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?

Happy New Year! This will be our first Friday sharing five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

1. I missed posting a blog on New Year’s Day, sorry!! A combination of doing a bunch of stuff, and an annoyed stomach, got in my way. In good news though, early New Years Morning I took some Imodium and fully resolved my stomach problems so I could go on with my day. I really thought it was some kind of stomach virus so I lucked out!
2. New Year’s Day we had Youngest, his wife and mother in law over for an early dinner. It was a last minute plan as I had to make sure Wizard was better. He is…although the cough will come and go for a while as they do. But otherwise, he’s fully recovered and I worry too much about him, LOL.
3. For New Year’s Day dinner, I made ribs and two kinds of marinated chicken, roasted potatoes and green beans. I think people liked it? I mean they’re not going to tell me my food sucks, right? Anyway, it’s a lot of fun when people can sit at the bar while I cook. They are there to help when I need it, and also keep me company while enjoying wine, soft drinks and appetizers. My daughter in law was teasing me that it was like being at a cooking lesson. I’ve said this many times, I’m okay but not a good cook, so I thought that was funny. However I enjoy it, so its all good.
4. I tried a new recipe out of a new cookbook (I fully confess, I have a problem buying cookbooks lately!). The cookbook is “Downshiftology Healthy Meal Prep” (Downshiftology is a food blog that focuses on healthy gluten free options). I made the Chocolate Espresso Shortbread Bars, although I tweaked the ingredients to what I had on hand and what I prefer. I was really happy with the way they came out!
5. I’m happy the holidays are over, and ready to take on 2025! I don’t do resolutions, but I do like to think about goals for the year. My top is always showing up for the family I love, hanging with grandkids and this year, I’d like to really appreciate Maggie. She’s getting older, and while I expect she has many years let, there’s no guarantee and I don’t want to look back one day and think I didn’t appreciate her enough. I do have other goals, but no one wants to read that list I will say one involves a new laptop (probably a 2in1 laptop tablet) and see how I do working on that. But that’s not something I’m ready to invest in just yet.

So that’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope you all have a great first weekend of 2025 and a fantastic year ahead!

We had a good weekend, except for Wizard’s cold and cough. It seems to be running it’s course, but it’s not fun for him.

Saturday I finally broke down and bought a small weight bench. The makeshift one I was using wasn’t the safest set up! I consulted on weight bench with Youngest since he works out at home and he approved it. He also offered to help me pick it up. I am proud to announce I was able to get it all by myself Well, okay, the guy who worked at the store put it in the car for me, but I carried it in the house with no problem.

Now we just have to assemble it, hopefully today. Wizard will help because he wants to, and he wants to make sure it’s safe. I’m thinking he doesn’t fully trust me, LOL. But I’ll take the help!

Sunday I went to Oldest’s house to hang out with Turbo. I haven’t had a chance to just chill with my grandson in a while and that was fun. They told me that with all the viruses Turbo and his friends bring home, they weren’t worried about me spreading Wizard’s cold. It was such a nice day! I watched Turbo play Minecraft (a video game), then we went outside and played some catch and kickball (I watched because I didn’t want to reinjure my ankle that’s healing so well), and finally we went to lunch followed by a trip to buy Turbo a small toy. I loved the low key easy day! I got home two hours later than I thought I would, but Wizard was fine. He ate soup and slept a lot. He probably got more rest with me gone.

Today I hope to get to Trader Joes, assemble the weight bench if Wizard is up to it, maybe buy some heavier weights, and we’d like to draw up a yearly budget for things beyond our standard monthly stuff. It’s not set in stone, but it helps us narrow down things we’d like to do and figure out if we can budget it. It also helps motivate us to actually do them. A lot of people would hate that, but we found it works for us. I know some couples feel stressed just trying to plan ahead. To each their own!

I miss Baby Girl but I don’t want to risk getting her or her parents sick while she’s still so young. She’ll be there when this virus leaves. So far, I’m fine, but there’s no predicting if I’ll get sick or not.

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve! I can’t believe it! We plan to stay home and I should be here on New Year’s Day if any of you are around.

How was your weekend?