It was a good weekend, but not much to tell in a roundup. I did a little cleaning, ran a few errands and a worked out on Saturday. Sunday was a designated chill day to rest. But because I’m so good at chilling, Maggie and I went on two walks and clocked over three miles, LOL. But it actually was a nice day with no demands and the walks were fun. I even managed to easily finish the Dell book because I saw down in the day when I’m not as prone to falling asleep. I felt very accomplished! I only had something like 10 pages left but by the time I sat down to read, my eyes were tired and burning (contacts!) and I’d fall asleep.

Oh and another highlight for me that most will find silly or dumb. I got two sets of tiered drawer-baskets for under my bathroom sink and I love them! It was a mess under there, and most of the stuff was a pain to get to. Now everything feels organized and accessible. I’ve been “thinking” about these tiered baskets for a year when Wizard finally had enough and told me to just order them. Now I have no idea why I was dithering! But honestly, sometimes it’s the small things that make us happy.

Last night we went to dinner with friends we haven’t seen in years. However I’m writing this before we go because I’ll forget after — until I go to bed in which I’ll remember and either 1) get up and write the blog then not sleep or 2) dwell on the fact that I didn’t write the blog and not sleep. Yeah, I know, my brain is a puzzle. Anyway, I’m sure the dinner will be fun! We are looking forward to it.

How was your weekend? Hope everyone stayed warm and safe in the cold!

TGIF!!! It’s time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

1. The winds have calmed! I’m very happy about that. I don’t see any rain in the forecast, but I’ll take no winds as a win.
2. This week, we had pillow drama So I buy expensive pillows on my doctor’s strong recommendation for my neck. They’ve worked well in the past. Then the new ones arrived, and frankly, they were garbage. I do think I ordered the size wrong, but I did not order crappy pillows. Think sleeping on an letter sized envelope filled with few paper shreds —  they were just terrible for us. There was a long 24 hours of me being mad at myself (because I should have known the quality had gone down?) Then it dawned on me — we can still return them. The company has a guarantee. So I contacted the company, they agreed to my returning them, and I shipped them off. I should get the refund soon. This stupid little thing stressed me out more than was reasonable.
3. We have run all over the county, and we’ve seen a lot of dining room tables. They all are starting to look the same, and my very old one is starting to look better. At this point, I just need the most amazing and perfect table in the universe to ring my doorbell, or I’m moving on to other, less exhausting projects!
4. I made a version of white chili chicken yesterday to freeze for lunches. I changed a few ingredients to use what I had on hand. Fingers crossed I like it because I have six servings batched up in the freezer and fridge I also made two loaves of sourdough bread and put one of those is in the freezer.
5. Today the plan is to go to Baby Girls for a bit. Daughter in law needs to drop her car off for a few days, so Wizard will go with her and bring her home.  If anyone’s wondering, Middle Son is working so hard right now and asked us if we could help, and we’re happy to. I’ll watch the baby while they get the car into the shop. It’ll be fun for me! But when Wizard gets back, I promise to share Baby Girl with him. That reminds me, Wizard saw a funny video a grandpa holding the grandbaby and the grandma repeatedly trying to get her from him. Wizard cracked up and made the totally shocking accusation that that grandma is me! Can you believe that? I know, it’s outrageous even if it’s probably true, LOL. This weekend, we’ve talked about trying to see Turbo but we haven’t talked to his parents yet. We both are running a bit tired, so we’ll see.

That’s my five now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

I just finished listening to a mystery, THE LOCKED DOOR by Freida McFadden. I liked it. For the record, I figured out the killer before the story revealed it! That’s a win for me, and also, I like the way the author hid the killer in plain sight. The narrator was good, but she tended to use a whisper-like voice that I, at times, had trouble hearing. But I have trouble hearing certain pitches, so that’s totally on me.

Next up, is an autobiography THE HOUSE OF MY MOTHER by Shari Franke.

I’m at the very end of the biography by Michael Dell, PLAY NICE BUT WIN. The first third and last third have been sluggish, while the middle third kept my interest. I’m glad I read it, and I feel like I learned some things. It’s just been a slow read for me. And I keep falling asleep, that’s likely another me problem and not a book problem

What are you all reading?

It’s been a mostly good weekend, aside from fire news and winds. But we won’t dwell on that too much.

Saturday was lovely for us! We spent a few hours with our granddaughter, while her parents and several other volunteers worked on inventorying merchandise for a charity organization. They had brought the trailer with the merch to Middle’s house as he has a huge driveway. The cause is childhood brain cancer, and these dedicated folks donate a lot of time and effort to support it. I admire them all for it. And just a quick brag: Middle Son is bone-crushingly busy with work, and he traveled out of state for a good part of this last week. And yet, he and daughter in law are still committed to this important cause. I know I’m flat out mom-bragging, but I’m proud of their priorities.  Anyhow, back to Baby Girl, she was delightful! Full of smiles and fun. She’s a happy, easy going girl these days! Here’s a pic of her that her mom took when she turned four months old last week:

Sunday, Wizard went racing and I managed to wash all the floors. The winds have made everything so dirty, but I wouldn’t dare complain when others are dealing with a lot worse than a little dirt. Otherwise, I did my usual workouts, finally conceding that I need to give one of my hips a break. I have a bad habit of trying to go back to working it too soon and annoying it all over again. So in frustration with myself, I wrote down on my log book (where I track what exercise sets and reps) in big, blog capital letters to REST MY BAD HIP!  The hope is I’ll listen to myself if I write it down, LOL! Also, this hip stuff is old news, and I know better than to push it as hard as I have been.

Overall, it felt like a good weekend for us. More winds are coming today, but they shouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as last week.

How was your weekend?

TGIF! I guess it’s good it’s Friday? But with storms ravaging other states, wind and fires here, it’s feeling a bit forced right now.  Quick note: Wizard and I are still far enough away from any fires to be safe. I hope all of you in the path of the cold and storms are safe as well! But let’s try to do our best with Friday Five. Here’s my five random things about my week:

1. Maggie went to the Vet Tech yesterday for some standard care and was such a good girl That’s what they tell me. Obviously, we can’t trust my opinion because I’m completely biased, LOL.
2. After the vet, I had to run to Macy’s to exchange a watch I got for Christmas that just stopped working. They are sending me a new watch and I appreciate that customer service! I’d already had the watch sized and they could have refused, so that’s a positive on the week!
3. I made pepper steak from my new cookbook this week and really loved it. I think Wizard liked it fine but wasn’t nearly as ecstatic as me. I’m pretty sure that had something to do with my enthusiastic inclusion of extra veggies But he had homemade sourdough bread with it so he was happy enough. I love cooking these days, but dang it’s tiring.
4. We have begun shopping for a dining room table. I don’t mind looking in person, but it’s hard to know if stuff we see at online stores is a true reflection of the pictures on the websites. It’s a big purchase and hard to return so we’ll probably ponder this for a long time, if we do it at all. On the upside, while out shopping in real stores, we accidently found some side tables for our living room in our price range that we’ll probably get. That’s a bonus!
5. Wednesday the plan was to go see Baby Girl while her mom did some errands. We cancelled that since the winds were too wild. Instead we are going out there tomorrow (hopefully) and will watch her while Middle Son and Daughter In Law take care of a few tasks. We are so looking forward to seeing her after our self imposed ban while Wizard was sick!

Okay that’s my effort at a fairly upbeat FF. Feel free to be as happy or not as you wish to be! I look forward to hearing whatever you wish to share! Have a great weekend!

High winds are prompting my to write this earlier than usual on Tuesday. Fires are already breaking out and the winds are supposed to get worse. I haven’t seen winds this strong in a long time.

But today I’m here to talk about the Reading Monster I’ve created: Wizard! So I had two books sitting around that I hadn’t had time to read, “That Will Never Work” by Marc Randolph (one of the founders of Netflix), and “Play Nice But Win” by Michael Dell (founder of Dell computers). Wizard stole my Dell book and started reading that.

Then he read the Netflix book.

Then last night he wanted to go to Barnes and Noble to look at books. I showed him how to find more biographies on business, he found one and suddenly he was hooked. By the end of the evening browsing, he had three books but finally chose three on various subjects. I was like a proud mom, LOL!! Wizard will read occassionally, but I’ve never seen him WANT to go to a bookstore and look at books because he was afraid he’d run out of books at home to read. That’s new and awesome!

I’ve read the Netflix book and am 2/3s of the way through the Dell book (it was a slow start for me but now it’s interesting). I have other books on my Kindle so I’m not stressed I’ll run out of things to read.

Happy Wednesday!

My weekend was generally good. But I was defeated by a security tag…

So Friday I went shopping at Macy’s because I had a gift card. I found six shirts on sale at great prices. One shirt, however, came home with a security tag. It was the one shirt that didn’t have a tag so I brought another one just like it to the register so she could ring it up. Somewhere in the process of making a duplicate tag, the clerk 1) never put the tag on the shirt and 2) forgot to remove the security tag. In here defense, we were chatting the whole time she was ringing me up as we like the same brand of clothes. Anyway…it’s a LONG way to the store so I tried a couple internet hacks to get the tag off. I think I could have eventually gotten it off without setting off the dye, but the efforts were beginning to fray micro holes into the fabric. Annoyed, I threw it away.

But the rest of my shirts are great Stuff happens and I’m over it. By the way, this security tag situation happens more often than people might think, and therefore I usually double check before I leave the store. The one time I didn’t…and here we are. So that part is my fault.

I should also mention that I ruin shirts on a regular basis — usually in the kitchen while cooking or baking. I mean this way of ruining a shirt is new, but the overall experience is sadly familiar, LOL.

Otherwise, my weekend was good. We just did typical stuff on a normal weekend, nothing too exciting. If anyone’s wondering, I love my new weight bench! Mostly because it’s safe and much more stable for me. I really don’t love risking injury! I mean I can hurt myself walking down a hallway, so the least I can do is not invite injury with makeshift weight benches!

How was your weekend?