Will Work for Food

H is a happy, happy man when he gets to work with technology all day.  For the price of a batch of cookies he installs, fixes, transfers, repairs, and gives instructions.  As for my sister, she lovingly supplies the goodies.  All is right in the world.

365 Project

In honor of the new year, I’ve decided to challenge myself to a 365 Project. If you’ve never heard of one before, it’s a photography challenge where you document a year of your life by taking daily photos. People approach it in many ways: some join with others and post in a group setting; some use the “anything goes” imagery approach; others focus on themes; and some prefer to document once a week instead of daily. You get the picture.

I’ve created a separate blog just for this effort called Essence of a Day. You can find it at http://www.essenceofaday.blogspot.com/. You can also click on the link to it under the “Inspirations” column on the right of this blog. I hope you’ll join me.

The Last Fill-Up

I have an elderly cat (P) whose kidneys are failing him.  With my husband’s help, I give P fluids several times a week.  We’ve been doing this for almost a year.  It doesn’t seem to bother P in the least; he’s pretty laid back about it and spends the time nuzzling for extra attention.  We’re done in less than five minutes. 

Tonight I heard H talking to P as we were getting ready for the ritual:

     What’s that you say?  Yes, it’s the last fill-up for 2010.

Even the cat is celebrating.

Oh, No! Not the Dome!

Santa gave my husband a gift certificate to Yogli-Mogli, and it’s been burning a hole in his pocket. 

If you’ve never been, Yogli-Mogli features a wall of self-serve frozen yogurt stations with sixteen different flavors.  The yogurt cup comes in one size (HUGE) and you can fill it up with as much or as little as you’d like.  Past the machines you encounter a toppings station with 40 different candies, cookies, crunchies, nuts and fruits, plus a variety of syrups to delight the taste buds.  Since you pay by the ounce, the highlight is weighing the container to see just how much you are about to consume.  We typically come in around sixteen ounces between the two of us.  Except for tonight . . .

Our yogurts weighed in at 21.8 ounces -- over a pound of frozen yogurt and toppings.  The young cashier didn’t think twice about it until we asked for travel lids.  She reached for two lids, looked at H’s “bucket” and said, Hmmm… I think I’ll give you a dome lid.  H and I just looked at each other, but the man behind us started laughing.  Oh, wow, you’ve reached the dome threshold, he said.  Well, it’s the holidays. We could still  hear him laughing when the door closed behind us.

It’s becoming clear why my jeans wouldn’t button and zip yesterday.

What Happened?

I have had a very rude awakening today – actually two! 

Awakening #1

This morning I peeked at my last blogging date, and I have to say that I don’t know what happened or where the time went. 

Awakening #2

For the first time in ages, I “slipped” into a pair of jeans and was unable to button or zip them.  They weren’t just snug, I physically couldn’t pull the denim close enough together to get the button through the buttonhole, let alone get them zipped. They fit last week, I’m sure.

Conclusion

I haven’t had time to blog because I must have been eating. 

Hmm…..It’s a good thing that the New Year is right around the corner.  I think it’s time for some changes.



The Speelgoedmuseum



The stairwell was a bit steep!



During our recent visit to Amsterdam, we stopped at a very small toy museum in the seaside town of Hoorn.  The museum was located in a seventeenth-century home in a quiet neighborhood.  The owner lived on the main level while the toys were displayed on the upper floors.   So, up we climbed to the third floor and worked our way down.   Although it was much smaller than we had anticipated, it was quaint and diverse, and to my surprise, there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. 

A display board hung in the last room with pictures and comments from children who had visited the museum.  Among the sweet comments, the one that really made me smile read, “I found the toys old.  And the woman from the toy museum was old.”

The Three-Letter Word

My husband’s sister recently introduced him to Scrabble on the iPad and H absolutely loves it.  He usually plays a couple of games each night before going to bed, grumbling over words played by the computer that can’t be found in the Scrabble Dictionary and then cheering himself on when he outplays his invisible opponent.  It’s a good brain challenge for him.

H also works from home and I have discovered that at lunchtime he has been playing a game or two while sitting in my office with P the cat perched on his lap, observing.  I really didn’t think much about it, other than I was pleased that the cat had some additional human one-on-one time during the work day.  That is, until I heard H talking to the cat last night.

What’s that you say?  You found a triple-word score?  CAT?  That’s great!

Later H confided to me, The only problem is that P only knows three- and four-letter words, which doesn’t give us a very high score.

Hmmmmm…maybe I need to be concerned.