Sparse sprinkles

How sad to open my Little Debbie brownie at work yesterday to find out it was sorely lacking in the mini colored chocolate sprinkles.

Where are the magazines?

Has anyone else noticed the lack of magazines in their doctors' offices? Does everyone just scroll on their phone while they're waiting so old magazines in doctors' offices are a thing of the past? How am I suppose to catch up on celebrity if there are no People magazines?

Lenten activity

We attended a multigenerational Lenten soup dinner and activity last night at church. The theme was "making room."

The craft for the night was making stained glass windows with tissue paper. I thought for sure Andy was making a mess the way he was cutting up the pieces of tissue paper ...

but his, on the right, turned out really nice. I think I like it better than the one I made.

Hey, that's us. A picture my friend M, who organized and ran the event, took.

Annual golf trip

Andy and the boys were in Arizona (Scottsdale maybe) for their annual golf trip. They're in a seven-bedroom rental so everyone got their own room. This master bedroom was Andy's, I suppose because he makes all of the travel plans.

A few of the guys playing foosball. They left Thursday morning and got back late Sunday, after taking in a Cubs spring training game. They played four rounds of golf.

Saturday's round. Andy made a fashion statement in his new, salmon-colored shorts.

Pretty course.

Andy and I had thrifted some golf-related "awards" and silly certificates. He said the guys got a kick out of them.

Spring training game. I didn't realize they had lawn seats.

Scrappy Saturday

I did the grocery shopping early Saturday morning. Laundry is done. Dishwasher is loaded. With Andy gone, it was either vacuum the living room or get back to working on the Disney 2025 trip scrapbook. Since I found my pens, I guess the logical answer is to scrapbook.

I did finish the album and I didn't even have to add more pages. Maybe I didn't have as many pictures as I thought I did. Anyway, I had to pull out the album from our first trip in March 2008 to compare, The kids are all grown up. Who would of thought L would one day be working there? Certainly not her 5-year-old self.

So close

I realized more than half-way through my workday yesterday that I was wearing two different earrings. Guess I have to put on my glasses to get dressed. At least they were very, very similar. It's not the first time I've gone to work mismatched. When I was pregnant with L I wore one black loafer and one brown loafer and didn't notice it until I was walking to lunch with coworkers. At least I was able to remove the earrings and set them in my purse. I wasn't able to do that with my shoes.

Alexa knows me

I sat down to work on a puzzle and asked Alexa to play some '70s music. Her first choice? Shaun Cassidy's Da Doo Ron Ron! Take me back to junior high school.

Pie puzzle

These large White Mountain puzzles are too big to fit on my puzzle board so I have to try the cover the pieces with paper, blankets, etc., while it's being worked on. The cats love the bigger boxess though. Here's Piper making herself comfortable.

Ruby finds them the perfect size for sleeping.

Done and complete!

This popped up on Facebook. Yes, I'm that old.

Where are my pens

I haven't scrapbooked since Croptoberfest so when I decided to begin our family Disney trip 2025 album, I was motivated. I pulled out the photos, papers and stickers. I cleared off the table. And then, I couldn't find my pens. Not one. Yikes. I looked in all of the bags I took to the crop, checked the cabinets, the bags I didn't take, the basement closet and finally - on my second time looking in my paper holder - found them hiding in a corner in their cute pink case. Phew.

I didn't get much accomplished. This was getting to our room on the first day.

Pretty poses

Piper

and Ruby

So many collections

Always makes me a little sad to see collections at the thrift store. First, I noticed these bells ...

then this collection of angels ...

and then snow globes. Hope they weren't all from a single donation.

Cuddling cats

Well, this is just adorable, but wait. Piper isn't alone ...

she's being cuddled by Ruby. Look at Ruby's paw resting in Piper's tail. Aww.

Cute caricature

L was working at Pop Century the other day and the caricature artist drew L's pets from photos she had. What a nice job! L said she thinks she'll get it framed.

Coffee label puzzle

Uh oh. All of these edge pieces looked very similar so I had to use B's strategy and work from the inside out on this one.

This was such a fun puzzle (and complete)! It was a good idea to do the inside first as the border was hard even with the inside finished.

Such cute graphics and one of the highest-quality puzzles I've found.

I've had coffee in New York and Seattle ... and Hawaii and Costa Rica. OK, I've had coffee everywhere I've traveled. It would be hard to wake up without it.

This ebay seller might be overly optimistic trying to get $78 for this puzzle I paid $1.99 for at Goodwill. I've never seen one from this company before - Anderson Design Group - but I'll keep my eye out for them from now on.

Sphere merch

Less than a week after we saw the Zac Brown Band at the Vegas Sphere, their website on Jan. 23 started advertising a mystery merch bundle - three shirts (their choice) for $65 - which immediately felt like a much better deal than anything we saw in Vegas. I didn’t pay that much attention to prices at the show, but once I saw T-shirts were $50, I knew I wasn’t buying anything. (Later I read hoodies were $85, which made me feel even better about that decision.) But three shirts for $65? Suddenly I'm very interested. Andy and I can both wear them, so it feels like a win all around.

We finally got an email Feb. 15 telling us a shipping label had been created. We were getting a bit concerned whether we'd ever receive the shirts.

Good thing I was running a bit late for work yesterday. This box was delivered and left outside on the porch so at least I was home and able to bring it inside.

Nice, kind of thin, sweatshirt.

This is my favorite, but it has the concert dates on the back, including Andy's birthday, so he'll probably fight me for this one.

This one is pretty nice too. I was tempted to buy the black one in Vegas but the T-shirt shop was closed after the concert (it was the last performance) so it worked out well that we randomly got it in this order.

Free cat tree

One of our neighbors set out a table of free stuff so we drove by and found a like-new cat tree. Our cats either like it or they're trying to tear it apart. We shall see.

It’s Paczki Day

I'm not one to wait in line at a bakery for paczki but if see them in the grocery store I might pick them up. I got these at Mariano's and they're fresh and tasty. Happy Fat Tuesday!

Family Bingo with friends

Andy and I met our friends, M and R, at One Lake Brewing Sunday afternoon for their Family Bingo. Here's my winning board and my prize - a small draft of the beer of my choice. Everyone at our table won a game, except Andy.

We ordered wings which ended up being our dinner since we talked for at least an hour after Bingo ended. We even saw one of our neighbor couples there. It was a fun night.

Hop Butcher Brewery

Andy and I dropped off some food for B on Saturday and Andy wasn't feeling well so B declined lunch with us. We did make a quick stop at a Ravenswood brewery, Hop Butcher for the World, a play on Chicago's Hog Butcher for the World nickname, on our way home.

They had a menu full of IPAs, which we both like, so that was good. Andy likes them hazy. Me, not so much.

Interesting that one of the beers was called Blizzard of '67. Andy was born during the blizzard but that wasn't enough to make him try it. He opted for a Super Beer Shuffle instead.

Cute bar, but chilly. Temps were just over 40 and while that's warm for Fabruary in Chicago, it doesn't mean you need to open the garage doors.

We think alike

We don't really celebrate Valentine's Day aside from a dinner out but we usually get each other cards. Funny, this year we gave each other cards with moveable glitter on the front of them. We've been together so long we think alike.

Family photo

I printed a few more pictures from E's wedding and found a nice "family" frame for this one. It's everyone from E's side of the wedding who attended the ceremony.