bountifulplate

Shortly before school started for Lauren, she and I spent an entire weekend doing a "deep" clean of her bedroom.  By the time we were done, we had filled up six bags to throw away.  Yikes!! I thought we were pretty good at recycling and not throwing so much trash away, but I guess I was wrong!!! The hubby even asked me yesterday as I was bagging up our kitchen trash, "didn't we just empty that recently??" I told him yes :(  My challenge for the month of September is to make our family  more "green."  Lauren is taking an art class this semester and if she donates some art items she'll get extra credit points.  To me that's a win-win.  A local charity comes through our neighborhood about once a month or so. They are scheduled to be in our neighborhood tomorrow, so I am spending the better part of today going through the kid's clothes and getting some boxes ready to donate.  If we have clothes that are full of holes and...

Back when I was a teenager, I had a major crush on the actor Parker Stevenson.  I had pictures of him all over my bedroom wall. I'm guessing that most of my pictures were clipped out of Tiger Beat!! Is that magazine even around anymore???  I can even remember writing a fan letter to Parker Stevenson and hoping so much that he would write me back or better yet show up at my house!  I think I must have watched that Brady Bunch episode too many times where Davy Jones of the Monkees showed up unannounced to see Marcia!!! These days so many celebrities have Twitter.  Some have over a million followers.  When I first got Twitter a few years back, I didn't understand how it worked, so I de-activated my account.  I re-activated my account a few weeks ago and figured it was time to give it another try, given that several people close to me think it's the best thing since sliced bread.  Three words - I LOVE TWITTER!!!!!!!!!  I really feel like I have...

I like to think of our household as our "nest." I have a tendency though, to want to be the "bird" in charge.  I have been working very hard, this summer in particular, in giving both of my baby "birds" more independence. For about the past week, I have been standing at the top of our driveway and letting Dominic go down and pick up the mail out of the mailbox.  It might not seem like a huge deal, but it is.  There was a time when he was younger, that he would run into the street full blast and not think anything of it! Yikes, that is certainly something I don't miss. Today, Dominic was telling me that he wanted to stay in his pajamas all day.  I told him I didn't think that was an option.  His "favorite" red shirt was in our bedroom with the rest of the clean laundry, so I told him to go up and find it.  I figured he would come down with the red shirt on, but pajama bottoms on the bottom.  Nope, he had found a pair of black shorts that a...

Bonnie was an older woman that I was friends with back when I lived on the East Coast. She had some eating disorders and was very, very thin.  Many of the other neighbors on our street really didn't talk to her because of the way she looked and acted.  She was extremely introverted. Bonnie didn't have a husband/significant other or any children. She had few friends on our street, basically myself and a neighbor I'll call "T."  Bonnie and I used to walk at a park near our neighborhood.  We walked for a few years and got to know each other pretty well and shared quite a bit.  One day when we were supposed to be getting together, she didn't show up.  I noticed that the windows were open at her house and given that she was so private, I decided to ask her through her window if everything was okay. She answered back that she was fine, so I took her at her word.  When another day or two went by and I still hadn't seen or heard from her, I alerted her neighbo...

While Dominic goes to his music therapy class there is an area where you can wait that has a few tables and chairs and is where I hang out.  A few weeks ago, I noticed there were four small children by themselves in that area.  At first, I thought they were with an older woman who was also sitting in that area.  Nope, they weren't with her.  The kids were pretty well behaved for a while and then they starting getting really loud.  When the littlest one fell on the ground and started crying, I asked the oldest child (she looked about Dominic's age, like 9 or so) where their parents were.  She said, "oh, my mom is upstairs."   The older woman and I were kind of watching this little girl take care of her three siblings.  She was entertaining them, taking them to the potty, etc.  The entire time that I was there, I never once saw a mom or dad come down to check on them.  I was thinking that it would probably be okay if she was watching ...

Two different "what would you have done" moments happened this week.  The first was while I was in the produce section of my favorite grocery store this past Tuesday.  I heard a man tell one of the clerks, "hey, I made a mess that needs to be cleaned up!"  Being the "Curious Georgette" that I am, I had to go investigate.  An older gentleman had spilled about 50 grape tomatoes all over the floor, covering about 6-8 feet in all directions.  The clerk looked over and said, "okay, I'll take care of it."  The man kept waiting for the clerk to come over and clean it up. When the clerk didn't immediately come over, he then squatted down and started picking up the tomatoes himself.  I think maybe he was afraid someone might step and/or slip on them.  I watched the man start picking them up and at first I wasn't going to do anything. I went over and said, "uh-oh" which I don't think he found very helpful. Then, I thought, if I sp...

This December it will be 23 years that I have known my husband and 18 years that we have been married.    Wouldn't you think I would know everything that there is to know about him by now?? Well, when I asked the hubby the other day if he liked blueberry pancakes, he told me they were his favorite!  I never knew that about him.  Since I can't recall EVER making that particular kind of pancake for him, I decided to put them on the "menu" this past Sunday for breakfast. I asked the hubby to rate these on a scale of 1 to 10.  He said they were a 10!!  I guess he liked them, because he ate three both Sunday and Monday morning.  I love the way the blueberries kind of come up through the top. If you are interested in making these pancakes, the recipe is below. They are so yummy, you almost don't need syrup!! 3 cups white flour 1/4 cup white sugar 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 large eggs 1/4 cup canola oil 3 cups m...