Usually shopping and I don't have a very comfortable relationship. I don't have mountains of money to spend, I'm impatient, and I'm hard to fit.

Sometimes, though, the planets align and the retail experience becomes a thing of true pleasure and beauty. Such an occurance happened to me this week.

I realized on Thursday morning that a friend and I had tickets to see Aida on Friday. Hooray! Or maybe not. I had nothing to wear.

In a panic, I dashed out of school at 4:05 on Thursday.... read more

I was feeling sentimental when I planned my Easter dinner menu, so what I ended up with looked a lot like what my paternal grandmother might have served:

Ham
Green beans
Sweet potatoes
Homemade rolls
Ambrosia

I opted to leave the mushroom soup off of the green beans and the butter/brown sugar/marshmallows off of the sweet potatoes.

Yes, I did make ambrosia, complete with Cool Whip and marschino cherries. K liked it and encouraged her brother to try it. "It's good!" she said. ... read more

My son's 10th birthday is tomorrow. I've been thinking for several months that I would get him some sort of video system--he played my brother's in Colorado over Christmas and loved it. I thought it would also be a good motivator--time on the game system could be tied to exercise, for example. Desire for money for more games would probably also motivate him in the chore department.

And then I looked at the prices. Oh. My. Goddess. No way I could afford one. But my brother saved the d... read more

What an interesting evening. I thought I was going to get Indian food with a friend and sit through a very amateur production of my favorite Shakespeare play. Wrong, wrong, wrong. : )

Turned out that neither my friend or I were very hungry--we split some saag paneer and then wandered around the Village for a bit. Around 7:15 we arrived at Rice, explored new Wiess by way of the new Hanszen commons, then went to the port and chocolate reception at Baker House. Yum.

The Much Ado produ... read more

To whom it may concern:

There are few actions lower than stealing a nine year old's Christmas bike.

That is all.