18 december

Rainy today and Ryan has to turn in his invention. He didn't want me to drive him to school. So we put two garabge bags over the display board so he could carry it easily.

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Dad's 81st birthday. I made him Pecan Pie. It was my first attempt and I used Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook. I screwed up one pie shell by not being patient and used the microwave. But I didn't read the directions and it melted. Who knew 30 seconds could do so much damage? The next one I read but still overdid it. A portion fell off and it ended up pretty lopsided. I followed the directions but when I poured the filling into the pie, there weren't enough pecans. So I added a few more, then a few more, then a few more until the bag was empty. It looks good, except for the lopsided crust.

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I have two presents left to wrap. I still need to get some gift cards or cash. Hate being broke.

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I am baking peanut butter cookies. It's my first time. I am not a fan of peanut butter cookies. I do like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (crunchy with raspberry preserves). But I don't care for most things made with peanut butter except for miniature Reeses cups (refrigerated and only a few) and Nutter Butter Cookies.

The recipe calls for a cup of natural peanut butter. Natural? We'll see... I haven't had peanut butter in almost two years and it's the first time I checked labels. I didn't realize all the crap they put in there. I ended up with Smucker's All Natural Creamy. Supposedly you don't need to stir it but...

Of course I had to taste it. Hmm... not sweet. Which would be good on pb&j. Will it be OK in cookies? This recipe calls for whole salted peanuts which I skipped. (Oh is the lack of salt going to be a problem?) I tasted the batter and reminds me of Nutter Butters! I might just like peanut butter cookies.

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Someone goofed. The recipe says to bake for 25 minutes. What?! I set the time for 22. At 17 minutes, I could smell them from the other room. They were well done. Next I tried 10 minutes and that was not enough. Thirteen minutes is a bit too much. Twelve minutes seems to work. These cookies taste good but are too dry. They crumble in your mouth. Hmm...

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17 december

I am dressed to walk but maybe I should stay home and start the chili, wrap some gifts, mail some gifts, fold the laundry...

Then again, a cold front is coming through and tomorrow morning will be colder and possibly wet.

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Thought it was me, but it's not. Wordpress Mobile is not saving in draft mode. I have lost 2 entries so far.

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I made chili for dad. A very simple recipe, thick and meaty and mild. Just the way he likes it.

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I got something different for lunch. I still went to Tijuana Flats buy did not want another cheese quesadilla. I really wanted a burrito. I never noticed that they have a veggie burrito which is like the Taco Bell 7 layer burrito but much, much, better. I opted for a bigger size and it was less calories than the cheese quesadilla meal with refried beans and rice. And it was tastier.

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7:31

Ryan young inventor's project is almost done. I walked him through all the questions, I typed up his responses. He needs to cut up the answers and glue them on the board. But as far as he is concerned, he did his one hour so he is done.

Oh wait! He is trimming them now!

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16 december

Too busy getting ready for Christmas. Someday I will organize myself earlier. I am better than last year but...

Dad is complaining about the freezer full of cookies. Most will be gone tomorrow when I take them to the chiropractor. He thinks he need to have 8 boxes of chicken nuggets even though the boys only eat one box per day and the store is only 2 miles down the road. Sometimes I wish we had a separate freezer. I could have started my baking sooner. And I could freeze more soups, stews & chili. As it is, I use ziploc bags for freezing because they take up less room than Pyrex.

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Ryan's invention due on Friday. Yep we are working on it at the last minute. I have made it as easy as I can but he still complains. Grr...




Baking chocolate crackles. Hmm... the first batch looks odd. (This picture is from a batch I made in 2008.) Seems like I always do something "wrong" with these cookies. The first time I used regular cocoa powder and unsweetened chocolate. The recipe calls for unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder and bittersweet chocolate. Then next time I had the Dutch process cocoa but I can only find sweetened instead of unsweetened. I used dark chocolate (72% cocoa) instead of bittersweet.

Today I started making the wrong recipe. I was making the recipe for molasses cookies. Oops! The butter & sugars were already mixed. I looked at the two recipes and determined it was OK. The chocolate crackles call for 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar. The molasses cookies call for for 1 cup of brown sugar and a half cup of granulated sugar. Each recipe uses 1 stick of butter. The difference shouldn't matter.

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The first batch is done and something is off. They look wrong. I think about and decide it must be that I used the cookie scoop and did not roll them firm enough. I did two batches this way so I waiting for the third batch to see if I am correct.

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Yep. And they do better at 12 minutes than 14. I wonder why I never noted that before? And the "wrong" sugar doesn't make a different. Different chocolates do taste different but all are good. Some are just sweeter than others.

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14 december

Quite busy today.

I had a few things I really needed to get down today and they did get done. Christmas is only a few days away!

I baked the molasses cookies. They are yummy. I made them smaller and I got double the yield. Dad liked them.

I made some chicken stew for dad. He said it was the right amount of spice. I won't make chili for him again.

I went on a photowalk with my meet-up group. We met downtown at 5pm. Savi and I were early so we split a cheeseburger at Four Green Fields. The light never turned spectacular but it was still nice. We played around with getting car light trails. I think know I need new bifocals. So many images looked blurred in the LCD until I backed up. We went back to Four Green Fields afterwards and I had a beer. Just one and it was good.

We left before everyone else but I wanted to get home to say goodnight to Ryan. I just made it in time. Whew.

like sand through the hourglass, so are the dollars through my hands

My blogger friend Amy talked about passion and how it fits into your life. Anyone who had read this blog knows I do have a lot of passions. I do not have a problem finding time for my passions, but find it difficult to find balance. One might say I have an addictive personality.

Soon I will be 45. I have a home and a family but I do not have a career, a job, a direction. Nor do I have financial security to indulge in my whims or passions.

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In October 2008, I started on the road to healthy living. I have done well and will continue for as long as it takes. Which really means the rest of my life. Hopefully one day I will get to the point where I do not need to count every calorie and look for ways to cut out more calories in order to lose weight. But eating and living healthy are a lifestyle change and I'm OK with that. I had first started down this road back in 2002.

I had read 8 Weeks to Optimum Health: A Proven Program for Taking Full Advantage of Your Body's Natural Healing Power. It really helped me see a better way to live. Fortunately, unfortunately, I soon fell into scrapbooking. I was consumed by it. I felt my creative spirit come back and made new friends. I let myself go, let my house go, I spent way too much money. I began a career as online retailer so that I could save some money on my hobby. I was ignorant and naïve. I found myself with no time to scrapbook and no return on my investment. The economy and malicious hackers made me face reality and close the store down.

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Last fall I started to declutter the house. Too many years of indulging in another passion, shopping online, had left the house overflowing with crap. Reading It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff helped me find the motivation I needed to just do it.

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Now it's time to address another problem caused by my passions. Money. I have been good and paid my bills on time. But in the last few years, I have spent way too much and need to make a change. I am going to have to do something even worse than dieting or exercise, I am going to have to make a budget and stick with it. I hate the word budget more than I hate the word diet.

With every new interest, one of the first things I do is buy a book, or several. Wait! I shouldn't spend more money to help me save money. I can find free help on the web. But help in setting up a budget is not what I need. I know how to do it. Just like I know how to lose weight and clean up the house. What I need is motivation.

There are lots of people out there who are willing to motivate you to save money. However, their encouragement comes with a price. One of the names that I hear good things about is The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness. I have seen some of his ideas and they make sense. I just never wanted to admit I needed his help. I looked at his site. Oh look! He is having a sale on his books, today only. Only $10 plus $5.95 shipping. Amazon has his book for $15.74. Barnes & Noble has his book for $18.74. There is kindle version and Barnes & Noble has an ebook for $9.99.

(I did order the kindle version. No, I do not own a kindle but their is an free iPhone app I can use. I started reading but instead of feeling motivated, I feel dread and panic and nausea. I have had my head in the sand for a long time. And I am afraid to look.)

12 december

Still felt cold this morning. I took a shower and dressed in long trousers, long sleeved shirt and socks. I went outside to put mail in the box and realized how warm it was. Now I am uncomfortably warm.

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So this (well known) photographer has been handing out year awards. A photographer I know was awarded Best Photograph of 2009. I agree the photograph is excellent. What I don't get it the arrogance of the (well known) photographer to hand out awards like he is the authority on the matter.

A year ago, I had never heard of this man. I am not sure how I found him, probably through someone's podcast. He has his own podcasts where he talks about the right way, his way, of doing things. He is somewhat polite when he disagrees with someone else but I sense a lot of hostility brewing beneath the surface.

This photographer has created quite the following on Twitter mostly by giving some great stuff. He doesn't ask for much in return. You only need to follow him in order to be eligible to win.

But there is a dark side to this man. It is a given that many people for someone for a chance to win a prize. And many then unfollow after the contest is over. This man had his staff go through those who unfollowed him and block their accounts. They would not be allowed to follow him again for the next contest. Yes, he tweeted that he was doing so on Twitter.

Some may think kudos to him for being so bold. But I think he is taking the whole follow thing a bit too personally. He does not engage in conversations on Twitter. He posts a few times a day, mostly with links to his blog. He does respond to tweets directed at him. But I doubt he reads any other tweets.

Furthermore, don't tweet bad about him. He will block you.

He is probably a nice guy. But something about him... I just don't trust.

11 december

Chilly this morning, only 50. It's only supposed to get to 60.

Andy is going to Special Olympics Basketball today. He is supposed to wear his S.O. yellow t-shirt and shorts or sweatpants. Jeans are not allowed. He got dressed in shorts today. I suggested he might want to wear his track pants (he doesn't have any sweatpants) but he said no. Until he went outside. He came back in and changed.

My walking skirt was still damp from yesterday. I still put it on. My body heat dried it out. My shoes felt a little damp but I never felt it through my socks.

My walk was cool and breezy but good. I enjoyed looking at all of the Christmas decorations. I saw about 6 or more of the same Jesus, Mary & Joseph set up. There must have been a sale at the walmarts because it was rather cheap and ugly looking plastic. Most of the balloons were deflated. Maybe Andy & I will go out and look at everything at night.

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(Ugh. Just spent about 15 minutes updated this post, clicked save, and it lost it. WTH! I am not having good luck with computers these past days.)

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I came home from my walk to find that my dad had restarted the computer because the wireless had lost connection. I logged in and everything went downhill.

I had updated Things earlier but didn't restart the computer. (It's not necessary.) Things is set to start when I login. Things crashed. OK, not a biggie. But then every app afterwards crashed. Huh? I tried restarting again, the same problem. I tried to repair disk but Disk Utility crashed. I tried to disable login items but System Preferences crashed.

I pulled out Disk Warrior and fired it up. DW takes a while so I went to shower, dress, wrap gifts, make lunch... I restarted the computer and the same thing happened again. UGH. So, I took a deep breadth and went to Starbucks.

I came home later and tried the boot disk which was a week old. Everything worked fine. OK, I knew I had to restore the HD with the boot disk and started the procedure. I sat down to think about what info I would lose. My music and photos are stored another an external hard drive which was not affected. I might lose some of the changes I did in Lightroom but hopefully I could restore from a more recent catalog using Time Machine.

By the time I restored the hard drive, it was time for the boys to come home so I just left the computer alone. I'll work on it during the weekend.

10 december

Today is Teresa Lenard's birthday. Though I think she is Teresa Monier now. Or at least she was back in 1993 when we got the Grosse Pointe South Alumni Directory.

I haven't heard from her or seen her since before 1993 and yet I can't forget her birthday. It's not written anywhere just stuck in my head. And I barely think of her except on December 10.

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I went out walking and got caught in the rain. My shoes which have lots of breathable mesh were soaked and squishing in only a few minutes.

Now the temperature has dropped and it's under 70. Brrr!

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I am slowly working through another set of zoo photos. I need to shoot something else. Our meet-up group is having a photowalk downtown on Monday. I am planning on going.

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Hersey's came out with several new seasonal verieties of Kisses. At least I have never seen them before. There is Candy Cane, Cherry Cordial, Irish Cream and Meltaway. I thought the last two looked good so I picked up a bag of each yesterday. I first tried them at room temperature. Eh. I prefer my chocolate refrigerated. I tried them again today. The Irish Cream smells like Bailey's but I am not fond of the taste. I think the Meltaways are better but still nothing special. I'll add them to cookies boxes I am giving for gifts.

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9 december

My feet were bothering this morning and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to walk. I had some large bandaods and put them over the blisters. I could still feel the blisters but they didn't hurt. I didn't have a problem walking.

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I had to make another stop at Target and found some bandages specifically for blisters. They provide some cushioning and are supposed to stay on a few days. I got a box to try.

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Starbucks had been having Twelve Days of Wishes. Each day they have a different special offer with their coffees or drinkware. The drinkware usually sells out before the morning rush is over. And the coffees don't interest me. Oh well, it's not like I need more stuff.

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I made Dutch butter cookies today. My sister-in-law used to make these and I loved them. She sent me the recipe a few weeks ago. They are pretty easy to make with few ingredient. Maybe too few since they did not taste as good as I remember. Hmm...

8 december

I am starting a new routine today. Well, I've done it before but... I am going to my meet-up then walking. I am going to walk either at Lettuce Lake Park or one of the numerous parks along the Hillsborough River. I'll stick to the paved trails on wet days.

My dad is going to mass so I'll be late to my meet-up. I love how he never thinks about his standing commitment to make sure Ryan gets on the bus. His obligations come first whatever they may be.

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I packed up my new backpack. It's more than I need for a trail walk but I love its versatility. I only wish it had a bottle holder and perhaps straps for a tripod. The laptop sleeve is pretty nice and makes me wonder if I should get a laptop instead of a desktop. I really want a bigger screen and I could hook up another monitor. But a desktop makes for financial sense. I really don't go many places I need a computer. And my iPhone does much of what I need. So... when I win the lotto, I'll get myself a laptop. Of course you have to play to win and I don't play.



After all that, I never took my camera out of my bag. The walk was nice but there really wasn't much to photograph. I took a few shots with my iPhone.

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3:22

Meet-up was fine. Though it was pick-on-Sharon-day and I didn't get the memo.

I was hungry for a sandwich and thought I'd try Panera. It was just past 11 am and the parking lot was full. So I went to McAlister's. I haven't been there since my chiropractor moved. The manager, Les, was still there and still cute. He didn't remember me but that was a few stones ago.

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I tried out Flatwoods for walking. It was OK but it is really geared more towards bikers. The trails are long so I ended up going back the way I came. It wasn't very interesting.



I wore my new hiking shoes. Remember the days when you had to break in hiking books? I don't but I think I should have done something with these. I have hot spots at the junction of the balls and pads of me feet. No blisters yet. Maybe I need different socks? Remember the days when tube socks worked for any and all athletic adventure? (There are blisters but they didn't swell up with goo.)

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Ryan teacher wants to test him for gifted. It makes me chuckle.