Coming to a close- 2017

2017 was filled with lots of good stuff, happy memories, time with family and lots of laughs.  I'm looking forward to much of the same in 2018, but I'll wait until tomorrow to post about my goals for the new year.  One of the things that will help me immensely with my fitness goals is my Christmas gift from Steve.  It didn't get delivered until late Tuesday afternoon and I have to say I LOVE it.  I was surprised at how easy it was to set up, and each day since Thursday I've met all 3 daily goals.

I did have Minnie Mouse as my watch face to begin with, but the Activity face is much easier to keep track of my progress through out the day.  It was fun tapping the watch and have her say the time.

I hope 2017 was a good year for you and that 2018 will be prosperous, full of peace and blessings.

December Daily-December 8th- Snow Day!

I have lived in the metro Atlanta area all my live and in my 49 years I have NEVER seen snow this early in December.  There have only been a couple times when we've had snow before January and that was in the early 2000's when we had snow in the middle of the month, and around 2010/2011-ish and we actually had a white Christmas!  The only other time we had what I'd consider crazy snow weather was March of 1993 when we had our blizzard-now that is something I won't ever forget.  Friday started as any other work day- there was a bit of wintery mix coming down, but nothing to worry about.  I got to my office just before 8, and once 2nd boss arrived around 9:30 he said it had been snowing where he lives which was just NW from the office.  That all changed within the hour as the rainy/frozen stuff had turned to snow.  It didn't take long for it to really started coming down and continued until late last night.  This morning when I took Sophie out to do her business as predicted the snow continued overnight, and was coming down while we were outside.  While it is lovely to look at I know when this stuff melts we're going to have a real mess on our hands; especially if the temperatures drop.  I had texted Andrew yesterday to see when he was going to get snow as I'm sure it'll be heading to the Maryland/DC area soon, but there was nothing yet.  We only have a handful of kids in our complex, but they made the most of the snow and I'm sure they will be back outside making more snow people.  As I type this post it is still coming down in a steady stream with big fat flakes.  Friday Steve kindly fulfilled my request for a fire, and because the wood we had was so dry it didn't take long for us to use it up.  It made the afternoon so cheerful and cozy along with a cup of hot apple cider with bourbon [as one does when you leave work early and it's snowing outside!.\ 

Here's some photos of our winter wonderland
So it begins-

 What it was like when I left the office at 1:15.

Fortunately the ride home was pretty easy, just slushy roads and not a lot of traffic.  I know there were a lot of people that had to deal with heavy traffic to get home.  It is times like this make me very thankful that we made the decision to move closer to our jobs.

 Sophie is completely indifferent to the snow except this morning because the area out front was 4-5" deep she couldn't figure out how to go like she normally does, so we had to go around back where it wasn't quite so deep.

 This is what it was like this morning when we went outside.

It should be noted that our area was predicted to get 1-3"-um yea Mr. Weatherman you were just a bit off on that one.  I hope everyone whether in Atlanta or other cold parts of the world are snug and warm.

Weekend Rewind| ice and an excursion

In anticipation of a 4 day weekend [Monday being the day my Mom is having hand/finger surgery] I brought home a bunch of work in order to get caught up and not get behind.  I'm glad I did as my plans for Friday to visit the High Museum's exhibit of Eric Carle's work didn't play out.  I was going to do the museum on my own, but with the changing weather predictions I decided it was best to stay where I was to avoid being "stuck" in Atlanta.  I'm glad I did too!  I ventured out Friday morning only to buy propane for our camp stove in the event we lost power.  We didn't thank goodness as that would have also meant a loss of heat.  I got Sophie out for a good long walk knowing whatever the weather brought it would definitely bring ice, and I didn't want to deal with that and a very strong dog who doesn't mind wintery weather at all!  Sure enough around 1:30 the rain started.

This was my view for about 4.5 hours, and I got soooo much accomplished.  Several things required reading and editing and that's hard to do at work when you are constantly interrupted.

Steve made it home from the city Friday evening with no problems, but had to be out the door at 5 am on Saturday to get to headquarters where the JOC was set up [Joint Operations Center-gotta love government acronyms, right].  Thankfully there were no issues with his drive, and Sophie and I went back to bed until 7:30!  I never sleep that late unless I don't get to bed before 1am.  The weather I woke up to was ice and a smattering of snow.  Since there was no snow to photograph I took pictures of some of the shrubbery with ice, so pretty, but not fun at all.  Sophie got a short walk and I went to the fitness center.  I used the morning to clean the apartment and do laundry.  It felt good to have everything in order.  Much later in the day Sophie and I ventured out for a longer walk to check out the roads and sidewalks which seemed pretty clear except in a few places where the sun didn't melt anything.

Sunday morning included another trip to the fitness center, and a long walk for the d-o-g.  I decided that to venture to the High since it was at least sunny, but still  very cold, and I'm glad I did.  It's a wonderful albeit a small exhibit, but I learned so much about Eric Carle.  I really need to dig out the boy's copy and the little stuffed caterpillar that came with the book.  I took our rather pitiful, but sometimes useful, train into Atlanta.  While exiting the station I looked up to see this-it was hanging down a good 7-8 inches.

I was so nice being able to drive 15 minutes from our apartment and let someone else drive the rest of the way!  I only had to wait a couple minutes for the train on both ends of my travels which is great because the station at the beginning is an open air train stop!

Everyone needs a random photo on their blog right!  Here's my new ride [2015 Audi A3 Cabriolet Quattro which give me all wheel drive!] -and if the weather predictions are correct I might actually be able to put the top down later in the week-gotta love living in the south!  This is the first time I could get a photo of the whole car.  I am loving it too.

Afterwards there was a required stop at the grocery store and then home for football.  While I'm thrilled that the Falcons have done so well, and are going to the playoffs I'm a bit apprehensive of the teams we will/could be facing in order to go all the way.  It can get pretty dirty at this point in the season.  I don't know if I can watch or not!  Next weekend will include the Falcons-Seattle game on Saturday and then hopefully [weather not being an issue] we'll make a trip to Clemson to see Andrew on Sunday.  It was so hot in August when he moved up there we really couldn't walk around campus, so we're hoping to see a bit more this time.  It'll be another long weekend that I hope will be filled with more knitting and sewing-we'll see.  Hope everyone that got tons of snow are able to return to normal and at least got to throw a snow ball or two!