Side notes

Well I'm finally feeling like I'm getting back to what passes for normal in my life. In fact I started feeling so much better last night that I invented a new food. I have to tell you, I've been feeling pretty left out of the food blogging thing. Everybody does it and I've never had a recipe to share, since as you know I live mostly on insta-dinners so I'm pretty proud of this one. I call it Taco Cheapo without the Drive. Take a flour tortilla. Put it on a microwave safe plate. Open a can of refried beans. Spread a substantial layer of beans over the tortilla, like you would a pizza. Open bag of shredded cheese and sprinkle liberally over the beans. Throw into nuker for one minute. Sprinkle with hot sauce to taste. Roll it up. Voila - instant Taco Bell burrito. (Don't laugh - in my house this is a major culinary acheivement.)

Meanwhile, I'm happy to report I haven't seen an ant in my kitchen since I spread the boric acid around. However, I still haven't found anywhere that sells borax so I can do the foundation around the outside of the house but I may break down and just spray the chemicals outside. I think the borax may be worse for the shrubs than the chemicals would be and I would hate to kill the azaelas and the spring bulbs.

I did see a wooly bear caterpillar yesterday when I was out with the tyke. Up north, the folk wisdom was that you could tell how hard the winter will be by how wide the black parts of the critter are. If that holds true here, then it's going to be a very mild winter. The little guy had the smallest black ends of any I've ever seen in my life. Of course it's hard to even imagine winter is on its way when the afternoons are still in the 80s. Still, it's clear the fall is here if only from the Halloween decorations. I love tacky lawn ornaments and there's some beauties around here. I was driving home at dusk the other night and there's a house near me that's lit up like a Christmas scene with rows of plastic ghosts and pumpkins and the entire house strung up with orange lights. The only one I saw that was better than that, was a small front yard that was entirely made over to look like a graveyard with huge spiderwebs and goblins hanging from the trees.

On another note, I totally overslept this morning. Forgot to turn on the alarm last night. I woke up 15 minutes before I needed to be here today and it's a six minute drive but that's the beauty of this job. I can arrive without even brushing my teeth because I don't see anyone but the tyke for the most part and I have an extra set of clothes and toiletries here. I'm learning to love a gig where you don't have to wear makeup and can show up in the same tshirt two days in a row.