When I was being ambitious last week, I planned for Tuesdays to be the post-a-list-of-things day. All because I posted the list of fellow WordCount Blogathoners.  Now here I am several hours before my imposed posting deadline with no desire to think about putting a list of something together. Oh, well. The rules I make for myself are not set in concrete. I can be flexible. That's my lesson for me this moment. It's a lesson I need to reinforce every so often; otherwise, I'll miss so much. Like this evening, actually yesterday evening. As I was dumping a bowl of green waste into the compost bin, a bit of yellow caught my eye. The first sunflower of the year was opening up. It was a volunteer growing in a pot of another plant that had volunteered on its own. Flexibility. Of course I had to run inside for my camera. Flexibility.  After taking a photo of the sunflower, I looked around the backyard and saw other wonders. Flexibility. Looking at the photos I took, I realize that

The plan was to make potato salad the other night. I had a bunch of mini Yukon Gold potatoes from the organic farm stand. And, the summer-like weather that night just called for having potato salad for dinner. So, I washed and scrubbed the potatoes  and put them on the stove to cook. I set the heat to medium so I could forget about them for half an hour. By the time I took them off the stove, I didn't feel link mincing and dicing the other ingredients. I didn't think about doing all that while the potatoes were boiling. Playing Jungle Jewels on Facebook was just so urgent, you know.  Sooooo, I made mashed potatoes. Didn't even take off the peelings. Here you go. My top-off-the-head recipe for Suddenly Mashed Potatoes . Dump potatoes into bowl.  Add the last of the martini olives and their juice. (In my recipe, it was about 4 olives and a 1/4 cup of liquid.) Add about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of plain yogurt. Add about 3 tablespoons of butter or whatever you use in its place. Mash. Ma

The Mama's Vegetable Garden in 2009 The weather was so glorious last week that the Mama started planting her vegetable garden. She was very happy to be playing in the dirt again, after being cooped up in the house during the rainy and cold days. To read more about the gardening Mama, click here . Happy Mother's Day to you and your Mamas! This is how the Mama's garden looks today. Soon bean and squash vines will be climbing up these wires again. The Mama threw these bean seeds in the ground about two weeks ago. The first artichoke of the season! Those are all volunteer apricot tree saplings. No idea how that happened. The Mama at Work

The Husband. . . and the Me As you can see, the husband's and my hair (hairs?) are now back to being normally short. Click here to see our original state of baldness. As for that bald oval spot on the side of my head, it's almost hidden now without me even trying. But then I wasn't even trying when I didn't have enough hair to cover it. Check it out. That there is a natural comb-over. Any bets on how long the husband's and my hair (hairs?) will get by next January? Or, whose hair will be the longest? 

My dad didn't advise me much when I was growing up. When he did, they were humdingers, and usually they were one-liners.  For instance, on the day of my senior prom, he told me rather placidly, and unexpectedly, "Don't go f***ing around." The idea hadn't even entered my mind.  And, when I was attending community college, Daddy pronounced suddenly in his usual unruffled way to me, "Don't be a hippie." Nothing more. Probably the most profound guidance Daddy gave me was when, as a teenager, I decided to check out different churches. Not because I was looking for a church to join but because I was curious about how different churches worshiped. I didn't know that Daddy had noticed what I was doing. Even if he had, I didn't think he would've cared since we were not avid churchgoers. But before I went on my fourth Sunday outing, Daddy said, calmly, as always, "I don't want you going to any other church as long as I'm alive." H

What a ditz I am! What a dope! I could blame it on my  progressive lenses that give me trouble finding the  sweet spot in which to read my computer screen. Yeah, I can blame my glasses. No personal responsibility here for reading $.045 as 45 cents instead of 4 1/2 cents. What a big difference that is! Last month, I contracted to write three articles for a reputable publisher based on $.045 per word, which I read as 45 cents a word. I would've been none the wiser if I hadn't received an e-mail yesterday from the editor seeking writers to complete a few  rush articles. He wrote that the pay would be the usual "4 1/2 cents per word." What? I quickly looked up the initial query I received and my contract. The wording was "$.045 per word." Such a dumbo, I am. Sigh . Now I could turn my frown upside down by saying that 4 1/2 cents per word is better than the zero cents per word I give myself for blog posts. Four and a half cents is better than nothing, right? So

I learned recently that the Pulitzer people give out an annual prize for criticism. The mama would win one if she was a journalist, or if the prize was for the most, best, and consistent criticizer around.  That doesn't sound good, does it? On a positive note, she is less critical than she was in our younger days. That could be because I am just as less critical about her. Ah, the joys of this daughter-and-mother relationship. I digress, as bloggers are sometimes meant to do. According to the Pulitzer Prizes Web site, the winners in the criticism category are awarded for their " distinguished criticism." In other words, they have written in print or online acclaimed, celebrated, esteemed, respected, important, and influential words of assessment, appraisal, judgement, disapproval, condemnation, and/or censure. Imagine. Some winning critics have offered their opinions about movies, books, music, art, architecture, or media. Others have commented about social, cultural, ec