I finally loaded some new photos.   Just in time so we can leave to go visit our friends the Kindschi's and then Tim's mom for a few days. 

 

We had a great Christmas.   It seemed to go pretty fast.  Payton loved all his gifts and has been playing non-stop with them.   This will be nice for our trip, and give him something to do on the drive.

---

I found this one that was a play on the famous UFO poster -

 and then, sometimes things are lost in the translation:

Yesterday Tim worked from home as I had a follow up doctor visit/with xrays for my arthritis in my knee, and he had to take Payton to School, and then Payton had a Christmas program later in the morning so he went to that with me.

 

My knee is showing no further progression, so I am just supposed to keep taking supplements and not running as much... or as the doctor says... I can run as much as I want it just depends on how much pain I want to be in and how much I want to be able to move around later in life.  So there you go.

 

Since Tim stayed home... he didn't get to work out.   And I didn't have time to work out either with my doctor appointment and the Christmas program.   So at 4:30 when he was done with work we loaded the three of us in the car and we went to work out at my gym since Payton LOVED it the last time I took him with me.  We all worked out together.   We stayed f or an hour and a half total.  

 

Today I donated blood after working out.   My blood pressure was very low 90/60 and they had to redo my iron test because I failed the first one because it was 11.6 and you need at least a 12.5 to donate.  My second test was 12.6.   They suggested not working out before donating, so next time perhaps I wont.   Though, I don't think that has been an issue before.   But I felt fine donating and afterwards. 

---

Yesterday I made Payton stay home from school with me.   He had thrown up in the middle of the night but then claimed to feel fine immediately after doing so.  I suspected yet another ear infection... so I asked... do your ears hurt?  "No!" he said.   I asked if they hurt just a little bit.   "Nope!" he said.  I said, what about when you swallow food or water?   And he said "No".   But when I took him to the doctor the next day... That is exactly what he had.   An ear infection.  The doctor has now referred us to a specialist since he has had so many ear infections.   She thinks that perhaps he never has totally gotten over the ear infections, that the fluid is not draining and just gets re-infected.   In all liklihood he will need to get tubes in one or both ears.  His appointment is January 14th at the hospital in Missouri Valley.   I think I will be pleased to have this taken care of finally.  I was beginning to worry about the frequency of his ear infections, and the fact that he NEVER EVER COMPLAINED!   I know he's had more ear infections than we have went to the doctor for, just because he never complained of any pain.  We only go if he has a symptom that we can see or he can feel.

---

I think these are domino tiles....

I went grocery shopping today, but when Tim came home we discovered I didn't seem to have gotten any food.   I did buy food... but not the right food I guess.   The problem we are having is that we want food that is instantaneously ready...and as Tim also requests "crunchy, salty and healthy"  Tim has his almonds, and I bake homemade pretzels from time to time.  But you can't eat almonds every day and certainly not for a meal.  

 

Today I bought ingredents for several gallons chili (Tim really likes chili), a few boxes of mac and cheese, spagetti sauce, chicken, pomegranates, peanut butter and bread.  That is not a huge # of items, but I walked up and down each isle, and NOTHING LOOKED GOOD.  Nothing looked like something I wanted to eat.   It's not like I don't know how to cook, it's just I am not hungry enough to cook, or when I am hungry I am not near enough to a decent store to get the ingredients I need at a good price.  

---

Tim had his solo in church today, O Holy Night ... but the hard part was he sung it acapella.   I thought he did really well.   He seemed not happy with the performance but I had recorded it for him on my MP3 player and when he heard it he softened his original opinion somewhat.   Of course we are always our own worst critics, and it's easier to do when you are singing by yourself with no piano or no nothing!

 

Payton has fallen in love with board games this weekend.  Specifically Uncle Wiggly and Scrabble.  He can successfully play Uncle Wiggly, but Scrabble he needs some help with spelling.   I think he just likes the tiles and the idea of the letters. 

 

Christmas is approaching really fast.  I am very excited to have Payton open his gifts.  We bought him a couple of things that I am for certain he will not be able to put down.  I am sure he will be excited.  

---

Wednesday I had my Christmas luncheon in Des Moines with my friends Wendy and Danielle.  That was fun as usual.  We have done this every year since graduation I think... I can't really remember when it started or how it started- only that we do it every year.  After that I went to visit my niece Katie in W. Des Moines before on the way back home, so it was a longer day than just driving 2 hours for an extended lunch then driving home!

 

Yesterday I worked out and shaved a few more seconds off my mile to get it down to 9:15.  Still not blazing fast, but factor in I am still dealing with a lingering cold and I think it is pretty good.   Since I am only allowed to jog one mile I feel like I want to make it count!   The rest of my work out is done on the ellipical.   And although my muscles hurt more on the elliptical I admit my knee doesn't hurt at all on it! 

 

I also finally got done with my Christmas cards.   Whew!

 

And, yesterday my other niece Stacy and her husband Eric had their baby girl Carmen.  She had some minor issues with a "gag reflex" so they kept her in the NICU overnight until she could learn to eat, I have not heard anything further, but they think it will only be a temporary stay in the NICU.

---

I hate drinking fattening water!

Payton's school was called off, Tim is working from home today.   The postman came and hand delivered the mail to our door, and I asked him what the roads were like and he said that the plows still hadn't done most of the country roads (like ours) but the main roads were plowed but patchy ice.   They don't seem to ever salt the county highway going into town.   It just kind of has to wait for the sun to melt it off. 

 

Today we haven't done anything outside, except I shoveled the driveway as best I could.   Payton and I made fresh biscuits this morning from scratch.  Sometimes I just get a craving for biscuits and jelly.  I wish I knew how to make a good white gravy (or maybe the right thing would be to say I wish I knew how to make it and also had the correct ingredients on hand too)  Between the three of us we ate all 10 of them.   Then later Payton asked to make cookies so I researched online to find a good sugar cookie recipe and we mixed those up and they are chilling now.   I have yet to find one really outstanding recipe, so I keep doing a different recipe each time and when I find the right one I will stop looking and just make that one over and over.   I want one that is soft after baking, yet will be easy to roll out into shapes and has a good flavor... not too flour-y.   The one I am doing now is made with almond extract so I thought maybe that will get high marks in the flavor category (although I hear people say lemon juice is better than almond extract).  If anyone reading this thinks they have the perfect sugar cookie recipe I am open to hearing it if it meets my criteria for 1. soft after baking, 2. easy to roll out into shapes and 3. good flavor.

 

Tomorrow I am going to be going to Des Moines to have my Christmas lunch with Wendy and Danielle.  Tim is going to work from home again so he can get Payton when he comes home from school (assuming there is school) but I think there will be. 

 

---

Don't have any new news!  So here is some random stuff from the internet...

 

I have yet another bad cold.   I never used to get this many bad colds when I was heavier, in fact- if I ever did have a cold they were a week long event tops.   I don't know if there really is a correlation, but I had terrible problems with this last year too.   They tend to be very severe, sometimes with a temperature and they hang on for 3 or more weeks.  It's almost like all of a sudden I have no immunity.

 

So I am not doing a whole lot today, but I did work up the energy to bake banana bread, only because I wasn't sure how much browner the bananas could get before they would be too brown to use.

---

Today we are supposed to get 3-5 inches of snow... starting any time now.   We'll see what happens!

 

My excercise routine changes (since discovering the arthritis in my knee) are going ok.   I can't say I love doing cross training, but I don't hate it like I thought I would!   I am going to try to cultivate a love for it, but it will take time.   I do one mile on the treadmill, and I have started trying to do that faster now, so I do that always under 10 minutes, which was my usual confort zone.   I try now to do it in 9 and a half or less.   Then I do 2 miles on the elliptical, some upper body weights, then a stint on a bike just because.   I really hate the bike most of all, but I thought if I keep doing it maybe I will start not hating it as much.

 

All this takes about 40 minutes.   Since I do it 5 days a week I decided that I don't need to do much more than that.  I had been going a lot more miles previously, but I don't think I want to do that this winter.  I consider it my off season.

---

Yesterday Payton did not have school so I took him with me to the city for shopping, and with the idea of buying his last birthday present with his birthday money he had gotten from Jan (his babysitter at Church when we have choir practice).  I saved the shopping for his toy for last, which is good because he kept saying "mommy I am tired" as we were buying groceries.  This was after we had been to the Post Office and Walgreens and Best Buy.   So I said, but what about your present?  And he would perk up enough for me to buy a few more items on the list.   That's how we got through shopping enough to get to the toy part.  He's such a nice kid.   He could have probably threw a tantrum and said "I WANT MY TOY  NOW" but he didn't aparantly think of doing that.   He was sufficiently pleased with the prospect of getting one eventually (I hope no one tells him kids demand stuff RIGHT NOW).   So when we get to the toy department I decide to limit his choices to the educational toy isle or we would be there all day.   He decided most of the toys were "for babies"  I don't know where he got that idea... but I didn't argue.  He picked up the toy we had just bought him for his birthday and said he wanted that.  I pointed out we just got him that.   So he tried again.  He eventually settled on a new game cartridge for the game system we already got him.  Perfect.   It exceeded his birthday money by about $15, but I didn't really mind.   Then he seemed rejuvinated, so I called tim to see if he wanted to have lunch and so we did.   But I think by the end of lunch Payton was pretty much done.   And he did sleep a little on the way home. 

 

On another note, I got interviewed for an online blog about my opinions on StumbleUpon, which is an online service/community I belong to because I am one of their "top" users.   You can read the interview here: http://retiredat21.com/janataylor/ I have done other interviews before, but this is probably the biggest one I have done thusfar.

---