Lazy weekend

We have had a very lazy weekend. I started another jigsaw puzzle in the living room. It really works great to put up the card table. I have an Ott-Lite I use on the table to see the pieces; it shines light on the table but stays out of other people's eyes. This puzzle is a multi-picture of a wolf. It's a bunch of little pictures of animals made up so the shading in the big picture looks like a wolf. I started putting it together sometime last year, and about 3/4 of the way done, I put it away in a puzzle storing thingy. You put the puzzle on the flat piece of fabric, fill the tube with air then roll the tube down the fabric to create a roll of puzzle. But it's not designed for long-term storage as we found out. The air leaks out slowly and the tube shrinks letting the roll relax and lose pieces. We finally put the puzzle away a few weeks ago because it was almost all the way deflated. So now I'm starting it over. There were three good-sized sections still together, but I'm nowhere near where I was before. It was a fun puzzle before, and I'm looking forward to doing it again. I'm planning on watching a movie or two this afternoon and working on it. Fun!

We had fun weather yesterday. There was a short thunderstorm, but I've never been in one so close before! The thunder was not more than 2 seconds after the lightning, and it was so loud! The first thunder clap disturbed me out of a nap on the couch; I woke up very surprised and confused. John and I laughed at how startled I was. We saw a little hail, too.

Shopping/walking

Well, tonight after dinner at Olive Gardens, we did our walking around at Barnes & Noble. I know it doesn't count as aerobic excersice, but I'm tired nonetheless. Tomorrow I will go walking after work. Hopefully it's not raining. :)

By the way, we bought quite a few good bargain books, and I got a cute little set of notecards. Fun!

Walking log

So tonight we went for a short walk to the bank and back. It might have been a mile, but was probably a little less than that. It was already dark and cold.

I want to keep a walking log on my blog. I've seen other blogs where runners log their trips. I think it's a pretty cool idea.

My Mom's cat

My Mom's cat, Cjazz, is now in kitty heaven. He was young at 12 years, but he developed diabetes and was in a lot of discomfort. My parents decided to put him to sleep. The vet went to their house to issue the IV, and they said it was quite peaceful. They're going to bury him in the yard in a spot he loved to sit and watch all the creatures of the area. He was my cat, too, and I'll miss him.

New warm clothes

For work I bought new boot socks and more jeans (stretch boot cut) and a skin-hugging camisole. I also recovered my boots from my parents' house. Today at work my feet were quite cozy considering it was only 37 degrees out!

New link

My mother-in-law started her own blog! This is a big step for her. We sat down with her and helped her get it started. She has been interested in starting one for awhile now. I always love reading her emails to me. She's a good story teller, and I know she'll have some good posts to read.

Starting over

Okay, okay, so I haven't been posting every day. I will start again. Lately I've had a hard time thinking of what to post about. And I don't have as much time anymore just to sit down at the computer and fiddle.

And now that we are done with the birthday celebration, I want to again cut back on sweets and exercise more. I'll just keep writing this down and keep trying to get into this habit. It will be nice when the weather is nicer so we can walk outside more. I'm really looking forward to spring this year.

Friday the 13th - Good Luck Day

I've always considered Friday the 13ths to be Good Luck Days. I believe things happen according to your perception of things. Just believe you'll have good luck, and whatever happens, you can find the good in it. So good luck or bad luck is really just in your head.

Even though I don't really believe in luck, I have one silly superstition. I don't pick up pennies from the ground when tails is facing up. I can't explain why I follow this superstition. Like I said, it's quite silly.

Trying to eat healthier

For a few years now I keep telling myself that I will eat healthier and exercise so that I can be healthier and maybe a little thinner. Well, it's come to a climax now where I don't think I can go on eating junk. So I want to eat more dairy and fruit and veggies. And I want to walk every day after work. I'm writing this down so I can refer to it. Thoughts that don't get written down are never going to take place.

Puzzle games

I love puzzle games. There's one puzzle, called sudoku, that involves placing numbers in a 9 by 9 grid. One of the customers from work created his own sudoku website with a new puzzle every day at www.sudokuplace.com. I've gotten hooked on them. They are great to work on at work while driving between business. Well, my co-worker drives, and I sit and ride.

Mochas and lattes and tea, oh my!

This week I started working on a coffee truck that drives on a schedule route to different businesses to serve people espresso and coffee and some food items. I work with one other person on the truck. I'm quite excited about meeting new people and making espresso. We're out in the elements, but so far it hasn't been too cold. I'll post funny stories as they happen.

Homemade chicken noodle soup

Wow, I'm on a roll. Tonight I used the leftover chicken to make chicken stock for chicken noodle soup. It turned out pretty good, except I ran out of broth. I'll know to use more water for next time.

Yeah for trying new things!

First time roasting chicken

Last night I adventured into the world of roast chicken. I even made giblet gravy! I used a basil/thyme/pepper rub. It all turned out pretty good. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures.

Then tonight we had homemade pizza with bread made in our bread machine. It was really easy and really good! I'm going to make that more often.

Christmas cookies

My Mom and I usually make some cookies at Christmas time. One year we made seven different batches; it was very fun, but we both have a terrible sweet tooth, so now we limit to one or two batches total. This year we made jam thumbprints, which are like a shortbread cookie, rolled in egg whites and walnuts, with an indentation filled with jam. We used marionberry and raspberry jams, and they turned out very yummy. They disappeared quickly.

Narnia review

Over Christmas vacation, we went to see Narnia. I really liked it. The special effects were great, and the kids were awesome.

The only complaint I have is the PG rating. I think it should be rated PG-13 because of some of the war scenes. There wasn't much blood, but it would be intense and scary for little kids. There was a child (I'm not sure what age she was, but I'm guessing around 4-6) in the theater in the row behind us that told her Mom several times that she was scared and didn't want to watch it anymore. The mother told her it was okay, but didn't take her out of the theater. I was not impressed with the mother's decision to bring this young child to a scary movie and not respond to her daughter's request to leave.

Besides young children, I think everyone should see this movie. The actress that played Lucy gave an amazing performance. I can't wait to see what kind of young woman she grows into and what interesting parts she picks to play.

Tangrams

I bought this cool daily calendar that gives a new tangram puzzle everyday. I've played with tangrams before, but not enough to solve the harder ones. So far, the puzzles have been easy, especially since the next day's puzzle is similar to the last. I've enjoyed it though and look forward to a new puzzle every day.


After saying they were easy, I tried to do today's. It took several minutes instead of one. Oh well. I still had fun.

Cute kitty

Except for the evil eyes, Macy takes very good pictures. Here's she's surrounded by gifts. It was nice to have her with us on our Christmas vacation.

Dominoes

A cool gift that my father-in-law received for Christmas was a set of Mexican Train Dominoes. It's a set of dominoes that goes up to a double 12; this set showed the dots in different colors. I was intrigued by the patterns of the dots when they were laid out in sequence, so, of course, I took pictures. I like this one the best.

My Dad plays Diablo!

I've played Diablo II for many years. When we were still dating, my husband and I partied together quite often while I was away at school. About a year ago, my Mom bought the game, and she's enjoyed playing with both of us. And finally, on New Year's Eve, my Dad broke down and bought a copy for himself and we all played together with new characters. He is usually the last person to buy the latest thing. We had fun!

No longer a knitting blog

I've finally decided this shouldn't be considered a knitting blog anymore. I have too many other projects in the works to be able to knit on a daily basis, so most of the posts end up being about something else. Sometimes I don't post about other things because it's not about knitting, and I think I would rather post more often than post only about knitting.

As one of my new year's resolutions, I will post every day. I wonder how many other bloggers have the same resolution.