Today is my birthday eve. It is also Super Tuesday. That is no mistake. This particular birthday is really my second birthday of the year. It is a day that celebrates the arrival of me discovering my purpose rather than my actual birth. To me they are equally important; one couldn’t exist without the other. In previous birthday blog posts I have mentioned why this day is important to me and how much this blog has changed my life.  I have already mentioned that I am still in shock I did this, created this, for myself. I don’t believe I will ever get use to that. I suspect its because I feel like it was a small step in the middle of the night when I wrote three blogs back to back and then started this site. I suppose it had been in the works for a while but that night my frustration and momentum took over. I will always be grateful for the divine intervention that night, that made it “the night”. This week started off with a two-d...

I got to be honest. I have no idea why we have leap years nor remember the last one in 2012. The only thing I know is that I didn’t write about it. That is how I evaluate my life, if I wrote about it then it crossed my mind more than once. The only exception to that rule is when my chronic migraines are raging especially in prior years that made my holiday blogs post six months to a year later than that they occurred. So what? Who doesn’t like a Christmas blog in the summer? This strategy keeps my readers on their toes. Certainly no other publication is as sporadic as mine.  I so often wish I had an extra day off each weekend so that I could get ahead on my list of things to do and still have a day to be a couch potato. This year happens to be a Leap Year and it’s on a Monday so that doesn’t really help me any. I think it should be a Federal holiday that way I would have off. I mean it’s only once every four years. I should think employers could swing that. There aren’t...

La Villa should change its name to Land of Ziti. This local eatery of mine makes quite literally the best-baked ziti I have ever had, and I have had a lot. When you order be sure to get it how I like it with little sauce and well done. There is nothing that beats a pile of pasta topped with cheese turned into very crunchy pieces. I can eat an entire pan like that. In fact I am craving it as it I type, which is probably the worst part about being a blogger who writes about so many delicious food so often. While I hate a bad meal it is easier to write about those when trying not to become morbidly obese. La Villa is a restaurant I have been to many, many times but not within close proximity of another visit. It is the place my family goes to on special occasions like Mother’s Day and birthdays. It is slightly more expensive than other, similar places in my neighborhood but it is so worth it. Previously I had written about Salvi’s ( http://thequeenoff-ckin...

In my very first year of writing this blog I visited a place unaware of just how delicious it would make my life. I can hardly believe it is has been this long since I returned to trace my sweet steps. Even with this time gap my life was changed. I now knew what was out in the world and I couldn’t settle for less. It also began my journey as a foodie. Time sure does fly when you are running a blog tracking down a limitless amount of stops. That’s why returning to Doughnut Plant was a double sweet treat for me.  I am notorious for my loathing of just about anything chocolate. The first and probably only exception is the white chocolate KitKat, which I ate on this Valentines too oddly enough. That is my kryptonite. I would cut off my arm, or at least my pinky that is bruised from an accident earlier in the week, to have one now. Once I had made eye contact with that wrapper it came off faster than Rose Nyland can tell a St. Olaf story. On Valentine’s Day I was oddl...

    As I sit down to think about what I want to write in this blog I have Fergie in my head. Her song is setting the scene: Fun. I have heard about that before but it’s been a while. A really long while. Like so many years ago I can’t even reach that far back in my migraine brain. It may have well been a lifetime ago because who that girl was and what she did I have no recollection of. It is like I woke up after being in a coma for twenty years. Places, names, and people look and sound familiar but I can’t quite place them. They say some things are never truly forgotten, that it is like riding a bike. God knows how long ago I did that so I hope this new body and healing migraine brain can pull themselves together. I think I know how to act. I want to truly be myself with no self-conscious thoughts or actions. I want to actually have alcohol in my drink and dare I say fun. See there is that word again. I think it is associated with good ...