Jennifer Apodaca's Blog, page 2

Weekend Roundup

This one is easy to roundup my weekend — cleaning. Not exciting at all, but good to get done.

One bright spot — I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies (gluten and dairy-free) for Youngest. Then later that day Youngest tried to shake me down with a text: “Send my $75.00 for a picture of Cigi”

I replied, “Are you visiting her?

His reply was a rude demand. “Now it’s $80.00” I was being shaken down by my own son for a picture of my granddaughter. Can you believe the nerve?

But I had an answer for the amateur blackmailer. “I baked you cookies.”

He sent the picture. I mean seriously, where does he think he learned to do these shakedowns?

And this is the kind of text shenanigans that go on in our family text chain, or in separate texts, all the time.  Last week, oldest was taunting me with a picture of me making a crazy weird face at Cigi. I really should change my phone number.

How was your weekend?

 

 

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF! Time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

I wasn’t impressed with the peach picante pork chops. I need to find a better recipe with a peach glaze, I think.I’ve cut my walking this week due to my legs aching. It’s really annoying to work so hard to reach goals, then have factors beyond my control get in my way. Could be anything causing it, but the usual suspect is my RA flaring up. And in good news, I can lift weights fine still. It’s my legs that are whining. I think reducing the walking for a few days will help that. Also my idea of resting my legs is to reduce my walk to half a mile or so, and THEN spend hours vacuuming and washing floors I finally was able to connect on the phone with a friend — we’ve been trying to connect for two weeks, LOL! That called led to a plan for lunch in two more weeks time. It’s pretty funny that we’re both retired and can’t get our schedules to align! Family, grandkids, some health stuff is keeping us busy. But the great thing about friends is we understand and work around these days.Yesterday we went to see Cigi. I love that she wants me to hold her right after I get there. She played for hours with both me and Wizard. She’s cruising around furniture and speed crawling all over. But while doing all that, she’ll just randomly come up and hug one of us — baby/toddler hugs are the best! Here’s a pic wherein Cigi gives us her stamp of approval on our new car.This weekend is up in the air. I believe two of Wizard’s sisters have his Mom covered, but we will make ourselves available if we’re needed. I have a list of things I’d like to do like check out clearance on outdoor furniture for my deck, and some cleaning that I haven’t gotten to yet, but we’ll see what the weekend brings. I’ll always skip cleaning for better offers!

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Wednesday Reading & Food

Um…what reading? I’ve been too tired at night, although last night I did read for about an hour. It’s still the Simi book by Sherilyn Kenyon. It’s slower and mostly what I would consider backstory of the characters in the original Dark Hunter Series. It’s not bad, just not what I was expecting. It is good for my distracted state, meaning it’s easy to put it down, then pick it back up whenever I feel like reading.

I also started an audio book “Every Summer After” by Carly Fortune. It’s not really catching my interest yet, but that’s probably me. Lots on my mind and all that. We are still worried about my MIL’s living situation but it’s a fluid and complicated situation — which is probably a good description of life in general

Wizard and I are planning a trip to the bookstore soon, in the meantime I have 3 nonfiction books in my Amazon cart that I’m thinking about. Lately, I’ve been on a bad judgement streak on books and movies, LOL!

In other news, I am excited to try an easy slow cooker recipe for Peach Pork Picante using boneless pork chops this week. I’m not big on pork, but these sounded good. Hopefully I’ll be able to update you on Friday.

Also, I’m thinking about those Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins Silver posted on her blog yesterday. Click on the link if you’d like to see. Such an easy version of muffins! I can can make and eat them with regular cake mix, but if I make them for youngest, I’d probably try to convert my gluten free cake batter to work with the pumpkin puree…hmm…it might work if I make the dry ingredients. Not sure it’d have the same rise and texture though. I must ponder this

What are you guys reading?

The post Wednesday Reading & Food first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend Roundup

Happy Monday! Time is flying over here. Sheesh, I can barely keep up.

Friday, I had a really nice lunch with Biker Witch. It was great to see her. We only did lunch and not shopping because it was blazing hot, and she had some appointments to handle. But the lunch was so good!

Saturday, we went out to see CiGi. Oldest son came over too and made the mistake of taking CiGi from me. She cried Okay she’s not really that much a grandma’s girl, she was just overwhelmed at first by Uncle Oldest. By the time we all went to lunch, they were fast friends and having fun. We all had a great time.

Sunday, we bought a car. We’ve been seriously looking for weeks, and finally made a deal. First, I’m thankful that we can now do Internet/phone deals before we drive over there. We’d already looked at the car (we’ve been really busy lately, LOL) We are very happy. Normally we’d have held onto our Camry much longer as it’s a good car, but CA is really pushing electric vehicles and EV’s just don’t fit our drive-all-over lifestyle, so we accelerated our typical plan to get a gas car we wanted. Man I’m glad to have that done!

So the weekend was good, but another wild ride in various ways. I’m tired, but I have absolutely nothing to complain about this weekend

Oh!!! Cigi is eleven months old!! And her mom and dad have a One Year Old birthday party planned for her in early September! We’re looking forward to that, but does she really have to grow up so fast? Turbo is seven and starting second grade! Do grandkids grow up even faster than our own kids????

That’s my weekend, how was yours?

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF! Time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

August is here with 100+ degree heat. It’s too hot to function. But at least we have A/C. Wizard and I are stressed and tired, but dealing with things we need to deal with.Maggie had her yearly checkup and is in really good health (as much as they can tell). The vet tells me every time that she loves Maggie because she’s so joyful. It’s true that Maggie doesn’t really have a lot of special tricks or play with toys, but her one talent is being happy to see almost everyone. First she wags her tell, then her whole body wiggles and when the happiness overwhelms her, she squeals and “talks”. So I’ll take the vet at her word Maggie is getting older, obviously, and the milkiness I see in her eyes is real and from age and hardening of the lenses. Maggie is still seeing pretty well though. Otherwise, she needs a mild teeth clearing that they think they can do without anesthesia. I’m really happy to get goods news with no surprises about Maggie this week.I also had a good eye exam and this time, I bought glasses too. OUCH on the cost! It doesn’t help that my prescription is so high (which I heard four different times), we added on had all kinds of options to get the lenses in the frames as light as possible, and as comfortable as possible. But I like the glasses we chose, and I can still wear contacts (with reading glasses), so I have options. My eyes appear healthy and the exam was easy. Overall, I call it a win, even if it’s an expensive win.Oh my CT scan approved for my sinuses to hopefully find out where/why my nose is bleeding. I think it’s August 20th or thereabouts. I’m too lazy to check my calendar to be sure, but I’m happy about that. Even if we can’t find the source on the CT, we’ll know what it’s NOT from and that’s helpful too. My GP will decide where to refer me once he has the CT results. So things are moving along. I might be going to lunch with Biker Witch today but we haven’t officially confirmed that as I write this. Chaos is running amok, so it’s hard to make real plans. This weekend is a wait and see what happens. We are doing our best to go with things the best we can.

That’s my five, now I’d really love to hear yours! I hope you all have a good weekend, and if you’re in the heat, stay inside, hydrated and cool!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Wednesday Reading and Catchup

I’m here!! Sorry I missed posting on Monday. We had to unexpectedly go to my Mother in Law’s house, stay with her, and handle some issues. All four siblings in the state are helping out, so it’s not just us. We had very limited internet access and zero time for me to try to post. Between that and celebrating my birthday,  it was a weirdly fun and very stressful few days. But seriously, I had a great birthday, and as of yesterday calm had return our lives to normal business not wild and a little crazy.

Now onto reading. I quickly downloaded Sherrilyn Kenyon’s “Simi, (Shadow of Fire, Book 5) onto my Kindle, but haven’t started it yet before writing this blog. While driving all over the place, I finally went back to listening to the audio book I was mad about. I find the plot and setting really interesting, the romance bores me. But I’ve decided to finish the book, and then I’ve loaded two other books on audio. I feel like I might be driving a lot, so I’m ready Audio books and interesting podcasts make long drives and traffic a heck of a lot more bearable!

Did I miss anything Monday? What are you reading or listening to?

The post Wednesday Reading and Catchup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF! It’s August! The summer is flying by. And now it’s time to share 5 random things about our week. Here’s mine:

Monday was frustrating as an accident shut down a major freeway, preventing us from getting to an appointment at my mother in law’s house. Obviously it was regarding my mother in law, and it mattered. One of Wizard’s brothers handled it and did great. But it was still frustrating. That said, I guess the people who had the serious car accident with a big rig that shut down the freeway and clogged up all the other access routes had a worse day than us.We did finally get the rock around our deck! So I can start looking at what I want to put there, which is the fun part.I gave Maggie a small bully stick outside that she loved. She chewed on it every chance she got, but I wouldn’t let her bring it in the house. She’d come to the door holding it in her mouth like a cigar. I’d tell her she can’t bring it in the house, then she’s turn her her and spit it out. It looked so ridiculous.  When I get up at 5:30 am she had to go out there and check her stick, now that was cute. The best news is we are finding bones and chews that don’t appear to upset her digestion.This week, Maggie and I hit the 2 and a 1/2 mile milestone a couple times in our morning walks. Maggie seems to be happy with the walks and not suffering any detectable soreness later in the day or evening. She’s an older girl but appears healthy. I’m grateful for that.This weekend is a bit busy. It’s my birthday, so Wizard and I are planning to go to a nice dinner Friday night at our favorite steakhouse. Saturday evening we’re going to a fun dinner with Youngest and his wife. Sunday Wizard and I are going to see Turbo and his mom. His dad will be around but is also catching up on some work since he was gone last weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing him, then hopefully CiGi next week.

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a safe and fun weekend!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Wednesday Reading

I’m still reading “House of Fire and Magic (Myths & Outlaws Book 1) by Sherrilyn Kenyon. It’s pretty good, although I don’t find it a compelling page-turner. While the story is fun, it feels a little old school to me. I do like the political intrigue in the paranormal world, and some of the various magical creatures, and I’m happy to keep reading it for a while in the evenings.

I have not gone back to the audiobook that made me mad last week. I mean I’ve turned it on, then turned it off. Guess I’m still mad, LOL! I think I need to find another audiobook, listen to that then maybe come back to the one I’m mad at.

And totally unrelated: I’ve had this book plot idea hanging around now for a few weeks. I’ve told it I’m busy, I’m not writing commercial fiction now and it’s just sitting there in my brain swirling around. Fortunately, I don’t have any characters showing up and bugging me! As long as the actual characters don’t materialize, I can ignore the idea. It’s just a distraction from doing work on the blog stuff!

Are you reading anything interesting?

The post Wednesday Reading first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend Roundup

It was a quiet one for me. I’m good with that.

Friday and Saturday involved a lot of cleaning. I also wrote a blog and had three ready to go. Then it dawned on me that two were very similar. Sigh…I discarded one into my “draft” file where I can repurpose it later. I wrote one more blog, so I had three again and am beginning work on the fourth. I want seven or more written before I launch the blog. I haven’t even started on the interview side of things (I want that to be part of the blog, plus podcasting later).

Will I do all this? I hope so, but also, life is swirling. So they way I look at it now is I’m exercising my writing muscle and enjoying learning new things. If it all comes together — awesome! If not, it’s all good. — I’ll just readjust or pivot and find my happy place in a scaled down version.  I really do need to make a decision on the blog theme and ask someone to take pictures of me. I’m not looking forward to either of those things But I am enjoying working on this, and keep the pace as I want it to be.

Here’s a pic of my granddaughter in the airport heading for her first flight.

 

From all the pics I saw, she did great on the plane and fell asleep on her dad. It looked like they had a blast. They’re visiting Cigi’s mom’s relatives and I’m really happy that she’s getting to meet her extended family. I just have to say, Middle Son is loving being a dad.

Turbo and his family are having a blast. Here’s oldest son (CPA boy) covered in kids. Boys never really grow up, but they sure do get stronger! Turbo is in on the right of the picture (in CPA boys left arm). They are visiting CPA Boy’s friend from high school and college!

Here’s a pic Maggie’s here just because We were hanging out in the backyard and I used a treat to bribe her for a pic.

This weekend I floated the idea of renting an Motorhome to go see Wizard’s brother in Oregon. He had a minute of being intrigued, then starting thinking of disasters that could befall us. Essentially, the motorhome was going to break down, leaving us stranded and evidently our phones would die and any form of communication would evaporate and probably bears would eat us slowly while we’re alive and screaming…it was astonishing how fast a fun idea became a horror movie, LOL! He might come around or write a horror novel, I’m not sure which yet!

So how was your weekend?

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF!! Here we are again on Friday and I’m my usual, “How did that happen???” But it’s here and it’s time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

I’m working on my blog stuff. I have a lot to do, so it’ll be a while. I have a question, but for context, the new blog will be different. More of a lifestyle blog (loosely), and I’ll start with one main post a week. Not the casually, unedited chatty type I do now. However, I’m thinking about keeping Friday Five if any of you are still interested in that kind of interaction?? Any answer is totally cool, I’m aware that some or all may not be interested in a different version of the blog at all.I learned from working on all this how much I missed writing. But I don’t miss the pressures, deadlines and things that were beyond my control.It’s been a tad cooler this week. Enough that I repotted a couple plants and Wizard did a major weed and clean of our backyard hill area. I don’t know how he still does it, but he manages.So far, I really like my new pans. Especially for the price But seriously, I do like them and am happy that I took a chance on them. It’s only been a couple weeks so we’ll see how I feel in a few months. I’m pretty hard on my kitchen tools.It’s been a quietish week and this weekend will be fairly calm. All the kids are busy — two are traveling and one is dog sitting for one of his traveling brothers. I haven’t decided what kind of kid free trouble I might want to get into, but if I do something crazy, I’ll let you all know on Monday!

That’s my rather boring five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a good weekend!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.