Yikes! Look at that price.

Didn't I see those on sale at Payless for $12.99 at the end of the summer?

I bounced up, showered, and arrived ahead of time for the 8:30 yoga class to find it had been cancelled this week. Rats.

There won't be another until 6 a.m. Wednesday. I don't plan to leave my house before 6 a.m. on any morning unless it's burning.

However, a guest teacher is coming into town the weekend of February 6, and is offering five two-hour courses. I think I'll spring for the Absolute Beginners class, Unwind the Spine, and Backbends: Heart Openers. Or may be I'll opt for Hip Openers and Slow Deep Stretches.

Cultivate Strength is for more advanced practitioners.

I Like:

Freestyle Hi
by Reebok Lifestyle

My Reeboks! Oh, I have found you.

My first pair was on sale at Dillard's in Dallas for $38 in 1991. They trod the Great Wall, then wore out sometime in the late '90s, then the style went missing as far as I could see.

What a great city walking shoe it was, and not bad looking (or discreet, at least). I'm thrilled to find them again.

UPDATE: Lyman's son says these look like something that Pat Benatar wore with Spandex minidresses. I did not do that, skinny legs and all.

Yes, I know about the lousy light. And Lyman's sigh of satisfaction when he puts down his coffee cup.

But catching Lucy ringing the bell on tape is harder than you'd think.

One day when Charles was here, he had a chatty visitor, then Lyman's hard-of-hearing (thus loud-talking) parents stopped in, Charlie was whistling and whooping, and Lucy was ringing the bell nonstop for several minutes. It was a circus.

I left the room.

"Loose" for "lose" is the new culprit in sloppy Internet spelling.

Yoga. Yoga. Yoga.

I can't touch my palms to the floor anymore. My weight's the same, but I am stiffening up.

There are at least three programs in Natchez, and I'm starting on one Saturday morning.

This won't do.

Did a little housekeeping in the blogroll. Kim and Paul Palubicki have gone missing. News of the Weird has been incorporated into the Weird Universe site.

Carol Ferensak's home page for NPS was closed down in October when AOL closed all Hometown sites. She'll look for another host when she has free time.

Poor bird.

My brother came by to pick up oxtail stew for tomorrow, and greens and peas for today.

He'd found a serious ding in the doorframe above the driver's side window in his car.

Unless someone walked up and whacked it hard with a small ball-peen hammer, it's a bet that a bullet from one of those New Year's Eve shots into the air hit it.

I doubt that Longfellow would approve. Especially if it hit his car, or lamb.

I picked this recipe off of a Southern Living message board. This is as good a place as any to store it.

Oven Baked Beef Stew

1 Tbsp. oil
2 lb. stew meat, cut in 1½" cubes
1/3 c. flour or 1/4 c. cornstarch
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. marjoram
12 oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
10 oz. beef or vegetable broth
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 cups cube peeled potatoes
1 cup sliced celery
4 medium carrots, sliced
3 small onions, quartered
1/4 tsp. pepper

Preheat oven to 325º. Heat oil in 4 quart Dutch oven over medium. Brown beef cubes in oil. Add flour, salt, garlic powder, marjoram and pepper. Stir in tomatoes, broth and wine; mix well. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Add remaining ingredients, mix well. Cover; bake for 2 hours or until meat is tender, stirring twice during baking.

I usually add fresh green beans during the last hour of baking, and frozen corn if I have it. I love my stew loaded with veggies. -30-

(Thanks, luvmyhunny.)

Happy New Year to you and yours!

To steal a quote from a commenter I read today, "May your burdens be light even if they aren't few."

The black-eyed peas are soaking, and I'll strip the collard greens soon, to have with a platter of hot water cornbread and grilled chicken.

The menu follows southern tradition.

Hoppin John I will not cook. I tried that many years ago and had a miserable year afterward. Leave that to the Carolinians.

When I was growing up in Texas, my mother's menu always included black-eyed peas, cabbage and corn.

Do you have a New Year's tradition?

What a glossy, rich gravy makes from this oxtail recipe.

I'm leaving out the sugar snap peas, and dropping in a handful of frozen English peas. Less sweet.

If the coming year is anything like the last, best to have a sturdy beginning.

Ain't that cool.

The daughter of the boys' friend wheeled up this afternoon on a Triton (with her dad right behind her.) Grandma and Granddad popped for one for each of two cousins.

I want a big one.

I'm listening to Christmas music on AOL.radio where you can pick your genre.

Classical, for now.

Maybe I can find some Cajun music for dinner, which will be fried catfish today. Yes, Lyman's dad is coming and that's his request.

Merry Christmas, y'all.

I have one stuffed animal that was given to me by an aunt when I was hit by a car 49 years ago, and I want no more.

But I've enjoyed looking at the toys from Fiesta, brought to my attention over at Possumblog.

How about this cutie?

I like the owls, too, and the kiwi.

Today, the part from Sears should arrive, which is remarkable since I just ordered on Sunday and asked for standard shipping. I'll call that a gift.

To you, a Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah, or whatever you choose.

In bird news, Lucy has an egg today. When I sing "We wish you a merry Christmas" to Charles Gore, he responds with "oom papa papa papa oom mau." He's never sensed a need for a second "mau."

$12.42 from Sears' online parts.

The front support for the vegetable crisper in the fridge is defunct.

We just changed cell phone plans. We were with Cingular, which was sucked into AT&T.

Lyman's son told us about a "seeing eye phone" available from Centennial for seniors over 55 (Lyman is 62 -- I'm a young, vibrant 51), which has a larger screen and large keys, but doesn't do pictures or the Internet, or other excess uses for which we have no need. $29.95 a month, for which we will have excess minutes.

We had more than 4,000 rollover minutes from AT&T. I asked if we could donate those minutes to the military. No, AT&T does not participate in such a program.

I got nothing, so here's a sweet picture of Niamh (Neeve) from Kate in the snowlands.

We put together the Christmas luncheon for the folks yesterday. This year's menu was shrimp cocktail, turtle soup, Caesar salad, fried shrimp and oysters with french fries (Lyman's dad's request -- he's growing older and weaker, and is trying to cram as much fried seafood as he can get into his last times) and sweet potato bread pudding with rum sauce and whipped cream.

Ann Althouse is having some fun today.

She's expanded on a post by Orin Kerr about Lawrence Welk shows.

For my part, the costumes in the original clip put up by Mr. Kerr are cheesy, but the routine appears to be standard ballroom dance fare. (Though that little leap to the shoulder at the end nearly took them both down.)

And I'm with Ms. Althouse, that roomful of musicians had probably forgotten more about "toking" than Brewer and Shipley had learned yet.

Peg Britton's husband and best friend has died.

Rest in peace, Mr. Britton.