Zen Daisies and Olive Gardens

Today I celebrated my birthday with Audra and Bonnie. They were after me to come up with something for us all to do. So after deliberation, I decided I'd just like to have lunch and hang out. Audra and Bonnie are scrapbookers; I personally gave that up as hopeless soon after the birth of S. HOWEVER, I thought we'd just get together and work on whatever. Since I have a bridal shower cake to make for next Saturday (Lora Pierson's!), I thought I'd work on the fondant daisies for the cake while they scrapbooked. It was a pleasant morning, with Randy Travis singing hymns in the background. The daisies need yellow centers still, but with Bonnie's help I got about 90 of those things made.

We had planned to go to the Antique Sandwich Co. in Tacoma for lunch, but Olive Garden won out (closer, and we didn't feel like having sandwiches). After lunch we walked around Bradley Lake Park behind WalMart to aid our digestion. :) There were scores of people there, some sitting, most fishing, and a select group of warriors with cloth-tipped arrows and bows, padded staffs (or is it staves?), padded broadswords, shields, and one in a tunic and what looked like chain mail. They staged a mock battle--it was fascinating! I scanned the group to see if Steve Williams (how long's it been since anyone's heard tell of him?!) was among the medieval warrior wannabes; thought I spied him, actually! but on closer examination it was a much younger clone. There were burly, muscular guys and geeky, skinny ones--all united under their separate standards. I wonder if they host public tournaments, because this was obviously a practice.

Following that, we returned to Audra's, where I did some preliminary meal planning for the Failsafe Elimination Diet that we will be doing pretty soon. (I got the Failsafe Cookbook from New Zealand! It was the store's last copy, and the book is out of print! SCORE!) FAILSAFE is an acronym for foods that are Free of Additives, Low In Salicylates, Amines, and Flavor Enhancers. When we begin I will be keeping a food diary, as well as recording any behavior differences I observe in self and, more importantly, others. ;) This blog may get rather tedious during that time, as I intend to use it for the food diary/response part.

After that, I bid Audra and Bonnie adieu and headed to Ross--time to spend birthday money! New purse, and a tablecloth/placemats for the back porch table, plus some "outside" type of flatware. I didn't find any acrylic/plastic plates that I liked, so off to Wal-Mart! There I got a pair of fake Birkenstocks, because my last pair is 5 years old and literally fallen apart.

My last purchase of the day was from The Good Guys (now turned into CompUSA) - I got an mp3 player. Not an iPod. sheesh. No, I got a Zen Nano Plus. Holds about 500 songs. I just hooked it up to my computer, and before I knew what I was doing, I uploaded my ENTIRE MEDIA folder onto this thing! DOH! I wanted to be selective!! So I have everything from 32 DOHS of Homer Simpson (a goofy .wav file I have had since 1999) to Bill Cosby, to the Northern Lights (the Northland Singing Group). Now I have to figure out how to pull OFF this stuff and get on there what I WANT!

Right now I'm listening to Bill Cosby and his "Old Weird Harold" sketch, where he goes to the movies with his friend and watches a lot of monster flicks (the one where they get the black jujubes stuck all over their backs because they're lying on the floor, too scared to watch the movie.

Now how's this for contrast? Up next: the BJU Symphony Wind Ensemble playing "Amazing Grace." I have GOT to fix this up better!!

So those of you with mp3 players, I need tips. Desperately. Because now it's playing Harry Simeone's "Do You Hear What I Hear?"