Good news, bad news again.

 Good news is, medicare woes are just about finished. Jon was able to get an appointment with his MediCal doctor and get his prescriptions refilled/changed. Doctor agreed his lungs were tight and he wasn't breathing well. No shit sherlock! We were lucky when he called for an appointment they had a cancellation for today (he called on Friday or Saturday) and he jumped on it. So he now has a pill and inhaler for his asthma and...doctor said his blood pressure was a bit high and him being overweight, got him on a pill for that as well. He needs to get some bloodwork done before she starts with the diet and exercise regimen. Other good news, his four prescriptions, two inhalers and two pills only cost about $4.60, one of them was only .24! Thank the system for having this in place, even though it sucks being in an income bracket that we need it I'm thankful that it makes it affordable.

Bad news, got another letter from SDGE that I owe $1833 and need to have it paid up in four days or start a payment plan or get cut off. I sent them $100 but the payment plan needs 366 as a down payment and then $125 on a monthly basis for twelve months. I don't have that. Yes I looked into their programs for helping pay the bill but never was contacted nor did I see any sign of reduction in our bill. It may have happened and I didn't notice it but never got any indication anything happened either.

I'm walking about twenty minutes (3/4 of a mile sometimes a mile usually) three times a week when I pick up the boys, doing ten wall pushes every night and doing my gardening. With the way our budget is for food, getting healthy things like more veggies is problematic. I spent all of my $55 from EBT on two different food purchases on the first of this month. Everything else we needed came out of my regular money and with all the other bills, getting really thin. Another piece of sort of good news is Jon canceled his Hulu account so that isn't causing an overdraft fee and saving him about $50 a month. Hoping he gets his money this weekend. I got a letter saying my pay date would change but he hasn't gotten anything. Hoping it does change though, make paying bills a bit easier. 

So other than that, same old thing. Knitting up a storm with hats, getting pretty good at two different patterns. The weather is definitely now into fall temperatures which oddly enough is part of the issue with Jon's breathing I think. I've also been cooking as much as I can with what we can get. Not sure if we'll get to the bigger food bank this month. The website hasn't updated for the next one on the 16th yet.

This was an italian style dish using turkey from a turkey breast we got before Thanksgiving at the food bank, canned tomatoes, bell pepper and the only macaroni other than spaghetti was elbow but it was incredibly tasty! Got some pasta sauce the next day and Jon added that in for leftovers and it was even more delicious!

Last nights dinner: two boxes of Zatarain's Red Beans and Rice doctored up. Cut up a smoked sausage, fry that in the dutch oven with a little bit of oil, sauteed the bell pepper, garlic and onion, toss the meat back in, follow package directions for cooking it up and when it was done add in a can of rotel (I got a huge can for making salsa so used half that). It called for margarine or butter in the water but figured the oil I used and the grease from the sausage was good. Well it was just a tad too spicy and I remembered some cooking tips about adding butter to mellow out flavors. Used a heaping tablespoon after it finished cooking and it was perfect! I put shredded colby/jack on mine, Jon had seconds which is a sure sign it was delicious. I had leftovers for dinner tonight. I do try and make enough for leftovers but sometimes it's only enough for one meal. As it is I get a package of about eight or ten chicken thighs and pair them up in baggies so we have four or five meals worth of chicken. I bought the 5lb chub of hamburger from Kroger as a 'splurge' ($20) but was able to divvy that up into six portions so there's six meals for beef. Only thing that's really out of budget is anything like steaks or roasts.Even stew meat is only one meal and can't find that very often either.

I keep seeing ads on my facebook feed for Omaha Steaks and how they have a $99 steak deal. I remember my mom and dad filling a standing freezer with half a side of beef portioned up into every way possible. I don't know how much that cost in 60's money but I know it's so way out of my budget.... and space to keep it. Another thing on my dream list of things.

Something else in the hobby dream realm is yarn I've also been seeing on my feed. There's a small independent dyer called Arcane Fibre Works that operates out of Alberta Canada. The man who runs it does videos on how they do different dye batches and then show how they turn out not just twisted into skeins but knitted up as well.

He uses pictures/photos as inspiration for color sets. It seems to be a flat price since I'm in the US at $25 a skein (plus shipping but buy two skeins and free shipping). About average actually compared to other companies but it's still on a dream list. I have bags and totes full of yarn right now I'm trying to get through. Would I love to have these? Yes. Do I absolutely need them, no. I have three skeins a friend gave me as well as dozens of balls of sock yarn and so much more that I need to work through first. What I really need are my knitting pattern books that are somewhere in storage.

Yes, Christmas is a time where gifts are things that you wouldn't normally spend money on but I have learned a lot about patience and doing without the things that 'feed my soul' as Jon calls it.

I am extremely happy he was able to get new meds today and with time it should help him sleep better. When he sleeps better I can sleep better also. When Medicare kicks in next year I'll be making an appointment for myself as well hopefully with the doctor I saw previously. Will see what happens.