Nyx turned 5 years old today! She is now officially “an adult”. 5 is the age when Mini Schnauzers start mellowing out a bit and I’ve noticed her tolerance for loud noise and lots of activity isn’t what it was. She won’t stay downstairs while we play D&D on game night and I’ve noticed her wanting to go home sooner when visiting others. She’s still plenty sassy and playful though!!

This morning’s weigh-in shows I’ve lost 10 pounds on the new eating/exercise program! Hoping for another 10, but think I’ll be hitting a plateau point here soon. 😁 I still have a couple of slices of pizza on D&D game night, plus snacks while we play, and indulge here and there when the cravings hit so it’s been slow going. Roughly 10 weeks tomorrow since I started on November 1st? That’s not bad!

The recipes are getting better on the Mayo Clinic plan. I’m past the beginning stages where they cut things way back so you can see improvement quickly. This last week I had:

• Berry baked oats
• Black bean quesadilla
• Soy & garlic chicken with Asian salad
• French toast
• English muffin pizza

All pretty tasty!!

I’m really close on the Captain Sparrow canvas – I think I’ll have that finished this weekend!! I’ve been dying to try a cool DIY kit my folks got me for Christmas, but this was so close I just wanted to get it done!

I’m officially DONE ripping all my movies! I’ve moved on to series discs now, which is also slow going, but I’m getting there!! Something cool I’ve noticed while playing a series through the Plex server – it mimics a couple of Netflix features! I can skip the intro on the show instead of listening to the same opening song over and over, and it will automatically start the next episode for you! COOL!

I’ve not been to my Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book club in a long time. It moved to being on Fridays which is just not working out for me. I hate fighting the traffic, and lately the weather to get out there. My tastes seem to have changed over the last couple of years towards mystery books, especially British period books in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I’ve been a long-time fan of Agatha Christie, and have found a few others. There’s an online “Cozy Mystery Book Club” that meets monthly on Sundays via Zoom that I’ve joined, we’ll see how that goes! 😊

Weather has been CRAZY lately! The day after my last post we went from NO SNOW IN SIGHT to 8 INCHES OF SNOW! Now it’s a huge downpour outside, which will probably melt all the snow again. Someone told me we’re at 150% snow pack for the year!

On a rather crappy note – start the new year off with a leaking garbage disposal! Ran the dishwasher, came up from downstairs and found water all over the floor. It had rusted all the way through! Got it replaced and got one that’s NOT supposed to rust! I guess the one that was installed was the absolute LOWEST quality one on the market. It’s been there since this place was built back in 2012, so the developer got the crappiest one on the market to skimp on costs. 😒

Take care, stay safe, and watch out for the nasty colds going around!