Lunchtime Tales

Grab a mug and a slice of black forest cake and enjoy the read!

Welcome to lunch! I have a bunch of things to share and we’ll just see how much I can type (and typo-check) in an hour. I may end with a “to be continued” and ask y’all to come back tonight! **smiles**

First, The Chronicles of Nani got an award over the weekend! The blog awards are the best because they are kind of like the “People’s Choice” kind of awards. For a cyber coffee shop it’s like being compared to Starbucks!



Thanks to Livia for awarding me this “cyber-plaque” which is mounted on the cafe wall to the right. As for the “five” blogs I’d give award to, well, look at the list at the bottom of the right column that I put up last week! These are the blogs I read whenever they are updated (or catch up on when I’m away for a few days). Every one of them deserves the award in my opinion! That’s why I made a point of having them in my Google Reader! If your blog is in that column, please snag a “plaque” to post on your blog from me! And everyone, by all means, visit these great blogs!



While I run into the kitchen to get lunch out of the microwave, check out Kim’s Scrappin. Kim’s daughter’s family lost everything in a house fire. Eight other digital scrapbook designers have joined her in creating a mega kit called Small Wonders. It’s a great kit and the cost is a donation to the fund to help get her daughter's family back on their feet in pretty much starting over. It’s a huge kit and the suggested donation is only $9.95. Of course, if you can afford to donate more, the kit is SO worth it and your donation is going to a worthy and personal cause.



I’m back with Salisbury steak and rice by my side. Yeah, no veggie, but I’ll probably have a salad for a snack later and I’m thinking of making pasta primavera for dinner. I got a lot of wishes here and on some of the scrapbooking sites for a nice weekend in the Motherland, so I thought I’d let you in on some of the highlights of the weekend.

My whirlwind tour of the Motherland was just two days! But my homesick heart got a great lift from it! The weekend kinda started Friday when I made the cookies for Dad. There were 2 dozens each of peanut butter and peanut butter-butterscotch chip cookies. Silly money. Dad would have rather had me there than a tangible gift, but I couldn’t show up for Fathers Day without a gift! Anyway, he really liked the cookies!

My first Michigan stop on Saturday was at McDonalds in Milan. I hadn’t had my morning coffee yet! Next stop Panera Bread in Southfield! I met my friend Liz for an early lunch. Liz and I worked together at the job that became the monster 2-hour one way commute after I moved to Toledo. That commute ended about 15 years mileage on my car, ten years of short sleep on my face and 5 chronological months later in June of 2007. Liz and I went to Panera after work about every week or two when we worked together, but our contact has been phone, text or email for over a year! Needless to say our just over 2-hour lunch was nonstop talking and a huge hug afterwards! It’s wonderful-amazing how I get so much more out od a 2-hour lunch than I did from the 2-hour drive into work. But then again, Liz and I are much friendlier than I ever was to my fellow rush-hour drivers!

After lunch was a couple hours of coffee with John and Scotty at Dunkin Donuts, THE D&D where I met them both for the first time and home base since I was a teen. It was a nice enough day to sit at the outside tables and talk and talk. They asked the common big-brother type questions about how I was, how the job hunt was going and shared the same health-work-money tales of themselves while I sipped my iced coffee and just soaked up the pleasure and the peace of being in their company. They don’t ask if David is treating me well anymore. They feel that I’m in good hands with him. Besides, John was the one ho said, “Ah, you’re married. You just haven’t bothered with the rings yet.” I don’t consider myself married, but I also know better than to debate with John if he is resolved in his opinion!

Next, with an equal desire NOT to leave as I had after lunch with Liz, I took off for Dad’s. While it’s about an hour and a half from home, Dad’s place is only about half hour from Novi! On the way, I did get to see a water tower with a burka! It’s a new water tower that you can see from the I-96 that is so new it still had lines and cloth wind screens while it’s under construction. It’s a lollipop shaped water tower that looks like it has a veil and a dress! I didn't stop to photograph it on Saturday since I’d already called Pop to let him know I was on the way, but I planned to stop on Sunday.

More to come this evening!