Lobster Shorts finances, weight loss

The Year Of Getting My Sh!t Together

The restart of my restart of my restart of my restart.

I’ve had so many attempts at weight loss over the years. I usually fall off the wagon after a month… sometimes earlier. August 4 2023 I started again. This time I’m adding better financial habits to my goal list along with weight loss/fitness.

I’ve been digging myself out of credit card consumer debt, but had a bad habit of spending everything I had paid off. In early August I started to tighten the purse strings. I am only buying things I need and have quit browsing physical and online stores. That includes thrift stores and antique shops and I do LOVE thrifting, but I always get things I don’t need – like more sewing supplies. I have an entire closet full of sewing supplies. It’s packed full. I’m not buying any more sewing stuff until I get through the piles of fabric I already have.

September I ended up at the thrift store looking for a new harness for Oliver – my big golden retriever X puppy. He’s a puller and ended up tearing right through his last one. I didn’t find a harness that would fit him there. I did however find a full set of winter dog boots which I actually would have needed for an awesome price. That was an okay purchase, but guess what wasn’t. The roll of elastic I bought – FOR SEWING! It WAS a fantastic price, and sure I’ll probably need it one day, but that wasn’t the point of this. I’m not supposed to be randomly buying stuff I don’t have an immediate need for. This was a warning for me – to stay out of thrift stores. I can’t be trusted! I discovered pressure casting posts, an item used in pen making. It’s quite expensive and I’m not buying it this year. I heard a quote but can’t remember who it was from – Ramsey? “If you can’t pay it off in a month, you can’t afford it”. That stings, but I agree. So no pressure pot. Not yet. Saving for one also gives me time to evaluate if I really want it. Making impulsive purchases and then never using the item is a bad habit I have had in the past. For example, I bought the things to make shoes with, maybe a year ago. Guess who has never made shoes – ME! I still hope to one day, but for now, it was something I shouldn’t have purchased.

The roll of elastic $10 from the thrifty thrift

As for weight and fitness, this time my spouse is also on board. He really wants to lose weight too. We’ve set a pact to be in the gym three times a week on set days. That started on the first of September and so far we are sticking to it. We don’t have a set thing we need to accomplish in the gym, right now we just have to be in there. Even stretching is acceptable, just be in there, getting a routine established and habit formed. Right now I’m doing about a 15-minute workout and nothing too strenuous, just getting used to working out again.

I’ve set a goal for myself to be able to do a push-up in a year. The real on your toes sort of push-up. I’ve never been able to do them, even at my most fit. That was probably because I always preferred jogging to weights. I’ve always wondered how does one work their way up to being able to do a push-up?

This might work. I’ve started with wall push-ups. I thought that sounded like weak sauce, but it turns out that doing 3 sets of 50 is actually pretty hard (for me). I’m not even there yet! I had to take a break after 40. I’m sticking with it. I got my 150 in and will be keeping track of how many I can do until I need to stop.

I’m calorie counting again. The goal is 1800 calories a day. I’ll stay with that and keep it up if it’s working well for me. My spouse is calorie counting too. We’ve started cooking for ourselves and that is going to work out really well for both of us. He’s never really liked veggie-heavy dishes and the carb-heavy dishes he likes I tend to overeat. This way we can both eat healthier for ourselves.

I’ve started a tracking journal and every month I update my weight and how much I’m in a financial debt hole. I realized when doing the September update that I only wrote down approximate numbers instead of the actual numbers in August. I was excited to see if I had made any progress. That will have to wait for October. I will post September’s stats as the starting point.

The Getting My Sh!t Together journal

Weight: 178lbs
Debt: -$21100
Wall pushups without stopping: 40

Cheers to improved numbers in October!

Lobster Shorts thrifting

Thrifted Silver Candelabra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JImGK-Lsvk4

I went thrifting recently and found a heavy, silver-plated candelabra set. I’m assuming they are antique, I’m guessing. I’m also making the assumption that because they are very heavy, they are good quality. Regardless of whether any of that is correct or not, I love them.

They came lightly tarnished

and coated in dust.

I spent some time polishing them.

There are some really hard to get to places. These arms(?) have ridges that I couldn’t get into. I’ll try Q-Tips next time. There are a few places where the silver is damaged and has a small knick.

They came out quite nicely and are currently displayed on the kitchen table with grey candles.

With the weight of them, they are going to work perfectly for outdoors. I won’t be worried about them getting knocked over as easily.

One thing I wasn’t aware of, was that the middle candle holder is designed to hold a bigger thicker candle than the outer parts. I had no idea. I also don’t know where to get this thicker candle. I am keeping my eye out for two spiral candles. I think they are thicker and would possibly work. I had no idea taper candles come in multiple sizes. I looked on Amazon, but they only list the candle length, not width. Alas, that means more adventures searching the thrift shops!

On a side note, my spouse just called our dog a wet swampy donkey, and I can’t stop laughing.

Lobster Shorts cooking

New Plants – Burger Salad – A Thrifted Shirt

It poured rain for most of the weekend and we spent a lot of time indoors. We went out for breakfast with friends and I wore the top I got from the thrift shop. It’s really cute and I like how it fits. I found a lot of wonderful things, I’ll post the video link below if you want to see what else I found

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaoKnr-MgJw

On the way home from breakfast, we stopped at Canadian Tire to get some things for around the house. I ended up in the plant department… of course.

The scrappy plant on the left was on clearance for $0.49. I have no idea what it is, but it looked sad and near death. I wanted to rescue it. The middle plant might be a fish bone cactus and the right I’m hoping is a goldfish plant. The two to the right were $4.99. The little pots were so tiny and would dry out too fast.

I didn’t have very many small pots, so my hoya on the right graduated to a bigger pot before it should have, but it will be happy in there. I don’t love the two pots on the left, they are nursery pots, but they’ll work for now. The mystery plant has been put in indirect sunlight, and the other three are in a sunny window.

My rock tumbler completed the second week of tumbling. The rocks are very smooth but still dull. They’re now halfway done.

The rocks are back in the tumbler with Step 3. Steps 1 and 2 were gritty, while Step 3 is more powdery. It’s back on the tumbler for another 7 days. It’s so fun to see how they change. Jay decided putting bolts in the rock tumbler isn’t a good idea. He felt the threads were getting too beat up in there, but it was fun to try.

I’m trying to eat healthier (although I ate a bagel while I wrote this) and instead of having a burger, I experimented with turning a burger into a salad. It was good! I will be skipping the bun in the future (maybe not weekends though). I used a Beyond Burger and pan-fried it and used the spatula to turn it into little pieces. For the salad dressing, I used two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, one tablespoon of avocado oil, around 1/2 tablespoon of Dijon, some salt and pepper, and half a shallot. In the salad I put in tomato, cheese, and romaine. I put a dollop of hummus on the top and a spattering of spicy mayo and had it with a scoop of potato salad. Jay loved it too. We did notice how sweet the potato salad was because of the really vinegary dressing. I didn’t even realize they would have put sugar in there. I loved the salad and will be making it again. It’s a super easy meal for commuting days – skipping the potato salad.

Lobster Shorts wine

Wine-ing and Tumbling

It was a productive weekend. Projects were worked on and hobbies were started. Mr Lobster Shorts is building a shed from scratch. Neither of us has built a shed before. This weekend we finished the base. It seems sturdy and I’m hoping it keeps going so smoothly. I’ve already got plans next year for him to build a pergola in the garden, but one thing at a time!

One of my hobbies is making wine. I used to make it at home frequently with take-home kits. It’s a lot of work and it’s messy, so now I go to the winemaker shops. It’s been a long time since I’ve had some made and I was out of bottles. You need 30 bottles when you bottle wine. If you don’t have them, the shop will provide them, but it’s $2 a bottle. That adds another $60 to your winemaking bill. I put an ad out asking for leftover used wine bottles, I figured it would take a while to collect enough, but a generous soul donated 4 1/2 cases of old bottles they no longer needed. One and done!

Over the weekend I cleaned and disinfected all the bottles in a bleach solution. There were a lot and I did it in two stages.

I have the second half still drying on the bottle dryer. The dryer is handy, but it’s two days later and they are still wet inside. I don’t currently have a better solution. Also pictured above is a 4L wine jug I found at the thrift store for $3.00. That one still needs cleaning and disinfecting. I bought that little jug for a reason. Rhubarb wine!

On top of having wine made at the shop, I’ve gotten back into making it at home. I bought a lovely book at Chapters years ago, by Beshlie Grimes. It’s no longer available at Chapters, but I did find it on Amazon. I’ve made her apricot, and plum wine and both were delightful. This time I wanted to try rhubarb wine. My rhubarb plant is thriving and had tons of rhubarb stalks. I usually harvest the rhubarb for pie, but this year it was time to try something different. I’ve never had rhubarb wine before. This book is for small-batch wines (about 5 bottles) and it’s the perfect size for me not to feel too overwhelmed. Maybe one day I’ll get back into the thirty-day kits, but for now, this is much more manageable.

I washed and chopped all this rhubarb with a pair of scissors. I would not do that again. I’d use a knife. I’m pretty sure my cutting board was in the dishwasher, which is the reason I went with scissors. Next time I’ll wait for the washer to finish! My hand was aching!

The next step was to pile a ton of sugar on top of all this rhubarb and wait 3 days. And that’s the step I’m at… 24 hours in. The rhubarb is starting to get liquidy at the bottom. Two more days and it will be time to add water, yeast and yeast nutrient, for fermentation. It’s such a fun hobby. I’m enjoying myself.

Now for the second hobby…. rock tumbling! I recently got a new toy on Amazon. A National Geographic Rock Tumbler. I’ve had a rock tumbler before, but it was damaged. I love rocks. I love to search for neat rocks in all sorts of random places. At the same time I was thinking of getting another rock tumbler, I found out my spouse wanted one too, for completely different reasons. He wanted one to clean up nuts and bolts. I had no idea you could even put those in a rock tumbler.

The rock tumbler kit came with some rocks to tumble (and they are much prettier than mine). But I had a few of my own to add. The colours of my rocks aren’t really showing up very well. Two of them have red running through them. Mr Lobster Shorts asked to tumble these bolts. This is our contribution to the first tumbling batch.

And these are the rocks that came with the kit. There is a really pretty blue and white rock in there that I am super excited to see come out. A lot of these rocks look so small that they will be just ground down to sand, but maybe not. I might have overfilled the barrel with all these things, but it’s my first try in the new tumbler and I’m allowed to make mistakes.

The tumbler is LOUD and it’s going to take about a month to get these rocks polished. The tumbler has been tucked in a back room out of sight, but we can still hear it. I can’t wait until my first batch of rocks comes out!

Lobster Shorts decluttering

Craft Room Declutter

I love crafting. I have many hobbies that come with a lot of stuff, which can become a mess. Sometimes that mess gets out of control and I shut the door and ignore it. Out of sight out of mind.
I always wanted a desk with a pretty paperweight, antique inkwell/pen stand, and envelope opener. I do not have the inkwell and pen stand or even the witchy writing desk of my dreams, but I can do better, ya know? There is no reason to let what I do have turn into a nightmare of a mess. This room should be functional… and it wasn’t.

The closet contains a mix of sewing items, mostly fabric, a chest of letters a binding machine, and other odds and ends.

I also have a ton more fabric piled on the floor along with a sewing machine. There are also random boxes filled with random items, all over the place.
This corner isn’t all that much better, although I see a bare spot on the floor. This shelf is piled high with card-making supplies and on the floor scattered with a lot of my woodworking supplies. This room was long past due for decluttering.

The first thing I tackled was the closet. I managed to get all the fabric in there, including the two giant bolts that were on the floor under the shelves. The photo doesn’t show it, but all the fabric not visible is folded or rolled and on the top shelf at the very top of the closet. My sewing patterns are in the plastic totes now on the floor. Cutting mats, foam, and bristol board are tucked behind the fabric rolls. It’s not a picture of a perfectly tidy and organized closet, but having all that fabric put away helped a lot.

I didn’t get much done here, but all the clutter on the floor has been tidied and dealt with.

With the fabric all tucked away, the shelves look much better.

The desk is functional and I can actually use it to write letters again. There’s even room for the spooky writing desk of my dreams if I find one (fingers crossed!).

I can walk in there without stepping over stuff. It’s much more peaceful.

I didn’t get rid of many things. I didn’t want to. I love all my crafts and there wasn’t much I wanted to part with. I would like to do more projects minimizing the amount of supplies I have, without getting rid of anything. It turned out fairly well, for not doing a big declutter. In the future, I’ll only get what I need for the immediate project I’m working on. Less clutter that way.

And look, I can access my foraging basket again.

Lobster Shorts cooking, vegetarian

Commuting And Cooking Aint Easy

My spouse and I commute – a lot. Almost two hours a day. We’ve noticed a significant decline in our energy levels and health since we started 5 years ago. The main culprit – take out. We’re usually pretty hungry by the end of the day and often we cave in. We are commuting from a large city, so there are a lot of options. The majority of the takeout we get is from burger joints, pita places, and the odd burrito. The pita – not so bad, but no one is ordering salad at the burrito, or burger joint.

After getting home and walking the dogs it’s pretty late and we’re both hungry. We bought a box of granola bars. It’s helping us home without temptation. We need something easy, fast, and healthy. I found an old love that fits all these things. Spring rolls!

I love spring rolls! They are perfect and I found three packages of rice paper in my cupboard! They are so easy to make. First, I chop up 8 pieces of tofu (that usually takes half a thick block, or 2/3 of a thin block, of extra firm tofu). I don’t drain it. I probably should, but I’m not a chef and not that concerned about it. I dump them in a container and toss them with tamari (I don’t measure – sorry). I cut eight pieces for the two of us – four each. While that is marinating I cut up the rest of the ingredients.

I grate mushrooms (I ended up needing more), chop mango into long thin slices, and have a bunch of basil ready.

I soak the rice paper in hot water in a pie plate until it’s soft and pliable. I put some spinach down and two basil leaves, per roll.

Then I put in a bunch of grated mushrooms, a piece of tofu, and two slices of mango. The mango really makes it. I like the mango at the firm, but still easy-to-cut stage, for this recipe.

Roll it up tight (I still haven’t quite got this down)

and serve it with sweet chilli sauce. No particular brand, I generally like them all.

They are so good! I’m making them again tonight. Mr Lobster Shorts wasn’t fond of the basil, so I’ll leave it out of his from now on. From start to finish, it took 42 minutes to have them ready and served on the table. That’s really impressive to me. It’s not unusual for dinner to take me a couple hours. I think I can have these ready in 20 minutes after the refresher.

Another bonus of spring rolls, there weren’t too too many dishes. There were definitely some, but not heaping countertops full of them. I made myself a tea of fresh mint and let the last bit of the evening fade out.

Lobster Shorts gardening

The Tea Garden’s Progress

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0INmT3-r9RM

A couple years ago we started a garden – a big one. I’ve always dreamed of having a garden. The weeds were winning the battle for the lawn. We don’t use sprays, we have fruiting plants that we love to harvest and also – the critters! We have so many critters! Chipmunks, birds, salamanders, insects, toads, snakes, and so much more.

I wish I had pics before we started. My old computer with all the photos crashed and they’re gone. The video starts more mid-progress. Hauling all that sod out was hard hard work. I had regret starting the project, it was such hard work. We did it all manually. Shovelling and hauling sod. Shovelful after shovel full. Once the hard part was done, it was much more enjoyable. We put stone blocks in at the very end of the season (it was much more affordable this way). We spent a lot of time pounding rocks to make them level. They’re a bit more wonky this year after the winter, but nothing I’m stressing over. It won’t be too hard to put them back into place. Gravel was added to form the pathway and the little round area where we’ll be putting a seating area.

There is tons of room for more plants. It’s going to take years to get it full. I’m sticking with perennials. Every year it will be more and more full. Future plans are for lighting: fairy lights, or ground path lights. I haven’t decided. There’s still a lot to do and I love it. I can’t wait to have high tea in the tea garden. I’m sure breakfast and candlelight drinks/dessert in the garden will also be fantastic.

Lobster Shorts cooking, Food, foraging, vegetarian

Foraging For Lilacs With Old Man Oats

Lilac flowers are abundant in my area. Last year I had my heart set on making lilac syrup and ice cream, but I missed my window (lilac season is over in the blink of an eye). If you don’t have lilacs in your area, just know, they smell incredible! The scent is strong, the flowers are pretty, and there is a ton of them nearby.

Now was my chance, prime lilac season! We decided to take Old Man Oats foraging and Oliver to the puppy park. As you can see from the above photo, Oaty is a lazy bear skin rug, but he loves his walks. He’s super calm and Oliver is still young and bouncy. We haven’t got him leashed trained enough to take him foraging, yet. Hence, Oaty went hunting for lilac flowers, and Oliver to the puppy park when we returned.

Here is the haul we came back with. We picked them from a few different trees to avoid over-picking. There were so many flowers, that it likely would have been fine, but I want to forage responsibly.

It took HOURS to pluck all the flowers off the stems (the stems are apparently bitter, or I wouldn’t have bothered).

The recipe I started with was for lilac syrup. First, you start heating sugar and water.

Add a ton of lilacs and simmer for about 5 minutes.

Then let it steep for 3-8 hours (I left it overnight).

The next recipe I made was ice cream (looks pretty eh?). The recipe I chose didn’t add the lilacs until the recipe had cooled. I didn’t want chunks of flowers in my ice cream so I dumped them in to flavour the ice cream this way (like lavender ice cream which I love!). The flowers did turn brown after being exposed to heat, so I see why the recipe creator didn’t add them at this step). I had lots of leftover flowers, so I threw the rest in the pot and let the mixture steep for a few hours.

I strained out the flowers and put the batter in the fridge to cool.

Because I made this into a double batch of ice cream the ice cream maker couldn’t handle it. It didn’t freeze at all. I threw the whole thing in the freezer overnight until it froze solid and then ran the ice cream maker again. Terrible idea. I ran it a really long time, but the texture stayed icy instead of creamy.

Here’s how the syrup turned out after being strained. It was more green than lilac. I was really hoping for a pretty pale purple colour.

All this hard work was for Epic Sunday Breakfast. Sunday breakfast is a big deal for us. You have to go the extra mile and it’s for all of us (pups included). I chose to make waffles with the lilac recipes and have mimosas too. I did not put the lilac syrup in the mimosas, but maybe I should have? Missed opportunity. How did I like the lilac recipes? Sadly, they were meh. Not awful, but not great. I wanted to love them. I didn’t. They were just okay. The lilac flavour didn’t come through very much, even though I added extra flowers and steeped longer than mentioned in the recipes. The ice cream was mostly my fault, I didn’t follow the recipe and I messed up processing it in the ice cream maker, but the lilac flavour wasn’t there. In the future lilacs will be a garnish only.

Oliver impatiently waiting for his waffle.

As for the pups, they didn’t get any of the lilac recipes because I have no idea if lilacs are toxic for dogs. They got waffles with blueberries and maple syrup.

Lobster Shorts books, Pens and Ink

I Made A Fountain Pen Ink Swatch Journal – And Swatched The First Four Inks

I started an ink swatch journal this weekend – and I love it so much!!! These bound books evoke impressions of hidden treasures and secret knowledge. Where did this book of mystical wisdom come from? Sigh, Amazon… It came from Amazon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsmYRVIffo8

It wasn’t as easy to make as I had thought it would be.

The very first page turned out poorly. I used a stamping platform, but it was too awkward with the book and the second stamp went off-kilter, blurring the words. The page can’t be ripped out (especially the very first page) without it being very noticeable. It’s not the end of the world, I can just design something on paper and glue it over. That’s a project for another day and I’m confident it will turn out.

I tried again on the second page with an acrylic block and it turned out much better. I was using Stazon ink which was part of the problem. It’s so fussy, but it truly stays on and doesn’t smear, even when liquid substances are spread over it. It’s good enough for the second page and I’m going to leave it as is.

I used Stazon to stamp ink blotting circles. I didn’t want to use dye-based stamping pads for these because the fountain pen ink and the stamp ink might bleed together. The circles did okay, but the lines weren’t coming out, and I switched from Stazon to regular dye-based stamp pads. It worked so much better that I’m going to use it for the rest of the book (I’ve only stamped about 22 pages so far. I’ll complete more as I go).

For the first swatch, I used a sample of Sailor Manyo Haha (I bought the sample size instead of the full bottle, they were sold out. I’m glad I did because it’s too pale for writing letters, although it’s a beautiful blue). The ink was sucked into the paper like a sponge. This was the only ink that did this. The rest of the swatches took a bit to dry. The second Ink I used was Diamine Inkvent Winter Spice and it’s currently my favourite of all my ink colours. I love the brown with shades of deep dark blue and shimmer I love the way the colours change in the light.

The second page was shimmering superstars. The top one is Robert Oster Rose Gold Antiqua and the Second is Robert Oster Terra Australis. Both are heavy on the shimmer. I usedglass-dippedped pen to swatch the writing for these two. If I’m swatching more than one ink the nibs are too much of a pain in the butt to clean in between. The glass dip pens are so much easier. I really should take the time and clean the pen, as fountain pens are my preferred writing implement. The glass-dipped pens write more saturated and I’m not going to get a true version of the colour.

I love this book. I’m going to carry it around flipping through it often. Obsessively. I have so many more inks to swatch.