My journal's up to date...

But I got busy and forgot I wanted to post about our lives. Dog fine, lizard fine, fish fine, kids and husband fine, me fine. okay, that's all...








:) just kidding!



Here's a baking picture:
[which is sideways, and I've decided that since I did my best to flip it, and I don't know what is preventing the picture from showing up vertical instead of horizontal, I'm going to pretend I wanted to show it sideways and move on.] I made my super-easy bread recipe [flour, water, salt, and yeast] and added oregano and garlic. Yummy! And gone by the next day.

I wasn't able to take pictures of the [multiple] brownies I baked. I was too busy eating them. They were excellent :) and they're gone now. But Jared made peanut-butter fingers today [double-yum: peanut butter and chocolate topping], so my hips can continue their slow but steady spread.

I love this: I will admit that there is a pleasant thoughtfulness that accompanies hand-washing the dishes. However, the more-than-one-hour I end up spending on doing them, added to the no-counter-space problem while they dry, has made me very appreciative of the automatic dishwasher. :) I do miss making fake beer mugs topped with soapy foam, though...

That is a hat, and it's done now. The thumbnail is mine, but I decided that green was a bit too... 'fashion-conscious' for me, and I removed it. It's on my toenails, though :) where it reminds me that even though there's snow in my backyard, I can see the [dead] grass in the front yard and it will be spring. Soon.

On a related note [spring-related, I mean], these: are growing in my front flower beds. There are some daffodils, too, but since that was a vertical photo, and I'm trying to embrace the horizontal...

And, I wanted to show you what the dual personality of warm winter days with freezing winter nights and continuing snow has done for my town: Every south-facing, unshaded area is clear of snow. This particular area was also wet from the melting snow :) and made lovely cold squishings as we walked on it. My front yard looks like the non-snowy part of this picture :). My backyard has bare patches, but a lot of it is still covered in a foot of snow. It's enough to confuse the most sophisticated of meteorologists! That foot inside that shoe? It's Hyrum's foot. It's also sock-less. No, I don't get it. But he'll live. Notice that the snow is still there, but only in areas that are shaded for part of the day. Not sure where my family was, but this: is what they were doing on the playground. Full-contact game of "run away from Dad" complete with screaming when they got caught!

I'm looking at house-plans again. Not because we're building or anything, just because I like looking at them. :)I have a collection of house-plan books, and I get them out every so often, and admire my selections. I used to dog-ear the pages. Now I use post-it notes, and write comments on them so I remember why I chose those houses, and what I'd change about them. Last Friday, after Jared and I went out to eat, we decided to round out our date night with a trip to the Home Depot. I know, we really push the envelope on our quest for excitement. Anyway, I walked out of the store with a new [!] book of house-plans. It's a big one, too, with 608 lovely pages of houses, and advice on building and decorating. *sigh* I'm only on page 332. But I've already marked several likely candidates, and I'm making all sorts of notes to myself for the next time I decide to look through these lovely pages.

Gratitude List:

* My dishwasher came back from its 3-week vacation ready to scrub those dishes into submission. Thank goodness!
* We had a wonderful visit with family on Saturday, to celebrate my youngest sister's 12th birthday. She's still shorter than I am, too! [okay, by 2 inches, but it still counts.]
* Jared grilled some elk for dinner tonight. Mmmmm! That, along with the chocolate-covered peanut butter fingers, has made me a happy, and rather full, woman.
* I decided to ride my stationary bike the other day, while I was reading my magazine, because the whole reason I got a bike was so I could read while I exercized. I finished the magazine, and rode the entire time, which ended up being 58 minutes. WOW! Good thing, too, with all the disappearing brownies...
* Both of the cars are shiny-clean. Walker wanted to earn some money to buy [big surprise here] some books. He spent 5 HOURS cleaning out those cars, and did an excellent job, too. I paid him better than he expected, and I didn't have to take them in to be detailed. Win-win, baby!
* Jared's in town this whole week. Amazing, and wonderful.
* Crocuses in my garden.
* Trips to the park, and spending an hour playing together.
* After a few sewing set-backs, the sashing is [mostly] sewn onto my quilt. I had planned to sash it twice, creating a double frame around the quilt pattern. However, after all the ripping-out and re-figuring, I'm going to call it good with one, and move onto sewing the back together.
* Finished another goal: making birthday cards. I actually ended up with 20+ birthday cards, and another 10 or so blank cards. Wahoo! I'll end up doing this again, but I think this will take me through the end of the school year, anyway.
* Wonderful, spiritual lesson in church today. I am grateful for God, and for His Son, Jesus Christ.
* Good friends, and neighbors.
* My family [extended and immediate]
* Life- my life especially- is blessed.