Catch-all catch-up

Well, I couldn't resist this photo op, now could I? I do love ketchup. Ketchup on eggs, ketchup on potatoes in any incarnation but especially fried or roasted with plenty of oil, ketchup on tuna casserole, ketchup on beans. Ketchup with sausage AND eggs on a plate with pancakes and butter and maple syrup.

Who's on a diet?

But that's not what we're here about today.

I've avoided the blog the past few days because I couldn't decide what to post about. There's just too dang much going on. But the passage of time won't help that any -- it will just get worse, you know. So here's a lightning-speed list to get you all updated on my life. You've been hoping for something like that, I know.

• Saturday was the debut of the tutu ensemble. I sold a grand total of 3 sets, plus some odds and ends. That's okay; the booth space was cheap and I had fun. So the tutu ensembles will soon be available on ebay. I'll post links to the auctions when I get my rear in gear and get them done. Actually I may just do one or two for now, and then do the rest when it's closer to Halloween. Something tells me that will be the season of choice for the tutu ensemble.
• Sunday was possibly the most spiritually unfulfilling stake conference I have ever been to. I lugged my two kids to the stake center and sat in the side room watching the conference on closed-circuit TV, because as we all know if you don't arrive 30 minutes early you will not get a pew. And who is going to arrive 30 minutes early with kids? And who wants to sit on the hard chairs in the echoey cultural hall with kids? Specifically, my kids? So we sat in the YW room, only to be lectured about wearing flip-flops to church, growing beards, and ditching the adult session the night before (which we did because of the prior commitment to selling tutus). If I had known we were going to get the lecture I would have worn the damn flip flops to stake conference! Maybe the spiritual food was in the adult session. I don't know. I was just disappointed. Not to mention, my kids were trying to be good until someone else sent their kid into the side room with no supervision. I would tell my kids to be quiet, and this kid would shake his head at them, like, "Don't do what your Mom says!" Before we knew it they were hanging from the curtains and running circles around the two rows of uncomfortable seats. Oh, kill me now before I have this experience again. We finally left halfway through the closing song. At least we avoided the perennial parking nightmare that is our stake center.
  
• I had to go back in that paragraph and edit out all my SHOUTING and use a select few bold words instead. I guess I'm still upset.
• Back to Saturday: while I was selling -- or, more accurately, not selling -- tutus, I finished reading It's Superman by Tom De Haven. It came recommended by Allison, if I remember right, although I can't find her review now. She was correct. It was loads of fun. However, I was reading a reviewer's copy (my library gets these somehow and puts them on the shelves) and I was wondering, did they leave out all those commas on purpose? Is it supposed to be more comic-booky? It drove me a little bit nuts. See the first sentence of this paragraph for an example of how commas can be useful.
• Yep, I'm still a style/grammar nerd.
• Tomorrow is my birthday. I'm having a little birthday anxiety. Not because I'm the least bit bothered by turning 32; I'm not. It's because I have a sneaking suspicion that once again I will be cooking my own birthday dinner and making my own birthday cake. Not to be ungrateful for the wonderful y-chromosomed individuals in my life. Just ... you know.
  
• For Sunday dinner we had tri-tip. And lemon meringue pie (our strawberries didn't last long enough!) Yesterday I made the leftovers into chili. From the tri-tip, not the pie. Which just goes to show that life can still be good.
• You can eat ketchup on chili.