It’s been a while since I shared a meal update so I thought I’d do a show and tell of the meals we’re been eating lately. 

We aren’t heavy eaters. Breakfast usually consists of oatmeal, yogurt, toast or the occasional bowl of cereal. 

Linner is the main meal for us, with a light snack later in the day {for me that means tea and a cookie, the HH usually goes for nuts, cheese, fruit or something random}.

At the rate we’re going, by the time we’re in our 70’s we’ll probably just be eating a spoonful of peanut butter and a banana each day. HA HA HA. 

The body is amazing, isn’t it? It needs what it needs and that’s about it.

Last year it seemed like all we ate were those Mediterranean Crunch salad kits from Costco. 

But after a few not so great bags, and the “fresh” produce not being so fresh, we’ve kind of given up on them. 

For the time being anyway.

Avocados seem to be the hot item for 2026. We’ve been buying at least 5 a week. 

A rotisserie chicken from Market Basket is another must have this year. At only $4.69 each, it’s actually cheaper {and tastes better in my opinion} than buying one and cooking it at home. 

Bananas and rotisserie chickens, they’re the two best bargains at the grocery store if you ask me.

Who needs tortillas when you can just put it all in a bowl? 

The stuffed shells from the Costco freezer section are another new discovery this year.

Mississippi pot roast and potatoes. 

And last but not least, Copy Cat Panera cream of chicken and wild rice soup. We made this yesterday and there’s still plenty left so I think we’re all set for the weekend. 

If you haven’t made it yet you’ll want to give it a try. It’s the perfect meal for a cold and rainy day. One more day of rain to go… And then it’s sunny skies and back to working in the garden again.

I hope you have a nice weekend.

Peace Out. 

~Mavis

OTHER

The post It’s All About The Avocados This Year! appeared first on One Hundred Dollars a Month.

A large golf umbrella for only $4.97. What a deal. Seriously. It seems like deals are far and few between these days. I think this is a great price.

Have you ever used a sauna before? Did you enjoy it? I think maybe I tried one when I was a teenager. I would never buy one, but I thought the shape of this one was kind of cool.

Did you know Fig Newtons were made in Mexico? 

Have you seen the ads for the $50 cashmere sweaters from Quince? They look so cozy and the reviews are fantastic but I don’t like buying clothing online because returns can be such a pain. 

Have you ever bought anything from the Quince website? If so I’d love to hear what you think about their products.

I spied this granny square steering wheel cover in someone’s car and it made me smile. 

I LOVE the granny square! I tried crochet once and it did not go well. But maybe I should give it another go? I wonder how long it would take to make one.

And last but not least, this is what the front garden looked like last year on this day. 

Rain is in the forecast {2.5″} for the next two days so no playing in the yard for me. Oh well. I guess means I’ll just have to stay indoors and work on my rugs. Maybe I’ll make a pot of wild rice chicken soup. 

How about you? What are you up to day? Anything good? 

~Mavis

OTHER

The post Bits And Bobs – May 2026 appeared first on One Hundred Dollars a Month.

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A big thank you to everyone for your well wishes for the HH. Yesterday was the first day he was up and moving around without any brain fog, major tiredness or ear pain. 

He’s on the mend! 

The weather has been really nice the past few days. And by really nice I mean sunny and low to mid 50’s. Any day there’s sunshine and little to no wind is a good day in my book.

I worked in the garden from 9 am until 6 pm. It was AWESOME! By the time I came inside my hands were dry from playing in the dirt and my overalls were filthy.

The big project of the day was positioning the 10 foot long raised bed and getting it filled with soil.

I was going to have the local nursery deliver a yard of garden soil, but apparently there’s a two yard minimum {plus $70 delivery fee!}. 

So I decided to fill the raised bed with 2/3rds Pro Mix and ⅓ garden soil {which I liberated from the other raised beds in the back}. 

Have you ever used Pro Mix in your garden before? This is my first time.

My old friend The Duck Lady used to grow vegetables and flowers in her greenhouse with Pro Mix and had great luck with it. So I figured, why not?

Pro Mix retains A LOT of water. Which is a good thing. 

The reviews of the stuff online were really good too so I’m hoping everything goes as planned and we’re able to grow some nice vegetables with it this summer. It will be interesting to see how well the vegetables grow in the Pro Mix vs the garden soil from the other four garden beds. 

I wasn’t going to plant any tomatoes in the elevated garden bed, but maybe I should plant at least one just to see what the difference is.

I’ve already planted carrots, beets, radish and turnip seeds in the regular garden boxes. Everything except the beets have popped though the soil. Hooray!

I won’t be planting my other vegetables in the garden boxes until the end of the month though so I decided to remove my 65 chive plants from the Solo cups to the elevated raised bed for now. 

I figure this will give me a chance to see how often I’ll need to water the Pro Mix to keep the plants happy. 

A sort of a test run if you will.

It feels SO GOOD to be playing in the dirt again. Fingers crossed we have a good summer with lots of sunshine and a ridiculous amount of vegetables. 

A girl can dream, right? 

~Mavis

P.S. I spotted chive plants at the nursery for $9.99 each. 

65 plants x $9.99 = $649.35. I feel like I’m sitting on a gold mine!

OTHER

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If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, then you know my husband has had Mohs surgery multiple times. 

Basically, every year for the past 10 years he has gone to the dermatologist for a check up. Every year he insists he doesn’t need to go. And every year I insist that he does. 

Yada yada yada…

He went to the dermatologist a few months ago, and there was a small spot in his ear that wouldn’t heal and it looked suspicious so the dermatologist did a biopsy and what do you know… More basal cell carcinoma.

So last week the HH had Mohs surgery #7. I took this photo an hour or so after we got home from the surgery. In a nutshell, it didn’t go well.

Mohs surgery #7 was on the concha cavum.

If you need to have Mohs surgery on/in your ear, this is NOT an easy spot to reach. 

And well, after multiple attempts {and the cancer still being present} the decision was made to stop cutting {and most likely} go the radiation route. We have an appointment for that next week. 

Anyway…That’s not what this story is about. This is the story of how the HH maxed out his deductible for the year. {First time ever!}

So the HH had the surgery.

And by the evening of day 2, there was a bunch of blood on the bandage and the HH was concerned so we decided to head to urgent care {with 10 minutes to spare before they closed} so a nurse could remove the bandage and have a look. 

I stayed in the lobby while he went back with the nurse and not even 5 minutes later, another nurse hurried out to the lobby to get me and said that my husband passed out, but he’s coming around. He doesn’t look so good though so they called an ambulance.

She said he was out for 2 minutes… And then asked if this ever happened before???

Umm… Yes. Multiple times actually but when I get back to the exam room I can immediately tell this time is VERY different. His face was GREY. 

I try to hold eye contact with him and then start squeezing his leg and the nurse is moving her fist around his chest and he passes out again.

He comes to, the ambulance arrives, he gets loaded in and I follow behind in the car. 

I tell myself that as long as they don’t turn on the flashing lights and sirens or speed up, everything will be okay.

They do an EKG, a blood workup, and give him an iv. They say he’s fine. We head home four hours later. 

Except that he’s not fine. This time around it {passing out} took a lot out of him. A few days have passed since it happened and he’s just now starting to feel more like himself.

Passing out has only ever happened in a medical setting for him. So I told my husband from now on… every time he goes to the Doctor, he gets to have a chaperone {me!}.

Skin cancer sucks. And so does passing out. But hey, being served meals on a tray and not having to do yard work for a few days isn’t so bad. 

~Mavis

P.S. Get your bits checked. 

OTHER

The post Mohs Surgery #7 – Concha Cavum appeared first on One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Get Back To The Basics + Learning to Unplug

Last week was a bit of a doozy for us. The story deserves its own post so I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, BUT we did get some to unplug, that’s for sure.  

In other news, Lucy is feeling a little bit better. Her back legs still are not 100% {and I doubt they ever will be again} but she was able to go on two super short walks last week, so that’s something. 

She is so stinkin’ cute! She has taken over the HH’s chair and loves laying on her heated blanket all day.

In The Kitchen

No pear frangipane tart, no canning and I didn’t use any of our beans this past week but I did make an apple galette yesterday with some of the apple pie filling I canned last fall. 

Kitchen Goals For This Year

• Master the pear frangipane tart from Standard Baking Company. 
• Put my Weck jars to use.
• Use two bins of beans {working on it}

Rug Hooking

It was a fantastic week in the rug hooking department! I sold a large rug, listed some new bundles of wool, and made some serious progress on two rugs. 

Right now I’ve got a giant whale rug on a rug hooking frame which I’m trying to work on for an hour each day and a flower basket rug on my hoop which I’ve been working on at night. Both will become new patterns/kits when I’m done.

With any luck I should have both pieces done in about 2 weeks. 

Rug Hooking Goals For This Year

• Finish drawing out all my patterns, making kits, dyeing wool by March 31st. 
• Release 10 new rug hooking patterns/kits.  {3 down 7 to go}
• Hook 27 of the patterns from the “someday I’ll hook these” bin. {4 down 23 to go}

Go New Places – See New Things

The only exciting place I went this past week was to the garden center to search for the perfect hanging baskets for The Lobster House. 

Part of me thinks the hanging basket flowers need to be red to match the lobsters, but I’m not a huge fan of red in the garden {unless we’re talking about tomatoes}. 

I’m more of a pinks, purples and whites sort of girl but I don’t want my flowers to clash!!! Last year the hanging baskets were red, deep purple and white and I regretted buying them. ALL. SUMMER. LONG. 

Maybe I should just paint the lobsters pink? Hmmm.

Travel Goals For This Year

• Travel someplace {internationally} that I’ve never been before.
• Travel somewhere in Maine {overnight} that I haven’t been before.

Places I’ve Been So Far This Year

• Boston {Birthday getaway}
• NYC 

Walk And Stretch More

Well, I did the half marathon. Or rather, I survived the half marathon. I told the HH to NEVER let me do one again. 

I have zero problem walking 18 – 20 miles around a city in a day, but my days of fast walking/jogging are over.

I am still hobbling around like a 99 year old and it feels like all my toes are broken.  I have no idea how all the 70+ year old ladies who beat me did it. 

And you know, I don’t need to know their secret either. I’d rather hike the Grand Canyon than participate in another half marathon or marathon again. And now I know that.

Walking/Stretching Goals For This Year

• Get into some sort of stretching routine
• Fast walk a 5K, 10K, and Half Marathon 

Garden

The tulips out front are beginning to bloom! I picked my first bouquet {from along the size of the house} yesterday and it’s so nice to have tulips in the house again.

I keep checking the Van Engelen website to see if ordering is open yet but it’s not. It should be soon!

We had the front and back garden areas Hydroseeded 11 days ago and we are just now starting to see the grass come up.

We were so worried it wasn’t going to work, or that we weren’t keeping it {the pulp} moist enough so it’s nice to see little blades of grass.

According to a neighbor that just had theirs done, in about another week it will really start to look like a lawn. I don’t know though, to me it looks like we are going to have to re-seed. 

I guess only time will tell.

Garden Goals For This Year

• Rework the driveway and garden areas {in progress}
• Go crazy and plant a ridiculous amount of flowers {working on it}
• Step out of my comfort zone and plant some flowers I’ve never planted before

Paint

I finally painted all the trim in the entry! Next up, the front room. We decided to go with a light blue {Benjamin Moore Fountain Spout}. 

I’m hoping to get walls painted this week. 

Once I get the walls and the window areas painted, then it will be time for the HH to sand the floors. The floor trim will be painted after he sands and stains the floor.

Things are moving along. A little slower than I anticipated but hey… We’re getting there. One day at a time, right? How are YOU coming along on YOUR goals? Curious minds want to know. 

Peace Out. 

~Mavis

Painting Goals For This Year

• The Van Gogh wall
• The gallery wall down stairs
• The captains wall in the hall
• Trim and walls 

OTHER

The post My Goals For 2026 – Week 19 of 52 appeared first on One Hundred Dollars a Month.

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