The cats

I haven't mentioned the cats lately.  Butchie is still a loudmouth and wants me to let him let him in and out often.  I like to argue with him:  He meows loudly while sitting at the door, and I tell him "NO!"  Often he will give up and go take a nap on a chair, or on the seat of the stationary bike.  Actually, Unique is the one who first decided to nap on the bike, but Butch watched for awhile and decided to make it his bike.  Cliff often has to make them get off so he can ride.  

Both cats are getting better about not clawing furniture, and they seem to be learning they can only sleep on two different chairs.  They still want to play in both bathrooms, and try as I might, I don't always shut the bathroom doors.  Unique used to like to tear up the plastic liner in our tubs or play in the commode water, but she watched Butch and learned his favorite trick, which is to climb in the sink and take the little draining thing out, then take it to the kitchen and play with it.  As I was sitting here telling this story, Unique came to me carrying that thing.  It's a game to them, and they want me to know they've won again!

They still spend a lot of time in their back porch.  We have warm weather right now, and they like to climb up the cat tree to look out the window, which I am now keeping open for them.

Butch and my dog Gabe are fast friends now, and they wrestle almost every day at some point.  The dog doesn't bite, and the cat doesn't use his claws.  In the following video, they were wrestling on top of the heat register on a chilly day to see which one would get to warm up.

Oh, and one more thing:  It's time to start the garden.  I planted a few early vegetables yesterday.  Today I'll do some more tilling.

Look where the kids are now.

Shopping for groceries

The only things we do to get off our property are these:  going to one of our doctors, going to get groceries, and when Cliff takes me to church, two miles away; he takes me, then comes back to get me.  

We have a Costco card, but we only go there when we are already in the immediate area so Cliff can visit one of his doctors.  We don't buy much there, but it's an interesting place to go anyway, and they feed you along the way while you are shopping.  It's only a bite at each place, but I get to try things I never eat at home.

I do get excited when Price Chopper has meat of any kind on sale, though.  Today there's a three-day sale starting, and they have chicken breasts for $2.49 a pound.  I hope to bring home around 10 pounds, which I will divide and put in the freezer.  And there's butter for $2.99; they will allow me to buy three for that price, thank goodness, because I only have one pound of butter left, and I really want to make the oatmeal cookies my family loves, now that I have an oven that works properly.  I'm also out of eggs, and the cookies I make demand three.  Unfortunately, there will be no eggs on sale, but my family has gone without cookies too long.

These days Cliff  helps me shop; otherwise I will miss something on my list.  Two old heads are better than one.  We've always done most of our shopping at Walmart, and my dear husband really doesn't enjoy it, but he knows I need his help.  He is happy to be in Price Chopper, though; he thinks it's a "fancy" store, compared to Walmart.

I've been buying 80/20 ground beef at Price Chopper for a long time, but I have noticed lately there is water in it.  It tastes fine, I suppose, but when I see the water going up into the air as steam before I can see the 20-percent fat, I know that must be happening so they can sell me some water with my beef.  I'm thinking about going up the hill and getting all my ground beef at the local butcher shop, less than a mile down the road.  It costs  $6 a pound if you buy 10 1-pound-packages, but it is all beef with no water.  

The only other thing I have against Price Chopper is the smell of rotting fish.  They don't sell rotting fish, but they don't clean under the floor of the cooler that lets them show off their meat to customers.  I know this because Cliff once worked at a grocery store in the meat department for a short time.  When there wasn't anything else to do, he cleaned under that "floor"; he said the stink was unbelievable. 

Well, this is grocery day for me, and we'll be going to Price Chopper AND Walmart.  Wish us luck.