Still here!

Well my gung-ho-ness with blogging fizzled fairly quickly...guess I was just too lazy to figure out how to do the pics where the stuff about the pics matched...sigh...plus I really don't think I have that much interesting to blog about! My interests bounce around and when I'm 'into' something I'm INTO something to the point of OCD I think! :-) Right now I'm still into reading though I'm pretty much ebook only at this point (ipad, and yes went OCD with ereaders last summer/fall and have, um, several now and seem to alternate which one I'm 'into' at the moment though it's usually Kindle paperwhite or Kobo Glo - mostly the Kindle because Amazon has a good selection of books and freebies/cheapies and I love how easy it is to do non-usb transfers for library loans (some authors/publishers don't allow this easy way and that just sucks. It's not like I'm gonna steal the ebook when I can barely figure out how to load it... also wanting to get healthier but my health kicks are always short-lived mainly because I'm so tired from this nutty shift I work plus it's 'foreign' to me...I wasn't raised with a family who exercised or focused on eating healthy- that was fine weight-wise when I was younger and didn't like school lunches and ate a bare minimum breakfast and had marching band...not so much in the later years and I never stuck with it long enough to make it stick permanently and the weight crept up and up and up....my main goals right now are to do my best to stay interested in being healthy and to cook at home and try to stop eating out so much. I'm telling myself the recipes don't have to be super low fat or healthy - just find some good recipes - though not deliberately going overboard with fried and full fat cheeses...also wanting less canned cream soups in my meals which eliminates a LOT of casseroles! I'm also finding frustration with recipes - just put together one where I had to pound chicken breasts and smear on a filling and roll up - um, called for 2 lbs of chicken and I used about 4 and still had some stuff leftover. It DOES smell good so hopefully will be a great meal(s) - enough to freeze. I've also wasted some meals by not being prepared to freeze...hopefully this dish can go in zippy sandwich bags then a freezer bag.will have to see how runny the dish is. I'm also not smelling the love so to speak with a sloppy joe recipe that called for a dinky bit of a ton of ingredients...it's not wonder people eat junk - it tastes seasoned all in one can...but anyways I will give them both a try. I did have to make a substitution on the sloppy joes- forgot tomato soup so used Italian diced tomatoes for flavor and added a bit of water. so....I'm also thinking of adding in some exercise - not pushing it but I miss how I feel AFTER a good walk - even an in-home walk. I bought some dvds of nature hikes with gorgeous scenery- fun to walk on the 'hike' to the soothing music and look at the scenery. I've also walked/bounced on my rebounder along with these and my tried and true Leslie Sansone and other assorted workouts. I'm also making plans to move my parents' furniture down here. They've been gone over 2 yrs now and it's time we did something with that house and that means I need to get stuff out. My brother says he doesn't want any of the stuff except maybe tools in the shop so we shall see...I will be busy with overtime beginning in March for sure with someone out for surgery and milking it for as long as she can. The money will be good but I'll be tired and definitely unable to spend time emptying a house 4 hours away. my house here has been a disaster - never really made into a home except when I first moved in - usually cluttered or downright disgusting. I finally found out about 1800gotjunk and paid them to haul off this nasty oversized furniture so I can clean the floor and get my mom's down here. :-) It will be nice to have living room furniture and use this space again! I don't entertain so all the 'sitting' at home is done either in bed or in front of the computer or in front of my sewing machine. I'm also wanting to get my fireplace gas logs made to light with a remote so I can enjoy the fireplace without turning on stuff at the wall and having to deal with matches...hopefully that will work the way I want. I'm not sure if I'll get it done in time to enjoy this season but I'm optimistic I will with it already being cold down here way earlier than expected. On the collecting/accumulating front I've gone overboard the past couple of years - esp last year! - but I'm overall happy with my purchases but have slowed wsy way way down thank goodness - tea pots, tea cups, vintage pyrex and of course quilts!! bought a LOT of antique and vintage quilts at the International Quilt Festival - not many were what I'd call expensive but all together it adds up quick! I've been enjoying them though- haven't made my way through all of them but have definitely been using them either for display on one bed or to display and even sleep under on the other 2 beds. I've also alternated these with some I've made and some my mom and aunt had hand quilted. oh, and also puzzles - got into brain teaser wooden puzzles and jigsaw puzzles- jigsaw puzzles BIG TIME! for the wooden ones it's off and on (love Creative Crafthouse out of Florida that I bought from puzzlewarehouse.com) as well as some smartgames and thinkfun games - antivirus has to be the stupidest name for a puzzle but I like it LOL! and Rush Hour is fun as well (like the jr version too!) I was also big-time buying board games/ card games earlier last year but work kept interfering along with trips out of town so I fizzled..I do plan on going to more of those meetups though this coming year whenever I can. This past Christmas/New Years holiday I managed to play a card game with my friend and her hubby and rummikub with my friend- she taught me both games years ago and I've missed playing them with her. Her son is almost 6 but still isn't able to play a lot of stuff - he can handle Uno but still has to be corrected sometimes because he gets lazy and lays his cards down but mostly he's ok with it and lucky for me I like the game! well time has passed- hauled out a couple trash bags while taking a break from typing and waiting for the 2 minutes before checking the chicken dish...not a big aroma but when I took the dishes out and uncovered it looked and smelled pretty good. I put them back in since I didn't pound to paper thinness (figuring they must've meant that since the 2 lbs didn't use up all the filling). Nice and bubbly - the filling has mayo (I used a light version), lemon juice, grated parmesan(bought the stuff in the deli section instead of the green can by Kraft...), canned artichoke hearts, onion..think that's all...then rolled into the chicken and put in casserole then drizzled with olive oil then bread crumbs. Hope it turns out good and will freeze/reheat well for me. I'm debating getting my parents' deep freeze while I'm hauling stuff- thought my brother had it sold 2 yrs ago but apparently not. It's an upright so no having to bend over to dig around for stuff- figure it can go in my garage. I held off getting one because I'm afraid I'll overfill it and not use the stuff and yep might be overkill but hopefully I wouldn't do that...my little freezer gets too crowded and I get frustrated digging through it all the time to see what I have. well the food calls!