The part where I string a lot of unrelated photos together in one post...

I just like the way these jars look, carry on with your life now, nothing to see here.

I dyed Maxwell's hair on Sunday.  He now has eggplant colored hair.  I did a pretty good job if I do say so myself.  He is very pleased and also pleased with his Lebowski sweater from Goodwill.  No, I have not let my 13 year old watch the movie.  He thinks it is a grunge sweater, in the style of Kurt Cobain.  I am the one likening it to the Big Lebowski.  I made inside jokes all evening when he bought the sweater, and he rolled his eyes.  I am easily amused, what can I say?

This is my new birthday sweater.  It is cream, which is not a color I ever wear, but here I am, wearing a cream sweater, on my way out to a fundraiser for my friend's breast cancer treatment.  In addition to not wearing cream, I don't really go out, so it was a kind of banner evening.  It was also my birthday.  Here is what 45 looks like in cream.  I wish the occasion of going out had been better.  I felt sort of cruddy about it, me with my health insurance and my first world cream sweater problems, and her with cancer and Kaiser and all, but what to do? 

When I came home from the fundraiser, exactly one hour after leaving, these guys were waiting for me, to watch season three of Justified.  I think I have gushed plenty about Justified in the past, so I will show restraint.  It features a sexy cowboy in a sexy cowboy hat.  Enough said.  Oh, and a conflicted villain, in cowboy boots, who is also sexy/hideous, depending on how he is lit. 

This is me, without the sweater, inside a very dark bar, where I am huddled with my friend who was kind enough to pick me up, take me to the auction and sit with me in an anti-room because she also hates noise, and bars and people.

Photographic evidence that I left my house, and that I know someone outside my family.

Two painting donated to the auction by my friend.  I wanted to bid on the goat, but then I forgot, and we left, and now my goat painting is living in some hipster's house, probably not being properly adored.  I asked Rachael why she took up painting in her forties and she said that both her parents had died the year before and she watched them deteriorate without having followed through on any of their dreams or passions, or interests and that she wanted a different kind of legacy, which I really admired.  I wish I could be more like that.  She is also totally anti-hoarder, having had to clear out her parents hoarding house.  I might take up painting, but I doubt I will ever giving up hoarding.  Baby steps.

On New Year Eve we made raviolis, which is you haven't made them, don't.  They are a total pain in the ass, and much better and pretty ones can be purchased for peanuts.

Raviolis filled with cheese and parsley and beaten egg.

The only good thing was an excuse to use Grandma Betty's sifter.  

A random dinner photo I meant to post, of rice noodles, with peanuts and onion tofu.  I think I liked it more than anyone else, but that is often the case.  Mark brought me the bowls back from Italy years ago, they have a very unItalian Asian carp painted on the inside, so I always feel that I can only use them for Asian flavored food.  Crazy, but true. 

The piano and my grandparents table, with no leaves in it.  I don't like round tables so I am digesting it.  I am trying to feel ok with it, but I might freak out and move it someplace else because I like my dining-room to make me happy, and right now it is not really doing that good of a job.

Random shot of Rosie, the world's most patient dog, being toted about by wild child.