Chop Chop and Other Random Thoughts

After all of my recent baking and the non-stop eating, I decided I need to hop back on the Weight Watcher's wagon. Yes, it's true, I do come to this realization at least once a week, if not more often. Regardless, this time the realization caused me to cook, or at least prepare to cook. One of my co-workers re-dedicated herself to WW last week (she calls it food rehab) and had printed out the recipe for the zero point soup, which I found on the printer. This inspired me, and today I chopped up a ton of veggies and threw them in the crockpot, which I'll leave on low all day tomorrow so I can come home to a nice hot dinner. I did change up the recipe a bit, since I used chicken broth instead of veggie broth, left out the sweet red bell pepper (there is no way I am paying $2.50 for a single pepper - what are these things grown in? Pure gold soil? Crazy.) and the swiss chard. I also finally found a use for that sugar pumpkin I bought weeks ago. I peeled, seeded and chopped that puppy up and threw half of it in the crockpot, too. (I roasted the other half and ate with some butter and brown sugar for dinner.) I hope it turns out okay, but am a little worried that I overfilled the crock... I guess I will find out when I get home, based on how much soup ended up on my counter...

During the chopping session, and pumpkin peeling (what a pain!), I discovered that I must not do enough cooking anymore. Why? Because I ended up with a blister on my pointer finger, right where I was holding the knife. Of course, I just might need better knives. Any suggestions?

Now to randomly change the subject...

I believe that the horde of 2-3 year olds at my friends' party yesterday must have worn me out. I believe there were around 17 little munchkins running around during the party. I don't know where they get their energy, but I swear I got tired just watching them go! And to prove it, when I set my alarm last night I accidently set it for PM. I haven't done that in years! I knew there was a problem when I woke up this morning feeling awake. Luckily, my new boss was really cool about it and didn't give me any grief (I gave myself enough). I also found that I had left a candle burning all night. I haven't done that in ages, either.

As I mentioned, I went to Kristin's party yesterday. I helped her out with some of the planning and stayed afterwards to help out a bit with the cleanup. After the party, I reached up to scratch my head and noticed that I had 3 brightly colored spider rings in my hair (probably what caused the itch in the first place). The spider rings brought back fond memories of my maternal grandmother (which is why they ended up in my hair after I picked them up off of the rug in the first place). Grandma used to cover the screen door on her porch with those artificial spiderwebs and place a bunch of the plastic spiders throughout her blonde hair. The neighbor kids called her the spider lady (only at Halloween, mind you. She didn't do this daily.) My family always had a great time when we visited my grandparents on the night before Halloween, which is when their town trick-or-treated. They called it beggars night, I think. Then we'd go out again in our own neighborhood on the day of Halloween. All of us, except probably my grandfather (usually in the living room watching baseball) got pretty deeply into the spirit of Halloween, and I wonder sometimes if that's why I still enjoy the holiday so much. And the reason why the spider rings always make me smile. I miss you Grandma! (And Grandpa, too, but I can't imagine him with a spider ring in his hair.)

My favorite photo of the spider lady and her husband - 1945