Three things I'm loving this week:
1. Good old fashioned Quaker oatmeal. You know...the kind in the big cylindrical cardboard that your grandparents ate? I am a recovering bagel addict -- I would make excuses to go miles out of my way in the morning to get a fresh Giant Eagle "everything" or salt bagel and it was starting to interfere with my life. Enter hot (and cheap) oatmeal which is oh so yummy and hot on a cold winter morning. Best thing is? It's really good for you. I add lots of salt which is not so good for you, but it makes the mushy stuff palatable. And, now I'm addicted to salty oatmeal.
2. Butterscotch chips. At our recent cookie baking day, my sister made oatmeal cookies with butterscotch chips and, despite my once iron-clad willpower and evidence of a growing waistline, I've eaten all but one of them. And, I'm hiding that one from my husband. (It's mine...all mine...)
3. Kindergarten kids. They all thought I was the most fascinating thing in the room last Friday when I had the day off and volunteered to help Kelly's teacher make gingerbread houses with her 16 students. There were two other moms there, so we each took a table of four kids. The kids all called me "Kelly's mom" and were constantly vying for my attention. "Kelly's mom, my roof is falling off." "Kelly's mom...look at my door. I made a doorbell with a gum drop." "Kelly's mom, I have a dog." After the gingerbread houses were built, we had some free time and soon each mom had a cluster of kids circled around as we read story after story. I felt like a rock star.
BONUS: I am LOVING this sunshine. I know it's 20 degrees, but I don't care -- it's good to see the big yellow ball in the sky.
Three things I'm hating this week:
1. Smoking at Union Station .We went to a wedding reception at Union Station this week and were seated just outside a side room where the bar was set up. People were allowed to smoke in there and it was simply disgusting for those of us who had to suck it in all night long. They really should have made the smokers go outside (or at least opened a window or door). The one good thing to come out of it is that I didn't feast at the cookies or the chocolate fountain table they had set up in there. Yummm...chocolate-covered strawberries with a hint of Marlboro Menthol flavoring and a chance at lung cancer.
2. The constant weather alerts, warnings and other meteorological scare tactics. It's Erie. It's winter. All kinds of crap is going to fall out of the sky. Nothing to get excited about. We can handle it. So stop with the scrolling messages at the bottom of the TV screen alerting me to a possible snowflake falling in Venango. Did you ever hear the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf?
3. Me and my never-ending holiday to-do list. Much as I paid lip-service to having a more simplified holiday in which I actually get to ENJOY the holiday...I still take it upon myself to craft a herd of rice-cake reindeer, hand-dip treats for every kid in both of my daughter's classes, decorate to the hilt and do all the shopping and wrapping myself. I made my bed...I know.