Charlie made me a plain chocolate cake and I got a few things online and in stores. An "Indian" (Native American) blanket that's black, gray/dirty white, and green (my favorite color), a Loki helmet pin, gold chrome Loki Funko Pop, Loki Pez dispenser, Lara Croft Funko Pop key chain, Drogon (a dragon from Game of Thrones) Funko Pop key chain, and a Samwise Gamgee Funko Pop.
For Kelly's birthday, we had Oreo ice cream cake and took her shopping. I don't remember what all she got. A couple Pops, a green and gray striped sweater (Slytherin house from Harry Potter), a game I think, and probably a few other things.
Charlie's birthday was the 21st. I made him one of his favorite meals (fried pork chops with creole seasoning, macaroni and tomatoes, fried potatoes - he made those because he cooks them a different way than I normally do, and corn) and made him his favorite kind of cake - yellow with chocolate frosting.
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We went to the park three times last month. We've gotten rain every week since the first of September and knew there would probably be mud. The first time actually wasn't bad. That was on my birthday. The weather was pretty and warm and I really wanted to go. My mom and Kelly were with me. The first two trips were to the Heritage Trail at Company Mill Preserve.
The second time we went was three days after my birthday (two days after Kelly's). Me, Kelly and Milo.
Deer tracks.
The third time, Kelly and I went to Hagan-Stone on Valentine's Day. It was cold (around 40° with a breeze) and the trails were very muddy. We did our best to walk around the mud, or where we couldn't go around (usually because of thorns), we tried to pick the least muddy looking parts to walk through. At one point, my shoes nearly got sucked off my feet. lol
I wouldn't normally go walking in the park when it's cold or muddy, let alone both, but I really wanted to get out of the house and be in the woods. It took a bit for me to warm up (I thought I was going to freeze for a bit at first), but I finally did and we enjoyed our time walking the trails, despite the mud. It's not unusual to see trees lying around in the woods here and there at Hagan-Stone, but we saw many more than we normally see.
You have to walk off trail and through the woods a bit to get to this field. It's not far off trail. You can see the field from the trail.
These old barns are across from one of the playgrounds at Hagan-Stone.
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Sometime last month, we decided to get rid of cable and we switched to Sling. We still have Spectrum for internet. We were paying about $225 for cable and internet until I called them a couple months ago and they lowered it to just under $200. That was still more than we wanted to pay, so we dropped cable. We now pay about $70 for Sling and $70 for internet. We don't get local channels with Sling, so we bought an antenna for that.
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It's still slow going with three of the books I'm reading. I started Unfinished Tales by J. R. R. Tolkien on June 28th, Seven Stones to Stand or Fall by Diana Gabaldon on July 4th, and Song of the Lark by Willa Cather on January 1st.
I only made it to page 36 in the Tolkien book. I really need to get back to it, but Tolkien's not always an easy read.
I made it more than halfway through the Gabaldon book (novellas) before it got kind of boring. But since I'm 76% through it (according to GoodReads), I'm going to keep going. Hopefully the next story in the book is more interesting than the one I'm reading now (A Fugitive Green).
The Cather book just isn't all that interesting. O Pioneers! was really good and I thought this one would hold my interest just as much, but it just hasn't. I'm about halfway through it though and I will continue reading it, however slowly. lol
I started reading Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley last week. It's available free online at UNC Chapel Hill's website. So far it's more interesting than the other books I'm reading, but I'm only a few chapters in.
So the past few months of reading have been a struggle. I can't believe I haven't finished any books yet this year. lol
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~*~Nocturnal Queen~*~
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