Becca's Last Night Home

Wow, it's been a busy two days....that's why you haven't heard from me. No, no, nothing bad happened to me (mom), I just had a full day yesterday and then again today. Yesterday, I worked all day and then taught spin class at 5:15 - 6 pm. Then after spin class I had to drive to Menomonie (20 miles) to attend bible study. I finally got home at 9:15 pm last night.

Today, I worked again all day, then came home and then went back into Menomonie tonight so we could go out to eat at Green Mill restaurant. I wanted to treat our kids to a restaurant dinner. Now, it's my turn to rant (Krissy), so the waitress asked us if we wanted something to drink. I said, "yes, I'd like a pomegranate martini," which I've never had before and I was really looking forward to trying it. After about five minutes the waitress came back and said sorry, we can't find the pomegranate juice...would you like something else? I said, "yes, a glass of wine will be fine." I scanned the wine list and picked a glass of J. Lohr Chardonnay, which I've bought before by the bottle at the grocery store... so I know it's good. Well, later when we went to pay our bill, my delicious glass of J. Lohr Chardonnay was $7 dollar a glass (well, make that half a glass...geez). I'm so glad I only ordered one glass. Now I know why Green Mill doesn't list a price by their wine or other liqueur drinks...what a ripe-off! My son Chris reminded me that I could buy a whole bottle of wine for $7 dollars. Thanks Chris that really made me feel much, much better. So how was the food? It was pretty good, and they give you lots of food too, so I brought 1/2 my Jalapeno/Bacon burger home. You know, Ted and I just don't go out to eat much anymore....now I know why.

Becca is leaving tomorrow to drive back to Duluth, so it was nice to spend her last night together. I'll miss my baby girl!

She Never Stops Playing....Help!

Our cat Annabelle has been given lots of special attention over the last two weeks with Becca and Chris being around for their college break. I think she's getting pretty spoiled with two young people that love to play with her. Tonight, the kids were trying to see if they could totally exhaust Annabelle with the lazer pointer. If you make the lazer pointer go round and round in a circle on the floor, Annabelle will follow the pointer continuously until getting dizzy....it's the funniest thing to watch. I never understood would they meant by a cat being "lively" in nature. Now I understand!!! This cat never stops playing. I keep waiting for her to turn into a lazy fat cat that just wants to sleep....like my other cats, Sheba, Patches & Walter. No, not Annabelle. Thank heavens she sleeps at night, otherwise I'd no nuts.

The Real Tainter Turtle

Ok, here's the real Tainter Turtle! Actually, my mother bought this turtle broch for me months ago and I promised to blog about it. So tonight, I decided this would be a good night to take a picture of it. That's Becca's hand by the way....our daughter is back home from her Kansas City trip after Christmas. She's only here shortly and will leave for Duluth on Friday, so I have to cherish these nights that we can spend together.

So what are we doing tonight? We are watching "For Your Consideration" a movie directed by Christopher Guest. We've watched all of Christopher Guest movies, we love his movies...."A Mighty Wind" and "Best in Show." All of his movies are a certain comedy theme, corny, but funny. The cool thing is that Guest uses the same actors and actresses in all his movies. I highly recommend watching any of these movies for a good laugh.

Blind Munchies Coffeehouse

Ahhh....this is a definitely hot tea or coffee weather. After our small ice storm yesterday afternoon, the temperature took a dramatic drop. It's now only 5 degrees outside with a 15-20 mph wind blowing so you do not want to spend too much time outdoors today. When I woke up this morning I had to go outside and scrap the ice off my car windows and the windchill was so bitting that my face felt frozen after only five minutes.

I drove very slowly & carefully to church this morning (13 miles) because the highways had snowdrifts and ice on the roadways from yesterday. Normally our old church building is cold and drafty, but this morning it felt warm and cozy. I stayed after church for fellowship and lunch. Since my church has a coffeehouse in the lower level, you can stay after service and get a nice inexpensive warm lunch. Today, they offered two homemade soup choices, two types of pizza, chicken fajitas, a burger or a sandwich. The dessert for today was "better than sin" cake!!!! They reworded the name of the cake as you propably figured out. The dessert looked so good, but I didn't buy a piece. I did buy a homemade cherry walnut scone....(I always share the scones with my husband). My church also serves as a small bakery. You see, the senior pastor use to run a real bakery/coffeehouse before becoming a pastor, so I've been told. All I can say is that I've never been disappointed with any bakery I've bought at church...it's awesome. I bet you think I just go to church for the food, don't you??? hee, hee! Actually, all the money raised in the coffee house goes to our Shofar mission house and radio station (http://www.jesusfellowshipofbelievers.com/shofar/) that my church runs in the Phillippines. Our church also built two churches in India. That's the reason why I really eat lunch and buy coffee at our church coffeehouse!

Do You Have a Favorite Tree?

We have this large pine tree on the lake side of our property that I'm sure is very old. Over that last twenty-two years, I've watched this tree age. It's lost a few big tree limbs to summer thunderstorms, but the biggest problem of all is that there is erosion occurring on the side of the hill where the tree is located. By the photo I took, you can see the base of the pine tree is almost hollow. Since the soil is eroding, the animals make themselves comfortable by taking shelter inside the hollow base. I'm not sure what kind of animal makes a home there, but it's probably a red squirrel, chipmunk, otter, or maybe a woodchuck! I will see animal tracks in the snow going over to the tree, but I can never figure out what is actually living there. Maybe one of these years I'll spot the little creature!!! Let's hope the tree survives another twenty-two years. It's a great tree for the eagles and kingfishers.

Make Your Fitness Routine Managable...For Life!

Today did not feel like a Friday! I think since New Year's Day was on Thursday, it just felt weird going back to work for one day. The worst part was that I couldn't buy my usual cup of Java today because the Internet cafe was closed....that was really hard. I did bring my own coffee to work today, but it just wasn't the same. I'm so spoiled!

After work I rushed over to Anytime Fitness so I could teach my spin class. Now I haven't actual taught spin class for about 1 1/2 weeks because of the Christmas & New Year holidays, so I felt really rusty tonight. I felt a little more winded tonight with high cadenance spins, but it won't take long before I build up that endurance again. You know, sometimes you just have to take a "holiday" break in your fitness routine to feel like a normal person...like a couch potato! Does anyone remember the "Body for Life" program designed by Bill Phillips? Body for Life combined weekly cardio workouts with weight training, in very reasonable amounts of time. One of the things that Bill scheduled into his weight-loss program was allowing yourself one free day...meaning in one week, you could take off one day from exercising and you could eat whatever you wanted. I loved that program. It gave you a break! I followed the Body for Life program back in 1999-2000 and felt really good...that was my peak years of fitness since I was about 39-40 yrs old. One of the things you have to remember is whatever you do for fitness, you have to make it reasonable and FOR LIFE, otherwise you will burn out...trust me! No one can go to the gym 7 days a weeks for 365 days out of the year without burning out. I think that is one of the biggest mistakes people make in there new fitness routine. Make your exercise routine managable and reasonable....give yourself a break! I've seen people go 100% into the fitness center thing and then they totally burn out after after 12 months. Go to your library and check out the Body for Life book....it's workable for the real person!

PS. I had three college-age girls come to my class tonight so I felt REALLY OLD! Hopefully the girls liked my music (thanks Trihardist for the music and spinning drills).

To My Blogger Friends...Happy New Year's!

Happy New Year's to all my readers!

As you can see by my pictures, we spent our day outside on the lake fishing for Walleyes & Northerns. What a disappointing day though, since we only had two flags go up in a four-hour span. No fish, darn. I invited my co-worker Kris (Aunt Krissy) to come over for the afternoon and fish with us. I thought for sure the fish would be active and bitting like crazy. Well, as it turned out, we spent more time sitting around the warm fire since the fish weren't obviously bitting! That was ok though.
The best part about sitting around the fire was that we roasted brats and ate kettle chips. Ted even brought some of his Guacamole dip down for all of us to much on! Thanks for sharing Ted, hee, hee. There's nothing better than filling your tummy with food when it's cold outside.

So the fishing was so fanstastic that Kris went home exhausted with excitment....well, maybe not that excited! All in all we had fun just being outside and enjoying the fresh cool air. What a nice begining to the new year.

So how did you spend your first day of 2009?