Morning all.
Michelle - My brother would watch mom's dog if not for certain obstacles - severe knee and transportation problems, among other issues. I haven't been out to visit for two years now - I'd been hoping during the period when she didn't have a dog to get her to come visit us, but nope. Maybe later this year I'll get out there. Now that I've used up all my freq flyer miles, I might try to find a good deal and fly out of Midway to the Branson airport - see if that's less expensive than the usual UA or AA flights from ORD to SGF. Yeh, I'm actually getting a taste for fruits & veggies now that it's getting warmer (I think, lol). I bought a watermelon and bf, doggie and I have been enjoying that!
Shad - Glad you didn't get stuck in the muddy roads! Fingers crossed for your continued safe travels.
Hope you get enough quality sleep to keep you healthy!! I could just see Mel being featured in one of Obama's town hall meetings - wouldn't she be great? - and it could all start with a call from you!
Ceejay - Hope you're well-rested and the sinuses/allergies are under control now.
Annie - Sounds like a very nice b-day weekend you had!! Your fancy meal sounded delish!
Happy - Yeh, I get how the errands outside the house really break up the momentum of home projects. Hope you managed to get some work done in spite of that. Did you find the terry-lined shower caps for your mom??
I have a stock of the cheapo freebies from my hotel stays.
Ellen - You've got quite a brood to watch over now w/ the younger siblings thrown in too. So you've got quite an age gap w/ your siblings - we had a talk about that during our book club because a couple members have large gaps like that. Hope your sis can wear your wedding dress. Despite never being married and no plans for it, I still get sucked into that show "Say Yes to the Dress" and am always shocked how much money brides spend on their gowns!!! Seems like a shame for those beautiful gowns to only be worn once, so I'm all for passing them on.
Mel - If you're being read these messages - Feel better soon sweetie!!
My weekend: Fri night, just a dog walk and some TV on my own since bf was helping a friend buy a car. Went to the circuit class Sat. morning and it was so hard for me to get through - I think the humidity wasn't helping matters. I also dragged on doggy's walk. Shopped for and made choco dipped strawberries for book club. Not the goat cheese dip I'd thought about making. So I get there and someone else had also made the berries (she said "That's what I get for not posting what I plan on bringing.")- but mine were larger and therefore more impressive, haha. Actually, Aldi had a great sale on the strawberries and I bought 3- 1 lb. packages and cherry-picked the best ones for dipping (mixing up my fruit metaphores or plain old references, lol.) I'm sure they all taste the same, although I used bakers chocolate and not choc chips or the mystery stuff made just for dipping - I'm sure that's chock full of hydrogenated oils, etc.
Book club was good, but I ate too much. Not a huge selection of stuff (no veggies!), and I kept my portions reasonable, which was good, but the desserts still did me in. The discussion was good - our host had printed off some discussion questions, so we actually spent more than the usual time on book stuff and not kids, etc.
Breakfast Sunday morning was also highly caloric, as my tracking showed. When I go out for breakfast - usually once every couple months - I tend to order food I don't eat otherwise (corned beef hash, for one thing), so it's not in me to just order oatmeal or cereal. But I do pay the price in calories. But my friend and I had a really good chat, so I enjoyed myself.
Yesterday was sunny, so I was happy about that.
Picked up dog piles and twigs/branches in back before bf mowed. Took a dog walk by the creek. Did a wee bit of weeding and trimming of the shrubs, but not nearly enough. Having woken up early all weekend, I got to bed early last night.
Okay, enough rambling. Back to work. This is cleanup week for the office. Our department has no plans to do much because we did a pretty good cleanup back in Sept when we had to make room for the other half of our dept to move in. I will, however, make some time to clean off my worksurface so it looks like I actually did something. They have told us that heaters or "similar electrical devices" will be removed by the landlord if found in our office space - wonder if my fan falls into that category? I'll put it away until I really need it.
TTFN!