Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everybody. Thanks for visiting my blog all year. Looking forward to 2006!

Healthcare Central

On the day after Christmas, Ichabod and I decided to take a walk. As we walked through one area I realized how many healthcare buildings there were. Some of these will be easier to figure out if you click on them.











Then if you don't get better they always churches. ;-)



For this one you really need to click on it and choose All Sizes, Large to see the church.

A little color is good

I love the bold, pretty colors of this season. And poinsettias have some of the best. I just couldn't resist taking these pictures. The one of the tree came out a little blurry but I'm posting it anyway.



See the table in this picture? I really want to buy one of those. They have one in New York's Museum of Modern Art. It would go really well with our modern leather and chrome furniture.



Everyone please have a safe, fun, and a Merry Christmas!

Here comes the sun

I've been complaining a lot about the snow lately. Usually, once it starts in Michigan it's a long, gloomy, snowy time. But, we do get some sun occasionally. I just happened to catch it before it quite got below the horizon tonight.

What's with the white stuff?

It's not "officially" winter until next week Wednesday. You wouldn't know it from looking outside around here.

See?????

Christmas Holiday Traditions

Susie has started a movement that she calls the Blogworld Cookie Exchange. We are to share our favorite recipes, traditons, holiday clothes, etc.

My recipe is one that my regular readers are probably tired of reading about by now.

Rum Cake

1 box yellow cake mix
1 small instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup rum

Combine and beat 10 minutes on medium speed. Grease and flour tube pan. Bake 1 hour at 325 degrees F. Cool slightly, remove from the pan.

Sauce

1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water

Bring to boil. Boil 1 minute. Remove from heat. Add 2 ounces of rum. Poke holes in top of cake with fork. Spoon sauce over cake while warm.

This is the result:


I have a pair of socks that were given to me when I used to waitress. They all had some type of winter themed socks. The pin was given to me by a former workteam leader as a Christmas present. The earrings I bought for myself.

Well, I never...

Update! New picture below!

I don't know about the rest of you ladies but I'm feeling really insulted here.



My wonderful, Photshopping sister, Bucky, to the rescue:

10 Things

I was tagged by Kylz to post 10 weird and random facts about myself. Like Bucky I'm not so good at tagging, so if you can't think of anything else to post today, go ahead and use this one.

1. I hate coconut. Okay, I stole this one directly from Bucky. All I can say in my defense is that since I'm older than Bucky, I've hated coconut longer than she has. The taste is bad enough but the texture is really, really nasty.
2. When I eat saltine crackers I like to bite them into four pieces.
3. I live in Michigan because family is here but I don't like snow. Not much choice there, I guess.
4. I only had three wisdom teeth. That really came in handy when they were removed.
5. I click my teeth together in time to music.
6. I have to make my bed every day. This must be done even if I've been busy and can't get to it until right before I'm ready to go to bed. Blankets and sheets must be straight!
7. I have to turn off all electric things in my car, except radio, before I turn the car off. I don't like having all those things going when I turn it back on again.
8. When I start out walking I like to begin with my right foot.
9. One of the reasons I don't like snow is that I like to have all of the snow off my car and the ice off my windows before I start driving. Blind spots are bad enough in the car without the snow blocking my view. And I hate getting behind the people who don't bother to clear theirs and I can't see for all the snow blowing off their cars.
10. When I get tagged with one of these memes I can't always come up with good stuff. So a lot of you might recognize most of these from a post I did last October about idiosyncracies.
    
    

When along came a spider.....

Warning: Spider picture below!

Well, there I was, minding my own business, drying my hair when I saw in the mirror there was a spider just inches above my head.

I thought to myself, "What, do I look like little Miss Muffet?" I decided that the answer was no.

So I did the only thing I could think of. I blasted the little sucker with my hairdryer.

It scuttled up and over to the far light over the mirror. It stayed there the whole time I finished styling my hair. Of course, I grabbed my camera and took its picture.

You might think it's dead from the way it looks here. Don't be fooled! I went back in and lightly blew on it and the sucker started coming right at me.

That was when I decided it was time to come and blog about it. Here's what it looked like.

Winter wonderland, yeah right, whatever...

Ichabod and I were planning a long weekend at a lovely, historic hotel. I know that making plans to go to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in December is always iffy. Sometimes, at least in the Lower Peninsula, we haven't seen a flake of snow yet.

We got up early this morning and packed the car. I had my favorite atlas ready and my bathing suit packed for the sauna and whirlpool. The trip to Marquette is a little over 400 miles so we figured we'd be there long before dark.

The sun was actually shining here in the Grand Rapids area. After a while we started seeing snowflakes, no big deal. Then the highway was getting to be quite snow covered. Driving was going very slowly. It wasn't quite whiteouts but the road was very slippery.

We decided to pull off when we got to Cadillac, about 100 miles into the trip. In downtown Cadillac we stopped at a little local diner. We got there just in time to still be able to eat breakfast. While we ate we discussed going on or heading back. Heading back sounded like the safest thing to do.

So for all of you who think snow is all that, well it totally messed up our plans for the weekend. If I could send you that snow I certainly would this weekend!

I wasn't quite as nervous on the way back and decided to haul out the camera. These might be a bit blurry as we were moving right along and I had the flash off.







The windshield was dirty but the way the sun was in and out of the clouds was just gorgeous. I think I might have caught a bit of rainbow in one.




So, for all of you snow-lovers here are some pictures for you. Wanna trade weather???