Sadly, what you see in this photo is the normal state of my kitchen. I'm the worst housekeeper ever, but somehow Uber Hubby seems to love me anyway, as evidenced by the snazzy (& I'm sure WAY too expensive) diamond stud earrings he snuck around and got me for Christmas. Never mind that we had agreed that our October Wii acquisition was our present to each other...thankfully some guys just don't listen. :-)
Anyway, Gelsey was here for Christmas this year, and one of her gifts was the Paula Deen Kid's Cookbook. It's great because it's got pictures and words in the ingredient list for each recipe, plus there are sections to explain what all the cooking words mean (fold, dice, saute, etc) as well as basic etiquette and table setting. Naturally, she picked the Green Eggs & Ham recipe as her first effort. It helped that it was probably the only one that I actually had all the ingredients for, thanks to the leftover Christmas ham we brought home from dinner at UH's boss' house.
In other news (since I haven't bothered to post in ages)...
I got sick during Thanksgiving week and though I've felt better for quite some time now, shaking the residual cough was hard and I haven't been to the gym since. I knew I needed to get back to it, but my follow up visit with good old Dr. Rath of Mankato Clinic stiffened my resolve. I had been on the verge of being put on Synthroid because of my hypothyroidism, which if left untreated can make weight loss and other things in my life difficult. I thought that's what was making me not lose all that much this past summer despite all the bike riding, but we just redid the bloodwork after waiting a month and now my cholesterol has shot WAY back up and my thyroid is supposedly back within normal limits.
WELL, DAMN... I was thinking the Synthroid would be the answer to a lot of my weight loss problems, but such is not the case for me right now. I have to wait another 6 months before being retested, so in the meantime I have to really get back on the wagon with Seattle Sutton's and I need to get back in the gym. If I don't get this under control, I'll be on cholesterol meds instead of thyroid meds, and to be honest it would be nice to get the weight off without any chemical assistance. I just wish it would happen faster. I also wish the city would plow out the six inches of snow/ice that is blocking the sidewalk across the street so I could more safely run outside, but that's another issue.
Suffice it to say that I really need to get off my behind, and I need to do it SOON. This is NOT some stupid New Year's Resolution that I'm going to break within a month of starting. At this point I'm down about 13 pounds from where I started earlier this year, and while that's a lot less than what I had planned on, at least I haven't slid back all the way to the beginning. I'm also looking forward to Spring, because UH agrees that I can finally get my cargo bike once all the snow is gone!
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
First ever Hoover Family Christmas Tree
I resisted many people's efforts to draw me into the Christmas spirit for quite awhile. First, I simply REFUSE to have anything to do with it until after Thanksgiving. One holiday at a time, people. I will occasionally do a little advance Christmas gift shopping if time, opportunity, and inspiration strike simultaneously (I once did it all at a craft festival one September), but that's as far as it goes.
We're staying in Mankato this year, marking the first time since I was a little kid that I haven't traveled to see family at Christmas time. It was Uber Hubby's mother's turn to have us this year, but budgetary constraints prevailed. It's just too expensive to spend Christmas in New York City this year, between air fares for multiple people, hotels, etc. I refuse to go someplace like that and worry over every dime I'm spending, so we're going to wait until we're in a better place financially, then do it up right. So...UH's daughter arrives from Tacoma on the 20th, at which point we will pick out the personalized family ornament for this year. She isn't always around to help out with that, so we're also waiting to hang the rest of them until she arrives.
As you can see by the photo though, the rest of the tree is all done. Mitzi, you can show this to Mom to prove that her Christmas box arrived intact and that nothing has been unwrapped in appropriately. We've never had our own tree before, because we've always been traveling and thus never felt like bothering. It took some engineering creativity to get the topper to stay up without flopping over, but on the whole I think it looks very nice, don't you?
We're staying in Mankato this year, marking the first time since I was a little kid that I haven't traveled to see family at Christmas time. It was Uber Hubby's mother's turn to have us this year, but budgetary constraints prevailed. It's just too expensive to spend Christmas in New York City this year, between air fares for multiple people, hotels, etc. I refuse to go someplace like that and worry over every dime I'm spending, so we're going to wait until we're in a better place financially, then do it up right. So...UH's daughter arrives from Tacoma on the 20th, at which point we will pick out the personalized family ornament for this year. She isn't always around to help out with that, so we're also waiting to hang the rest of them until she arrives.
As you can see by the photo though, the rest of the tree is all done. Mitzi, you can show this to Mom to prove that her Christmas box arrived intact and that nothing has been unwrapped in appropriately. We've never had our own tree before, because we've always been traveling and thus never felt like bothering. It took some engineering creativity to get the topper to stay up without flopping over, but on the whole I think it looks very nice, don't you?
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