Hodgepodge

Had another aura today, but it was along the lines of "Oh, that again." It does interfere with reading for a while. But the headache following isn't much at all. I almost feel more like i've taken strong drugs or something. A bit ditsy.


So, the aura thing doesn't concern me much, except after so many years of migraines, why am i having them now? Also the pain pattern is different being on the L side above the eye orbit rather than R temple.


I've lasagna in the oven. Three different ones in bread loaf pans. Yesterday i made a lot of spaghetti sauce (properly said, "Skaghhetti," of course). It is a new recipe - i can't share 'cause it is copyrighted & i paid to get it. But it is essentially a normal recipe, this has a lot of basil (fresh) & diced eggplant in it. I used my whizzy stick (immersion blender) to blend it all up after it was cooked. The recipe made a boat load of the sauce. Giving some to friend David, making some lasagna to freeze as well as to eat. Was planning to make manicotti (& was delaying 'cause i've never made home made pasta before - intending to try with manicotti shells). But then i realized that i used all of the cheese to make the lasagna. Oh well.

Glad we like the sauce - i've got a lot. I'm hoping Duane will like the lasagna. It is vegetarian & i put some chopped spinach in it - and he saw me do it. Sometimes i can sneak things in (like the eggplant) & he doesn't know. We will see.


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(Monday) I write this blog for myself, but always love it when folks take the time to comment. So now i've a question . . .

I tend to be verbose & write long posts about sundry things, a "hodgepodge" & a bit of this 'n that. Strictly from a reader's point of view, should i break my hodgepodge into multiple posts (& possibly have several a day), or leave it as one LOOONNGGG post? It doesn't matter to me. Curious what folks who read think.

Duane thought the lasagna "okay." I think he'd have liked it better with some meat in it. But he did okay with it.


Friend David came & gave a wonderful massage today. It was lovely & so kind as he had asked me to give him a massage a week ago & that never happened. So nice of him to do so.

We went to Calvary Chapel yesterday. I have to say that after years in a liturgical church, it feels incomplete not to celebrate Eucharist/communion. But over all i liked the service. I don't think the minister was "soft on sin" whatsoever - but he didn't beat us up with it the way i experience the Catholic & Lutheran churches.

(Just thought of something funny. When i first began attending the Anglican/Episcopal church - long ago in college, 1990 - the folks attending the church called it "Catholic-light: All the liturgy & half the guilt." Now, i'd call our Lutheran church "Catholic-light: Half the liturgy & ALL the guilt"!)

It is now a week since the last snow, & more than a week since the big ones. It was amazing to me to see - headed to church yesterday - that so many of the roofs still have a foot or even two of the heavy snow. It IS melting, but very slowly. The icicles are simply amazing (& i don't want one to fall on me!). I've not done any more on our deck & we have had about 1 foot (out of 4) melt. Parts of our walk are still very icy.


Duane & i went to took our the 3x3 berm in front of our mail boxes on Thursday. There are more than 30 mailboxes there & the PO won't deliver until they are cleared. We spent about 45 minutes taking them out & a couple dozen neighbors drove by us while we worked at it. Two stopped to thank us. We were worried that the ice melt water would pool there & freeze making it treacherous, but i drove by today & it is fine.

The roads are good (most of them, some of the neighborhoods are still a mess) & driving down tomorrow should be no problem. The temps overnight for the past few nights have been in the single digits, & the highs have been in the high 30s. The house is chilly, tho. We wake up in the AM & find it just over 50F. I seem to get chilled easily. Wearing lots of heavy clothes!

I'm seriously looking into someone coming in to help me with cooking, cooking in advance, clean up & some laundry. Those are the things that cause me the most problems. Probably still have Patty come clean once a month or so. It is kind of hard to admit that i need this help.

Enjoying the birds outside my window. Same finches, chickadees & juncos. Pretty view. But i do miss the tree that went down. I'm sure the squirrels will miss it too as it was part of the "squirrel highway" for reaching our deck. Now part is missing. (They have no trouble arriving on the deck, i just don't get to watch them as easily running from tree to tree.)

I'm sure i had more to say! Swiss cheese brain attacks & it has fallen into a black hole.


283

UPDATE: So. Cal Storm Watch

This arrived in my email box today:

Can you believe this picture came all the way from Oregon? Wow, the nation really cares about us! :D

Subject: FW: Southern California Storm Watch!

With all the news lately about the subzero weather and snow that the Midwest and east coast areas are experiencing, we shouldn't forget that Southern California has its share of devastating weather also.

Attached is a photo illustrating the excessive damage caused to a home from a west coast storm that passed through the Southern California area yesterday. It really makes you cherish what you have, and reminds us not to take life for granted. See photo.

This is kind of mean, actually. There was flooding in many areas. The burn areas especially were hit. Nothing like some of the floods in the Mid-West, but effecting folks lives anyway.

That's ok. The rest of the nation laughs at Southern California - but WE have the sun when it is 20 below there. :)

282

Can you hear me smile?

Wait, that doesn't make sense! Ah well. We are staying home!



Our trees had a LOT of snow in them. It has been warmer the past couple of days & the trees have shaken off most of the snow.


I find birds a real challenge to get good pics. They move so quickly & erratically. These chickadees were the easiest to shoot.

This little guy is shy & hard to get a good pic. This looks blurry to me.
He is a dark eyed junco.


Had a whole flock of finches out eating the sunflower seeds i put out.
The ones with red coloring are called "Cassin's Finches."


A pic of the broken tree & some of the branches.


This isn't a good pic. It is the broken tree leaning into another tree,
as seen from our deck.
Duane got the Trooper out! And had fun with snow sculpture in the meantime.

New view from my window.
The tree that went down stood right about where the
screen door edge is seen here.
I can see a lot more sky than before,
although this is a cloudy sky, getting ready to snow.

I'd been meaning to take a picture of this view before & how i looked out only into tree branches. Ah, well. This is the view from my bed, where i am often working on my computer (laptop).

Duane went out early this AM as he heard a plow coming thru. It was coming to do "berm reduction." With the snow berms so high along the side of the road, it often makes blind corners. They are trying to reduce this so that driving is safer. Also, the snow plow often makes berms in front of people's driveways & they have to dig out before they can get out of the driveway.

Duane got the plow to clear the berm around the fire hydrant (on our property so we are responsible for it). He had cleared the fire hydrant itself, but the berm was quite a lot of work. This guy cleared so Duane could get the Trooper out as well. Hurrah!

I got up & got ready (showered & packed) in case we did go down the hill, but i didn't want to! When he came in i asked, "Could you work from home this week?" Had to repeat myself 3 times as he didn't "get it." He was surprised. But i pointed out how we are still in an "emergency state." The schools have been closed 4 days now & it is unsure when they will open again. A Post Office truck made it up today for the first time since last week Wednesday. Most official meetings in town have been canceled. I know we could make it down, but i wasn't sure we should. Especially with another storm scheduled. Duane hadn't even given it a thought, but he was willing to stay.

He called the office & did a query to see if he had to be be down the hill this week. No, it was determined he did not. He was fine with it, in fact, i got the feeling maybe he was relieved. Plus, he got to help with Search & Rescue (SAR) things today. They checked an area that had been out of power for 3 days to see if everyone was ok. (They were.) Tonight is an appreciation dinner, or something, & we are going to that. Couldn't do that if we were down the hill. So i think he is glad, all around. I know i am.

They said we might have rain at the beginning of this new storm because it has been warmer. But what is coming down now is snow. It is starting. This isn't suppose to be anything like last week. But coming on top of last week i was rather worried about the up & down & what would be going on here while we were away.

And, i don't have to cook dinner tonight!

281

Update

We took the subaru into town today & bought a few groceries. We cleared our driveway down to the asphalt, so we had quite a bump to get it on the road. The weather has been pretty warm the last couple of days - in the 40s today, but the roads are a mess. Packed snow in some places, slush & pits of water in others.

Frankly, i'd rather not go down to OC tomorrow, especially as another storm is coming. But Duane will probably feel that he must.

For a while they were only allowing residents up the hill, largely because they didn't think they would have food or gas enough if we had off the hill folks up here. The sheriff's dept was fine with that, also. Essentially all the calls they have been out on have been non-residents. One of the roads they have had shut down to down-hill traffic, & they've allowed only residents up. Also convoys of supply trucks with Highway Patrol escort. But once those trucks arrive they are stuck because they are not allowing them to leave yet.

Life is interesting!

I'm glad i'm doing the calorie tracker thing. I finished with dinner tonight (smashed potatoes, Duane loves them!) & put dinner into the tracker & found that my total for the day was under 600 calories. Ha! I was surprised.

Now, honestly, i probably would have been hungry later & snacked on some junk. Truth is, even tho i'm trying to track how i'm eating without a lot of change, i'm not eating as much junk. I never ate a lot, but now i don't want to have to track those calories. So by discovering i was way too low for the day's calories, i made healthier food choices of milk & eggs & cottage cheese to bring the total up to 1500.

I've a feeling that a lot of my days were rather like that - i'd have too few calories without realizing it - & finish the day with empty stuff like a handful of M&Ms & a few potato chips. I doubt if the total for the day ever went very high - i'm not a binge eater, but those calories certainly don't do anything but add bad sugar & fat (& other things) without bringing me anything good.

Well, i guess we will see what tomorrow brings. :)

280

A few pics

Our pastor called. No church tomorrow. The church has no power, most people can't make it anyway, & they can't get the parking lot plowed. A lot of people are without power he said. Also the land lines in the valley are down, so 9-1-1 doesn't work. Only one road open in & out of the valley & they were allowing only residents in. Lovely skiing, but no one can get to the ski hills!

Out & about today. When everyone is shoveling out we meet more neighbors than ever. People who have lived here a long time say we've not had snow like this here since 1978. Well, we had a very heavy snow in Dec. 2008 & it was pretty close to this. Here is a small sampling of my pics.

(Friday AM) No Fair! We had this shoveled on Thursday!

The deck outside our bedroom Saturday AM


It is this tree in the background that we worry what would happen if it came down someday.

There is still a foot of snow under Duane down to the road!
We are a long way from having a vehicle out to go anywhere.This is path is what was shoveled at noon today. (Duane did it.)
Don't know if you can see, but i'm standing on asphalt. What is behind me,
12 inches or more is the "plowed road" They got it done some,
but it is more than a foot down to the asphalt from where they plowed.

Think we can get the car out of the garage?

Ah, Sugarloaf Mountain. Isn't it pretty?

279

More of the usual

. . . meaning a bit of this & that.

I woke to beautiful blue skies today. And lots of snow. Haven't taken any new pics. When i do i'll post them. But in the meantime, you can go to my friend David's Picasa Web Album & see his pics of the weather. (His blog is Sugarloaf Mountain.) He also has a couple of really good ones of birds in the trees. (I don't seem to do a very good job with the birds.) Oh, & if you like birds in the trees, check out my Aunt Wanda's Picasa Web Album. Cardinals. She's retired & being professional at photography.

We've lost 2 trees for sure now. One in front of the house is broken in half but didn't hit anything coming down. The one that fell on the neighbors was a split trunk & Duane thinks that we'll have to take the other half down. We've had some big branches come down also. Have to check the rest of the property (it is so huge, LOL) & see what has happened.

Last night about 8.45 we heard a plow come down the street. Only it wasn't a regular plow. It was an earth-mover/Caterpillar (called a wheel loader). And we needed it. This stuff is so heavy. Part of the reason for this, tho, is because there is so much snow that they are contracting snow removal to anyone who has the equipment to do it. Our weather service said we got another 44 inches yesterday. The wheel loader made a 10 foot pile of snow on the corner across from our house. Duane went out to cheer the plow on & discovered that our driveway - that he had totally cleared the night before - was up to his thighs again. ! ! ! More work for us today. He said he thought some of that was drift.

We are lucky our house is built so strong & has such a small area of top roof with strong beams supporting it. Have i mentioned (like 30 times, i think) this snow is really heavy? Duane is a bit worried about the snow load on the decks, tho. I'm going to try to clear some of the one outside our bedroom today.

There is only one road in & out of the valley open - the "back, back way" down 18 into Lucerne Valley (& it was closed for a while yesterday). The road we use - 38 into Redlands - is closed for an indefinite time due to "20 foot drifts" according to the local news. The front way is also closed & folks have been evacuated from their cars stuck on that road. We are really fortunate we came home when we did. Had we not gotten home then, i've no idea when we'd be able to get back.

This much snow is rather counter productive. Our ski slopes are wonderful now to ski on - & no one from down the hill can get up to use them!

Will post pics later. It should be really beautiful now that the sun is shining. More snow predicted for next week. But our high should be just above freezing today. The low last night was 16F.

I've been meaning to post on this article for a while now. Think i read it about a week back. The title is: He said he was leaving; she ignored him. I actually am quite impressed. I don't think i'd have the backbone to respond as she did. There was a lot of criticism of her in the comments saying that she "didn't support him" or that a loved one is suppose to "help" the one she loves. I think, personally that is JUST what she did, but what she did is entirely different from what we normally consider "help."

For another funky piece, i've found a new blog (Aging Gratefully) that i'm enjoying. I was looking at some of her back posts & came across this one: Weddings. Blew me away. I know there are a lot of different things being done these days, but this stretches my imagination a bit. (Couldn't have been done in our church!) I'm surprised she didn't rip off the wedding dress & have a sexy mini underneath, too. Totally agree with the last line written, however.

The acupuncture doc i see, Kathie, lost a lot of weight last spring & summer. She is tall & wasn't terribly overweight, but she is a positive toothpick now. I asked her what she'd done to lose that weight, & she told me "Spark People." Huh??? She wrote it down & i looked it up. I "signed up" for it back in December, but didn't start to do anything for a while. I'm not even sure what or how Kathie used it to lose her weight.

But i decided this week to use it at least to track my meals. It is often recommended that you don't make changes right away, but simply keep a food diary of EVERYTHING you eat to see where your calories are actually coming from. So, for now, that is what i'm using Spark People for. I started on Tuesday.

There are good things & bad things about this program. One of the bad things is that they follow the Standard American Diet as prescribed by the "Food Pyramid." Believe me, this is SAD indeed. Do a Google search on this & you'll find that the food pyramid is entirely political. It is by following these guidelines that America has become the sick, overweight group of people we are today. However, i can largely ignore this. But their recommendations (they think i eat too few carbs) come from this SAD pyramid.

I can set my own goals - how many total calories i want to hit as my goal each day, how many grams each of fat, carbs, & protein. (I've been low on the protein the last couple of days, too.) This calculator doesn't like the percentage of carbs & fat that i have set. But it still calculates for me.

Now, over all, the idea that a "calorie is a calorie" is false. Three hundred calories of potato chips does not equal 300 calories in a baked potato. First off in satiation. But also in nutrients. And the fat in potato chips is bad fat all around.

The fact is, i don't eat a lot. But i don't lose weight, either. I decided at first just to track my eating habits without trying to limit myself, just to see where the calories are going. I will say, this is hard to do on Spark People, because you have to "set" your goals in low calories & high calories every day (minimum & maximum you want to eat each day). I set them too low to start off with, so each day i'm "failing." Don't think this is a good way to think. (Well, now that i've said that, i went & changed it so it won't show a fail most days.)

I honestly don't eat a lot. If i were just keeping a food diary, it would reflect that. But i find "Spark People" helpful because it tracks the calories i'm consuming. (I think if i just did a food diary & an estimate of calories, i'd say, "I sure don't eat much!" but to see each food listed in calories & % of the total for the day helps me be more aware of what i'm eating & where i'm wasting calories.) To see that the Starbucks Vanilla Frappichino drink that i consume for a headache (& sometimes recently i've decided to use it as "preventive" - my way of justifying having it even if i don't need it) has 200 calories & very few nutrients, well, let's just say i'll be motivated to not go wild with this.

I don't know if this will help me to actually lose weight. My adrenal & thyroid glands are not functioning very well. I've other metabolic issues too. These contribute to the Chronic Fatigue which i fight & health issues that make it difficult to lose weight. Kathie is healthy, was healthy when she began this program. I can't think, expect, or even hope it will work for me as it does for her. But i DO find it helpful to see what i'm eating, where i'm picking up calories, & what the totals come out to be. Calories from fresh fruits & veggies are much more beneficial than calories from anything processed.

I honestly would love to lose weight. But then i'd love to be healthy, too. For now i'm going to use the tool to track what i'm eating & leave the rest - not focus on weight - for now. I have to ignore their nutrition advice. They recommended cutting calories by drinking DIET soda today! Bad, bad, bad advice. If you choose to do that, i'm not going to yell at you, but diet soda is very, very, very bad for you. Regular soda is very bad for you too. But i tend to like it. You know what? I've not had a soda since starting this tracking. I don't want those calories (& other horrible stuff like sodium benzote) in my diet. I'm not saying i'll never have another one, but this sure helps me think about it before downing the stuffl.

I need to go do something for today!

P.S. - thanks for all the comments & feedback on the last post. I do love getting comments! I need to be better at responding to them.


278

We have SOOOO much snow!

That doesn't look like so much, you say? Well, this was Monday, just after the snow started. Keep on looking, the rest of these pics are Thursday when we got home, & a couple of this AM. We're going to have to get out & take more pics. It still is snowing! I don't know how we'll get the bird feeders refilled, the drift on the deck is 4 feet high!










The plows can't keep up with this. They are only covering the main highways. We got stuck at the top of our hill coming home yesterday, the plows hadn't been thru. There are R3 chain restrictions on all the roads (meaning that 4WDs have to have chains, very unusal here). Essentially, if you don't have to go out, don't. The road we came up yesterday is now closed. I'm so thankful we came home when we did. We got another 8 inches last night, so all that we dug out yesterday is now covered again.

We lost one tree yesterday, & another looks like it might go. Duane has it braced so if it does it won't fall on the house. When this is all over there are 3 trees we'll probably end up taking out. I hate cutting trees, i do, but we're so fortunate the one that went down yesterday (onto our neighbor's property) didn't do any damage. We have a 70 ft. pine in our back yard that could take out half the neighborhood (or our whole house) if it goes. It doesn't look like it will, it looks fine, but it makes us very nervous.

277

Update

Just got home. We left OC about 11.15, & made one short stop on the way up. Only a couple of places with 0 viability, for a few seconds as the wind blew snow. Made it home fine - Duane's very proud of his new little car - & got stuck at the top of our hill. The car had to sit for about half an hour while we dug out enough of 3 feet of heavy snow to put the car in part of the driveway. Snow plow hasn't been by. They say they can't keep up.

The drive home was like a winter wonderland - so much snow in trees. We got pics when we got home that i'll post another time.

We just had one of our trees go down into the neighbor's driveway. It looks like no damage done. This is really something. Power was off again today for a while.

Tired now. Glad we don't have to go anywhere for a while....

I'm so cold! Will warm up & rest. ;)


276

Quick note

We made it down fine on Tuesday with icy road but not problems & no weather to drive thru. However, there are heavy storms dropping all kinds of weather here in Orange County, even a couple of small tornadoes & a few waterspouts. Many places are flooded (in So Cal every where) & houses are being evacuated in the foothills of the burn areas.

So far the snowfall at home doesn't seem to be too bad. Under a foot reported. We plan to go home late tomorrow AM or early PM. Praying for travel mercies, of course.

My mind is full of all kinds of stories. I don't know why i'm thinking so much of things past.

Something strange is going on with my body, too. I've been in moderate pain for about a week now, & yesterday in severe pain (apparently unrelated) but the doc i work with was able to help that. He did tell me i need to follow with a MD to rule out stuff, but that leaves me in a quandary as i don't currently have/work with a MD i trust. I've an appt with that doc at the Wellness center, but she doesn't do all types of work (her office tells me to "see your primary" for several things; i was disappointed they are not "wholistic" which offended the receptionist telling me they ARE wholistic - they just don't address that particular problem. HUH?)

I don't know what i'm going to do. I don't know how this diet is working, either. It seems that as someone who never had stomach pain before i'm having more of it following this diet that is suppose to reduce stomach discomfort. HUH? Well, i certainly don't follow any one else's pattern.

It is late, i finished work a while ago - i need to go & find dinner.

If you think of us tomorrow, send up a prayer for safe travel & that we will be alert!


275

Anniversary

Yup. A year ago today i did my first blog post. A year & 10 days ago i didn't even know what a blog was!

A friend had mentioned her daughter's blog (daughter is a few years younger than i) in her Christmas letter. I went to it & found that they were blogging about following the South Beach Diet & "healthy food." I was fascinated.

About the same time i tried to look up an old professor from college. I discovered he had died, but another former student a year ahead of me had blogged about it. I read her blog (feeling a bit guilty at the time because i felt it violated "her space") but i found it very interesting & read the whole thing. I've since come to accept that folks who make their blogs public are open to others reading what they write. But i must admit that i comment less at these two blogs than any other because i "know" these folks in person. I seem to have a hang up about folks wanting a comment from me. It just isn't something i think they'd want.

Anyway, within a week of "discovering" blogs i did my first post, a year ago.
___________________

The weather has been warmer the last week or so. It rained off & on thru the night. The power went off about 12.30 & was off for 2 hours. Then on for almost 1.5 hours & off for another 1.5. The wood stove doesn't honestly do that good a job of heating the house, especially without the electric fan attachment. It started to snow about 2 PM & we now have about 3 inches of wet, heavy snow.

The wind has been gusting up to 60 MPH, & was at a steady 35-40 for a while. That "sheared off" 4 power poles in the Baldwin area that took out the whole valley. They have redirected power for some of us, but was estimating that Baldwin won't have power for 6-12 hours after it happened. I'd hate to be a power guy working out in this weather. Although the wind died down for a while, it is gusting again.

I spent the afternoon going thru some papers & pictures i'd had sitting for some time. Couldn't be on the computer, or watch TV, or do laundry, or a number of other things. I pulled the box down by the front sliding glass door for light & went thru them all. Now i just have to "put them in their proper place." I have quite a number of old pics i want to scan into my computer. Couldn't do that this afternoon, either.

We don't have the power go out very often here. I can't remember a time it has been off for so long since we lived here. Neither of Duane's generators worked. He is wanting to get a big one that will power the whole house. I've decided i'd like a few lamps, as well. I do have candles - somewhere. I'm not a big candle person. It might be a good idea to have some easily accessible, however. Most of the ones i have are with the Christmas stuff. We have a lot of flashlights. But i think a couple of kerosene lamps would be good too. I also need to get the chimney sweep out to check our pipes. There has to be a reason the stove isn't heating very well.

We will see what happens tonight as far as going down tomorrow. But we probably will. Duane talked about going down this afternoon to "get ahead of the weather," especially with the power out. That didn't get a good review from me. I hate to leave home anyway, with the idea that i wouldn't know what was going on at home & i'd be a nervous wreck the whole time we were gone, wondering about what was happening at home. AND wondering if i would be able to get home on Thursday.

We're happy to have power back again. Duane's Search & Rescue meeting (scheduled tonight) was canceled, tho. Woo-hoo! I wonder what tomorrow will bring.



Previews of the scans. I don't know why my dad favored B&W photos, but he did. I found quite a number of them today. This one looks like it is from the 40s - well the truck is from the mid-50s, i think, but i swear this photo is not that old! My dad had this really old ford truck that i learned to drive on, starting when i was about 12.

With my sisters the Christmas before i got married the first time. I was 20.
I married the first husband about 6 weeks after this was taken.

This pic was taken about 2 weeks after my first marriage
(i can't say "wedding" cause we didn't have one).
The color is off & i can't seem to fix it!

274

Prognosticator

I'm curious if weather forecasters are really good prophets.

They are predicting pretty harsh weather for the whole of Southern California this coming week. It could result in lots of rain down the hill (meaning lots of car accidents as in general, these folks don't know how to drive in weather). They are predicting up to 5 feet of snow here. (Between Tuesday & Thursday.)

Here's the rub, however. They had a similar prediction back in December. A whole week of harsh storms! Sure enough, the first day of the prediction, Monday, was pretty heavy. I freaked, i panicked, & canceled my clients for the week & stayed home. The rest of the storm never happened. It would have been a pain, but we could have traveled down the hill on Tuesday.

So, i'm trying not to panic. Even if Monday brings heavy storms. Duane says that he has to go down, regardless, & i tell him if we really get that much snow we shouldn't. I'm trying to wait & see what actually comes. I don't know why i'm so freaky about it this year. We've lived in snow a while now & i grew up driving in Western Montana. I'm not as freaked as last time, but i do want to be calm!

273

Odds & Ends

Duane & i had a long talk about food yesterday. The fact is he has been eating a lot of frozen, processed "food" because i've not had the energy or motivation to cook much. I see it as a huge problem. So we discussed (for about the 10th time) how we can get around this & create a better way of handling food.

Part of the problem, as i see it, is that neither of us are all that interested in food. It is just something to keep our bodies from screaming in hunger. I AM interested in that i believe healthy food to be the key to good health, but beyond that not so much. Also, our lives are not very structured or disciplined & so it is easy to forget until we are both starving. I've tried & tried & tried to change this - change ME, & it just isn't happening.

So, the short end of a long conversation is that Duane has agreed to help with this. I've encouraged him to do his own research on health issues & really think thru what he "wants out of food" & the type of things he'd like to make. He has agreed to help in the kitchen sometimes. Like twice a month. Maybe more, but i'm working at not getting my expectations too high.

So yesterday he purchased that slap chopper advertised on TV. We used to have one that was similar, but frankly a b*tch to clean. This one should be better. I hate pulling out a food processor (it is big) to chop half an onion. Then in the evening he wanted fried potatoes & onions & we worked together to make those. Using the fun chopper. But, the potatoes stuck to my iron skillet, which i've known for a while needs to be re-seasoned.

So that is my project today, to re-season that pan.

Have i ever mentioned that i have the most wonderful husband in the world? Really, i could have done the happy dance about the whole thing. (And told him so.) I need to let go of some of my "ideals" of food for a while. If we can just get the rythm of working together & creating home cooked meals, the rest can come later.

272

The OTHER pictures!

So much for me being quiet today!

Lynnette is doing a link up of dorky pics. How can i pass that up? (Unfortunately i've plenty of these types of pics of me. My physique seems to lend itself to dolt & clown.)

With Star when i was about 12. Can you tell i'd been riding bareback?

If my mother read my blog, she'd probably kill me for this one.

Duane's niece, the day i met her.


I've no idea what i was doing here; i don't want to think of it.
This was suppose to be an engagement pic, ah, i don't think so!

The chicken dance at our wedding.
I was informed we couldn't have a family wedding without it.

The love of my life. :)

Duane posing at a karate Christmas party

On the "Duck Tour" in SF. I've one of the two of us
but it is TOO dorky ;)

I don't know how kitties can be dorky but still so cute

Thanksgiving with the family


This one isn't dorky, i just love it!

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