Salad

I wanted to posted a picture real quick of the salad I made yesterday since I didn't get a picture of the one from the day before.  This one has peanuts added. The dark colored pieces are the multi-colored carrots (there are also nearly white carrots in this salad too).  They are so cool!  I didn't know carrots came in anything but orange! The wedges are the other half of the avocado. Nice salad huh?!

 

Happy Birthday to my oldest also! You know who you are :)

48 to go...

Only 48 more Mondays to go this year. Woo hoo!
Hey it is something to be excited about in my book!

Yesterday I wanted to take a picture of my salad but the battery to the camera was on charger so I didn't take one, and I don't have a fancy phone that can snap and post directly. So anyway, I gave Greenling another chance on Saturday and got an order of decent, edible produce this time! Last time I ordered it looked like I got the bottom of the barrel and the bottom contained two sweet potatoes with some sort of growth on them that I didn't want to even chance those. Some of the other things were limp and not fresh.

So anyway, this order was more like I was used to. My salad yesterday consisted of mesclun (don't ask me...that is what it indicated) salad mix, 1/2 avocado, spinach, fresh squeezed lemon and rainbow carrots including their greens.
Last night I made a recipe that I hadn't made in a while - Johnny Marzetti. It is made with ground beef, macaroni, tomato or spaghetti sauce and cheese as the main ingredients. I don't have ground beef very often (as it is a very fatty meat, plus ever since those pink slime stories..I'm a bit leery). But since I ate a great salad for lunch I figured it was okay.

I started to wonder if I could come up with a weeks' worth of recipes with names in them.  I came up with Johnny Marzetti, Sloppy Joes, Shepard's (hey think Grey's Anatomy) Pie...but that is all I could come up with off the cuff.  And besides those ALL have icky ground beef in them.

Oh since I'm on the topic of food, I got some hard Tofu for the first time to try with some stir fry.  The tofu I get at the Thai restaurant really tastes good!  So I'm willing to give it a shot.

Yesterday it got up into the 70's. Today it is progressively going down and it is only 44.6 out now with a wind chill of 35 (we have winds too).  So I do not think I am going for any walk after work this evening.

We got harnesses for Molly and Ditzy for when we walk them as they are two of the worst pullers and really make walking them aggravating. I broke up some treats and attempted to take just Molly with me yesterday but Ditzy kept making her way out too, so I took both of them.  I figured why not try to train them not to bark at every single person, bike, dog that they saw or went by. The harnesses have been wonderful!  The training did not work out so well. That is something I can only do with one dog at a time. I've been watching some training videos about it but those were all done with a controlled environment. Like a scooter approaching starting from way far away, finding out the trigger spot when the dog spots it..and then give them treats continuously to keep them from looking and barking. They kept closing in the distance,etc. 

It would not work for me anyway as a motorcycle going by gets Molly's attention and once things get a dog's attention it is too late.  I called her and showed her a treat, to no avail.  So I didn't even try to do that sort of training with them. Instead I had them sit at the end of streets (before we crossed) and gave them a treat when they did that. Molly is good and stays in the sit position until I say "OK" but Ditzy sits until I give her the treat then gets up.  Well in her defense I haven't really worked with her too much. I'll see how things go although as I said without controlled objects/people not sure how well the barking will get under control with these guys.

Sleet in Texas?

This afternoon it started to sleet!  We're talking Central Texas here! 
And the winter advisory is on through noon tomorrow.  We aren't suppose to get more than an inch totally of snow/ice but if it is ice the roads will be bad!  I'm not sure if I'm going to make Tika's follow up (to her dental last week) tomorrow or not.  Will have to see how the weather is at lunch time.


They don't treat roads around here very well at all as icy/snowy conditions are not expected here, not to mention that Texas drivers do not know how to drive in this stuff either.  So hopefully it won't be too bad.


Not much else is new. Even though other parts of the US have had a much harder winter, it already has seemed long to me and I am looking forward to Spring!

Nice long weekend

I have Monday off so here's to a 3 day weekend. Yippee!!


It started out cold today but warmed up into the mid 60's so I took the dogs for their walks.


Then I tried out my bike!  Yes bike as in bicycle! I haven't ridden in a long time but a friend of hubby had a few bikes he was getting rid of so we sold one at a garage sale hubby was having anyway, and I told him I wanted to buy the other one.  It is nothing fancy but looks brand new. It is a Huffy female riding bike with wider tires that those newer bikes that have really skinny tires. 


I made it around the block but the seat really HURT my butt!  I hope I can get more used to it because it is really uncomfortable.  I don't recall the seat ever hurting my butt when I was a kid. I used to ride my bike a LOT!  I'm not used to hand brakes either. Mine were just in the pedals (just pedaled backwards to stop - slowly). It is hard to explain but it was easy to stop. I just hope the hand brakes don't jolt me off the bike.  :-)   I'm not used to more than 3 speeds either so that is something else I have to adjust to. 


There is a new SNL on tonight so I'm looking forward to that.  No big plans tomorrow.  I should get a helmet before I ride my bike too much but I may take it around the block a few times tomorrow to see if it feels any better. Fingers crossed!

Almost there!

Almost Friday again! Yippee!


I wanted to share that I started a new group in Facebook. This was a result of seeing two different posts, one from a lady in New Mexico missing her dog, and another from a lady in Texas missing her cat. It is so sad to me when someone's beloved pet is lost!


I searched the Facebook listings for Lost and Found Pets and although there were about a dozen Facebook groups in this category they were specific to a region or state. I think a general Facebook Lost and Found Pets was needed. This way anyone on Facebook can post a lost or found pet as they may not be in the area in which there actually is a Facebook group to post.  I'm hoping it catches on as it would be another communication tool for folks to use.


I'd appreciate it if everyone that sees this post and is on Facebook to please join! Anyone wishing to check it out it is here.  https://www.facebook.com/groups/lostandfoundpets1/


Tonight it was Thai Cuisine night. Yum!! What a great pre-Friday treat!

Friday is here...

I'm glad it is Friday!  I realize that I didn't blog since Sunday but there was really nothing new to say.  I am happy some of the shows are starting back up again after the holiday break (re-runs amuck).  Hubby and I watched Hostages the other night and it at least had a final ending and not a cliff hanger with nothing to follow.  There are so many shows that get cancelled mid or even early season and just drop off the face of the TV world. So glad this one did end and ended well.


Although it was a dreary, rainy morning it ended up with the sun peeking out and I think we got up to 72 degrees outside.  It was nice. We walked Molly and Merlin.  They enjoyed getting a walk as they haven't been walked since last weekend either. Between the bitter cold and then the rain, it just didn't happen.


Our smallest furkid Ditzy started her own new blog
Feel free to check it out!

Tomorrow is Monday...Ugh

Tomorrow is the first Monday in 2014, ugh!  There are 52 of them to get through.  Oh well.  Nothing to do about it except make the most of it. 

Yesterday was mostly cleaning day. I cleaned our bathroom including the bathtub that was in dire need of a good scrubbing!  I tried using dryer sheets as I read somewhere they were good for that. I think it did help but it didn't take long for them to shrink up and start to tear (I dampened them to use). I used 2 of them and then stopped using dryer sheets - mostly because I didn't want to use them up on cleaning the bath tub.  At least it looks much better than it did before.  I also cleaned the living room/dining room and scrubbed the kitchen floor. 

Scrubbing the kitchen with a sponge is a bit of a work out but I needed to clean it well because I had accidentally knocked the sugar dispenser which was glass off the kitchen island two days ago and it broke into several pieces and sugar went everywhere on the floor too. Although we thought we got it all up, I wanted to go over the floor again, especially because of my dog Tika who constantly licks the floor.  Now it is nice and clean.

Since I cleaned as much as I wanted for the weekend, today was relaxation day. I convinced hubby to go see the movie Frozen as my oldest said it was really good.  At first I was worried that he wasn't going to like it as there were several songs in the beginning of the movie and I thought he'd lose interest, but then the plot got deeper and the singing not as much, so he said he did enjoy it.  I liked it but I never mind singing in movies so I knew I'd like it.  There were a lot of funny parts but you had to pay attention to catch some of them.  It was a nice early afternoon 'date' with hubby.

It is extremely cold over a lot of the northern states so I won't complain that it is suppose to get down into the 20's tonight.

Happy New Year!

Okay so a day late, but I just thought of writing. First time I am blogging in 2014.  I just realized I've been blogging for several years now!  It has been fun!

Talked to the oldest yesterday (called her) as it has been months since we talked on the phone. It was great talking with her and catching up with what is going on in her life. It was so great hearing her voice! They are having snow back east right now so I'm hoping her work got cancelled so she didn't have to drive in it.  I hate driving in ice/snow. that was one of the main reasons for moving to Texas. I was just checking out the traffic cams for the local area I used to live in, snow covered roads and slow traffic.  Yeah..do not miss that at all!

The youngest went back to her apartment today so that she can get some things done before she starts back to work next week.  It was great having her here too. We still have the decorations up but they will be coming down in the next few days.  I'll sure miss the ones on the fireplace though, they make it so nice and bright.