Today is my brother Richard’s birthday, and even though he doesn’t read blogs (I don’t think), and certainly doesn’t read mine (he’s too busy making groovy cg art on his computer), I’ll wish him a wonderful birthday here. The sucky part of living so far away from your family is that you can’t be with them on special days.  Like today.  If they hadn’t all deserted me by moving to Alaska, we could all go out to dinner tonight, and he and I could tease our poor mom mercilessly, or, perhaps, his lovely wife, Kathy, my mom, and I, could all gang up on Richard and tease him mercilessly.  Ted…

This picture is of a Christmas Stollen, which is supposed to look like the swaddled baby Jesus, and which you enjoy for St. Nicholas Day, December 5th or 6th.  (The 6th is St. Nicholas Day, but the eve is when you maybe eat the stollen?  Not completely clear, though I do know it’s yummy.) Not much to write about today, but I thought I’d say hi to let you know I’m still here.  Last night was nice, went to dinner with my friend Neva, whom I’ve known since 6th grade.  It’s funny to be two women in your 40s when you’ve known each other since you were in your early teens, because you…

Loyal readers know that we’ve been trying to sell our condo for almost 7 months now. You know that we had it on for just over 3 months, took it off the market, put maybe 10k into updates, and put it back on the market in late September. In all this time, we have had exactly one offer. One offer that was so crappy it was insulting. One offer that, had we taken it, we would not have been able to afford a big enough down payment on a new place, and thus would not be able to move, so what’s the dang point anyway? So here we are, going…

Have you ever noticed how difficult it can be to see a black tire with no rims on a black road on a dark night on the freeway? How if there are no other cars around you to shine their headlights, and no streetlights, a tire might just sit in the middle of the road, waiting for you? No? Me neither. Until Monday night. On Monday night, Maya and I were taking Jackie home after Enchanted, and I was going about 70 mph (practically the slow lane around here), when I heard and felt a huge BANG!!!, and then I saw a tire go flying off to my left, and…

This is a shameless endorsement for a waffle mix, because dang it, this stuff is good. The recipe is easy, but finding the waffle mix, not so much. Not so much online, that is, because stupid Williams-Sonoma doesn’t have it in their online store. Oddly enough, they DO have it in the brick and morter store downtown.  We bought some a few weeks ago, and we whipped up a batch on Wednesday morning.  Mmmm.  Really, really good.  Especially with their pecan pumpkin butter right on top.  The waffles came out fluffy and light, with just the right amount of pumpkin/pecan flavor. Sigh. The only cruel thing is that there’s a…

The other day found Maya and I shopping for clothes…her jeans had all gotten too short, and some of them mighty tight as well. Most parents do their major clothes shopping in August or September, for back-to-school, but we tend to wait, so I can see what size she’ll be when the weather finally changes, which is right about now. Maya loves Limited Too for her clothing purchases (usually…sometimes we go in, and there’s nothing she wants). Just the other day, we got a catalog in the mail, and it included a coupon for 25% off of your entire purchase. So, coupon in hand, off we went to the mall.…

I saw an article on the Wall Street Journal about the huge increase in sales of St. Joseph statues spurred by the lagging housing market. Lore claims that if you bury a statue of St. Joseph in your yard, it will guarantee you a quick home sale. Um…ok, I’m tempted to give it a try. I’m ashamed to admit that, but the thought did cross my mind. Then I thought, wait, I’m willing to risk a lot worse than my home not selling by being an atheist, right? If I’m willing to risk not getting into heaven someday, I should be willing to risk not selling my home. In other…

Last night, as Maya was doing her Earth Science homework, she asked me if I had ever studied the Richter scale.  “Um…”I thought about it a bit, “No, I don’t think so.”  “Really?”  Clearly my education has been lacking.  Or maybe we DID study it in 6th grade, and I just don’t remember. Then, a few hours later, we were getting ready for bed, and we had an earthquake! (SF Gate is trying to scare us, telling us that it was the biggest earthquake since ’89, and raises the danger of a big one on the Hayward fault.   Should we be scared?  Who knows. Maybe it’s time to put together an earthquake…

I have a question for you…a ‘what to do’ type question. Here are the specifics: Maya’s girl scout troop is planning several outings this year, including a sleepover at the zoo, and two camping trips. The total cost of these outings is somewhere around $150 per scout. Some of this cost may be deferred by cookie money, but not the majority of it. I kind of feel like Maya should put up some of this cash herself, as these are things she is opting to do, rather than school activities, etc. Maya and I recently split a cat-sitting job for the neighbors’ cats. We went over twice a day…me in…