Days 10 & 11: A Miss and A Hit

Sorry for missing yesterday.  I just wasn't feeling the writing love.  In fact, I was feeling a tad under the weather so we ended up watching a couple of movies last night, rather than doing anything productive. The movies were: Jesus Henry Christ and Today's Special.  I liked both of them for different reasons.

• JHC was funny, touching and really about how dysfunctional families find a way to function in spite of everything.  That description does not do it justice, as it was funny, weird and very much an indie film.  It moves a little slowly, but is well worth the wait. All of the actors do quirky well and are still charming and kind.
• Today's Special was an uneven film about a talented but uninspired sous chef in NYC whose parents were from India and now ran a run down Indian restaurant. He gets skipped over for a job in his fancy restaurant, so he quits and decides to go to Paris, but fortune says otherwise... blah, blah, blah.  This movie was terribly predictable and somewhat uneven, but very charming and sweet.  You like the characters and want them to be successful, even if they don't always make sense or make the choices their characters should make, based on things they said and did earlier in the film.

Before the short movie-thon, we had a pretty good day.  I finally got Brian out of bed and into water aerobics with me, which was fun.  (He didn't quite make it today, because he had a hard time getting to sleep last night.) I did a little shopping (did I mention Macy's big cashmere sweater sale?) and then off we went to visit our new vet, Ron Erp, 5th cousin to Wyatt Erp. Seriously!

We loved out new vet, who was referred to us by my awesome sister-in-law, Sharon. He was super knowledgeable,chatty, and obviously loves his job.  All good by me! The dogs got a clean bill of health, as well as two thumbs up on their weight, shiny coats and excellent fitness level.  Hooray! Katy needs to have her teeth cleaned, but she eats rocks and other unsuitable objects, so that was totally expected.  Also, at 9 years old, she is still healthy enough to easily go under anesthesia, which might not be the case as she gets older.  Little Buckley (Sir Buckington) eats everything under the sun, but has great teeth, so no cleaning needed for him. 

We tried to go for a walk/hike at a new park yesterday, called Jenkins Estate, but when we got there, I wasn't feeling well and we were both really cold, so we bailed and went home. On the plus side, we found a cute coffee shop near the park which sells hot chocolate made with almond milk and is run by two super cute, friendly young women.  Score!

Today was a much better day. I got up for water aerobics and had a good workout, even though today's instructor was not as good as the gal from yesterday.  I found out that my new friend Lynne has a last name that is incredibly similar to mine, off by just a couple of letters.  When I was writing my name for her, she thought I was accidentally misspelling hers!  Love it!

Brian and I went back to Jenkins Estate with the dogs and had a great walk today.  We also went back to that cute coffee shop and had breakfast sandwiches.  This afternoon, I made some seriously good banana/butternut squash bread and some cranberry sauce. The sauce was made from Oregon cranberries, and I have to admit, while they are still incredibly tart, they are much sweeter than any I've had before.  For a pound of berries, I added about 1/2 of a cup of sugar, which is super low for cranberry sauce. For breakfast tomorrow, I think I'll have some of the cranberry sauce on the bread.  Yum!

Two other bits of news: I slacked off on my NaNoWriMo book for the last two days, so I wrote almost 3000 words today to get caught up.  And, I'm signing up for guitar lessons starting next week. So here we go!  Obviously, the water aerobics is going well.  Let's see how guitar lessons go.  After that is yoga class.  After that... who knows!

Be happy and healthy!