hollygee Goes West

Daily Dose of Diego (Yago)_Day Three

All pictures all the time.
Chips is 12-plus lbs.
Yago is 8 lbs.

Matching these pictures is a bit unfair.

We didn't crate Yago last night. He slept on the bed between us. He lulled us by starting the night stretched parallel with us and then we were asleep, turned to take up as much perpendicular space as he could, touching one of us with his front paws and the other with the back. I think he is going to fit right in.

Last night my foot was the monster under the sheets at the midnight games.

Chips spent the first half of the night on top of the crate (on a fuzzy blanket) and the last half on the platform over the stairs (on another fuzzy blanket).

Look at what my honey made yesterday morning over coffee:

I saw that Yago was used to using a cardboard scratching post, but I hadn't had a chance to pick one up. We had a bunch of corregated cardboard ready to go to recycle; Steve took up the utility knife and filled a handy small box we had.

Chips thinks it's fine.

Yago hasn't touched it.

The stinker. Isn't he cute:

The Great Ought-Eight Poverty Party

This celebration of our new recessional era is brought to you by BOSSY. She's a kick, and she is on a quest to kick her own poverty and figured that it will be much more fun to do it with a crowd of fellow poor people.

Stephen and I are doing much better in our contributions to the let's-get-out-of-poverty cause. We are s-l-o-w-l-y paying off bills and trying very hard not to create new ones. Some of our recent successes:

• I finished paying off one loan. Yay!!!! Then rather than put that payment amount back into circulation, I rolled it over to paying off my car loan. I won't notice any difference in my budget, but that loan balance should.

• I've been packing Stephen's lunches. Stephen, for years, went to the Safeway deli to ordered a roast beef sandwich. Every. Single. Day. Then he got their soup for a while, but they weren't particularly tasty. Now I pack up leftovers (he eats them cold) or occasionally make something specifically for his lunch. This is saving about $25 a week.

• There is no way that my gluten free ingredients or products could ever be considered budget-friendly. So I just cut down on the amount I use. I will get the bagels or crackers as a treat. I will bake once or twice a week, and just use rice, potatoes, and cornbread or tortillas as the starches in our diet at other times. Mostly we don't have any starches. Just a little meat and a lot of vegetables.

• The garden. It will be expanded next year. We were never completely independent of store-bought lettuce this year, but our plants helped (I stopped buying the 'Spring Mix' -- I could get three salads from a head of red or green leaf for $1.00 - 1.50, where that would only buy one salad worth of the loose lettuce mix). Those zucchini were well worth the price of the plants. The tomatoes are coming on quite well. Next year I'm going to add some winter squash, chard, maybe peas or beans. I wish I could add onions or garlic, but as I use at least an onion a day and a half head of garlic, I think we would have to have an awfully big field to supply us.

Should you wish to contribute to this party, follow those links up there and join our fun.

(BOSSY has given me a nifty little graphic to use in my sidebar and it will be up there just as soon as I figure out how to put it there).