Luckily, I have copied & pasted my password onto the blogsite, which is where I hope that it stays. Unfortunately, I lost mine for some reason, had to have them generate a new one, and the dumb thing is way too complicated to just remember. Maybe I’ll figure out how to change it to something easier for me to remember, but not right now.

It SNOWED last night, and for a while today, but the white covering that was on our lawns and driveway earlier in the day has all melted away, and with a little luck, it won’t do any serious snowing before I have to drive into Boston tomorrow morning, or out to the Berkshires - Pittsfield - on Wednesday. DH and I have spent the day hanging about luxuriously; we decided yesterday to make today an “at home” day, seeing as how snow was predicted, and we did a good bit of running about yesterday, culminating in my granddaughter’s eighth birthday party that they had at a bowling alley from 4:00 to 6:00, although it ran over some. There were fifteen kiddos there, and the parents dropped them off and came back for them at the end of the party. It was great fun, really - DH and I had planned to bowl, but ended up not, since it was way more fun to watch the kids and give them a hand where needed.

Well, just to report on my extreme eating plan for this past week, I guess it’s working pretty well, as I seem to have lost six pounds. Now of course we ALL know that a majority of that is water weight, and I have no such hopes for this week, but I will stick to my regimen because I decided to do it until the 21st, which is when we’ll be attending a dinner with some dear friends at their home, and I KNOW I will want to nibble a bit, and plan to. I have been comforting myself since starting this with the thought that I can do ANYTHING for 21 days. Maybe not for a year, but certainly for 21 days! I really, really DO have to get this under control. I’m just too damned old to keep bouncing up and down like a yo-yo! And, besides, I know it’s not one bit healthy!

Well, enough about that. What I’ve been doing today is making clay beads to string into necklaces for my girls for Christmas. Actually, I started two or three weeks ago, and I’ve got quite a collection completed. I do this every so often, get bored with it sooner or later, and forget about it for months at a time. Most of you know that I do some sculpting with clay - bigger pieces, of course - but I do enjoy doing the beads, too, every so often. I make some in uneven shapes, like natural rock and then paint and glaze them so that they actually do look like rocks - and some I paint designs on; usually variations of black and tan or brown with stripes and polka-dots. Kind of African-looking. At the risk of sounding like a braggart, everyone likes them and they are always after me to make a bunch for craft shows and such, except that they take far too much time and effort to make great numbers of them, so I usually just make them for gifts, and this Christmas I thought it would be nice to make one for each of my daughters and granddaughters - and my son’s long-time girlfriend, since she may as well be a family member, and I assume that she will be before too much longer. I’d love to post some pictures and see what you-all think, but of course I don’t have the patience to try to figure out how to insert a picture into these posts anymore.

I have a nice big pot of soup simmering on the stove - we’ve become quite the soup afficionados since I tried my hand at making it from scratch. Neither one of us can tolerate canned soups. Anyway, I’ve been making chicken soup using canned chicken broth, lots of chicken breast meat, carrots, celery, onions, kale, and brown rice - and seasoning it with a good palmful of cumin, black pepper, and some dried herbs that I keep handy in an airtight jar. This week, I wanted to use up a good half of a pork loin roast that DH and I had for dinner last Sunday - it weighed in at about five pounds, and he and I certainly don’t even eat a pound between us at a meal. So, we had it last Sunday with baked sweet potatoes and spinach, and then again on Monday with white potatoes and green beans. (I weigh all my portions and only eat half of the potato). So then I froze all the rest of the roast - probably close to four pounds. I took it out this morning, and trimmed every bit of fat off it and cut it all up into quarter-inch chunks. I started my soup stock with 3 big jars of V-8 juice, two big onions chopped, all the seasonings and herbs, and the pork chunks of course. Then I added a bag of lentils, and after that all simmered for an hour or so, I added fresh carrots and celery. When it has about fifteen more minutes to go, I’ll add the kale. Well have the soup for supper with pita bread. The smell is already driving me mad. All I’ve eaten thus far today is my morning oatmeal and raisins. Oh, brother. I don’t guess anybody needed my soup recipe, but ther eit is, needed or not…LOL.

We put our Christmas tree up this afternoon. It’s one that I bought last year in an urn - artificial, of course, but it’s about four feet tall, counting the urn, and looks perfect on the antique cabinet that DH & I refinished last year in “Ralph Lauren Maroon” (or some such designer color - maybe it’s Ralph Lauren red; I don’t know, but it’s a real dark maroon and I love it.) It has it’s own little white lights already strung through it, and some pine cones and red berries (the tree not the cabinet) and all we have to do is put it where we want it and plug it in. DH, of course, makes a big deal out of having to “go cut down a tree” (he just goes and gets it out of the attic) and bringing it home by dogsled. Anyway, it’s dark now, the lights are on, and the tree looks really boffo!!! DH has already put some little gifts under it for me, but I’m not going to put his under it until closer to Christmas. I KNOW him, and he’ll be shaking and listening to them and trying his best to figure out what they are the minute I leave the house for work. We’ll have none of that!

Take a look at this video - It will warm your heart, honest! You can got to their website, too. It’s an amazing project!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM

Okay, I am off to put the kale in my soup, my dears. I hope you are all happy and well and enjoying a lazy weekend like moi -

Hugs,

Z