Last day of January

Time seems to fly sometimes. Here's the last day of January already. So it's time for a little recap.

The year started quietly, on Jan 6th, I got myself a Reyes Magos gift which was a 3TB external drive (now I can keep all my movies in one place). Other happenings were, we got our carpet cleaned, we got sick after eating at Panera, but we are all well now. I went to visit my teacher friends a couple of times, went out to lunch with Norbert a couple of times too, walk with Lulu to the park, relaxing in the Jacuzzi etc. Just normal pleasant day to day things :)
Also this month I heard from Mia that she will come visit in April. Looking forward to it!!! :)

An unfortunate thing, besides the Panera sickness, was I backed up the pick up  and hit a car of one of the staff  members at the dialysis place. Fortunately nobody was in the car, and nothing happened to the pick up. The insurance should take care of it.

Here is a list of the books I read this month:

James Patterson – The 12^th of never

Stuart Woods – Unintended Consequences

Johanna Edwards – The Next Big Thing

Linda Francis Lee – The ex-debutante

Mia March – The Meryl Streep Movie Club

Linda Francis Lee – The Devil in the Junior League

Fannie Flagg – The all girls filling station last reunion

Susan Conant – Gaits of Heaven

 

And a list of the movies I watched:

About Time (2013) 

Open Road (2013)  

August- Osage County (2013) 

Her (2013)

Blue Jasmine (2013)

Bad Grandpa (2013)

Win a date with Tad Hamilton (2004)

Sunshine on Leith (2013) 

 

Happy Chinese New Year (Year of the Horse)

 

 

The Grammys

They were very long, like over 3 hours. It annoys me that it comes from Los Angeles, and instead of being live, we had to wait 3 more hours to watch it, when  everybody aklready knew who won and who did what. At least they had the red carpet live.

Other awards shows coming from LA are broadcast live in LA. Good for them, and thank you :)

What I liked:
 Pink's performance. Good show, good song.  Ringo and Paul together (didn't care much for their performance) and even Yoko Ono was hovering around and John Lennon's son that looks just lik his father. The old timers, Willie, Merle, and Kris. I was surprised to find out Kris is older than Merle! (77 and 76) and Willie of course is 80, their voices are not as strong, but they had soul and they put on a good performance.  I guess  the things I liked sort of dates me eh?  ;)

What I didn't like:
Madonna singing "Same Love". I like the song but she sounded weird and looked sort of  strange with the cane etc.  I understood the 33 weddings, but I thought it was more of a stunt than anything else, and Queen Latifah the officiant? really?
I liked Daft Punk but is kinda silly to be a robot and not be able to talk.

I like Macklemore & Lewis but I'd have liked Eminem to win (happy Kanye didn't win). And did I see Nine Inch Nails at the end of the show with a bunch of other singers?

There's probably more things I liked and didn't like but I can't think of it right  now.

Interesting

I just noticed that Marvin has been writing in his blog  this month. He's a man of few words and never said he started writing the blog again. Most every time I write I ask if he read my blog, you would think he would say...have you read mine?  (I was just thinking maybe he did tell me but I didn't understand or listen? could happen!) :)

It is nice he got back to writing.

I have nothing more to say, because today I did absolutely nothing, so I will just leave you with a cool idea. It works!

 

Just take an orange, lemon or grapefruit, cut in half,
eat the middle portion, leave the center core-like stem intact.

Pour a little kitchen oil (veg. Oil, olive oil, etc) into orange or whatever citrus you use, just below the top of the stem.

Light stem.
It will burn for hours and smell amazing.

 

 

 

 

 

Way to go kid! and a beach day

Congratulations again to my super smart, wonderful grandson! I'm so proud of you, great grades again! YAY!

As I wrote yesterday, I met  my friend in Long Beach and we went to eat at the Fish Camp Restaurant. We had  some clam chowder and fish and chips. It was very good. You can choose what kind of fish you want for the fish and chips, they usually are made with cod, but for an extra charge it can be made with halibut.

It was a rather cloudy but warm day. There was high tide today and after we ate we went to sit by the seaside in Sunset Beach to look at the waves. I even took some movie with my iPhone, to hear the waves roar as they came in to the beach.

Another walk in the park

It was such a nice day, I had to take Lulu for another little walk.
She's funny.
There's a lot of geese and ducks and they all were really loud and coming close to us with their necks sticking out. Lulu acted as if she was deaf and blind. Didn't look at them, didn't bark at them, she basically totally ignored them as if they were invisible.
When there's birds or a squirrel in our backyard she acts like a crazy dog, barking and running after them. I thought she would be like that at the park, but no!

After walking for quite  a qhile, her tongue was sticking out and she was panting (it was another warm day). I had brought a bottle of water and a little dish, so I stopped I poured some water and Lulu didn't even look at it, I splashsome on her soshe knew what it was but she didn't even come close.  So we kept on walking. By the time we got to the car, I again poured some water and offered it to her, she again totally ignored it even though her tongue was a mile long.

When we got home, first thing she did, was run to her water bowl in the living room and proceed to drink to the last drop.

Tomorrow I will be meeting Norbert for lunch at Long Beach, I want to try this new fish place http://www.samsfishcamp.com/ since I am a little tired of Mexican food. I'll let you know how it was.

Spring has Sprung...or is it Summer?

We've been having very nice warm weather in January. The trees are starting to bloom and so are the flowers. It's very nice especially considering the bad weather people in the East had been having, and  is cold in Utah, and in Sweden. California needs RAIN. It is very dry.



Today it was a hot 85 degrees, this weekend will be  in the 80's too. Too hot for January in my opinion. We wore shorts, I watered my thirsty plants. In the evening I took Lulu for a walk at the La Mirada Park. It was nice, a young man was sitting on a bench singing and playing the guitar, people and children were walking or riding bycicles.

I think we need some mild winter weather now :)

Snow flakes? nope ..Ash flakes!

This morning I took Lulu outside and the sky was a bright beautiful blue. Then I saw what seemed like little snowflakes falling, I turned around and one side of the sky was brown and black  and then I smelled smoke (strong enough that I could smell it), it spread fast and covered the blue sky. The flakes were ash.
There was a big fire in the mountains in Glendora, about 25 miles north of La Mirada.
It didn't help that it was 82 degreees, but luckily the wind  was not too strong.
The fire still is not contained.

We all got sick!

Lizzie came home Friday night, and as usual, we didn't know what to have for dinner. We decided on Panera. Lizzie had grilled cheese, Marvin had turkey and bacon, and I had chicken with bacon and  chipotel sauce, they were all paninis.

Friday night Marvin got sick, throwing up and (d) diarrhea.didn't go to dialysis on Saturday because he was not feeling well at all. Lizzie and I went to GBurger and it was yummy. For dinner  we had breaded pork, Marvin only had scrambled eggs.

Sunday we had our usual waffles and bacon. Lizzie left around 1PM. Marvin seemed to be feeling a little better but stil a lot of"d". Sunday night I got really sick, I was throwing a lot, all night really, I hardly slept, I also had "d".
Monday I called the dialysis place and they said to go from 6 to 10PM Monday night. I slept most all day.

I called Lizzie tonight, and she said she had to leave work early because she had a bad stomach ache and also "d".

I think it's too much of a coincidence that we all got sick with basically the same symptoms.

Hopefully we'll all get better :)

Clean House

I tried to change the look of my blog, but it didn't come out exactly the way I wanted it, but it'll do for now.

Today we had the carpet cleaner over, I think we'll have it done more often until Lulu is totally trained (she's been doing pretty good lately). They did ther whole house, and it looks nice, but we had to have all the windows and doors open so it would dry and it got a bit chilly. Glad is Southern Cal and it was in the 60's, supposed to be in the 80's this weekend!

Lizzie got home today around 6PM and we went to Panera, and we had sandwiches and salad for dinner. Tomorrow Lizzie and I will go to the GBurger, for lunch.

Wednesday Norbert came over to take down the Christmas lights, and do a few other chores. He's so nice and helpful, he brought pictures of his new house up in the mountains  around Las Vegas, close by the ski areas. It got a lot of snow last month. Instead of going out to eat afterwards, like we usually do,I cooked beef stroganoff with noodles, I kid you not he had 4 helpings and seemed to enjoy it very much. It's a joy to cook for him, he's so grateful lol.

Last night I watched "August - Osage County" Now the reviews say: This tells the dark, hilarious and deeply touching story of the strong-willed women of the Weston family

Frankly, my idea of hilarious is quite different from the reviewers. I thought the movie was a big DRAMA with over the top acting.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!!!!

Epiphany

 

Happy Reyes Magos day!

 

 



Books and movies

I forgot to write about the books and movies I read/saw in December 2013. I will begin rating them with 1 to 5 stars. Just for fun.

Books

Haywood Smith – Out of Warranty  *

Lauren Weisberger – Revenge wears Prada  *

Debbie Reynolds – Unsinkable  ***

Lauren Graham - Someday, someday, maybe  ****

Terry McMillan – Who asked you?  ***

 

Movies

Cold Turkey (2013) **

Expecting (2013)   **

Rumor Has It... (2005)  **

A Case of You (2013)  ***

Eurotrip (2004)  **  

The Spectacular Now (2013)  *****

Enough Said (2013)  ****

 

 

Resolutions?

Well no, I haven't really given it a thought. I'd like to aim for something other than the usual more exercise, lose weight etc...

However one thing I already started doing today, for a short time, is to organize. I started by putting things in the safe that I bought in October. I put in my jewelry, some cash, coins my father gave me, etc. The main thing is I got it done.
As usual I start something and I get sidetracked oh so easily and start doing something else. I need to focus, and finish something, then and only then I will start the next thing, maybe.


I see myself in her so many times! ;)