I woke up feeling down this morning. Actually, I went to sleep feeling down. I was also feeling a sense of devastation for no obvious reason. To keep the ya-ya's at bay, I played Bejeweled Blitz at Facebook for a long while. Of course, it didn't work.  I  told myself to do something constructive such as add stuff that I've been avoiding to do on my to-do list.  And do them. Or, at least take care of the things that are still on that list. I didn't even try to find my to-do list. I thought about doing something healthy and frolicky such as  walking over to the quilt shop and buying a couple of cheerful looking fat quarters. But, should I be spending money that way? Besides, it looked like it might rain. Then we received our mail. Amongst it was a handprinted envelope, which the husband thought was a wedding invitation. An assumption, he said, because there was no return address. But it was a card from Rabobank where we had opened a new account a few months back. "We

Peanut butter (PB) is a staple in our household. The husband and I eat it for breakfast almost every other day. That's why we can go through a jar of PB in a week and a half. The mama, on the other had, can make a jar last six months. I kid you not.  And, the mama, definitely likes peanut butter, but she's very stingy (though her word would be "economical") about how much she puts on her roll or slice of bread. A month ago, she ran out of peanut butter.  (Yes, we have our own separate jars.) I pulled out the jar of PB I had bought last year in anticipation of her getting to the end of her current jar.  The "sell by" date on the new jar was January 2010.  Sigh.  I couldn't have the Mama eat a stale jar of PB for six months, and I surely didn't want to be eating it either. So, like any home cook on a budget, I found ways to use up the PB quickly and generously. I integrated it into a pasta dish and meat marinade, for instance.  I also dug out the cookb

If you ask the mama how old she is, she will usually say, "I'm 100 years old." And, depending on who you are, she might give you a smile or a look that tells you she thinks you're a moron. So, how old is the mama? She has told me not to tell. But I can say that the mama is 30-some years older than me, and I'm already considered a senior by AARP. Age does not slow the mama down. The weather does. First it was rain, now it's the chilly wind that keeps her from spending all day playing outside in her garden patches. I'm grateful for that. The cold weather, that is. It buys the husband and me time to figure out how to prep a smaller vegetable garden space without it being too obvious. Her vegetable garden, you see, is practically the whole back yard. When the husband and I first moved in with the mama, we made a point of staying out of her garden. It is her domain, her zen, her centering place. With each year, though, I've been casually going out there a b

The Academy Awards was on tonight. The only thing I wanted to see was the opening bit with the hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. But I missed it, so I didn't watch the show. Anyway, out of the 10 movies that were up for an Oscar, the husband and I saw one. Up. That's the animated movie about an old man and a Boy Scout who were swept away to South America in the old man's house that was tied to 100s of helium balloons. It was a wonderful heartwarming story told with humor and honesty. Just the kind of story I like to watch. Up makes my list of favorite movies that are about people who rise out of their depressions, indignities, or other darknesses currently in their lives. Here are three other movies at the top of my list. Danny Deckchair is a tale of another man who flies far away by helium balloons, but his balloons are attached to his deck chair. The story is set in Australia. Danny is unhappy. He and his girlfriend don't see eye-to-eye about life. Danny

Yep, more nature photos. It's a bright, but chilly, day outside right now. Just right for a stroll to somewhere. In our case, it will be down to the photocopy center. The husband and I have our 1,000+ page copyedited manuscript to send back to the editor. That was a lot of  sitting at the desk. Glad it's over. Now it'll be a lot of standing at the copier for a bit. Knock on wood, the machine menehunes keep the photocopying running smoothly for us. I've been wanting to post memories of our walk through a mustard field a few weeks back. It was full of bees. The noise you hear on the video is that of the bizzzzy bees hard at work.