Wash day (and a knee update)

Or "worsh day", as some of my aunts used to say.  It's cloudy and around forty degrees, heading for a high in the mid-forties.  I'm doing laundry and hanging clothes on the line.  My fingers got a little nippy, but otherwise it isn't too bad a day for handling wet clothes.  Google tells me it costs thirty to forty cents to dry one load of clothes in an electric dryer, so at most, I will save $1.50.  Oh well, it's something.  A penny saved is still a penny earned.  
I am down to thirty bucks in my grocery envelope with nine days until Cliff's payday.  I have a list that will probably use $20 of that, but I still think I'll manage without robbing other envelopes.  I'm also making a list of things I'm getting low on that I will buy after we've gotten our funds again.  These are things I would buy this week if I had an unlimited amount of money, but they can wait a few days:  Toilet paper, facial tissues, and so forth.  I think four rolls of toilet paper will last us nine days.  I buy that thin, cheap stuff, you know, but it lasts a long time.
   
I hate to throw food scraps away, and back when I had chickens or hogs, I didn't have to; those critters would eat almost any sort of table scraps except potato peelings.  It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that the barn cats would probably eat most of our garbage.  We don't have that much.  Well, I've found out they'll eat anything a pig would eat.  This morning I took out a couple of bread heels and two left-over biscuits, and the three cats actually fought over them!  
We've lost two of our feline stalkers; the young cats now stay at the barn when we take our morning walks.  Leave it to the younger generation to fizzle out and let the older folks carry on.  Only Mama Kitty still accompanies us on our walk, when she's at home.  She was gone for three days last week; I can only hope she wasn't out tomcatting.  Of course, that's going to happen some time or other.  You should have seen her devouring her food the morning of her return!  


Here's an update on my knee, for those of you contemplating a knee replacement:  I feel pretty much normal now; the knee no longer swells, even when I'm on my feet a lot, and I haven't needed so much as an aspirin for quite a while.  Cliff says he forgets I ever had surgery, since I'm very much back to my old routine and actually, I sometimes out-walk him.  The only time my knee gets stiff is when we ride for long distances, but all it takes is a few steps to get the stiffness out, once I'm out of the car.  At this point I have no problems and no complaints.  I'm supposed to see the orthopedist in February, but I'm going to cancel, since all she ever does is have a couple of x-rays taken, have me stretch out my leg, tell me to continue my exercises, and ask if there are any problems.  Then I end up with a bill for $50 because Medicare Plus doesn't pay for all of it, and I'm left thinking, "Why am I going back?"  
My right knee, which used to give me as much trouble as my left one, is obviously afraid it's going to be replaced, because it doesn't give me the slightest twinge of pain these days.  One of my home therapists told me this sometimes happens:  You get one knee replacement and the other knee gets better!  Doesn't make sense to me, but so far, so good.