January Mitten Count...

is 8 pairs. That doesn't seem like much, does it? Only 92 pairs to go!

I obviously have some work to do here so I'm off to knit, and to contemplate my purpose in the universe.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Let's Eat!

5-A-Day Pizza

This pizza is so good. The ingredients are simple and healthful and the prep is practically non-existent. What a delicious way to get in your daily servings of fruit and veg!

I make it for my girlfriends for lunch and for the family for dinner pretty regularly. At dinner I make two of these pizzas so there is at least the possibility of leftovers for my lunch the next day. Somebody usually beats me to it, though. It breaks my heart when that happens. It's a hardship is what it is, having to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch when you had your heart set on this veggie pizza.

5-A-Day Pizza

1 Boboli pizza crust
part-skim mozzarella, shredded - about 2 cups
a couple of plum tomatoes, seeded
a red or green bell pepper, use about half
a red onion, you'll use about 1/4 of it
4 or 5 mushrooms
a big handful of fresh baby spinach

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. I like to spray the edges of my pizza pan with some cooking spray so any cheese that falls off my pizza isn't permanently encrusted on my pan. It makes clean-up a little bit easier.
Lay the pizza crust on a pizza pan or baking sheet. Sprinkle about 1/3 cup of cheese on the crust. Arrange the spinach leaves on top of the cheese.

The cheese under the spinach makes the spinach stick to the crust. We are going to put a little bit of cheese between the layers of veggies too. So, add some sprinkles of cheese on top of the spinach.
Not too much; this pizza isn't all about the cheese. Not that cheese pizza isn't one of the best things ever. But this pizza is about the fresh vegetables. The cheese just holds it all together. If you skip this step then the pizza gets a little too juicy from the moisture in the vegetables. Juicy pizza gets soggy and falls apart when you try to eat it. Juicy pizza is not good eats.

Slice your peppers, mushrooms, seeded tomatoes, and onion thinly. You want the vegetables thinly sliced so they'll cook quickly and dry out a bit in the short baking time.

Now layer on all those beautiful vegetables. I used about 1/4 of the red onion and half of the green bell pepper. Put them on in any order you like. I like the tomatoes on top so they get a chance to dry out a little in the oven, but if I'm making it for dinner for my family I put them underneath. Some of my kids think they don't like tomatoes. So I hide them under the mushrooms and other stuff. They never know. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top of the whole thing.

You can't tell in the picture but this pizza is fully loaded. It stacks up pretty high before baking. Don't worry! During baking it all blends together, and flattens out, and gets down to the perfect height for eating.
Bake the pizza for 15-18 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and is a little bit browned and toasted.
Try to grab a slice of this pizza for yourself before your kids eat it all. It's so...well...it's just so yummy. You'll want to eat it every week. Have an apple or a pear with it and consider yourself a success.

Look at that. It's a lovely thing, isn't it? Come to me, my darling.

Obsession

I've become obsessed with knitting. When my grandmother passed away last year I inherited all her knitting needles, unfinished projects, and yarn. Let me tell you, there's enough there to keep me busy for years.

I've never been a knitter. Even though Gram taught me how to do it I kept forgetting how. It always seemed too complicated and too fussy for me to be able pick up a project when I had some time, work on it for a a little bit, and then set it aside till I had a few more minutes. That's not to say that I haven't always loved yarn and yarn crafts. I have. I have completed and gifted away many crocheted projects over the years.

During a personal crisis last fall (which I will tell you all about tomorrow - stay tuned!) I decided to set a lofty goal. I decided that in the year 2009 I would knit 100 pairs of mittens for Humanitarian Services. That breaks down to 2 pairs (4 mittens) per week, with 2 extra weeks either to not knit or to catch up on weeks I got behind.

I'm telling you, if I had nothing else to do I could be perfectly happy knitting all day long. It's kind of scary, actually, because while I'm doing all the other things I have to do, I'm thinking about knitting. I think about what I can leave undone so that I can knit instead. Isn't that the definition of obsession? I love it as much now as I used to be afraid of it. I was so anti-knitting that at one point I might have even sworn that I would never be a knitter. I'm singing a different tune now, for sure.

I've always known that knitting is an old lady thing to do. Maybe that's one of the reasons I resisted it? But I believe it's becoming more popular with a younger, more trendy and with-it crowd. I have photographic evidence to support my theory. Check this out:

I'd like to make it perfectly clear that the above is not a photo of me. That's not my rear. I wouldn't be happy if it was, especially since "alpaca" is misspelled. I'm thinking there can't be too much worse than having misspelled words permanently inked onto your can. But hey, to each his own. Live and let live, that's my motto.

So far the mitten knitting is going well. I will give you January's mitten total on the 31st. In the meantime, here's a picture of a very sweet boy wearing a pair of mittens that his mama knitted for him. I put it here because I like you. And I don't want it to be so that the last image you have in your head as you click away from my little corner on the World Wide Web is a picture of some unknown lady's tattooed arse.

Home-keeping

A post on Simple Mom's blog got me to thinking about this subject.

Simple Mom says that Mark Twain said, "Eat a live frog every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day."

Simple Mom's suggestion is to tackle your hardest or most unpleasant project first thing in the morning. By doing so, she says, the rest of the day will be a piece of cake.

I don't like Simple Mom's suggestion. I'm not a morning person and morning is already a super busy time for me - teaching early morning seminary every weekday, getting the kids up and ready for school, getting everybody out the door on time. If, in addition to all that, I've set myself up to sort out a chaotic closet or make a lot of important phone calls or, heaven forbid, wash the mini-blinds, I might just decide to pull the covers over my head and spend the day in bed reading. I would curse the daylight instead of just grumping around for a little bit like I do now and then getting on with the day.

Unpleasant tasks must be done at some point, it is true, but why roll out of bed and have them staring you in the face? I like to do happy, easy, enjoyable and nice things in the morning.
Getting down and dirty with some awful chore can wait till later in the day when I have a little success under my belt and I've worked myself for up it. I'm a night person. Cleaning and organizing at night when I'm wide awake and energized and the house is peaceful and quiet and has a chance to stay clean for more than 15 minutes? That's how I roll.

Frog is a funny word. Say "frog". Say it slow and drawn out. It feels funny in your throat. It sounds ridiculous. The English language is hilarious, don't you think?

Tuesday's Quote

"I love you better now, when I can really be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud independence, when you disdained every part but that of the giver and protector."

This quote is from one of my most favorite books, but more on that in a minute.

This quote illustrates something that I struggle to remember to incorporate into my life every day, and that is that we love those whom we serve.

It's hard for me to love the perfect people who don't seem to need or want any help from me. We all know those people: the ones who seem to have it all together. The ones who seem to have everything we would like for ourselves. They're annoying, aren't they? I feel invisible in their company.

On the flip side, those people who I sometimes wish I could do without? The people that I love in theory but not in practice? According to the premise of "you love those whom you serve" one way of overcoming those antagonistic feelings in myself is to do something unselfish for them. I have to do better at this.

In the meantime, while I'm rooting out all my hateful and negative sensitivies and proclivities, I have lots of very pleasant and cooperative friends and family members who make it oh so easy to love them. Thank you, my people! You truly make my life worth living.

Now, back to the quote from one of my favorite books. Name the author and the book where I found this quote and I'll send you a present. It will be awesome. It will also be small. If there is more than one person who gets it right I will randomly select one of you. Leave your answers in the Comments section.
Time will be up on Wednesday, January 28 at 5 pm. Ready, set, GO!

The Little Prince

Things you may not know about this awesome kid:

• I called him The Little Prince when he was a baby because there was a famous king with the same name.
• I still sometimes call him The Little Prince.
• He is named after his father.
• His middle name is the same as his grandmother's maiden name.
• He loves music.
• He plays the piano.
• He sings Tenor in the school choir.
• He likes making things with his hands.
• He is a natural leader.
• He is friendly and outgoing.
• People like him. He's a likeable guy.
• Girls especially love him.
• He is interested in everything.
• He will talk to anybody about anything.
• He likes to talk.
• He talks a lot.
• Getting him to stop talking is sometimes a problem.
• He possesses a creative mind.
• He's brave.
• He looks like me.
• He reminds me of my dad and my brother.
• His teeth are naturally straight. That is an anomaly and a miracle in my family.
• He isn't a picky eater. He'll eat anything. That is also an anomaly and a miracle in my family.
• He loves games. Board games, video games, card games, all games.
• He can probably kill you in chess.
• He's super smart.

I love you, my Little Prince!

Survey Says...

it's time for a poll!

I'd like to know, if you could have any car you wanted, which one would you choose? Although I am really liking my new Altima, the car I'd choose if I had a spare $40K laying around would be a Chrysler 300.

In case you are worried that this blog will be about cars all the time, let me reassure you. I'm not a real car fanatic. To me a car is a means of getting around. I'm perfectly content with whatever car I'm driving as long as it works. But sometimes I can't help noticing while I'm tootling around town that some drivers seem more cool and hip than others. People who drive Chrysler 300's are tres chic. They seem a little smarter too, don't you think?

A New Car!

When you read those words, do you hear them in Rod Roddy's voice? I do. I loved The Price Is Right when I was a kid, and my kids loved it when they were little. Every day during summer vacation they wanted to get up early to watch it. Every day during summer vacation I wanted them to sleep in.

But that's not what this post is about.

This post is about this: a Nissan Altima.

We bought a new car yesterday. For me. Hooray! I've been wanting THIS new car. I've been needing SOME new car. Because I've been driving the same old tired minivan for 11 years. The van wasn't old and tired when we bought it. Come to think of it, I wasn't old and tired when we bought it. But lately we've become dissatisfied with one another, the van and I.

I picked up my Good Friends D and K in the car last night and off we went. I think we felt like teenagers again - carefree and sporty. And it was fun. For a little while. There are reasons why teenagers go cruising on Friday night and moms in their 30's and 40's do not.

I'm not going to tell you what those reasons are. You'll have to figure it out for yourself.

Oh, and it's not a NEW new car. It's a gently USED and affordable new car. Sweet!

What's on TV?

Have you seen this TV show? The next episode will air on NBC on Saturday, January 24 at 7 pm Central.

The show is based on the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe but I'll save the book review for another time. (I really like the book.)

The TV show stars Philip Winchester as Crusoe and Tongayi Charisi as Friday. It's ...well...it's just great. There is, in alphabetical order,

• adventure
• betrayal
• danger
• intrigue
• love, the true kind
• scenery, the impossibly beautiful kind
• tree house, the coolest one EVER in the history of the world

Crusoe is oh-so clever and can make everything he needs out of plants. He's the kind of handy guy any woman stranded on a Caribbean Island would like to have around. To fix things, you know? The character Friday is wise and true and supplies a voice of reason to Crusoe's sometimes desperate ideas and desires.

Here's a picture of Philip Winchester as Robinson Crusoe for you ladies to enjoy:

Oh my.

Here's a little poll:
Do you pronounce Caribbean as ca-RIB-ee-un or care-uh-BEE-un?

Correction!

For those of you who care or are keeping track of these things, Juliana Higginbotham was the mother of Clara and Henery. She was the one who died, and then her husband remarried and Clara got up to her funny tricks.
I should have dug up the genealogy from the depths of my closet and made sure I had all my facts straight but that sounded less like an adventure and more like an enormous, take-all-day kind of job. So I didn't do it.
I am quite capable of admitting it when I mess up. It's one of my best qualities.
Carry on.

You just never know

This is Cousin B. I've known her for about 10 or 15 years. I am older than 10 or 15. I am also older than 20. And 30. And that's all I'm saying about that.

I mention this so you will understand that I have not known Cousin B my whole life. In fact, I knew Cousin B for a while before I knew she was a cousin (a distant cousin).

I'll tell you how I found out.

We were sitting in a choir practice years ago, and happened to be paying attention for once instead of chatting and gossiping, and it was announced that anyone who had ancestry from Texas would be able to submit their information for a special presentation on Mormon pioneers in Texas. Cousin B and I immediately starting chatting and gossiping. (Remember that she was still just Friend B to me at this point.) Cousin B said that she had an ancestor from Harris County, Texas named Juliana Higginbotham.

My jaw dropped, and I was just blown away. Because I have an ancestor named Juliana Higginbotham from Jefferson, Texas. And I didn't know it but promptly found out that Jefferson is in Harris County. People, it is the same woman. Can you believe it?

(Cousin B and I live in Harris County, Texas. This good lady Juliana is buried right around here somewhere and someday Cousin B and I are going to go find her grave.)

I was able to share a funny family story with Cousin B. Cousin B's direct ancestor Clara was the the older sister of my ancestor Henery. Back in the 1800's, sixteen year-old Clara was angry, infuriated, and outraged when her widowed dad married this woman Juliana Higginbotham. On their wedding night, as the happy couple drove up the road to the family farm, Clara was taking Henery and all the other little brothers and sisters out into the darkening fields and hiding them. So dad and his new bride Juliana spent their wedding night looking for the young'uns. Instead of getting to know each other better. If you know what I mean.

Oh, that Clara was a crafty wench.

Cousin B did not inherit craftiness from Clara. B is the most peaceful and gentle and patient woman I've ever known. A person feels calm and mild in her presence. Cousin B is also very smart and very well-educated. She has a PhD - sometimes I call her Doctor B. I love Cousin B. I'm glad that I was paying attention for once in my life and I got the chance to know that my friend is actually family.

The moral of today's story is that dealing with teenagers can sometimes be tricky. Also, you just never know when you might find out that someone you admire and love and feel a kinship for is actually kin. So be nice to everybody, people. You're likely related to them.

And don't you think that is a great pic of Cousin B? I took that picture. With my new camera.

Let's eat!

Baked Tilapia with Vegetables

I found this recipe last year in a cookbook that I've had for years. Many years. Years and years and years. I don't know why I never noticed it before, but once I did, oh my. It's a keeper for sure.

The original recipe calls it "Fish en Papillote". That means that you are supposed to cook the fish in a little paper packet and present it to your peeps with a french flair. Frankly, it's a lot of work to cut out all those parchment paper circles, wrap up each portion in the paper, and make all those fussy folds. Then there's the ordeal of eating your fish en papillote - you have to cut it open at the table and deal with the paper on your plate during dinner. My family were not fans of that process, so I started baking it in a cake pan or a roasting pan or whatever pan was handy at the time. And you know what? The fish turns out perfectly every time. I'm telling you - it's hard to mess up tilapia (which, by the way, means "fish").

We have it for dinner at my house about once every week or so. One time I cooked it for my Good Friend D for lunch when she was over here watching movies with me. Now she cooks it for her family too. It's super fast, super easy, and delish. It's good for your bod, too, figure-friendly and heart-healthy, made with lots of fresh vegetables and extra-virgin olive oil. But you will make it again and again because it's so tasty.

Baked Tilapia with Vegetables

(use as much or as little of these ingredients as needed to feed your family)

• tilapia filets, one per person
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• dried oregano
• zucchini
• plum tomatoes
• small onion
• sliced black olives (optional)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Lay the tilapia filets in a baking dish and drizzle lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sprinkle each filet with about 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano.

Thinly slice the zucchini, tomatoes, and onions. I used half of the small onion.

Arrange the vegetables on top of the filets. Leave them off if your kids won't touch the veg. At my house, Jake gets his tilapia without vegetables. You really have to pick your battles, you know?

Lightly drizzle the vegetables with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. It makes all the difference in the world to season both the fish and the vegetables instead of just putting all the flavor on the very top. You want your dinner to be tasty all the way down to the last bite. Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake for 25 minutes. The fish will flake easily with a fork when it's done. In my oven, 25 minutes is exactly right.


Serve with any kind of carb as a side dish. We usually have it with garlic-herb rice pilaf, but a whole-wheat dinner roll or a corn muffin is good too.

Make this for dinner tonight! Your heart will thank you, your arteries will clear, and your loved ones will love you back.

Oh, and "papillote"? It's a fun word, don't you think? All French and fancy and ooh-la-la. But trust me, it's a hassle.

Feed the Children

I love to watch my kids eat.

It's not that they have the best table manners. It's that there is something infinitely satisfying in setting meat, vegetables, bread, and milk in front of my babies. Feeding my kids brings me joy. I'm grateful that we are able to provide for them.

To say that Jake is a picky eater is to put it mildly. There are only a handful of foods at any given time that he will eat. I'm happy to tell you that macaroni and cheese is back on the list of acceptable foods. Here he is at lunch yesterday putting away some mac 'n' cheese:



Jake has developed a taste for tilapia. He says that tilapia just might be his new favorite animal.

Did you know that where tilapia have been either deliberately or accidentally introduced to an ecosystem they've become problematic and invasive? I think that one way of solving this predicament is to eat more tilapia. Eat as many as you can. Feed them to your family and friends. Tomorrow I will post a delicious recipe using tilapia so that you too can start eating these troublemakers.

Hey, I like to do my part to solve the world's problems.

The Fairest

I was fortunate to talk to my niece on the phone on Sunday. She is such a sweet and pretty girl. She's in kindergarten and when I asked how it was going she said that school is great! And she's already learned the alphabet! And she made a book about it but she can't find it! And when she does find it, I can have it.

She makes me smile.

I worry about her a lot because she lives far away from me and I don't see her often enough. I do know that she's in very capable and loving hands. I guess what I'm really worried about is that she'll forget me.

I came across this poem by Major Henry Livingston, Jr and adapted it to fit this little lady. It captures my hopes and dreams for my brother's precious child:

To her charming blue-eyed niece
Auntie Amy wishest peace!
Wishes roses over strow'd
O'er her sublunary road!

No rude winds around her howl,
O'er her head no tempests scowl;
No red lightnings flash around,
No loud thunders rock the ground!

Bright has been her morning sun,
Brighter still be that to come!
All a blue serene above,
Within, all innocence and love.

Survey Says...

It's time for a poll!

Think way back to when you were a kid. What was the first movie you remember seeing? Did you see it in a theater or at home? With your friends or your family? Did you like it?

The first movie that I remember seeing is Fiddler on the Roof. I remember my dad being there with me. My mom and possibly some younger siblings may have been there too but I don't remember that. My memory is that the theater was impossibly immense.

( Does this happen to you? Do things that you remember vividly from your childhood as being really big turn out in reality to be a lot smaller? It happens to me. I'm almost afraid to go back and have another look at the Rocky Mountains or the Pacific Ocean.)

I remember that it was really dark when we went in, and the huge, bright screen, and I remember looking up at my dad's profile reflecting the light from the screen as we sat there. I remember the movie being over. I don't actually remember watching the movie. I vaguely remember Tevye and I remember asking my mom about him. She said that Topol was the actor's name. I remember thinking what in the world kind of name is Topol.

Seeing the movie made an impression on my young brain. What I learned from that experience is movies=good, and Fiddler on the Roof=good. I have seen it many times since then and it's a great movie.

L'chaim!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Several years ago our air conditioner quit working. Since we live in Houston, that means we have to get it fixed. I mean, we HAVE to get it fixed. There is no such thing as living in Houston without air conditioning. We don't live without it. Period. It just isn't done.

I phoned the repairman (I'll call him Slick) immediately like any sane person would do and the next day in the afternoon he came over. We didn't live for those 24 hours. We just tried to hang on the best we could. We headed over to McDonald's to let the kids play for hours and hours which is what people do here when their a/c isn't working and it's hotter than your average blistering day in hell.

I do have to tell you that being in McDonald's Playland for hours and hours, no matter how cool it might be, is its own kind of hell.

Anyway, Slick came and he dinked around outside by the air conditioner for awhile. And then he knocked on my door and said he had found the problem. Hooray! I love you, Slick!

We walked over to the a/c unit and Slick knelt down and said that my capacitor was bad.

Now, a lot things starting going through my mind. Things like:

Okay, right.

Sure it is.

Yes, I was born yesterday. I haven't ever seen the movie Back To The Future.


Actually, I wasn't born yesterday. I have seen Back to the Future and I know exactly what capacitors do. They make time travel possible. I know that a flux capacitor is exactly the thing you need if you want to go back to 1955. Well, a flux capacitor and a DeLorean. And some plutonium too.

What I don't know is how to explain to Slick that I know he's conning me. It has to be conveyed gently so that he doesn't get mad and leave me stranded in a hot house trying to find another repairman who of course will not get here till tomorrow or maybe even the day after that. These kinds of social confrontations make me uncomfortable. And a little itchy.

So I did what any level-headed girl would do. I told him I'd have to check with my husband before I could authorize anything. Con-men accept that as an answer. Maybe they know it's a line, maybe they don't. But they back down immediately. Incidentally, door-to-door salesmen also accept it as a valid answer.

I excused myself, called my husband and found out that capacitors are real things.

(Now, how come Ty always has to know everything? It was nice and handy this time, sure, but most of the time it is very inconvenient to be married to a man who knows everything.)

I gathered up all my smarts and dignity and marched myself back outside and told Slick that I'd be very grateful if he would replace the bad capacitor. And he did. And the house cooled down and we were able to sleep that night without soaking the sheets with sweat.

Now all of you know just like I do that capacitors are real. So when your capacitor goes bad you won't have to go through all the mental anguish that I did. I'm happy to share my knowledge with you. It's what I'm here for.

Try saying "capacitor" out loud. It's a fun word.

Book Review

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I found this book on a list (a list!) at Barnes and Noble's website. The title sounded a little too cute and then when I found out that Annie Barrows is Mary Ann Shaffer's niece it bugged me a little bit more. I thought there was no way it was going to be good. But what the heck, it was available at the library near my house - I could read it for free. And Shaffer happens to be the maiden name of my Good Friend K so there was that, too. And it wasn't like I had some other book I was anxious to read. And the biggest and most important reason is that I was running out of time and desperate for a book to recommend for Book Club. Which, of course, is why I was wandering around book lists on the internet in the first place.

Well, it's awesome. It is historical fiction, my favorite genre. It's about a group of people living on the Channel Islands and an author living in London. It is written in epistolary style which, because it is different from your regular run-of-the-mill novel, naturally makes it more interesting. I was a little challenged at the very first, trying to keep everybody straight and figure out their relationships without any background information on them, but it all becomes clear after the first few pages. It's set in post-WWII and the premise is that the author, Juliet, is going to write a book about how the German Occupation of the Channel Islands affected its residents. She meets several Islanders and...well...I'm not going to give away the plot because some of my friends will be reading it for Book Club this year. But if you're not in my Book Club you should still read this book. And if you're not in my Book Club you should join it. Book Club rocks.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is funny, poignant, well-written, and if you are anything like me you will think about the characters long after you've finished the book.

I love historical fiction because it:

• is based on things that really happened
• gives a more personal perspective, even if it's fictional, of some event or era. History books and non-fiction are more generalized, or dry, or are too focused on facts and dates, or shine the spotlight too much on the well-known historical movers and shakers of the event. That's all fine and dandy, but it doesn't make for pleasant reading.
• speaks to my romantic heart. Maybe something like it did happen, or someone like that did exist. The ordinary people of the world, the silent billions who have lived and loved and struggled without any notice? They fascinate me. I'd like to meet them.
• tells about something I'm not familiar with. I'm a fan of learning something new.

And with that, I'm off to find out some stuff about the Channel Islands.

Photography

All the people in my extended family are photographers. I don't know how they do it - they all seem to somehow just "get" it. I don't. I am a visual person, I appreciate the visual fine arts, I know what looks good and what doesn't look good. My photos? They don't look good.

That is all going to change, people. For Christmas Santa brought me a digital camera. I have a great camera that uses film that was a fabulous and generous gift from my Dear Aunt C, but I was spending too much $$$ getting the film developed and printed into crummy pictures. The kind of pictures that aren't ever going to make it into the photo albums. That was a bummer for me.

This year I am going to learn how to use my new camera. And I'm going to take pictures. A lot of pictures, now that I can print out only the pictures I like. The more pictures I take, the better I will get. That is my philosophy.

There might possibly be a photography class in store for me later this fall. Wouldn't that be awesome? I don't want to be a professional photographer. I just want to take some decent pictures. I want to share it with all of you, the gorgeous, pictorial record of my daily life.

Until that happens, it will be stock photos downloaded from Google Images.

Things I don't love

Lots of stuff in my life makes me melancholic. My blog will mention them sometimes. These things are a drag:

• when the last slice of bread is the heel and it is sliced too thin to stand up properly in the toaster or spread with butter. I mean honestly, who's going to eat it? You might as well just go hungry.


• hot, humid weather


• fingerprints and smudges of unknown origin on windows and walls


• when nobody writes on my facebook wall for a whole day


• broken shoelaces


• missing buttons


• stains


• words like moist, lick, saliva, mucus, and fungus


• gross stuff


• swear words

Things I love

I live a full and blessed life. Many people and things contribute greatly to my contented state of mind. You will read about many of them in my blog. These are the things that make me smile, in no particular order of importance:

• any kind of bonus - whoever invented "free gift with purchase" really saw me coming
  
• textiles - fabric, fibers, yarn, and string, anything that utilizes fibers like sewing, knitting, crocheting; someday I 'd like to try dyeing, spinning and weaving
  
• office supplies - all of them but especially pens, pencils and paper
  
• kids, particularly mine
  
• friends
  
• puzzles - especially word puzzles
  
• lists of anything - to-do lists, ingredient lists in recipes, whatever
  
• fun, funny, and cute*
  
• girl's day or night out
  
• babies
  
• teenagers
  
• food - cooking it, eating it, reading about it, or watching it on TV
  
• interesting, unusual, and fun-to-pronounce words
  
• church
  
• books
  
• my loverly husband (oh, yes.)

*Not to be confused with "cutesy". May be read as "handsome" or "fine" or "good-looking".