Water Droplets

Flowers or leaves with water droplets are some of my favorite things to take pictures of.  I think they’re beautiful. 

I love going out with the camera right after it rains to get pictures of flowers and leaves with water droplets on them.

Do you enjoy seeing water droplets? 

Vitamins

As usual, when I don’t have pictures related to the post, I’m just sharing a random assortment of pictures I like.

I often find myself wishing that vitamins could be a partial credit kind of thing.  I want to take vitamins.  I mean to take vitamins.  I have the best of intentions when it comes to taking vitamins.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually get much further than that. 

Oh, I buy them.  I typically have low iron levels and very low Vitamin D levels.  So, I do buy vitamins with every intention of taking them.  I might take them a day or two after I buy them.  I very often carry them around in my purse.  I almost never remember to take them. 

I’ve tried keeping them in my desk drawer so I can take them with lunch.  I’ve tried using a pill organizer.  I’ve tried keeping them in my purse to make it easier to take them whenever  I think about it.  The problem is that I never seem to think about it.

Do you take vitamins?  Have you found a good system for remembering to take vitamins?  Or, are you like me and really wish you got some kind of partial health benefit for buying vitamins? 

Unpopular Opinions

Don’t worry, this post isn’t going to be overly negative.  I thought it might be interesting to see how my unpopular opinions compare to yours.

I’ll start with what’s probably the most controversial opinion first.

1.  I don’t like chocolate.  I like white chocolate, though most diehard chocolate fanatics maintain that white chocolate is not chocolate.  I don’t like candy bars, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cake, or even something not chocolate with just a little chocolate.  Chocolate sprinkles on a sundae ruins the whole thing for me, chocolate syrup drizzled on cheese cake ruins the whole thing for me.  I just don’t like it.

2.  I prefer Thanksgiving to Christmas.  This shouldn’t surprise anyone who has ever visited my blog in November, or spent more than about five minutes around me in November.  Don’t get me wrong, I do love Christmas, but I love Thanksgiving more.

3.  I firmly believe that towels should be rolled rather than folded.  It works better than folding when all of your towels aren’t the same size, it makes it easier to get a specific towel, and it doesn’t leave weird creases in your towels.  I could go on (and on, and on, and on), but I won’t.

Caroline agrees that rolled towels are better than folded towels.

4.  I greatly prefer Miracle Whip to mayonnaise.  I’m not sure if that’s a big deal everywhere, but in the south, it’s practically a form of treason.

5.  I can’t stand Seinfeld.  I do not understand its appeal.  That show is like nails on a chalkboard for me. 

6.  I usually prefer the plain/original version of things.   I think plain Coke is a million times better than any of the other flavors.  I love vanilla ice cream!

7.  I hate two-door cars.  It’s such a pain to get pets or people in and out of the backseat.  It’s a pain to put anything in the backseat, and it’s a pain to vacuum back there.  To top it all off, they’re not even cheaper than a four-door car.  I just feel like if you’re paying for the whole car, you should get the whole car.

8.  I love Velveeta cheese.  I know everyone loves to hate it, but in my opinion, it’s the best thing for purely comforting, melty goodness.  It’s like a bowl full of perfectly melted, delicious happiness.

9.  I’m a page folder.  I don’t like bookmarks.  I’d much rather just fold down the corner.  I don’t do it to someone else’s book, but if it’s my own, or a library book and someone else has folded the pages, I absolutely fold the pages. 

10.  I don’t like concerts.  I think I’d like them if there was a rule that no one could sing along or make noise, but it irritates me to spend a lot of money to hear an artist perform, only to hear fans destroying the music.  I’d rather just buy the music and listen to it at home whenever I want.

So what about you?  Do you agree with me on any of these?  What are your unpopular opinions?

As usual, when I don’t have many pictures to go with the post, I’m just sharing a random assortment of pictures I like. 

Mortimer isn't bothered by my unpopular opinions.

Terbutaline

This post could probably just as easily be labeled “An Excuse to Share More Pictures of Howard.”  But, for purposes of the A to Z Challenge, “Terbutaline” it is. 

Terbutaline is the medication that Howard is on for his asthma.  Web Md describes it as “used to treat wheezing and shortness of breath from lung problems (such as asthma.”

Yes, cats can develop asthma.  They cough and wheeze.  Not treating it can lead to a buildup of scar tissue in their lungs.

When Howard was first diagnosed with asthma, we tried putting him on an inhaler.  He’s such an easygoing cat that we all thought it would work.  Unfortunately, Howard wanted no part of the inhaler.  Even Howard has some limits as to what he’ll put up with.

Fortunately, our vet was able to switch him to Terbutaline, which is a tablet.  Howard takes one-quarter of a tablet twice daily and is very excited to take them.  We put them in Pill Pockets, which Howard loves.  He comes into the kitchen and does his little meerkat pose waiting for his special treat whenever we get the medication and Pill Pockets out. 

Our vet told us it’s cheaper to get the Terbutaline filled at a regular pharmacy, so that’s what we’ve been doing.  The price has fluctuated quite a bit lately, so we’ve been using different pharmacies to get the best prices.  Some of them have some interesting labeling.  Some of my favorites are:

Howard Feline Zecher

Howard the Feline Zecher

Howard Zecher (Canine)***

***Nope, he’s definitely a cat.  An unusual cat, but most definitely a cat.  

Do any of your pets have prescriptions filled at a regular pharmacy? 

Snapdragons

I love snapdragons, thanks to GrandMommy, who taught me how to garden.  She loved snapdragons and encouraged me to plant them.  I don’t think I even knew what they were before that.

Hers almost always came back the next year.  Mine sometimes do.

This one is from 2019.  And it’s still going strong.  It’s very full and looks like there are lots of little buds just waiting to come out.

I don’t think any of the others are coming back, but here are some photos of snapdragons over the years.

Do you like snapdragons?  If you grow them, do they usually come back for you? 

Recipes

Since I love to cook and the cooking theme that some bloggers are doing for the A to Z Challenge has recipes on my mind, I thought it might be fun to talk about recipes for my R post. 

It seems that most people either follow a recipe exactly, or they view it as more of an inspiration or a very loose guideline.  Which one are you?

I tend to follow recipes exactly when it comes to baking and view them as more of an inspiration or very loose guideline when it comes to cooking.  I’ve heard people say that cooking is an art and baking is a science.  I don’t think I’m an artist, but I know for sure that I’m no scientist.  I can usually troubleshoot cooking recipes (though there are some that are beyond help).  I can’t troubleshoot a baking recipe.  If it seems fixable, I ask Nick’s mom.  Otherwise, I move on to another recipe. 

I do think I’m fairly good at judging whether or not a recipe will be good.  When it comes to baking, it seems like buttermilk and/or lots of eggs are usually a good sign.  Trying to decide between two different recipes for the same kind of cake?  Go with the one that has more eggs. 

I’m a lot more adventurous when it comes to cooking.  I come up with a lot of ideas on my own.  Some are great!  Some are terrible.  If you’ve ever wondered if sloppy joe pasta is a good idea, I’m here to tell you that it definitely is not.  Fortunately, Nick is very patient with my cooking experiments, and the good ones far outnumber the bad ones.

When I’m not concocting my own recipes, some of my favorite sources are old cookbooks.  It seems like the fundraiser (usually for a church or some kind of charity) cookbooks have some of the best recipes ever.  Sometimes the comments and notes are kind of cute, too, things like “sure to make your husband smile” or “Herschel’s favorite chicken.”  I like the stories that go with the recipes. 

The only drawback to some of those cookbooks is that they sometimes have instructions like “cook until done,” “bake in a hot oven,” “add a large scoop of …”  I’m usually willing to take a guess when it comes to the cooked ones, but not when it comes to the baked ones. 

I don’t know if anyone even does the fundraiser cookbooks anymore.  I imagine it might be hard to get someone to buy them when there are so many blogs with recipes.  Though, recipes from blogs seem to be very hit or miss.  Some of my tried and true favorites are Good Cheap Eats, Budget Bytes, and The Frugal Girl.  We’ve consistently liked enough of those recipes (and my modifications to them) that I feel confident in trying new ones from them. 

Some tips I’ve learned for avoiding bad recipes are to look at other recipes on the blog/website to see if they sound good or if they sound gross, leave me with some food safety concerns, or sound too good to be true.  Have a recipe for cooking kidney beans in the crockpot?  I’ll pass on all of them from that site.  Food poisoning is something I prefer to keep off the menu, thank you very much.  Have a recipe that promises to take something that takes hours to prepare and have it done in 20 minutes?  I’m probably passing unless you have a very compelling argument for why/how it works.  Seem more focused on keeping the recipes under a certain price point?  I’ll probably pass.  Some things are just more expensive to prepare, and making cheaper substitutions just gets weird.  I’d rather wait and make the real thing.

I also love taking cooking classes.  A local Mediterranean restaurant offers cooking classes, and I’ve learned so much from them.  I had no idea what Tahini was before those classes.  That’s also where I finally learned to make an omelet.  It helps when you’re the most fearless person in the class.  (Cooking class is the only place where I will ever be the bravest person in the room!)  I’m willing to try it anytime they ask for a volunteer, which means I’ve gotten a lot of hands-on instruction. 

They stopped offering cooking classes during COVID but are starting them back up again.  Now I just have to wait for one I haven’t already taken. 

Where do you find recipes, or do you create your own?  Are you a strict recipe follower, or do you make changes? 

Questions

I wasn’t sure what my Q post was going to be, but some of you gave me the idea with your comments on my Ornaments post when you shared things about your ornaments and the stories that go with them. 

As I’ve mentioned before, my parents don’t celebrate any holidays.  So, my sister, Gabby, and I are both relatively new to celebrating holidays.  We’ve both happily embraced celebrating them.  Fortunately, Nick’s mom, Susan, is practically Santa Claus, so we’ve both had a very fun crash course in celebrating Christmas.  It also means Nick and I have never had the “that’s not how my family does it” disagreements surrounding holidays.

It does mean that I’m very curious about how other people celebrate the holidays.  I love hearing about other people’s traditions.  Last week, I learned quite a bit about how the Easter bunny works from one of the neighbor kids.  Nick told me he grew up with a different perspective on the Easter bunny, which made me even more curious about different people’s holiday traditions. 

So, I thought I’d list some of the major holidays, tell you what we do, and then ask what you do.  Feel free to comment on any or all of them, and of course, let me know if there are any you celebrate that I left out.

New Year’s Eve/Day:  We never do much for this one.  Let’s just say that Nick’s time working in the emergency services and my time working for a DUI prosecutor left us both with no desire to share the roads with people who have been drinking all night.  Early on, we used to rent a lot of movies from Blockbuster (that makes me sound old, doesn’t it?) and watch movies.  We usually end up falling asleep before midnight.  We usually only manage to stay awake on really bad years (2016 and 2020!) when we want to see them end.  Our neighbors have had us over for New Year’s Eve sometimes, and that is always fun.

Sometimes I cook collard greens and black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day, but more often than not, we don’t really do anything traditional.

I guess we’re pretty boring!  What do you do for New Year’s Eve/Day?

Valentine’s Day:  I used to think this one would be so romantic.  Now, I don’t believe in curses, but if I did, I would say Valentine’s Day is cursed for us.  Some of our Valentine’s Day misadventures include Nick having food poisoning on Valentine’s Day from us going out to dinner the night before and then being out sick from work when I had ordered chocolate-covered bananas to be delivered to him at work, my gardenia that Nick sent me at work dying because we shut down for almost a week for a snowstorm and it dying in the shipping box before we went back to work, and both of us coming down with the flu. 

Now, we never plan to do anything at all for Valentine’s Day.  It seems better for our health!  What do you do for Valentine’s Day?

St. Patrick’s Day:  Nick doesn’t drink at all, and I don’t like beer, so that eliminates most of the obvious celebrations for this holiday.  I used to attempt to make Irish stew, but I’m terrible at it, and finally gave up, deciding we had suffered enough.  Nick wears a uniform for work, so no green for him.  I always wear green.

This year, one of my co-workers went around checking everyone for green.  Another one of my co-workers said that he’d never heard of wearing green for St. Patrick’s Day.  Even as a kid, not celebrating the holidays, I thought everyone else wore green.  So, now I’m very curious.  Do you wear green for St. Patrick’s Day?  And do you do anything else for St. Patrick’s Day?

Easter:  Nick’s grandmother made the best Easter baskets.  Yes, she made them for us even though we were adults.  They always looked so pretty, and she always found a white chocolate bunny for mine. 

My first experience hiding and hunting Easter eggs was in 2019 with our neighbors.  I had no idea how much fun I had been missing out on! 

This year, they had us and some of our other neighbors over for dinner and an Easter egg hunt.  We (most of the adults and the older kids) split up to hide almost 300 eggs in multiple yards.  That’s a great thing about involving neighbors; you can use all of the yards.  The rule was you couldn’t hunt where you had hidden.  I’m terrible at finding eggs, but it was still so much fun, and the kids were very sweet and generous about sharing their eggs.  My bag somehow went from nine to twenty-seven eggs, thanks to their generosity.

One of the girls, I’ll call her Iris, since I don’t think it’s okay to name someone else’s child on my blog, told us that all you have to do is leave all of your empty eggs out in a bag and leave everyone's Easter basket out the night before Easter and that you should also leave carrots out for a snack.  Then, the Easter bunny, along with his brothers and sisters, will come and fill everyone’s Easter basket, hide some eggs in the house for a morning Easter egg hunt, and fill all of the eggs in the bag for the adults to hide later.  Iris advised us to make sure we remembered to leave Easter baskets out on Saturday night. 

Nick said he never believed in the Easter bunny, although he did believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.  He said he always knew his Easter basket was from his mom.  So now I’m curious.  What did you believe about the Easter bunny?  And what do you do for Easter?

Halloween:  I’ve only ever dressed up once; the first year we were married, when some friends had us over to hand out candy, and she loaned me a Minnie Mouse costume. 

We used to hand out candy but kept getting fewer trick-or-treaters every year, so we finally stopped.  Now, I usually make chili, and we have a movie marathon with lots of candy.

What do you do for Halloween?

Thanksgiving:  Or, as I like to call it, the BEST HOLIDAY EVER.  I know, I know, most people don’t get that excited over Thanksgiving.  That’s okay.  I get excited enough for all of us. 

I love Thanksgiving for so many reasons:  When Nick and I were first engaged, and I was still getting to know his friends, we went to someone’s house for Thanksgiving.  We weren’t planning to stay long because Nick had to work that night.  They invited me to stay the whole time and drove me home later.  It was the first time I felt like Nick’s friends accepted me for me, not just as a package deal with Nick.  Thanksgiving feels like it has all of the hope and magic of the holiday season.  It seems like so many people are exhausted and irritated by the time Christmas is over, but Thanksgiving doesn’t have that.  It feels special.  I worry a lot about getting most of the holidays wrong and seeming rude or looking like an idiot.  Thanksgiving is the one I feel completely confident celebrating.  I love to cook, and I’m reasonably good at it.  Add to that the fact that we’ve made our very own special traditions, and I just feel good about it.  

I always take the day before Thanksgiving off from work and cook and bake all day, usually from 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning until 11:00 or 12:00 that night.  That may not sound like fun to everyone, but I love it.  We take the meal to the hospice house for lunch, and then we come back and finish getting everything ready for our celebration that evening, usually around 6:00 or 7:00.  We have friends and neighbors come, and we eat and play games.  It usually lasts until around midnight.  I go to bed exhausted but incredibly happy.

What do you do for Thanksgiving?

Christmas:  Christmas is my second favorite holiday.  As you know by now, I love ornaments.  Usually, we go to my sister Gabby’s house, along with Nick’s mom and step-dad, Susan and Alan.  I know it’s probably a little unusual, but that’s our little Christmas group.  Susan and Alan are both at higher risk from COVID than we are, and Nick and Gabby have a lot of exposure from work, so we didn’t get to spend the last two Christmases with Susan and Alan.  I’m hopeful for this year. 

We watch Christmas movies, eat tons of food (Gabby cooks for Christmas like I cook for Thanksgiving), celebrate Nick’s birthday, and always end up opening our Christmas presents early.  We all talk to each other about what we’re getting for other people, so usually, everyone is excited to see everyone’s reactions to their presents.  And our excuse for not waiting is that there are so many presents, we need to open them to have more room in the living room.

What do you do for Christmas?

Like I said before, feel free to tell me what you do on any or all of the holidays and tell me if there are any others you celebrate.  I’d love to hear about your holidays. 

Panini

One thing the A to Z Challenge is definitely good for is making me finally get around to writing posts and looking things up.

Nick’s mom gave me a panini pan for Christmas a few years ago.  No, it wasn’t a “you need to cook for my darling son more” type of gift.  I asked for one.  

Shortly after that Christmas, I began my adventures with the panini pan.  We love panini!  

There seems to be as much difference between a panini and a regular grilled cheese as there is between a cold cheese sandwich and a grilled cheese.  I’m not sure why squishing it makes such a difference,  but it really does.

Every time we have panini I always say I’m going to look up the history.  I’m very curious what made someone say, “I bet this grilled sandwich would be even better if I squished it while I grill it.”  I know sometimes I come up with food ideas, and I’m not sure how, but I was hoping that there’d be an interesting story to panini.  Squishing a sandwich while grilling it seems very deliberate and specific.

I didn’t get a satisfactory answer.  It appears that there was mention of a panini in a 16^th century Italian cookbook, though nothing I read said anything about how or why.  They became popular in Italy in the 70s and made their way to the U.S. sometime after that.

There’s also mention of a sandwich grill from the 30s, though it sounds more like the appliance was popular and panini was a way to use your sandwich grill. 

I did learn that most of what we call panini isn’t technically panini since it seems that the real thing isn’t made with sliced bread.  Ours may not be authentic, but they are delicious.

I found nothing on why someone decided to squish a sandwich while grilling it.  My made up theory (since I can’t find a real answer) is that someone was grilling a very stuffed sandwich (because lots of toppings/fillings usually mean a very good sandwich) and was concerned about getting everything melted/warmed, so they squished it into the pan to help the process along.  It seems plausible, right?

Regardless of why, I’m glad someone came up with the idea.  Cooking a sandwich in the panini pan always makes it taste better and seem like a more exciting meal.

Do you enjoy panini?  Do you know how they got started?  Or care to make up your own theory?   

Ornaments

I know talking about ornaments in April seems a little bit weird, but I never seem to post much around the holidays and the closest thing I seem to have for a theme for the A to Z Challenge this year is “things I meant to post about but haven’t.”  That brings us to ornaments.

Thanksgiving is definitely my favorite holiday, but Christmas is a pretty close second.  And I love Christmas ornaments!  My parents don’t celebrate any holidays, so as an adult, I tend to be a bit enthusiastic about them.  Or like a child in an adult’s body.

I got my first Christmas ornaments when I was 25, and my first Christmas tree when I was 26.  I had moved out and started exchanging Christmas gifts with co-workers and friends before then, but never got a Christmas tree when I lived alone.  It didn’t seem worth it, and I wasn’t even entirely sure how one went about getting and decorating a Christmas tree.  I think that’s one of those things most people learn as kids and take for granted as adults. 

I’ve loved ornaments ever since Nick gave me my first one.  I think the butterfly is so pretty.

My boss, Ginger, gave me this cupcake ornament when I left my job in SC to take a job in NC. 

Nick’s mom gave me this one in 2018, so I got a hippopotamus for Christmas.  Is the song stuck in your head now?

Not technically an ornament, but Nick’s mom also gave me hippopotamus lights for Christmas.  And they’re pink, which makes me ridiculously happy.

Our friend Martha gave us this one the first Christmas after we were married.  She started looking for it right after our wedding to find one with the right dress and tux. 

Our friend Alex gave us this one.  I call it the Thanksgiving ornament.  That means I really like it.

Of course, we have lots of firefighter-themed ornaments since Nick volunteered with the fire department for so long.

This isn’t technically an ornament, but it is a Christmas decoration.  My old coworker EJ gave this to me for Secret Santa several years ago.  Some people thought it was weird, but I love it. 

We usually try to get an ornament on our yearly vacation.  Except for 2016.  We weren’t planning to get an ornament that year anyway, since it’s a year we both want zero reminders of.  Leaving vacation early as part of a hurricane evacuation sealed the deal on not getting an ornament that year.

This one is from when we went to Atlanta in 2012.  It’s from Coca-Cola World.

Quite a few of ours are beach and/or South Carolina-themed.  We do love going to Folly Beach for vacation.

I love getting ornaments.  I love picking them out, and I love when other people give them to us.  It makes me happy to think of the stories that go with them every year when we hang them up.  I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of being given special ornaments.  I don’t have ornaments or decorations from childhood, so I appreciate being given them now.  The stories that go with them may not be old stories, but they’re part of my holiday story. 

What are your favorite ornaments?