in my humble opinion

adele’s 21 album is not going to make you feel better if you’re down in the dumps about something. even if that something is not related in any way to a bad break-up. trust me, you’ll feel like crying over your woes all over again. consider yourself warned. and don’t come crying to me if you make the mistake of listening to her on the wrong day. i will only say, “i told you so.” i’m not a nice person that way.

klondike ice cream bars are good and evil at the same time. i know, you thought that wasn’t possible. something is either evil or good. black or white. not both. that’s how you see the world. well, my friends, klondike has defied the odds. so good. so evil. kind of like a snickers ice cream bar. ohmyhowdivine. which reminds me that i haven’t had a snickers ice cream bar yet this ice cream season. must remedy situation. quickly.

going to see parade homes on 5 of the 10 days of parade of homes 2012 is bordering on too much parading. my eyes glazed over at the end there. one house – the very last house we toured – had the “soft close”* feature on every single drawer and cupboard. every. single. one. in the kitchen. the laundry room. the bathrooms. even the medicine cabinet above the toilet. now, don’t get me wrong, i dig the soft close. a lot. especially on kitchen drawers. but to have them everywhere possible in the house was too much. left me feeling like i’d end up lazy and impatient simultaneously. closing takes longer. yes, longer. because now you have to wait for the drawer or cupboard to close itself ever so softly. but i also have to do almost nothing to make it happen. what is this world coming to, i ask you? can no one take the time to close their own drawers and cupboards with care? are our lives that busy? or are hinges so crappily made anymore that they can’t handle a slam or two when someone is in a hurry? or is this a government conspiracy by the liberal left to do for us what we cannot be trusted to do for ourselves because we don’t know as well as they do what’s good for us? i think i might be getting carried away into topics i don’t care to take a position on in this innocuous little blog o’ mine.

(*do you know what “soft close” means? if your answer is no, don’t fret. i will tell you. soft close basically = slam-proof self-closing as long as you close it far enough to engage the mechanism. so no more slamming. and no more drawers or cupboards left slightly open. got it? good. still don’t get it? well, for the love, go to one of the fancy shmancy homes on the next parade of homes in your area and find out. or do something even easier. go to your local home depot and ask them what all the fuss is about?)

roasted carrots are delicious. i mentioned the other day that they were part of a delicious dinner i made. we had them with our dinner again last night. and if you know me at all, you know how huge a deal it is that i am admitting to liking carrots. plain old raw carrots are really disgusting to me. major gag. most versions of cooked carrots are just barely palatable, and you’ll only catch me eating them out of obligation. you know, to be polite. or if i’ve told myself convincingly very recently that they will help my eyesight. but, as you surely know, something magical happens when you roast vegetables. like they go to disneyland while they’re in the oven and bring back some magic for you. carrots are transformed in there. i could eat them all day. if you’re the kind that parrots rachael ray (which i am not), you could even say that they are yum-o. but i’m not going to do that. suffice it to say that 99% of the time carrots are foul; but the 1% of the time that carrots get roasted almost has me willing to forgive them for their bad behavior the other 99%.

mondays that start with a thunderstorm are likely to be better than other mondays. i have no empirical evidence to back me up yet. just call it a hunch.