Monday, January 5, 2015

The Party's Over

It's Monday, back to work today.  I did work Friday, January 2, but it still seemed like a holiday and they let us out at 3:00.  Today it's back to business as normal, and it's freezing out there.  3 below at O'Hare.  I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about my cat colony!  I'm sure they'll be fine, but I wish I knew for sure that the kennel heating pads are still working ok.  I hate to take the roofs off the feral villas to check, because I don't want to freak out any cats that might be snoozing in them.  I'll just have to hope for the best.

I had a wonderful, quiet weekend.  I have always been a homebody, but the older I get the more I love to hang out at home.  Yesterday I made taco soup and roasted a chicken.  I did laundry and putzed around.  Did a lot of relaxing in the lazyboy -- I should call it lazygirl.  Watched the long-awaited first episode of Season 5 of Downtown Abbey.  It started a little slow, but ended up being very good.  I love that series!

I hate the thought of slogging through the snow to the train, but I really want to get my walking in this week.  I may take the bus to the el on Wednesday morning, though.  It is supposed to be 12 below zero in the morning.  I am flirting with the idea of staying home if it's that cold!  I'm a wuss.

My food intake has been just "OK", nothing stellar.  I have realized that I can't be trusted around a block of cheese.  I have a couple of recipes that I will be making that call for shredded cheese, and I know that hand-shredding a block of cheese tastes so much better.  But I have already hacked off several hunks of the block of cheese to nibble on, it's probably about half gone.  Sigh.

Because I am cold and rather depressed about winter right now, I will post a picture that makes me feel a bit warmer.  Our granddaughter, Lily, and her kiddie pool.  Ahhhhhhh  I wish I could time travel right through January and into July.

Friday, January 2, 2015

A Good Day

January 1 was a nice, stay-at-home day for me.  I did some relaxing, reading the paper with my morning latte and playing Words With Friends with my friend Sharon.

If it's true that what you do on the first day of the year will set the tone for the entire year to follow, I'm in good shape.  I did my favorite things -- relaxing at home and cooking.  I made good use of our Christmas ham bone, and made split pea soup.  It's chilling on the back porch, I'll finish it up tonight and we will have it for dinner.  I dearly love split pea soup!  I also made Hoppin' John for dinner, it's supposed to be good luck to eat black eyed peas on New Year's Day.

I did a lot of peeking out the back porch windows at my cats.  I love to watch them, even if they are just eating and stretching.  They do a lot of stretching!

This is Brando, he is so adorable:


My food was very moderate, too.  And, per my resolution, I logged everything that I ate.  All in all, a very good start to the New Year!