There’s been so much going on lately that we’ve been eating out a lot! Just call us the Subway Kids. It’s not good for our health or good for our budget.

We’re hoping to get back on track this week. We have no out of town trips scheduled. We’re both healthy. (Knock on wood.) My work load is fairly normal. Things are looking good for getting back to our habit of eating at home.

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I’m so sorry I haven’t posted lately.  Things have been crazy.  Erroll had a horrible cold.  I was super busy at work.  We’re still looking for a new house.  We’re getting ready to put this house on the market.   The satellite TV turned into be quite an adventure.   Then we had an adventure of the electrical variety.

I think I’m back on the road to normalcy.   It may take a few weeks to totally get there but I have hopes!

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Erroll and I were in the minority when it came to TV watching. We didn’t have cable. Instead we used a TV antenna to bring in about ten channels. Yep, it’s true. We were still using technology from the 1950’s to watch our TV in 2008.

This system has worked great for me over the years. I’ve lived in various suburbs around Seattle and I’ve had no trouble. I had cable for a year or two around 1992 but since then it’s been antenna TV all the way.

But a few weeks ago we had trouble getting the channel for my favorite TV show. Please be gentle with me as I share this with you. I really like Ghost Whisperer. In an ideal world my favorite TV show would be something like 60 Minutes but it’s not. Ghost Whisperer has a cute house and cute clothes. Plus many episodes have a feel-good ending that make me happy and wanting to cry all at the same time. I really, really like that show. And I missed it because our reception was bad.

We tried to adjust the direction of the antenna. We ended up able to see the channel that features Ghost Whisper and one other channel. Those two came in great. We could see a couple of other channels OK. They were fuzzy but good enough to watch. The rest were gone.

Again, in a perfect world this wouldn’t matter. I’d tend the garden. I’d make bread. I read Moby Dick. It’s not that I watch a lot of TV, but I do like to watch a show in the evening. I don’t need a lot of channels, but I’d like more than four. Plus I’ve already read Moby Dick twice.

So I called up the company that provides our DSL and telephone service. They’d been sending flyers out about some sort of DSL savings we could get. I’d ignored them figuring that things were OK. If it’s not broken don’t fix it. But the situation had changed. I might be in the market for TV services.

I had two long heart-to-heart conversations with representatives of the telecommunications company.   By taking advantage of bundling services and a special DSL promotion I’d save about $35 a month.

They also had a long distance service that blew mine out of the water. (I make a lot of long distance calls for my business.) It turns out that they could save me about $70 a month in long distance! That’s not chump change.

These two changes would be more than enough to pay for a lovely 200 channel satellite TV package!

“Sign me up,” I said. I dreamed of happily watching Ghost Whisperer on a TV with perfect reception. I thought about all those shows I heard about but never seen. I could watch Torchwood, Ax Men and Deadliest Catch.

With all the money I’d be saving on long distance this would even be the frugal thing to do!

If only it were that easy. Join me next Friday for more of the TV Upgrade saga.

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Our peas, beans and Brussels sprouts are ready to go.   We just need to have some good weather.  Would you believe it snowed again last weekend?

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Everyone has their favorite banana bread recipe. This is mine.  Sometimes on a weekend I’ll get up early and make this for breakfast.

Banana Bread

½ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
3 bananas, mashed
2 cups flour
1 t soda
3 T sour milk
½ cup chopped walnuts

Mix ingredients together and place in a greased bread pan. Bake at 350º for an hour or until done.

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Our rhubarb plants are coming along nicely.

The plant closest to the camera in this shot is a little discolored. We’re not sure why. Erroll has given it extra fertilizer. It’s starting to look less yellow and more green.

You can also see the soaker hose.  We’re not watering yet but it’s good to get the hoses in place before the plants get too big.

In addition to fertilizing the plants Erroll cut off the seed stalks.

The seed stalks are pretty but by cutting them off we should get larger edible stalks.

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This has been quite a year for colds at our house. I’ve had two of them and Erroll is just finishing up on his second. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we don’t have a tiebreaker!

One thing that’s helped with all the coughing and the hacking is hot lemonade. Heat one cup of water to boiling in the microwave. Stir in three tablespoons of honey and three tablespoons of lemon juice.

As I said, I hope that we’re done with colds for awhile. But I think I’m going to buy another bottle of lemon juice just in case.

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One of my friends sent me a link about a forest reclamation project in her neighborhood. Kirkland’s Cottonhill Park is is being overran by non-native plants. In searching for a way to remove the invasive plants the neighborhood residents came up with a solution that’s good for the environment and doesn’t involve manually weeding a large park. They’re bringing in goats!

Sixty goats will be brought in for three days to help reclaim the forest. I think it’s a great example of using natural methods for taking care of the land.

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