When you graduate high school, you might be thinking to yourself, now I can move into my own place and start 'adulting'. Maybe you have waited until you have graduated college. Maybe you just feel like you are ready to 'get out there' on your own. Here's a checklist for you to use to determine if you are really ready for that. Moving Out Readiness Checklist (Ages 18–19 +) Financial Readiness Do I have a steady, reliable source of income? Can I cover rent + utilities + food +

Original post was on Jan 21 2023. I have a large family, but it seems we are spread out from one end of the country to the other with pockets of us dropped here and there. (Edited to read: extended family.) For me, family isn't just people and it isn't only those born from the same parents. It's a very inclusive group with pets playing an important role. I'm posting a picture of our two little guys (long-haired chihuahuas). One really looks more like a Papillion than a Chihua

I have been having trouble getting my hands on artichoke hearts. I have tried multiple times and they just are not available. This is a canned good so it surprised me. I ended up doing a web search about this problem and was stunned to learn that we (we meaning the whole world) is in a huge food crisis right now. There was Cyclone Harry that caused a lot of problems over there in Italy, which I had not even heard about. And many of the artichokes we get come from there. The s

This is a new topic for me to post about here. I do not remember ever approaching 'finance' in a general way. Sure I post about budgeting for groceries and how to feed your face and still keep a rug under your feet, but I haven't really talked about how to establish a budget or how to deal with finances. I get it that things are in turmoil right now with inflation, prices way up and trying to keep up with the rising rents. So how does a person just starting out, get started?

I have been walking around saying, geez I am eating like a Hippie. I am old enough to remember the late 60's and the early 70's. Yes, I really am. And I remember all the stuff I used to shake my head at and think, those people are definitely "far out", as in way way out there. (This, while I was walking around in my Nehru jacket). LOL Anywho, because it has occurred to me frequently of late I had to bring it to the attention of my web browser and ask about hippie diets. I'm

I am eyeball deep in doing the taxes. That's one thing that's happening right now. I am looking at habits. Habits formed in childhood and those I purposely worked on making as a young adult, as an adult, and now as an old gal. That's another thing that's happening right now in my little world. When I was a kid my family moved around a lot. I was raised up half in the city and half on farms. We lived in Ohio - in the city, in Georgia - in the swamp, in Texas - in a dustbowl, a

Here is the last post for now on this Series. Keep in mind that the initial cost for items will make the meal cost more than it will next time you make it as well as make other meals cost less. It's up to you if you feel that meal is worth the extra expense and it's also okay to leave out some ingredients. Substitutions are always an option. This is another of my favorite meals. I don't serve this one often because it does cost a little more per serving than many of my other

Hi. This is going to sound like it's expensive, but once you purchase the initial pantry items it is actually budget friendly. What would you consider to be cost effective per serving? $4 ? $2 ? Cooking and eating at home is going to be cheaper no matter what, so start there. If you spend $4 per serving for 4 people that's $16 for one meal. If you do that three times a day that is going to turn out to be $48 per day. And that IS expensive. It's what most people spend current

Freckles and spots on older people's hands, often referred to as age spots or liver spots, are primarily caused by prolonged exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun, which leads to an overproduction of melanin in the skin. These spots typically appear on areas that have received the most sun exposure over the years, such as the hands, face, and arms.   So I should not get natural Vitamin D via the sun. Huh. Anything else? Ultraviolet (UV) Light: Prolonged exposure to

I finished watching NOS4A2 on Netflix and started watching a show on Paramount called The Mayor of Kingstown. Spoiler Alert and Warning!! This show is very graphic, bloody, gory, and at points even nauseating. After the third episode we almost decided to stop watching this show because of all that. If you dislike violence and cruelty, (which I do) then you may want to avoid this show, but if you can stomach it and can distinguish tv graphics from the real world with certai

Decades of studies of happiness and emotional well-being have proven that experiencing greater happiness is within the control of almost every individual. There’s no magic cure for misery, but multiple cognitive, emotional, and physical behaviors can multiply your chances of feeling better about your life. Things Happy People Choose Not to Do They don’t dwell on setbacks or unpleasantness. Ruminating on negative thoughts crowds out space for positive thinking while also creat

I have heard it said that my office looks like a picture of one of those Hidden Object games. And they aren't wrong. I am one of those people who has trouble throwing things away. I will donate. I will refurbish, recycle, renew and reuse. But unless it's trash, I won't trash it. So consequently things stack up sometimes. To be honest, my whole house is a bit like that. Overfilled. Cluttered. Filled to the brim. Make no mistake though, it is organized, regardless of how some p

So they have turned the food pyramid upside down. What used to be a pyramid is now a...what....an upside down triangle? I do agree with some of it and think it's a good idea on those notes, but be careful of following it in it's entirety. Let me break that down to be clearer. On January 7, 2026, the U.S. government introduced a new food pyramid as part of the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This marks a significant shift in federal nutrition policy, emphasizing a

I have had people lie to me. I have had people lie about me. Sometimes the lies were way out there tall tales that no one could possibly have believed. Could they? Sometimes the lies were about the person telling the lie for the most part and I somehow got a dishonorable mention. Sometimes the lies turned out to be a twisted up version of the truth. Has any of these ever happened to you? If so, did it make you ask yourself how their memory of a situation or event could be so

I am hearing a lot about "clean eating", so I thought I'd answer an inquiry about it here. It seems to be really trending right now, the idea of clean-eating. Honestly, it isn't new and it is not any different than what I have been posting about all along. So what is it? It refers to eating foods that are as close as possible to their natural state. This encourages us to make our meals from scratch to make them as “clean” as possible.  Once just a buzzword, “clean eating” is

Besides being the wrap-up of another year, and a month filled with all kinds of larger bills to pay, this month in my family is loaded up with birthdays. Nieces, cousins, aunts, a sister and myself too all have birthdays this month. Even my mother-in-law has a birthday this month. I had several ideas for gifts to give her but none of them panned out. We ended up having to ask her what she would like, which of course takes out any element of surprise. She said she likes to ea

The guy who wrote the following article is a PhD and advocates strongly towards healthy eating. He has his focus on people with Type 2 Diabetes and Pre-Diabetes, but what he has to say applies to everyone. It's a common misconception that eating carbs will make you gain weight no matter what. In reality, this is only true if the carbs come from the wrong places. In fact, high-carb diets can be healthy and beneficial for your body when they are sourced from nutrient-dense sou

You know you have stepped into the age of Modernism when the first thing you do when you leave the bedroom is plug in your phone to charge, plug in your headset to charge, and unplug your tablet which you had charging overnight. When you purchase charging hubs with multiple plug-ins and yes I said that in plural, then you know. The first one is in the bedroom to charge the toothbrush, the shaver, the bug light and a phone, too. I have become a device junkie. I have alarms on

So, here’s the answer to the question. Ultra-processed food items — which aren’t perishable like fresh produce — are becoming cheaper. “Junk food is cheap because you can keep it forever. You can buy it in bulk, you can produce it in bulk, you can deliver it when it’s cheap to deliver it.” Think about the supply chain. Fresh produce, fish and meat need to be refrigerated and restocked, unlike shelf stable items. Those transportation and replenishment costs get passed on to th

I am a very curious person. (In the sense that I wonder about stuff). So I am constantly asking questions about a number of different things. Today I asked the question, "What is the difference between Flair Pens and Sharpie Markers"? This is not an out-of-the-blue type question. I really wanted to know because I tend to do a lot of journaling and 'marking' of boxes and labels and such. So internally I was also asking myself, do I need to buy both? Or does one or the other d