Newsworthy

January seems to be one of our slower months as "blog worthy" events go.  Therefore when it is a slow news month I resort to the tactics of our small town paper-- make whatever normal stuff is happening into something newsworthy.

Breaking Front page: The first actually was a very news worthy event, covered for days in the local paper.  We have lived, and still are living, in the middle of a large construction zone as they are adding onto and building schools all around us.  The new upper elementary school that has popped up in our backyard opened for students last week.  Big doings in town but only affects us in that it blocks our view of the sunset now.

Weather: It was really cold on Sunday morning.  Like 0 degrees cold.  We live one block from church so we usually walk since it is about 4 blocks if you were to drive.  We knew it was going to be cold and I told Arthur it was probably about 25F and we would survive.  It didn't seem to matter that it was a 3 min walk, we were frozen by the time we got there and it took Arthur's glasses a while to defrost.

Society Page: We had a mini Christmas today since our package from Amazon arrived.  In college I used to dread getting Amazon packages this time of year since I knew semester had begun it was usually textbooks.  However we were eagerly waiting for this box.  We used money from Christmas to order the Kansas Trail Guide which is a detail guide of hiking and biking trails throughout Kansas (for me) and new razor blades and shaving soap (for Arthur) for his safety razor.  He scampered off excitedly to finally use his badger hair shaving brush for the first time with the soap.  Nothing beats a clean shave on my husband.

Movie Reviews: Saturday we were hermits and didn't leave the house.  And it was glorious.  I kind of enjoy being a homebody in the winter.  We watched two new documentaries on Netflix which were very good.  The first was The Short Game about the world championships for 7 and 8 year old golfers.  It was intriguing to see how kids who are elite athletes act as well as their parents.  The other was titled Unbranded about a group of guys who train wild mustangs to do a trail ride from Mexico to Canada.  It discusses the importance of public lands and the issues facing maintaining the wild horses at an appropriate level in the Western United States.

Sports: The college football season has officially come to an end which means that another champion's name is engraved on a major trophy.  We participate in a bowl picking contest with my extended family and the winners name is engraved forever in black magic marker on a blue plastic popcorn bowl.  For only the second time in its glorious 10-15 year history I took home the accolades of family champion picking 8 out of 10 games correctly.  (I'm just a little bit proud about this).

Health and Fitness: Arthur continues to train for his ski trip.  A lot of his training has included watching Rocky montages for inspiration.  Jokes aside, he is improving a lot.  His two goals this week were to be able to complete a circuit of activities including holding 3 planks for 1 minute each and holding a wall sit for 2 1/2 minutes.  It's only Tuesday and he has already met both of those goals which seemed impossible when he started his training about 3 weeks ago.

Cooking: I purchased a new kitchen gadget, a George Foreman grill.  We have only used it a few times but I think we will really love it.  Arthur's favorite use so far has been grilling mushrooms on it.  A few nights before we got the grill I made burgers by broiling them.  Arthur was cleaning up the pan and made the following comment, "Cleaning up the mess of greasing and drippings from meat is about enough to make a person a vegetarian".  Since we still have a freezer full of beef we won't be vegetarians any time soon.  However I did make a lentil stew and veggie enchiladas that received good reviews from Arthur.

Human Interest Story:  It has become customary for news sites to give notice of, say, dogs surfing or pigs on skateboards.  While these events have no bearing on actual life, the cuteness factor is so strong that people find edification in these stories.  Several weeks ago, my cute little wife came up to me while I was working on the computer and asked if she could look at a picture of a penguin wearing a scarf.  It might have been the cutest thing I've ever experienced.

As the New York Times says, there is "All the news that's fit to print".  Omnia Vincit Amor.