Beep! Beep!

I heard it for more than an hour.

A very loud and echo-y beep! beep!

I walked all over the house and stood still in every room to listen.

In the office, it sounded like it came from the living room/kitchen.

In the kitchen, like it was upstairs.

Upstairs, it was clear that it was downstairs.

I called our alarm monitoring company to be sure it wasn't them.

I checked the smoke detectors.

I unplugged and turned off everything I could think of.

Finally, I decided to go for a walk to escape the sound and think about what it could be.

I even considered that it was coming from outside...

While getting ready to go outside, I moved LMIB in her stroller into the kitchen to grab a granola bar.

Yup, I hadn't even eaten yet today.

It beeped again, and sounded like it was right. there. next. to. me.

Um - it was.

I keep my cell phone in the cup holder on the stroller.

Apparently, when its battery is slim to none on charge, it beeps REALLY FREAKIN' LOUDLY!

You're welcome for the laugh!

Baking

Today I did something that I really never do: bake. I know how to bake, and I am usually successful at it, but I rarely attempt it simply because my husband? He doesn't eat anything that I bake. Unless it is completely healthy for us...as in no butter, sugar, and the like. Never. Ever. It is ridiculous.

The first item I made was a batch of cookies. Here are the ingredients:


Here we have salt, sugar (brown and white), flour, baking soda, vanilla, oatmeal, dried cranberries, chopped almonds and white chocolate chips.


The recipe also calls for some butter and an egg. These two combine with the vanilla and are beaten until fluffy.


Then the dry ingredients are added and mixed all together to make the dough.


Plop the dough on a cookie sheet...

...and 12 minutes in a (my) 350 degree oven later, you have some delicious cookies.


The next item on the agenda was pumpkin bread muffins.


This recipe called for flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, pumpkin, salt, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. It also needed some oil, but I replaced that one with apple sauce.


The pumpkin, sugar and three eggs are combined...


...and mixed up to look like this.


Here are the muffins cooling. It took fifty minutes to cook these. Yes, it did. They are moist and yummy. The only downside is that they stick to the paper...won't be using that next time.

Anyway, that's my baking for the year; I highly doubt I'll be making anything else for fear that I'll have to eat it all!

Carrots

Little Miss Itty Bitty had carrots for the first time today. Here is a photo of her after the first bite:


She appears to be thinking about the taste...either that or about the fact that her father took a photo so that we can all see up her nose. Thanks for that one, yeah?

Here she is a little later:


Think she enjoys the carrots?

I must say, getting her to eat carrots was much easier than getting her to eat cereal. Yup, even with that face, the carrots went down more easily. Or in more easily.

We have a few days of this vegetable, and then it is on to squash or sweet potatoes. Coming soon: fruits!

12 of 12 December

This month's 12 of 12 was a busy day indeed. All of the photos were taken in my house in Houston, Texas. Thanks to Chad for the idea! Go to his site to see what everyone else did today.


7:31 - On the playmat after waking up this morning. She started at the bottom left corner...


9:23 - Swiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnng!


10:02 - Attempting some cereal. She is happy because that would be my finger instead of the spoon.


10:03 - I sneaked the spoon in there once she smiled, and now there's no tricking her. She's D-O-N-E with the cereal this morning.


10:10 - My breakfast. Finally, clementines!!


11:35 - We cooked! Mmm.


12:25 - I've been cleaning the house today. Lookee how shiiiiiiiiiiiny.


13:39 - I ate some lunch and watched a recorded Ellen.


13:40 - My dessert. Yummy!


14:48 - Uploaded my photos so far.


15:00 - Our tree downstairs.


19:46 - The bruise, one week in the making.

The bruise, for those who are wondering, is on the left side of my body. I don't take the photos; Rocket Man does. It is a doozy, but fantastic, don't you think? There were other activities today, like lots more cleaning. I didn't think you'd want to see that. Also, we took a walk, had dinner, and wrapped a couple of presents among other things. Not too interesting, but that isn't a requirement thank goodness!

Hope you all have a great weekend!!

You've got to be kidding me...

Yesterday it was almost 80 degrees here.

There were thunderstorms all afternoon.

Needless to say the humidity was high.

Today?

It is 33 degrees (feels like 25, according to the experts).

No wonder I had a migraine yesterday.

Oh yeah, and it is snowing.

There's ice on the bridges...

Which are everywhere here in Houston.

I can't wait for the morning commute...

An Update

This:


This is what the bruise looks like now.
Three days after the fall.

Let's all remember what it looked like after one day:



And now?

I am dealing with this, people:

Cruel, Cruel World Part Two

DISCLAIMER: No Babies Were Involved
in the Creating of This Post

So.

I fell.

Thursday evening.

As I was walking down the stairs to go get ready for bed.

In my hands I held a plate and two dirty diapers.

Boy did I fall.

I slammed onto the stairs full force on one side.

Luckily I was not fully on my back or front as I am fairly certain things would have been broken.

The offended body parts were immediately swollen.

The diapers survived, but that cannot be said of the plate.

I am pretty sore to say the least.

We've been checking the area to see what the bruising will be like since I was immediately certain that it would be pretty fantastic.

Boy is it ever:




The universe, it is laughing at me.

As should be obvious by the shape of that bruise.

Dude.

Hellooooo, Blue Eyes!

A bunch of hooey

Since we've been back in the states, there are quite a few things that surprise us. Not that we didn't know about them before or that we weren't aware of them or anything like that...it is just that we never really paid attention to them enough to see what was going on.

Living in another country exposes you to so much, both wherever you go and wherever you come from. It makes you take a moment to realize what is really happening in terms of your daily life and things that ordinarily you either take for granted or simply don't pay much attention to.

I highly recommend it to everyone who gets the chance.

One thing that we didn't really have in Spain was television. Well, we had about six and a half (don't ask) channels of Spanish television, and the game shows - oh so interesting. Also the commercials - I thought many of them were kinda silly and or dumb.

Then we came back here.

Oh, how our commercials are the same. Silly and or dumb pretty much sums up the lot of them. Either that or they are just a bunch of hooey.

Yup: hooey.

For example: have you seen the Wal-Mart commercial that has a bazillion employees at the check-out lanes flipping the light switches to coincide with a recording of Carol of the Bells?

Hahahahahahahahahahaha.

Haaaaahaaaahaaaahaaaaaa.

Excuse me.

It is just that I have never ever in my life (which is only 29 years, but we've had Wal-Marts for about as long as I can remember) seen that many employees at a Wal-Mart ready, willing and smiling even as they wait to help you.

Usually you're lucky to have a couple of people up there when the check-out lanes are slammed, and because of this, the employees are not so smiling. And if they have to turn on a light....jeepers! You might as well get out a sleeping bag and take a nap 'cause you're going to be there a while.

Have any of you ever been to a Wal-Mart like the one in the commercial? Or is that just another tale we tell at Christmastime?