Chips and Dip

The other day we bought some chips and dip on sale.

Today, find several bags of chips and dip. Talk about manifestation. It never fails. Ever.

The heat slows down dumpster diving. Especially for meat and produce. Way too dangerous. Could get sick. Plus I have enough food to last me for quite some time. Now don’t get me wrong, we do spend money in the economy, but wisely.

Tonight we are redoing a room and making it a spare bedroom for guests and any other weary traveling friends who need to stay for a night or a month. Doesn’t matter. God has been good to me, so I’ll be good to others.

I have quite a stash of new clothes that I found a few years ago. Pants, jeans, socks, T-shirts, underwear, dishes, kitchenware, that I’ll never ever use. They are going to charity this week. Someone could use them. I need the space and someone out there needs the clothes. Just the other night a local charity received a large bag of body powder, makeup, and other personal toiletries.

It is nice in the country. We saw two turkeys the other night, a coyote running across the highway and dozens of fireflies in the evening. Many a night I will sit outside, watch the fireflies, light a candle on my front porch (keeps the bugs away) and enjoy the bright moon or the stars when it’s the dark of the moon.

What things in nature do you enjoy? What simple pleasure do you like?

Dumpster Diving Injuries

When I first started diving. I did it alone. I wasn’t a seasoned diver and I had to learn the hard way how to do dive properly. For years I would hold the diving stick in my right hand (my dominant side) and the flashlight in my left hand. I remember coming home at night with my right shoulder and arm hurting, but it was OK the next day. Now looking back on it, I should have been using a headlamp and using both hands to grab items.

For about a year I’ve been having shoulder issues. Pain, stiffness and almost close to a frozen shoulder. I waited until we moved out of the city and got settled before I decided to see a doctor. So off to the doctor I went for physical therapy treatment and massage. But I kept irritating it and it wasn’t healing. My husband does all the heavy lifting, but I would get so excited about finds and wanting to hurry the heck out of the location before management or someone else came outside, I would jump out of my car and help!

Finally the pain became so bad, I decided to back off diving for a week and things are improving. I’m starting acupuncture in a few weeks and I should be on the road to healing again.

We still dumpster dive, but right now I’m only the chauffeur. I write the articles about our finds, but my dear husband does the lifting and jumping into the dumpster. Tissue injuries take a long time to heal and I have to take a step back and just let my arm heal.

Word to the wise. Use a headlamp and don’t use just one arm. If it’s too heavy, have someone who has the upper body strength to do it, just don’t get injured. If any of you have shoulder issues, please let me know what worked for you.