Terrific weekend...

Hello,
I hope everyone's T-day weekend was good. Over here, it was mostly terrific, although my step-dad was in a car accident on Saturday. He's fine... Just banged-up a bit. Some gal ran her red-light! His car is now rearranged (possibly totaled). We shall see what transpires with that... a fix or a replacement... We'll see how it all shakes out. (It was later determined to be a total loss. He got a "new" vehicle -- new to him) But otherwise, it was a great Thanksgiving holiday... Or as my dad sometimes calls them "Hollerdays." haha

We had a couple of very windy days, but it was sunny and pretty otherwise. The wind chill was more that we're usually used to, in sunny NM. Thursday was the big T-day dinner at my grandmother's house (yes, over the river, but not through the woods). My mom & step-dad were there, as were my dad & step-mom. We had... Greek food -- so it was a tad non-traditional. I was my usual, quietly defiant self and I presented one of my sweet potato recipe dishes. {mischievous grin} Don't get me wrong, I love Greek food!! It's just that... I mean, come on... Thanksgiving! A good time was had by all. I didn't over-indulge and I got home early enough to watch a movie.
Friday was mellow. My step-mom decided to embark upon making a traditional turkey (with fixings) dinner. I had an invitation for dinner there that evening. In the meantime, my mom & I ran a few errands and then started to make chocolate rum balls... but my dad called to tell me the turkey was ready early... get my butt over there. haha So the Rum balls were put on hold for a few hours. Once at Dad's we put in a movie (Polar Express) and sat down to a delicious dinner. When dinner and the movie were done, I went back over to mom's and we made the chocolate rum balls. Ummmmmmmm! They have to "cure" for a week. So they will really be ready next weekend.

Saturday was quite... well for me anyway. My step-day had the auto accident so it was anything but quiet for them. But my Saturday was quiet and I was able to get a number of things done around the house. Sunday, a good friend of mine came over and helped me with a project at home... hanging a pot rack in my kitchen. It looks great! And it clears out a little bit of much needed space in my storage-challenged kitchen. I was suppose to have my new hanging wine rack by then too... but it's late... it's on the way. We would have hung that up too. Should have that by this evening! It will clear out some wine glasses out of the cramped cabinet quarters. More space! The final frontier!! hehe It's looking good. Anyway... we at least got the pot rack hung up and it looks great.

After that, he took me to see the progress on his house in the east mountains. It's coming along nicely. I love watching the building progress on his house. I'm so excited for him. Before ya know... it will be finished & he'll be moving in! Wahoo! That's exciting! Anyway, it was very windy and chilly over on that side of the mountains, but it was a great day. He took me all around the two area development phases to see the various lots that he likes and might want to buy if he won the lottery! haha There are some awfully gorgeous views out there!! They are spectacular! (Wouldn't you know - my camera batteries died as soon as we got there!) One large lot in particular, had a sharp drop-off (about 150 feet) into a creek ravine with red, caleche clay soil amongst the short pinion trees... Oh my gosh it was fabulous. Of course the wind was howling through that drop-off edge at about 45 or 50 mph at that time, almost pushing me backwards. But I suppose that made it even more... amazing, daunting, and breath-taking! There was a power there... like something you'd see out of a movie -- one of those sweeping aerial shots. If it hadn't been so cold (thank you wind chill!) I would have wanted to stay a while! It was spectacular. We left there and he showed me a few other of the nice lots. We went back to the community club house and he showed me on the 3-D map, where we had just been. Someday, someone will own that property and maybe a house will be there. It may have been the only time I could stand there and take in that amazing view . . . a view I will never forget, as long as I live!

From there, we went back to my house and I made us a couple of gourmet pizzas... the little, 10 or 12 inch, individual-sizes. I had made a fresh batch of home-made pizza sauce and some whole-wheat pizza dough the day before. And of course, I had 10 or 11 pizza toppings available. So we had fun chatting while I made the pizzas and while they baked on the pizza stones. They turned out great. I got a terrific review. haha

And here we are... back to the work-week. {sigh} Enough for now. Now we ring in the Holiday Season and now it's time to gather up the address book and send out what X-mas cards I can. And the shopping... arrrgh! The shopping itself... that's ok, but the traffic & the crowds are what deter me!! Maybe I'll do some of it online this year.

Well happy holidays folks!! Stay safe and enjoy!
TTFN,
~Paulena

Ginger-cat

Ginger
Originally uploaded by Paulena-KE5DDZ.

This is the younger of my two cats. I thought I'd try this Flickr upload option. Cool.
~Paulena

Trying again...

Wow! It sounded like getting the photo into the profile would be a tad more simple... not as easy as it seems it should be! But I think I finally mastered all the requirements and sizing and hocus-pocus. Poof!! It should be in there now.
~Paulena

Brand New Day

Take a deep breath . . . Ok, here it goes. The first day of my first blog.
It's a bright, new, shiny, crisp, November day in Albuquerque. The sky is a beautiful brilliant turquoise-blue, that I've really only seen in the Southwest USA. Thanksgiving is around the corner (tomorrow) and life is good.

I've been wanting to try my hand at a blog. I didn't know exactly what I'd say, but then I looked at a bunch of others . . . And guess what? Neither do a lot of people who post blogs! haha So I figured, "What the heck!" Like many people, I do have a lot of thoughts that flash through my mind. Sometimes they are seemingly pointless meanderings and other times, they are down right interesting (even if I do say so myself!). Some days, I have days that border on philosophical and then other days that the silliest of thoughts slide in. I'm certainly no Plato or Aristotle, but I thought it might be fun to keep track of some of the things that make their way through my thoughts. I also have days (like so many other people out there, I'm sure) where I hear of something that really fires me up (good & bad).

Sometimes my thoughts seem to follow a spiral or zig-zagging pattern, much like the flight path of the average butterfly. Therefore, the name I chose for this blog. There ya have it.

So enough for now. We shall see where this goes from here.
~Paulena