Some people wonder what I eat (besides sugar)...

I swear, I'm not trying to post every day. But I just made a delicious lamb stew, and I have to share it with you:

Over the last three years, I have developed a pretty standard method for producing enjoyable meat-based soups.

Step 1: Brown meat with onions, (if red meat) garlic, and a healthy portion of salt (at least, by my standards, considering I don't usually salt things) and a butt-load of pepper (because I'm a pepper fiend).

Step 2: If stewing red meat, add merlot, parsley and basil, and simmer. If stewing chicken, stir in a bit of taco/salsa seasoning.

Step 3: Add chopped carrot bits, celery, (for red meat) cabbage and potatoes or (for chicken) red and green bell peppers and squash.

Step 4: If heartily salted, douse in water. If lightly salted, add an appropriate broth/water combo. , Cover and simmer for half an hour to an hour. Add additional seasoning, wine and/or canned beans in the last 10-15 minutes if desired.

Step 5: Enjoy.

You honestly can't go wrong if you do any variation of the above. And you can add in almost any vegetables (even ones you hate) and still like the end result. This also makes a pretty well-balanced meal, which explains how I've managed to avoid diabetes so far, despite my high sugar intake. Well, that and the fact that I almost never consume sodas.

Yay, soup!

Green lambs are all the rage, don't you know?

I had started making yet ANOTHER fleece stuffed animal over a year ago, but after a few weeks doing bits of work on it, I got bored (probably because it was boringly green). So I put it aside, worked on some other sewing projects--some of which are still half-done--and didn't give it much thought until now. But since I have resolved this year to finish the projects I start, I went to work on it last night.

I made the legs, attached them to the body, closed the back, sewed on the butt, painstakingly prodded the head into place, then finally turned the sucker right-side out and stuffed it!

Then I had to figure out what color fringe I was going to use. I had originally planned on using a darker green, but in the time since I started the lamb, I bought a patterned fleece that will work even better with forest green trim, and I now want to save it for that. So I pawed through my various pinks, whites, reds, blues, etc... (I probably have more fleece remnants in my house than Jo-Ann does in their whole store.)

And finally settled on ORANGE. I used some leftover red-orange fringe that my mom had found in her shed back from California, and made some new chicken-foot-orange fringe from a remnant I was originally using to make chick feet. I started sewing the fringe on last night, and got most of the way up the body before I went to bed.
And this morning, I woke up to my LAST DAY OF WINTER VACATION (cue tiny violin), and quickly finished attaching fringe to the green lamb.

And voilà! My latest stuffed masterpiece:

 

I'm sure the thing will make a colorblind child very happy some day. I've decided to call him Punch for now. With all the babies popping up around me at work these days, I'm sure I'll need a present for some young' un soon.

Sadly, of course, finishing Punch puts me about halfway through my last day of vacation (where IS that violin?), so I "look forward" to getting up, doing some dish washing, folding laundry, and buying groceries in preparation for the snow that's supposed to hit later this week. If I actually manage to complete half these things, I'm totally rewarding myself with Pies & Pints tonight!

2015 is going to be **THE** year!

The year of 2015 is supposed to be it--"the year we've all been waiting for," as Maggie put it. What she's referring to is, of course, the massive milestone for my workplace, which will be graduating its first class since 2008.

While that definitely is very exciting, most people with whom I interact on a daily basis know that this is also the year that I will (finally!) turn 25. Yes, that's right, folks! In just a few months, I will no longer be "too young." I'll stop having to pay the young driver fee when I rent cars. I will finally incontestably be in my mid-twenties (although I have argued with many of you that I'm there already). And I will finally stop carping about my young age! I'm sure you are all just as excited about my 25th birthday as I am at this point... Mainly because you can't wait for me to shut up about it.

22 was full of uncertainty, 23 sucked, 24 had copious ups (insane amounts of travel) and downs (burning out at work)... So I am determined that 25 will be a good year for me.

To that end... (I love that phrase, by the way.)

To that end, I have compiled a list of New Year's Resolutions, the length of which far surpasses the length of any others I have made before. Some of them are being kept private for now, but here are the public top ten:

1. Spend less money than I make (with the exception of replacing my car).
2. Weigh what it says on my driver's license.
3. Actually use my Rapid Rewards points (and take advantage of being A-LIST!).
4. Get out of bed/off the couch before noon on the weekends.
5. Never have another dehydration headache.
6. Do something new at least once a month.
7. Finish the sewing projects I start.
8. Fall in love with work again.
9. Balance my binge-watching and binge-reading.
10. Join a quidditch team.

Some of these resolutions will be easier than others. But all should make my life a little more interesting. And hopefully, they'll help me have my best "adult" year ever!

I even got a head start on resolution number two today (while going strong on numbers four and six) by heading over to the Wellness Center. That's right, I EXERCISED! I know you don't believe it, but it's true--I have the damn membership card to prove it. And why they (and the library) couldn't just put the barcodes on our new staff cards is beyond me!

Anyway, as I read pithy vignettes written by an English expat in Romania, I treaded (trod?) on the elliptical for 20 minutes. I then speed-walked about half a mile around the indoor "track" and actually jogged home. IN THE RAIN. UPHILL BOTH WAYS. Except for the way back, which was actually downhill...and also the only part I jogged.

And whatever idiot said exercise makes people feel better was a nincompoop! I do NOT feel better. I feel cranky, tired, on fire (my muscles), and wet (the rain). And I forgot to turn the thermostat back up when I returned home, so now I'm cold.

Well, I wish everyone else luck with their lists of resolutions. I'm off to turn up the heat and work on number nine--watching a few episodes of Frasier to offset the book I was just reading. Then maybe I'll do a little bit of seven. Off to a great start and it's only the third of the month!