My New Refrigerator has Every Convenience, it’s Gonna Make Life Easy for Me

So sang DemiGoddess the Elder and I last night as we danced together around the kitchen. She is very into the Talking Heads these days (have I mentioned how exceptionally cool my children are?).

Our new refrigerator doesn’t exactly have every convenience. There is no built-in water filtration system or even an automatic ice maker. In fact, from the outside, the new refrigerator looks a lot like the old refrigerator:


Inside is where the real magic happens. Slide-out, divided, spill-proof, tempered-glass shelves! A light in the freezer! In-door adjustable compartments that can hold a gallon jug of milk! And, best of all, I now have a drawer for nothing but cheese!


That’s not the only new acquisition in the Goddess household, either. I am also the proud owner of a brand new timing belt and muffler, which were installed on my aged but trusty Honda Civic yesterday morning. (Tax refund in… tax refund out…)

And, because I am so very clever, I dropped my car off at the shop on Monday night, so that my fix-it-up chappie could get started installing the new timing belt and muffler bright and early on Tuesday morning. Which he did. Right after he called me at 6:30 a.m. to tell me that my car had been broken into overnight and my stereo was gone.

I felt so violated. Why would someone do that to my car? And, come to think of it, why would someone bother to steal a six-year-old stereo that wasn’t worth all that much when it was new??

The very apologetic fix-it-up chappie agreed that it was a major drag, but assured me that the shop has insurance for that sort of thing. So yesterday's final major purchase was a brand new stereo for my car.

It can play MP3 files and has an auxiliary jack for hooking up the Demis’ iPods, and I did not have to pay a thing for it, unless one counts the emotional cost of picking my car up from the shop and succumbing to an overwhelming urge to check under all the seats for any nasty remnants that the stereo thieves may have left behind.

They were exceptionally tidy thieves, it seems. They left no trace, save for a few screws lying neatly in my cup holder, and the gaping hole in my dashboard.

But, getting back to the refrigerator. As I transferred all of our old magnets, business cards, photos and whatnot from the old refrigerator door to the new one, I took the opportunity to thin things out a little. However, this little gem, compliments of DemiGoddess the Younger, will be staying:


I'm so glad she's putting that Teen Vogue subscription to good use.

Boys: 1, Girls: 12

The boy child has a baby sister!



After astounding us all by producing a son on her first go-round two years ago, my sister-cousin Kerry followed up on Tuesday evening with a gorgeous baby girl. The lovely Ms. Keara brings the count to an even dozen females between my sisters, sister-cousins and our children, and her arrival also means that order has once again been restored to the universe.

Zeke, Keara's older brother, is a delight, but we all knew the whole "boy" thing was, as sister Betsy so eloquently called it, "a blip."

Isn't she pretty?

I had an opportunity to spend a little get-to-know-you time with her last night, and I think she's going to work out very nicely.

Congratulations, Kerry, Erik and Zeke!

(P.S. I totally called it.)

Signs of Spring

Happy Pitchers



and Catchers



Day Everybody!

Next stop... opening day!

I still haven't gotten over that final regular season game last October. I don't know if I can take that much excitement again this year.

Okay, maybe I can.

Speaking of exciting... My Ho has a baseball blog! How HOTT is that?

Neither Pampered, Nor a Chef

Last night my lovely next-door-neighbor, Leah, had a Pampered Chef® party. I am not a huge fan of these in-home shopping parties, mainly because every day is a struggle for me to contain my impulse-shopping tendencies, and that’s just at Target. I go into these gatherings with the firmest of intentions, but the sad truth is that it never takes long for the peer pressure and implied sense of obligation (I have to buy something, she made a cake!) to entirely dispossess me of my senses, and the next thing I know I’m whipping out my checkbook to purchase a Crinkle Cutter that I simply must have, so that it can sit, nestled in its protective plastic sleeve, unused in a drawer in my kitchen for years and years because, hello! I DON’T COOK!

But Leah is lovely, and I hadn’t seen her since the last time it was possible to leave the house without dying from hypothermia within seconds. Besides which, I had just finished doing my taxes, and had very recently learned that all those upgrades I made to my home computer last year are totally tax deductible “education expenses.” So I was in an optimistic mood.

I really, really wanted to order a Food Chopper, especially after Rita, the sales representative, demonstrated right there on Leah's dining room table how just a few quick presses of the knob will rotate the durable blades to perfectly chop all manner of nuts and vegetables and chocolate chips as coarsely or as finely as I might like. Nevertheless, through a goddess-like display of super-human fortitude—in spite of the fact that the Food Chopper is also top-rack dishwasher safe—I managed to limit my order to what I’m pretty sure are the five least expensive things in the entire catalog. And I can’t wait to use my new Quikut paring knife.

You know, to cut open the wrapper on a frozen pizza. Or something.