Turning into a foodie?

I’ve never been a particularly picky eater. My food preferences have stayed pretty much the same for as long as I can remember, and for as long as I can remember there are very few foods I flat out will not eat. In my twenties first living on minimum wage and then being a broke college student, I lived on the cheapest foods I could find. Top Ramen noodles, boxed macaroni and cheese, the cheap higher fat ground beef… you know what I mean. Then when I could afford to buy “real” groceries, I started cooking a larger variety of things but still stuck to a few staples, a few dishes I knew I could make well. Lately though I’ve been experimenting more with different recipes, trying new dishes. And I’ve gotten really picky about where I grocery shop. There’s a grocery store here in town that sells a lot of organic items and caters to the vegan and organic crowd. But they have a terrific meat counter and produce department. I buy their “conventional” items usually, as opposed to the organic stuff, and it’s still better quality than I have found at other chain grocery stores in town. I never thought I was discerning enough to tell the difference in quality, but it’s now come to a point where I simply won’t buy my meat or produce anywhere else. Am I really turning into a foodie after all these years?

A touch of irony

I knew I was going to have a bit extra on my paycheck on Friday, yesterday.  So I was debating if I was going to do the responsible adult thing with it or spend it on a new laptop that I really wanted but didn’t really need.  On Thursday night I had just convinced myself to do the responsible adult thing when I accidentally (and I swear it was an accident!) spilled a full 16 oz glass of water all over my laptop.  Right across the keyboard.  It’s fried… won’t even try to boot up.  So the decision was made for me and I now have the new laptop I was wanting.  The timing of that was a bit ironic, no?  And I know of at least a few people who are never going to be convinced that it wasn’t on purpose!  Luckily I had just gotten an external hard drive a few weeks earlier and moved my documents and music to it, so I didn’t lose much at all.  It could have been so much worse!

How?

Ok, so I have a slight dilemma.  I’m getting a little bit extra in my paycheck this Friday.  There’s something I know I should do with the money and something I really want to do with it and the two are very different things.  So how do I talk myself into doing the thing I know I should do?  Any words of wisdom?  Is it as simple as the old Nike commercial saying, “just do it”?  I hope so.

A lesson learned

I recently ordered a spare battery for my camera on line from a business I’d not shopped with before. All signs of decent security were in place that I could see and I went ahead and placed the order. The next business day I received an email from someone in their customer service department simply saying that my order required further “attention” and asking me to call them. My immediate thought was ok, they’re going to try to bait and switch by offering a great price on the battery I ordered but then try to sell me a more expensive one. I was all ready to simply cancel my order and pay a little more to order it from a camera shop I’ve done lots of business with in the past. I had only ordered from this place to try to save some money. I was pleasantly surprised when I made the phone call to the customer service representative. He did start the conversation by saying “The battery you’ve ordered is on back order and it looks like it will be a pretty long wait, about 16 weeks.” But then his next sentence was the very pleasant surprise. They are upgrading my order to a slightly more expensive and supposedly longer lasting battery for the SAME price as the one I originally ordered… NO extra charge! Sounds great, right? Well… the pleasantly surprised feeling only lasted a while until I thought it through. I went to their website and looked at the battery I will actually be receiving and compared it to the battery I originally ordered. The battery I originally ordered is OEM… made by Nikon. The one they want to sell me first of all sells for the same price as the one I ordered anyway so it’s not really so much of an upgrade and it’s made by some other off-brand manufacturer. They weren’t really going to get any more money out of me, but they would probably make more money from my sale because I would guess they can buy the off-brand batteries much cheaper than they can the Nikon manufactured ones. So in the end, I am canceling the order after all. I will go ahead and spend the money for what I wanted in the first place… and stick to shopping places I already trust.

A sweet evening

So yesterday was my niece’s fifth birthday.  My sister and her three children (the youngest being the birthday girl) and I went out to dinner and then to a lovely dessert place afterwards.  Dinner was delicious and fun with much laughter and kidding around with each other.  Dessert was decadently delicious and there were just so many choices!  I’d not been to this dessert shop before and it could be dangerous for me to know exactly where it is.  I’m going to have to try to forget where it is.  These are two shots of just two of their many, many offerings.  The whole evening was a very fun, happy family time together.

 

Family traits

I’ve known for years that the women on my mom’s side of the family all have a strong family resemblance.  I’ve also known we’re blessed with great genes that keep us looking young for our age.  We all have a stubborn streak, as my Aunt Quilly recently pointed out.  We’re also all strong willed women who know our own minds.  We are intelligent women and have opinions on just about anything.  Just ask us, we’ll be glad to share those opinions.  We each are blessed with a great sense of humor.  We laugh together a lot.  We’re loyal to each other and anyone who is “ours.”  We talk a lot, we read a lot, we cry when it’s appropriate and we yell across rooms at each other.  These are just a few things this collective “we” of women have in common.  But tonight I came across another commonality.  At least three of us are also night owls.  Probably more us than just the three, but I only know of the three so far.  It was my sister who asked if this is genetic.  I say it’s just one more thing I come by naturally.  Sure, I learned a lot in college about the nature vs. nurture argument.  Get all the women on my mom’s side of the family together and there’s no debate… Nature wins!  But since I admire and love my aunts and cousins dearly, I’m not complaining one bit.

View from my patio

There is a group of deer who come out most every evening to chomp on grass and leaves and visit about five to ten feet off of my patio.  They’ve been keeping warm somewhere for the past few months and I’ve not seen them for a while.  But they were out this evening.  There were two does and two fawns.  The fawns were adorable and not terribly fearful.  The does were beautiful and kept a close eye on me to make sure I didn’t have mean any harm to their babies.  Here are some photos I shot of them.