and he always wants to pay for whatever we do. This has been a hard thing for me to accept but it seems to bring him joy. Five years ago, I would have said no to these gifts as it goes against the grain of what I am trying to accomplish but these outings have felt like special occasions and they haven’t tempted me to go out and do more stuff. In other words, I’m swallowing my independence and enjoying the fun with someone I never expected to find in this lifetime. 

All told, I’m pleased with the month and I’m pleased to carry on in February with some planned exceptions. 

I will continue to focus on being home, feathering my nest, decluttering and doing things I enjoy. Life is so good when you like your home and have time to stay there and enjoy the quiet, restful period we call winter.

Self Care Sunday Isn’t What It Sounds Like

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Yesterday was Self Care Sunday in my world. That doesn’t mean I sat on the couch and ate chocolate while watching a Golden Girls marathon. Although, a day with Dorothy, Rose, Sophia and that endearing hussie Blanche would be hard to resist. 

Instead, it means that I spent the day doing things that will make my life better or even easier in the coming workweek and then spent some time writing, reading and doing quiet activities that bring me joy. 

I slept in and caught part of the CBS Sunday Morning Show, an important one as they honored longtime host Charles Osgood who passed away this week at the age of 91.

Charles … yes, we were on a first name basis – Charles was my absolute favorite television news personality of my lifetime. Cultured and witty, never crass or cruel, he had a voice that made me feel like I was sitting down with an old friend. He looked for the good, the interesting and the untold stories in the world and I have missed him every Sunday since his retirement. 

Next up were two chores that I simply haven’t had time or energy to deal with lately – clean the bathroom and Scout’s litter box. These are not difficult chores but they do require mental preparation that I sometimes can’t pull off during a busy workweek. 

I let Robot Bob do some vacuuming. Scout likes to oversee this process and it freed my time to do a little straightening in other areas. Clean sheets and clothes washed, dried and returned to where they belong is a gratifying feeling, especially when you slide into a freshly made bed!

Afterward was some light exercise. I’m still babying my knee a bit but it felt good to move and stretch. I also feel better about myself after any kind of exercise. A walk in the woods is always best but anything will do on a rainy day. 

Then it was back to the kitchen to do some meal prep. There’s nothing worse than coming home after a long workday to remember you still haven’t won the lottery and there still isn’t a personal chef waiting anxiously to learn if you prefer broccoli or asparagus tonight. Oh, the disappointment! 

So I roasted veggies, made some fish and experimented with overnight oats. I don’t like oats but am trying to learn to like them in the interest of being a healthier me. This has been an ongoing struggle for most of my adult life. We shall soon see if I cracked the case this time!

I also worked on my budget and gathered items for tax preparation. 

See where I’m headed with this? Self care is many things. For some it’s a Tuesday night massage, lots of moisturizer and sleeping in. For me, it’s often a morning in the woods, a day in an antique mall or a road trip to a destination unknown. However, it can also be lots of unattractive things batched together over a few hours to make the next few days more pleasant. 

It was about 4:30 when I finally sat down to read.

Was the house perfect? It was not. No indeedy, I didn’t dust but I did vacuum the dead stink bugs out of the window sill where they collect in the living room. Having that done made my heart happy and mind relax just a little more than normal. 

While in the kitchen, I was able to keep an eye on the dozens of birds flitting about the feeder. I put a bird feeder in the line of sight of my kitchen window last year and it has brought me great joy. It’s on a metal shepherds hook at this time but I would like to eventually have something taller and more permanent placed in that location to make it harder for the wandering cats in the neighborhood to grab one of my visitors like it’s dining at the Ponderosa buffet. 

But that’s a project for another day’s list. 

Instead, I kicked back on the couch with a book and my journal, with Pandora on my favorite oldies station and rain hitting the windows. Later I switched gears to PBS to watch All Creatures Great And Small, the very best show on tv these days. 

This, my friends, was a perfect day of self care because that’s how I choose to view it. The work had to be done anyway. I couldn’t go another day without emptying Scout’s litter genie. I needed to cook some food and wanted clean clothes ready to go for the week. Yes, it was work but I chose to view it differently. I chose to view it as a form of preparation to make my week better, to make myself feel better. And I still had time to relax and kick up my feet with a snack and to do the fun things I looked forward to enjoying. 

Self Care Sunday. I should do this more often!

First Thing, According To Pooh And Piglet

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I have been ransacking my bookshelves for an antique copy of A.A. Milne’s Winnie The Pooh that I know is hiding somewhere in this house. That’s because I keep stumbling into quotes by this British author and I think the tale of this funny bear and his little friends would be good for me. 

Last night I giggled at this:

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”

What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”

“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.

The last few weeks have been more exciting than normal but not the right kind of exciting. I did thousands of dollars worth of damage to my car by hitting a deer a few weeks ago. My mother was sick, dad had outpatient surgery, work has been busy AND my rental car had a flat tire yesterday. A knee injury has kept me limping into the chiropractor’s office for weeks. I also bled all over my kitchen after slicing open a finger with a serrated knife Saturday night. I probably should have sought stitches but there was no way I was venturing out to the hospital, the place where they keep all the sick people.

I have enough problems as it is. 

Despite this spate of poor luck, there’s a flip side to every one of those stories. I wasn’t injured in the crash, my deductible is low, my folks are ok, I am gainfully employed and my rental car flat was at home rather than along a lonely highway. My knee is doing better and I didn’t bleed to death in my own kitchen.

See? Sunny side up. All things to be grateful for.

Plus, breakfast will be in a few short hours and, as Pooh would say, that’s pretty exciting too.

Your Monday Pep Talk

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It’s Monday. It’s cold. The weekend was short and the week ahead will likely be long. Odds are you’re feeling at least a little tired, perhaps somewhat broken and overwhelmed. In the interest of not wishing our lives away by hoping the days will move quickly, I offer you this quote:

“You are worn and cracked and dented. And that is okay because I have never heard of a clean and shiny sword that won a war.”

Erin Van Vuren, Writer

Go forth, my friends. Do what you must to find joy in each day. Go to sleep every night satisfied that you did your best. Remember that tomorrow is a beautiful new day and one waiting to be discovered. You can do this – despite those cracks and dents.

A Simple Sandwich Bag In Dreamsville, USA

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If you were an American soldier during World War II and were transported by rail, the journey could be long and the passenger cars cramped. If you were leaving home for the first time to be sent off to a training camp or to one of the coasts to ship out, odds are you were nervous, homesick and scared. 

If you were fortunate enough to travel the Pennsylvania Railroad between Columbus, Ohio and Pittsburgh, your train stopped for water at the Dennison, Ohio Depot for about five minutes. That doesn’t sound like much time but it was plenty of time for volunteers in Dennison to make such an impression on the soldiers they would nickname the place Dreamsville, USA. 

Today, the story of what went on here at the nation’s third largest World War II canteen is told at the Dennison Railroad Depot Museum. This is a significant landmark especially since the other two largest canteens  – in North Platte, Nebraska and New York City’s Stage Door Canteen – are gone and mere memories.

On New Year’s Eve 1941, Dennison resident Mrs. Lucille Nussdorfer witnessed several trains full of soldiers stop for only a few minutes before moving down the track. She said the young men on board looked hungry and tired. She told others that something had to be done to raise the morale of the troops and to show support for the war effort. Before long she was mustering her own army of local politicians, organizations, housewives and anyone else willing to help. 

And help they did. 

Over four years, nearly 4,000 women volunteered to make sure that no soldier left Dennison, Ohio without feeling the gratitude and kindness they hoped would be extended to their own fathers, brothers and sons. 

Every soldier received a cup of coffee, sandwich, fruit and dessert like a cupcake or cookie. Sometimes there were magazines, chocolate bars and packs of gum too. It was all free. 

If the troops weren’t permitted to get off the train, volunteers would board the train to pass out food, sometimes getting stuck until they reached the next station several miles away. Yet no soldier left Dreamsville empty handed and volunteers contributed the best they could make, buy or find. Whether it was peanut butter or ham, these volunteers made sure their boys were well fed. Some received Christmas presents. Some received the addresses of pretty girls who would be their pen pals. At least one set of these pen pals were eventually married. 

This museum has a lot of fine items, photos and quotes on the wall that tell the history of the Dennison Depot including the contributions of this canteen. However, there was just one thing that stopped me dead in my tracks and it is something that I will always remember as the most important item in their collection. 

It’s a sandwich wrapper made of wax paper and printed with a holiday message from the Salvation Army. But it’s more than that. It’s a monument to how important these canteens were to the 1.3 million troops they entertained and fed. All told, 13 percent of American Armed Service personnel during that time passed through Dreamsville.

According to the plaque beneath this sandwich wrapper, a gentleman showed up at the museum during the 50th anniversary of World War II and donated this artifact. He was one of the troops who was given a free sandwich during a stop here. He kept the bag, carried it with him through the war and kept it for the next fifty years as a symbol of the generosity and care and respect he received during his brief visit here. 

Imagine what that must have meant to him, what it must have meant to all those individuals who benefited from the amazing things that went on at this depot and in this small town. And why did all those troops get the royal treatment that can only be found in a small town? Because one woman saw sadness and hunger among young men who were serving a cause much larger than themselves and she decided to embrace another cause that was much bigger than herself. 

Never underestimate the power of one person on a crusade. Never underestimate the strength of a woman with a passion for service. Never underestimate the significance of a simple sandwich bag to someone in need of compassion. 

As an aside, kudos to this museum for labeling everything so clearly and for telling the stories that humanize history and leave you excited to know more. I recently visited the Ohio History Center and realized that our state’s historical society does an absolutely terrible job with this very thing. Every time I think about that, I remember the Dennison Depot for doing so much better. 

After all, history is about the people – not the presence of an artifact. The story here isn’t just the sandwich wrapper. The story is about the man who saved it, who kept it safe and who wanted to bring it back for generations to know how important this place was to him. It’s about the woman who saw a need and who convinced others to follow her. It’s about the people who worked together to make something magical happen that is still inspirational these eighty years later.

Without knowing this story, it would just be an old piece of wax paper with a Salvation Army holiday greeting on it. With the story, it lends insight into a world that would otherwise be lost to time. What a difference!

Finally, SNOW!!

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After weeks of lamenting the absence of any true winter weather, we finally received a nice snowfall Thursday night. I measured about four inches yesterday morning when I went out to feed the birds. Additional snow filled the air off and on for the remainder of the day and I was grateful for each and every small flake.

I was also grateful to be working from home yesterday so I could just sit back and enjoy the coziness of home. 

Since it was a workday, I didn’t make it outside much but Scout did station himself in the window sill to keep tabs on everything outside. There were swirling snowflakes to study, birdies to track and a stray cat to keep an eye on. He would occasionally tire from his responsibilities and come sit with me for a while. His naps were short though as he periodically returned to the window to stand sentinel over this brave new world covered in white.

I spent my lunch break and then the evening hours doing some light chores and savoring that sensation of being snowed in.

My Facebook feed was clogged with indignation from friends who hate snow and winter and anything that isn’t representative of summer. There was also odd bragging from friends in southern states because they’re eating outside this week. I have never understood these people. I more or less want to smack them all upside the head because they’re missing the point of having a winter season.

It’s good for us.

Nature puts itself to bed for a few months of rest every year. Why shouldn’t humans do this as well? 

We weren’t made to keep up a breakneck pace all the time. I don’t know about you but I’m excited to have this excuse to slow down and to enjoy the life I have rather than one that’s mainly social media ready and exhausting.

I am grateful to be where I am and to have a chance to snuggle down in the covers for a long winter nap!