Lentils, Sweaters, One-Eyed Cat, Family, and Reading, Oh My!

Do you own a Rice Cooker? Well if you do, don't just limit yourself to only using it for rice. I decided to try cooking lentils in my Rice Cooker, and I am so glad I did, the lentils cooked up perfectly, and I didn't have to worry about them boiling dry and burning in the pan. I am quite sure any grain would be good to cook in the Rice Cooker, Quinoa seems like a perfect grain to try. And, I am thinking about trying a very basic rice pudding with some almond milk and rice, I will give it a whirl and see how it turns out. As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

A little pot of lentils

Knitting project continues on, now three sweaters are completed, and I am working hard to finish the final blue sweater for Peter. Pictured are Masen, George, and Ralph modeling their new homemade sweaters - they seemed really pleased with them.

Masen

George

Ralph

About seven or so years ago we had a one-eyed stray cat show up, she was thin and obviously very hungry,  so we fed her some beaten eggs. Later I ran to the store to purchase cat food and we have fed her ever since. We named her, very originally, (NOT), One-Eye. She is a fixture around our place, hangs out on our deck and front porch most of the day, prowls our field hunting small rodents, she is a very good hunter despite the handicap of a missing eye, and seems to have made her home in our barn. One-Eye is well fed, by us, and other neighbors, and each neighbor has their own name for her. In mid-January we had a heavy snowfall, I saw One-Eye wading through the snow on our deck to eat her food and that was the last time I saw her. After a week or so we assumed the worst, after all she is an older cat, and an outdoor cat, her life is not as cushy as it would be for an indoor cat. I was sad about her possible death and missed her morning visit to the back door. On Saturday morning when I was out on my run I said my final farewells to One-Eye. Later that day I was out and about when I received a text from my husband, One-Eye was back! WOW - how happy the news made me!!!
I am not sure where she was for two weeks, perhaps someone shut her inside for a couple of weeks to shelter her from the weather, if so I am very glad that they did. One-Eye is not a people person cat, she does not like to be petted or picked up, and she is not a fan of the indoors, once in a while she comes in, but she wants back out within a few minutes. 
I am so happy to be back into our normal routine with One-Eye, she appears at the back door every morning, I feed her, then she hangs out on the deck and the front porch most of the day, she likes to sit by the backdoor and look at us. Yesterday it was raining hard so I placed her food dish just inside the back door and after a bit of coaxing she stepped over the threshold to eat her food.  Masen and Ralph were very excited that One-Eye was in the house, I must say I was impressed with her tolerance towards their little boy exuberant expressions of love towards her, and Ralph even tried a little cat food for himself, YUCK! 
I think she is glad to be back :)

Last Saturday, after a week of brutal cold, it was nice to enjoy a very warm February day, it was in the low forties and the sun was shining! I met up at a local Coney Dog cafe with our son Matt, and our son Ben and his wife Taylor, I was watching our daughter Amber's five boys, so we had a total of eight grandchildren to dine with, I think everyone had a good time. I did, although I did not partake of a hot dog, I did enjoy a few french fries.

And, last but not least, this is the book I am currently reading, Death and The Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh, I am enjoying it. A murder mystery, it is fairly obvious who the murderer is from the get go, but that doesn't spoil the story, it enhances it. I liken this story to the came of Clue, just a fun little puzzler.