Filler post - high times in Chicago

I'm working on a few posts, but they're not ready yet. I don't want you to think I've gone missing again, so I thought I would share with you a picture from my weekend, spent in Chicago with friends. That's me on the left - and the woman in the center is a frequent commenter, but I'm not going to out her.

This was taken at a lovely place called Dick's Last Resort. We weren't too very drunk. Yet.

And I counted myself fortunate that I didn't get the hat that said, "World's Oldest Whore" or "Goes down faster than power windows."

See you soon!

If this doesn't rip your heart out...

...then you probably don't have one.

Paris Jackson, age 11, reminds us that sometimes even a legend is just "Daddy".

Four free days and all you can eat

Mr. Jelly Belly and I have been invited by our very dear Native American friends to spend four days and three nights being wined (beered) and dined - and probably bled dry. If we can drag ourselves away from all that for a few hours, we will also be exploring the benefits of fresh cherries. Well, I will be – Mr. Jelly Belly will probably load up on corn dogs.

The free accommodations are nice, but four days of free food can be a nightmare. As delicious as it always is, I prefer to avoid the buffet. Mr. Jelly Belly LIVES for it. Especially Friday and Saturday nights, which is the Prime Rib and Seafood buffet.

I’m sure you’ve guessed already that he goes for the prime rib and I go for the seafood, where I load my plate with an embarrassingly large number of King Crab Legs. I enjoy the whole process involved in eating crab legs almost as much as I enjoy the actual eating itself. Crack, pull, dip, yum…repeat, repeat, repeat.

In between all the eating and beer drinking, I will be sitting on my ever-expanding ass, chasing this:



I know I shouldn’t admit this, but this sounds like a perfect extended weekend to me. Hope yours is as much fun as I know mine will be. See you next week!

The line to kick my ass forms on the left...

Eight hundred and seventy two unread items in my Google reader make it clear. I am a bad, bad blogger. Even worse, I am a bad, bad, bloggy friend. I was determined to catch up with all of your posts tonight. But, holy crap, people – 872 unread items is A LOT!

So, what to do? I guess I just have to start all over. Feeling overcome by guilt isn’t helping me to get anything written OR read. So feel free to swing by and give me the good, swift kick I deserve. Then we can just move along and pretend the last few weeks never happened.

As you may or may not know, ever since I had that freaking root canal, I’ve been a mess. Maybe when the dentist killed the nerve in my tooth, she disconnected something in my brain. I’ll have to talk to her about that - and ask her to please hook it back up. But she seems to charge $1000 for everything, so maybe I can’t afford it.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been obsessed with three things: My weight, my hair and my skin in general (and my monstrously huge pores in particular). It’s this self-absorbed shallowness that’s kept me to myself lately. I think I’m over it now. Mostly. There are only a few more products left on the market that I can still buy to address these issues. My Q-Card has been given quite a workout lately. Especially last Saturday when everything on QVC was on Five Easy Payments. Those Five Easy Payments will kill you. I only think of the first ones and tend to forget about the final four. Five Easy Pay Day just about topped out my card. Sigh. No more buying for me. I’m going to have to continue this self-improvement kick using only the products (a lot) currently in my stash.

On the plus side, I’ve got lots of really nice products to tell you about, so you may see more posts that have to do with skincare and makeup than dieting and exercise. I may have to temporarily change my tagline to “health, nutrition and personal grooming.”

Okay, so on to the dieting update…You may recall that I decided not to weigh myself for three weeks. I don’t know if that was a good or a bad idea, but I did my first weigh-in yesterday and I am down 5.2 pounds. So, not too bad. One-third of the way there. Of course I probably gained it all back when we went out to dinner tonight for Father’s Day. Chicken-fried steak, anyone? But I will not look at the scale for another three weeks, so I won’t know how much damage that actually did. Ignorance is bliss.

Over the next three weeks I intend to plan every single bite that I will be eating and to get moving with the exercise. All I’m looking for is at least 30 minutes a day on the treadmill. Hopefully, that will be enough to knock off the next 5 pounds.

Overall, I’m feeling pretty good about the weight issue…but eeeek! - my HAIR!!!!

Coming up: A surprising review of a diet product.

Eyebrow stuff

This began as a post about body hair, in general. But once I got started on the eyebrows, it kind of took on a life of its own. I guess I will have to do a second post on the rest of my issues with disappearing body hair. I know you can't wait.

I have an unnatural obsession with eyebrows; it’s something I always notice about a person. I will not notice your shoes or your purse, but I will for sure notice your eyebrows. Especially if they look like this:

Seriously, let me give you $7 for a wax.

Overzealous plucking in my younger years left me looking like this:

Well, maybe not exactly like that. I call this type of eyebrow “slut eyebrows”. Sadly, that’s what mine look like now. And they’re gray blonde, so that kind of makes it worse.

Since my vision sucks lately, and it’s impossible to get those unsightly strays that I can only see in my rearview mirror, I must pay someone to do it for me. Talk about a crapshoot. (And, by the way, Waxing Lady, when I say, “just clean it up, DON’T MAKE THEM ANY THINNER”, that’s what I mean.) One lady took off the entire outer half of my right eyebrow the day before a job interview. Was I happy? No, not really. I think her vision was in worse shape than mine.

Since I darkened my hair, those almost non-existent eyebrows make me look like this chick:

Fully aware that slut eyebrows are inappropriate for a woman of my advanced years, I began the quest for an eyebrow filler-inner.

I’ve tried eyebrow pencils, of course, and have used them off and on over the years; but, while they could darken, they weren’t really doing anything for filling in and shaping. They made the brows darker, yes, but they did nothing for the more pressing slut issue. I think there’s a skill to the eyebrow pencil - and I don’t have it. I was always afraid I would look like this:

The very nice lady who hands me my coffee every morning at McDonald’s has drawn on eyebrows. And, because I’m shallow, it’s all I see when I look at her.

Next, I moved to a powder/gel combo made by smashbox (and, yes, the lowercase "s" is intentional).

Love it. Plus, it comes with a nifty brush that makes you feel all professional-like when you’re brushing the powder in and then setting them with the gel. Or, gel first, powder after. Doesn’t matter. Either way, I could get a little “volume” in my brows without them looking like a threw a hunk of powder and gel up there. There’s a definite learning curve on this one, and I can’t tell you how many times I used Way Too Much and had to get out my trusty Maybelline brow/lash brush (the one everyone and their aunt owns) to try to brush some of it out.

Then, because I’m fickle, I got all hot to try the Bare Escentuals eyebrow kit. Same general principle as the smashbox, but instead of the wax, you got a mascara-like tube with gel and the powder was loose (duh, minerals!) instead of pressed. Oh, and another nifty brush!

(Someday I should show you how many makeup brushes I’ve collected over the years; I’m always carefully selecting the right tool for the job…Mr. Jelly Belly thinks I look like I’m about to perform delicate surgery.)

The BE brow kit was even MORE awesome than the smashbox. Goes on nice and smooth, looks natural and doesn’t come off until you wash it off. That’s actually a minus if you’re sometimes heavy-handed…it can be a real fight to get the brows back to where I want them to be. But, other than replacing the gel occasionally, I would expect that tiny pot of eyebrow color to last the rest of my life. I normally just use the dust in the lid – that’s how little you need.

Still, I was not happy. Because I have no arch. Oh, how I admire a beautifully arched eyebrow! What I did next will make you snicker. I bought eyebrow stencils. Hilarious, right? I was in Ulta, armed with a couple of gift cards, when I saw them. I had heard of them before but thought they seemed dumb. But, being desperate, I decided to try them. TWENTY BUCKS, people, for plastic stencils – only one of which will work for you. I do not know why they don’t sell them separately. Oh, wait. Yes I do - because not-too-bright people like me will pay the $20 for the entire set.

Feeling foolish, I tried the “Petite Arch” as soon as I got home. I held the stencil in what I assumed was the correct position, based on the lines printed on it (no real directions included) and started brushing in the BE powder. Yikes! Very scary. Too much! Too much! I had to stop the whole process and go to the bathroom from laughing so hard. Plus, I couldn’t figure out how to get the inside of my eyebrow correct, without having the outside be way too high. So I set them aside, thinking of the other things I could have spent that $20 on.

They sat there on my bathroom counter for a while, stashed behind my bucket o’makeup brushes, taunting me every day. So I tried them again. Apparently, you need to MOVE the stencil after you do the inside of the brow. Huh. Who knew? So you do the upsweep, move the stencil, then do the little tail. But guess what? Perfect arch. Every time. Now I just have to find some people with bigger eyebrows to give the other three to.

(I spotted eyebrow stencils on Smoky Mountain Minerals recently; they come with their eyebrow kit for $9.95 - although I have yet to see them in stock. But it would be a cheaper option if they ever DO become available again.)

So I’ve been alternating between the smashbox and the BE, depending on my mood, and happily using my expensive stencil, until I realized one day that I was missing spots. Damn vision! I should really move my rearview mirror into my bathroom – it shows ALL. (Please do not ever check out your pores in the rearview; you will cry.)

I decided to go buy a pencil to keep with me for fill-ins. And what do you think happened? I found a fantastic CHEAP(er) pencil. The Revlon Brow Fantasy is All That. A pencil, yes, but it has a little tube of gel on the reverse end - making it a gadget, in my opinion.

This is a nice pencil. It does a more than adequate job on the fill-ins – and, in fact, does a really good job, overall. I’m not ready to give up my smashbox and BE, but when I’m in a hurry, I’m finding myself grabbing it more and more often.

So there you have it. No more excuses for bad brows.

If you have brows that look like that? I will obsessively stare at them with full-blown brow envy. And I will secretly hate you. On the other hand, I won’t even be able to make eye contact with you if your eyebrows look like this:

Now get that scary image out of your head and have a great weekend, everyone!

Playing catch up

First, I’d like to thank you all for your support and kind words during my recent pity party. Your comments and emails meant a lot to me. While I’m sorry so many of you find yourself in the same boat, it’s kind of comforting to realize I’m not all alone in this struggle. And, you know, it’s all about me. Ha!

Second, I’d like to apologize for being so very absent. I am reading your blogs, but felt I had nothing of interest to say, so I haven’t been commenting. And that’s bad. Reading and commenting is something I really enjoy and am looking forward to getting back to.

Third, I was going to extend an invitation for someone, anyone, to come over here and give me a swift kick in the ass. But it turns out I don’t need it. Right out of the blue, I feel better. I realized today that I felt pretty darned good. Boom! Gone as quickly as it came. Suddenly, I had about 14 things I wanted to write about, whereas yesterday, I had none. I hope this is a permanent change of mood.

The dieting (ugh, I hate that word) is going well. (For me, anyway. Mr. Jelly Belly told me the other day that something I was cooking for myself smelled like "baked armpit".) I’m not going to harp on it too much here, but I’ll update you occasionally. Going with the “21 days to create a habit” premise that Cam-who-is-not-so-evil can tell you about, I’ve decided to do everything in 21 day increments. And I’m not getting on the scale again until three weeks has passed. Unless my pants are falling off of me and I’m dying of curiosity. So, yeah…three weeks it is.

Still haven’t got my extra-large thighs moving on the treadmill yet. I told myself I could not buy even one more thing on the internet until I had exercised 21 days in a row. But, after reviewing the implications of that, I told myself that being hefty was no reason to subject myself to a such a terrible fate. I’ll have to find some less painful motivation.

Which reminds me…as I often do when this funky mood overtakes me, I consoled myself with a little internet retail therapy. Oh, the things I have bought. QVC loves me again. As a result, I’ve got some interesting and fun things to tell you about. Mostly in the area of beauty products (natch) and supplements. (And I really think it’s one of the supplements that got me back on track.) I love one of the things I bought So Much (it’s a hair thing), I might post it over the weekend. Have I piqued your curiosity? Stay tuned.

Thanks again, everyone (especially those of you who gave me blog awards – as soon as I figure out what I’m supposed to do with them, I’ll post about it!).

Why I may be AWOL for a few days

Thursday afternoon, I was minding my own business eating my lunch. I was eating this:

I was chomping merrily away when a Pain Like No Other seared through the left side of my lower jaw. A seemingly harmless bacon bit had jammed into this:

Yes, it did a hard slam into a broken tooth I was still two weeks away from getting fixed (why do dental appointments take so long?).

I was like this:

And then I felt a little better until Thursday night when I could not sleep for The Pain.

Friday morning a friendly co-worker gave me this:

I was like this:

When I realized The Pain was not going away on its own, I called the dentist on Saturday morning for an emergency appointment. They were sympathetic, but unable to oblige until Monday morning (dentists not working that particular Saturday because that’s the kind of luck I have).

I wonder why they do not have dental emergency rooms. I happily found an almost full bottle of these in the cupboard:

And a bottle of this in another cupboard:

To swish with, not to drink.

Mr. Jelly Belly and I spent all day Sunday like this:

I hope the large bottle of pills lasts until Monday morning, or I may have to hit the streets looking for this:

I don’t know what they will do on Monday morning or how I will feel after. At this point, tooth extraction seems desirable. I may do it myself.




See you soon. I hope.

I'm back...

It’s amazing how four little days away from home (and a two-hour time change) can really mess you up. The good news is that my mother, who had emergency surgery for an abscess in her small intestine due to diverticulitis (eat your fiber, people!) is doing much better and we expect she will finally be released from the hospital sometime this week.

The bad news is that I’m totally pooped – and not looking forward to playing catch-up at work today. Assuming I haven’t died by the time 5:00 finally rolls around this afternoon, I hope to get some writing done and catch up on my posting as well reading all of your posts that I’ve missed. And I really did miss them.

Do you think four straight days of nothing but junky food could be contributing to my feelings of poopedness? Seriously, my kingdom for a vegetable…

Tuesday Tidbits: Bloggy Business

As you may have noticed, yesterday I had the honor of being the Featured Blogger over at SITS, which was so fun you cannot even imagine. The last time I checked my email, I had well over 300 new comments on my blog – and, holy cow! look at all those new followers! Fun, fun, fun! All the SITS Girls are amazing and I really appreciate all the comment love they bestowed upon me.

I am trying to respond to every comment (quite the daunting task) – and here’s where today’s tidbit comes in (thanks to Brandy, who clued me in on this one last month – I had no idea):

You know how you can get your blog comments emailed to you? Sure you do, everyone knows that. But did you further know that a blogger can only reply to your comment via email if you have set up your account to receive those replies? I did not know this, which means anytime someone was nice enough to attempt to reply to my comment they were slapped with a “No-reply comment” in the address field of the email.

So how do you fix this? In Blogger, go to your Dashboard. Next to your picture, click “Edit Profile” and then click the box that says “Show my Email Address”. If you don’t want people to be able to see your email address, but would like a response to your comments via email, you can always set up a free email account with Yahoo or Google just for this purpose.

Check it out – you might be surprised at how many responses you’ll get to your comments once you have this set up!

18,250 days

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age. ~ Victor Hugo

Today I am 50. I suppose I could post 50 things I’ve learned in 50 years but I don’t think I’ve learned even one thing that everyone else doesn’t need to learn on their own.

Instead, I will just say, today I am 50 – and I’m okay with that.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. ~ Mark Twain

Sure, the wrinkles kind of bug me. I spend too much money on the latest and greatest skin care products trying to get rid of them. But when I think of the tens of thousands of smiles and the countless hours of laughter they represent, I’m okay with that.

There is always a lot to be thankful for, if you take the time to look. For example, I'm sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt. ~ Author Unknown

And yes, it is sometimes depressing to think there is more of my life behind me than there is in front of me. But then I think about all the fun I’ve had in the past and all of the things I still have to look forward to – and I’m really okay with that.

Grow old with me! The best is yet to be. ~ Robert Browning

And, of course, nothing cheeses me more than some punk waiter saying to me, “and what can I get for you, young lady?” – making it clear he views me as older than dirt. But then I remember I can still throw a pretty decent right hook when necessary, and you have no idea how okay I am with that.


There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age - I missed it coming and going. ~ J.B. Priestly

So, yeah. Today I am 50 years old. And I’m okay with that.

Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative. ~ Maurice Chevalier

Get your $100 Target Gift Cards!

No, not here, silly. Who do I look like? Mrs. Bill Gates? No, it’s Tiffany, from The R Family Diaries and a co-founder of SITS.

Tiffany recently became a “faculty mom” for Fishful Thinking, an exciting new site working to foster optimism in kids. (I know some adults who could use a good dose of that, as well.) Among other things, the site offers tools for parents, a super-cool, safe interactive website for kids and activities for parents and kids to do together.

So hop on over to Tiffany’s site to learn more about Fishful Thinking – and a chance at those $100 gift certificates!

I won a giveaway!

Can you believe it? Last Friday I headed over to Chicken Nuggets of Wisdom to read a guest post by Mariana Howard who offered some great beauty tips. Beauty-related things are yet another subject I find to be endlessly fascinating, so I enjoyed the post very much.

One of the products she recommended was TimeBalm Concealer, made by TheBalm. I NEED this, so I went to Sephora yesterday to pick it up. Along with about $75 worth of Bare Escentuals stuff - but we won’t talk about that…

As usual, my timing was slightly off. I came home to find an email telling me I had won a Sephora gift card. How cool is that? Guess I'll have to force myself to go back to Sephora now.

So thanks so much DiPaola Momma, a fellow member of the SITS Welcome Wagon, for hosting this giveaway. Oh, and thanks also for picking me!

In honor of Valentine's Day

Rarely does a commercial make me laugh out loud. Have you seen this new AT&T commercial, featuring Pepe La Pew? It cracks me up every time. I don’t know why.

Mr. Jelly Belly, however, is not so amused that I text him whenever he is out of the house to say, “Hello my luv. I mees u. Kees. Kees. Kees.” And sometimes I just walk by and say, “Kees. Kees. Kees.”

Here’s the commercial if you haven’t seen it. And I really hope I get over this soon.

I am not the food police, people!

My very dear friend New Midlife Mommy mentioned to me in an email the other day that she and her husband felt I was sucking the joy right out of eating. Oh, okay, she didn’t say it quite like that (what she said was actually quite funny) but she wondered what they COULD eat if they had to avoid white flour, sugar, sodium, eggs, dairy, red meat, saturated fats and processed foods.

Other people I know have actually hidden what they are eating when they see me coming and I always wonder why. Do they think I am judging them? Because, truly, I am not.

There are basically only two reasons why I have been trying to eat better. First, since losing about 45 pounds – which I was able to do by slowly learning about basic nutrition - it’s been a constant struggle to keep it off. Especially this time of year when I crave comfort food and pure junk as much as anyone else. Knowing how to eat right and actually doing it are sometimes two different things.

Second, I am no spring chicken anymore. More like a fall chicken. We all know we can’t keep ignoring what we’re putting in our bodies when we get to an age where everything is slowing down, clogging up and generally falling apart.

That being said, I really only care about these things FOR MYSELF. What other people choose to eat is their own business. Even members of my immediate family.

Mr. Jelly Belly is one of the worst eaters I know. He hates fruits and vegetables and is not at all adventurous when it comes to trying new foods. And if he wants Hamburger Helper for dinner, I make it for him. I sure don’t eat it (ick), but if that’s what he likes, then that’s what he gets. He should enjoy his food, right? If I enjoy a nice piece of salmon and half a plate full of vegetables, then that’s what I should have (and listen to an “ick” from him). And I would never force him to eat what I think is good for him or go without. I’m not his mother.

And I certainly don’t go around making unsolicited comments about the food choices of others. If someone asks me for advice, I’ll give them my opinion, but I never look at what someone is eating and point out how they are killing themselves. Even the woman at work who eats a can of big-sodium Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup and half a sleeve of saltines every day for lunch while she complains about her weight. I say nary a word. Because she didn’t ask me. And it’s none of my business. (Okay, that's probably a bad example because that bugs me EVERY DAY...but still, my lips stay zipped!)

I am far from perfect these days. Far. For example, last night for dinner I ate 6 rather large shortbread cookies that someone in my house didn’t hide well enough from me. SIX. Why did I eat them? Because I was tired and didn’t plan my meals for the day. Result? I came home from work starving and lacking self-control. Three weeks sugar-free down the drain. Sigh. I beat myself up a little and now I will get over it and move on. If I watched someone else eat those cookies? So what? Other than feeling a little twinge of jealousy, I couldn’t care less.

I can find lots of foods to eat that aren’t processed. LOTS. I realize that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. What works for me might not work for you – and vice versa. So eat what makes you happy and don’t worry about what anyone else thinks. Least of all me. Because I’m not monitoring.

Change a meal, save the planet?

Try going vegetarian at least once a week. Eating 20% less meat makes the same impact as switching to a hybrid car.

I think we can all agree that we would like to do our part in helping to save our planet. Sometimes we just don’t know what we, as individuals, can do to make a difference. Oh, we know to recycle whenever possible and to drink our water out of reusable containers, to avoid Styrofoam - and maybe we even have a reusable grocery bag. And all of those things help. But can we do more?

There are those who feel going meatless just one day per week can have a significant impact on our environment . WannaVeg.com has a post on the top ten ways you can make a difference over the course of a year just by going vegetarian one day a week - including saving 84,000 gallons of water, 245 pounds of grain, 15.5 gallons of gasoline, and 87 square feet of topsoil from erosion. Check out their site for further information on those claims.

And if working to save the environment doesn’t convince you, what about your health?

Meatless Monday, a non-profit organization working in association with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is a national public health campaign to help prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer -- four of the leading causes of death in America. A simple way to prevent these diseases is to eat a diet lower in saturated fat. Eliminating meat and high fat dairy for just one day a week will reduce your consumption of saturated fats by 15%. Fifteen. In one day. Fairly significant, don’t you think?

For the tightwads budget-conscious among us, think of the cost savings. Compare the price of a bag of dried beans, for example, with the cost of a pound or so of beef. Have you LOOKED at meat prices lately?

At a loss as to what you could eat on a meatless day? Italian food immediately springs to mind. Baked ziti with a meatless sauce, stuffed shells, vegetable lasagna. And what about a cheese or vegetarian pizza? Lots of beans in Mexican food. Seafood also seems to be on the A-OK list because of its high nutritional content. How about fish one day and totally meatless another? Too much? Okay, sorry. Whatever you choose, my guess is that your family won’t even notice that you’re doing it.

From a health standpoint; from an environmental standpoint; from a budgetary standpoint - it just makes sense.

(By the way, my two very beautiful nieces both adopted a vegetarian lifestyle at the beginning of this year and are blogging about it over at Carnivore No More. Cute name, huh? Keep an eye on them for some delicious vegetarian recipes and tips.)

I realize some of these environmental claims seem a little on the inflated side – I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that an average person like me, who might eliminate one 4-ounce chicken breast and a paltry pork chop on any given day of the week, could single handedly save 7700 square feet of rain forest in the course of a year.

Still...what if we could?

Not so SAD anymore!

I think I must have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). And although it’s not technically contagious, I still think I caught it from the endless fucking snow and the temperatures that are firmly stuck in single digits. Enough already!

If you have the WINTER version of SAD, you might experience symptoms such as these:

* Depression
* Hopelessness
* Anxiety
* Loss of energy
* Social withdrawal
* Oversleeping
* Loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed
* Appetite changes, especially a craving for foods high in carbohydrates
* Weight gain
* Difficulty concentrating and processing information

Yikes. None of those sound too fun, do they? The symptoms of the SUMMER version of SAD (which I truly did not know even existed) sound much more less, well, depressing:

* Anxiety
* Insomnia
* Irritability
* Agitation
* Weight loss
* Poor appetite
* Increased sex drive

So how is winter-onset SAD treated? With light therapy. Light is good. But since I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in wearing one of those handy dandy light visors like the one pictured above - and armed with a generous Christmas bonus - I decided to self-medicate with a healthy dose of internet SHOPPING. It may have lessened some of the SAD symptoms, but I think it might have also awakened my long-dormant QVC addiction.

Want to know what I bought? Okay, but before I tell you, please keep in mind that I NEEDED all of these things. NEEDED. Not frivolous purchases. At all.

An 11-piece set of hard anondized non-stick cookware. I can’t tell you what a joy it is to scramble eggs that actually come out of the pan when you want to eat them. My old set of pans lost their non-stickiness sometime during the Clinton administration.

An enamel cast iron 11” square grill pan. And it’s RED. How fun! In this state, the weather is only suitable for outside grilling for about an hour and a half on the third Tuesday in July. I have wanted this for a long time. (Uh oh…just spotted some new bad reviews on this one…hope I saved the box.)

A 3-piece non-stick knife set (in black, not blue). Looks like plastic, but it’s not. They cut like buttah and I really needed a paring knife. Can’t beat the price.

Now this one will make you laugh, but I know it’s going to come in really handy in the summer: A stainless steel PROFESSIONAL pineapple slicer. Just cut the top off of the pineapple, insert this corkscrew-like device and it cores AND slices the pineapple. I love a gadget. Watch the video; you’ll want one, too.

And because I have terminally bad hair, this crap which had better work or it’s going right back.

Some Bare Escentuals foundation – from my favorite BE source on Ebay.

More emu oil – and this time I’m trying the peppermint, too. For my ugly feet, natch.

Three cookbooks from Amazon, courtesy of gift cards. I got this one, this one and this one. I admit it - I am a cookbook whore. Expect to see a lot of posts about whole grains in the future.

Let's see...what else? Oh, yeah. Because my eyeshadow doesn’t stay on beyond my first cup of coffee, the highly rated Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion – which I hope will fix that particular little problem.

So, I think that’s everything. While I must admit I feel a LITTLE better, I don’t feel completely cured yet - so I may have to give myself a few more doses.

A few of my favorite things

While we wait for this year to grind to a close and before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming, I thought I would share with you a list of my favorite things of 2008.

Now, don’t get excited. I’m not Oprah - I only wish - so don’t be expecting one of each of these items just for being in my audience today.

I’ll start with my most favoritest thing that I got this year – and the rest will be in no particular order.

1. Anyone who knows me personally probably can guess what my number one item is. It’s my Amazon Kindle!

Now, I had to get the money to buy the dang thing by selling my old broken jewelry and single earrings at a Cash For Gold party. But it is so worth every single dime. No more book clutter, I can carry around 400+ books with me at all times (in my purse!) and I can have any book I want delivered wirelessly in about two minutes. But, most importantly, it’s restored my love of reading. And that’s a good thing!

2. My 2008 Ford Escape. Brand new in January, it already has 20,000 miles on it. We love our Escape.

An SUV that drives like a car and gets about 28 miles to the gallon. What could be better? Oh, the remote starter – that’s what could be better! Love it, love it, love it!

3. In the area of paper crafting, the following four items were my favorites this year: The Cricuit, the Cuttlebug, Scor Pal and Rubbernecker unmounted stamps. Fun! And thank God for coupons and internet deals.


4. Cauliflower Pizza. I still love this. It tastes better every time I make it. And I’m no chef.

5. Tresseme Thermal Recovery Shampoo and Conditioner. When you have awful hair to start with and you compound that awfulness with almost daily use of a flat iron, you spend a lot of time and money searching for the perfect product for damaged hair. Guess what? This stuff works better for my hair than all the pricey salon products I spent a fortune on. Under $5 a bottle at Target.

6. The Inno for XM Satellite Radio. Technically, I got this at the end of 2007, but I’ve been rocking it all year.

A portable satellite radio and MP3 player, it records programming and also alerts you when songs you like are playing anywhere on XM. It’s mounted in my car, but easily lifts out so I can walk around with it. Or sweat to the oldies on the treadmill. Theoretically speaking, of course.

7. True North Almond Clusters. Delicious and dangerous. Bet you can’t eat just one.

8. This blog. NaBloPoMo notwithstanding, I’ve enjoyed writing it very much. And I’ve appreciated all of you for reading it.

9. DVR. File this under “how did we ever live without this”. I love that we can set it up to automatically record new episodes of our favorite shows and never have to miss them. I love recording shows that only I like so that I can watch them when I’m home alone. I love everything about it.

10. Although this was only going to be a list of material things, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the newest addition to our family, our third grandchild (and second grandson) who was born on March 10th of this year.


So there you have it. My top ten list. Please tell me about some of your favorite things from 2008 – I have gift cards burning a hole in my pocket.

Just for fun on the last day of that &*$@#^! NaBloPoMo

Believe it or not, I actually have a real post written and ready to go, but I thought I would ride out this awful, awful NaBloPoMo with something I thought looked fun.

Perhaps you've seen it. You're supposed to be tagged for it, but what the heck. I figured I'd do it anyway. The idea is to pull out the sixth picture from the sixth folder on your computer and post it. Of course, first I checked to make sure that picture wasn't too embarassing or anything. Turns out it's one of my favorites. And about three years old.

That's my oldest grandson who spent that particular afternoon telling me to "take a picture of me doing THIS" and "THIS" and "THIS". About 100 pictures of him making odd facial expressions and contorting his little body. All because he loved to run back and look at the digital display the very second the picture was taken.

So if you haven't got a final post to end this dang thing with, why don't you try it? (And what do you want to bet that blog posting will be VERY LIGHT tomorrow?)

What a difference a day makes

Okay, so yesterday I was appropriately grateful and thankful and all that stuff. Truly I was. But today? Today I am just PISSED. About several things.

First, I have to work today. On the plus side, traffic was light, hardly anyone is here and we got a rare casual day, so I’m hanging out in jeans and tennis shoes. But still. It was just too hard getting out of bed this morning.

Last Sunday I bought a pair of pants at Penney’s on sale for $14.95. So, cool. I’m always happy to get a pair of pants that fit right and aren’t expensive. I take them home, cut all the tags off, throw them in the washer and then the dryer. And then the dryer again, because I didn’t get them out fast enough the first time - and I don’t do ironing. Anyway. I went to put them on yesterday and find one of those annoying round, ink-filled security tags stuck to one of the legs.

So now, because of their incompetence, I have to fight the freaking crazy holiday shopping crowds, stand in a long-ass line and pray they will remove the tag without a hassle. Because of course I threw out the receipt. And why the hell do you need a security tag on a pair of pants that cost less than $15? I keep imagining what would have happened to my washer and/or dryer if that thing had exploded.

Then Mr. Jelly Belly called me this morning to tell me that an electronic check for $39.99 was put through (in my name) to our old bank account. Where there is no money. (I don’t KNOW why that account wasn’t closed, so don’t ask me.) He was trying to look at the check online to see who put it through, but couldn’t make it out so he called me to ask what it was. I have no idea. Add a $36 bounced check charge to my list of things that piss me off. So, again, we have to find the time to deal with the bank and find out where this came from, try to prove it wasn’t authorized and get them to reverse the charges. Unfortunately, when it comes to banks, the customer is never right, so I anticipate a long, tedious process that I don't have the time or energy for.

And, finally, I’m pissed that I used my See Sue Bitch picture last week. I really need it today.

So enough of the complaining.

My holiday was really good. We went OUT to overeat, which is always much less work and headache. Plus I didn’t have to "company clean" the house. How was yours?

Happy Thanksgiving

A poem for you:

May your stuffing be tasty

May your turkey be plump,

May your potatoes and gravy

Have nary a lump.

May your yams be delicious

And your pies take the prize,

And may your Thanksgiving dinner

Stay off your thighs!

And a song of hope from a turkey: