Did you know that’s a word?  Mashup.  I had to get a graduate degree in information to find that out.  And I’m still only vaguely sure what it means.  So for the purposes of today’s post, class, we will define it as a bunch of unrelated topics mashed into one post.

First up are technological problems.  There was the blog issue where it suddenly one evening stopped behaving in the way I’ve become accustomed.  Even with the graduate degree in information I have a phobia about technology.  And when things don’t work the same way they’ve worked before I get a little weirded out.

I’m trying to be better.  I really am.  And braver about clicking away at different things in an attempt to fix stuff without making other stuff worse.  But it’s still uncomfortable for me to do that.  And during the past two weeks we’ve been having cable issues here at the house as well.  Intermittent outages, little blackouts, for a few seconds, or hours.  So the odds of having internet work when I needed it were low.  The combination of blog problems, work problems and internet connection problems was, at times, overwhelming.

So I did what any good person does when technology lets her down.  I made soup.

I haven’t made this recipe before.  It’s the Weight Watcher version of potato soup.  I make another potato soup full of Velvetta cheese and bacon that is purely heaven but hardly healthy.  This one is full of onions and leeks, and though I’ve only tasted a bit of it as I cleaned up the pan, I think it just might be a different version of heaven.

And after the soup was made and put away Katie and I went for our weekly adventure. I’ve been wanting to take her on longer car rides.   I’m hoping to get her used to trips of greater and greater lengths so that we can explore further afield on weekends this summer.

So with high hopes, and virtually no planning, I loaded her up and off we went.  I got approximately 1/2 a mile down the road when she started complaining.  Loudly.  Seems I forgot to do the potty break prior to the loading of the sheltie.

So we stopped at her favorite local park.  I figured she’d do her thing like she always does, as soon as she’s out of the car, then we’d continue on our way.  But no.  We had to EXPLORE first.  Did I tell you it was cold yesterday?  We had blue skies and sunshine, but the temperature was in the high teens.

Yes it was very very cold.

Eventually she got her jobs done and I started back to the car.  She was like “WHAT?!  We haven’t done much of anything and this is MY FAVORITE PARK MOM!!!!”

But we headed off to MY favorite park, about 40 minutes away anyway.  Because I had the car keys and she doesn’t even have her learners permit to drive yet.

Once at my favorite park we headed out to the end of a point of land that extends into a big inland lake.  It’s a picnic area when times are warmer, but during winter it’s just a part of the park with no cars going by and no runners and nobody on bikes.  And it’s down a long hill so it’s sort of out of the wind.  Did I mention it was COLD out?

There are some big old hickory trees out there with the most beautiful bark.

There are lots of beautiful places to look at the lake and enjoy the sunshine.  It was almost totally frozen over with a smooth sheet of ice that reflected the blue sky.

We saw a pair of swans who were doing synchronized swimming just for us.

We had fun walking around and pretending it was summer.  Which it clearly wasn’t.

Then I had to go to the bathroom, so I loaded up the sheltie again and off we drove in search of an open restroom.   Once I got to one I debated leaving Katie in the car.  But I never do that..so she and I walked across a playground to the bathroom building.  Katie didn’t want to go in the big scary building.  But she did.  And she certainly didn’t want to go into the stall, even though I used the handicapped stall so she’s have more space to freak out in.  But she did.  And she was not OK with the fact that the toilet paper holder thingy squeaked.  A lot.  But she held her own and only tried to get under the wall to the other stall once.  But the flushing thing?  In a big empty concrete building with all it’s echos?  Oh boy.  That’s why she was on a leash.  Picture it, crazed sheltie, all four feet going, head down, pulling wildly on the leash and Mama just trying to get her coat back on.  Good thing we were alone.

So after the bathroom adventure we came home.  She was pretty quiet on the 40 minute trip home.  I guess she figured if she stayed quiet she wouldn’t have to go into any more scary places.

And for our third and final mashed up topic, husband and I went to see “The King’s Speech” last night because the TV and internet were down again, and we’d read all the hard copy magazines and newspapers we had in the house.  Technology let us down, so we had an old fashioned date night.  Not such a bad thing.  The movie is wonderful and deserves all the praise and awards that it has received.

When I got home the internet was back up, so I looked up more information about King George VI, his brother, Lionel his speech therapist and Wallace Simpson.  I guess I have a love/hate relationship with the internet.

Class dismissed.