74 degrees and windy

A beautiful, beautiful day today - 74 sunny degrees with a hair-raising 50 mph wind factor. Not that I was enjoying it though, too busy paying church bills;
and doing dishes;
But I did get a good view of the sunset while making dinner;
Now we're just kicking back watching some boob tube while I look through my mounds of magazines and books. In particular, the new Seattle travel book we picked up last night at B&N;
It's the same book we got for Chicago and Washington D.C. I like the way the sections are broken down and the good information it gives on attractions. Plus they come with maps. What a deal! Unfortunately they didn't have a similar one for Victoria B.C. so we're going to have to stick with the travel guides the tourism center sent us. And best of all, they were free.

Catching up

Whoa! How did it go a whole week without me blogging? Bad Susana. Here's my week in photos:

Monday - Spent an hour in the afternoon at the e-waste recycling facility emptying 27 boxes of old tape cassettes from town council meetings in the '80s. Ah, the glamorous life of a recycling coordinator.
Tuesday - We took advantage of all day matinee prices to go to the movies to see the 8:00 pm showing of The Mechanic (with Jason Statham). Yes he took his shirt off and yes it was glorious. I went dressed in sweat pants and the Canadian wore his slippers. We always dress up fancy when we 'go to town'.
Wednesday - Blood donor day at the veteran's hall. What kind of awesome freebies were they giving out this time?? Absolutely nothing. I didn't even get a free ice cream coupon. WTF?? And there was hardly anybody there to donate which is highly unusual. After asking where everybody was I found out that there had been a special mobile event the week before at the local movie theater where they were giving out free movie coupons. What?? Why did nobody call and tell me? Just for that, I ate TWO snacks at the snack table. That'll show them!
Thursday - Got my new pedometer in the mail. I promise I will not drop this one in a gas station restroom toilet.
Friday - Caught an awesome sunrise on the way up the hill this morning at 6:45 am. Took the photo with one hand while eating a breakfast wrap from Starbucks in the other hand. That's driving talent! When the Canadian gets home tonight we're going to walk the couple of block over to Burger Hut for dinner and then spend some time at Barnes & Noble before doing grocery shopping. Since I'm still doing my treasury training on Friday afternoons I haven't been able to get my shopping done on time.
The big plan for the weekend of course is of course watching the super bowl and cheering for the Packers and Aaron Rodgers. I can only imagine the partying that will go down in the city if he wins!

Working for the weekend

It's finally Saturday and we celebrated by sleeping in until 10:00 am! Between bible study, singing practice, birthday parties after work, and hours of treasury training for my second job, I was truly looking forward to at least one day when I could sit back and relax. And by sit back and relax I mean only spend two hours on the laptop running reports and paying bills for the church. But somehow, I managed to squeeze out a little time between loads of dishes and laundry and grocery shopping to spend a little time creating magically delicious treats in the kitchen this evening. I found a recipe for chocolate cookies to which I added peanut butter chips.
While they were baking, the Canadian bided his time by drinking his new favorite drink of Southern Comfort with lemonade with a grape vine straw.
Move over red vines, there's a new licorice in town and it's delicious!

I'm hoping that even though we practically slept in until noon, I can get to bed at a decent time because I sing in the morning which means that I have to wake up at the crack o' dawn for practice. I've been spending some time this evening listening to my song set on youtube.

Oh-there goes the buzzer for the second load of laundry in the dryer. My household duties never end!

Foot follies

There was a mutiny at work today and my co-workers forced me to go to the doctor to look at my fat foot. It's gotten so sore that I'm limping now when I wear shoes. I left after lunch and went straight to my surgeon's office, who, after pushing on my leg and foot immediately sent me to the hospital to be checked for blood clots. The ultra-sound tech didn't give away any secrets, but I guess there wasn't anything too suspicious because they let me leave. In the meantime the surgeon's office was also setting me up an appointment with the lymphedema clinic in town to be fitted for another compression garment for my right leg. Will the fun never end?!

That whole rodeo kind of shot my evening plans of cleaning and baking for bible study tomorrow night. Instead Chris helped me do a quick pick-up and I ran over to Trader's for my last minute dinner ingredients.
I found an online recipe for baked gnocchi - lasagna style. Layers of tomato sauce, cheese, spinach, gnocchi, repeat. Bought some olive focaccia bread and the makings for a pear and walnut salad to go with it. I was going to bake a dessert out of my new Dorie Greenspan baking book, but too much going on tonight to get it done so a store bought dessert is in my future. I'll save it for next time because it sounds delicious - a cardamom and coffee marble loaf.

Green Bay all the way!

Who was on the front page of the sports section in the E.R. this morning? Our hometown hero, Aaron Rodgers;
Giving it up for Butte College! Of course we watched the game and cheered him on to victory. Steelers and Packers in the super bowl - should be exciting!

I finally busted out my new panini press today to prepare our lunch. I had picked up some sandwiches from Safeway and threw them in the hot press to warm up and melt the cheese.
It was a big hit with the Canadian who had a salami and cheese sandwich. Must find more things to grill, pronto.

Giving up

While I'm able to pamper my fat foot over the weekend while at home, I can't seem to keep the swelling down during the work day. My doctor's office said that if all the other tricks didn't work to try a compression stocking. I finally gave in today and went to the pharmacy to pick one up. It made me yowl putting it on because it was so tight on the top of my swollen foot, but once I got used to the pressure it actually made my foot feel better.
It's going to go nicely with my dresses!

The scarlet letter

So that others will know what evil lurks beneath his seemingly normal exterior, Chris must wear the scarlet t-shirt;
It's easier than wearing a mountie hat and riding a moose.