Category Archives: Eating

Chomp it up.

Cookies and basketball

When I was in high school, my best friend wanted to try out for the basketball team. We spent months in her backyard, practicing free throws and layups. Well, she practiced. I mostly just lounged in the grass.

A few days before the tryouts, she was getting really nervous. She didn’t want to go alone. So I went along to showcase my skills alongside her.

I was cut the first day. I think I may have been the first person cut. This was not a surprise. My friend, however, did make the team. My lounging in the grass had paid off.

My basketball skills have not improved since then. My 10-year-old nephew can easily beat me in Horse.

I am, however, somewhat skilled in the realm of Bracketeering. And when I say “skilled,” I mean lucky. Because I don’t really know much about the teams at all. I usually make my picks based on the mascots.

I’m going to test my luck again this year with the Double Dribble NCAA bracket challenge. Leave a comment on this post if you’d like to play along, and I’ll send you the password. (Make sure you include a valid e-mail address.)

The winner will receive fame fortune a dozen cookies from April’s Cookie of the Month batch!

The pursuit of awesomeness

Menu Plan Monday logoI just learned that today is the International Day of Awesomeness. I haven’t performed any “feats of awesomeness” yet — unless you count cleaning the microwave and forgetting Pete’s 4-month checkup as “awesome.”

I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to actively pursue the awesome. Is awesomeness on your agenda today?

While we’re on the subject of “awesome,” here’s our menu for the week. (That was a terrible segue. My apologies.)

Monday: Dinner with friends

Tuesday: Apricot-glazed chicken

Wednesday: Breakfast for dinner

Thursday: Spicy chicken with snow peas

Friday: Pizza

Enthusiasm's reward

We stopped at a Baskin-Robbins/Dunkin’ Donuts hybrid store for a little treat this evening. While I mulled my ice cream choice, Rockford went over to the cash register — which was right in front of the giant wall o’ donuts — to pay. As I walked over to join him, he was starting to point at the wall in an “I’ll take 3 of those and 7 of those and 3 of those” sort of fashion.

I shot him a look.

“Aw, alright,” he said, crestfallen. “They’re just so awesome.”

“What’s awesome?”

“Nichole!” he exclaimed with a little Charlie Brown-style jump. “They’re Bavarian cream-filled donut holes!”

The woman behind the counter turned around and grabbed two donut holes. Rockford beamed as she handed them across to him.

“Really?” he said. “That’s so nice!”

She laughed.

“I’ve just never seen anybody get so excited about donut holes,” she said.

Rockford popped in a donut, and she asked him how he liked it.

“That’s great!” he exclaimed. And his new best friend turned around and filled a bag with the wee confections.

He practically skipped out of the store.