Hubbie was gone 3 of January's 5 weekends on business trips, not to mention a couple in December. I got really lonely being home by myself with the animals last month and did start to attend a Friday Night Knitting Club. I knitted myself a gorgeous shawl I'll show you soon.
My mother and her 2 siblings finally came to the mutual agreement that it was time to move Grandma in assisted living after Grandma fell on her 93rd birthday (New Year's Day) in a room full of people who were helpless to do anything but watch her essay of gravity's strength and the fireplace's unwillingness to yield, even to little old ladies on their birthdays. She was terribly bruised and in much pain.
We packed & moved said grandmother the last weekend of the month. The transition has been difficult, especially on my mom, whom my grandmother calls constantly and for ridiculous things ("Cathy, someone stole my cane!" "No,Mom. You left it on your headboard in the bedroom." "Oh, OK."). At least she's safe, she's gaining weight - it's never a good thing to weigh less than your age - and she's in good care.
In keeping with the New Year's Resolutions, I re-organized and cleaned the laundry room. During a weekend when G-man was out of town I pulled everything from the laundry room into the kitchen, bought & assembled some shelves, then organized it all in the new configuration. That took a full day. There's no before picture - I want you to like me, not be utterly repulsed by my home's storage areas - but trust me, this is a vast improvement.
I really, really hate laundry.
Also in keeping with 2011 resolutions, G-man and I have both been carefully counting calories and increasing our exercise. I hesitate to say that we're "dieting" because that conjures up images of deprivation, rice cakes, and Crystal Light. Those foods & attitudes didn't have a place in our home pre-diet, won't have a place here post-diet, so aren't welcome while we're "dieting". In fact, we even switched to full-fat ice cream in our own form of diet protest.
And know what? I've lost 11 pounds and G-man is down 10! All while eating duck proscuitto, regular sour cream, ice cream, pizza, and even bleu cheese burgers. So that's not exclusively what we eat but "normal foods" are a daily occurrence around here. Neither of us feels deprived and we're both eating very well. I promise to still feature normal recipes on this blog and won't do any funky substitutions, like trying to pawn off highly-processed non-fat "sour cream" for the real stuff. Pfft. Screw that.
In other news, our oven died. I ran a self-cleaning cycle a couple of weeks ago and it hasn't worked right since. I suspect it was well into its 3rd decade so I'm not heartbroken to see it go but I'm not happy about the cost of replacing it. We picked out a new one and it will be here on the 23rd. That's 2 weeks and 2 days without a functional oven: no baking, no granola, no breads, no casseroles, nothing. GAH! I'll post about it when the new one gets here but until then we're stuck with the toaster oven, stovetop, and BBQ.
Speaking of which, dinner duty calls.
It's good to be back. I've missed you.
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