• After letting the floors go for a while, I spent a good amount of time vacuuming today. (It took forever, so let this be a lesson to me not to wait so long, next time.) I'm still in awe of how well our (no longer so) new vacuum cleaner works, compared with the old one.
• I love the Trixie-dog, but if you have a problem with long white dog hairs getting on everything (making it nearly impossible to get out the door without at least one hair lurking somewhere on your clothes, even if you're very careful), the Eskie probably isn't the breed for you. Neither she nor her hair have a doggy smell, but you will get unscented dog hair on your clothes, if you come into our house for any length of time. No amount of vacuuming will ever eliminate all that fur. It's just a fact of life with American Eskimo Dogs. (You have been warned.)
• Thanks to gifts and my own purchases, I have enough hand lotion to last an average woman a few years, figuring for moderate use. And yet I keep noticing that my hands look dry, thinking to myself, "I ought to put on some lotion"-- and then getting distracted by something else and promptly forgetting all about it. Apparently I need to wear a bottle on a cord around my neck. It may be the only way I'll ever remember to use it...
• I saw someone blog about how she's thinking of doing Project 365 again in 2011, with an emphasis on macro photography this time-- and I thought, "Hey, that sounds like a fun idea!" That's right. I am tempted to do Project 365 again. This is probably a bad idea.
• The last time I made Santa Fe Stew, I made it vegetarian (by omitting the chicken). I did this because I was feeling lazy and didn't want to bother with the chicken-- and because I didn't think it would affect the stew much, since I typically use less meat than the recipe calls for, anyway. (I did add a couple bouillon cubes, though, to supply a little chicken flavor... and I also used quite a bit more beans than the recipe calls for, so there'd be plenty to freeze for later. However, I always use more beans than are called for...) It turned out fine. This remains one of my favorite dishes. Donald likes it better over rice (which I also like but don't absolutely require), and I like to eat mine with some tortilla chips on the side.
• The clothes dryer is buzzing. I could pretend not to hear it, but I don't think Molly will take care of it on her own...
• As predicted, Molly was just lying in her dog bed in the kitchen, seemingly oblivious to the buzzer. She's better at pretending not to hear than I am.
• Movies we've watched recently include the following: Splice, Vampires Suck, Devil, Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (with Rifftrax commentary), and others that fail to come to mind. (Oh, such as The Legend of the Guardians, which Donald wanted to see because of the quality of the cgi.)
• TV shows we've been watching together: Community (just finished Season 1, though we've already seen some of Season 2 as it aired), Monk (we're on Season 3), various sitcoms (Big Bang Theory, The Office, How I Met Your Mother, The Middle, Modern Family, etc.)... and probably some other things I'm forgetting. (We were watching The Walking Dead, too, but of course the first season of that is over now.)
• Those are all the random thoughts I'll bother you with for now. But you never know when there may be more. (That'll give you something to look forward to.) ;o)
