And our boots ain't muddy

2004-04-26 - 11:18 p.m.

Today's big adventure was making a new dessert. On a whim a few days ago I bought cranberry flavored jell-o at the store. This morning I decided to make it and on the inside of the box there was a recipe for something that sounded pretty good. Plus I did a little checking and found out that each serving is only 2 Weight Watchers points. So when I went to the store again I bought more cranberry jell-o plus the rest of the ingredients and I made it. I'm pleased to say it turned out really well. It had apples and cranberry sauce and cinnamon and cream cheese in it. Yummy.

I went back to step class today for the first time since going to Hawaii. I thought maybe I'd be really out of shape since it had been so long, but really I wasn't. I didn't put any risers under my step and I kept being really clumsy because I'm used to it with risers. I also went to a volleyball open gym tonight. It was pretty fun. There were plenty of people and most of them had a decent amount of talent. I also met a really nice and good-looking guy. That's always a plus, even though I'm sure nothing will come of it.

When I drove into my cul-de-sac this evening after playing volleyball, I found that the street was full of smoke. Lots and lots of smoke. It was coming from a house across the street from mine. I couldn't really see obvious flames, but I thought I saw flickering through the living room window. I went inside and got my mom to come out and look to see if she thought the house was on fire. She couldn't tell either so we got my dad to come out. He ran across the street for a closer look and discovered that the flickering in the window was just a TV. Then I saw a giant flame shoot up over the fence from the house just next door to that one. It turned out those people were having a barbecue. False alarm. All I can say is I wouldn't want to be eating whatever those people were cooking.

This morning I stepped on a giant spider in my bare feet. For those of you who don't know, my closet is in the garage. I was going out there this morning to get something to wear today. It was darkish and I didn't have my glasses on. I didn't see it before I stepped on it. I felt a crunch and then it stuck to my foot and I scraped it off by rubbing it against the ground. I looked down and saw a large black shape. I bent down to have a more in-focus look. It wasn't until my face was only a few inches from it that I realized I was looking at a big twitching, squished spider. It was horrible. Ugh. I'll probably have nightmares tonight.

I mentioned earlier that my dad has an underwater camera that he used in Hawaii. On Friday I picked up the developed pictures from the drugstore. Of the two rolls of film I had developed, there were only a handful of decent shots. For example this one, which I'm going to share with you, in which my dad thought he was aiming right at me. Yes, this is me petting a sea turtle in Hawaii: