Quick update

Quick update for y'all. My doctors had to lower my newer medication's dosage back to the original amount temporarily, as I started to get some really bad side effects. The theory is that, hopefully, our 90+ degree temps and heat indices were combining with the usual side effects to provoke extreme stress on my body. I am now working on stabilizing myself back at the lowered dosage, and we'll try raising it again in another week or two during a cooler weather spell and see how things go.

I will be working or in transit to/from work quite a bit the next few weeks. I am projected to work 17 of the next 21 days, with several days requiring me to walk to and/or from work due to hours scheduled and/or no buses on holidays, so I will be online sparingly, mostly to check e-mail, news, weather & check in briefly on Facebook, as I can do that on the breakroom computers during breaks at work (whereas I cannot check in on Blogger there).

I still don't know if we're approved for the manditory refinance of our home which is part of the manditory conversion from co-op to condo. They're now saying "second week in August" which is really frustrating, as this process has been dragging on for months now. Also, we may be required to go through the appraisal process all over again, which is pissing me off. We already did this! If we closed in August, it would be 6 months from the time of our initial, prelimary application to the closing, but I doubt it will be done that soon, as it is being very incompetently handled and people are being cranky butts about all sorts of stupid stuff and not focusing on the important thing; getting this stupid process done and over with. In the meantime, mortgage rates are going up, no one can be locked in on their rates yet, and we're all stressing about this enormous headache of a co-op conversion. Note to anyone considering converting their co-op to a condo; my experience has been nothing short of a headache. Additionally, the conversion company has "lost" my personal information, including SSNs, work history, etc., and cannot find it, so who knows who could have access to it and be trying to ruin my good credit using my personal information.

2009? It Sucks!

We're neary halfway through the year and, I have to say, 2009 has not impressed me a whole lot. I think I'm ready for 2010 already. The one real high point has been getting Streak but, other than that, it's been a pretty bad year all around. I am tired, exhausted and overwhelmed all the time. It's partially complications from all the health issues, and not doing as well as I should, however it's also due in part to the fact that a lot of crap just keeps happening. To give you an idea of what this year has been like, here's a sample of the last four days worth of crap:

• Called co-op's conversion contact person to check on status of our conversion to a condo and to check on the status of our application. We were informed that they ran the application only in Nicole's name (however, they did pull my credit report, too). Was told that we could not apply for a mortgage jointly as we were not a married couple, and two friend cannot do this.
  
  
• I screamed a bunch about discrimination, fair housing acts and threatened to get my lawyers (specialists in real estate law) involved if they tried to pull any of this crap on us. They back pedalled and said that my info was "lost". Was probably somewhere at the main office in New Jersey. My personal information which I had given to them, including Social Security Number, employment history, etc. Everything a scammer would love to have if they wanted to do identity theft and attempt to open credit in my name.
  
  
• Made appointment to officially submit our application to the financing company. That pre-approval application they had us filed previously? It was for no reason. They weren't going to use it, hadn't done anything with the info except pull our credit and lose my info. Had to scramble around to dig out statements, W-2s, info on former employers, etc., to bring info to application.
  
  
• Called Meijer and submitted refill requests through their automated phone system for two prescriptions. I am in the process of trying to get info on how to submit my 90 day prescriptions the doctor just wrote for these two older prescriptions to a mailorder company my insurance company seems to use exclusively (my benefits specialist said any pharmacy could fill 90 day orders, but a survey of local pharmacies shows that is not the case, and we must go through the one company). Unfortunately, our benefits specialist has this info and is on a couple week long vacation, so I have to wait for her return to do this.
  
  
• Went to pick up prescriptions, but was told they only received the request for the one refill (nevermind that the computer was supposed to submit the two as a batched request and had never had problems doing so before). Waited around for them to fill my second prescription.
  
  
• Picked up my two prescriptions and paid the full amount ($60) for them. Went home and, as I had 2 more days worth of pills for both meds, did not open them up at that time.
  
  
• Went to open my pill bottles. Opened Cozaar, the prescription that they'd had to scramble to fill last minute. It had 10 pills in it, but should've been 30. I pay $51 for a 30 day fill of this prescription, so I was pretty stressed. Pulled out the manditory drug information sheet that comes with the prescription. Stapled to the info sheet for my Cozaar was a yellow piece of paper with the following on it:
  

  Sorr for the inconvenience, but we are temporarily short on your medication.

  
  Following that was a list of my name, RX#, the prescription's name and dosage, and the date. Then there wa the following on the form:
  

  We owe you 20 at no charge. The balance should be in by:

  
  Nothing was filled in. After that was a note: "Please call the pharmacy before coming in and bring this slip with you. Thank you." No phone number listed, and the phone number I use is just for the automated system, so I will have to try to find a human contact number on their website. I'm wondering when the pills will be available? Trips to Meijer are not that easy as I do not have a car and either have to pay 1/4 an hour of my pay and spend 2 hours to get it via bus (or walk 6.5 miles round trip), or I have to try to coordinate an overlapping time in my schedule with Nicole, which is not always easy. I think we'll be able to do it on Monday. I hope they have the Cozaar available then.
  
  
• Went to the loan application employment. It was excruciating for me, as I have been a loan officer and if I'd been as much of an incompetent fool as this lady was, I would've been demoted or fired. We had to watch her constantly to make sure she included all info, and had to argue with her a few times to make sure she didn't throw things out in her stupidity. She almost forgot to list $5,000 in one of my retirement accounts in the retirement funds assets section. She almost forgot to list one of my banking accounts (the one with the highest balance, naturally!) in my assets. She used a hunt and peck typing method, but was slow and stared at all the info with an expression rather resembling that of befuddled chicken before slowly entering it on the computer. She kept second guessing what she was doing and double checking, which didn't make us feel any more confident in her limited abilities.
  
  How she handled gathering info for the ECOA reporting on us was like a "how not to do it" lesson. She looked at us sideways and said "you're not Hispanic or anything, are you?" suddenly out of the blue, when we were in the middle of a conversation about how long it would be before we found out of we were appoved or not. It was clear in her mind that she was ignoring our questions and moving on to something else, but her timing of the question made it sound like it'd take longer to process if we were Hispanic. Nicole started to look upset at the question, so I quickly told her "it's for the ECOA reporting", reminding her that I'd told her she'd probably be asking us this info, and she calmed down. If I hadn't been quick on my feet, I think Nicole might've started getting angry at her and denouncing her for discriminating against Hispanic folk.
  
  
• The end result of the application is that we felt a little more likely to be approved, but still not certain. And we still do not know when we'll know if we're approved, how we'll be notified, when we'll know how much our unit is appraised for, when we'll close if we are approved, how much exactly they will roll in as extra fees (last estimate was $5,000), etc.
  
  
• I checked my insurance company's website and found that they're doing an initial refusal of payment for my recent cardiology appointment, my echo, blood tests, etc., and they want to bill me over $2,000 for my routine visit. I need to dig out my notification of coverage from Blue Cross Blue Shield so I can present it to them as proof that there was no lapse in coverage and try to get them to cover part of my costs. If I am lucky and they'll accept it and allow that, as a higher risk individual I am allowed such luxuries as a pneumonia vaccine, monitoring of my blood to make sure my meds aren't messing with my electrolytes, etc., then I will only have to pay....OK, looking it up now....shoot, it's more than I thought! Probably somewhere between 3 weeks and 4 weeks worth of take home pay. I have just over 2 weeks worth of take home pay still stashed in my flexible spending account, so I will only, probably, have to use a week or a week and a half's pay to pay for the rest of it. Once this is all sorted out and paid I will "only" be required to pay for 20% of the costs of any additional, non-prescription, medical stuff required for the rest of the year, as I will have exceeded my $1,300 deductible, and insurance will cover 80% of it.
  
  As I have to do another round of doctor's visits, echos, blood tests, etc., in November, this means I will have to pay somewhere between another week or two weeks of pay for my required contribution on my medical expenses at that time. Given these costs just for routine monitoring of my condition, I am really not sure how I will be able to save up to pay the nearly $5,000 I will have to contribute towards my defibrillator when the doctor deems it necessary to install that. I can not really afford the meds and deductibles and copays as it is. Doing a quick calculation, to pay for my bronchitis and flu treatment, my routine meds necessary to keep me alive and functioning, my two manditory sessions with the cardiologist and all the lovely equipment to monitor my condition and make sure I'm not about to keel over and die, roughly 1/6 of my income after taxes are deducted will go to pay for my medical expenses this year. This is with me skipping the routine doctors visits I should have, not following up on an eye problem I really should get looked at, etc., because all my money has to go to cardiology stuff, etc.
  
  
• In addition to this, in the past four days I've had two episodes of feeling dizzy, lightheaded, unreal, chest pain, nausea and/or extreme sudden fatigue where I was not certain if I'd be able to muster up enough strength and energy to keep standing and working. It sucks that I am paying a couple months worth of income each year for medication and treatment and I am still feeling so damn awful all the time, I'm just also really broke, too, in addition to feeling like crap. I'm having a lot of wild, sudden fantasies of just dropping my meds, discontinuing medical treatment, etc., so I would not be so broke and would not have to deal with both side effects from the meds and feeling like crap from my conditions. Sometimes, lately, it really feels like it might be worthwhile to take the risks and just live my damned life, not be so broke, and be prepared to be trading in a couple extra years of life for less monetary stress, less medicine side effects, less stress surrounding doctors visits, test results, etc. I'd feel like crap, but I already feel that way now. I'd just be feeling a bit worse and be at higher risk for sudden cardiac death from the arrythmias and tachycardia, but I wouldn't be so stressed and broke and constantly, constantly running figures trying to determine how the hell I am going to manage to pay for everything.
  
  Getting another 2 months worth of post-tax pay back each year would allow me to enjoy life a little. Right now I survive, I struggle a lot, I enjoy a few small things, like my dogs or garden, or silly quizes about whether I'm a potato or not on Facebook, but I am overall really not enjoying my life. My life is about making money to pay for medical treatment to extend my life a little longer so I can make money to pay for more medical treatment....this sucks. My life is not in existence merely to support the U of M Cardiology Center and subsidize their existence! If I had those two months worth of pay back each year I could maybe do stuff I enjoy. Maybe I could actually do something as radical as scrouge up enough $ to fly to Houston to visit my friend Ruthie, or fly to California to see family I haven't seen in a decade. Visit Alaska again and meet Zoya and John's daughter. I might be able to pay for a cab ride home on days I am too tired to walk home and the buses are not running any longer.
  
  But, on the other hand, I am 31 years old, and I should not be having to make these quality of life decisions...deciding whether to forego treatment to have more money to help give me a better quality of life, and so I only have to deal with symptoms from my illnesses, not illness symptoms plus medication side effects plus side effects from being stressed about being broke. Plus, no more dealing with pharmacies and having to declare war on them, have temper tantrums and kick their doors, yell at their techs, etc.
  
  Today I am really feeling the fatigue setting in from too many side effects of multiple medications, too many issues due to my medical conditions, too much stress from being broke, too much extreme stress from having to have no life at all because all of my money goes to keep me alive, etc. I am stressing about how to pay for past medical stuff and future, even more costly, medical stuff. Government aid would not be available to me, as I do not make minimum wage or anything, and work full time and am a single lady with no kids, etc. And I'm not yet sick enough for disability. With my conditions I will probably manage, for most of my life, to stay just well enough to not qualify, while being pretty close to sick enough that I really should be on it.
  
  
• I've also been trying to convince myself to withdraw my investment monies from my retirement funds, but have not been able to bring myself to do so, even though I've been trying to convince myself to do it for the last 6 months. It's just that, breaking into the retirement monies is like this psychological milepost in the road which says "when you reach this point and do this, it is 100% proof that you are acknowledging that you will not live to retirement age, and can you bring yourself to fully acknowledge and own up to that fact now?" I'm having a hard time doing that. I'm also greatly disliking the fact that I'd have to lose so much of my money to taxes and early withdrawal penalties. It's not a tiny sum, but it isn't a real large one, either. But it might be enough to put a sizeable dent in my debt, put some money in the emergency fund, and be enough to higher medical costs related to my probable future defibrillator implant. I've been thinking about this a lot the last few days, but I am still to scared to do this.
  

Yeah. So that's what just the last four days of 2009 have been like. Most of the days prior to this have not been much better. I am feeling pretty cranky and broke and run down and exhausted. Angry and frustrated at the incompetence I've had to deal with lately and tired of the stress that is adding to my life. Wishing that all the money I spent on medication and testing and doctor's visits would make me feel better than I do. Wondering why I keep plodding along on this futile path, not feeling any better, yet tithing vast sums of my income to a medical establishment that knows so little about my main condition they can't even be sure what is the right type of treatment for someone with my illness. I haven't seen my mom for a year, or my stepdad in over 7 years, and I miss them and do not know when I'll get to see them again. If I wasn't so broke, I'd say that at the very least, I think I need a vacation, but I cannot afford that at any time for at least the next two or three years. I would say I should head back to bed and get some more rest and maybe I'd feel a little better, but I have to leave for work in a couple of hours, so that's not possible. I'm tired of being so exhausted and cranky and broke and frustrated. And I really, really hate 2009 so far. I haven't really had a good year since 2005 or 2006. Since then it's all been tons of medical issues and stress and overbearing bosses and quitting stressful jobs in favor of ones I can better do with my issues, yet being more broke as a result, etc., etc. And I'm still sick, and I'm paying tons of money and just keep getting worse and I am hating this.

Strawberries!

What's that in the "Creepy!" bowl??



Our first picking of strawberries for the year! 23 lovely little berries, or 7.2 oz of strawberry goodness.



Both the strawberry plants and the berries themselves are much happier this year with our new protective covering on our small strawberry bed. We'd originally planned to yank out the plants in mid summer and use the space for a fall crop of a different foodstuff instead, but we've changed our minds after seeing how the plants are thriving without chipmunks and squirrels busting in and digging among their roots. And I believe we haven't lost a single berry yet to the vermin. My new bed cover is fabulous! Instead of ripping the plants out, I think I'll encourage the new runners to plant and remove the old crowns as they become less productive. The variety of strawberries I am growing produces less runners than most, but does usually put out an average of one runner for every other plant each year.

I survived inventory (yay!), but did have a run in with the police on the way. Apparently, two very tired and cranky girls in a red Kia pulling into the employee parking lot at a health food store at 1:45 AM are suspicious characters, and obviously there to loot and pillage, not there to count an inventory of 5 million tiny items and record their findings. We received the full flashlight in the eyeballs and "what are you doing here?" queries. Once the policeman realized we weren't a threat he toddled off into the bushes, causing my coworker and I to bust up laughing...apparently our arrival interrupted his potty break...

Puppy Playdate

For those of you who cannot get enough pictures of wild and crazy pups at play, here are some pictures from our playdate at our friend Lauren's house, with her dog Abby. Mostly the pups played, raced and chased, wrassled and nommed on each other, but we did do a tiny bit of training...most notably, Streak was introduced the regulation sized agility tunnel (collapsed down to a shorter, straight tunnel for ease of comprehension):

And after much encouragement, demonstrations by the other dogs, and treat rewards and praise this was the result:



Yay! Streak in the tunnel! So far, she seems to think this agility thing is pretty cool, especially when there are treats and praise involved.

Of course, Clara Bow was not to be outshone by her big sis, and had to show off a little herself, even if the tunnel isn't her favorite piece of equipment:



A girl has to retain her Agility Queen title and cannot let her upstart sister even think she has any aspirations to the crown. Clara Bow is far too competitive to let that happen.

Streak got in quite a few mad sprints and enjoyed herself thoroughly. Clara Bow enjoyed the nomming and wrassling, and Mack enjoyed it all. Much fun was had by all the pups!





















































I'll be MIA in Blogland for the next few days, both in posting and in commenting, as work will be taking over for the next little bit. I'll be working 24 hours in a span of 46 hours. Somehow that doesn't seem like it should be legal, to be scheduled for 50% of all possible hours in a 48 hour span from Saturday afternoon to Monday afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed that I will be able to make it through and will not be passing out as a result...That said, I'm off to set the alarm and attempt a small nap before I have to leave for my shift today, as I did not get as much sleep as I would've liked...

Schedule = Suckage

Tell me what's wrong with this picture?

Meg's Work Schedule:

Sunday, June 7th: 11:30 AM to 8:00 PM
Monday, June 8th: 2:00 AM to 11:00 AM

On Sunday, the last bus leaves my work at before 5:30 PM, therefore I would have to bum a ride off of someone who was leaving work at 8:30 or 9, or I'd have to walk and expect to get home at just before 10 PM. My boss scheduled me for this pair of back to back shifts. Luckily, I managed to find someone to switch with me, so that my time between shifts won't be quite so terribly short, but in my opinion I shouldn't have to scramble to get someone to switch with me. And even my switched shift is really not good enough, as I won't be able to get as much rest as I'd like, as much rest as my body needs. But at least that is better than the schedule I was originally given.

I should not be scheduled such a terrible combination of shifts. In essence, in a time period of 23.5 hours I would've been working 16.5 hours, and had two half hour lunch breaks, leaving me exactly 6 hours to commute, sleep, eat, etc.

I "corrected" my work schedule to make it a more humane combination of shifts, but it is still a pretty bad combo of shifts. Let me just point out that 4 weeks ago I was scheduled to work almost the same shift I am now scheduled. I worked on Sunday until 4 PM and returned the next morning at 2 AM, and after the first 8 work hours of my second work shift went by, I nearly passed out. As in, too little sleep in too short of a period of time, two straight shifts on my feet the whole time, too much work an not enough rest, plus a heart problem meant I was no longer functional. I lost my ability to stand, I went deathly pale, I had chest pain, and had to spend 5 minutes sitting on the floor, as I was incredibly dizzy and felt like I was about to lose consciousness every time I attempted to even kneel, let alone stand. When, after 5 minutes, I was able to finally stand and walk, I could not walk in a straight line, I was so shaky and "off" that I felt like I was walking straight but, instead, kept crashing into walls. I had to be driven home from work when my shift ended half an hour later as I was too shaky still to be sure I could make it to the bus stop, and from my home bus stop to my house. It was incredibly scary.

If it happens again this weekend, especially if it happens when I am scheduled for an inventory shift I was not asked to do, an inventory shift which is one more shift than I was supposed to work (we're all required to work 3 inventory shifts at some point, and I fulfilled my quota last month), i.e., basically an inventory shift I would not have volunteered for, I will have to insist upon calling an ambulance and going to the ER. It felt that scary.

With my low ejection fraction, my heart problems, tachycardia, irregular heartbeat, etc., it doesn't pay to try to be a "good girl" and go back to work instead of getting it checked out if I have another episode like this. With my heart function being below normal, and yet my heart is already having to work super hard, harder than the average heart due to structural abnormalities, just to keep me alive, it doesn't do to put undue, extra stress on it. But, since I am required to put this extra stress on it, due to terrible scheduling of shifts I did not volunteer for, and cannot opt out of, I pretty much plan to raise a bit of a stink if I start to show signs of potentially serious health problems as a result. When you have lower than normal ejection fractions, serious heart problems like Non-Compaction Syndrome, plus tachycardia and arrythmias, the odds are way too high that you might not be able to push the heart back into a normal rhythm when it gets out of wack (hence the need to a defibrillator, as I mentioned earlier), so this is not something I am going to mess around with. If I feel like crap, I will demand to leave to preserve my health, and deal with the work-related consequences later, if necessary.

As it is, I am really, incredibly worried about how I am going to manage the "improved" schedule I have now that I switched with my coworker. It is not enough rest time/away from work time over a 3 day period, but the lack of rest/downtime between shifts is more evenly spread. In theory I should be able to handle it, but after last month's episode I am,understandably, a little freaked out and worried. This is what my revised schedule looks like:

Saturday, June 6th: 2:45 PM to 10:30 PM (then walk home, so arrive home between 12:10 AM & 12:30 AM)

Sunday, June 7th: 9 AM to 4:30 PM (no bus in the AM, and for my cardiovascular health I am not doing any non-manditory exercise right before my crazy shift combo, so I have to leave at 7:40 AM in order to catch a ride in to work with Nicole...and my bus home is at 5:26 PM, so I'll be getting home around 6 PM)

Monday, June 8th: 2 AM to 11 AM (my ride to work will pick me up at around 1:45 AM & she'll be giving me a ride home after we both work inventory, so I should be home at around 11:15 AM. That is, as long as inventory doesn't run significantly later than usual. I'mtechnically scheduled to work 2 AM to 10 AM, but we have been required to work until at least 11 AM each month so far, so I am anticipating that'll be the case this time as well...but it might be longer...)

Keep your fingers crossed that I'll be OK and will manage to make it through! I know people my age should not have serious problems with wacky schedules, and we should be able to work them and have the biggest problem be that we're really tired and cranky, but I am just not that lucky. And I am really worried about this combination of shifts. Even though my new beta blocker (Carvedilol, AKA Coreg, for those of you playing at home) is fabulous and makes me feel signficantly better, it is not a wonder drug. It will not make me become a healthy lady. I am still sick, and I still have to be extremely vigilant to keep myself healthy enough to get by.

Posessed!

Clara Bow, in the backyard this evening. She manages to make any mundane activity look really weird, even just doing a quick shake.

A Bit o' Housekeeping

A quick note...I will be working 7 out of the next 9 days and I ended up with a rather disappointing work schedule which conflicts pretty badly with my city's bus system. As a result I will be walking home from work 5 days during this 9 day period and walking to work one day, leaving me with only one workday in which I can take the bus both to and from work. As a result, I will be online rather spottily, especially since I still have some significant garden work to get done. If I'm MIA at times on blog comments, Facebook, or Twitter, don't be surprised.

That said, I better head off to bed as I have to leave for work in less than 6 hours...

Cooking Up Something Special, 1971 Style

The solar cooking was a success and the garden work was partially completed (it was interrupted by a quick moving thunderstorm which appeared out of the blue). I have photos from the solar cooking, and a few of the garden to share, but first I want to share the project I was working on during the thunderstorm.

While it stormed outside I was thumbing through my old 1971 Betty Crocker cookbook and realized it was too good not to share. When my mom got married to her first husband (no relation to me) in 1971, his mother gave the following cookbook to my hapless mom. She used it to help build up her skill level at cooking, and passed it along to me when I moved to Michigan 10 years ago.

As much as I love to make fun of The Betty Crocker Universe, it does have some good basic resource information which is helpful. If I was an appropriate 21st century girl I'd pop online and look up basic cooking info when needed, but I'm pretty old school insofar as I prefer to dig out a book and look it up the old fashioned way, if I know I have the info in a book.

But that's not why I felt compelled to share the cookbook with you all...I felt the need to share it because it is a true oddity...the weird time warp cookbook where they try to impress 1950s housewife mindset on you with a cookbook done in a late 60s/early 70s style. And you can't beat the Indoctrination In the Cult of Betty Crocker propaganda photos....That said, here are the highlights from the book:

It's orange! And there are muddy "earth tone" colors in the design! And there's fondue! It's so dated that it's fabulous.



The table of contents cracks me up...."Woo! It's easy! You, too, can cook my sister! All mysteries will be revealed on the pages listed here..."



Yo! Be a Betty Crocker Clone and everyone will love you! Even the kids!



Respect the Betty Crocker Kitchens....or die...



Only the best for Betty Crocker and you....if you cook using our recipes and techiques your kitchen will be magically transformed into this fabulous mega kitchen!



Wee! Terrible retro appetizers alert! The best of the bunch pictured are below...



Of course, you gotta love the cheese balls, but my favorite one is this guy:



Petals 'N Pickles?! WTF?!? It's as scary as Hell.

I also adore the tragically weird table settings. Oh late 60s/early 70s, how glad I am that I was not around to have this aesthetic inflicted on me. The 1980s were bad enough:








Stylin!

But, wait, don't go away....there's more. This treasure trove of a cookbook also contains scraps and snippets of recipes, some handwritten from recipes given by family or friends, others were pulled from magazines. This is my favorite one, courtesy of the 1970s California Oregon Washington Dairymen (love the non-PCness of it...DairyMEN! Of course I like to consult the dairyMEN for my recipe needs):



I also want to point out that I present the above advert as proof that my cheese obsession is genetic. I should've photographed the reverse side of the ad as well...it proclaimed that smoking is hot, hip and good for you....

I Miss Alaska

I'm having an "I Miss Alaska" morning....it's solidly springtime right now in Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley and there's nothing I'd love more than to be there right now, exploring. Instead, I am stuck in Michigan, exploring my photos from my winter 2008 jaunt to Anchorage, Girdwood and the Mat-Su Valley.

I mean, how can you not fall in love with a place where this is the view once you step out of downtown and are no longer surrounded by high rise buildings?



And there are birch trees....and even roads named after Mack!



Did I mention that I love the Alaskan birches?



Yup, I'm definitely a member of Birch Trees Anonymous.

And there are crazy roads like this with breathtaking views:



And magnificent glaciers:



And you have views like this from rest stops along the highway:



I kid you not...this was taken at a rest stop:



And then there's Palmer, a more rural, smaller town version of an "Ann Arbor of the North".



And with the sort of surrounding views we can only dream of in Ann Arbor (and, not to knock Ann Arbor, 'tis a pretty place, but it cannot compete with Alaska!)

And there are cool parks...



And the best food I've ever tasted...



And even on grey, gloomy and misty days, when you're driving along the highway, it still manages to be pretty.



And mountains...and all the trees...



And cool street lights...



And wild and crazy sprint Huskies like Mack are a common sight...



And it's just so darn pretty everywhere you look...even just driving down the road...



I seriously miss Alaska and wish I could be there right now....but a trip there is seriously out of the question for quite some time. It looks like possibly next year or the year after I'll have to have an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator implanted, which will be a costly procedure. My cost will probably be roughly $5,000 with insurance picking up the rest of the cost. Any/all spare money will have to be socked away in preparation for this medical procedure, therefore there will be no trips, no money spent on items I'd like to have, but do not desperately need (translation: I will have to continue to live with a mattress on the floor as my bed, as I cannot justify the expense of a bedframe when my floor bed works perfectly fine), etc.

Hopefully I'll be able to post more later, including a pupdate (a pup update, for those not fluent in Megspeak), and possibly some gardening photos. I may even be able to solar cook as it's pretty sunny right now with only an occasional cloud...I'm off to check the weather forecast to see if it's feasible!

I'm So Special, I Get To Be In Textbooks

I'm trying to look on the positive side right now, after my cardiology appointment, and the positive items I have to add to my list include:

• I'm such a special case that I got 20 minutes of free, extracurricular echocardigram imaging done (3D and all...the good stuff!) because they want to use my images in medical classes and in textbooks. I get it in my files, and yet I don't have to pay a cent. Aren't I lucky?
  
  
• I finally got my pneumonia vaccine I've been meaning to get.
  
  
• My cardiologist rocks. And is as willing to fight hard to keep me alive and functioning as long as possible. That may sound like a "normal" doctor but, trust me, I've been assigned cardiologists before her who wrote me off as a "soon to be dead girl" and wouldn't come up with treatment plans for me.
  
  
• I get to be at the head of the line for any/all flu vaccines in the future as I am in the super high risk group, along with the octagenarians, chronically ill, et al. There will be no vaccine shortages keeping me from getting vaccinated!
  
  
• I only have to wear a Holter monitor for 24 hours. Last time I had to wear it for 48 hours. It's itchy, somtimes painful, and you can't take a shower or bath when wearing it.

Umm, yeah, that's about it. Other than the positives I highlighted above, this morning's session at the cardiovascular center really sucked. What did I learn today?

• My heart function is worse. There are lots of people with worse heart functions than I, but I fell out of the range of "low end of normal" for my Ejection Fraction reading and now am in the level of "sick people" heart function level. That sucks.
  
  
• I can no longer be technically diagnosed as just Left Ventricular Noncompaction because it turns out that I have this problem in both the left and right ventricles. I guess that makes it Biventricular Noncompaction...I've read about it, but it's not as common as Left Ventricular Noncompaction (and that's really saying something, as LVNC is about as common as a pink spotted dinosaur). Like my left ventricular problems, the deep trabeculations in the right ventricle are particularly evident in the ventricle's apex. The left ventricle is still the star of this show of medical mayhem, as it's the one that is the wackiest and causing the most problems.
  
  
• To paraphrase my cardiologist: "we don't know much yet about noncompaction syndrome, but we have noticed that both people with ventricular noncompaction and other cardiomyopathies that have both arrythmias" (which I have) "and lowered ejection fraction" (which I now have) "are at a much higher risk."
  
  
• Basically, I am at a much higher risk of just plain old keeling over and dying from the heart shorting out and stopping now. How are we planning to handle this? My doctor is doing the following:
  
  
  
  • Adding another medication to my list. I am now on 4 daily heart-related meds, if you count the manditory 81mg of aspirin to reduce my "significantly higher than average" chance of blood clots, which may cause strokes. This new medication is the best possible chance to raise my ejection fraction. I hope it works.
    
    
  • She will be doing another echo to check out my heart function in November. As my health insurance only covers one per year, I will probably have to pay for it entirely out of pocket (it will cost approximately one week's take home pay for me).
    
    
  • She will be seeing me again in November as well. We might be switching over to a more frequent monitoring of my condition.
    
    
  • My doctor is doing a 24 hour holter monitor to get a good overview of my current frequency of tachycardia, extra heartbeats, irregular heartbeats, so she'll have a better idea of my level of risk, etc.
    
    
  • It is highly probable now that I will need to have a defibrillator installed at some point to regulate my wonky heartrate. At my last appointment this was merely in the realm of "possible", so this movement to now categorizing it as being in the range, instead, of "probable" and "something we'll need to consider seriously" is scary.
  
  
• Another point I have to make: my GP and cardiologist have been super happy the last couple of years that my readings have remained mostly pretty steady with little or no worsening of condition. Today's echo shows that my condition is definitely worsening, so now we're getting into a more scary area, a rather unknown area. No one knows how fast my condition will worsen, or if the new pills will help, or anything. We're in the big, fat "unknown" area of Noncompaction Syndrome. Most of the people being written about and studied with this fall into two categories: in really bad shape and close to dying, or technically have the condition but aren't manifesting many (if any) symptoms yet. Since I've been diagnosed I've always been in this weird middle ground of having symptoms and possible worrying signs, but having overall OK cardiac function. Now I'm slipping closer to the "sickos" group, and I hate that. And the medical folk are very, very interested in me, as I am in a weird class of noncompaction folk they never see. I might be able to provide some "missing link" clues between the two groups, especially if other patients are discovered and documented as going through similar stuff. I feel a little like a bug in a jar at times.
  
  
• I'm kinda pissed at myself because, between all the worrying about my lowered Ejection Fraction and the whole "probable defibrillator" talk, I forgot to ask what my pulmonary pressure was. As my Noncompaction syndrome caused a low level of secondary pulmonary hypertension, I like to keep track of my pulmonary blood pressure. It usually tends to run at the lowest levels for people with pulmonary hypertension, but it is still significantly higher than that of the "normal" population. I want to make sure it hasn't gone up, too. As my cardiologist only had a couple of minutes to quickly review the video of my echo (my echo was immediately before my appointment with her) and consult with the overseeing physican, I doubt she had time to look at all the measurements in great depth, as this is one number I specifically wanted to know. Now I will have to wait until the 2 page, typed report of my echo is mailed to me.
  

So, final result of all this? We have more signs that the body isn't doing well, and may be starting to fail me. I am in good shape overall for someone with congenital heart problems and secondary pulmonary hypertension because I eat well, exercise regularly, do all the right things I am supposed to, etc., but my efforts can only do so much, and my heart and lungs have been working so damn hard for so damn long just to do the normal "everyday" things like circulate blood and oxygen throughout my body. They're getting a bit tired right now, especially the heart, and that is to be expected....but we'd kinda been hoping the magical heart would keep plugging away at a better functioning rate for longer than it has. I was diagnosed with noncompaction syndrome exactly 2 years ago, and was told by the first cardiologist (the bad one!), that studies showed people usually live 5 to 10 years after thediagnosis. I was/am hoping for a helluva lot longer than that, but there's only so much the rest of me (i.e., the non-heart) can do towards extending my lifespan. The heart is the weakest, most messed up and overtaxed organ I have right now. I hope the new medication helps, but I am not going to pin too many hopes on it being the magical thing which will make things significantly better. At best it may help some, enough to put me back closer to the low end of "normal" again.

And, in other news, I promise to y'all that I won't go into my crying and kicking temper tantrum at the Meijer Pharmacy this morning in great detail. Let's just say that they royally screwed me over, pissed me off, charged 150% of the normal retail price for my new prescription, refused to give me my prescription back, refused to fill the prescription for the specified 90 days (despite the fact that my work's benefits specialist said the health care company would allow it, Meijer insists they do not) and, not only did they change my 90 day prescription to a 30 day one, they changed my prescription availability from 12 months worth of pills to 5 months worth. Entirely randomly and of their own volition. I hate it when pharmacy wonks think they have power over me and can screw with things they have no control over. Needless to say, my voice was raised, a door was kicked, there were tears and some sobbing and I was pretty pissed. I still am.

I will be transferring my prescriptions relatively soon, as I think this was the final straw for me. Bad customer service I can handle, but grossly overcharging for a prescription, refusing to fill it as written or give the prescription back to me so I could take it someplace which could, and randomly screwing with my prescription to greatly reduce the number of refills really pisses me off. Meijer Pharmacy has now lost me as a customer, and their retail division may loose my custom as well, as I am that angry.

A Couple of Quick Vids

The pups had a fun play session outside this morning. I shot a couple of quick videos, including a capture of Miss Streak doing a little bit of Husky vocalization (her "play with me!" sound which is half bark, half Husky yodel):

And here are the girls doing some wrassling, racing and chasing in the yard (the cars you see are the lawn care folk's cars...several of the guys quite enjoy watching the pups' antics while they get ready for the work day):



For those of you who may be curious what Facebook looks like in Pirate English, here's a sample screenshot taken while I was uploading the above videos to Facebook (by the way, the video quality is better on the Facebook uploads, so for those of you friended on Facebook, view them there if you want a little better quality)



Click the above photo for a full view if you'd like to read the text. Yay! I love me some Pirate English.

To Do List

It's my weekend! Yay! Finally! This past 7 day work week has felt super long...like it was a 10 day work week instead. I now have today and tomorrow off and I have a lot of things to do. The most time/energy consuming of them are gardening related as we're almost at our "last frost" date and I feel confident that I can now plant out the hardened off seedlings and direct sow items I was afraid to do last weekend with the forecasted below freezing temperatures we had last week. To help organize the Meg, I thought I'd post a Ruthie style to do list of items I'd like to get done over the next two days. Here's the list:

• Solar cook brownies
  
  
• Do my first attempt at a mostly solar cooked frittata
  
  
• Photodocument the solar cooking project
  
  
• Hardboil eggs for egg salad
  
  
• Make egg salad
  
  
• Plant out seedlings tomorrow
  
  
• Direct sow seeds
  
  
• Plant out potatoes (I am a little late on this one!)
  
  
• Photograph the garden
  
  
• Sort through the 90 photos from last night's doggie photo shoot & upload the best ones
  
  
• Install new printer cartridge
  
  
• Wash laundry
  
  
• Hang laundry to dry
  
  
• Watch "The Good Fairy" DVD I have from Netflix and return it
  
  
• Make frozen veggie/fruit and water ice cube treats for the pups
  
  
• Make a batch of Kong glop for the dog (fish flavored kibble, mixed with hot water, a can of rabbit flavored canned food, some shredded zucchini pieces from last year's garden & apple pieces....can I say yuck)
  
  
• Stuff and freeze 24 Kongs
  
  
• Possibly work on another photography project I have in mind
  
  
• Brush the dogs. Again.
  
  
• Make a specialty bread for lunches for next week
  
  
• Make list of items to discuss with cardiologist
  
  
• Go to echocardiogram appointment
  
  
• Go to cardiology appointment
  
  
• Do dishes
  
  
• Read new book during the heat of the day (it's supposed to be 86F/30C today!)
  
  
• Finish moving furniture in bedroom
  
  
• Install doors on wardrobe (they've only been sitting in my living room for 4 months +....)
  
  
• Get caught up on reading blog posts & message board posts
  
  
• Upload garden & solar cooking photos
  
  
• Dig out produce scale
  
  
• Move room air conditioner unit upstairs for use on super hot days to cool the Huskies
  
  
• Download 2 most recent linecook podcasts to listen to on Monday's commute (no bus due to holiday = Meg is walking both ways & deserves a treat!)
  
  
• Kiddie pool playtime in the backyard with the pups this evening (maybe introduce Streak to the game of bobbing for apple pieces in the kiddie pool?)
  
  
• Mend Clara Bow's crate bed cover (she managed to unstitch the side seam)
  
  
• Put away clean laundry
  
  
• Mend pants hem which is coming unsewed
  
  
• Sew on missing buttons and tighten existing buttons on winter coat
  
  
• Hopefully write and post blog entries in re: last night's dog photoshoot, solar cooking & the garden

The solar cooking might not come off, as our lawn care folk like to monopolize the lawns all day long (even though they just mowed them yesterday....). If they decide to monopolize my lawn all day today I cannot solar cook as the only good sunny spots are out on the lawn, away from our big trees and the house. I could attempt to solar cook tomorrow, but it should be a less than ideal day. Plus, the cardiology stuff and commute to/from the appointments will take a big chunk out of my day.

Looks like I have a full plate the next couple of days, so I better head off and get started. I hear the lawn care folk arriving already (they park along the street behind my house 4 days out of the week), so I better take the pups out for our morning trip!

Sweet!! Pirate English!

I just discovered that, in addition to the regular English version of Facebook, there is a Pirate English language setting on Facebook. My Facebook is now talking to me entirely in Pirate English. This is fabulous.

Also in the category of "terribly unimportant, but highly amusing" is this video:

In the category of "this makes Meg happy", I place the following statement:

After working 7 days straight, walking 4.65 miles home on three of the days, while simultaneously doing tons of work prepping the house for our appraisal "in my spare time" I am finally on my weekend.

Also cool....I passed my monthly produce PLU test with flying colors. A perfect score on all fruits/veg I was tested on yet again. This girl seriously not only can identify produce on sight, tell you whether it is conventional or organic (without looking at an identifying sticker!), but she can also tell you the exact 4 or 5 digit code which corresponds with that particular piece of produce. Apparently I am winning some sort of award for scoring 4 or 5 straight perfect monthly produce PLU tests in a row. They haven't determined what the prize will be just yet, but my boss said they're trying to get approval for a gift card of some denomination...

Which reminds me....don't go to the grocery store with me unless you are OK being seen in public with a weird redhead who mutters produce PLUs under her breath for all the produce people ahead of her in line are being rung up for. Yes, indeed, I am a queen dork and spout the numbers automatically as soon as the item is picked up for weighing...

Edited to add: Ruthie's awesome husband shared this with me and it is great....I love me some Gilbert & Sullivan style covers of songs....but when they're performed with a backdrop of my favorite version of the Pirates of Penzance (with Kevin Kline!) that is even better:



Thanks for sharing, Russell and Ruthie!

Partial House Photos

After our massive house cleaning marathons the last few days the house looks pretty decent. Well, everything except our bedrooms and the basement, all of which look like they could use another 12 hours or so of cleaning. That said, I thought that this would be the perfect time to take house photos to share with y'all. I tend to complain a lot about the fact that my house value is probably now less than my mortgage amount, and the fact that the co-op (soon to be condo) is pissing me off on a regular basis by all the jerking around of the co-owners, etc., and I tend to forget just how incredibly cute my house is, and how much I really do love it. Ruthie's recent photodocumenting of her home renovation work and her zillions of fabulous photos of her cute new home have been reminding me a lot that I, too, have a cute, tiny vintage home which I love!

That said, here are the photos of my lovely home. Photos are in the order they were taken (meaning rather random order...sorry about that!)...enjoy!

First we have my lovely upstairs hallway. I have a split level home, and the hallway was tiny, ugly, and totally unused space when we moved in. We jazzed it up with some paint, cute knobs on the linen closet, and a pair of IKEA bathroom cabinets repurposed as hallway cabinets and came out with a cute, bright, happy little hallway. Incidentally, the wall color here is the color of my kitchen at my previous house....e used the dregs of the paint left over from that project. It does quite nicely here.



Above is the view if you are standing in the bathroom looking through the doorway into the hallway towards my bedroom (the door at the end of the hall). And, yes, our towels there on the left clash horribly with the bathroom's color scheme...oh well!



This is the view from Nicole's bedroom looking directly out the door at the linen closet. Originally the linen closet doors were a cheap, dark wood which sucked all the light out of the hallway like a black hole. We primed and painted them this beautiful bright green (leftover paint from our living room which goes nicely with the pale green hallway paint) and the hallway was instantly made much cheerier. Enjoy the view of Nicole's room as this is the only shot incorporating any of her bedroom. And, yes, that is an old school iMac you see on the right of the photo. Like my room, her room is seriously not fit for public photos at this time, so this is all you'll get. Maybe later we'll do a bedroom & basement photo series?

Oh, yeah, and the cute little rag rugs you see in the hallway are our famed "Charleston" rugs...so named because they feel so good on your feet, like a little foot massage, that they make you want to do the Charleston on them (and I'm not even much of a dancer, so that's saying something).



This is the view from Nicole's doorway looking past the IKEA hallway cabinets and towards the living room.



Above we have the view from the living room, looking up the short flight of stairs at the two IKEA hallways cabinets. The white door you see a sliver of just to the left of the cabinets is Nicole's bedroom door.



Here's a close up of the cabinets....



...and above is a shot of what they look like when open. They're pretty small cabinets, but they can hold a lot!

And now on to the bathroom...



Above is the overview shot taken from the hallway. Our bathroom is tiny....5 feet by 6 feet (I kid you not!).



The previous owner redid the tub and tile surround, gifting us with this cute border in our shower.



One of our lovely vintage-inspired towel racks and our matching toilet paper roll holder.



Overview of the vanity, toilet and over toilet cabinets. All cabinetry from IKEA courtesy of our remodel 5 years ago. This bathroom originally had a ginormous vanity which went all the way out to the door frame, making the bathroom extremely crowded. We tore it out (it was rotting anyway!) and installed our current slim profile vanity. Much better!



Floating wall cabinets over the toilet. I still can't believe the house did not have any sort of over toilet cabinetry originally. In such a tiny bathroom you need to use all your space wisely! I love these cabinet doors (they're the same ones on the vanity and the hall cabinets). Too bad IKEA discontinued this design, as it's very quietly pretty.



This is the view if you're sitting in the tub. As I said, it's a tiny bathroom! I do love it, though. I am incredibly proud of our DIY remodel job on this bathroom...we did a fabulous job!



I'm sad because we'll have to replace the above lights with something more humidity-resistant in the next couple of years, but I still love these lamps we picked up at Lowe's when we redid the bathroom 5 years ago.

Now on to the living room....



This is the view of the living room from the top of the stairs. Our living room has these super high ceilings, which is awesome in summer as most of the heat hangs out up top and we can stay cooler better down in the lower part of the living room. The living room tends to be pretty cold in the winter, though, even though we have good cold/heat insulating curtain liners!



Clara Bow's couch, one of our many bookcases, and the corner of one of our crates (with the usually junk on top...the crates attract junk like honey attracts flies!



A better shot of the bookshelf, with our beautiful blue back door also included in the shot.



Next to the back door, right behind Clara's crate, we have the following pretty lamp and photo....for those who do not believe I am absolutely obsessed with the 1910s/20s/30s actor Richard Barthelmess, be prepared to be proved wrong. This is the first of many Richard photos in my house. And, yes, it is an actual vintage photo and was not cheap! It's a still from the 1930 version of "Dawn Patrol", one of my favorite Richard talkies (I went all the way to Washington D.C. via Amtrak once to get a chance to see it on the big screen....yes, I am a dork!).



Overview of the entertainment center and yet more bookcases. Yes, that is a Lego building on top of the IKEA cabinet on the extreme left. Also on top of this cabinet is my dehydrator. On the entertainment center we have some of our movies and several vintage photos, including 3 more stills from Richard's films. There is also a still photo of Warren William and Joan Blondell from "Goodbye Again". I love that movie!



A quick shift slightly to the right at you see the front part of our L shaped living room, including my bike. To the right of the photo is Nicole's chair and the corner of yet another bookcase!



This is your view if standing at the back door looking towards the front of the house and the front window. Note the picture of Clara Bow lure coursing resting in the frame on the bookcase to the right.



Clara Bow resting on her couch, and more bookcases beyond. The drawers in the bottom of the bookcases contain hundreds of old films on DVD.



The view looking towards the stairs if you are standing in front of the TV. Miss Bow is particularly cute today!



Nicole's chair (yes, with junk underneath it) and the coat closet's blue door just behind it.



My couch, cool rugs and the huge footstool Nicole made for me as a birthday present one year. It's large enough to fit one and a half humans, or a pair of dogs. We have to keep stuff on the couch when it's not in use to keep Clara Bow from jumping up on it and screaming out the window at passing squirrels, chipmunks, birds, etc. There are a couple of presents for this cute baby inside the bag on my green side table...now I just need to mail them off (along with all the other packets I owe people!).



The view from my couch looking towards the front part of the living room. Here we have the semi-permanent dog/baby gate and beyond that my bike & Streak's crate. I have no clue why Mack's behind is sporting a blue light in this photo. The boy is quite weird.



Mack modeling our entertainment center and one of his favorite dog beds. The two clear-ish containers on the left of the TV are full of the dogs' toys.



More dog toys and Kongs in the main toy box. Mack is cuddling with one of Streak's favorite mousies.



Streak loves her crate. And she likes Kongs. And isn't our FLOR rug pretty? The backwards, upside down sign in the front window is used to keep the dogs from yelling out the front window at passersby. People tend to walk their dogs on retractable leashes on our front lawn, letting their dog come up to within 4 or 5 feet of our front door. Understandably, Mack and Clara object to this quite vocally if they can see it.



The front door, our shoe wardrobe and the coat closet door, with a couple of jackets hanging off of the hanger we have over the door.



The view from the kitchen, showing off our vacuum cleaner and my bike (Nicole's was in use as her ride to work at the time this photo was taken....I need to take a picture when her bike is here so you can see the size difference...her new bike is supposed to be for the same sized person as mine, and is by the same manufacturer, but is much larger and with quite mammoth wheels.

And now we move to the tiny kitchen....



This is the view of the pantry area (and door to the basement) if you are sitting on the kitchen counter below the kitchen window. To the right is my pantry shelves, to the left if an over the door "shoe" holder which is used instead to hold spices, tea, and other kitchen stuff.



Our tiny stove and the dogs' collection of food and water bowls.



Some cool potholders we have. The one on the right is a gift from the lovely Zoya.



My kitchen....badly in need of a remodel! Good God it's ugly.



Cool, vintage inspired light shades I picked up a few years back which we use in our kitchen. Much better than the ugly shades we had originally!



Closeup of the tea/spice/etc. center on the back of the basement door.



My fridge, kitchen window and some more cabinets. I whited out part of the notice board as it had some pretty visible phone numbers on it...which the greater Internet does not really need to see...



View if standing in the pantry area looking at the sink.

Finally, two quick photos from my room....



A shot of the wall next to my computer desk (and a few of my kid's books...I have 3 bookcases full of kids books and art books in my bedroom). Is this not a beautiful color for bedroom walls? And, yes, those are more photos of Richard Barthelmess on top of the books...



A quick shot of my computer desk with my beloved laptop. As you can see, I was reading Ruthie's blog at the time...

And now I have to head off to work....more later, and thanks everyone for all the great comments on the last post!!

Update & Budget Eating

Thanks for the comments, you guys! Yesterday my 2nd in command manager took me aside to apologize for how the wage increase reveal was handled and to clarify some points. Apparently I am not the only one who thought that went quite badly, especially on the heels of them telling me how awesome I am for an hour straight beforehand. We discussed financials a bit, and things look potentially a little more promising, especially on the profit sharing front. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope we don't have a huge (i.e., more than 33%) sales dip now that the college school year is over. If sales remain a little more consistent, we are in line to begin profit sharing sometime this summer. If not, it'll definitely happen in the fall. Apparently, my department is incredibly efficient at using their man hours to full effect, so we have a labor surplus. Once all the departments in the store have 2 consecutive months of profitability we start getting that labor surplus back in our checks. My managers are keeping me in mind for any extra shifts that come available to help out other departments (or my own department) and say that they'll keep me in mind as first possible person for overtime situations if that ever occurs. Thankfully, they're taking my concern about the increase in mortgage amount & my medical bills seriously. There is also a possibility that I might be able to score a bus pass, which would help on the budget front.

Needless to say, with the lower than expected wage increase, the dog vet bills I just paid, the huge medical bills I'll be incurring from my flu/bronchitis last month, the lost wages from when I was out sick, and my cardiology stuff this month, plus the added house expenses and impending summer property taxes, money is going to be tight for May/June for sure! This is why I keep a well stocked pantry, right? Excepting milk, eggs and cheese I'll be living off the garden, freezer and pantry items. Besides, I need an excuse to finish using up the remainder of last year's garden surplus I have stored in the freezer! And we're about a minute way from garden fresh salads. The strawberries (which will be pulled up come July, as this is their last summer) are flowering like mad and excited about possibly giving us some actual fruit this year (I have a better protective cover than past years, so that should help keep the chipmunks and squirrels out!).

While eating breakfast this morning I tried doing some online research on reducing food costs. Please, someone, remind me why I periodically try to research this? I know as much, if not more, than the people writing articles, blog posts, etc., on the subject (excepting KerryAnn at The Cooking Traditional Foods Forum who is an absolute master at cooking for special dietary needs on a budget. Check out her $125 Grocery Budget Challenge and her $136 Budget Challenge...KerryAnn rocks!). And my idea of "budget eating" is about half the cost of what most people posting "budget" food suggestions think you should spend. Plus, I know the majority of folk are meat eaters, but do all meal ideas have to include meat? Don't vegetarians write and share money saving tips? I must say, to the Internet folk who are writing tips and hints on the subject, buying store cooked rotisserie chickens or eating out at the Burger King dollar menu are not really good tips. To counter the wealth of really horrific, and non-vegetarian friendly "budget eating tips and hints" you see online, I thought I'd throw together a few of my own tips and hints. These are just a few which come to mind right off the top of my head:

Vegetarian Budget Eating Tips and Hints

• Keep tabs on what items you eat regularly so you know how much to stock up on when items go on fabulous sales.
  
  
• Store brands rock. Sometimes you'll come across a dud store brand product that tastes bad, so always buy one package first to check out the quality, but once you know what you like, keep the store brands in mind!
  
  
• Ask your grocery store(s) if they provide case discounts or bulk buying discounts. I managed to get a case of on sale vegetarian organic refried black beans which are good until 2011 for $0.71 per can recently by taking advantage of the case discount. Refried beans, cheese and a few olives, plus garden fresh veggies is a favorite quick and easy meal at my house! Also, ask about case discounts on produce as well...most people do not know this, but if you are buying huge quantities of one produce item, the store may give you a discount for buying the whole box. When I canned Comice Pears last year I bought a whole box of the pears and ended up with delicious, high quality pears for $0.71 per pound!
  
  
• Overwhelmed by all the options to choose from for a particular item, especially when they come in varying size packages? Most grocery stores have printed right on their shelf tags the price per ounce to help you determine the best deal. Warning; typos can occur, so use common sense when perusing these tags.
  
  
• Keep a good stockpile of long shelf life foods on hand to help with budget crunches. When storing the foods make sure you keep the cans or boxes with the soonest dates at the front/top of the stack to ensure you use them first. If you're a crazy organizational minded Virgo like myself you can keep a notebook (or computer file) with a food stock inventory, including expiration dates, to help you keep track of what needs to be used when.
  
  
• Cook from scratch whenever possible. Many things can be batch cooked and frozen or canned for easy meals later. Research this online, there is a wealth of information on this topic.
  
  
• On that note, can, dehydrate and/or freeze seasonal produce. If you see a fabulous sale on pears or peaches at the grocery store, consider canning some for year round eating.
  
  
• Just like department stores have seasonal specials (think "white sales" and "back to school" sales), grocery stores have seasonal specials too. Thanksgiving fixings are often on excellent sales in the weeks leading up to the event (and there are also frequently really good sales on items after the holiday, too!). Baking supplies are often on good sales in the time period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, although I've been seeing more sales of staple items like sugar, flour, nuts, chocolate chips, etc., starting in early November the last few years. All sorts of Christmas-y foods are on mega sales after the holiday (my favorite bargain? Celestial Seasonings Christmas themed teas which I bought for $0.50 each using coupons and post Christmas sale prices). Condiments tend to be on sale around the big grilling/picnicking holidays of Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day. A lot of ingredients for Mexican dishes were on sale just leading up to Cinco De Mayo. You get the idea...
  
  
• Cut down on juices and sodas. I drink a lot of water, teas, herbal teas, etc., with occasional bought-on-sale juice or on-sale purchased Almond milk or lemonade for variety so I don't feel deprived.
  
  
• Grow your own. Seriously. It is not that hard. Even if all you have is a balcony on a apartment, get some pots and lettuce seeds & a tomato seedling or two and grow your own salad fixings.
  
  
• Buy from the bulk section. Nuts, sugar, flour, dried beans/lentils, etc., are especially good deals in bulk. And bulk sections will sometimes run sales, too, so always check out this aisle for potential good deals.
  
  
• Look for clearance specials on food. Recently my local grocery store was discontinuing an interesting organic vinagrette, so they put it on sale 50% off. It had a good date (always check the dates, especially on the clearance items!), so I bought it for this summer's salads. Sometimes grocery stores will have super ripe or verging on overripe produce on clearance, and you can get some real bargains for preserving this way. I once bought a ton of super ripe peaches this way. We canned them and had delicious peaches for a year. the cost? $0.39 a pound!
  
  
• Make your own bread and be willing to experiment. I "cheat" and have a bread machine, 2 good bread machine recipe books, and I experiment with recipes all the time. You can make gourmet breads for a fraction of the cost of store-bought reglar breads, and the taste is about 100 times better. Instead of making sandwiches for lunch I make fancy breads with cheese or nuts and eat a big slice or two as my "take to work" lunch. Today's lunch: Italian parmesan/romano/asiago and pine nut bread. The cheese blend, sugar, bread flour, and yeast were bought on sale and the nuts came from the bulk section when they were on sale. The cost was about 1/3 what it would cost to buy a similar type of artisan bread at the store, yet only took me a couple of minutes to prep for the bread maker. Also, make your own muffins, snack breads, cakes, etc. They're pretty easy, quite tasty, and a ton cheaper than store bought!
  
  
• Don't be afraid of eating basic, homestyle foods. They're often significantly cheaper than fancier meals, quite filling and often easy to make. I eat a lot of mashed potatoes and cheese with a veggie side dish, soup and bread, Mac and Cheese and a veggie side dish, tomato sauce and pasta dishes, pasta salad, bean and cheese burritos with a veggie side, etc.
  
  
• Keep your eyes open for food deals in unexpected places. Recently I was planning a purchase of a portable, battery powered fan (to keep the Huskies cooler in case of power outages) from Lehmans.com. Lehman's had a special one day celebration of their founder's birthday and were offering your choice of one of 3 free items if you made your purchase on that day. One of the freebies was a 6 pound bag of popcorn kernels. Now, I'd been planning to buy the fan anyhow and had been planning on waiting until May to make the purchase (as that's my 3 paycheck month), but intead I did a small budgetary juggle and bought the fan a couple of weeks early and scored a free bag of popcorn.
  
  
• Check out store sales fliers online to help with your shopping list planning, but be fully aware that often only a fraction of the sales items are listed there. I tend to plan my list in advance, but always check out the aisles with a lot of my basic staples (or items I will need to restock soon due to dwindling supplies) to see if items are on sale. Example: almost every time Meijer puts their store brand jars of yeast on sale they do not list it in the sales fliers. Because I always check the baking aisle for unannounced sales, I have always managed to buy my yeast on sale and have never paid the full store brand price.
  
  
• Sometimes coupons are helpful, sometimes they're not. Oftentimes the coupons are for things I never buy. There will occasionally be cool coupons like store coupons for buy one 1 pound box of pasta and get the second one free, therefore I always look at store coupon fliers, at the print off the web store coupon sections, etc. I figure it's worth the extra 5 minutes per week I spend looking at coupons to do this quick check.
  
  
• Watch for signs or web site announcements of special short term sales. The store I work for has recently been running a lot of 3 day sales with good bargains.
  
  
• Grow and dry or freeze your own herbs. As long as they have sun, a little but not too much water, and appropriately sized pots herbs tend to thrive with little care. One herb seedling tends to cost less than a bottle of dried herb, and yet I get tons of fresh herbs off of it during the warmer months, and I can dry the herbs for later use (or, in the case of basil, we freeze it). Some herbs, like basil, parsley, and dill, tend to grow pretty easily from seed, and are even cheaper than herb seedlings!
  

I know there are more tips, those are the just the ones which are in the front of my mind...anyone else have good vegetarian-friendly budget eating tips? (Ruthie and Andrea, I am especially looking at you two right now!!) Feel free to leave me a comment on your ideas!