Thankful Sunday--December 9, 2012

I am thankful for this outdoor timer for our lights.

Several years ago Ward got this outdoor timer that we plug our Christmas lights into. It turns on automatically at dusk and turns off later at a setting we select. It works wonderfully. Before the timer, we had no routine of turning on and off our Christmas lights except whenever we remembered. Now they turn on and off like clockwork. (Pun intended.) The timer is especially nice when we travel at Christmas because our lights still turn on and off as if we were home.

Today...

Today, I'm going to jump right in and have fun.

Miss Lander's dog, Hans, jumped right in the water even though it was cold. He knows how not to worry about things and have fun.

Today...

I'm going to wrap presents without organizing them first.

I'm going to go for a walk even if it's raining.

I'm going to have a peanut butter sandwich with pickles.

I'm going to put up our tree and watch the cats play with it.

I'm going to go shopping and smile.

What are you doing today?

 

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Dec. 7, 2012

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This Week's Food Waste

NONE!

Thanks to Simply Being Mom for hosting Food Waste Friday this week.
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This Week's True Food Confessions

I was determined that this week would be better than the last couple and it was. We had a lovely dinner out one night and ate at home the rest of the time. We made enough each meal to last through lunch and sometimes into dinner the next day. 

Here's what we had.  Thai chicken, fresh broccoli, wild rice, lentil soup, shepherd's pie, homemade bread, and chili. Most nights we had a salad to go with these.

You'd think with this success, I'd be inspired for next week. Wrong. My mind is other places and tired of cooking. However, this is an important priority, so I'm going to give it the old college try.

Bird ID correction

or How to Avoid Work

Do you have a favorite way to avoid chores that you don't want to do? I do. I work on my blog. I think about post ideas. I mess with the margins. I take pictures. I write stories. I read other blogs. Anything to avoid the task at hand. And to make it even harder to do what I need to, I usually have a purring cat on my lap when I'm at the computer. (Can you hear Annie purring now?)

I have several things that should be attended to, especially with Christmas approaching, so today was going to be a no blog day. A day when I focused on what really needed to be done. Wally even suggested that we turn off the internet. He thought it would be more conducive for both of us to accomplish what we needed. He's studying for a test and I am cleaning the guest room.

But then it happened, Aunt Martha, my personal bird expert, told me that the birds I identified as juncos in the last Second Look, are really brown-headed cowbirds. I couldn't let that go by. I had to correct it. I had to do a post today. So here it is.

CORRECTION:
These birds identified as juncos in A Second Look--December 5, 2012 are really brown-headed cowbirds. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Brown-headed cowbirds

 Until tomorrow- unless I get tired of cleaning the guest room.

A Second Look--December 5, 2012

Here's what I saw this week during a Second Look.

Amazingly, these mums are still blooming. They have been well protected against the house.

Each one of the holes on this sweet gum ball was full of seeds about the size of a mustard seed.

This red bellied woodpecker is new to the feeder. Mostly we have downy woodpeckers visit.

We still have several branches brought down by Sandy that have to be cleaned up.

I don't remember our purple sage blooming this late in the season before.

Blue Jays

These brown-headed cowbirds were hanging out below our feeder.

A Second Look at this wreath shows reflections of trees and sky it is framing.