I feel inspired

I feel inspired by all of you because we had such a wonderful response in the forum from the last two posts.  My purpose was to learn if the economic problems were being felt in just the United States or around the world.

We didn't solve the problems but we know now that we are experiencing very high costs in many countries around the world. 

You all were so genuine and generously shared your experiences and difficulties and this is what we needed to understand where these problems are being felt. 

Have you ever seen a Nautical candle holder?  

If you were on a ship and the ship rocked side to side, the candle holder part that holds the candle remains balanced due to a loose peg that allows gravity to hold the candle steady.  

This reminds me to be flexible and so we can stay steady.  We do not need to be ridged so we can allow change to occur all around us but remain grounded. 

Everything changes every second of the day.  The seasons change, we are heading to the season of Fall here in the United States while others are moving into Spring. 

We often feel inspired when we move through the seasons because of change. The exhausting heat will be letting go soon (I hope), and it is as if we have gone through a battle of some sorts and now we are almost finished, at least until next time.  But each time we learn something, and the best thing we can learn is how to better prepare for when we do it again.

The same is in reverse with long hard winters and when the snow melts and the warm breezes start we are inspired to plant seeds but talk about what we will do differently next winter.

Now we need to look at those notes that we made last year from what we learned.  Each season we should journal what did I learn this season.

I change like the wind on projects that I do.  I have always wished that I could do that one thing that I can become skilled at doing.  As I slow down I feel that something will show up what I want to concentrate on the most.  

Right now my concentration is focused on our aging pets and they need more attention. I will try my best to balance like the candle that continues to stay upright and give light while the boat rocks back and forth.

Charles has been cleaning up the outdoor bath area, we let it go for a few years now with so much that has gone on in our lives. I see in this picture that I need to repaint the watermelon lady and pressure wash the wood to get it all prettyfied.  I have a funny story to tell you about this.  I had posted about our rain barrels recently, we just had some wonderful rain here and filled our barrels several times over.  

Since we are trying to reduce our water bill so that our sewer bill will reduce if we reduce our water.  Charles thought this would be a good time to start the outdoor bucket baths again using the rain water. We heat our water in the yellow enamel pot and we have a dipping pitcher of sorts to dip the water and pour over our body, soap up real good and then use the rest of the water to rinse off the soap.

I have been busy working on the budget and laundry and things like that and have not been paying a lot of attention to Charles outdoor projects.  I am pretty much out of commission on outdoor activity when it is over 85 to 100 degrees.  

Late yesterday Charles said he was going out to bathe and so he had been awhile and I went out to see if he needed anything but he had just finished up bathing.  He was all fresh and clean and  just put his clothes back on.  

We have had some crime in our area and actually someone running from the police had hidden in our neighbors back yard and crawled under his shed. This happened awhile ago and we have had other crimes close by. So we put security  camera under the carport and rain barrel area. The unused cluttered bath house was a bit concerning so Charles had put one there and during that time that space was used to store some of his outdoor project equipment.  

I looked up and noticed that the security camera was on and instantly knew that Charles had forgotten it was there or he would have moved it, I too had  forgotten it was there.  As I was looking at the camera and realized that he had just bathed I asked, "Charles did you know that the security camera was on?" I could see his look when he looked at the camera, I couldn't help but laugh.. He said we need to delete that! I turned around and started heading quickly back to the house and said, not on your life! 

As I mentioned in other posts, we continue to watch the new version of All Creatures Great and Small on our DVD player which is our 1940 movie theater (pretend of course for the 1940 study), and it has helped me so much. It puts us at ease and since it is about the late 1930's and 1940s it fits into our study. It does not matter how many times we watch it over, we see something that we remark about. We feel that we are watching family. 

I have to admit that I am now jealous of you all that live in England and get to watch the new series that is just starting this month.  Beware, I may stalk you for information!  Please share with me about the show. Just a few paragraphs in an email will help to hold me over until it reaches the United States.   

The budget took a lot of work getting ready for retirement.  We are living on the retirement budget now, but Charles is still working. We need to be experienced before we start. The 1940 study has helped to put into perspective what they did not have that we have now.  

It may seem like overkill to some, but we like to journal most everything and this is what is working for us because we have it now to where we know where everything down to the penny. We can keep up with grocery item prices, what we spent and how much we are under or over budget.  We track when and where we paid a bill, how much we paid for gasoline, we can finally keep track of that mail from Medicare and insurance and when and where we paid our co-pays and how much we paid.  The house book records anything we have done to the house, repairs, changes, the names of anyone that has worked on the house, their numbers so we can call them again if we need them.  Notations of things we need to do ourselves, what was spent on a work project.  An address section to grab quickly for a plumber or electrician and things like that. 

The books help us see what we need to do to reduce spending even more and we are going to look for lower rates for phone and internet.  We do not have a lot of things to reduce since we live a frugal life already but we are finding that we are not as frugal as we thought after I watched some ladies doing grocery spending challenges on you tube which the grocery challenges seems to be a growing thing. 

The Master book records everything that was spent and a brief description of what it was spent on.  The Grocery book is the itemized prices spent at the grocery store to keep up with how much food costs. It is only food costs, household supplies is separate so we can see what we are spending on household needs and to see if we can reduce that spending.  We shop once a week at this time and when we get home, sometime that day or evening I record the spending in the books. 

If we live in small house, we have to fit into our space, The same goes with the budget, if we cannot afford something we don't have it.  We have had to let some things go including our few subscriptions. My genealogy research will go much slower now since I will be dropping those subscriptions.  

This is our new resident Henry.  I almost walked into him out in the back yard, Henry seems to be hiding behind the web. I gasp at the sight of these spiders.  I forget the name of them, they are very large and make a large spider web. They have signs up at Landmark Park to not touch them or knock them down, at least the last time I was there they had signs up and the names of the spiders. 

I was looking at the ginger in a grow tank while I was walking and jumped back just before I walked into this one because it was only waist high.  I told Charles about it and showed where it was so he did not walk into it. I said that we needed to give him or her a name and at the same time we said "Henry". So Henry it is.  

We have a wonderful community in the forum, everyone is so kind and respectful and we are learning from each other just by simple conversations and realizing even though we live far apart and in different countries we live very similar. 

Maybe from this post we can talk about what changes you are experiences in your season that is soon to change or changing.  Do you have different meal plans when you have seasonal changes?  How can we keep holiday meals more budget friendly?  Since we live in different countries, do we have differences in the food that we eat? This should be interesting to know.

I hope that you find something in this post helpful or encouraging.  

Grandma Donna