LOOKS LIKE IM NOT GOING OUT FOR DINNER THIS WEEKEND!

Before I begin this post, let me thank those who keep my spelling on the straight and narrow. Usually I'm a decent speller but thanks for that correction.

Now for this evening...I have a friend who had offered to take me out to dinner this Saturday due to something I'd done for him and drat! he has backed out due to bad weather....although I totally understand, I'm disappointed! I haven't seen him in awhile and I was looking forward to it...
ah well...maybe next week.

This weather has gotten a lot of us down, for sure. I've been out and about and am not very impacted by it but I know some folks are. Yes, my house is a bit chilly.

It's a little late I realize but here are the New Year's Resolutions I've made and intend to keep:

*I've decided that I'm going to eat even healthier than I have done in the past. I've gotten a little sloppy with my diet and my advancing age :-) hahahaha... is telling me to clean it up a bit.

*I've decided that I'm not going to be such a loner this year. I've gotten so complacent and happy, I guess, being on my own, that I've kinda shut the door on others. I'm changing that this year.

*I'm going to do at least 30 minutes of exercise at least 5-6 days a week. It could be at home, at a gym or at the mall...OMG!!..a mall walker. I think you have to have your AARP card to do this.

*I'm gonna stay put this year. My trips here and there will be kept to 2-3 weeks at a time..there will be no 8 plus weeks away from home this year.

*I am cutting my wine consumption in half. I usually have two glasses with dinner. That's being cut to 1 glass.

These are the resolutions I've made for twentyten...that's about enough, doncha think?!?

WHAT A LOVELY SUPPER!

Here we are in ole St. Lou waiting for a powerful snowstorm to overtake us...according to the weather folks.

So, I decided to make a supper of all the stuff I had on hand. I had some cooked brown rice, onion, carrot, ginger, shiitake mushrooms and some other already-forgotten stuff. Oh, my god!!! I'm either a really great cook or I'm way too easily satisfied. My meal was delicious and as good, if not better, than I could find in any local restaurant.

The meal was, as I went on and on about, just wonderful. I steamed the onions and carrots in a little wine and then added the brown rice, ginger and shiitake mushrooms and other things hanging around the kitchen...like freshly ground pepper, escarole, tamari and a bit of grilling cheese.

It was astoundingly delicious. I even have some left for tomorrow...as the snow falls heavily, softly and beautifully.

LOVE THEM ALL...

Commentators, that is.

Just finished eating some of the best peaches I've ever had. I froze some really ripe peaches last summer and got around to eating some of them tonight...they were heavenly.

What a treat to have ripe peaches in the deepest cold of January.

Yum!

SALTY STROLLING AT THE MALL

Walking the mall turns out to be getting kinda salty, according to one reader....hmmmm....wonder what he means. Are folks now walking naked or or they hittin' up on the salt shaker while walking? I guess I'll just have to accept that walkin' the mall is gettin' kinda salty....well, OK!

THE MALL

Well, I went to a mall today. I wanted to walk and it was too cold for me to do it outside so I became a mall-walker...goes with the age, I guess. I just wish I could go to a mall, have a walk, appreciate that it's there for me and that's it. And no, it doesn't matter which mall it was. Just choose a mall, any mall pretty much.

The mall...a symbol of what went wrong with the "marketplace." It was so disturbing to me...so depressing. Each store urged me to purchase some item with an after Christmas percent off this or that item.
This type of marketplace is so far from what it's original purpose was supposed to be. We need certain things to live...that's a given but god almighty! do we need all the crap that is offered at the mall?

I know I sound cynical and angry and really I'm not. I'm just deeply disappointed that we've come here to this shallow, meaningless, empty place in our society.

I felt like a hollow person, a number, a consumer while walking around the mall. I guess, really it's not that different from any store in the country these days. I feel the same way on the very rare occasion of visiting a Walmart.
Oddly, I don't feel that way at Target or Whole Foods or even at a thrift store and they probably have as many tchotchkes and junk as any mall. I don't know...I just felt really disconnected during my mall-walk...that'll teach me to go walking at the mall, by golly.

I visited the new Schnucks store on Manchester near 270 today and perked up after my depressing mall visit.
It was so obvious how they'd tried to look like Whole Foods. And, they did have some organic foods, freshly made pizzas, extensive deli, cheese area and wine shop, etc. But, you can tell that the soul is not there.
Thank God for John Mackey and Mike Gilliland for having the conviction and heart and energy to open the original Whole Foods and Wild Oats...they did it because it meant something deeply-felt to them.
I'm thinking that Schnucks did it more 'cause they could see which side of their bread was spread with dollar signs...As Bob says, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Ho hum!

Be that as it may, I still enjoyed browsing their new store. In fact, I got a cup of soup and some veggie sushi rolls and sat and ate it with gratitude by their merrily burning upstairs fireplace...so, see, it's not all bad.