Well yesterday I got my new-ish (well, new to me, that is) laptop; my old one was first ghosted then reformatted and fixed up so that my little one would have her own machine for all the various kindergarden-level PC games she got for Christmas. My clever and cautious husband also set up a proxy server on one of our machines here, and that functions as a super-mega-Internet filter for her machine so that she is limited to venture only to specific sites (NickJr.com, PBSKids.com, etc.) that he's setup for her.

Of all of the gifts I received over the holidays...

...the most puzzling would have to be the carefully bubble-wrapped package mailed to my husband and me from my mother-in-law.

She sent us a framed photographic portrait of HERSELF. In an appliqued and beaded sweater, no less.

Now, I could see if it was for my daughter or something, but she sent it to US!  It now resides in the depths of my china cabinet, ready to be pulled out and displayed when she visits.

Just a quick update and a big HELLO to everyone in blogsville.

I hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday week. My husband very smartly planned our road trip to avoid all frozen precipitation so we made great time and actually breezed though those 770-some miles each way with relative ease.

I have many pictures to post but hubby hasn't uploaded them to our server yet as he's been busy putting some of his new (gift) power tools and handyman accessories to use fixing up this and that aound the house.

Speaking of gifts, he overwhelmed me with EVERYTHING on my Target.com "wish list" that he had shipped to my parents' house. Nothing says "thoughtful" than a man repeatedly clicking the ADD TO CART button 15 times in a row. hehehe.

One of the gift I received (which was on my "wish list" and so I was NOT insulted to receive it) is a electronic scale/body fat monitor, which seems to work very well. In fact, according to my new "toy", I manged to not gain any weight over the holidays. Now that is certainly a gift in and of itself!

Well, I am feeling a bit harried as my husband called this morning to inform me that we'd be leaving asap this afternoon for our road trip to Philly (instead of tomorrow) due to snow across Indiana and Ohio.

I have now been requested by two bloggers to complete one of these quizzes that I find to be akin to a chain letter about angel kisses or needles in the McDonald's playland. But to be a good sport, and yet NOT to lie (I am wholly against outright lying, if it can be helped) I complete this little ditty partly in the form of lighthearted parody, partly in utter truth. The challenge for you is to determine which is which.  Some answers (the truthful ones, that is) may surprise you. Enjoy!

3 names you go by:  'MommyCanIUseYourComputer', 'HiHo', 'Yo, Adrian!'

I am now heavy-hearted after learning that one of our prized Christmas traditions will not be around this year.

... and as I promised soswryter and Lyly, who both noted, vis-a-vis an internet quiz, their interest in nude bathing at a European beach, I offer the following joke:

Q: Why don't women drink beer at the beach?

A: They don't want to get sand in their Schlitz!

What's likely even more humorous than this goony joke is that I told it to my dear great Uncle George (my grandmother's brother-in-law) when I was three years old. He laughed his porkpie hat off! My mother was mortified.

Ok folks, I know I live in Chicago and HAVE been here for over 14 years now BUT...

I was watching my usual Sunday mid-morning local news show and in the lower right corner of the screen they have the station logo, the time and the temperature.

Today the temperature display said 5. Degrees. Farenheit.

Over the past few days, I've read many blogs of people bemoaning the seemingly inevitable weight-creep this time of the year. Post-Thankgiving, especially in many workplaces, there seem to be cookies, candies, and other "treats" in abundance wherever you turn.

I was at Starbucks to grab a latte and snack with my daughter after school yesterday. A woman in front of me in line was chatting with me, and as her order was being prepared, she noted, "Oh, my doctor told me to watch the refined sugars and carbohydrates. But I've lost some weight and so I feel like I can treat myself. I'll get back on the wagon after the new Year."

The server then produced her order: an extra-large Godiva hot cocoa with whipped creme and an enormous peanut-butter-cup cookie.

I looked at her and mentally, I wished her well. And then I thought of the movie "SuperSize Me."

The combined praise and bashing of "Atkins", "South Beach" and other popular diets ignore much of the true problem of American eating habits. We eat food with little to no nutritional value. We consume "empty" calories. Our food is highly processed, over-salted or sweetened, and full of bizzarre unnatural sources of fat and carbohydrates.

And those processed foods have gotten a stranglehold on our palates. We have dulled our senses to now need hyper-sodium, ultra-rich, or extra-sweet in order to derive pleasure from food.

And, sadly, many of us have forgotten how to prepare or cook our own foods, or never learned in the first place.