Boring Bullets

• We had a mopey weekend. Dreary, cloudy, wet, blustery weather, no visitors, no traveling. We were tired, unmotivated, lonely, dull, a recipe for grumpiness. We did manage a bike ride, watched X-men 3, Orrin made a pretty cool slate picture frame, played some backgammon, made a glazed grilled salmon dish for dinner, and I cut Orrin's hair. When I write it all down it seems like a nice relaxed but full weekend, but it felt crappy.
• Last week CCW posted about her amazing, cute, hilarious, daughter and how she marveled at how self confident she was in declaring herself beautiful and adorable. And it made me start thinking about how quickly girls especially lose the self-image and how it happens. It's by no means an original topic, and if you want some actual serious thought about it you can look here, or here, or here. But it did remind me of a woman I was talking to a couple months ago, about how her daughter was starting college, "I just know she's going to gain the 'freshmen 15', and she already needs to lose 10 pounds. But she just loves her meat and potatoes. I told her, 'Honey, you are a woman now, you need to learn how to eat a salad.' " I couldn't even think of anything to say to her. So I just shoved another brownie in my mouth. Yeah, that'll show her!
• Orrin has been feeling a little homesick the past week I think, so I made him some comfort food meals. Spaghetti last week and taco salad tonight. We even splurged and bought ground beef, even though meat is expensive here. We've been eating a lot of fish, beans, and lentils, which probably contributes to these two meals feeling like such a home-y relief to Orrin. But I bought a couple cans of plum tomatoes for the spaghetti sauce at Aldi and this was the picture on the can.

Really, can, thanks for the excellent serving suggestion. Never would have thought of using a fork.

• Finally! Now, if only someone would do the same thing for Family Circus, I mean little Billy's crazy paths around the neighborhood are so confusing to me.