Wordless Wednesday

2010 Book List

I figured I'm not going to finish another book this year, so here's the final list! My goal was to read 15 books this year.

1. The Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell, Ph.D.
2. Chimpanzee Politics by Frans de Waal
3. The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon
4. Food Rules by Michael Pollan
5. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
6. The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney, Psy.D.
7. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan
8. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
9. A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
10. An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon
11. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
12. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
13. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
14. Don't Shoot the Dog! by Karen Pryor
15. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
16. Reaching the Animal Mind by Karen Pryor
17. Tales of Two Species by Patricia McConnell
18. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
19. My Life as a Guinea Pig by A.J. Jacobs
20. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

Goal pwned.

I Can Eat if I Want To.

So it's my birthday today, and like a majority of my birthdays it was cold and gloomy outside. But I went into work and found this:







The girls at work decorated my cubicle! Yes, that is a blow up monkey! One of the girls gave me some new cookie cutters. They are the most amazing shapes - I got an owl, dinosaur, squirrel, and unicorn! Awesome? Yes! My supervisor also brought in the most delicious chocolate pound cake. I didn't even know such a thing existed.

Then my BFFs came over and took me out for some sushi! Then we had cake and ice cream. I've had about 4 pieces of cake tonight. The waves of guilt are overwhelming. *sigh* Oh well. I guess I'll work it off in 2011!

p.s. I have decided to do 52 weeks of dogs this next year. That means I'll be taking one picture a week of Teddy (or whatever dog I have at my disposal). This week was "practice week" where we just had to take a picture of our subject. I threw a hat on Teddy and came up with this:



happy birthday?

December, A Review.

Hello person reading my blog! How are you? I forgot to tell you, I decided to take a month off from my blogging to rejuvenate. I've spent the majority of my time planning out my creative goals for this blog. I have lists, Venn diagrams, bar graphs, and even a few laminated signs. 2011 is guaranteed to blow your mind, so stick around!

Not really though. I've just been epically lazy.

But I'm back!

It's sad that I haven't posted because I discovered a lot of new things in December. While searching for Christmas presents on Amazon, I discovered a quilting book, which led to a quilting blog, which led to a colorful quilt that I love, which led to me jumping head first into a quilting project. Look at all the fabric I have! Ack!


Then I went to the lake house where I got to see my baby cousins Chandler and Dylon. I think 11 months old is officially my favorite age.


I did some baking which is no suprise. I made some Christmas themed cake balls for peoples at work! I also baked cookies for 2 of my coworkers' birthdays. It involved cookies spelling their names but I didn't take any pictures because baking and decorating cookies is effort enough.



I had also been working on a knitting project for a long while. I had absolutely no time to work on it, but was finally able finish it on Christmas Eve. So glad I got it done before Christmas - I made it for Stephanie; hope she likes it.



oh! oh! I also discovered dog parks. Okay... I've known about dog parks for a long time now, but I've never taken my dogs to one. But Toast absolutely loves the dog park. She was jumping in the ponds, running as fast as she could, barking at swans, running under people doing push-ups, and just, in general, drawing a crowd of admirers. People are fascinated by really small dogs. Teddy sticks pretty close to me when we go but he enjoys running about as well.


So that's about it for my December. How about you, dear blog reader?

Black Friday Booty

That's right, I was one of those crazies who got up in the middle of the night to go shopping. Actually, both my mom and I were crazies. We woke up at 2:00 AM (after getting to bed around midnight...) and shopped for about 4 hours. We hit up Kohl's, Sears, JCPenney, and Lowe's. All of the things we got are pictured below, except for a fancy microwave that we can pick up next week and a 4' x 6' picture frame thingy that I completely forgot to include. Our loot includes 2 vacuums, a slow cooker, a hand mixer, two 20-pc Pyrex sets, a Toaster Over, some scarves and gloves, flashlights, and slippers!

After all was said and done, we spent about $400 and saved $500!! Totally worth it. Now I'm off to work... man...

p.s. How 'bout them Ags?! We beat TU; WHOOP!

Wordless Wednesday

Sitting is hard!

Woah!

I went to visit Grandmommy and the rest of the family last weekend. I’m working the day after Thanksgiving so I knew I wouldn’t be able to make up there for a while. I brought Grandmommy a present in the form of a world map puzzle! How cool is that? The oceans are regular puzzle pieces, but the rest of the pieces are the actual shape of the countries! (I think I may have been way more excited about it than anyone else.)

Saturday morning, while Grandmommy slept and Jane took a road trip with Melissa to Austin, I took a nice long run down the bayou near Jane’s house then I baked the always delicious chocolate covered cheesecake. I sent a few pieces home to Grandmommy the first time I made it, and she had been asking me when I was going to bring her more. Grandmommy and I then worked on the puzzle and discussed knitting patterns. She let me borrow this really cool knitting and crochet book that has all kinds of different patterns that I want to try out. I haven’t yet ventured far from the comfortable knit and purl. We visited Melissa that evening and I got to see Carter’s baby room. Melissa is huge! After dinner I watched A&M beat Nebraska (Whoop!) with Thomas, then stayed up late chatting with Jane and Grandmommy. Perfect Saturday, no?


On Sunday, Jane and I drove over to Shannon’s house to witness Dylon’s first haircut. His Mimi had to, of course, take pictures of the monumental occasion. Dylon was a star, sitting nicely for his trim as his parents tried to keep his attention so he wouldn’t move. Afterwards there was a little bubble photoshoot in their front yard. Look how cool they look!


We ended the weekend by making cake balls! My work had a potluck lunch on Monday, and I signed up to bring a dessert. I may have got a tad stressed and been overly critical of Jane's ball rolling, but we finished it up and she let me borrow a pretty basket to display them in! (She's a great assistant by the way, I would highly recommend her if you are looking for free help.) Everyone at work seemed to like them. I saw a couple of people grab 3 or 4 bags!