Slow weekend

We had plans for the weekend, dinner with my father and hiking with friends, and we were all looking forward to both, but Friday afternoon we ended up leaving the skating rink early because Ben's head was hurting and his nose was dry-which really bothered him, he told me about it at least 10 times.  Chan was not feeling great, either.  Since the flu is making the rounds, we came on home.

I postponed lunch Saturday and moved the hiking plans, thinking they might actually be getting sick, but now that it's Sunday afternoon, I think it was more that they were wiped flat out and we all have a mild tummy blah-or have just been eating too much junk.  I slept most of yesterday afternoon myself, it's funny how your brain can start in, 'Ooo, the flu is going around and my head hurts and my legs and stomach muscles are achy...I feel HORRIBLE.'  Never mind I have walked 3+ miles a day every day this week, setting the incline at least 5 to work my thighs more and done crunches every night.  And I stayed up way too late reading.  No, I am dying of the flu.  Until I got bored with laying in bed and decided I must be okay after all.  So I walked 3 miles and then did crunches.  *sigh*

Today I had big plans to go hike anyway, but now Matt is feeling puny.  hahahaha.  The kids are still at about 90%, just tired and irritable, but not feverish or actually sick.  So we opted for one more day of laying low-no need to get out among the masses and contract something!

I read all morning and did a little cleaning.  We have had company for 5 of the last 7 days- a glaring clue in my hindsight of 'I think the kids are just super tired' and so not only have I not been able to walk around in just my underwear, I also have been pretty lax on the chores.  We got the kitchen and laundry squared away and vacuumed, got the animals all fixed up with fresh bedding and clean water, refilled the food stocks and so on.

By this afternoon, I was feeling the need to stir my blood, so I took the dogs for a walk in the pasture.  This implies I had some kind of control over where they went and that in fact-these 3 hours later-know where they currently are.  But what it really means is they stayed with me long enough to decide I knew where I was and then took off.  With some 800 acres behind us, most in long and winding valleys that feed into a creek that gets wider and deeper the further away from us it goes, they LOVE to get out in the woods and run.  I go back and forth from wanting to run with them to envisioning a snapped ankle a half mile out.  I think established trails are just fine.

I wandered for half an hour, amassing an impressive 334 steps on my fitbug.  Tracking my every step is the new fun hoop we are jumping through for our insurance company, I do the 10k every day, but it's stopped being a challenge and started being a chore and I am starting to resent it.  Waa

Anyway, I had my camera and took some pictures.  And, here they are.  It's mid-December...well, okay early December, and things are reblooming or still in bloom.  It has not even come a hard frost up here yet.  I am not complaining, just making note.  I love mild winters for my own selfish reasons-mainly being that I seriously hate to be cold.  Lots of people want to point out that mild winters are bad things, but really, think about that.  There are whole countries where 'winter' means it might hit 65.  You don't need a period of everything being dead, plants go dormant on their own.  And I don't believe one word of the whole 'kills off bugs' because whether it's 30 below for a solid week or rarely dips below 40, there are bugs every dang summer.

So bring another mild winter! 

Birthday Weekend

Ben's 13th birthday was Saturday, we had friends over Friday for lunch and Emily and Zachary stayed overnight and they played ALL day Saturday.  Later this week, Alex is coming to hang out a couple nights and today he hung out with Alex and Elan, so he's had a glut of buddies, which is just what he wanted.

 We met Kurt and Katy and their 4 kids and Sammy and Amanda and their 4 kids at Hurricane Creek around 11 today and spent the afternoon meandering 2 miles along the trails before enjoying about an hour or so of climbing around on the walls and then we all headed to eat dinner.  It was a lovely day, the weather was perfect for being outside, got us all talking about camping...

Kurt found this metallic petrified foot, it was truly a bizarre thing to look at, we are guessing it's brake pad build up from a train that eventually fell off, it was layers of shavings around a core with a totally flat bottom.

John has redone the climbing walls again, he was setting up a couple new routes today while we were there, so everyone had to give them a go.

 Kurt's helping out Matt by pointing out the next place to put his hand or foot to stay on the route.  Orange is hard and pink is harder.

Ketchup

Various shots over the past week, first of my 2 rather interesting efforts at doing a fishtail braid.  It's complicated and I am not really good at that kind of thing.

 Second, Kat has been a different kitty lately.  She's recently turned 11 and she's started playing with toys, demanding cat treats, shoving her arms underneath doors and doing things like sleeping on her face.  Also, she chases her tail every single time she sees it.

 

 I made a big batch of salt dough, thinking the kids would like to make ornaments, but they just played with it for hours.  We had cake for Ben's birthday (which is tomorrow), it was a nice afternoon with too much food and lots of chatter.

 

 

About 2 weeks ago, we ran into various friends at the library, quite spontaneously.

And that's all the recent photos I have snapped, I am hoping this weekend I will feel inspired to get out and get some more shots, I have only changed batteries once since our big trip in October...just not feeling trigger happy and we have not really done much of anything. 

Wednesday, The Whole Day

For 2 weeks, I have set aside today for a certain project I have in mind and now that today is here, I have found 900 other things to do instead.  I am not usually so lax, so I have to assume my subconscious knows something I don't.

We started the day by laying in bed, all of us, reading.  Jake is going through the Soul Eater manga, Ben is on the 3rd book of the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz and Chan likely read through 3 books this morning.  I downloaded more free ebooks onto the Nook and perused those a while, deleting what did not strike my fancy.

I got one set in Alabama and did not realize until I was reading through it that it was mild erotica.  Involving a ghost and a human.  *yawn*  That whole genre has been done to death.  The human/other thing, I imagine erotica still has some life left in it-too bad half the characters don't!  (ba-dum-dum, ting)  Though...well, okay.  I DO wonder how Edward got Bella pregnant.  With no pulse or need to breathe, I just don't understand the dynamics.  And this is not a sparkle-centric complaint of mine.  Angel and Buffy and Buffy and Spike and I will say no more. 

I will instead, talk about my Nook.  I love it.  Matt's mom has shown me a couple of different e-readers over the years and I was 'meh' about it.  Keep in mind, Matt had to practically beg me to get a computer and I finally relented when he said I could keep recipes on it.  I had no concept of 'online' or e-mail or internet or any of it.  I thought it would be a big waste of money for what I saw as basically a gaming system/file storage unit.  Last week, we bought our 12th computer since that first one so many years ago.  We still don't have a TV hooked up to the outside though, neither of us can see the use in one.

Anyway, back to Nookie (see, life in the genre!).  It's a Nook Color and I bought it from Newegg as a refurb for $109.  I did not even look at other ereaders, but I bought this one because-it's easy to root.  So far, I have not done anything to it, my needs, it appears, are very simple.  I want to click on a book and read it.  It goes online and I can check e-mail and it has games, a music player, I can listen to audiobooks, it holds photos and I can watch Netflix and there's a app to download right from the library site to the Nook, so I can get a new book as soon as I finish the first one.  It's practically brainless to use, VERY simple.  The most trouble I have had was when my laptop was set to Eastern time and it was set on Central and they did not want to communicate.  My major complaint is that it's very B&N-centric and Amazon and other places have free apps that B&N want you to pay for.  And, a calculator app costs .99.  That is INSANE.  But, that's why you root it-gets rid of that proprietary brouhaha.

Matt came home at lunch, which further weakened my project-attacking resolve and has left me having to decide instead if I want to go for a walk first or get groceries.  Both...so...boring...

We walked THEN got food.  4 miles and $72.  I swear, the money dribbles out, it's hardly ever chunks, just chips.  Matt made matteroni and cheese to take tomorrow.  Note I am not talking about tomorrow, only today.  And tonight, because we are going to watch disc 2 of Grimm and eat pomegranate seeds.  And that is my whole day.  Project status: undone.

Wheeler

 After our trip to meet the dogs yesterday, we decided to stop at Wheeler and have a walk in the woods.  The water was WAY down and we got a good look at the mud-and what had recently passed through.  Above we are pretty sure is a turtle track and below is probably those little snail guys.

 

This little guy hopped right out in front of us, I feel bad for him, I don't think he'll last long in this weather.

 This is a seriously over-exposed shot of sandhill cranes coming in to land.  But I liked the whole alien feel of the shot and decided to keep it anyway.

 

I love to watch the ducks feed, duck butt is SO cute, especially when they do it in groups.  Like being mooned by professionals.

 

There's still quite a bit of fall color here and there, though most of the leaves still out are a dull brown.

That's no panda!

Woodpecker on a cypress

The sunset from our heavily-wooded area.  It was NOT EVEN 5 IN THE AFTERNOON.  I really dislike Daylight Saving Time.  It's so bad, I might vote republican if the platform was about doing away with it.  Or...move to Arizona where they DON'T OBSERVE.