Mary, moving into someplace you like but with a brutal property manager sounds like a crap-shoot; I hope it works out well. And though you're living frugally, there are delivery services. (I see there is a Winco grocery store in town - that is a good place to start for shopping. It's an employee-owned store, many of them are open 24-hours, and the store near me has a great bulk food section. Yours may vary. The map says it is on Yew St. south of Alder, just east of I-5. There's also an Aldi, 300 Aaron Parkway. They don't have every brand in the world, what these low-priced small stores have is good quality products in store brands or a few name brands. For big stores there is Fred Meyer and as a last resort, Walmart. Good luck with that.

Sandra, it sounds like you were also looking at a crap-shoot as far as delivery. I hope it worked out. Blocking out a four-hour chunk of time for a service call can kill the day.

My 91-year-old friend who recently moved from far west of here to not quite so far south of here called this evening - a cousin of her children died in Colorado, they're all going to the funeral, and she needs someone to stay with her. No, I won't drive down there for four days and have someone else feed my dogs, she can come here. But she has a dog who is an escape artist and there isn't time to train her to the backyard invisible fence. She's going to see if she can board the dog down there and then she spends the time here.

This means I have until next Thursday to see if I can accomplish that cleared-out-den look I described some weeks ago. I've listed and sold several of the items that were taking up space on the dining table but I still need to move the photo cube. I'm close to managing this.