bountifulplate

Black cats kind of get a bad rap.  According to superstition, you shouldn't cross paths with a black cat. Since today is Halloween, I thought I would bring up the subject of superstitions and old wives' tales.  I had a conversation several weeks ago with Lauren and one of her friends about how a lot of buildings don't have a thirteenth floor.  Next time you are in an elevator of a tall building, look and see if it has a thirteenth floor. What about how you shouldn't walk under a ladder? I asked the hubby about that one and he said something like, "why would you walk under there, it's unsafe!"  True :)  One I remember from my childhood, was don't step on the cracks of the sidewalk - "step on a crack, you'll break your mother's back." Ouch! Another one I have heard FOREVER - don't  go out with a wet head, you'll catch a cold.  I always go outside with a wet head - I have very thick hair and it takes hours to dry - it's alr...

Don't certain foods remind you of certain people? Kolaches remind me of my mother-in-law, because she would always make them around Christmas. Below is a kolache making "lesson" my mother-in-law was giving Lauren and the hubby a handful of years ago. While looking through some old pictures recently, I stumbled across this picture from Christmas of 1988.  This was my grandmother and I horsing around with the turkey.  We had nicknamed the turkey, "Fred."  I can't remember why we named the turkey, maybe because it was the size of a toddler!!!! I have talked about my grandmother before, she was a really special person to me and a lot of other people.  She lived on her own into her 90's and then went into assisted living.  She passed away in 2004 at 101, the year Dominic was born.  I still use her metal mixing bowl whenever I bake, which is often  :) Food and memories just seem to go hand in hand.  My father-in-law was a great coo...

The hubby has a milestone birthday coming up next week.  He doesn't like me telling everybody that he'll be 60, but with my big yap, I've had a hard time keeping it shut.  When I first met him almost 22 years ago, I thought he was around my age. He is in fact, 11 years older than me.  The only time we ever have an "issue" is with our musical tastes.  I like bands from the 1980's and 1990's and he likes the music from the 1960's and 1970's.  We both do like the Rolling Stones, though. That band has been around forever :) My husband is a hard person to buy a present for, so I was kind of racking my brain trying to figure out what to get him.  I thought a few months ago about throwing him a big surprise party, but he doesn't like being the center of attention.  How about a trip? We already went to Jamaica in April, so that was out. I was really beginning to get stressed out trying to figure out that perfect "gift."  Well, a few wee...

This week has been pretty busy and I haven't been home too much during the day.  A casualty of that has been the laundry starting to really pile up.  I figured I would get around to it this weekend. The hubby took a look at the big pile of laundry a few days ago and asked me if I was "on strike."  Sometimes my husband is a real comedian :)  When we got married, doing the laundry become one of my household "chores."  I wash all the dirty laundry, fold it and sort it, but my family members are responsible for putting their own clothes away.  It's a system that for the most part has worked well all these years.  A few weeks ago, I happened to have the television on in the early afternoon and caught a little of Katie Couric's new talk show.  She had a mom on her show that did go "on strike" from her household chores. The mom stopped doing everything like making meals, etc. for a set amount of time. I guess the mom was frustrated from picking up aft...

When Lauren was a baby, the questions I got the most often were - are you breastfeeding or bottlefeeding? are you using cloth or plastic diapers? These days, the questions are - which college is Lauren thinking of going to? and, what is she interested in studying?? I think the questions were easier to answer when she was a baby :)  I had someone as recently as last night ask me the college question.  It feels like it was just yesterday that the hubby was giving her a bottle. Gone are the days of diapers, pacifiers and taking naps together: Since starting her junior year, Lauren has had loads of homework almost every night and stays up late getting it all done. I have told her having all that homework while balancing other activities, friends and sports is a preview of college :)  Lauren's choices of colleges and courses of study have changed a handful of times. At one time, she wanted to go to college in California because it's much warmer than here whe...

When I was walking towards my car in the parking lot of the grocery store earlier this week, I heard someone coming up behind me saying, "excuse me, excuse me!!!"  The voice belonged to a well-dressed, young woman maybe in her early 20's.  She launched into a rehearsed speech and was talking really fast.  So fast, I couldn't quite figure out what she wanted.  She opened up a box of suncatchers and was showing them to me asking if I would buy one to help fund some trip she was going on.  I told her politely that I wasn't interested and she moved on to someone else in the parking lot. When I get phone calls asking for donations of money and it's not an organization I've heard of or wish to donate to, I've been saying, "please remove me from your calling list."  The hubby says, "I'm sure your organization is worthwhile, but we already give to other organizations."  Most telephone solicitors say thank you and hang up. I think they r...

Dominic woke up one Saturday morning a few weeks ago earlier than I would have liked.  Before I had my first cup of coffee, he kind of caught me off-guard.  He said, "Grandma, live, heaven."  I asked him if he missed her and he said, "yes."  It took everything in me not to start crying.  It was about this time two years ago that my mother-in-law starting slipping into severe dementia.  She lived in an assisted living facility close by and we would visit her there and/or she would come to our house for Sunday dinner.  Around Christmas of 2010, she was hospitalized for two weeks into the New Year of 2011.  Shortly into the New Year, we moved her to hospice, where she passed away three days later.  To say it was a traumatic time for our family would be an understatement.  My husband is an only child and we had to make arrangements long distance (she was to be buried in Cleveland).  We spent a lot of time at the funeral home, whic...

I used to think the smell of coffee was one of the nastiest smells ever invented. Since I was about 12 (when I drank Tab out of a glass bottle for the first time), instead of coffee, I would drink a Caffeine-Free Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi first thing in the morning. When my husband and I first got together and he would see me drinking pop in the morning instead of coffee, I think he was taken aback a little. He has been a coffee drinker for a LONG time.  The hubby loves his coffee and I would sit looking at him wondering why he loved his "colored water" so much.  One day, when Dominic was a few months old, I decided to give coffee another try. Maybe it was those early days of sleep deprivation that was making my body need some caffeine.  Much to my amazement, I discovered I kind of liked coffee. Now, I absolutely HAVE to drink two cups a day - it is mandatory and helps me function :)  Lately, I have been waking up way too early.  To be coherent whatsoever in the m...

I like to watch the movie "Rain Man" from time to time.  If you've never seen the movie, it's about a man with Autism that has spent the bulk of his life in an institution.  My favorite parts of the movie are where he shows his "savant" type qualities like memorizing entire pages of a phone book or counting toothpicks that fall on the floor.  I have had more than one person ask me if Dominic is a "savant." I've wondered the same thing myself sometimes.  I do know that he can take a bunch of Legos that look like this: And turn it into this: Dominic has been using the computer since he was very young.  What we discovered a few months ago is that he will go into YouTube, find what he wants to build and then will build it.  He figured out all on his own how to access YouTube with absolutely no help from us.  No matter how many times I offered to do an educational CD-ROM with him, the answer most of the time was no.  D...