Cheap Activities for the Single Frugalite

It certainly is! And life is what you make of it. I wish we could meet face to face one day. I think you’d be a very interesting person to know.

I had covid in April and May of last year. No pneumonia but I still barely survived. Hubs had diarrhea for three days and it was over. Go figure..

He was still able to move around pretty good and could follow directions. I’d get to the livingroom and park myself in a recliner for the day. A neighbor would call me every three days, pick up money at the front door and go shopping for us. He’d bring in cases of bottled water and three premade sub sandwhiches. I’d tell hubs to put water in the fridge and sandwhiches on the door. I’d eat a few bites from a sandwhich and hubs would eat on the rest all day. When the neighbor realized I hadn’t eat at all in 10 days he brought in a generic drink like Ensure for us. Then he went to a reservation grocery store and bought up several different warm deli lunches. I tried but most I just couldn’t eat. Chicken tenders and potato wedges were OK. It took three days to eat one lunch. But I was eating. It was several months like that. I lost nearly 50lb. But I survived. I’ve gain some back but I think a lot is muscle. Still I’m wearing 6 numbers smaller pants. That part is nice. I’m still recovering. At first I couldn’t lift a gallon of milk. Now I’m moving 40 lb feed sacks and can stack 40lb bags of pellets. The 50lb dog food bags I still need help with. Hubs barely walks now so I’m away very little.

Every two weeks I go to a community pantry, pick up prescriptions, milk at walmart and come home. Some places are still masked some aren’t so I keep a couple in the vehicles.
When big stores were allowed to open everyone was spaced 6 ft apart. At walmart the lines were across the front, around the corner and too long. It’s the main place to shop for folks from as far north or south as 100 miles and 80 miles to the west and 70 mile to the east. Many little communities all go here and three Indian reservations. It was miserable trying to shop. Once a month was enough of that. I drove to our rural post office once a week to get the mail. Now its closer to once every two weeks.
As I was begining to recover a homeless man here was cooking for his 91 year old mother every two or three days. He’d bring us lunch on those days. He’d stand on the porch and visit for a few minutes. The man who had done the shopping for us or his wife would bring an occasional meal and visit for a bit.

In October the neighbors who had done our shopping both were hospitalized with covid. She came home in three days. He was dead in three weeks. We all miss him.

She and I still visit and share meals with each other. She drives me to some appointments but I’m driving to most things if they are in our nearest little town. I’ve changed our primary care to the clinic now. His specialist are still in the city.

Neighbors are finally starting to get out some. Its nice to say hello and catch up with how they are doing. A retired chief of police lives up the road. Dogs had scattered my trash. He stopped in to clean up that mess. Now he’s coming every two weeks to haul our trash to the transfere station over 4 miles away. We’ve also started getting free hot lunches delivered. I didn’t know they had started delivering out here. He told me. We’re 16 miles from the senior center. The hot lunches are a big help. I’m working all I can on gardening and caring for my critters. When I was so sick the same neighbor who shopped for us took over caring for the critters. I’ve started building a pen to move the chickens and ducks into. I’ll use a shipping crate as a duck house and build a coop for the chickens from salvaged lumber and plywood from an old mobilehome we’ve torn down. I’m slowly doing that. A couple of yearsago I’d have had it all done within a week. Now it’s a little at a time over months and still not done. Hubs barely walks now. He sleeps most of the time either in bed or in my recliner. So I’m sort of on a different lockdown these days. He shouldn’t be alone much but I chose not to leave him in the resthome where he was placed for 20 days rehab after a week in the hospital with an infection. They were going to keep him. I refused. I have POA and can make that choice. I keep him talking, feed him meals or he doesn’t eat much anymore, and talk him through how to stand up from a chair. They just left him in wheelchair or bed all the time. I keep him walking through the home as needed. When it cools in the afternoon and the front porch is in the shade I have him walk out to my nice leather office chair and sit for an hour while I work on the garden. Were both much happier with him at home. Rain isn’t helping my leather chair but I’ve just found a padded upholstered chair I’ll be putting out there and bring my office chair back inside. Not complaining. I made the choice.

I’m glad for good neighbors who look out for each other. I try to be a good neighbor too. I spent many years here giving out food from our church and toys for every child in the church and all of this community. Every summer I raised so many food donations I provided a van full of food to several different mission churches for their summer campmeetings. We had freezers and refrigerators overflowing even after giving away a lot of it. After campmeeting was over we sent more food to other missions then gave away here to any who asked for help and we also ate from the excess. The hugh commercial freezer was turned off as soon as possible. Back then I had 5 upright freezers still full to use up and a 20×25 storeroom with rows of shelves full of #10 cans of fruit and vegetables and dry goods- flour, salt, seasonings, ect and more than 1000 lb of pasta to give away or use up before I could start gathering for the next summer. We had lots of church dinners and school lunches out of that. I miss those days. But life changes and its still good. When I was first widowed I lived on that stored food for 2 years while still giving a lot away. During my years away my sons gave out food till it was gone. All that’s left is 6 bottles of syrup for Italian Ices. I’ll finish those. The labels have come off but they are still good. They are pink grapefruit and pomegranate. Both are pleasant mixed with soda or water over ice. Nice on a hot day. The crushed ice maker is worn out but ice cubes are fine for me. I still have a fine 6ft charbroiler with double commercial ovens underneath, a big refrigerated salad bar with lots of refrigerated space underneath, and a three door refrigerated counter. The 6 burner stove top works but the gas line to the oven needs hooked up. I’m considering moving that to my patio to cook and can on. The commercial meat slicer is still here. Nearly every food broker and restaurant supply company or food producer was a regular doner. I’d written letters then called ahead and took them by hand to every owner or manager myself. That opened a lot of doors. One especially made sure we had lots of deli meats and roasts. One year he gave us a pick up load of large containers of seasalt and seasonings. A coffee roasting company filled my van and pickup with custom roasted coffee for the campmeeting plus lots of colorful 4 oz mylar bags of whole bean coffee. A janitorial supply company gave us cleaning and sanitizing products, mops and commercial buckets ect. Paper towels and dispensers too. It was an adventure. I still have 4 more cases of brown non perforated paper towels from the paper company that always kept us in paper goods. I’m using from those. I just tear off what I need.

I’m a Craigslist junky. This week I’m repurposing 6″ deep drawers as shelving units. I have a stack of melamine shelving from a cabinet shop and I had a full pickup load of assorted sizes of new drawers from a different cabinet shop that went out of business. I have all the drawers glides too but I’m removing those. I also have a drawer full of pulls and another full of hinges. Sure handy to go to. All of it free for the hauling. Earlier this week I repurposed an upper kitchen cabinet such as might go over a fridge, into a hutch on a stand in my livingroom. I took off the doors, put books inside and the TV on top. The doors are going in the two drawers I’m hanging for my cookbooks. The doors are being cut down to become cleats and shelves. Two more drawers are being mounted on a 2×4 frame with casters to go under my bed.

I can’t leave much so I’m working here. That’s my lockdown answer. My small home doesn’t have much storage so I’m creating some.