Day 203 & 204

Friday, March 24 & Saturday, March 25th

Very excited about the flamingos!

The prairie dogs were quite chatty this morning.

Places/Activities: Friday morning I went back to return the tile samples I borrowed earlier in the week and placed our order. YAY!! I'm excited to have a backsplash in the kitchen. The twins and I then hit the bank and also went to pick up some other tax papers I had forgotten about. We popped back home and I packed them lunches so we could head to the zoo. I had learned that there was going to be a field trip for kids from my school, so I popped by to say hello (I asked first). It was nice to see some familiar faces and see everyone excited to be out and about. There was a VERY long line to see the new baby giraffe at the zoo, so we didn't stand around to wait. We didn't mind though. It's not like we aren't going to go there again very soon. Since Squeak wasn't with us, we will wait until she is along to see the new baby animals at the zoo. Friday evening was awesome because I got to hang out with some of my favorite peeps at bookclub. I look forward to our monthly gatherings :) Saturday Bear and Squeak and I went to a birthday party for a little boy. Bear thoroughly enjoyed checking out the cool toys. With two sisters, Bear has quite a number of princesses and pink and purple toys to play with at home. I think he is just relieved to see a home filled with nothing but cars and trucks. He was in heaven!
Saturday was so beautiful that after dinner, we all took a stroll around the neighborhood. Puff and Bear tested out the wagon. We had bought this used several years ago for Squeaker to use, but then only used it once or twice. Personally, I prefer the strollers. Both of them kept sticking their hands overboard and rubbing their fingers over the moving wheels. Good grief!

Reading: Let's see, since I last posted I finished Commonwealth by Ann Patchett, and I also started and finished book 66 toward by 100 book goal, Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. I enjoyed both books very much. I think I'm going to read a juvenile chapter book next. We'll see. I have several books checked out that need to be read!

A wagon made for two.

Recipes: Last night I made BBQ ribs. However, this is one of those cases where I didn't read the ingredients carefully enough. Well, I read the ingredients list, but then I didn't actually think about the ingredients list. Such as, "hmmm... this recipe calls for curry. I don't really like curry. Perhaps I should just leave that spice out of the mix." Oh, well! Regardless, it was my first time making ribs. Despite the hint of curry, they were actually quite good. Because I bought almost 6lbs (good old Costco ;) I had plenty to make 2 batches. One for now, and one for the freezer. So, as I threw everything together in the crockpot, I also just threw a second set of ingredients into a gallon freezer bag. Once I was finished, I had one batch cooking in the crock pot, and another batch to go in the freezer. I'll likely pull that out to cook in a month or two! We got the recipe from New Leaf Wellness. Check out page 5 on this free downloadable pdf from New Leaf Wellness for the recipe.

Random Thoughts: I mentioned before that I knew something was going to suffer once I started teaching online again... either the blog, my drawing a day project, or both. It looks like both :( I really do enjoy teaching online, but it is very time consuming. I can't complain though, because any amount of income is awesome! I definitely don't think I can commit to another year of drawing a picture a day. I'm pretty proud that I'm almost 3 months in though! Once I go back to work, I will drop the blog. But I imagine I'll do something just to keep my feet wet.

Reindeer socks to go with all that pink. LOL!

What are you lookin' at?