Another cold day

 Right now it's 30 and cloudy. We see our new physician at 1 pm, all the paperwork has been filled out.

I did my exercises, but haven't walked on the treadmill yet.

 My current scrapghan in progress. It's two strands, one white and one shades of purple, with an H hook. Using up purple leftovers!

Happy New Year 2026

 Hello 2026! Hello January!

 I started the New Year right- .2 miles and 12 minutes on the treadmill, as well as my vibrating plate workout.  We had snow this morning, maybe a 1/2 inch, if that. Right now it's windy and 27 degrees, with a blue sky. 

Plan for today is to move things into the sewing room that are all over the house, and later to crochet on the scrap afghan.

 I made chicken enchiladas last night, with enough for tonight. We discovered pineapple salsa, which is sweet with a kick to it. 

Taylor Swift is playing on the Amazon Echo for background music.

 

Goodbye December, and Goodbye 2025

 The last day of 2025! Wow! I was feeling like I hadn't accomplised a lot, but then I counted up the yarn wrappers, and I used 20 pounds of yarn! Yikes!

And Goodreads sent me some stats that are fun.

And I lost 43 pounds!

And I got my new Skyline 6 sewing machine!

And I made 22 pillowcases, a boatload of coasters, lots of bowl cozies and a bunch of tablerunners- I'm too lazy to get up and get the list I compiled last night. 

I have a new planner that will be specific to crafts, because Steph is a bad influence. 

I'm going to continue to cook, a lot, to try to use up a lot of the stuff in the freezer. 

So, Happy New Year 2026! And it's the year of the midterms, so may the good guys take the House and the Senate!
 

Another Christmas done!

 It was a lovely day, very low key. Instead of dinner, Heather had decided to do brunch, which turned out to be genius. I made a spinach salad and overnight cranberry eggnog french toast. She made a broccoli quiche, mac and cheese, tater tots, and had fresh fruit. Nothing heavy, not tons of prep. We ate, chatted, then on to gifts.

Manda sent me this from my wishlist. It's well insulated, and can hold two 9x13 pans.

 

Those slippers cracked us all up. And Jules in her cap is so adorable. We had such a nice time. We left around 2, so Heather and family could go have dinner with Ed's family. We got home in time for a nap! I made us a ham slice and sweet potato casserole for our light dinner, and we'd brought home some of the spinach salad. Bonus, Heather gave us some pizzelles and cookies. I was careful and did not overindulge. 

And the forecast tonight is terrible, sleet. 

Slacking off!

 Only slacking off regarding the blog. I can't believe December is moving right along!

 Steph is doing the calendars for 2026. I love that we all see the same pix every month!

Sausage pizza from Balsalmo's, the best!

 

I've made about 20 holiday pillowcases, trying to use some of the Christmas fabric up. I hope to get them mailed soon. 

 Santa's cutest 4 legged helper!

 I'm moving along with the scrap afghan, it keeps me warm while I watch TV!

I hit 45 pounds down, yay me! 

Today's goal is to work on bowl cozies. 

Almost Thanksgiving!

 Geez, where has November gone?

 We had a way too short visit by Amanda! She had some genealogy stuff to do in Trenton and Philly, so she flew in to stay with us and use my car. We had a wonderful day at Heather's where they made pumpkin rolls and Jules and I supervised.

 We even had a bonus Boone visit! We invited Boone and her parents to Heather's for pizza and cousin time. Boone is at the stage where she doesn't really like anyone but her parents.

 Morgan had a birthday, so John sent us this pic of them.

 I have five bowl cozies ready to go to Heather's house. I ran out of wrap n zap, so had to switch to Christmas pillowcases. The order of wrap n zap should arrive today.

 The first of the pillowcases. Even with having written down the measurements the last time I made any, which is probably 10 years ago, it took me a minute to get the first one done. 

I also started a scrap afghan, to have something to do with my hands when watching TV.

The weight loss journey continues, I've lost 40 pounds. The last two weeks I've been stuck, up a pound, down a pound. But I'm sticking with it, I have a lot to go yet. 

Bowl cozy

 For bowl cozy #2 I went up a size template, and made the darts shallower. I also only used one square of wrap n zap.

 It looked so big, yet held the bowl just fine. I think I'm going back to 2 squares of wrap n zap. 

I've been using the treadmill 5-6 times a week. 12 minutes at 1 mph gives me .2 miles, or about a thousand steps. It's .2 miles to the first cross street from the house. I'm reasonably happy with the progress.