It's Monday Again!

Good Morning!

Monday seems to have come around awfully quickly (as always).  For those of you in the Southeast with the major snow storm I hope you are all ok and warm and safe.  I talked with my friend who lives outside of Greensboro, NC and at 3 p.m. yesterday they had a foot of snow!  It was still coming down while we talked and then it changed to freezing rain - not a good thing.  My parent company's office in Charlotte is closed today.  Meanwhile in PA we have no snow, but it sure is cold!

The weekend turned out well.  I got a little cleaning and a tiny amount of decorating done Friday night.  I was up early Saturday cooking and then had to run out to the store.  I had no fresh veggies for our meal!  (and needed wine...).  I made an easy chicken casserole with mushrooms and we had some cinnamon carrots and French green beans to go with that.  My SIL brought a loaf of home-made 12 grain bread (yummy).  Dessert was a pear & cranberry cobbler with whipped cream.  Colin and Mailing joined us as well.  It was fun and nice to see my brother and SIL again, but I had to lay down after they left - my head was pounding.  My brother is extremely loud and gets even louder the more worked up he becomes on any given issue (and the more he has to drink).  Luckily no political discussions came up.  I'm just not used to the noise level.  But, still, it was a nice time and I'm glad they came.

That night I was still too full from the afternoon meal for any dinner.  But I did accomplish some knitting!  Not finished yet, but close (still playing yarn chicken here - I think/hope I will win).

I'm pleased with how I've managed to match these.  I unraveled some yarn from the skein before starting sock #2 so that I would begin in the same place yarn-colour-wise.  And it worked!  These came with me to work today and I'm hoping to knit some at lunch.

Yesterday was full of chores.  We went grocery shopping.  I paid bills and updated spreadsheets where I track what we spend (basically so I see how much $$$ we waste).  I made a HUGE pot of spaghetti sauce for dinner using some Italian sausage (hot and sweet) that Fletch had grilled the other week.  Lots of peppers, mushrooms and onions too.  Now we have a bunch of sauce in the freezer.  And last night I finally started making cookies.  To start with I made oatmeal raisin.  Probably my least favorite cookie, but Fletcher's favorite so I think I deserve some points for that.

And I wrapped Colin's birthday gifts (his birthday is tomorrow and we are celebrating next Saturday at his and Mailing's place).  Look at this great wrapping paper I found.  I love it!

Sorry - I can't manage to turn it around.

It's amazing what I can get done when I don't take a nap - lol. 

And, as always happens, I had 4 books come through on Overdrive in the last couple of days!  The latest by Louise Penny ("Kingdom of the Blind") - Inspector Gamache.  Can't wait!  And "The Feather Thief" which I've been waiting for it feels like a year!  "Overstory" came in - I will probably let that one go and put myself back on the wait list, and one other I will let go (can't remember the title right now).

I hope you all had wonderful weekends and that the week ahead finds you smiling!