Dear Gentle Readers, I thought I'd let you gander at how my head looks today. :-) I really didn't think it would grow in this quickly. Here's how it looked the first day . It's funny how my head feels lighter today than it did on the day I cut it. Without the hair, maybe stuff in my noggin was able to seep through the skull and evaporate into the air. Poof. Hope it wasn't any of my smarts.

Rainbows! All I had to do was look out my window, too. Gotta love that. The weathercasters say we'll be seeing rain in our area all week. I hope so.

Miner's lettuce! The husband and I found a patch of it growing in my neighborhood. What the heck is it doing here? It was just growing out in the open between a fence and the public sidewalk. No cover of trees, bushes, or anything, which to us was weird because we thought the wild plant can only grow in the shade. We also think of it growing out in the wilds. I was not really curious about it until today. So, gentle readers, here's what I learned: Miner's Lettuce is part of the purslane family. No kidding. It grows throughout the United States. Some folks also know the edible plant as Winter Purslane , Spring Beauty, or Indian lettuce. Claytonia perfoliata for those who like knowing scientific nomenclature. Claytonia perfoliata . That would make a great title for an Italian opera. Supposedly, the plant got called Miner's Lettuce in California because the gold rush miners ate the green to stave off scurvy . According to various sources on the Web, Miner's L

I’ve been talking to the husband and the mama about changing to cloth napkins for almost two years. (Time flies quickly when you’re old. That is, older.) The husband and the mama had no objections. Cloth napkins are more economical than paper ones, as well as more than one tree would be saved. But any moves of finding and purchasing cloth napkins were going to come from me. My research was sporadic and disheartening. There weren’t, and probably still aren’t, many places to buy cloth napkins, nor were there a variety of choices of napkins. And I am very particular about shelling out money, between $4 and $5 per napkin, for something I could easily make, if I had the time. As for the mama, who is even cheaper than me, I imagined her hiding a paper napkin amongst the expensive cloth one and pulling it out to wipe her mouth when I wasn’t looking. A couple months ago, I finally did walk my talk. It was fun and a hoot putting my foot to the metal of my mom’s Singer treadle sewing machine

12:59 p.m. Drats ! Lunch time! I meant to start making lunch half-an-hour ago. 1 p.m. Race down the stairs, into the garage, and pull out a bag of frozen organic tomatoes from the freezer. Rinse the tomatoes, then thaw them in the microwave, on high, for 8 minutes. Next, wash and thinly slice 3 stalks of celery. Dice 1 white onion. Sauté ingredients until soft in a combination of olive oil and not-butter. 1:07 p.m. Run upstairs to fetch camera. Take picture of tomatoes in microwave. 1:09 p.m. Dump tomatoes into pot. Stir. Take a photo. Cover pot. 1:11 p.m. Finish cleaning and chopping half a bulb of garlic (10 large cloves in this case). Add to pot. With back of spoon, smash down tomatoes. Add in several mean shakes of black pepper straight from tin and 2 healthy pinches (probably 1 heaping tsp. each) of dried basil. When it comes to spices and herbs, I'm not subtle. Because the hubby must restrict his salt intake, I rarely add salt to the stuff I make. 1:14 p.m.: Carefully pluck

One of my latest projects is divesting myself of stuff. See the photo of the snake pen. It’s inkless. Shall I: a) throw it away? b) toss it into one of my boxes of mementos, which I’ll open another day to decide whether I’m ready to dump what’s inside? c) keep it forever and let my executor dump it after I’m dead? I bought this pen years ago when I was going through a period of “Ooh, how cute. I’m a snake, I must have it.” Fortunately, that was a short phase and I have only a meager collection of stuffed snakes, snake figurines, and picture books featuring talking snakes. No doubt, unknown readers, you understand my snake reference, one of the 12 signs in Chinese astrology. According to the Chinese Zodiac.com web site , “…When it comes to decision-making, Snakes are extremely analytical and as a result, they don’t jump into situations....” Yep. This snake pen has been lying on my desk for several days, ever since I went through my cup of pens and threw away the inkless ones. But un

So, do you see Bart Simpson in that tree? How about a person in pants standing as he or she scratches his or her head? Perhaps, you see the back side of a deer's head as it gazes at the building. Or, do you see a mess of leaves that you're happy you won't be sweeping? That's imagining, too. (Click on the photo for a larger image.)