Where has the time gone. The last time I posted it was the beginning of the November. Now, Christmas is behind us and the first semester is over. I have been really falling behind on the home front and keeping up on things.

Seems I need to catch up a bit on things. I have been very busy trying to figure out how to run the house, clean the house, cook and do it all after putting in a full day at work. Not to mention finding time to hit the gym. That has not been working and while I have not put all the weight back on, I have backed up a bit. I am quite determined to get myself organized and to organize this house as well.


We went riding in the desert a while back. What an experience for me. I have ridden in the mountains, which I dearly love, but the desert is new. It was fun, something different, and of course I got a bit cocky and ended up rolling my quad. It was a hard hit. Dislocated my knee, jammed a hit and shoulder, bruises, scrapes, had the wind knocked out of me, hobbled around for several weeks and still having pain shoot in and out from my ankle. It has also been the reason I have had to wait to start back at the gym. But, as much as it hurt, as windy as it got, I would love to do it all again. I would really love to go up to the mountains and ride again, but winter has hit and we cannot get up there until spring or so. Maybe we can head out to the desert soon though. My son is wanting to memorialize our first real tree in the middle of the camp fire. Hey, I am with him.

I have added a member to our family, the four legged furry kind that is. He was dumped out by someone out where I work. Which is the middle of farm land, so it happens often. At any rate, a co-worker rescued the little male puppy from traffic and brought him to the office. From the first sight I knew I had to have him. He came right to me so guess he felt the same way.

Now, I ask you, is this a face you could just dump out in the middle of traffic and not care if there was food, water, or protection for the little guy? I just don't see how.

He has found a place in our family's heart, each and everyone of us. He is too small to let roam outside long so has become an indoor dog. He is very spoiled, but we feel he deserves it as he shows his love for each of us as well. Here in California we have Kit Foxes which are protected or endangered, not sure which, but the kids decided he looks a lot like one so his name is Kit. Best we can figure out is that he is a toy Pomeranian.

We have also had our first blast of winter, which makes me want to curl up and just do nothing. Which I am very good at. We went to Texas to see family for Christmas. It was a very long drive, taking us 19 hours one way, but it was so nice to see family again. Now that the holidays are over though, it is time to get working around here. I didn't have any vacation time, but took off the two weeks that the kids are out of school anyway. Now this next week I am determined to make some kind of order in this world of chaos. Cleaning out, getting rid of, organizing myself as so many people resolve to do this time of year. I woke up this morning with the sore throat and flu junk that the kids have had but I did manage to get the family to take down the Christmas decorations and take the tree out. I on the other hand worked most of the day cleaning out the two freezers and defrosting the one in the garage. I threw away what was no longer good or was just too big a mystery to figure out. There was several packages of that in there. I organized it all and made an inventory of what I have. I made a spread sheet listing the item, how much of it, what it is, where it is so I can use it to create some menus for the next couple of weeks. I was amazed at how much I actually had, amazed at the amount of money I have put in to that freezer, and how much pre-prepared stuff there is. I also informed the family that they would be eating what I prepared for the evening meals and that was all there is to it. It was just outrageous the amount of waste I found, threw away a whole pizza from a local pizza place that had been in the fridge for over a week. How many times over the last few months have I heard that there was nothing to eat so pulled through a drive up to bring home something. More details about that is listed on my cooking blog, which I finally updated tonight.

I recently changed gyms, part of the new membership deal is two free sessions with a personal trainer and a fitness assessment and nutrition help. My appointment is 8:00 AM on Tuesday so will find out how bad I have slipped backwards and what I need to do to get moving forward again. I am tired of standing still.

So, here are my goals for the new year:
1. Organize my home and myself.
2. Go to the gym on a regular basis
3. Spend more time with the family

Okay, sounds pretty normal I know, but not as easy as one would think.

Organizing the home and myself will consist of: planning and actually executing menu plans, scheduling my time to allow not only for gym time but writing and computer time as well. As you can see from the time gap in postings for this blog I need some serious help with the whole time management thing. I also intend to change my personal style a bit as well. And in doing all this, I want to make myself get in the living room with the family a little more instead of spending time hiding out in the bedroom playing games on the computer. My writing has been sitting idle as well.

Well, now I am going to close this off and get moving on with other things but will make a concentrated effort to blog regularly.