Not that kind of hash...

The first meal I ever made for the husband consisted of the following ingredients:Start with some processed cheese. It also doubles as fish bait in a pinch. Buy lots of it. It lasts forever and has an expiration date some time in the next century. I think that's because it's real, imitation yellow something. I don't want to know.Buy a pack of hamburger buns. Mine looked like the picture above except there were more. Lots more. In fact, they were the kind you buy at Costco and can feed a small village with.
Get a few onions. I chopped up a couple (ten) onions and cried a few tears.

A can of this stuff, or more if you like the musical fruit and...
A giant can, or 10 cans for a $1.00 of this stuff.

Hungry yet?

In my house we called these Hash Burgers. My husband had a different name for them. I can't write that name because I will be kicked out of the blogging community if I do.

I got the recipe from my Dad. I should have known better. My Dad liked to mix Snappy Tom, (or V8) Beer, Tabasco sauce, and lots of salt for a tasty after dinner drink.

I made the Hash Burgers for the two of us. I made too much for the two of us. I had to mix the ingredients in a trash can. My Dad forgot to tell me to cut the recipe for feeding an army down to two people.

We ate Hash Burgers for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner for a week and then more the following week. We had Hash Burgers, Hash Burgers, and more Hash Burgers until one day the husband said, " Do you know how to make anything else?"

I burst into tears and ran crying from the kitchen. I saw that on TV once and had always wanted to try it.

The husband told me that he thought the Hash Burgers were poisoning him. He wasn't used to processed food. He kindly said, "I don't ever want to eat another Hash Burger as long as we are married to one another, or for the rest of my life." I decided I wanted to stick around to see which one came first. I'm still waiting.

A couple months ago he brought up that first meal I made and told our kids, "The Hash Burger Story". He must have gotten a little too nostalgic about it and said, "Why don't you make it for our kids."

I sweetly responded, "Why would I want to poison the kids?"

Some of the events in this story are true. Some are not. I really made The Hash Burgers. I made too many Hash Burgers. We ate them for two weeks straight. I did not try to poison the husband. I love him.

A Warning to all the children in the world...

When I was a little kid my Mom used to say, "If you keep making that silly face it's going to freeze like that permanently one day."

Mom was right.

When I was a little kid my Mom used to say, "How many times do I have to tell you not to slouch?"

Apparently one more than you did, Mom.

Mom was right.

When I was a little kid my Mom used to say, "One day you won't think wearing Michael Jackson gloves is so cool."

Mom was wrong.

Those are my First Holy Communion gloves.

Put another candle on your birthday cake...

Another interesting birthday picture and a few observations.

One giant taper placed in the middle of a cake is the reason I have no idea how old I am.

I see 6 people in this picture and an enormous stack of paper plates, and 2 boxes of forks on the table. It must have been a surprise party. Surprise, no one is coming!

My son needs to wash his arm. It's turning green.

I think this was a Friday because the kids are eating Popsicles. I always serve Popsicles for dinner on Friday, but only the ones with real fruit in them.

There is no furniture in this house. I had to kneel on the floor for this picture.

I like to call that face I'm making in the picture my Glamour Shots pose.

I'm pretty sure that thing at the top of the picture is the Birthday Fairy waiting to grant my every wish.

I love birthdays, and even more than that I love strange birthday pictures.

The last one before HIM...

James was a golfer. He lived on a golf course. I did not. I think my dad let me polish his golf clubs for him once. That is the one and only time I ever held one in my hands.

James wore collared shirts and seemed sophisticated. He carried a golf club wherever he went and practiced his swing. I didn't mind most of the time but it wasn't so fun when we were in a crowd. He told me once that he wanted to marry a woman who could golf. I told James I knew how to golf. I lied. A big lie. But that's okay because I went to confession a long time ago and atoned for my old sins and any future sins I might commit.

Our one and only date consisted of me meeting him at his house which was situated on a golf course and taking a bucket of balls and his clubs out to the 7th hole to hit a few. James went first and hit a few balls. He was good. Really good. I watched him intently and then I lost interest after he smacked the 30th ball over the sand trap and started daydreaming.

I have a very short attention span.

James asked me if I wanted to hit a few balls. "Sure," I answered jumping up off the grass and dusting off my brand new golf attire. I confidently took a tee from him and carefully placed it in the grass, then I licked my finger and held it up over my head. I have no idea why I did this except for the one time I watched a golf tournament on TV and I saw a guy do this. I figured it would make me look like I knew what I was doing. James' eyes narrowed slightly and he frowned a little but he didn't say a word. I ignored him. I shielded my eyes with my hand and squinted down the green assessing the right club to use for my perfect shot.

Did I mention already that I had never swung a golf club in my life, except for that one time my brother was walking by while I was cleaning them, but that's another story.

I searched my memory for the names of the clubs. I remembered two - or so I thought. One was a 9 Iron.

I didn't ask for that.

I looked James squarely in the eye and said, " Hand me your Woody."

His eyes grew wide with excitement and his voice cracked as he said, "Here?"

What in the world was he talking about?

He pushed his golf bag in my direction and asked me to choose instead. I pulled out the club with a wood base. He eyed me carefully. I wrapped my hands around the top of the club. I figured it was just like holding a bat. I swung once or twice for practice, then went in for the kill. I couldn't wait for him to be impressed. I couldn't wait for the proposal. I missed on the first swing...and the second...and the tenth and hundredth try. James grew weary and lay down on the grass to take a nap. I kept at it. He left for a while to have dinner, do some homework, and walk the dog. He came back when it was dark holding a sleeping bag, a flashlight and a tent. I was still at it. He started to set up his little camp and then just as quickly stopped. He walked right up to me, snatched the golf club right out of my hand, and kicked the ball off the tee into the sand trap. He threw the club and with both hands grabbed my face and said, "Is there something you'd like to say to me now?" "Yes," I answered. "Well," he said. I took a deep breath and said, "Hand me the 9 Iron." James stormed off in the direction of his house and I never saw him again. Apparently James was a quitter and not the guy for me.

on the way home I met HIM....

To tell the truth...

Two third graders, a boy and a girl were standing at my library counter yesterday.

The girl leaned over and taking a deep breath through her nose said to the boy, "You smell good."

The boy looked at her quizzically.

She responded with, "I'm sorry, I just have to say it. You smell so good."

The boy answered, "I wonder what I ate?"

Mozart in the making...

Mr. Linheart was my piano teacher.

I took piano lessons for 7 very long and agonizing years. I'm sure if I ran into Mr. Linheart today he would agree with me.

From those weekly lessons I learned a few things about Mr. Linheart .

I learned that Mr. Linheart liked a steady paycheck, was hard of hearing, and thought Liberace was the second coming of Christ.

From those weekly lessons I learned a few things about myself.

I learned that I was tone deaf, wasn't very disciplined, had a very short attention span, and most importantly, that stuffing my training bra with my sister's gym socks in a fit of desperation after not practicing one week doesn't work very well as a distraction on a Liberace Loving Man.

The sound of a metronome still sends me into a panic to this day.

I still have dreams about piano recitals gone wrong too. In fact I did play in one of Mr. Linheart's piano recitals. That man was crazy to put a kid who couldn't peck out a tune if her life depended on it in front of an audience. I'm pretty sure he had no choice. My sister also took piano lessons from him. She was very good. I think my parents presented us as a packaged deal. Mr. Linheart got a raw deal if you ask me.

At the recital I followed my sister after she received a standing ovation. I played something simple like "The Indian Dance", except halfway through I developed a case of stage fright and forgot the rest of the song so I switched to a little Circus Ditty my Dad used to play using only his knuckles.

Mr. Linheart had a heart attack on the spot and died.

Well, not really, but I bet he wanted to.

After the recital Mr. Linheart had a long talk with my parents about my piano lessons. I vaguely remember him telling my Mother something along the lines of, "The kid is hopeless, has no future in music, and she gives me a headache and raises my blood pressure every time I see her walk through the door." Or maybe it was more along the lines of, "I quit." Whatever the case was, I stopped taking piano lessons and Mr. Linheart stopped teaching piano altogether and moved across town and started a new business that had nothing to do with pianos.

One day many months later I came home from school to find a guitar propped up against the dust covered piano.

"What's that for?" I asked with concern.

My Mother sweetly responded, "Oh, that's for you. Your lessons start today."

I tried to explain that the Beatles weren't looking for a 5th member anytime soon, but she wouldn't hear any of it.

An hour later I was running across the street dragging my guitar case and a guitar that was bigger than me to the music store that had opened up in the new shopping center across the road. I opened the door and announced my arrival to the counter girl who buzzed the back room and told my teacher I had arrived for my lesson. Out of the back room came Mr. Linheart.

I smiled and plucked a string or two on my guitar and said, "Long time no see."

Mr. Linheart didn't look happy. He sighed and scrubbing his face with his hands said, " I have one question for you before we begin."

I strummed my little kid fingers across the strings and said, "Go ahead."

Mr. Linheart said, "Does your father happen to play any songs with his knuckles on that guitar?"

The end...

An open letter to my parents;

Dear Mom and Dad,

I owe you some money.

Your loving daughter, the one with two left hands.

On the way to HIM...the High School and College Years...

In ninth grade I had a crush on a guy named Dave. So did every girl in my class. I guess Dave liked me for a nano-second too, although I never knew until it was too late or so the story goes. I like that story so I'm stickin' with it. He was my first unrequited love.

Tom...hot, hot hot, but not a brain in his head. We went to a school formal together. We stopped at Taco Bell on the way home from the formal and he bought 5 tacos and stuck them in his Volkswagen glove compartment to keep them warm. He ordered a Pepsi and didn't understand the concept of Coke and Pepsi being two different drinks as he and the counter guy went back and forth saying those two words over and over. I intervened. Tom got lost trying to leave my street after he dropped me off at home. It was a cul-de-sac. I think he's still driving in circles sipping his Coke, or Pepsi, and keeping his tacos toasty warm in his glove box.

Then there was a real boyfriend, or two, or more in there somewhere between my 11th and 12th grade. But they don't count.

Let's move on to college and Jessie. Jessie drove a bright yellow Beetle. Jessie was tall, dark, and handsome. I had a major crush on Jessie. Jessie was also missing a few brain cells. Jessie saw me on quite possibly the worst and most humiliating day of my life. It was the day I decided I did not need to wear a bra under the incredibly cool tuxedo shirt I found and bought at the local thrift store.

The day began as very overcast and gloomy.

It heated up rather quickly as I drove to my college campus.

By the time I got there it was close to an inferno.

I took off the cute jacket I had planned to wear over the shirt. Did I mention that it was about as see-through as a spider web? I jumped out of my car, rolled up my sleeves and tried to keep from perspiring on my long walk through the parking lot to class where Jessie was waiting for me. I came around the corner and there he was, standing outside the classroom door talking to friends. He looked up and smiled at me. I smiled back and felt giddy with excitement at just seeing him. As I got closer I saw his facial expression change and his eyes travelled down below my chin and across my chest region and back up to my face and then back down again as his mouth hung open and drool escaped.

Sunlight was streaming through the window and illuminating my whole body as I got closer to him and his group. His group of friends were staring too. I thought I must look pretty fabulous that day and was really proud of my outfit.

I strutted up to the guys and said, "Hi," with supreme confidence. Jessie turned and broke into a run, straight into a wall. I looked around and noticed some pretty strange smiles coming from his friends and a couple snickers escaping with some elbow jabs. I looked down, where everyone else seemed to be fixated on my body and saw nothing but skin. I might as well have been naked. You could see through my shirt as if I wasn't wearing anything at all. I quickly covered myself up with my books and turned around and ran to my car frantically searching in the back seat for my jacket. I skipped class that day.

I had to go shopping and purchase a nun's habit for my entry into the convent seeing as I couldn't possibly go back to the school I was attending and face those guys again. As for Jessie...I have no idea what happened to him...I immediately joined the Carmelite Sisters, took a vow of silence and didn't have contact with another man until my great escape years later...and that's when I met James....
to be continued...

On the way to HIM...the Early Years

Love, lust and lots of like.

Sam the gardener. He brought me rice paper candy each week. I liked him. He stopped bringing me candy, I stopped liking him.

End of story.

The trash man. He had an exciting job. My world was very small and I didn't have the chance to meet many men until I started school.

Regan was in my first grade class. He sat in front of me when I wasn't banished to the hallway with my entire desk in tow for poking him in the back with a pencil and making him cry. I decided then and there that the sensitive type wasn't for me.

In third grade I liked Richard. He had rainbow lined paper. I wanted some. I promised something big to Richard just so I could have some college ruled rainbow stash. I think he's still looking for me to pay up.

I had a little dry spell for a couple years and then I developed a pretend crush on my 5th grade teacher, Mr. Kano. He was the only male teacher in our school and all the other girls in the class liked him so I thought I should too not to be left out. Mr. Kano took me and 4 other students on a field trip to U.C.L.A. one summer. I think he considered us "at risk" kids. I remember thinking the cafeteria was really cool and I liked eating off trays. I don't remember much else about that day.

In 6th grade I fell in love with the smallest boy in our class with the prettiest rabbit teeth I had ever seen. His name was Sammy, not to be confused with Sam my first (imagined) love, long forgotten by now.

Sammy told me my class picture was the prettiest of all the girls in the class.

I was certain we were destined to be together forever...until the day I asked him to borrow his "rubber". Sammy was a little more sophisticated and worldly than me to say the least. I was a naive and sheltered kid. Sammy burst out laughing, and I turned ten shades of red as he proceeded to tell anyone within shouting distance that I had asked to borrow a rubber from him. I had no idea why he was making such a big deal out of it.

Sammy had these really cool erasers that I now understand were artists erasers. They were like putty and could be molded. They were nothing like the standard, boring pink eraser with the slanted edges. He always looked like he was having fun erasing his work while forming his eraser into different shapes.

If we were to be married soon I wanted an equal share in our future property.

There is a picture of the dreaded eraser at the top of this post. I never said another word to Sammy again. I think that was my first official break-up.

to be continued...

Butterflies are feet...

What do you see when you look at this fine piece of art?

Those are my feet.

I made this art project in 4th grade, and for some reason my mother kept it. It must have been the best thing I ever made in school. I found it in a stack of old photos. I guess there weren't enough real pictures of my feet so mom threw in an artistic version. They look exactly the same now except I would need a large sheet of butcher paper to make a butterfly out of them today. I have always had big feet. In 5th grade all the girls were comparing shoe size as if it were going to determine their breast size some day and I always came out the winner. In 5th grade my feet grew to their full adult size. At lunch one day, some of the girls in my class ran out on the blacktop to find a few brave boys to compare my feet with to see if any of them could even begin to measure up to my gun boats. I won hands down that day and every day till the end of grammar school. I took to standing outside the classroom at recess with one foot extended and my arms crossed with an - I've seen it all - attitude while every kid in the school lined up to measure their foot with mine. Many left crying.

I wear a size 11 shoe.

Paris Hilton wears a size 11 shoe.

That's about all we have in common.

My oldest sister wears Barbie shoes.

She is a mutant.

My mother wore elf shoes on the day of her wedding.

My other sister still wears her first baby booties, and my brother and his G.I. Joe doll shared the same shoes. My own father was called, "Stands on Pygmy Shrew Feet". He used to put my shoes on and stomp around the house asking for directions to the circus. Whenever S.O.P.S.F. (that's what we called our Dad) would take me shoe shopping, he would tell the salesperson to forget looking for a shoe that fit me and just bring out a shoe box with a lace tied around it. That joke never got old...for him.


I read somewhere that your feet and ears never stop growing. Great...I think I'll head down to Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood and stand around dressed as Gollum from Lord of the Rings. All I need to do is shave my head and hunch my back and I'll look just like him. My feet and ears are already perfect. Everyone will want to take their picture with me and put their foot next to mine.

And when someone asks me for an autograph I'll write, Big Foot Twinkle Toes Sasquatch

Happy Birthday, Auntie Lint...

Today is my sister's birthday. "Happy Birthday" Buddy Bud...Auntie Lint...Best Friend...Big Sis...Linnie!

I've brought some of the family together to wish you a Happy Birthday.

That guy wearing the motorcycle helmet is my father-in-law...he's in the witness protection program.

The kid with the binoculars is my nephew. We found out he needed glasses soon after this picture was taken.

Make a wish and blow out the candles before the rest of the clan shows up.

Happy Birthday to my wonderful sister. I'm glad I was born into our crazy family just so I could be related to you.

Love,

Buddy Bud, Pineapple Head, Sugar Lips, RM, Romi

Finger lickin' good...

I'm pretty sure these nails are on one hand.

The eight fingered kind.

And this is another hand...probably the left one.

As if my fear of flying wasn't enough...

Most people who know me know I have a flying phobia.

I now have a new fear --- dining in an open air restaurant---thanks to--- Dinner in the Sky.

One day I could be sitting in an outdoor cafe enjoying my espresso and croissant and minding my own beeswax while watching the world go by ... when... suddenly... the entire restaurant launches into the sky - high above the clouds - hung by a hook - attached to a crane - that swings me around while I try and keep my food on the plate and keep my drink from spilling in my lap. I will also need to try and "hold it" for as long as I can since I don't see a bathroom anywhere nearby...Maybe there's a "Toilet in the Sky" and that's included in the deluxe package. The standard package probably comes with a 24 pack of Depends.

I wonder if forks and knives are allowed? Maybe they are strapped to your hands with Velcro. Or is it strictly finger food in case you accidentally drop a utensil? Look out below...someone dropped their fork.


So for now... I will be dining at home, and whenever I go out to eat, I'm going to check first to see if there's a crane anywhere nearby and if the restaurant has a hook on it's rooftop.

Dinner in the sky....check please!

Like Mother, Like Daughter...

Looks like my kid picked up a little party trick from her mother.

Hats...

What's that on my head?

A hat.

Hats are not my friend.

I have never looked good wearing any kind of hat.

I avoid hats at all costs.

Birthday Party hats, New Year's hats, Cowboy hats, Baseball hats/caps, Straw hats, Coolie hats (especially those) and any other hat you can think of on this planet all look awful on me.

I think the term, hat head should be used for people who look good in hats. "Oh, he has hat head," would mean someone who looks great in a hat.

I would love to be able to throw on a baseball cap and run my Saturday errands looking incredibly cute with my sporty hat and casual attire, but that is not going to happen for me in this lifetime. My neighbor looks great in a baseball cap and no make-up. She hasn't a care in the world and can be ready in an instant. For me to be ready in an instant takes at least an hours notice. I'll never be that girl/woman and it pains me so.

I'm the kid who wore the cone shaped, elastic pinching, party hat on my forehead like a unicorn horn so I could make the other kids laugh and not notice that hats weren't flattering on me. I also took to grabbing any extra hats left on the table and wore them on either side of my head like horns or in multiple spikes all over my head, like an alien. That party trick was a real hit with the younger kids...not so much with the party girl/boy's mother though.

On New Year's Eve I took to appointing myself the hat monitor so I could wear the hat that looked more like a headband with frills and feathers and Happy New Year spelled out in gold foil and not the giant Pope hat that elongated my face even more.

Oh...the pain of not being a hat head. It haunts me daily.

But then I met the husband and discovered that he also suffers from the same affliction. He looks bad in hats. We are kindred spirits...we were meant to be together. We walk as one...we share our childhood stories of hat horrors and feel connected.

I love hats....on other people.

Hats...

Big things come in small packages...

I found this picture of my first day of parochial school. It was all downhill after that... I'm the little one on the right. Frick n' Frack on the left are my two older sisters. The one on the far left is my best friend...the one in the middle, not so much...I have permanent scars to prove it. There's a little brother too, but he wasn't born yet, so he wasn't able to pose for this picture. You can tell a lot about our personalities from this picture. For instance, you can tell that my oldest sister on the far left is a perfectionist. Her uniform is perfectly pressed and her buttoned to the neck sweater looks like it's new while the other sister and I are wearing her hand-me-down sweaters and skirts and we look like the poor relations. The two older sisters have some serious briefcases by their feet while I am holding my mother's portfolio...I think she just wanted me to feel important and snatched it back after the picture was taken. I guess when you enter first grade you only need your two hands to carry those important first day of school documents home. In my case, the teacher pinned all the papers I was to take home that day to my chest with straight pins. I think that's illegal in most states now.

We are apparently five minutes away from being late to our first day of school from the looks of the beautiful Regency era clock and matching candlesticks in the background. I guess there wasn't enough time to fix our hair that morning so our mom slapped the, ever so attractive, school half-beanie on our heads and hoped for the best. I'm almost certain, now that I think about it, that the big folder I am holding is to cover up the fact that my skirt is terribly wrinkled. Oh well, I always did have trouble keeping my uniform wrinkle free, clean, and straight. Come to think of it, I think this is the best I ever looked that year.

Thanks Mom.

Big things really do come in small packages. I grew up to be the tallest girl in my family. I also have the biggest feet, but that's another story for another time.

...and by the way...I made that fireplace with the leftover stone and mud from the planter I made for the pony picture...I was handy like that.

I knew it!

Pioneer Woman and I have so much in common. I'm just like her! My site has a picture of a cowboy-girl wearing chaps too, although my picture didn't need a bit of photo shop to make it a black and white. It came that way.



I'm pretty sure this was taken on the wide and open prairie I call home after a long and grueling day working the cattle (notice the pony is asleep he's so exhausted)...or maybe it was taken in front of the neighbor's bamboo forest planted to block those crazy neighbors who lived on the other side. My red Keds and polyester shirt look so authentic, as does that primitive stone wall made of mud and rock I cut myself. I'm pretty sure this all means that Pioneer Woman and I qualify as BFF's...if only she knew...

List Of The Day: Great Olan Mills photos

Here are the pictures as promised.
This photo was taken using the "Black Hole" backdrop.
What in the world is he sitting on?

As for that hair...It was the 80's...and mullets were in...right?

I have a few portraits of the kids stuffed in the rafters of our garage that I'll have to pull out and post on this site. One of them is an out-of-this- world pose of the darling daughter suspended on a wicker chair in space..the background is black and she looks like she is riding a chair through the black hole. As if one sitting wasn't enough...I decided to go back for more...the second set of beauties is of the darling daughter and sizzling son both wearing white and posed like little angels. I had no idea that the weird bump on sizzling son's chest was his favorite troll necklace hidden underneath his shirt. I'll go find them and post them later. In the meantime go take a look at some of the fine photography Olan Mills produced over the years...

List Of The Day: Great Olan Mills photos

She's my Best Friend...

This is a perfect rendition of my sister, aka, my best friend. She is my confidant, the one who laughs at all my jokes and appreciates my dry sense of humor, and the one I call almost every day to talk to. Just to hear her voice makes me happy. I love her so...
This is me...people often mistake the sister and I for twins. What do you think?

A Rose by any other name...

Here's a picture of the husband and me. Don't we make the perfect couple?
Here's a picture of the first rose of spring that the husband picked for me in our garden. Isn't it beautiful?
He left this on the counter for me. A rose for a Rose. Here he is swinging from the leaves. He's funny that way.
I wish he would wear something different. I'm kinda tired of the Prince Charming outfit.
Here's me, thanking the husband for the pretty rose. Do those shorts make me look fat?

What color is your rainbow...

The darling daughter and her friend were talking about weird people they went to elementary school with today. They both agreed that "H" was by far the weirdest. One day while at school all the girls were discussing their favorite color. One girl after another proclaimed Pink to be their most favorite color.

"H" responded with, " Black is my favorite color."

All the girls looked at "H" and asked, "Why Black?"

"H" answered dramatically, "Because it's the color of my soul."

I'd say the daughter and her friend are pretty good judges of character.

Summer's Comin'...

I caught the husband hanging out by the pool today.





I think he was practicing one-arm push-ups. They're the special kind done facing up.

Turns out that smile on his face is actually a grimace of pain.

Another obsession...

My romance novel collection
Notice how the books are color coordinated. My big sis made me do that. She's a design artist and would probably love to get her hands on this bookshelf to match the colors perfectly. I haven't read the books on the top three shelves, and until I do, it won't be the perfect rainbow shelving she envisions for my library.
This is a perfect rendition of my husband. He looks exactly like this, except he has dark hair and brown eyes and doesn't wear tights, or vests with belts over short sleeved turtlenecks, and he's a couple inches taller.
This is a typical day at our house. Me on the right and my darling daughter on the left, gossiping and sharing a spot of tea for breakfast. I think we need a bigger house. We have outgrown this one.
This is the perfect rendition of me. I look exactly like this, or so the husband thinks - except - I have dyed black hair and sparkly blue eyes and my feet are bigger and I use a cell phone, not that dinosaur sitting on my filing cabinet. Oh, and I'm not a triplet. There's only one of me.



* * *

As mentioned before I tend to become obsessed about certain things in my life. A few years ago I was visiting one of my oldest friends and noticed a stack of romance novels sitting in the corner of her bedroom. I was so surprised that she read, "bodice rippers", or so they used to call them. I didn't say anything about it thinking that everyone needs a secret or two of their very own. Three years later we were talking about our favorite books and I asked her for some suggestions. She told me about a series by, Julia Quinn about the Bridgerton family. Eight brothers and sisters looking for love and each one being the focus of a book with the siblings stories sprinkled throughout. I decided to give it a shot and see whether I would like reading romance. What appealed to me about reading this type of book was a conversation I had with my friend about romance novels always having a happy ending. I had read my share of doom and gloom, mainly Ann Rule, the queen of creepy true stories of people gone bad. I was tired of always looking over my shoulder wondering when the boogie man was going to finally snatch me up, or sleeping with the light on, one eye open, and the door swung wide so I could see whomever it was that was going to take me to my maker much sooner than I ever wanted.

Happy Endings? A love story? Hot... sexy...gorgeous...take charge...biggest penises on the planet guys...who lived to make their woman's every dream come true?

Sign me up!

So, I went out and bought my first romance novel titled, The Duke and I . It was funny, it was sweet, it was romantic, it made me want to have crazy honeymoon sex with the husband all over again, at all hours, and it was really, really good. The author,Julia Quinn, has been likened to a modern day Jane Austen in the romance world.

I then went on to read the rest of the brother's and sister's stories and moved on to Lisa Kleypas, Eloisa James, Celeste Bradley, Gaelen Foley, Suzanne Enoch, and many more. I turned off the television and focused on romance novels set during Regency times for a solid year. I read on average a book a day, and let the house go, let my kids forage in the yard for their own food (note to self: plant fruit trees like Dad did so they have something to forage) and chased the husband around after a particularly good romp in the hay scene that made me randy for him all over again. He took to hiding in his home office after a while, with a lingering headache to rival any brain tumor, and the fastest legs in town when I tried to corner him. The poor guy was exhausted from my obsession. He'd see me coming and the only word out of his mouth was, "Again?"

I joined Romance Writer's of America and started writing my own romance novel after reading approximately 200 in succession to get my feet wet and to get a feel for the genre. I'm on page 293 of my first draft and going strong. I thought I would post a couple of pictures of some of the romance novels I decided to keep in my library from the hundreds I have read.

Do you think I might be a little bit obsessed?

Crunchy...

As I mentioned in a previous post...I am obsessed with Pioneer Woman and have made one or two of her many recipes at least every day this week. I have made 3 batches of "Oatmeal Crispies" in 2 days.

Yesterday I decided to beef up the cookies and add some extras. I added the standard chocolate chips to half of one batch and to the other I added raisins and one other ingredient.

The husband was sampling the cookies and proclaimed that he liked the ones with raisins and "toenails" added to the mix.

I thanked him and beaming proudly told him that it was a very difficult process collecting all those toenail clippings for a simple batch of cookies and I hoped he appreciated the effort.

I hope he didn't see the empty bag of shredded coconut in the trash...that would ruin everything!

What's that?

One of my least favorite things to do as a librarian is shelving books. To make it a pleasant experience I listen to audio books. A few years ago I purchased the entire "Outlander" series by my most favorite author, Diana Gabaldon on CD's.

This was before the advent of ebooks and downloads.

I bought the equivalent of a super-fruity fanny pack to hold my CD player and a set of headphones to listen to my audio books and block out the rest of the world as I entered the world of Jamie and Claire and their adventures.

One day a teacher came in to talk to me and thought I was listening to music on my CD player and asked me why I didn't have an iPod instead.

I told him I was listening to audio books so he named my CD player, which is the dinosaur of iPod's a, "Wide Pod" instead.

To the kids at school my "Wide Pod" is the equivalent to lugging around a record player in my day instead of a transistor radio.

I'm obsessed!

My sister came over the other day and told me that she would have been over a lot sooner than she was if she hadn't been reading a blog that had her completely engrossed.

Of course, I wanted to know what it was so I could become just as obsessed as she was if not more because I always get incredibly obsessed about anything new in my life and have to know everything there is to know about the subject.

One of my more recent obsessions was, Julian McMahon, and the show, Nip/Tuck. I now own all the seasons of, Profiler, Charmed, Nip/Tuck and a few really bad movies that Julian starred in many moons ago.

I got over that obsession after about 7 months. Anyway, I digress...

The blog my sister and I are now equally obsessed over is: http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/.

I have already spent three days reading all the back posts. Tonight I made her, "oatmeal crispies" and her, "best ever lasagna" recipes and I have to say the cookies were the best oatmeal cookies I have ever made.

I love how much Pioneer Woman is in love with her husband, "Marlboro Man" and her "Punk Kids".

For a moment I was sad that I had never thought of marrying a cowboy! Believe me the thought never crossed my mind until reading her posts about her hot, cowboy husband.

I married a city slicker and the only time I ever would have crossed paths with a cowboy, living where I live, is one who is horribly lost.

My husband is as far from being a cowboy as a man can get. He's a city slicker, raised in Los Angeles, while he considers me a country girl because I was raised half an hour away in suburbia.

I guess that would make me a country girl in his eyes.

Maybe we are the opposite of Pioneer Woman...I'm the cowgirl and he's the city slicker?

Hmm...I don't think so, but it's a nice thought anyway.

Does it count that my all time favorite books as a kid were the "Little House on the Prairie" series? I sooo wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder. I would pretend in my backyard, made mostly of concrete and a small patch of grass, surrounded by a brick fence, with the sound of the busy street traffic just over the other side (which sounded nothing like the sounds Laura Ingalls was used to... I'm sure) that I was riding in a covered wagon across the wide and open prairie and I had to survive on the land.

Fortunately my dad was a frustrated farmer and had planted tomatoes, herbs, strawberries, a peach tree, avocado tree, orange tree, lemon tree and an apricot tree on our postage stamp piece of land.

I harvested that fruit like I was storing up for a long, harsh winter which is highly unlikely considering I lived in a climate where the sun shines almost every day of the year and any other type of weather is cause for local television anchors to announce continuous coverage of a rain shower as,"Storm Watch 2008!"

Well, back to Pioneer Woman, check out her website and see if you don't become as obsessed with her charming life as I am.

Maybe there's a cowboy or cowgirl in your future.

It's too late for this girl as I've already found my Prince Charming, but as Pioneer Woman's story goes...she never in a million years thought she would ever end up on a working ranch married to a cowboy living far, far, away from her favorite obsession...Starbuck's.