The running has been continuing on. I’m up to 30 minute stretches. It’s been on the treadmill as of late because of the snow outside.  The walks actually are pretty clear, but it’s been a little chilly on scheduled run days. Go figure. Yesterday wasn’t a bad weather day and I walked with John to the post office to mail something (about 3 miles round trip).  I was playing Pokemon and look what I got!

Pikachu is wearing a santa hat, how cute!  I guess he is Santachu? As soon as I got home, I had to send this picture to my niece who loves Pokemon.

I’ve been on a roll with the football picks for a while. I don’t know how many weeks in a row I have won now. Maybe 5?  Anyway, it was back down to Saratoga for my dinner choice  to try again to go to BurgerFi.  This is a new addition to downtown.  It is a casual burger place along the lines of Five Guys, but maybe a bit more upscale.

Counter service. I got a single burger and John tried the veggie burger:

We split an order of fries because it was huge.  Doesn’t John’s veggie burger look more appealing?

My bun was branded!

It actually was a decent burger. The fries, however, were soooo good! Fresh cut fries. Yummers.

After showing my dinner, I will say that my weight has been pretty much the same all fall. Up and down about a pound, which is great. Of course, we haven’t hit prime cookie time yet. That would be next week LOL!  I’ll probably up the exercise a smidge to help counterbalance.

I actually had some time the other day to do a little playing. I’m working on some new products for the soap line.  This is a cream soap:

It’s so light and fluffy!  It looks very much like marshmallow fluff. It’s a cooked soap, which I’ve never done before. I still have a lot of tweaking and adjusting to do to  the recipe, but I now know the technique. In a couple weeks I’ll have more time to work on this stuff. I can’t wait to leave my job!

Whew!! The last show of the year finished this weekend. Yay!

This was the Shirt Factory open house. I know I’ve talked about the Shirt Factory before. It’s a great piece of local history. Way back in “the day” the factory employed hundreds of women sewing not just shirts, but other types of fashion clothes.  Here is a mural picture that was behind my spot this weekend.

Back when stuff was all made by hand. There were many jobs for women here.

Now the building houses artists and small businesses.  This one is relatively new, Victoria’s Corner.  The do the things I love like upcycling and painting furniture.

They sell chalk paint there and do classes as well.

This year there was a large gingerbread house created and on display in one of the shops:

When you walked into this room – it smelled so good!  I loves me some gingerbread.

All my soaps in a row:

Right after I took this picture and looked at it, I went over and straightened out all the bars evenly LOL!  Not that the straightening lasted long once people started picking them up, but it was momentarily aligned.

It was a good show. Best sellers were Sea Mist, Frankincense & Myrrh, Lavender. I did better this year than last year, which is always nice!  I have to say I was so ready to be done with the shows.  It was a *lot* of work this fall.

After getting packed up and done, we swung over to Moe’s for a quick dinner.  You know how when you see a commercial for a food and then get the actual meal, they never look as good as pictured? Well, this time Moe’s plated up the food great!  This was John’s smothered burrito (veggie)

Nice job Moe’s!!

We are settled in now as all that snow has been working its way east and is now falling here.

The forecast is for 3-6 inches, but who knows how much will come. Some schools have closed already for tomorrow. Time to get the shovels ready!

Wednesday is bagel day!  Gripe time: We went to our usual Wednesday spot, but they have been annoying me lately.  First, they stopped putting out milk for coffee – only cream. John and I don’t drink cream. We like milk,so then we have to ask for them to get milk out for us, which is a pain. Nothing like serving yourself milk from a gallon jug into your coffee cup.  And then I had 2 cups of coffee today with grounds in them. This is a premium coffee shop, too, that roasts it’s own. That shouldn’t be happening.  And a few other things that kind of add to that. I do so love their bagels, though.

So we might be going elsewhere for a while until I move them off my “list”.

I have started running again (or jogging). I know, I know – I keep saying I’m done. LOL I decided to try to train again, but doing it differently by starting to train at the end of bike season when my legs are in great shape and not late in winter when I’m bored. And, I’m keeping a slower pace. Or maybe a varying pace. With biking, I’m not going the same speed all the time, so why should my jogging be that way?

So I started the C25K program again and am in the middle of week 7, which is the 25 minute run segments and I’m doing okay! Dropping some weight earlier this year probably helped as well. My left leg feels fatigued the next day and the skin over my knee gets a little numb after the run, but I can deal with that… for now at any rate.  It’s at least a good change up from riding the trainer inside. I can run outside as long as it isn’t snowy or bitter cold.  I do have to say it’s kind of boring to me. It always has been. It’s not as fun as biking, but cross training is important.  I have had this bug to do another duathlon for years, but I couldn’t get the run going again consistently after hurting my back. Now that 5 years or so have passed since then, things are what they are.  It actually feels good to be doing it again.

Here is a picture of our lights so far this year:

Of course, you can’t see the little tree very well way on the right. And you can’t see our christmas tree in the window. I need to take a picture from across the street.  We are adding a little bit more lights each year as budget permits. I would love to have lights all around the roof and that – but there is no way we can get up there. We did buy a projection snowflake light to shine  on the upper story, but then it broke when we plugged it in, so that had to get returned. We might do lights on the inside of the 2nd story windows, though.

We have a brick house, which can make attaching things difficult, but John found a product called brick clips:

Aren’t these cool? No damage to the house and you can put them wherever to attach stuff. Plus they are removable. The only problem is that since the bricks in our house were hand made, they vary in size a bit, so finding just the right spot takes some maneuvering. Normal brick houses wouldn’t have that trouble, though. I have some that I’ve been using for my climbing roses and we used them for patio lights out back. You can get them online and also at Joann Fabrics, of all places.

What a quick weekend. Saturday was trying to relax a little and Sunday was another show. It was very close to home and was decent, so that was good. One more to go.

On Saturday, the tree project was completed. John stapled a light string on the back after I had put some spar varethane on it for outdoor use.

I love how it came out and happy I actually got a project done LOL!  It’s about 4 feet tall. Now it’s outside with our other lights and I’m happy 😀

Regarding the title of the post, I put in official resignation notice at my job. My last day will be at the end of the month and I am leaving the MT field all together.  It’s no secret the company that I work for is not very organized and has caused me much frustration over the past 6 years. I worked very hard for them and the disappointing thing is, only one person commented on my notice – one of my direct account managers – to ask me to stay on part time. Uhmm…No. The office manager (who I deal with the most) and the owner didn’t respond at all when I turned in my notice. I gave them a month’s notice so they would have plenty of time to get my accounts covered, but after that, it’s not my problem.

What I will be doing is transitioning full time into the supply business John has been running and we’ve had for over 15 years..I had stepped away from it for a while, but it’s time to get back to it.  2017 will be an interesting year. In more ways that one, too.

Someone who doesn’t care about all this? Ms. Pixie. As long as she has a lap, she’s happy.

Although I am leaned over on my hip here and she couldn’t quite get on, so maybe not so happy LOL!

I’ve been on a roll with my football picks lately after a pretty lame start to the year. For my winning dinner, I wanted to go to downtown Saratoga.  As we got close, the traffic was really backed up and we took a side route around and then figured out what was going on. It was the Victorian stroll where the downtown is blocked off to traffic and bunches of people gather. We went to it one year, but the crowds!  So, it was plan B, which was driving in the opposite direction LOL.  I saw a sign for a new restaurant called BWP and made a snap decision to go there.

Turns out BWP stands for Beer, Wine and Pizza!  It wasn’t crowded (since everyone was downtown).  The service was very friendly and the place was quite nice.  I decided on a hamburger. The Bleu burger:

Yum!!  It had bacon on it and a bleu cheese dressing of some kind. I definitely would come back here.  Maybe after I win this week’s picks, too.

I did some shopping at the mall. It was during the day, so not crowded.  Check these out:

I swear, we might have to host an ugly sweater party 😀

Then I stumbled on this:

All of this stuff – every single piece — is for the eyebrows.  ????  Are eyebrows such a thing? I will admit that I am au naturale with mine. No plucking, no penciling. Nothing.  Maybe that’s a good thing because how do you afford all this stuff just for eyebrows?

It’s getting a little cold for our traditional Friday night beer walks. We are thinking of turning them into Film Noir nights with the fireplace going — and maybe some nog. Speaking of the fireplace, John decorated the mantle:

I only moved one thing 😀  (The red vase).  The mirror is always there, not just for Christmas. Don’t you love Pixie’s tiny stocking? I’ll probably just roll up some paper balls and put them in there since that is her favorite toy. That or twist ties.

I have a show this Sunday to do. In the home stretch now! At least it’s only 2 miles from home.  Have a great weekend!

WeT are having a bit of warm weather here. November is ending warmer than it started, I think. We’ve had rain and lots of fog.  This was on our walk to breakfast today

It was pretty misty all day, too.

This was said breakfast.

I know I haven’t shown Bagel Wednesday in a while!  Yummy.

Wednesdays are my weight check-in day. Doing good at maintaining, even after Turkey Day! Gotta keep it up.

We’ve gotten a lot of decorating done. The tree is up:

I really like this tree a lot. I’m glad we finally got a new one. It’s pre-lit with the white bulbs, which is nice. Pixie doesn’t bother the tree much; however, she does like to chew on the Velcro on the tree skirt. I don’t really know why. She is a strange cat.

Speaking of strange cats – Here is a holiday Simon’s Cat video. This is Pixie to a T with catnip!

Especially the rolling around on the floor 😀

We had a very nice Thanksgiving. As per tradition, the day was spent at my sister’s house.  As usual, the table was full of food!  John made a spinach and gruyere quiche for the vegetarian entree:

Cheers!

That’s a cranberry gingerale.

Yummy plate:

The green veggie is shredded brussel sprouts sauteed with dried cranberries and pecans. Yum!  Note how my food doesn’t touch. Except for the stuffing and turkey. Those are okay touching 😀

After dinner, we went out for a chilly walk with a couple of the doggies:

.

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The pond:

It was kind of icky out. Time to get back inside for desserts and games! The nieces made these beautiful apple pie rosettes:

A couple different pies and pumpkin roll:

Then games. One of them was Mexican train:

Love games! We always manage to laugh and laugh, no matter what we play.

On Saturday, I had another show. This was the Saratoga Holiday Marketplace and benefitted the Saratoga Cener for the Family, which is an organization that gives help to abused children and also family help for children with behavioral or learning challenges. So, a very good cause. The show was great, too! It was the best show of the year so far (and likely not to be beat).  I sold out of oatmeal and honeysuckle – honeysuckle gone for the year now.  My inventory for the next 2 shows is a little lean, but I think I’ll be okay.

While I was at the show, John put up the outside lights and our tree inside for decorating on Sunday.  It was nice to have a day just to myself to do whatever and I finally got down to do a project I have been wanting to do, which was make some outdoor decorations. I tried to break down a couple pallets, but the wood is wet from being outside and I couldn’t get the pieces apart without damaging them. So, I decided to rummage through our scrap wood pile and found some pieces that would do.

I marked out a tree shape and then got out the table saw. I really hate using this tool because it’s scary, but it did the trick.

Time to assemble with some screws:

I had a sample pot of paint  and went to work.

Isn’t it cute?  I am going to spray it with poly, put some lights on it and it will be ready to go outside. Nothing like cheap projects!

Today was my volunteer shift at the Chapman Museum. This was supposed to be my slow week, which is why I scheduled my shift, but the week really didn’t start that way. However, after a late night working yesterday and working at 6 a.m. this morning, it’s finally caught up. Now I can relax a little for the holiday, which I could use big time.

Anyway, at the museum it was time to make it a little festive.  When I arrived, the director brought a bunch of boxes in and said to have at it with decorating the shop and reception area.  I had a box of greenery, a bunch of stems and picks, a big box of ornaments and a couple of small trees to work with.

Small tree:

A couple table setups:

I hope no one needs to move any of these because they will fall apart LOL.

It’s a good start and there is a lot of stuff left for someone else to work with.

Some of the other volunteers had already done the house itself earlier today. It’s very simple decorating.

The piano in the library:

There is a small tabletop tree, which I tried to get a picture of, but the lighting was bad.

Here is the mantle in the parlor:

Isn’t that gorgeous?  The great thing about the Chapman Museum is that you can take all the pictures you want.

And speaking of the parlor, I covet this chair very much:

It’s a Belter style piece, very rococco. This was owned by the lady of the house. Note how the chair seat is lower to the floor so that when women sat in down, their skirts could be draped so their ankles wouldn’t show.

I’ll be on a blog hiatus for a few days, so I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Not too much to say about the weekend as I was busy selling. I had a 3-day show which wrapped up today.  This was the same promoter and venue as the one I did in September. That show wasn’t so good. This one was much better, but not worth doing again. Those 3-day shows are a bit much, especially with my regular job.

It’s a lot of talking with people, too. When you are an introvert – that’s the hardest part LOL. I do fine at it, but it’s exhausting. There was snow today, so attendance was lower, but at least it didn’t affect my drive on the way home.

Popular scents this show:  Sea Mist, Plumeria, Honey and Spice. I sold out of those on Saturday and brought more in for Sunday.  And all but one of the Pine potpourri, likely because of the approaching holiday season. Remember to shop small Thanksgiving weekend!

I got into my jammies at 7:00 and now it’s relaxing for the evening and some football!  I look forward to a shorter work week, that’s for sure.