Random Tuesday Thoughts

I don't know who I should be mad at, so I'll just be mad at the TV. Friends re-runs used to be on at 5 PM every weekday. No longer. Now, How I Met Your Mother is on. I have nothing against How I Met Your Mother, except it's not Friends. TV, please fix this, so I can get my 1/2 hour of laughs every day.

I should say, in the interest of full disclosure, that I can watch Friends whenver I want. I own the whole series. (Best gift ever!) But that's not the point.

I have a strange, rather irritating habit of clipping my nails on my bed. This means that all the pointy nail clippings end up all over my bed. There has to be a simple solution to this.

One of the books I'm reading is written in a really interesting way. Instead of giving all the background on whatever first, the author just jumps right in. It took me a while to get used to, but now I kind of like it. This way, when I'm reading all the background, I know there's a point to the rambling.

It is good for my soul to take a break during the day. Go say hi to the cat, or whatever. I can get so busy "doing nothing" that I never take the time to actually do nothing.

I love when I know Smokey's entered a room because I can hear her purring.

Scarf Pics

My first attempt at a multi-colored scarf:

And playing with the kitty:

Clearly not too happy about being the subject of my picture, nor the subject of loving and holding.

The Last Days of Vacation

I have been going outside everyday for about a week. It is really pretty-there is still snow on the ground and ice on the road. The ice is starting to melt, so I am taking full advantage of the mini "skating rinks". It is sunny and blue sky weather, but still enough of a chill to make it feel like winter.

My tutor ended up not coming on Monday because she was sick, so she will start coming regularly again tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it, but not dreading it either. The extra three days of vacation helped. I know I did some work that I didn't have to do, so that makes me feel more prepared.

I went shopping with my mom yesterday. I haven't been out like that for a long time. It was fun, but I was really tired by the end, and making very....slow....decisions.

We bought a frame for the picture my neighbor painted for me, and looked at frames for a picture I just finished. (My first!) I'd love feedback, just don't tear into it too much. I'm not completely satisfied with it, so I may go back and try to do something else with it; I'm just wary of making it too busy.

I have also been knitting quite a bit. Just simple scarves, with fuzzy wool that covers up all my mistakes. I tried a wider one with different colors for my mom; it worked okay. I'll see if I can get her to model with it. I'm thinking my next project will be a hat, although I need to learn more before I try it, because my other attempts have mostly ended in failure, with me taking out all the stiches.

Oh, and I rearranged my clothes in my dresser. It was good to do, and get all organized and throw some things out, but now, I cannot find ANYTHING. Anything, at all. I think I should make myself a little map, and color code it, and...kididng.

Smokey was being cute:

I hope everyone's first week back is going well.

Snow!

This isn't the first snow, but in my book, it counts as the first snow. It is sticking, and according to my mom, the roads are icy, so to me, that means snow. And winter. Which is weird, because it is mid-October.

Okay, so this is seriously wishful thinking.....but two ski areas have opened in the state!

For some odd reason I decided today would be the day I would go outside and walk around. After not going outside for three days. Maybe I have cabin-fever. I wore long underwear, a winter jacket, gloves, a scarf, everything, and I was still cold. I even had a red clown nose to show for it. But I feel a little better; less cabin-fever-ish.

Following up from yesterday post: My neck is still stiff and I feel a little off and shaky, but overall, much better. Which is very good. I hope I didn't freak anybody out with my last post. But let me just re-iterate this: I am fine. I only went to the ER to be safe, and everything they did was to make me comfortable; I was never in serious danger.

I can now say that all the medical shows are for the most part highly inaccurate. There is not that much rushing around and yelling and screaming. Although there was someone whose house had burned down, everyone seemed pretty calm.

I think we are going to start a fire (in our wood stove, I realized that sounded a little odd) later, because it is so cold. Everyone is freaking out about the cold weather only because it is the first day of true coldness. Smokey, our cat, is not happy. She is sort of stalking around the house glaring, and curled up in tiny balls on the heaters.

Over the summer we replaced our carpet with hardwood floors, so she doesn't like not being able to curl up on the warm carpet.

Any plans for the weekend? What is your weather like?

I hope you have a warm, healthy weekend.

A Lazy Weekend

Both computers are now up and running. The laptop was having issues connecting to the internet, but that got figured out. The big problem was that we had the wrong password. An anti-virus software might also have been causing some problems. We think it was slowing down the processes so much, that the computers just locked up. Anyway, we're all good now.

I have managed to get another cold, so I haven't been feeling so hot the last three days. The tutor came on Thursday for the first time, and came again yesterday. She is very nice, and more importantly, a good teacher. I think we are just going to try it, and I'm going to do what I can for a while. There are definitely still kinks to work out, but hopefully they will solve themselves.

Yesterday was the yearly check-up for our furnace, which meant I had to get up earlier than usual. I live on the bottom floor, and the entrance to the crawlspace (where the furnace lives) is through my room. It wasn't too horrible, and it actually worked out pretty well because I got most of my homework done super early. That always makes me feel good about myself!

Today has been a very relaxed, lazy day. It is finally sunny and warm, so my parents have been busy doing yard work. We have all split up now, and are doing our seperate things. I finished the math worksheet from yesterday, and it was surprisingly painless! I guess it's not too surprising that I remember most of the material;  I worked through the summer, so everything is pretty fresh in my mind.

Even Smokey looks relaxed. (And very tolerant of the camera!)

I wasn't too excited about doing house-related tasks, so I came inside and started flipping through cookbooks. We have an international cookbook that tends to be forgotten behind the other cookbooks. I found two yummy looking recipes for Pineapple Upside-Down Cake and Tikki Chicken. The cake came out pretty well, considering it had to be flipped over. The chicken is marinating; we will cook it closer to dinner time.

My dad is watching two football games. I usually like to watch with him, but today I just couldn't settle down. (Don't ask me why I can settle down to write this, though.) Neither game is close, which makes them pretty boring for me. And seeing as I don't follow or root for any teams, I guess it isn't that surprising that I don't feel like watching.

The Divison of Wildlife called today, with an update on the hawk we had in our backyard. Remember him?

He is doing well, and yesterday was the first day he was put in an outdoor cage. He flew the length of it twice, which is excellent news. (Both of his wings were broken.) When he is ready to be released back into the wild, we will get to help. I will keep you updated on his progress.

As I write this, my parents are plotting something (I would say something evil, but I'm almost positive it's for my birthday, and that's definitely not evil). I am very curious as to what they are doing. This morning my mom was doing something secret on the computer....

Any plans for the weekend? Do you have anything special you are looking forward to?

Catch-up Day

Some homework was on the agenda for today. I read about the early settlements of the US and what the people's lives were like. It's interesting stuff, but makes for really dense reading.

I finally got around to cleaning my fish tank. It really needed it. Today was a weird day weather wise; overcast and threatening to rain earlier, and now sunshine and no clouds. So a water fight was off the table. I did manage to get myself pretty wet, not even trying. The tank looks much better now, and so far none of my fish have died from the shock. That's always a good thing!

My cat has been meowing all day because she has been locked down in my room. We (I should say my parents) are in the final stages of varnishing the new windows. All the screens were off, and somehow I think she knew escape was close by. I have been spending as much time as I can with her, to keep her from getting too lonely. (Cats are so high maintenance! But I love them.)

Tonight for dinner, my mom is grilling some salmon:

veggies:

and sweet potatoes (which were already on the grill by the time I got the camera out).

On the salmon packaging I found this great-looking recipe for fruit salsa. We had a ripe mango, so I decided to go for it. It was fun to make, because I got to use green onions and cilantro from the garden. Anyway, it turned out great!  Do you have a favorite recipe? Or things you grow that you like to eat?

On to Happier Things....

I am lucky to live in an area with lots of wildlife. We have had a few bears in our yard the past month. Yesterday we had a mother deer and twin fawns. I wasn't quick enough with the camera, but I assure you, they were very cute.

Last night my mom made vegetable chicken soup and platanos (plantains) for dinner. We have been passing a stomach bug around for a while (I am still convinced the cat gave it to us), and so last night was my turn to feel a little off. Normally we all really like hot, spicy food of any kind, but my mom kindly left out the green chiles. She did put some on the table, and was quite amusing when she put a few too many in her soup.

Here is a picture of the platanos. I like them plain and simple, so she just cut them up and stuck them in the oven.

Our cat, Smokey, has been a very unhappy cat lately. It is mostly my fault, because I let her outside when she is normally a totally indoor cat. Anyway, she has been driving us all nuts with her constant meowing. We try yelling at her and shaking the can at her (a tin can filled with pennies, it makes a loud noise that she hates). I don't know what changed, but last night she was eager to play and finally, finally, shut up. I think we tired her out, don't you?

Do you have pets? Any tricks of the trade for getting them to behave? (Does that rhyme?)

Tristan, Claire, and Jason

Meet Tristan, Claire, and Jason. These three fine creatures are my fish. They live in my room, on the top of my dresser. My cat is vagualy interested in them, but they rarely do anything exciting enough to keep her attention.

They fascinate me. Just swimming around for hours and hours. They are really quite amusing when I feed them. I only feed them three times a week, because, in the words of my local PetCo worker, "a hungry fish is a happy fish". I know they aren't very smart, so I put the food right on top of where they are swimming. They have caught on that when I open the top it is feeding time, however, they immediately swim over to the other side of the tank. I end up putting about twice as much food in as they eat, because it takes them a loooong time to figure out where the food is.

I end up cleaning the tank a lot because of this. I have some snails that are supposed to do the cleaning for me, but they just clean the same spot over, and over, and over. Cleaning it can be sort of enjoyable if it is nice out. Last time I cleaned it, I almost convinced my mom to come out and have a water fight with me. (With clean water.) But then she said we could go to the new Harry Potter, and that trumps all, even a water fight.

I apoligize for the poor quality of the pictures. My fish apparently don't like being photographed. And this computer doesn't have any picture editing software, that I know of. But, it gives you the general idea.