But a cab is still faster and easier, no? Super Shuttle is annoying because of all the stops.

I was just at a little ceremony where they lit the Prudential Building (on the right here: [link] ) purple for Alzheimer's. It was fine, except some girl totally fainted right as the last people were speaking! Whoops. She was right up front, too. And the neighbor of the person speaking! Drama. Then my parents and I went for snacks at PF Chang's, which were delicious. I love late-afternoon events in the winter, because it totally feels like nighttime now.

Yeah, it's less of a time thing than a PITA thing.

Why does my fitted sheet insist on wadding up around all the other laundry, meaning it doesn't dry? So annoying.

Those ornaments are super pretty! I can totally do those.
 
That was a great article, Allyson, and good ideas. We`ve done memberships before and they always went over well. Also, that is a super cute photo of your nephew, with the reflection in the aquarium glass.
 
Sara, you need dryerballs to keep those fitted sheets bouncing around in there. Not infallible, but definitely an improvement.
 
There are cookies on every flat surface in my kitchen. It`s ridic. I bet these actually would mail well, megan, as opposed to my usual crumbly ones. After today I totally do want a cookie press. That sounds like fun.

Liese, sounds like we are living parallel lives. Except you have a lot more flat surfaces (only reason I have space to cool cookies is because the deck set lives in the corner of the main room during the winter.)

That was a great article, Allyson, and good ideas.

I meant to say exactly this. So, um, ditto?

Back home from celebrating the MiL's birthday. Fun was had by all and there was only one high tension moment, which is a big win when this entire family gets together. Only our standard poodle puking in the back of the car when we still had an hour to drive home marred the excellent weekend and, really, the poor guy felt worse than we did.

To go with smoked salmon, I made roasted potatoes with spinach and mixed in a couple tablespoons of fancy sweet onion mustard. YUM. I feel so Martha.

Oh, and the dark chocolate chili cookie recipe. It was crumbly so I added more butter. I never got to the point where I could make a roll and slice it, so I just did it drop cookie style and it came out fine. I didn`t have chili flakes so I substituted cayenne at half the amount You could definitely taste the pepper, so not for the faint of heart. It`s still hot on my tongue now.

The tense moment was this: FiL is overweight and diabetic and refuses to eat well. This is not helped by the MiL being a great cook and doing things like making homemade biscotti to have with her morning coffee. Their daughter (a nurse)'s feeling is that MiL should stop bringing any sweets in the house--she can keep them at work if she wants them. MiL's feeling is that she likes them, she makes them and if she shouldn't suffer if he has no self-control. She's totally right, he has no self-control, but his health is in a really precarious position and neither of them will listen to any advice. This came up after he cut himself a huge slice of chocolate birthday cake for breakfast.

It's hard when you love someone and they are literally killing themselves before your eyes.