I’m testing the wordpress app to see if I can post blogs from my iphone.

Last Saturday, Cecilia and I had our Obama party.

Getting set up

The kitchen was full of stuff

My parents’ grand entrance

Smitty enjoys the food

Looks like I might be boring Naomi with some speech about something she’s not interested in

Workin’ the punch bowl

My poor Obama cake. It was lopsided. As I was putting it together, one layer cracked in half. I almost lost my shit and threw it in the trash, but I just calmly accepted that it wasn’t going to be perfect and it would still be fine. Yes We Can!!!

Hey what’s up? I’m in some sort of weird meltdown mood. Too much expanding my comfort zone stuff. Mercury is in retrograde as well. Not sure how much of that astrology stuff I’m down with, but you never know. Could also be a PMS thing. Whatever. Needless to say, I’m alternating between freaked out and more freaked out. Well I did manage to get myself to Marie’s Yoga and Journaling class, and that was great. She’s an excellent teacher. We are doing all these asanas with affirmations. It’s pretty cool.

Then I decided to go to Thunderbird Mountain Preserve and hike. It is such a nice day out. 70 degrees.

The good thing about having car full of weird crap is that you have a car full of weird crap. While I was considering hiking, I thought, “hmm….maybe I have some hiking boots in the trunk.” So I looked and sure enough I have hiking boots in there. I also have a child size easel and a variety of paints. Art class anyone? For the longest time in my old Honda civic, I drove around with a toaster oven in the backseat. I liked to tell people that I never knew when I might need it. It was just one of those things that I took to school for the children, used it, put it back in my car, and left it there. Sometimes things just don’t make it out of my car. I guess I like strange stuff in my car. It pleases me.

On hike

Today is Smitty’s birthday, and I think he likes ginger spice cookies so I made some. I found a highly rated recipe on allrecipes.com called Big Soft Ginger Cookies. They are delicious! Nice and chewy. I hope he likes them.

Ready to bake

Baking and puffing up

All finished

I’ve spent most of this afternoon making black bean soup. I started yesterday by soaking the beans.

Here they are after 24 hours.

In the pot with the bay leaves.

Garlic, onions, red pepper, celery, carrot, and jalapeno.

All finished! With lime, sour cream, and avocado. It was good. I will make it again. All that chopping is a lot of work though!

These were taken a few weeks ago. I went out one morning (probably leaving for yoga), and I looked up and there was Nu-Kitty on the roof. She’s such a good girl!

She seemed very pleased with herself!

It’s cloudy and rainy out, and I just felt like making baked custard. My mom would always make this for me after I’d been sick as a child. That and spaghetti with marina sauce and the Kraft bottled Parmesan cheese. Strange combination – spaghetti and custard, but that’s usually what I want after I’ve been sick or just need some familiar comfort food.

Here it is before baking.

All finished!

Didier loves to dip his paw in glasses of water, so I got him a glass and let him go at it. Good boy, Deeds!

I love when I come home and find some combination of cats snuggled up on the bed. Always makes my day!

Last night the dance studio had a holiday party.  Naomi and I went together.

I like to have photographic proof that I am learning ballroom dancing. Unfortunately taking pictures with cell phones makes for crappy quality photographic proof!

Here’s a lovely shot of my back and my dance instructor, Joshua. Are we dancing or praying? Probably a little of both.

I believe this was some type of turn. Hard to get good action shots with the cell phone.

The ones with my phone were even poorer quality. Here’s Naomi with Christopher.

More blurry goodness!

I like this one of me and Naomi. It was fun to go together. We had a good time!