♥♥Happy New Year =)

Well it has been a busy weekend, and it's not even Saturday yet!  ^^
I don't know how my life gets this busy.  I don't even know who I'm writing this to...  But I wanted to wish a Good New Year to anyone and everyone reading.
Things are going well here.  Our holiday cooking is not over yet - and for some reason I feel like it should be.  I've ALMOST perfected (actually achieved 'adequate') this chile recipe my friend taught me.  I'm on my 5th try or so making this chile sauce.  It's not hard - but I'm not hispanic and I consider that a handicap when it comes to cooking anything..  =D
I'm slowly getting better.  Get rid of the stale seasoning in the cupboard could help.
I added a pinch more chicken bouillon to some sauce this afternoon and totally ruined it.  That's what happens from using 3 year old stale opened bouillon seasoning.
Ah, I have so much to learn, and all the time in the world.

So I am looking forward to fooling around with shrimp and chile this weekend.  I've tried to photograph some previous attempts (successes).  I've discovered lately that homemade refried beans aren't photogenic --no matter how good they may taste.  A picture just doesn't convey that at all...  what a shame.  And here if you wanna look anyway  ^^
[sorry.  I will post these pictures later  ;)  ]

The other thing I wanted to say is that this year I have tried oh so hard (really really hard) to be more rational.  I think I have made some progress here.  I'm not sure I need to make MORE progress (but maybe I do).  I do think I'll have to maybe work at staying as rational as I've been this year, at any rate. 
And the one thing I think I learned is that nothing really bad ever happened from my behaving rationally and from my ignoring my irrational gut feelings.  I sure had some that I worked hard against.  In fact I have more that I'm struggling with at the end of the year.  Which of three journals should I write in?  The on that has only two blank pages left?  (rational part of me says "heck ya, baby.  What are you even considering writing in a different book at this point?!)  Irrational me is saying "no - you should write every other entry in a different notebook (for really no rational reason at all).  And it's REALLY hard to behave rationally on this particular decision.  Is that insane?  On the one hand it doesn't matter.  On the other hand, what could possibly go horribly awry if I choose a rational path here? 

Anyway - I learned that nothing bad ever happened from choosing rationally.  Even when I had horrible feelings about impending and inevitable doom re: my decisions, still nothing negative happened (so far as I know). 

For Next year's project, I can't remember what idea I had in my mind I wanted to work on - but I know I had one...  Perhaps I'll work on trying to exercise regularly (albeit very moderately / beginnerishly).
Will keep you posted.  Maybe I'll just try to cook lots of food this year and eat out less often. 
I'll come up with something I'm sure.  =)
Until then.  Goodnight, best wishes, take care, and if I don't ever write - know that I think about all of you fairly regularly and often positively  ;D
hehe
well - always positively.

^^
Bring On 2012 ♥♥
!

notes (The Coventry Carol)

We are working hard on playing the piano this month.  And I'm pleased to say I was asked to accompany a small group singing a number for one of our parties at church.  Marvelous.
So that's nice.
(There are tons of people enlisted to participate as singers and pianists at said party this year.  I'm singing a spanish song in another group, even, there.)

The super awesome news is as follows:
I arranged my own piece of music (well I really just rolled all the chords the way I think sounds nice).  A friend of mine gave me an idea for what to play as an interlude verse for this song.  So it's all fancy.  I spent lots of hours on this.  And I want to show off.

BTW - this project would probably have been a lot quicker if I had a proper music editor on my computer that I knew how to use.  I'll definitely look into that.
As it is, though, this is all generated in Paint-Shop-Pro.  I copied and pasted each note where I wanted it - deleting whatever was there previously, as needed.  Time consuming  =)
Here is the before and after.

Before:

After:

And finally - though I don't expect that any of my normal readers will wish to use this arrangement - I give permission for anybody to use this who would like to.  I'm not interested in any official credit.  So there ya go.  Guess I should add "Coventry Carol" to the text here so that people may find this post someday by googling that title.

Happy Saturday kiddies
 - H.O.

Thanksgiving Leftovers ;)

So we saved the wishbone from the turkey and gave it to our kids tonight.  Gave 'em the run down of how to play that game of making a wish and then cracking it in two.  Then something happened we'd never seen before.  Our children split the bone in three pieces, the center flying high into the air and both kids being left with roughly equal-sized sticks.  Marvelous.

And we finally put up our tree.  It's in the corner there  ;D