Light & Lasagna

Hi friends,

I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend.

I had a mostly indoors weekend though I did get out for a short time on Saturday mostly to post mail and pick up some milk.  I also spent a lot of time online pricing and looking for various light bulbs. It seems all of a sudden my hallway lights, oven light, dining room lights and bathroom lights, including a heat lamp bulb, all needed replacing. Most of the bulbs I needed were found at Walmart but they had an even better selection at Canadian Tire.

My oh my, bulbs can certainly be expensive. I haven't had to buy any for awhile because I usually buy ahead and store some but needed to replenish my stock. Personally I've found that even if I buy more expensive bulbs they don't seem to last any longer so I'd rather buy less expensive ones.

About one third of the bulbs purchased.

Now I know energy consumption and conservation are issues and I do take them seriously. I minimize the power usage as best I can. Lights are not kept on very often. Only when necessary. Whether to turn lights off when you leave the room depends very much on the type of light bulb you are using.  If you are interested you can read more about it here.

Also I use the lowest wattage possible especially when a fixture requires more than one bulb. Not only does it consume too much energy to use a higher wattage but the bulbs also throw a lot of heat.  I  buy flood lights for the hallways and for my floor lamps which are LED lights.  I detest the light provided by the flood lights. Even though they are the "right" wattage and lumens, the light they give is so minimal and so cold looking.  To be honest I can barely see in my bedroom hallway.  But I use them anyway because it is actually difficult at times to find just the right bulbs and I will make do with what I have. Maybe there is a different brand that is better but when I've looked in stores these kind of bulbs are usually only made by 2 different manufacturers (GE and NOMA).


It rained heavily but today (Sunday) the sky broke for a bit and I managed to get some lovely sky shots.

The sky looks like there is light behind the clouds.

I made lasagna for dinner.  I'm hungry and look forward to eating since I'm hungry.  I've only ever made lasagna about 3 times in my life as it isn't something I crave very often. I just had it a few days ago as part of a buffet in a restaurant. The lasagna was not good at all. It was so dry and tasteless.  But I didn't go to the restaurant for lasagna, that was just a side thing I decided to try. I was mainly there for the BBQ ribs and salad bar which were delicious. They also had a lot of beautiful desserts but I was so full after salad, soup and main course dishes that I had very little room left for dessert.

Lasagna before baking.

I don't have a recipe to share for the lasagna. I cobbled together a few recipes from on line as I didn't have exactly everything for one particular recipe. There are some simpler recipes that don't call for ricotta or cottage cheese but I wanted cottage cheese in mine.  I also wanted to use some fresh spinach I have since I won't be making salad today. I might just cut up some English cucumber slices and have some grape tomatoes on the side.  I used no boil lasagna noodles though I know some ladies use the regular noodles and they add a bit of water in the pan before the dish goes into the oven.  The water helps the noodles cook. The lasagna was very delicious and there is a lot left over for freezing and future meals.

The finished product.

I tried and failed to get a good macro shot of a slice of lasagna.
I'm not sure why but since I had my eye surgery I find it difficult to get good indoor macro shots.  Maybe it's just the night shots in winter. I'll have to see how things progress.

That lack of clarity in taking photos is the only real change I've noticed since I had lens implants.
Has anyone else experienced this issue?
I am continuing with the Systane Balance and thanks to Eileen I checked into the prices at Walmart.
I'm happy to say the price is much better there and I can get two in one box so that keeps me from running low too quickly.

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The weeks ahead

I've got plans to see friends I haven't seen in a long while, get several doctor and dentist appointments out of the way and hopefully participate in a workshop or two.

If you caught my last post here you'll see I've also got a lot of reading (and I've added more books!), crafting, paperwork and so on. I don't expect I will get a lot of these things done this coming week but I have enough on my plate to keep me busy with fun things in February. Well, mostly fun things. I don't enjoy the paperwork largely related to financial matters.

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The Black Panther, the new Marvel Comics movie is being released on February 16th and my brother and I are looking forward to it.  We don't do so many things together but we do like to go to Marvel Comic movies together. We also like to see Star Wars and Star Trek movies when we can but we also try and take our niece and nephew when it works out. We are all fans of these movies.
I still haven't seen the latest Star Wars movie because I had hoped to see it with my niece.
Then I delayed my travel due to illness. I won't be able to travel soon so I may end up having to see it as a rental. I prefer to see it on the big screen.

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Wishing you an awesome week ahead.

Fresh Snow

Happy February everyone!

 I hope this new month finds you well.

I think I am finally over the bug I've had but am still trying to take it easy.

Last weekend we had another dusting of snow on the mountains.

 I thought it looked very pretty despite the heavy cloud cover.  

We've had a  lot of rain over this winter and it seems few sunny days but if we can have at least a break in the rain and one or two days of sunshine every few weeks I can handle it.

That is part of the price of living on the beautiful west coast and in these days of unpredictable weather you never know what you are going to get.

I love the mountains when they are outlined in snow. I also don't mind the high rise to the right I think it helps me that there are green trees planted at the top. Can you see the bird flying high in the air (you might need to click the photo to enlarge) ?

If you will notice my header doesn't feature the high rise. That's because the header was made 2 years ago and the high rise has gone up over the last year or so. The building development isn't quite finished but it is in the last stages and work is progressing rapidly.
When I first discovered a high rise was going to be on my horizon I wasn't very happy but I'm glad to see my view is still very good. I thank God and I hope it remains this way for awhile now.

I spent some time watching the flock of birds flying and swooping back and forth across the great expanse of sky.

They fly so fast that it is hard to get clear photos.

Very soon the weather will be much warmer and the sun will shine far more often.
In fact on Tuesday this week I felt the change in the air.

Avid gardeners will start preparing their gardens.  I tend not to do much until the month of May no matter my fantasy.  I just can't seem to get things all organized before then.

I'm keeping busy in other ways. I'm ahead in my reading and crochet goals for the year as a result of not being well enough to go out as often. 

Right now I'm taking a break from crochet work.  My eyes have been too dry and strained.
 If interested in what I've made so far you can check out my January posts

here  and here.

Currently I am reading these books but I've slowed down as to how much I read each day due to the eye issues once again.

I read "The Girl on Train". I thought this one was equally good.

Beautiful pictorials. I drool over each one.

About a woman I never heard about until this book. Very interesting.

A very impactful book. It touched my spirit so much.

A classic. It is estimated to take 34 hours to read.

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I went to the eye doctor for my last visit today. The eyes have healed well and completely.
Now I need to work on the dryness. I notice my eyes only respond to drops with lipid based eye drops.
I wore contacts for so many years and in some ways they protected my eyes but in other ways they helped to dry out my eyes.
Before I returned home, I went to buy some Systane Balance and will be using them 4x daily until my eyes are back to health.

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I had a head start on grocery shopping this month.

It helps me start the month off well and manage the budget.

I will be doing some meal (2 weeks at a time) planning this month.
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Has anyone out there seen the movie, The Shape of Water? What did you think of it?
Is anyone out there waiting to see The Black Panther?

I hope you are coping well with winter or summer wherever you live in the world.

Linking up with

Skywatch Friday

Friday Foto Friends

and

Saturday's Critters