S’good.

Winter is picking up around here. Normal winter for us hovers between snow dusting around like powdered sugar to freezing rain icing the streets to wind screaming through the trees. The days loll about in the fifties while the nights plunge into the twenties. Harrumph. So, as many people seem to be doing in the blogosphere as of late, I am combating (I don’t think I spelled that right) this grumpy weather and my own grumpy mood with a few highlights coming up.

Jason’s birthday is this weekend and we are spending most of the week celebrating in some way or another. Pizza tomorrow night (that scrumptious vegetarian pizza from last week) and molten chocolate lava cakes on Friday. A movie last night and a movie next Saturday, and possibly some in between. Hey, he likes his movies. And a chance to completely spoil him rotten, one of my favorite activities.

A plethora of sock yarn to be delivered to me this week all the way from Florida! Having now admitted my addiction to knitting socks on eensy weensy needles (although I still avoid any semblance of a pattern, I stick to straight stockinette stitch, baby) I have thrown open the doors to sock yarn. I fell in love with a bamboo/nylon/merino wool blend from Pagewood Farms and furiously knitted through most of the skein in a week. It’s so popular, that unless I find a way to infiltrate the infamous “Sock Ladies” who are 40 and older that frequent my favorite yarn store here in town, I am only able to order it online. I am not making that group up. They buy the yarn before the box arrives, since they have an in with the proprieter. Sneaky cheaters. So I resorted to ordering it online and promptly bought 900 yards in two different colors which are supposed to arrive around Friday. Also, the day Jason receives his Amazon order from Christmas. Also, his birthday.

My mother and I are planning a grand trip down to Georgia in the early spring to visit my aunt and cousins. I haven’t been there since eighth grade but am looking forward to some good southern barbecue. We’re also driving up to North Carolina, which I have been aching to see, and trying to get tickets to a Paula Deen cooking show. Yippee!

Finally, this Saturday we are going to see the local children’s theater production of “Pride & Prejudice.” I have become somewhat of a Jane Austen junkie during the past year, snatching up any book that is a continuation of any Jane Austen novel and holding repeated viewings of the various versions of her stories in DVD format. So I am quite excited. Plus, I think our pastor’s son will be in the cast somewhere and that little man can ACT.

So take that winter. I may be fighting your little minion, the common cold, and my fingernails may be blue from my battle to lower our heating bill, but I’ll be darned if you’re going to get the best of me.

…in which I attempt to plan out my week. *edited*

The past few days have seen me rarely moving from a sitting/lying position while swathed in blankets and being grumpily “not feeling well” but not sick. It’s been so bad that I have spent more time in pajamas than in “real clothes” and have even considered taking pajamas to change into while hanging out with friends after going to Olive Garden (since plaid flannel pants probably wouldn’t be appreciated there), dinner at my parents house, and even to the movie theater. And I know that while posts such as these don’t do much in ways of entertainment, they do, however, give me some sense of obligation to complete whatever I say I’m going to do. To start with, here’s our dinner menu this week ( to keep me from wimping out and letting my husband take me to Taco Bell. again.)

Monday – Eggs and Sausage Stack

Tuesday – Artichoke and Tomato Vegetarian Pizza and Caesar salad

Wednesday – Sweet and Sour Baked Chicken with Green beans, salad, and cheese garlic biscuits

Thursday – Tater Tot Casserole and any leftover salad we may have (I’m pretty sure I overbought salad materials at the store today)

Friday – no cooking! Jason’s birthday and a dinner out. Well, I have to make molten lava cake, if that counts.

Also this week, I’d like to somehow complete most of the following:

1. Deep clean the kitchen; this includes disinfecting the counters, cleaning the oven, cleaning the fridge, and mopping the floor
   1. yeah, like all this is going to happen
2. Vacuum the guest room and loft
   1. after I clean up the April pee stain by the washing machine
3. Go through and organize my yarn stash
   1. I’m really just looking for more sock yarn
4. Finish at least one pair of socks for me and Jason’s other gargantuan sock
   1. so I can use the newly discovered, pretty, long lost sock yarn from my organized stash
5. Move the dresser in our bedroom
   1. because I can
6. Wash the guest room sheets and put flannel ones on bed
   1. since we never have guests anyway
   2. since the summer sheets are still on and it’s mid-January
   3. since I have the perfect quilt for the guest room and it’s been sitting on the couch in the living room since Christmas
7. Do the February budget
   1. one chore I don’t really mind doing, eerily enough
   2. since the 15th is creeping up on me and I like to have it done by then
   3. because I am anal.
8. Finish the laundry and put it away
   1. Is this even possible to accomplish?

*update*

Well, my plan is already shot up beyond belief. Due to a communication mixup with our insurance company, I’m off one of my heart meds for a few days, which means…three of the four meals planned for this week are now off limits until I’m back on the pills. *shrug* At least I won’t have to go shopping next week for groceries.