For Sale

I'm not big on change. I mean intellectually I think change is an interesting and necessary concept, but in reality my brain fights it tooth and nail. Intellectually I know, when it actually happens and becomes normal, it is frequently a good thing, but my knee jerk reaction is usually horror, skepticism, and negativity.

So, this week when a for sale sign appeared on the lot across the street from my house, I was quite concerned.

Tempting in all it's blackberry splendor.

Automatically, my brain considered the annoyance of dealing with month and months and months of construction ending with some cookie cutter suburban house painted a bad shade of blah.

Blah

Same story, different house.

But, when I said something to a friend, her reaction was, Oh, it will be a cool modern house.   

Love this house!

This one is just a block away, a little square, but kind of cool.

This house is actually an addition to an old house and it pretty bad ass.

I went on a new house tour of the neighborhood and I'd say the boring, too big suburban house is probably winning over the cool modern houses. But, perhaps 2012 is time to be glass half full gal and assume it will be good. There is the very happy thought that someone will finally remove those damn blackberry vines that I have been trying on my own to keep from taking over the road. And that's something!

And, of course, I have absolutely no control either way. Unless you, my dear reader, wants to snap it up and build that cool modern house I will enjoy seeing every day!

Daisy's yearly blog post.

What?  It's about me?

Okay, can I get a collective Woop Woop from the blogisphere. This blog WILL NOT be about food or weightlifting or any self improvement projects.  Instead, I think it's time for an other Daisy blog. That's it, 'Woop Woop' from all you cat lovers.

I have mentioned before that poor Daisy is frequently overlooked and under appreciated.  Well, today I was at the pet food store (buying bones for Otto, of course) and decided Daisy needed some toys. I went with a feather theme, those always seem popular. Plus, when I get the rodent like ones, Otto eats them.

Faux birds. 

Well, they were quite a hit! Please enjoy the following insanely cute photos!

Too cool for school, Daisy doing the cat thing, ie pretending she cares
nothing for/doesn't see/doesn't want to kill her new toy.

Coming at it from the back, good strategy Daisy!

I don't think it can see me!  (The lovely white thing on the table leg is paper
so this sweet cat doesn't scratch the hell out of my table.)

Sporty Spice!

Come on everyone, you know you're thinking it...... "CUTE"!

Ha! Got it!

Yes, these next three...

Are almost exactly the same....

...But OMG, how could I resist!

Pretty Fat!

I am sure everyone but me is bored of this topic, but I finally got around to crock potting my pork leaf and made myself some lard........

I think it's mighty pretty!  And my morning eggs are excited too!

Baby got back!

Back squats, that is.

I do not back squat on plastic balls.

A month or so ago I blogged about new exercise adventure, weight lifting. For 5.5 weeks now I've been doing nothing but lifting heavy weights. And so far, that has involved A LOT of squatting. Oh, sure, I've done some deadlifting, cleaning, jerking, pressing of various kinds, pulling up and dipping, but mostly I squat. Sometimes three times per week I squat.


Mondays, there is always a three sets of five adventure. Lately, this has been quite an adventure. In fact, this week was enough of a challenge that I spent much of Sunday worrying about it. Enough of an challenge, that by 7.15 am monday morning I felt like I'd accomplished my major feat of the day. Today's 3x5 weight?  87K (191 pounds).  Yes, that is heavy.

Wednesday, if I squat it's usually a fun, light squat - front squats or (my personal favorite) overhead squats.

This is not what I look like when I overhead squat.

 Then Friday is the serious day. I do three sets of 1 or 2 or 3 squats. And they are heavy!  Last friday I did 3 heavy singles at 97k (213 pounds)!!!! 

I do not squat on a chair. 

Overall, I am really enjoying all this lifting. It has been hard and sometimes extremely frustrating, but fun to do something completely different from my past exercising experience. However, I will also mention that 'baby got back squat' =  'baby got back'. As in mine is growing and might not look anything like my previous backside. But, even with a big butt, how cool is it to be nearly 50 and squatting more than some boys!