I make homemade instant oatmeal packets from a recipe someone linked to here. Oatmeal, cut-up prunes + tbsp of other dried fruit, and chia seeds. Keeps me full for about three hours. It's caloric, though.

Thanks for letting me burble on about my yard, you guys. This whole gardening thing is still pretty new to me. Neither of my parents gardened beyond the minimum and then I spent 20 years in apartments. I am trying to learn how to do it at the same time as I try to figure out what I like--it's a process.

we had yogurt-marinated chicken and potatoes and roasted brussel sprouts tonight. HKF was not impressed. But I'm making soup and have plans for the dark meat that involve a curry, and there's a ton of white meat left over. I forget how much I love the crazy-spensive kosher chickens from TJs sometimes. But not tonight.

I'm finishing off the last of my Omaha Steaks beef stew tonight. Dad is coming up tomorrow, and I'm going to see if he can take me out to one of my favorite restaurants that I don't get to nearly enough.

We'll also have to stop at the auto parts store for new wiper blades for my car, and I've got a coupon for 40% off of everything at the clothes store I go to. I can pick up some jeans for a few sizes down, which I'll need by Easter anyway.

yay SuziQ for the energy! And whoooo-hoo Kathy for the new jeans!

I am so very envious of Tom Scola for being mortgage free! That's one of my goals before i die. We shall see. Right now i think i'll be lucky to pay off the new furnace/hot water heater/insulation in less than 20 years.

I loves me some unsweetened steel cut oats. In the last few months TJ's started carrying a new quick cook steel cut option (in a yellow cannister, 5-7 minutes stovetop) that has significantly raised my oatmeal consumption by making the nummy steel cut texture available in less time than it takes the little cat to eat his breakfast. I like it mixed with cinnamon, whatever fruit is on hand, and (ideally) pan-toasted almonds. During the winter i make do with almonds and dried cranberries, but fresh berries really make it like dessert. Even without sweetener. I hear tell of using butter and cream but this lactose-intolerant gal has never seriously considered that option (so i make it myself, never ordering at a brunch-type place.)

I just did my taxes! Do California people know about CalFile? It's free and easy if your taxes aren't too complicated.

I would eat more oatmeal but it's hard to eat it at work. I could bring in instant, and use the hot water tap in our water cooler. There's also the tricky no eating at your desk rule at my work. Lots of people in my section do eat their desk, since we don't have any valuable records, but we have to find it from the nosep parkers that we work with who report every little thing.

I too love the garden posts.

Nice visit with T. As I suspected, the stress and drama was about a boy. But not from the boy. Basically, there was a parental-child communication breakdown about her relationship to that older boy (T feels she's pretty much at fault for that,) a hickey, a red-alert parental meltdown on account of said hickey, more failures of parent-child communication and T just getting overwhelmed by all of it and a little unsure as to what to do with all this. We talked, we laughed, talked about time and friends and understanding. Basically, the thing that would ratchet down her parents' reaction is MEETING SAID BOY. And she came around to that. And some other stuff.

And the funny thing is, the reason parents never met boy earlier? Because T and his schedules were so packed with academics and their University jobs, they couldn't find a time when everyone was around. So it was put off easily (cause really, I can't imagine many a teen looks forward to that meeting, especially not T, knowing her parents. I could picture it) and then everyone melted down and it became a Much Bigger Deal. Heh.

She's a good kid. She just needed a peptalk from someone she trusts who is not radiating disapproval. She could hear it from me, not her parents. Funny how that works.

I managed to put her in stitches when I imagined aloud the thoughts that ran through her parents' minds when they saw the hickey (which she hadn't even noticed.) I count that a win.

Rushing to the end to apologize whole-heartedly for an ignorant reference I made earlier.

And by ignorant, I mean ignoramus.

I had no idea I was being offensive, which makes it no less offensive.

I have endeavored to educate myself and will never make that mistake again. I beg pardon from everyone offended.