Just. Breathe.

I have a confession. I have issues with knowing my own limits. The whole idea that I HAVE limits annoys me, so I just push forward. I say things like, "But I want to!" as a reason for taking on 68 things at the same time. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not. I also love fall. [I love it more when it's not 97 degrees outside, but that's a different topic.] The colors, the air, the food, the clothes -- other than Christmas, it's the one season I actually change the decor of my house. When fall hits, I get inspired to take on projects of all types, and usually all at the same time. This past weekend, I was in the mood to bake something, so I promised the kid cupcakes (Project#1).  Snickerdoodle cupcakes!  I knew I wanted to get the dining room table decorated for fall (P#2)...  Not quite finished yet  but then I noticed how bad the chair fabric looked after 8 years. So let's recover the dining chairs (P#3)! Eight chairs in one day! An...

Anniversaries are weird. As a kid, an anniversary was that one meal/night/weekend your parents never allowed you to spend with them, and that made sense. Like a birthday, you had one of these a year marking a specific event. Then you got older. Friends in high school talked about the "one-month anniversary" of their first date/kiss/whatever, and ushered in the era of those other date remembrances. It seemed like everyone was having an anniversary of something every other day. I'm sure I jumped on that bandwagon, too, I just don't remember any of those dates anymore! Then comes the first "bad" anniversary -- the breakup, the divorce, and eventually, the anniversary of a death. It's hard to use a word associated with celebrations with those sorts of events. The point is to mark them, I suppose, more than celebrate -- maybe to remember happy times, or how things have changed. And somewhere in your mind is the question, "Does this ever get easier?...

I've posted notes on making this particular dish before, but it's so easy (and popular) that I thought I'd put a how-to here. Most recently I made this for some new parents - it's great for make-and-take events, because it's easy, and stays warm for a long time. Credit goes to the Neely's at Food Network for the sauce - I started with their tomato sauce recipe and made a few adjustments. I first saw lasagna rolls on the blogchef.net site, but there are many out there if you google it. I think all good pasta sauces start the same way -- olive oil, chopped onion and garlic. Saute the onion until it is tender. I usually add a little salt and some black pepper at this point, too. Depending on how much sauce you need, add one 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes. I prefer the Contadina brand -- I've tried the generic brands and they just don't taste right. Add some basil - dried is fine, just be sure to rub it in your hands first to release the flavor -- and a...

I was reading a popular blog the other day and the topic was TV shows that the writer rated as most consistently funny. I was surprised at the ones I completely agreed with, as well as the couple that just didn't do it for me. So I wondered what my list would look like. Here, in no particular order, are the four shows that most often bring me to the bust-a-gut, can't-breathe-for-laughing state. 1. Friends Thursdays have never been the same since the friends moved on. Who can forget: "PIVOTTTTT!!" Smelly Cat Chick and Duck "Nipular area" "That's not even a WORD!" "Damn the jellyfish!" Janice "We were on a break!" Joey and the turkey Ross and the leather pants The Holiday Armadillo "How YOU doin'?" And the guest stars: George Clooney, Noah Wiley, Tom Selleck, Jill Goodacre, Jon Lovitz, Charlie Sheen, Teri Garr, Bruce Willis, Kathleen Turner, Reese Witherspoon, Christina Applegate, and on and on. ...

Apparently I took the month of August off from blogging. Not sure that it was a conscious decision, but here I sit at the end of the month wondering where time went. It's not that I didn't have anything to say, but somehow I just kept avoiding completing a thought. I blame the heat in Texas - it's fried my brain. On that note, SERIOUSLY? Sixty some-odd days of 100+degrees, 42 of them in a row? No appreciable rain in months. [Okay, there was that ONE storm, but who can remember...] The floors of my house are a wreck because the dogs go outside, jump in the pool to cool off, then run inside, dripping wet. It's fun and smells great. There's not enough Scentsy in the world... This is how they spend the day waiting for everyone else to get home. Yes, that's Theo crowding Beau every chance he gets. Bette tries to stay away. So during this ridiculous heat wave, what do my daughter and I decide to do? Take up running. Yeah, take a moment to process that. I'm...

Last week was a new experience for my daughter and me. We went on a mission trip to New Orleans with a group from our church. I'd gone on mission trips as a teenager, but this was my first as an adult. Not only was it a different kind of mission, I had a completely different perspective almost 30 years after the last one. Our group of 16 was made up of 12 girls/women and 4 boys/men. It was about a 10-hour drive one way, give or take 14 bathroom stops. The trip was coordinated through MissionLab, out of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. This particular week had about 400 people descending on the city to provide various services. Our group held a Vacation Bible School at an apartment complex, and worked to clear a lot in the Lower 9th Ward. It took me about 4 minutes to find a child I wanted to bring home with me from VBS. Derrick was three, and he pronounces "blue" as "plue." Love. He did not come home with me, in part because Hubby gets another ...

The title is misleading. I don't mean "stuff" like possessions, although some of the stuff below is stuff. (Huh?) I was just thinking about little things that make me smile. So, here's a list of what makes me smile today, in no particular order. 1. Grilled cheese sandwiches . Not fancy, although fancy is fine, too. Just American cheese on wheat bread (crusts ON, please) is fine with me. Hubby taught me the art of putting the butter in the pan instead of on the bread -- makes it crispier -- but I still usually go for the soggier, butterier (is that a word?) style. 2. A clean desk . You'd think I'd work harder to have this, since I love it so much. 3. Word games . Boggle. Twist. Cryptograms. Anything that makes me make words out of other words or letters just makes my day. If you haven't found sporcle.com and you like word and trivia games, be prepared to lose hours. 4. This site . Never fails to make me want to bake or decorate something. 5. Read...