Heyyyyyy, Batta-Batta-Batta......SWING!

This girl is not just another pretty face. Gracie "Babbalou" Elizabeth gets ready to hit "clean-up" (note receptacles in back...ok, sorry - lame joke there....). Ok, so maybe these aren't your grandpa's baseball shoes...but a girl's gotta be cute, right?

Just another day of "kickin' it" in lovely LaLa Land :)

In her Easter Bonnet and other fashion statements...

This morning Gracie was in the mood for girl stuff. "Mimi" (that would be me) is here in Long Beach on "Baby-Emily-Watch" - Ashley is due TOMORROW!! So while waiting for her new baby sister to arrive, Mimi grabbed the Canon as Gracie foraged through her "chapeau" wear to find a pretty "Easter bonnet" although it isn't, technically, quite Easter just yet! But, hey - it IS spring and all. Gracie actually managed to do the Velcro fastener all by herself so Miss Gracie is growing quite independent. Good thing for her mommy, too, as I have a really strong suspicion that her mommy's hands are going to be quite full soon.

A good "Gracie look" - a pretty blue hat with pink pajamas!

Gracie apparently decided her hat needed a little "something"...by rummaging through her mommy's drawer, she came up with a snappy black headband to set atop the hat. Note the TWO pairs of snazzy sunglasses grasped in her left hand. Whew! All that styling leaves a girl working up quite a thirst...stopping off for a little sip of juice!

Never a girl to be overdressed, Gracie decided to lose the hat before going for the sunglasses...

First up, the orange glasses with the matching lenses...hmmmmm, this is quite attractive....but...

these PINK shades are quite the ticket with the pink puppy jammies. Yep - we've found the look. At least for today. Tomorrow holds the promise of still more Fancy-Nancy styles to try on. However, Gracie's look for YESTERDAY was a definite head-turner and I am sorry to say I don't have a picture to show you. Here's what happened...

Mimi put Gracie down for her nap yesterday afternoon...the weather had turned warm - a nice sunshiny spring afternoon in southern California - so I decided to let Gracie sleep in her little shirt and diaper. Well. That's what I THOUGHT! Checking the monitor to see what the little munchkin was up to a few minutes later, I noticed Gracie happily reading books in her crib while holding a roundish "mystery object." I looked a little closer, trying to determine what in the world she was holding when (apparently in a fashion mood again) she suddenly plopped the mystery object atop her head. Ok, now I had a better view of said mystery object - and, oh my...Yes...it was her diaper! That's right; Gracie was hangin' out sans diapered bottom, finding the perfect head attire for whiling away some crib time with a good book. Surprisingly, she let me reapply her diaper without much fuss; this time I pulled on a little pair of shorts to prevent a recurrence of the "Bare Bottom Follies."

Flashback Friday: Columns are Taxing

Today I am doing a "2-fer" - because it's "Flashback Friday" day AND a column day, I thought this time they might work nicely together. Since we are at 12 days and counting until the tax deadline, my column this week was timed appropriately for tax season.

I decided to write this week about tax deductions. You know how you are tempted to save every receipt that crosses your path during the year on the slight chance that it might be deductible? Like if you just wish hard enough, that cute pair of shoes might be a deduction? Yes, we wish. And hope. And then we finally toss away that big old box of receipts because - darn it - those tax forms just don't leave you much wiggle room.

But that doesn't mean you can't still TRY to finagle and finesse a few "grey" areas, right? (Well, Mr. H. would say "No" but I'm not such a "black and white" kinda girl.) So I thought it'd be fun to see if we couldn't approach tax deductions with a little humor, i.e. Can I deduct my cat?, which as it happens, is the title for this week's column.

So why does this post qualify as a Flashback? Ok, I am getting to that. Over the past 3-1/2 years that I've written my column, the question I'm most often asked is "How do you think of all the stuff you write about?" Since I've written close to 200 columns in all, that IS a lot of subjects, it's true. But the subject isn't always the thing. Sometimes I've got a subject - it's finding 800 words to say on the subject that gets challenging. For example: my most recent column that published today. I knew I wanted to write about taxes and deductions, but my mind was already in Long Beach, thinking about the pending arrival of Baby Emily. So I had to keep pulling my mind back to what I was doing, writing my column. This happens frequently. Life can get in the way of a column, which is (ironically) what my columns are about: Life. Weird, I know.

Another question I get asked a lot is how do I keep the columns funny? (I'm usually just happy to hear that people do indeed think they ARE funny!) When I began writing for the Morgan Hill Times, it was (another twist of irony) at a very "unfunny" time. We had just put our 17-year old dog, Lucky, down. And I had to write a funny column by deadline. As hard as it was to write humorously during those first few weeks when my emotions were so raw, in a crazy way it turned out to be good therapy.

So today, in addition to posting this week's column about taxes, I'm also going to post one of my earliest columns - it was the second one I wrote, published November 1, 2005. We had taken on The Home Rennovation Project from Hell - refinishing the family fireplace. To see "Is My Cat Deductible?" and my earlier column, "The Horrors of Home Renovation," click right here: http://www.mushroom-city-memoirs-the-column.blogspot.com/. Happy reading :)

Flashback Friday: Family Fun

Wading in the cold, cold water in Colorado. My cousin, Alene Woodhouse Starkey is on the right. I'm the little blondie on the left, holding onto my stuffed dog, "Pinkie."

Here we are again in 1969, enjoying a little liquid refreshment at my Uncle Bernard's house in Pueblo, Colorado. Can you say, "PLAID PANTS???" Yep, we were stylin' and if weren't careful, those plaids could knock your eyes out. And check out that super-large console TV in the background..TVs were major furniture back in the day...

Jump ahead - Whoa! 35 years - to 2004! Whew! - That was a BIG jump!! Still got a thing for those cold, blue waters in the Colorado mountains. My cousin stayed true to her "roots," although as you might have noticed, my "roots" migrated from blonde to brunette back to blonde again. Oh, well. Beats what's underneath, I'm sure!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tonight Mr. H. and I are going to dinner with Rob and Alyssa and Rob's parents, Lou and Corinne, at Il Fornaio - a yummy Italian restaurant in downtown San Jose. I feel very lucky to have enlarged our family in September of 2006 to include these wonderful new friends and super son-in-law - who now all seem like family. And how lucky is that!!! So what does all this have to do with this week's flashback? Ok, I'm getting to that!

Family has always been super important to me. I was so fortunate to grow up close - both in proximity and otherwise - to my mother's family - my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, their spouses and children. Closest to me of all was my cousin, Alene, who was (and still is if she's admitting to it these days!) 7 years my senior. She was a very cool older cousin, dragging me around with her to do all sorts of fun things. She was something of a tomboy, as was I, although she had me beat in tree-climbing, catching bugs and crawdads, hanging by her knees on the jungle-gym and other admirable accomplishments.

I'm looking forward to the relationship Ashley and Jim's little ones (Gracie and as I write this, baby-to-be-born-soon-Emily) will have with their cousins someday when Rob and Alyssa expand their little family from their furry baby, Buddy, to babies of the other variety - you know, the kind that eat, throw up and poop, etc. Wait. Come to think of it, Buddy does all that, too. Oh, well, never mind!

So my hope for my daughters and their guys is that someday their little ones will enjoy the special bond of cousins. Since my cousin and I never had a sister, we felt connected in much the same way as I'm sure sisters do...I guess you might call us Sisters of the Heart.

A Little Shout Out to Country Automotive

Yesterday I wrote on this blog that I was all down in the dumps about my car's "check engine" light coming on and that said light's illumination was a repeat performance of last July's occurrence. The whole thing had kind of knocked me for a loop since a trip to the repair shop is never inexpensive and there was this sort of nebulous deal where Smitty and Mr. H. had talked about if the light came back on that he, Smitty, would have another look, blah-blah-blah. But ok, that was nine months ago.

Anyway, I got the call yesterday afternoon from Smitty's wife, Elizabeth, that my car was ready. I didn't want to know how much the bill was going to be or what, if anything, was wrong with the car...I just wanted my car to run with no lights looking back at me and - hopefully - without running up beaucoup bucks for an unfruitful search of the cause for my temperamental engine light. On the other hand, I've owned my own business and know the costs associated with owning said business - and I sure have no love of asking other business owners to delve into hours of work without proper compensation.

So yesterday as I was home making mountains out of molehills, Smitty's right-hand man, Ben, figured out that it was possibly my loopy gas cap causing the engine light to illuminate because there wasn't a tight enough seal on the cap (engine lights are apparently drama queens about such things). So yesterday's charge for service? Twelve bucks for a new gas cap. I can sure live with that :)

Therefore, I wanted to give "props" to the guys in the coveralls at Country Automotive here in Morgan Hill - especially Smitty and Ben. We've trusted them to care for our cars for 25 years and have never been disappointed. Thanks, guys!

Oh, oh

Today I am a little out of sorts...it's just one of those days that sort of limps along and I'm not doing anything creative to justify my existance in it. Because it's a beautiful spring day, but! Maybe it started this morning when I had to take my vehicle into the repair shop because my check engine light came on - for no apparent reason that I can detect. No, I'm not a mechanic, but my car has pulled this little stunt before, last July. Unfortunately, $165 later, our repair guy, Smitty, (yes, that's really his name and how neat is it to know somebody actually named "Smitty") couldn't find anything wrong. We trust him to know his business, though, paid the bill and went on our way.

So when we returned from our Colorado trip and I fired up my car only to find the "check engine" light on - again! - I made an appointment to take it back to the shop. Now Mr. H. had a conversation with Smitty last July where something was said to the effect that if this happens again to bring the car back in. Now I don't know whether Smitty meant there'd be no charge and if not - for how long does that apply? ...but I guess it's going to be up to me to determine all that, which is waaaaaaay out of my comfort zone. Of course I could have the two guys confer about all this except Mr. H. is down mowing the "south 40" and I couldn't reach him with a hydrogen bomb at this point what with all the noise out there. So there's this little cloud hanging over my head as I wait for a call from Smitty. I mean, it's not Smitty's fault the light came back on and my car is being a spaz and how long is somebody supposed to spend diagnosing a problem with a vehicle with no compensation? I dunno. So I have this cloud.

Now sometimes "clouds" lead to other things. Such as the photo you may have noticed above. Since I hadn't had breakfast and we were now well into lunch territory, I was starving. Not a good thing. I wanted something "comfort-food-" like (the clouds, remember?) but I didn't want to go totally off the deep end, either. I'm meeting Alyssa at Weight Watchers tonight; since I've been in Colorado the last three Thursdays (meeting day) I didn't want to come back and find super bad news at the scale...

So there in my cupboard was this little box I'd picked up from Trader Joe's a few weeks ago. Now normally this would not have caught my attention at TJ's except for the fact that I saw a woman (a trim, healthy-looking gal) scooping these little blue boxes into her basket for all she was worth. She must've plopped 20 or 30 of them in there. So I thought to myself, "Hmmmmmm....those must be REALLY good - and healthy, I mean, look at HER, after all) - so I quickly grabbed one and put it into my basket before she could abscond with them all!
So today seemed the perfect opportunity to pull my little blue box out of the cupboard - couldn't be easier. Mix the rice with the sauce, nuke a minute and - Voila! Lunch is served.

Now I will admit, now that's it's over and done with, this wasn't the greatest lunch I've ever had. The sauce was really "processed" tasting and way too spicy and the rice was sort of stuck together all pasty-like. But it was hot and, I suppose, comforting in a way and it filled up the emptiness for the moment. But THEN. I idly turned the box around and checked out the nutrition label. Oh, yes. I have made this mistake before. This sucker was for TWO servings. What???????!!!!!!! Yep, that teeny little box was supposed to feed two people. Right. I mean, even for ONE person, the nutritional counts were bad enough - 240 calories (ok, not bad for lunch but not when you double it) - and 9 grams of fat (not great - ESPECIALLY when doubled) and less than 1 gram of fiber (again, not so good).

So when doubling all this mess - I ended up with 18 WEIGHT WATCHER points. Holy cow. I might as well have gone to Sinaloa's for tacos and a margarita.

So I'm hoping the clouds will move along. At this rate I'll need to find some duct tape to keep my mouth shut!!!

Column: It's the Economy, Stupid!

Sorry about that snarky title, friends, but by now, we're all pretty much sick of The Economy. Yes, that would be the "Sick Economy." Or maybe it's that The Economy MAKES us sick. Whatever. But there is one side of The Economy that I'm not seeing much about on all of the "Main Stream Media" outlets. So (serious journalist that I am) I decided it was my duty to take it on myself. That little-seen side of The Economy is the extreme pressure that The Bad Economy puts on a marriage. That's right: all over the place we hear about The Economy as it pertains to...Wall Street. The crashing numbers; the tumbling Dow; the greed of Wall Street movers and shakers. Or the dreaded Ponzi Schemes (think Bernard Madoff), the fraudulent investment scam that pays investors returns out of their own money or the money of subsequent investors. Nope, it wasn't pretty, people!

Although Wall Street gets most of the media attention when it comes to The Economy, there are other aspects of The Economy raising their, umm...ugly? heads. Take, for example, the following: An artful QUILTED depiction of the "Snowballing Economy." My friend Lorraine Navone, a world-class quilter, could probably explain this concept much better than I...So who says losing money can't be fun?! And tasteful, too...Yes, stay inside your own cozy home and create a quilted momento of the "Snowballing Economy" like this one below: (See the snowballs? Those round white thingies..)

We've been pounded over the head until we're senseless about our "Unsustainable Economy." Now what does that mean, exactly? Do we even know? Maybe it means the "State of the Union" as represented here...Yikes, this doesn't look good, folks:

And if the U.S. Economy is "Unsustainable" - what does that do for another faction of The Economy? That's right: the "Global Economy." Yes, Virginia, it's quite a puzzle...But moving back closer to home, what we are all looking for right now is good..."Fuel Economy!!" Remember those $4.50 per gallon fuel prices? Yes, fuel costs have dropped to less than half that amount, but look out! Those prices could go escalating right back up there...especially when those countries in the Middle East are holding the deed to the world's largest oil supply, and it's buried somewhere beneath all that sand. So we like this kind of ad these days:

But remember when "Economy" wasn't always such ummm...a 7-letter word? No, it wasn't a bad word at all. For example, there was never a question about whether we wanted to "Fly Economy" - I mean, who could afford First Class?

But the notion of flying - or traveling anywhere for that matter - has been foreshadowed by The Economy. So many Economies...So little time. We hear more and more about a new and GREENER "Energy Economy..."

Or how about the Economy and the GDP? Look at the effect it's had on retailers and other institutions...Did you ever think Mervyn's would go out of business? Or Circuit City? Or all those newspapers? I mean - what's next????????????????

And if all of the doom and gloom predictions about The Terrible Economy wasn't enough, we've all been remembering what our dads used to remind us of on practically a DAILY basis! You know...about how "Money doesn't exactly grow on trees....!"

So we're tightening our belts and making our own lattes and growing our own veggies and playing cards at night instead of going to the movies or out to expensive dinners. Yes, today we are moving into a new, more "Creative Economy"...

But sometimes, we just want to say: "THIS ECONOMY SUCKS!!!!!" So maybe we do a little STIMULATING of The Economy and purchase a cute little purse like this one...just to, you know, let our true feelings out of the "bag" a bit...

But, like I said way back up there at the top of this post...nobody's said much about one particular aspect of The Economy as it relates to today...particularly now that our bottom lines are headed here.....................................

So if you would like to read my thoughts on The Economy and how it relates to Marriage, jump on over here: (and hey! I promise: it won't cost you a penny!) Thanks for reading :) http://www.mushroom-city-memoirs-the-column.blogspot.com/.