These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty

Today, I was going to be productive. I am currently ensconced on my bed under a pile of blankets and cats, though I did hose out the cat boxes (my favorite thing EVER about cat guardianship, uh huh) and tossed together a pot of soup - vegetable with quinoa, lentils and spinach. I think if it tastes as good as it smells, lunch this week is going to be wonderful! I based it on a recipe that called for chickpeas, but I didn't have any of those and didn't feel like traipsing across town to the market. In the rain. Some days, I simply don't want to be out in it.

We had snow this week. Two days, about an inch each day, with it melting between falls. Disappointing! However, and I find this hilarious, I actually heard people complain about "all this snow" like we've been getting buried by it for months and saying that it had better stop because they're sick of it. Hahahahaha, I can't take it. These are, of course, the same sort who seem to forget on a rainy day that prior to it were five days of sun. "Oh, I'm so sick of this rain all the time!" Me: Uh, we just had a week of sunshine and also, you know where you live, right?!

Anyway, some photos:





( Courtesy cut )

And, as always, clicking on one of those will take you to the Flickr account, where you can go backwards and forwards to view more, if you wish. Posted 13 this week. I do believe I will have way more photos posted this year than last. And that's with editing them down! I guess I find it therapeutic.

Speaking of therapeutic, I have ordered a massager. I always whine about a stiff neck and shoulders and comment about going to a massage therapist. It'll never happen. I just never commit -a problem I have in so many areas of my life. I'm hoping this helps; the reviews are positive, anyway. I'm kind of excited.

For some reason, I have this indelible memory of my father taking a slice of freshly baked bread and slathering it with butter. I could tell from his face how much pleasure he took from such a simple thing.

I'm trying, not too successfully, to not snack at night. I've been great about not buying snacks, but it turns out a toasted piece of crusty bread with butter and garlic really does it for me. If I could live only on bread and butter, I might make it a long, long time before getting sick of it. Long enough to get the cholesterol and heart issues with a side of diabetes just like my dear ol' dad.



In other news, the knock-on-the-wall method to finding studs only results in bruised knuckles. Now that I own the walls, I really don't want to use my usual method for hanging things (especially a shelf meant to hod 5-13 lbs of cat), which is pound until you get it kinda/sorta right.

When I was a kid, I loved eating peanut butter and bacon on toast. It's been more than two decades since I stopped with the bacon and recently have purchased peanut butter powder to mix in smoothies. Apparently people reconstitute this stuff as a low-fat, low-calorie replacement for peanut butter. I happened to have some turkey bacon, so I cooked it up, mixed up a fresh batch of "peanut butter" and toasted some bread.

Turns out that what made that childhood favorite so delicious was the fat.

Ugh. Totally edible, but totally not flavorful. Two tablespoons of peanut butter should be nice, ooey-gooey awesomeness. This was like eating lightly peanutty paste. And even my dusty taste buds still remember the difference between bacon and turkey bacon.

Oh well. At least it was about a third of the calories it would have been?

I want a cheeseburger, with grilled onions, lettuce and tomato. Right now. Now, now, NOW!

I don't know why I'm so damned hungry.

Time to go not think about food now.