My 2026 Reading List Is Gone

Last week, my entire reading list disappeared from blogger. I opened the draft to add something to the list, and suddenly several lines were gone. I tried undo but nothing happened. I tried it again and still nothing happened. I tried it a third time and the entire post draft disappeared! 

My usual emergency measure for such things is to quickly close out the post before it autosaves. Then I get a dialog box reminding me that I have unsaved changes, but I close it out anyway and the mistakes aren't saved. This time, no such dialog box appeared and the post closed with my entire list permanently deleted!

Once the disbelief became less acute, I started to wonder what to do. Should I try to reconstruct it? I had three or four dozen physical books, about three dozen audiobooks, and two eBooks on my list. I'm not sure I could remember all the titles; that's why I kept the list. 

In pondering this, I had to ask myself what the long-term value is to it. It's kinda fun to do, and kinda fun to compare with others, but it's like keeping monthly weather records in my garden posts. It's time and effort to do, but I rarely reference it later.

Should I start again beginning now? I had to ask myself why I kept a reading list in the first place. Besides being fun, I'm not sure what other benefit I gained from it. For one thing, my interests have meandered in different directions than the theme of this blog. The purpose of this blog is to document our homesteading adventure. But as I mentioned awhile back, our time now is less dominated by homestead experiments and projects, and more influenced by a seasonal routine. When I found myself doing almost identical blog posts at the same time every year, I decided there were more interesting things to do with my time. 

I'm still very much interested in homesteading, but I'm no longer reading to collect ideas and information on it. My interests have instead shifted toward the fiber arts and genealogy, especially historical culture studies. I read a variety of fiction and nonfiction. Fiction is mostly historical and for bedtime reading when I don't have to maintain alertness. Much of my nonfiction reading is inspired by the fiction I read. I'm curious about historical accuracy plus the people, terms, and concepts in the story. 

For example, earlier this month I (finally) finished Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series. It starts in 1799 in India and progresses through Britain's participation in Napoleon's Peninsular War and the Battle of Waterloo. Historical events were woven into an interesting storyline, and I learned about the culture, customs, military, strategies, and weapons of the time. I learned about Portugal, Spain, and France in the early 1800s plus the people behind the notable events. These aren't topics I have much interest in, but because I enjoy Bernard Cornwell, I tackled the series and learned a lot.

To expand on this, I read other fictional works of the same battles, and was able to compare two authors' treatment of the facts and details. I looked for biographies of the main historical characters and read (or listened to) those. Of those authors, I found other of their works that interested me. For example, after listening to Ida M Tarbell's biographies of Napoleon and Josephine, I listened to her The Business of Being a Woman. It was written in 1912 and not only remains relevant, but it will open the reader's eyes to how far off the deep-end modern day feminism has fallen. 

In terms of the origins of my ancestors, I've discovered a number of books written in the 1600s and 1700s that are extremely interesting. Thankfully I've been putting interesting tidbits into a notebook rather than the computer. I won't have to worry about losing them as easily that way. 

So that's my tale of woe. It's a good reminder of how precarious it is to rely on a computer to save important information, whether a home device or an online venue. Maybe I'll just start a notebook to record the books I read. 

My 2026 Reading List Is Gone © September 2026

 by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

Back Porch Project: Foundation & Framing

Dan has made a start on the new back porch. One of the things he did in preparation was to watch dozens of Youtube videos of other peoples' builds. The conclusion was that there are dozens of ways to do it!

In my photos, you will see a variety of footers. This is because the soil isn't consistent throughout the area. Under the house foundation, is a brick footer which prevented digging next to the foundation. So the footer in the above photo is gravel and cap block on top of packed clay.

One of my first questions was whether Dan was going to remove the existing block and concrete porch. He said no way. Instead, it's becoming part of the support system for the new porch.

For the footer in the photo below, he was able to dig down before placing it.

They gray powder in the above photo is dry cement. This currently seems to be a very popular way of filling post holes, so Dan is giving it a try here. The idea is that rain and soil moisture harden it.

On the driveway side of the porch, the soil is packed down hard with gravel. Our driveway isn't paved, but gravel. Over the decades traffic packs down the stone and new loads are applied on top. Stones are pushed into the soil for who knows how deep. It was impossible to dig for a footer there.

In the above pic, Dan was able to level an area to set the concrete footer block on top. He adjusted the length of the post to keep the floor level.

And lastly, bridging.

Our choices for getting to the back door are to either crawl under the framing and then try to squirm our way between the joists to get up the steps, or use a ladder.

There are a couple of pieces of plywood to walk on to get from the ladder to the concrete porch. It's a bit awkward, so the next step will be to build the new porch staircase.

Back Porch Project: Foundation & Framing

© 2026 by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

Frugal Living: Periodically Evaluate Everything

It's so easy to fall into a rut. To just chug along and not realize how some things could be better, especially in the budget department. I've recently started to look at things we pay for on a regular basis, shopped around, and made some changes. 

The first was car insurance. We recently replaced our old standard transmission pickup with a newer automatic model. We had Travelers for car insurance, which had recently just up and doubled our premiums. So Dan did some calling around and Progressive came up with the best rate, which put our payments back to where they were before. 

Grocery shopping is another one. We grow much of our own food, but for other things I'm a bargain shopper, and I keep track of prices for the items I buy. I used to shop mostly at a locally owned grocery store and Walmart, and would go to Aldi occasionally. But it got to a point where Aldi prices were better for everything. I got a fuller cart of groceries for half as much anywhere else. So Aldi is my main store nowadays. I also periodically browse the shelves at Dollar Tree, Big Lots, and Ollie's, where I often find good stock up bargains. I still buy a few things at Walmart, although that list continues to get shorter.

I find it interesting that Walmart recently announced a downward trend in profits. They blame current events, which I find amusing. Do you know how often I didn't buy something because I'm worried about what's going on somewhere else in the world? Never! If I am concerned about something, I buy more to stock up, not less. Another factor is that too many items are locked up with no sales associate conveniently handy. My time is too valuable to traipse around the store to find someone and then have to wait on them to come unlock the case. I just buy it someplace else. 

For me, shopping is all about price. I look at the price and decide if I will or I won't pay it. If I won't, then I either find a better price elsewhere, choose an alternative, or just decide that I don't need that thing after all. The bottom line is that Walmart no longer has the best prices. I suspect others are figuring out the same.

Another area of frugal living evaluation is prescription meds. We only have these occasionally, and I've found it really pays to call around before filling the 'script to compare prices because there can be a huge difference. I used to assume Walmart pharmacy had the lowest prices, but after shopping around, I discovered they don't. Walgreens was the winner for the prescription I needed awhile back. CVS was best for Dan's post-surgical prescriptions.

Along those lines, healthcare systems vary in their pricing schemes. We travel a little farther for doctor visits, but our out-of-pocket costs after insurance are lower than the closer system. 

Internet. Spectrum has been raising rates every so many months and when my bill hit $130, I said enough is enough. That's $100 a month for internet and $30 for a connected house (not mobile) phone. So I started shopping around and switched our phone service to Straight Talk wireless. It works with our basic VTech handset phone and is half what I was paying with Spectrum. For internet, I switched to Earthlink, which is giving me faster speeds and cut our internet bill by 20%. I also appreciate that they don't use gimmick pricing to bait new customers. It was $50 to set up the account.

Next will be homeowners insurance. Ours has jumped every year, which I partially understand due to so many people moving here. That has meant real estate prices have risen a lot. Some people love that their house value has more than doubled in recent years. Unfortunately, higher insurance and taxes follow that increase in value. So we need to shop around for that as well.

My point here is, it's worthwhile to occasionally evaluate the things that we pay for. Am I getting the best rates? Am I getting the best value for my money? Can I find better rates somewhere else? Is there an alternative? Is it something I really need (we dropped paid TV years ago for that reason.) Sometimes we stay with what we've got, but sometimes we find it isn't worth it. We need to take advantage of having choices while we've got them.

Frugal Living: Periodically Evaluate Everything

© 2026 by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com