Happy Birthday, Mom

Today is my mom's birthday. I'm not exactly sure how old I am in this photo of the two of us, but it was when I was very wee. Maybe a month old? She looks so young and happy. In that photo she was 29 years old. She'd been married for about 4 years. She and my dad had bought their first house the year before. I was her first baby. She was livin' the dream.

My mom is an amazing woman. My admiration grows more and more with each passing year. I don't know how she has the energy to accomplish all she does. When I was a kid, she was a nurse who worked full time as a Transplant Coordinator. She did kidney, liver and pancreas transplants. It was back before computers or cell phones, so when she was on call it was just her, a big pile of papers, and a lot of time on the phone. She worked a lot, but she loved her job. And she loved being a mom, too. She made Halloween costumes and clothes for us. She baked cookies. She read to us every night. She attended our games when we played sports. She was there when we won awards. She helped with science projects. Mom did it all. She retired from work four years ago. She now watches my three kids during the day while I'm at work, and often watches my sister's daughter also. In addition to all this, she's also very active with the Church and our community. She is Super Woman!

I hope I'm just like her when I grow up.

A Sharp Dressed Man

That's Puck, from Glee. You should be watching.

Sparkles and Fur

November 20th, baby. I seriously cannot wait. It's going to be just as gloriously awful as the first movie, I'm sure. We bought tickets for opening night. I'm sure we'll be offending and irritating tweens with our peals of laughter during tender sparkle moments. That just adds to the glee.

Supposedly, the director of this movie wanted to really tug at the heart strings and make it a tearjerker. Awesome. This thing is going to be hysterical. And not just because of Edward's painted-on abs.

Twilight, you've added so much joy to my life. Thank you for being a poorly written series, made into horrendous, cheesy movies. I love to hate you more than I could ever say.

Also? CHAGRIN!!!

Strip Tea Glasses

These "Strip Tea" glasses are one of the new offerings from Fishs Eddy, which is this cool store in NYC. My sister-in-law once bought me a platter from the store. The pattern was colorful, and when you looked at it closely you could see that it was made up of little pictures of various undergarments. Panties and bras and corsets and whatnot. I simply adore that platter. In fact, I went over to the Fishs Eddy website to see if they had other dishes with the same pattern. Sadly, it was not meant to be. Though they did have this line that they called "Dirty Dishes."Dishes with nude women! Scandalous!

....and perfect for church dinners!

Male Prima Donna

Kelly and Kelly from the office started a band: Subtle Sexuality. Featuring the Nard Dog, and...um, Ryan the Temp. I think he wants to be called Mr. Understood, but...whatever, Temp. But his rhymes bite like piranha.

The video is a thing of glory. Behold:


I'm totally downloading this song from iTunes.

The Peanut Butter Oreo Mystery

One of my very favorite cookies of the store-bought variety is Peanut Butter Oreos. They're an Oreo with Nutter Butter filling. And they are scrumptious. Truly. In fact, they've sort of ruined regular Oreos for me. Regular Oreos seem so plain in comparison! But my problem is that I eat...shall we say, a lot of Peanut Butter Oreos in one sitting. So even though I love them, I try not to get them very often because I practically inhale the package.

Last week, my husband came home with FOUR packages of Oreos. Two mint, and two peanut butter. They were on sale, see? And the hubbs cannot pass up a deal. So, the Oreos have been taunting me from the pantry shelf. Over the past several weeks I've been trying, rather unsuccessfully, to lose some weight and get in shape. And I know Peanut Butter Oreos don't fit into that plan so well. But I'm only human! So I've succumbed to the Oreos. Almost every night this week, after I put the kids to bed, I sit down to watch TV with a big glass of milk and a ton of Peanut Butter Oreos.

So here's a head scratcher: despite eating a sickening amount of Oreos this week (combined with not exercising), I have managed to lose 4 pounds. How exactly does that work?

My only explanation is that it must be a message from God, telling me that He loves me and wants me to be happy. Viva la Oreo!!

Agave-Sweetened Lemonade

Okay, fans. I tried the agave nectar today. I made lemonade from scratch. The recipe I used was:

3/4 c. agave nectar
2 qts. water
2 c. lemon juice

You're supposed to heat the water, and sort of melt the agave nectar into it before making it into lemonade. But it doesn't seem to me like this should be a problem because the nectar is already so liquid. With granulated sugar, you have to "melt" the sugar because otherwise you get sugar sand at the bottom. No one wants that. But, the recipe said that it was important to make sure the agave nectar blended well. So I did as the recipe dictated. Agave nectar really looks like maple syrup, and so you kind of expect it to smell and taste the same way. But it's just sweet. Nothing really unusual or exotic about it.

The lemon juice I used was from a bottle. I have a lemon tree, but it has approximately 3 ripe lemons on it. Definitely not enough to make an entire pitcher of lemonade. So I used the bottled stuff. Just in case you were wondering, bottled lemon juice doesn't taste so great. But I tried.

The result? Agave nectar is basically just like sugar. It's kind of a brown color, and I was nervous it would make the lemonade look nasty. But it didn't. It was just regular ol' lemonade. Nothing to write home about. I like the fact agave nectar is less processed than white sugar, but other than that? Meh.