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Yesterday, when I was taking Bea for her morning evacuation, I noticed my first daffodil shoots had emerged, literally overnight. I was so overjoyed at the sight that I felt a certain giddiness at the thought of them for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, I was already running late, so I didn’t have time …
A week or so ago, I bought a hunk of ham at the grocery store on a total impulse. I’m not really much of a ham eater, nor have I ever been, but I was in kind of a spaced out mood and the size was right and the price was right, so I grabbed …
You’ll never believe what I did last night… Something I haven’t done in months, and something I know some of you were starting to think I’d never do again: I cooked something new. Something I’ve never made before, never read about, and something that ended up tasting divine. Something that was worth sharing with my …
A few years ago, I wrote this post about squirrels. At the time, I was living in an older duplex with an open air carport, which had become the winter home to a couple pairs of very territorial squirrels. In the spring, the squirrel situation bloomed into a full-blown infestation. They were everywhere: peering into …
I’d been shopping around for a new camera for a while, and on Friday, I took the plunge. I got a Nikon P510, which is what they call a “superzoom” camera. It’s a bit bigger and badder (in a good way) than a standard point and shoot, with greater sensitivity, optional manual controls, and, of …
My new sheets came on Thursday. Out of the box and straight into the wash they went, citron set first. The gray is an absolutely gorgeous, restful ash color.. the same exact shade as my existing gray curtains. I also noticed immediately that the citron sheets, in person, are more yellow than green and …
If you were to ask me what I think is the single most defining part of a person’s living space, I would say, without hesitation, it’s the bedding. Most of us live in homes that are filled with accumulated things–some of it new, most of it old. Like most homes, mine is a hodge podge of …
This Christmas, I decided to moonlight as a chocolatier and make a tremendous amount of homemade candies. See, my mom had spent the last year saving peanut tins for me, which I spiffied up and repurposed as containers to give to my beloved friends and family. But of course the tins had to be filled …
Arash and I are due back at work on Friday, so, naturally, we’re both filling the precious few remaining days of vacation doing exactly what we wish we could do more of during the semester. For me, that most definitely includes a lot of my favorite “leisure” activity: nesting, by which I mean cleaning, organizing, …
This may come as a shock to some of you none of you, but I’m a pretty emotional person (ha). Truth be told, I often have more emotion surging through my brain and my body than I know what to do with. Let me put it another way: for reasons entirely biological, the levels of …
Oh, hello, my dear friends! I can hardly believe I’m two weeks into my winter vacation and I haven’t yet written to you. Well, maybe I can… I mean, after the crazy semester I had, I wasn’t super psyched to spend my down time at my computer, writing and editing (sorry, guys). And besides, in …
Last year, I wrote this post as a response to a rather amusing afternoon I spent at the mall. Wandering through any store or shopping center this time of year is exhausting, as you can’t avoid being assaulted by a constant barrage of HOLIDAY GIFT (!!!!¡!) ideas. Many of these gift ideas are hilarious to me because, …
I’m thankful for hot bath jets, chocolate pecan pie, and hockey. No, really. I am. Last night, the Hoffmans began our Thanksgiving festivities with an annual tradition we started last year: all of us cousins (those of us in town, anyways) went to the Des Moines Buccaneer’s hockey game. This tradition, albeit a new one, …
photo via the official “Marbles” website, marblesbyellenforney.com Very recently, I read a book review on NPR about a new graphic novel by cartoonist Ellen Forney. Her newest novel, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me, is a chronicle of her experiences with bipolar I disorder, as well as her inner conflict and eventual coming to terms with …
(Pardon the excessive alliteration in the title… I couldn’t help myself!) Yesterday, my lovely cousins Angela and Emily came to visit for a day of craft making and good food eating. Angela proposed the idea a few weeks back, and I’d been looking forward to it ever since. The plan was to get a head …
Halloween at Hy-Vee, 2012 Halloween is my very favorite holiday. It’s maybe the only American holiday that has no religious ties or any other reverence of traditional values; rather, it’s a holiday purely devoted to fun. And as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t get much more fun than parties, scary movies, candy, and costumes …
So if you haven’t seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I highly recommend that you do, and at least twice. It’s a beautifully written, skillfully acted, and masterfully made film, perfect in so many ways, and it’s been one of my favorites from the very first time I saw it. All major attributes aside, …
Ok, ok, I admit it: I got this recipe from Paula Deen. And as much as I can’t stand that woman and her hair and her laugh and her crazy insane eyes and the amounts of unhealthy crap she tries to pass of for food… I really like this recipe. Terrifying, isn’t she? Anyway, I …
My parents bought their house in Grimes, Iowa before I was born, and we moved in together when I was a weeks-old baby. That house has seen us through many life changes–my brother’s birth, both of our childhoods, a major remodel, and, more recently, the first years of my parents’ empty nest phase. It’s been …
This weekend has been blissfully boring. After a week of insane busyness and stress, our minds, bodies, and souls were in desperate need of some straight up laziness. Yesterday, we did absolutely nothing–just couch time and Mexican food–and it was perfect. Today, the activity level has been somewhat higher (which is not saying much, really), …
Note: This is the first in a three-part series about my thoughts on bipolar disorder and mental illness. The next two posts can be found here and here. I’ve been thinking about writing this post almost as long as I’ve been writing in this blog. “Thinking about” may not even be a strong enough verb; “fantasizing” seems closer …
Today, my friends, is one of my favorite days of the year. I have always loved playing April Fool’s pranks, especially because almost no one ever expects them from me. I’m a pretty kind, honest person, so I guess it makes sense that everyone assumes (falsely) that on the first of April, I will still … Continue reading »
Confession: I didn’t take any pictures this week. At all. I could tell you that I’ve been really busy, or that I forgot, or that I just didn’t see or do anything worth taking a picture of, and all of that would be true, but not the complete story. The truth is, I have been … Continue reading »
Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. Or, in this case, Iowans. Yep, we got dumped on again. Didn’t the groundhog see his shadow this year? Sigh. Continue reading »
