I have an almost illogical love of raw foods. Something about the simplicity of the food arouses my food passions. A few years ago I made my family crazy by feeding my family raw for a month. I stopped because everyone started making excuses to eat somewhere besides our home.
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For Cinco de Mayo we ended up in Niagara Falls, New York at our favorite Mexican restaurant. There was a line out the door. We have been there many times before, but usually not for dinner, so we had never waited in line before. It took about 20 minutes to get a table. The only special was $2 Mexican beer. I had a Negro Modelo and Mel had a margarita. They have homemade chips and delicious salsa. The kids had fun daring each other to eat more salsa–it wasn’t too spicy. The kids ordered Beans and Rice with a Taco from the kids menu. I ordered Steak and Camarones (shrimp). It came with tortillas, guacamole, and lettuce and tomato. Mel ordered an Enchilada Special Plate with 3 enchiladas. This place has some of the best beans and rice I have had anywhere. They were absolutely delicious. My steak was fairly tough and not a great cut of meat but had pretty good flavor for $16.95. The guacamole had good flavor. The boys enjoyed their meals which they call “messy plate.” Mel enjoyed his enchiladas. This is a greasy spoon kind of place. They make their food from scratch and it is good. Food quality isn’t incredibly high but what they do, they do well. I send people here all the time. Mel loves this place more than I do, but then again, I get back to New Mexico a couple of times a year. I give this restaurant 3.5 Stars 8215 Niagara Falls Blvd, Niagara Falls, NY...
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I have been on a major organizing kick. I have been buying magazines for a couple of years that mention “organizing” on the cover. I got a quote from a professional organizer. And we decided to give it a go ourselves first, to see how far we could get. I bought a book that I liked and I have been following the author’s steps of: Sort Purge Containerize Equalize I worked in my office all last week and got it up to speed, and this week I am working in the boy’s room. It’s a big job. I worked on Xander’s side of the bed on Sunday and we got a good start. I’m going to try to do one side of the room each day. Today I worked on their Lego table. I had looked at it yesterday and I’d been asking them how it might make sense to organize it. Emerson said by color and shape. I was driving by Target and I had some time so I went in to look. I found some plastic bins in 2 sizes. I got 12 small bins that stack and 6 large bins that stack. I thought we could use the small bins for the Legos themselves and the large bins for unfinished work and projects since they are always working on something. I also got a label maker, as recommended by the book. I brought everything home and went through the mess of Lego. One of the hardest parts of getting everything organized is letting go of feelings of inadequacy or shame that I haven’t done this sooner. Anyway, I sorted every Lego into a box by color, and the organization system started to emerge. I got my label maker and labeled every container and every section. The label maker was very satisfying and fun. I tried to think about what might work and how to make it a useful system. I was lucky that I had a block of time when the...
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“Our individuality is all, all, that we have. There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures it and rides it in, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life’s bittersweet route.” ― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume...
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About a month ago I got a quote from a professional organizer on helping us in our home. The quote was a whopping $2400. We were surprised and when we looked around, we realized she was right. Somehow in the last 8 years of having kids and moving out of our house and then back into our house (we were on sabbatical and traveled), things stopped having a place. In that time, I have had 10 people working in my house, have had babies grow up and turn 8, have changed the use of almost every room, have had multiple clients here, and have closed a storefront, ending up with the leftovers of that business stashed here as well. My office was probably the worst room in the house. Now, I am not really a hoarder by nature, but there have been some lean financial times in my past and I have been hanging onto things because I knew they had value and I had paid a lot of money for them. But having a quote of $2400 gave me the incentive I needed to pare down. I have been doing some serious editing. I have gotten rid of a garbage can full of stuff, a recycle bin full of stuff and several boxes of freecycle stuff. I have done a great job. I feel proud and now everything has a place. I have been through everything except a file cabinet and 3 drawers and I will get to them this week. I have instituted a “Work in Progress” file where my ongoing projects are. It has several projects in it but I am looking forward to clearing those, too. It is a new system I am looking forward to working with. But I am left with 3 postcards from Graceland that I don’t know what to do with. I bought them 2 years ago when we went to Graceland. I bought them–Mel says I always buy postcards and never send them–but these are...
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