Jake and I watched this movie on Thanksgiving Eve. It was a cute stop-motion animated tale. Plus, it had dogs.
My rating: 3/5
i, alex cross
Of all of the James Patterson novels, the Alex Cross series is definitely the best. I feel like the earlier novels are better than the current ones, but I still enjoy them nonetheless.
I’m still on track for reading one book a month this year. Not a very lofty ambition (I used to read multiple novels a week in my younger, and less busy years), but at least I’ve been able to keep up with it.
My rating: 3/5
cooking sundays
What started off a year ago as cooking something special on Sundays, has morphed into an entire day of cooking on most Sundays (time permitting, of course).
I have been working my way through my personal cookbook and have been making things I haven’t made in a long time. In some cases, I rewrite the recipes for how I actually do them. In other cases, I end up removing the recipe from my book. I started off this morning with an Easy Fudge Layer Cake. While delicious, the frosting was very difficult to spread. There are definitely “easier” recipes out there, so I won’t be making this again. But, Jake and I will enjoy eating it while it lasts.
After that, I made some Tex Mex Breakfast Wraps from a food blogger I discovered recently. The wraps served double duty–they were lunch and the remaining wraps were frozen for future breakfasts. I went through the blogger’s site last weekend and there are a lot of delicious-looking recipes that will be making. And, I mean a lot.
And for supper, I have some chicken stock simmering on the stove. The original recipe I had was from Cook’s Illustrated and they are stingy with displaying recipes, but the recipe in the link is very similar. And what to put in the stock? Nothing but my great grandmother’s cheese squares. It’s basically just a cheese and egg mixture in homemade pasta dough. Speaking of which, I better get started on them or we’re never going to eat!
house of cards
This series started off strong, but the final season definitely left something to be desired. While Kevin Spacey’s departure was understandable, the show just didn’t work without him. I feel like if they would have just taken some extra time, they could have come up with a better final season. It was not good. So, my rating is more for the first five seasons. The final one was more like a two, but I’m not going to factor that in.
My rating: 4/5
the dogs
A couple of weeks ago, Buster had a bunch of bumps removed from various parts of his body. He fared well with the surgery, but then appeared to have a small seizure two days after (which probably wasn’t related to the surgery, but still). Something like this happened to him about a year ago, but I wasn’t really sure what it was at the time and since it didn’t happen again, I didn’t mention anything to the vet. But, when it happened the 2nd time, I mentioned the episode and they confirmed my suspicions. We just need to keep an eye on it for now since the frequency is not great.
I took Buster to get his stitches out on the 1st. Esme was not happy about being left alone at the house so she shredded (and ingested part of) an empty plastic milk container that was sitting out. She threw up a bunch of plastic the next day and stuff is still coming out her other end properly, so she’s probably fine at this point. She actually broke through the kitchen gate while we were gone. That girl does not like to be left alone. She’s fine if we leave her with Buster, but the few times we’ve had to take Buster out and leave her behind, she was not happy.
Edit (11/5/2018): She threw up some more plastic this morning, so we’re not out of the woods yet.