Weekly Round Up: Visitors

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, reads, and other odds and ends.  This week Doggo and I hosted visitors, two of whom were invited and one of whom was not, and we laid low to beat the heat.  We've been leaning into early morning and late evening dog walks, with a few outdoor breaks in the yard throughout the day.

Visitors

The Uninvited

One night when Doggo and I made our final outing of the night, we were startled to find someone waiting for us in the track of the sliding door when we returned.

Mr. Toad was still there in the morning, and did not seem to be the least bothered by us.  Luckily Doggo did not take much notice of him, and I was just thankful that this was not one of those times that I was lazy about closing the door all of the way.

Toady eventually moved on to other pastures, but came back to hang out in the door and was gracious enough to pose for this picture.  He left a few days ago and will hopefully stay gone.  I don't live in a particularly rural or swampy setting, so his visit was very much a surprise.

The Invited

I've made quite a few friends in my local Chose FI group (Chose FI is a podcast about financial independence, with a strong focus on community, which led to the forming of local groups).  At our last meetup, the woman sitting next to me made a comment about how she liked to do jigsaw puzzles, but was getting bored with doing them alone.  I knew from our past conversations that she lives close to me.  I also knew from my last visit to Engie's house that puzzle parties are a blast.

You better believe that I pounced on her comment and it just so happened that another woman who lives close to us was within earshot when I asked if she would be interested in coming over for a puzzle party, so it quickly became a three-way conversation.  I offered to host, but warned them that I live with a reactive dog.

The stars aligned!  Both of my friends love but do not have dogs, so honestly I think we could have skipped the puzzle part and they would have still come over.  Doggo was predictably very leery of them at first, but warmed up after treats were offered.  I assumed that she would run off and hide while they were there, but instead she laid down next to the table for the entire night.

Pro tip: if you like jigsaw puzzles, start asking folks to come over and do them with you!  Another pro tip: it's true that I am a puzzle snob and like 1,000 piecers, but the 500 piece puzzle that one of my friends brought was doable in two hours, so it was a much better fit for the evening.  The plans are to continue to meet up for puzzle sessions.

Eats

I've been in a cycle of seeing something tasty looking online, going to the grocery store, cooking it up, and having the end result turn out mediocre at best.  It's not a good use of time and resources.  More and more I've been falling back on the contents of my freezer and making good enough but not particularly bloggable meals.

One fun exception to the rule is that I've been on a peanut noodle kick.  Remember those spring rolls that I made a few weeks ago that I thought would have been better to skip the roll part and just have everything in a bowl?  Well, it turns out that I was not wrong about that.

What we have here is ramen noodles, julienned carrot, sliced red pepper, green onions, Trader Joe's tofu skins, and one batch of the sauce from the spring roll recipe (made with peanut butter instead of almond butter because that's how I roll).  One batch of sauce is good for two bowls.

Workouts

My routine for a while now has been body weight strength/no formal cardio with the understanding that most days I'm getting more than 10,000 steps.  The only problem is that the summer heat necessitated cutting Doggo's walks short, so I was seeing some alarmingly low step days.  I was starting to feel a little cranky so it was time to bring back intentional cardio.  I've started doing 30 minute run/walks three mornings a week.  I still maintain that I will never return to running as a full time fitness gig, but it is nice to have more movement back on the scene.

Watching

Not much.  I'm making my way through season three of The Gilded Age and I'm still in season one of Friends.  Hubs and I are somewhere in season three of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Reading

Let's get into it!  When we last talked about books, I had started State of Terror, and while it was a perfectly fine book, I could tell that it was also very long and I wasn't that invested in the story, so I ended up ditching it.  After that I had no logical "next" book to go to, but predictably it wasn't very long before my dance card was full again.

My next two books were c/o the Missouri trip.  As mentioned, the tour guide of the Missouri State Penitentiary wrote up his memories of working in the prison for 20 years, which is how I came to read Unguarded Moments: Stories of Working Inside the Missouri State Penitentiary by Larry Neal.  I think this is a must read for anyone who has a connection to the prison or who has toured it, but probably has less of an appeal for everyone who has not.

The next book is one that I think everyone reading this has either read or would enjoy reading, regardless of their age.  I don't remember how old I was the first time that I read the Little House books, but I reread them constantly throughout my childhood and a few times as an adult.  As soon as I walked in the door of the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum, I knew that it was time for my next reread.  Since I still own the books I would not have thought of listening to them, but someone else on the tour talked up the audio books and that person was right.  I listened to Little House in the Big Woods on the way home.  It's not like I didn't know this going in, but I continue to be in awe of how good the writing is.  My plan is to listen to approximately one book a month until I finish the series.

Next question: since I'm rereading the books, am I going to watch the new show?  For right now the answer is no, until I hear someone come back with a strong endorsement.  I never saw the original show, my success rate with books turned shows has been pretty low lately, and I have especially sour memories of Anne With An E.

Next up: fresh off my success with Whistler, I started reading Tom Lake by Ann Patchett.  It is...not Whistler, because of course no other book could be.  So far my rating is that it is a solidly OK book that I am content to keep reading.  Stay tuned because my prediction is that the slow story is going to go somewhere.

And finally: a tough but incredible read.  I was not going to read A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides by Gisele Pelicot, but the hype on Sarah's Bookshelves got to me.  I was hooked from the first sentence.  I mean, TBH I didn't need much more persuading after they mentioned that Emma Thompson read the audio.  I'm halfway though and my take so far is that you should probably drop everything and read it, or preferably listen to it.

Spanish Learning Update

Here is what has been going down since the last time I wrote about this.

• I'm still rocking Duolingo.  Ever since I got the paid version I'm able to progress through the lessons much faster since it doesn't kick me out after making five mistakes.  I just started unit 4 of 9, and my goal at this point is to finish the Spanish DL course.
• I've finished two Paul Noble audio books: Learn Spanish with Paul Noble and Next Steps in Spanish with Paul Noble.  I'm taking a breather and then next week I'll start what I believe is his last Spanish book, Spanish Conversation with Paul Noble.  What I like about these books is that I think they give a little bit better of an explanation than the Pimsleur series, but I also feel that the conversations are shorter and the vocabulary is more limited.  My other criticism is that after a certain point, the repetition is Just Too Much.  Both books ended with a lengthy section on numbers.  
• I'm thinking about repeating unit three of Pimsleur.  I was able to keep up with the lessons, but over time it was due more to dumb repetition than from understanding, and I think I might benefit from a refresh now that I know more.
• I found a really good deal on a lifetime membership for Babble.  I like it...OK.  My complaint about Duo and Pimsleur is that they don't give you a lot of explanations, and I feel like Babble goes the opposite direction.  I feel like it has less vocabulary than Duo and very little speaking. However, since I own it, I'm going to keep plugging away at it.
• I've been watching Dreaming Spanish videos on Youtube, and I knew that they had a website but I always assumed that it was a paid membership.  Well, it turns out that there is a free option that is a lot easier to use than scrolling through Youtube.
• I had gotten a book of Spanish short stories with English translations, but found that it's written a bit above my level.  I found another book of short stories on Hoopla (my source for the Paul Noble books) that have stories that are much shorter/much more on my level.

So that's that.

Peace out!  Have you ever had a toad show up on your doorstep, and if so what did you dog think of it?  Ever host a puzzle party?  Who's seen the new Little House TV show?