Chillin...

Thanksgiving is over, Black Friday too..and I'm just chillin and watching Lifetime movies...they are playing Christmas themed ones...'tis the season.

Based on the news lately some people are placing far too much emphasis on being in the front of the line on Black Friday at 3:00am for the store sales...that is nuts !  Pepper spraying people to get to the front?...I think all the stores should just open regular time on Black Friday and not a minute earlier.  There really is no need to open in the middle of the night or earlier!  I suppose this practice will never end as retailers count on the early birds shopping 'til they drop. 

It is hard not to get caught up in all the hoopla over Black Friday, but I don't let myself, it just can set me up for spending more money than I'd like to or can afford to.  The hardest urge for me to resist is the cyber sales since I am on the computer a lot, but I delete most of the emails before I open them to avoid temptation.

Thanksgiving was nice although I missed my oldest as she is back east, but my other daughter came home for the night. She had to work Black Friday so she left Thanksgiving early evening.  We had Turkey and all the trimmings and as tradition would have it, I ate too much! :) 

We did make one of our traditional apple crumb pies and it turned out perfect!  I still have one sliver that I'm going to finish tonight. YUM..





 

Figures..

It figures...that now the latest medical news is that sitting for prolonged periods of time can significantly increase risk of colon cancer...  top that with more bad news...women who have more than 3 drink in a week having an increased risk of breast cancer....might as well sit here in my Lay-z-Boy and have a tall drink, or two or three...

It is not that I drink every day or even every other day but what happened to one glass of Merlot a day was good for you.  I guess it still may help the heart but give your breast cancer? Ever notice how these sort of stats are changing all the time?  And do they actually have evidence that these things do cause more cancer? Have they discovered more people with colon cancer because they sat several hours a day?  

If this is the case I might as well not bother with the colonoscopy..no I haven't had one yet and past 'due' if one is suppose to have one at age 50....not sure what doctor made up that rule either..once you turn 50, time to get a colonoscopy.  Since I sit upwards of 15 or more hours a day working, I feel like I must already have colon cancer or am doomed to get it. 

Ever since I heard that news I have been trying to get up and walk around a little bit every few hours, but sometimes i just forget.  It is so hard to do or NOT do everything to avoid getting cancer.  I think I'll keep eating healthy, exercising and doing the best I can to avoid cancer...until the next new breaking medical news comes out...can't wait!

Daylight savings?...

As I was headed back into the office to work last night, I asked my hub to make sure to wake me up early enough today so that I could exercise before meeting my sister for breakfast.  I reminded him that the clocks needed to be turned back.  He said he would..

When I got to bed after midnight I saw that he had advanced the clocks in our bedroom an hour instead of turning them back. I didn't have the heart to wake him up and just brought a clock with the right time into the room and placed it on my night stand. 

The next morning he got up early as he usually does, I found out later it was approx 6:00AM going by his clock next to the bed.  He came up at what he thought was 7:00AM to wake me and I told him he set the clocks forward an hour and not back so now he was two hours early!  He didn't like it when he realized he had gotten up at 4:00AM!  He said he'd wake me up then when it was time.  An hour later he came up again and said it was 7:00AM.  No, now it was the same time it was yesterday.  Instead of being mad, I thought it was funny!  Then I dozed off again for another 45 minutes or so.  We joked about it for a while, though I know he was mad at himself for getting up so early!  :-)


So much for sleeping an extra hour!  I think, next year I'm going to change all the clocks myself!

Been over a month.. I know..

Sorry it has been so long since I've blogged.  Just when I thought I couldn't work any harder, I've been working day and night, sometimes forcing myself to stop after midnight as my brain refused to think any more!   This includes weekends too...even Labor Day!  

I worked yesterday too but got it all done so that I could have today off..finally!  

Spent some time this morning cleaning as the house really needed it!  If I'm working all the time, that means no time for even cleaning.  I'm lucky to get 7 hours of sleep some nights!

So .. since it is 911, I reflect back to what I was doing back then.  I had just finished my Diane's Mortgage Tips newsletter and sent it off to my subscribers and then saw what was going on at the twin towers. I was working from home underwriting back then too and was starting to work on my files. We had sent Stac off to school with cupcakes for her birthday as yes, 9/11 is her birthday and she was celebrating her 10th birthday that day.  Today she is 20, wow! My girls are now officially in their 20s!

At first I thought it was just a horrible plane accident, but then quickly realized it was escalating into so much more.  My brother who worked in NYC had missing the plane crash by about 15 minutes if I recall as he walked from the train at the World Trade Center as he did every day on his way to work.  I was so glad to know he was NOT in that or he surely would have been one of those who lost their lives there..

Back to the present...we have had a lot of wildfires in Central Texas over the last few weeks and last weekend we got two bins ready in case we would have to vacate.  Luckily none have hit our area so we haven't had to evacuate the area. At least I feel a little better that we are more prepared than we were.  We even have 5 leashes at the ready in the garage so that we would be able to get all the furkids out quickly if the need arose. It is incredibly dry here in Texas and it has been months if not over a year since we've had a good soaking rain.  And with all the fires recently the water having to be used to try to control them, has me worried that we will run out of water.  We conserve water and limit its use as best we can.  Our front yard is partially dead but it is expected as I do not believe in wasting a ton of water on keeping the yard perfectly green.  Water needs to be treasured!

Well we are going to watch a few movies today......so I will end this with a promise to come back before another month go by to blog again.

Oh..almost forgot..due to the hot, dry summer, I had to give up the garden as it was just dying. I do have 2 pepper plants that are still doing okay, but the rest has died.  I plan to start all over again later this month when we stop having 100 degree days and hope for a late fall harvest.  We'll see.

Nice weekend....

Got back from spending the night with my girls. Stac and I went up to visit my oldest before she moves back east.  It was great having time with both the girls.  With the way time is flying, it is going to become less frequent that we can get together like this and when I thought about that this morning while we were eating breakfast, it made me a little sad.  But anyway, we saw the last Harry Potter movie which we all liked and I for one was glad it was finally concluding.  I think too much time passed between the movies though because I had a hard time remembering the last movie and where it left off.   The ones I am really looking forward to are the last Twilight movies which is the last book they are splitting up into 2 movies. 

It was too hot (106 degrees) to be outdoors much yesterday afternoon but we got to eat in some nice air conditioned restaurants, went to the movies, and got some play time in with her fur kid and her friend's dog who really had us laughing.  Her dog tripped on a ball and fell over and we enjoyed watching them both want the same ball at the same time.

I will try hard not to be too sad that D is moving so far away. She will have what sounds like a great job and  will not have to struggle so much financially as she has been.  She still amazes me as she just randomly stood at the edge of her couch and brought her leg up to a 180 degree angle, like it was nothing. So flexible and graceful!

Tomorrow my youngest is headed back to college and at least she will be back home fairly often to visit and still has a few years before she graduates...  I hope the next few years go really super slowly.. 

Empty nest feeling .....again..

My oldest dropped some news on me that I guess should not have been a surprise, but nonetheless saddened me a bit. Even though she has technically been out of the house ever since she was still in college, she still was less than 4 hours drive away and somehow that made me feel like she still hadn't totally left the nest...just that the nest had a long bottom to it.. sort of like a rubber band.

Anyway she has decided grad school is too costly for whatever value it could give her which I don't blame her for, but she has decided to move back East and work there.  So..she won't be somewhat close to me anymore and that is what makes me sad.  She is all grown up though and has a mind of her own so, all I can do is hope that she is happy and does well there.  Her dad at least still lives back East so he will be lending a hand and at least I know she won't be there totally by herself.  I plan to go visit her with the youngest before she leaves next month.

This weekend I didn't have to work and it was such a nice break from working all the time I felt like I was on vacation. I even didn't mind cleaning all  2 1/2 bathrooms, and scooping poop in the back yard. It was just so nice giving my brain and eyes a break from the computer.  

We watched some movies this weekend too, some were good, others were not.  These were all rentals.  Planning on seeing the last Harry Potter movie when we go visit the oldest. I am really looking forward to it! 

See??

I said I'd write before another long period and I am!

Happy what's left of 4th of July!  I actually got done working all weekend before Craig Ferguson was over.  No, I'm just kidding....or ammm  I?... ;-)


It is very nice having a few hours off for the 4th of July.  Here is a picture of some our my very own lettuce from my balcony garden that we used for salad with our spaghetti tonight. Yum!

Of course the balcony garden was planted before I got really busy!  I'm hoping the cucumbers, zuchini and pole beans survive the heat. We've been having several days of 100 degree weather and that is not great for vegetable gardens.

I checked out the filter in the A/C unit and after only 3 weeks it was really full with dog hair and such. Ick!  Hubby went and got a new filter for me.  Hard to believe it barely lasts 3 weeks!  Well with 5 furkids and needing to run the air every day nowadays it is no surprise.

Not going to try to catch the fireworks tonight, it will be really crowded for sure because there aren't many towns that are having them with the drought we are in.  We're watching Eagle Eye right now and I haven't seen it before but it really is action packed at least so far.  Going to get back to it and enjoy the rest of my evening.