Pancake memories

The cafeteria at work had pancakes yesterday for breakfast. I hadn’t had pancakes in ages. I never order them when I go to a restaurant. Of course I rarely go to a restaurant for breakfast. So I ordered them. For cafeteria pancakes they were actually very good. They brought me back to my younger years, when I was in grade school and mom would make pancakes for breakfast. Now that we have a new baby in the house I want her to have all the things my sister and I had growing up. That means someone in the house is going to have to make pancakes for my niece before she goes off to school. Luckily that won’t happen for quite some time. We have a while to actually get back into the cooking groove again. If you hear about Swiss Chalet having troubles, Pizza Hut stocks faltering, KFC workers worried about job security, you’ll know we stopped ordering and started using that thing in the middle of our kitchen that cooks food.

Until next time…

Cindy

Dirty Dancing

Now that the chaos has died down I have some time to blog again. The house is clean and de-cluttered and up for sale. Now I have time to blog about Dirty Dancing on stage. We went to see it Wednesday at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. It was AWESOME. Even if you only liked the movie you’ll like the live show. And if you loved the movie like my sister, well the live show is a must see. I was curious about how they were going to do some of the scenes. Especially the water scene. But they did an amazing job. It makes me appreciate the theatre a lot more. I’d really like to go see more shows. Maybe I’ll make that one of my goals for this year.

Until next time…

Cindy

Excel for weight loss

I love Excel. I use it for just about everything. For my writing I use it to keep track of and chart suspects in my suspense novels. The suspect chart shows me at a glance if I have all the indications I need to make someone the bady guy or if I need to plant more clues. I also use my plot check spreadsheet to make sure I have enough suspense in my romantic suspense. It shows me how much I use the senses, if each scene has at least three purposes etc. I love my spreadsheets.

So yesterday I created one to track my weight loss. Of course a weight loss spreadsheet is nothing new. I’m sure there are lots of them ot there. Mine gives me encouragement when I’m doing well. And it tells me to get off my butt if I’m not exercising. Since I just created it I don’t know how well it will work but two of the ladies at work are going to use it too so I guess Ill find out.

With San Francisco in July and a wedding to go to in August, I need to stay on track. I’m hoping the spreadsheet will help me do that.

Until next time…

Cindy

Happy New Year

So it’s a little late but Happy New Year. With so much happening over the holidays it’s been hard to get on-line to update anything. The baby’s home now. And she has a name. Kaelyn. She’s so adorable. And at two weeks old has a distinctive personality already. She always has to get one hand free from her receiving blanket.

Goals for 2008 are simple:

Write more
Read more
Spend less
Eat less
Exericise more
Spend more time with family.

Once we settle into a routine I will hopefully be able to blog more regularly too.

Until next time…

Cindy

It’s a girl!

The holidays have been hectic around here. I had wanted to post a Merry Christmas message but things happen. Christmas Eve day I got a call from my sister saying she was in the hospital. Her water broke. Two months early. I told my boss I was going to leave (the work I was trying to do was slow because the network was busy). She’d told me I could leave at 1:30 anyway and this was 1:15. So I went home and picked up a few things my sister needed. Her husband didn’t have any time to get anything. He’d just gotten home from work at 8:15 that morning and they were off to the hospital shortly after.

We waited a long time. I had to go home and pick up more things because it was decided they were doing the C-Section that day. By the time I got back to the hospital at 6:30 in the evening my niece had arrived!

My sister is doing great. The baby is improving. They have her off the respirator now. She’s still at the hospital and will be there for at least another week. But she’s gaining weight. I can’t wait for them to bring her home. Lots of changes going on here. I’ll have to clean out my office completely. Everything in storage. Good thing I have that laptop.

I’ll be back to post New Year’s Resolutions.

Until next time…

Cindy

You want to pay with what?

My sister and I went Christmas shopping last night. I still had a few things to get and she needed to buy presents for her husband. She works in an industry that receives tips so she was paying with cash. I had a budget so I was paying with cash. It’s so much easier to stick to a budget if you actually see yourself forking over money. We were checking out at one of the stores and I was paying first. The sales clerk rang up the sale. I started pulling twenty dollar bills out of my wallet. And he said, “You’re paying with cash?!” The way he said it almost made me laugh. Like people didn’t remember what cash even looked like anymore. And then my sister paid. With cash. He counted it wrong. Twice. So it seems since technology has taken over people can’t even count money anymore.

I still have a few more things to get but for the most part I’m done. And I haven’t gone that much over budget. Now I just have to wrap everything.

Until next time…

Cindy