Starting the week fresh

Sitting here with coffee cup #2 as the banana bread bakes in the kitchen. Gonna prepare a second bread for the oven (cranberry/orange) and then I'll start putting together my cookie packages. Or..... I may opt to make one more cookie recipe. I have a delicious sugar cookie that has orange peel in it but you do have to roll out the dough and use cookie cutters and then frost them so I'll wait and think on that one.  If the Aleve kicks in.....

Been a morning of butter fingers and I don't mean the candy bar. I'd eat a Butterfinger if I had one right now.  As I unloaded the dishwasher, I dropped a plate on the floor. It was plastic so it didn't break but it ticked me off because I always seem to drop at least one thing while unloading that damn dishwasher. Even when I consciously think about it and declare -- no dropped items today!

I melted some margarine in the microwave for the bread recipe and heard this "whoosh" when the timer went off. I knew what that meant. The margarine had exploded and I had to clean up another mess. That meant dragging over the foot stool as I'm too short to clean the top of the microwave.  A few minutes later, I was moving my coffee cup from one counter to another after filling it was french vanilla creamer and I managed to slosh a few drops on the floor. That meant another cleaning job with the dishrag (and yes, I put it in the wash after).  As I bent down to wipe up the drops, I noticed the dishwasher, refrigerator, and bottom cabinets all looked dirty.  Great!  Another cleaning job and I'll have to pull out my shower chair to sit and do it all 'cause my back will ache within seconds of trying to stay bent down that low for any length of time.

Jenni called asking me to pick up Hunter at school as he's feeling a bit under the weather. Missed her call (I was in the car) and when I got back to her, she was already on the way herself.  I pulled out of the grocery store parking lot and she passed right in front of me so we honked and waved.  Thought Hunter might come here but I guess he opted to go home with Sammy.  Here's a picture I took of the dog yesterday when I went over to retrieve a lot of my dishes.  He was begging for popcorn.

Here's a couple shots of Mary and Andy that she posted on Facebook. Catie took all their holiday poses.

Whenever I sit down to eat, I usually work on a crossword puzzle. I'm into a USA Today book now and finding all the puzzles way too hard.  I have a few reference books sitting alongside me but they don't always help that much.  The puzzle I'm working on now has a "Oh Oh" theme. Meaning double o's in the answer.  The clue was: "A child's name for a train".  Easy one, I thought - TOOT TOOT.   Silly me. It was CHOO CHOO.

And with that, I'm back to the kitchen for bread #2 and the wrapping up of individual tinfoil packges of fudge.  I'm determined to eat not one single piece--only the crumbs that end up sticking to the corners of the pan.

And here's a short video of the episode I mentioned on my Town Kid blog on the Leader website.
Jim Nabors as Gomer Pyle in Mayberry making a citizens arrest.  Cracks me up!