And finally…

…here it is…the unveiling…

Kindle touch

Yes Patti, you guessed it…altho I wonder if you saw it on facebook first????   Anyhow, really easy to set up…really easy to download the books…maybe too easy?  But I’ve had several friends tell me about the free books available at Amazon as well as other places, so I think that’s going to be a good thing.   I must admit, I put it off for quite some time simply because I kept thinking I wouldn’t want to move away from books with pages made out of real paper.  But I’ve kind of changed my mind…simply because my book collection is now too large..I need an actual library to house them all.  I think I can avoid adding to the stacks by reading the books on my Kindle.  What about you?  Do you have a Kindle (or other eReader)?

It’s heeeere…

Hmm…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What could it be?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a little hint for you…

 

Spook has to get involved

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have you figured it out yet?

 

 

Best smoothie ever

That’s what I had for dinner last night…oh my word, it was delish…and, of course, very easy to whip up (seriously, did you think I was going to spend a lot of time making a smoothie??)

I bought a bag of frozen fruit (it had peaches, mango, strawberries, and cantaloupe in it).  Filled the blender cup about halfway with that, then added a little frozen banana, some skim milk and a little International Delights Italian Sweet Cream liquid creamer…put on the blender, pulse, pulse, pulse…turn on high…oops, have to add more milk…did that, finished the blending process…took it off, put straw in and took a sip…yum!!!  Better than ice cream and I love ice cream!

Sounds like this could be my summer go-to dinner.

a different smoothie...but you get the picture...

Ahh…neighbors…you can’t really kill them…

…really, you can’t…well, unless you don’t mind spending the rest of your life in prison…and I’m not thinking that would be all that much fun…from what I hear, the neighbors there would be worse than what we have to put up with here on the outside…

About 2 this morning, I woke up to a lot of yelling and screaming outside.  I was sleeping with the window open so I could hear everything…could probably have heard it even if the window had been closed.  Every other word they were f-ing this and mother f-ing that…threatening to kill somebody, accusing someone of being a child molester and someone else of being a rapist…

One of the guys kept saying he wanted a ride home…then, in the next breath, he’d say he wanted more beer (umm…dude, seriously, I’m thinking you’ve all had more than enough beer for the night).  Then the woman who lives there would yell for them all to f-ing shut up because someone was going to call the cops.  Of course, she was yelling louder than anyone else…

Then one of the guys accused one of the other guys of hitting one of the girls…she jumped in and said it was an accident, he didn’t mean to hit her (you, girl, might want to consider drinking more beer…if he hit you, you need to just kick him to the curb, get out of that nasty relationship…it won’t get better, if he hit you once, you can rest assured he’ll do it again…).

Then the woman who lives there starts going on about how her husband has hit her and bloodied her lip…”right, honey?”  He, of course, denies it…then she starts cussing at him for being a liar…uhh…yeah, cause that’s way worse than him hitting you…are you crazy???  Wait..what am I asking?  Of course they’re all crazy…who lives like this and thinks it’s normal?

So anyhow, this goes on for about 45 minutes…I’m just so glad I didn’t have to get up and go to work today…if I’d had to drag myself out of bed at 5 this morning you’d better believe I’d have been slamming doors and making all kinds of noise to wake them up…but…with all of that drinking they’d been doing, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference…

Let me ask you all a question, if they go at it again tonight, would it be wrong of me to yell at them to just kill each other already so the rest of us can get a decent night’s sleep???

 

This was a veggieful day…

lots and lots of veggies...and some fruit too

Okay, you have to know that I’m working at eating healthier…at one point in my live (well, several times in my life, actually) I ate a very healthy diet…lots of fruits and veggies, hardly any processed food…then…well, I reverted back to those old junk food eating ways…

 

Now I’m setting little weekly goals to get myself back to a more nutritious diet, a healthier lifestyle.  This week’s goal is to eat at least 5 fruits/veggies each day.

 

And guess what!!  I managed to do it today…lunch was a vegetarian taco salad…tasty and good for me!! I ended the  day with 2 fruits and 4 veggies…goal met!!

 

Oh…and a little teaser here…yesterday I ordered something that I’ve been wanting for a long, long time…hmm…what could that be???

Cute little egg muffiny things

egg "muffins"

For lack of a better name, I decided to call these cute little things egg muffins.  However, there’s really nothing muffiny about them…well, other than the fact that they were baked in a muffin tin. I found this idea on Pinterest (where else?).  I was trying to think of some healthier options to prepare for work when I remembered this.  And I thought, why not? All it consists of  is eggs, beaten…I used 6 since I was using a 6-cavity muffin tin.  That way each serving would be 1 egg.  Just whipped up the eggs, poured them in sprayed muffin tin and added veggies.  I cut up green onions for all of them, then tore spinach for half of them.  Used one ounce of Swiss cheese divided among the 6 servings.  Then baked them for 25 minutes or so at 350 degrees.  Popped them out of the tin onto a cooling rack and that was that. Holy moly, did the house smell good while these were in the oven!  So dinner tonight was one of these little cuties, some toast and a glass of milk…yum! So, can anyone think of a good name for them?  Somehow I think  “cute little egg muffiny things”  doesn’t quite cut it.

Carrots instead of chips

That may not sound like a big deal to most folks, but it was a huge step in the right direction for me.  I just decided I need to start eating healthier again…I’ve been way too lax with my diet of late…like for the past several months.  Crazy!  So tonight, for dinner, I made a grilled cheese sandwich and was walking to the pantry to get the Doritos…U turned and walked to the fridge instead.  Pulled out the carrots.  Then decided to go for strawberries and angel food cake for dessert…not totally healthy, but so much healthier than I’ve been eating.

Why is this so difficult?  I know I feel better when I eat right.  I know I feel better when I exercise.  So why do I continue to do things that I know aren’t in my best interest and that will ultimately make me unhealthy, sick, or less fit?  I guess if I could figure this out, deal with the issues, and solve the problem I’d be writing best-selling weight loss/health and fitness books, right?

But today I feel like I was able to overcome temptation and do what I know I need to do…now to tackle tomorrow!

Spooky needs a kitten

Spook always finds her spot of sunshine

Aww man, I shouldn’t get another cat, but I’m seeing all of these little kittens all over the place (yeah, thanks for that, Simone) and you know how cute and sweet little kittens are.  Then I try to tell myself it would be for Spook, because…well…she’s never been around another cat that actually liked her and wanted to play with her…and wouldn’t she just love a little play mate?

Of course, then I tell myself it costs twice as much to feed and care for two cats.  And if I have to travel for work for any length of time, then I have to take two cats with me…I just don’t know.  I don’t think Spook is lonely or anything…how can a creature who sleeps 23 hours out of every day be lonely?  But wouldn’t she just love a kitten??

Decisions, decisions…I guess I’ll just let this percolate for a while…don’t want to make any rash decisions on something like this.  I mean, when we adopt a pet, it’s permanent…it’s not like I’ll just keep them for a while and give them back…

What do you think?  Does Spook need a kitten?

Medication side effects…worth it or not?

meds or side effect causing agents?

I’ve never been one to take a lot of medications…the usual Advil or Tylenol…antibiotics every once in a great while (like the time I had a cat scratch me and it got infected…really infected…and no, it wasn’t little Spook who scratched me).  And I’ve never really been a person who had very many allergies…I know, lucky!  So imagine my surprise when I started a new med that my doctor prescribed and noticed that my muscles were really weak, that my neck and chest turned all red and splotchy….then I started running a fever and my arms and stomach started getting red and splotchy too.  Yikes!’

When I called the doctor’s office, whoever answered the phone took the info and said she’d get back to me.  And she did, fairly quickly.  She said that the doctor said to stop taking the med (really?  that I’d already figured out on my own), to take some Benadryl every 6 hours and to come in on Monday as long as the symptoms didn’t get any worse.

So, okay…I can go buy some Benadryl, no problem…but when I got home, I noticed that the redness had spread down to my legs…and the doctor’s office was closed.  So let me call the pharmacist…she said I would probably be okay by taking the Benadryl…as long as I didn’t notice any kind of swelling in my throat, difficulty swallowing or breathing.  If that happened, her advice to me was to get to the emergency room…yikes!

Now the thing is, I live alone..unless you count Spooky and I’m thinking she wouldn’t be a lot of help in a medical emergency (altho she did wake me up one night when the smoke detector was going off…another story for another day).  So I kind of had a restless night’s sleep, but didn’t have any swallowing or breathing issues.  When I got up in the morning, the redness and started to recede  so I think everything will be okay…as long as we can figure out what it was that I had the reaction to and avoid it in the future.

Sometimes I seriously question whether or not the side effects from medications are worse than the original issue…

SAHMs, work outside the home moms

…blah, blah, blah…as women, we ALL work hard…every single day…why in the world do we have to have this manufactured competition about who has it harder in life?  Can we not just accept that we live the life we live and how someone else chooses to live their life has no bearing on our life?

Aren’t there enough difficulties in life without us trying to denigrate others who are simply trying to do their best for themselves and their families?  I really don’t care if so and so chooses to stay at home and raise her kids that way or if this other person chooses to work outside the home while raising her kids…what I do care about is that we all get so defensive about the choices we’ve made…or that we find the need to put down others who don’t choose to live as we live (wow…that could apply in so many other areas of life, couldn’t it?).  Just do what works for you and your family and allow others to do the same.

Come on, we’ve been fighting about this since…well…since forever…let it rest…