Again with the failed intentions

This is the last I'm going to write about failed intentions.

Too much happened this month – dental surgery and weather, mostly – to keep me from staying on track with goals, and continuing to feel bad about it isn't helping.

Need to apply "one day at a time" principle to goals/intentions/resolutions, especially the health-related ones.

On the bright side, I've lost two pounds since I started the failed Whole 30.

So there's that.

I watched the Super Bowl last night, rooting against the Patriots more than for the Eagles. (How's that for a patriotic contest, huh? And yet there are millions of good Americans boycotting the NFL because some players choose to kneel for the national anthem.) This early-to-bed girl surprised herself and her husband by staying awake past halftime (which I thought was very entertaining) all the way to the presentation of the trophy.

I laughed so hard during the NFL Dirty Dancing commercial. Harder than I've laughed since before the 2016 presidential election. Seriously.

And I was happy at the end to see Tom Brady leave the field with his head down. Well, maybe not happy, but certainly satisfied.

Not sure when I'll be back. I guess when I feel like I really have something to say.

Six months until pre-season!

Well, my team lost. BIG-time lost. But I held up well, I think, and enjoyed Bruno's halftime show and many of the commercials.

And that's what the Super Bowl is all about, right? Heh.

The big surprise was Bob Dylan's Chrysler ad; the Dylan purists are accusing him of selling out. I was thrilled to know he could actually speak. In fact, I think he spoke more in those 60 seconds than in the dozen concerts I've been to combined.

News flash: America is a melting pot. We are a nation of immigrants. We didn't sprout here. We arrived here, from Europe and Asia and Africa.

We all loved it, back in the day, when Coca-Cola wanted to teach the world to sing. Coke is, after all, an international product. But last night? Coke's social media accounts were hate-bombed following the "America the Beautiful" ad, which was sung in several languages. Instead of 'Murican. The tweets and comments were filled with misspelled words, poor grammar and vows to switch to Sprite. A Coke product. The mind boggles.

There were so many things to love about the broadcast, especially President Obama's smackdown of Faux Noise during the O'Really interview during the pre-game. Also: Bruno. Coke. Dylan. Puppies.

I will not let the haters bring me down. I'm not yet sure what I can do about it (other than vote for Democrats), but I'm thinking.

You, too, can have a green thumb

Five days ago, I planted wheatgrass seeds in this cute little planter I bought last weekend in Asheville. Look at it now!

These sprouts are already twice as tall as they were yesterday when
I took this photo! What is it 'they' say about watching grass grow?
I should charge admission!

Wheatgrass – live or plastic – is all over the place. I first saw some displayed in a restaurant at the North Carolina Zoo two or three years ago, and I've been on a mission ever since to find the perfect container in which to grow my own. My plant is purely decorative, but I could make juice from it if I wanted to. Which I don't. Cats like to eat wheatgrass (it's also called catgrass), something to keep in mind if you want your centerpiece to remain intact. I don't have cats, just one adorable little dog who doesn't eat from the table. Much.

I used an organic seed-starting medium for soil, but any kind of potting soil would work. I made sure the dirt was moist, sprinkled the seeds on top and added a little more soil to cover them. Then I put some plastic wrap on top and put it in a sunny spot. The plastic wrap acts as a mini-greenhouse; you shouldn't need to add more water until you see growth.

Once the seeds sprout, you can remove the plastic wrap. My experience with vegetable seeds is that sprouting can sometimes take a couple weeks. You can imagine how surprised I was to see this much growth in five days.

When the sprouts are about three inches tall I'm going to snip them straight across the top. For someone who never much cared for houseplants, I'm turning into quite the indoor gardener. The green onions are doing fairly well, as is the celery. My Meyer lemon tree is loaded with baby fruit and the lime tree has plenty of babies and mature limes. I'll have enough spider plants to totally rock whatever container planting I do this summer.

And speaking of rocking, how about those Giants? It was way too exciting! And Madonna totally killed the halftime show. No wardrobe malfunctions this year (in fact, Madonna was pretty buttoned-up), but M.I.A. got a little out of line, prompting apologies from the NFL and NBC. The middle-finger salute looked inadvertent to me; I didn't even notice it until I'd watched the video twice.

Speaking of not rocking, I thought the commercials were only so-so. (The standout was Chrysler, very bold and I hope we see it again.) Super Bowl advertisers must think we like to drink a lot of beer and buy a lot of cars. They should have thrown a DIY Network ad in there, cuz girls watch football, too! Heh.

The party's over …

No sad music from me, though! I was happy to plan it, happy to execute the plan and am now more than happy to get back to my other life. That party had a mind of its own.

My mother-in-law was very appreciative. Her niece, who is 72, asked if I would throw her a 90th birthday party. I reminded her that in 18 years I would be 78 – probably not up to the amount of effort it took to pull this off. But I did offer to take her to lunch. Heh.

As promised, here's the cupcake cake. The batter was baked in a small mixing bowl and then I carved the lower portion to make the whole thing look like a cupcake. I pressed the back of a knife into that portion of the frosting to make it look pleated.

And here's the table, which really was lovely, if I do say so myself.

All the out-of-towners left yesterday. I took a nice, long (five miles) walk and didn't do much else. Today will be a big push to put the house back together. (We moved and rearranged a lot in order to give our two-year-old triplet grandsons plenty of play space.) And there's a lot of laundry to catch up on. And another walk to take. I've missed two days so far this month, but it's early and I'm going to do my very best to make it up and meet my possibly overambitious mileage and time goals for February.

My husband and I enjoyed watching the Super Bowl together. I also enjoyed texting with my son-in-law in Tennessee (who used to live in Wisconsin), and following will.i.am on Twitter before he and the Peas took the stage for the halftime show.

Technology is a beautiful thing. Heh.

Friday Quote Day

We cannot do everything at once,

but we can do something at once.
~ Calvin Coolidge

Today's quote is brought to you by the word "busy." Man, have I been busy.

The thing about party planning, unless you're a pro, is that you don't do it every day, and therefore you have to think-think-think and make lists-lists-lists and, if you're me, if you think about it and don't put it on a list (or do it right away), you're going to end up with no cream or sugar for the coffee.

I bet that didn't make a bit of sense, did it? Heh.

Yesterday was tough.

Yeah, baking cupcakes all day is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it, right? And since my husband is less-than-handy in the kitchen, it was up to me. These are Snickerdoodle cupcakes with penuche frosting. Martha's recipe called for seven-minute frosting dusted with cinnamon-sugar, but I couldn't have pulled that one off. I hope this is a good combination.

This is half of what we're serving to my mother-in-law's guests. The other cupcakes are carrot cake with cream-cheese frosting. They look just like these, except the frosting is white, so I didn't take another picture.

The carrot cake part is yummy. I baked some of the batter in a small metal mixing bowl and then carved it to look like a cupcake (and ate some of the trimmed-away part). I frosted the lower portion with the penuche and the curved top with cream cheese frosting, and topped it with one candle, because 90 wouldn't fit. I'll get a picture of it tomorrow. It looks a little "homemade-with-love," but I think it'll be fine.

I missed working out yesterday, but there literally was no time. How do those of you with jobs manage?!?!? Although, come to think about it, I used to have a job and I worked out at the gym a couple hours a day. I didn't work in a cupcake factory, though, that must be the difference. Sitting on my ass in front of a computer, which is what I used to do as a graphic designer, is more conducive to doing something physical after work than slaving in a hot kitchen all day.

[An aside: Back in the olden days of graphic design, we actually did a lot of standing. Prior to computer-aided design and desktop publishing, sheets of type had to be trimmed and pasted, lines had to be drawn by hand with ink, overlays had to be created and fitted. All of this was done – standing – at a drawing board, cutting mat and wax machine. Aha! A contributing factor to the obesity epidemic everyone else has overlooked!]

So. Back to the Friday quote. This week has been a steady progression of doing something at once, leading up to the Big Event tomorrow afternoon – my mother-in-law's 90th birthday celebration. Some guests are coming from out of state, including my husband's son and his family, which will add six to our household for the weekend. We can't wait to see the children again. Oh, and their parents, too. Heh.

When everyone has gone home and life settles back down, my workouts will have to ramp up to make up for the lost time from yesterday's no-show. I'm already thinking my February goals were a little over-optimistic. But I might be able to sneak one in today. You know, since the cupcakes are done!

My friend Elora frequently ends her posts with a sunset shot. I recently complained to her that her view is so much better than mine (and it is!). But I couldn't help snagging this shot a couple evenings ago. It reminds me that on Sunday evening, all the hoopla will be over here in the Middle of Nowhere, and will be starting in Dallas. The Packers and Steelers can go at it while we kick back, relax and … eat cupcakes!

A super Sunday

What a great game! (The Super Bowl was last night, in case you’re not a sports nut.) I didn’t care who won, and had darned good reasons to root for both teams, so the outcome didn’t matter to me.

Reasons to root for the Cardinals:

• Larry Fitzgerald, the hottest wide receiver in football pants
• Kurt Warner, the oldest QB in football pants
• Cuba Gooding Jr., who played for the Cardinals in Jerry Maguire
• Not only have they never won a SB, they’ve never played in one

Reasons to root for the Steelers:

• Troy Polamalu, the hottest strong safety in football pants
• Ben Roethlisberger, the fattest QB in football pants
• Mike Tomlin, the youngest coach in the NFL
• I live in WV. The Steelers are “our” team.

See? I couldn’t lose! Heh.

Best commercial? IMNSHO, it was this (I hope this works!):



The weather gods gave us a hint of spring yesterday. One of my weather widgets reported the mid-afternoon temperature at 65, the other at 57. Either way, it was a good day to back away from the treadmill and head outdoors. My husband and I logged a six-plus-mile walk before we settled down for our Super Bowl party for two.

It’s a good thing our “new” bathroom is so pretty, because after installing quarter-inch porcelain tile, none of the doors fit. Adjustments will need to be made; I’m not living with an open-air bathroom floorplan for too much longer. I bought slate-blue plastic bins to corral the stuff I used to store on shelves in the closet; my husband said that closet is so neat it doesn’t even need a door.

Um, I don’t think so. The difference between men and women might ultimately be how each of us defines “neat.”