Pizza Time!

"The Usual"

David got a good laugh out of me last night. I let myself order pizza once a month; it’s my splurge. I know things, like a small Marco’s pizza is 26-36 Weight Watchers points, depending on the toppings and it’s 2 meals for me. It’s usually lunch and dinner but sometimes dinner and breakfast. Yeah, my inner-20-something still enjoys cold pizza the next morning.

Now strange as it sounds, at least to me, my American-born husband doesn’t eat pizza. Everyone has different tastes, but I thought pizza was one of those things that, I don’t know. I mean, pizza, ya know? I think the maturing of priorities is so important. Think if we’d met in our early 20s with very different taste in food and music. We wouldn’t have ever dated, even though we have so much in common in hobbies and core values, which is often overlooked in the dating game at a very young age. So I’m married to a man that doesn’t share my appreciation for Frank Sinatra, Iron Maiden or Drake and we won't share a meal of Mexican, Cincinnati Chili or pizza. I’ll make that trade for being able to discuss religion and politics at a baseball game after a day of chasing trains knowing we’ll still sleep comfortably under the same roof.

What that means for pizza is two things. I order pizza when he works the night shift but I get to pick the toppings, all of them! Last night when he got home and was preparing his midnight snack, he looked at the pizza box that held my Saturday breakfast and asked what toppings I got. I don’t think he’d ever asked me what toppings I ordered before, so I told him it was one of my usuals, a Nani-Classic pizza; pepperoni, bacon and onions, well done. Marco’s, my pizza of choice, bakes them light, regular, well-done or extra well-done. I went on to tell him that’s been my go-to pizza since my teens. “The Usual” is that pizza on half, with banana peppers, green olives and feta on the other half, making two different meals and my “Specialty Pizza” is the Cheesy White with banana peppers and green olives on a thin crust baked extra-well so it’s like a white sauce with tangy extras on a cracker.

David laughed at my pizza soliloquy. I asked why it was funny, because lots of people have regular toppings they always order. But what he was laughing at is that I have names, Classic, Usual and Specialty, for what I order. That’s just part of my organized brain. If Marco’s remembered the pizzas in addition to my address and the nearest location that delivers to my address when i sign in to my account, I’d have those three pizzas and my favorite condiments on a salad saved with those names for one click ordering. Hey Marco’s, if you want an online account idea…

So, are you a pizza fan? Do you have regular toppings you like or do you try different things when you order?

It's My Half Birthday!

I’ve never made it a secret that I’m not a fan of winter. In fact I’ve done a pretty good job of painting myself a an anti-fan of winter. So what’s an optimist to do to keep from falling into winter blues? Well, as a child of the summer, I celebrate my Half-Birthday! I’m not looking outside at Mother Nature’s gag-gift this year; in 6 months it will be the heart of Leo entering into the dog days of summer when even cats find shady spots if they are outdoors. (which is only acceptable if they are rural barn cats, a little safer from traffic than urban cats on the streets and cats and dogs on the farm should always have access to clean water!)

Now my half birthday isn’t celebrated as a festival and I usually just do something special for myself. I might order a pizza today; I discover a thin crust pizza with white sauce, bacon and veggies at Marcos. I add green olives and banana peppers to it for a little sour bite and it’s SO good! And it’s only 18 points for half a small. Of course since David doesn’t do pizza, it would end up being dinner tomorrow too since I can’t reheat on my own. Unless I didn’t refrigerate overnight. I like cold pizza fine but I don’t care for it chilled. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll just ask David if he’d drive trough and bring me home a McLatte.

One fun thing I did for myself for my half birthday this year is a 2-page scrapbook layout. I had a kit that was a set of journal cards that I really wanted to play with for a while. According to the dates on the files, it was May last year that I got the kit Hello! by Scrumptiously. I wanted to do a pocket-page type layout and I knew I wanted to do a totally narcissistic layout about myself. I’ve said before that scrapbooking is both a loving and giving hobby and a totally selfish hobby all in one. It’s saving your, memories to share with other people but it’s also putting yourself as the keeper of history. You get to be the dictator of the future by directing the past. I actually think that’s fine as long as you aren’t blatantly lying about the resent it’s a wonderful series of family heirlooms for generations to come. I also think that selfishness manifests itself in vanity. Too many scrapbookers don’t include their own completely separate from others in the family thoughts or photographs in their books. Generations later relations and even family friends will wonder about the person who assembled the books. What did she or he look like, what were they doing? That’s just my little scrapping soapbox.

Of course, there’s plenty of me in my scrapbooks because I do think that way. I try to be vain for everyone and use flattering photos of us all so generations down the line multiple greats of nieces and nephews will marvel at what an attractive lot we were. But I want my scrapbooks to hold memories, lot of them, but I want my character and sense of humor to be in them too. I want to look back at my books and remember how much fun being me has always been. Oh yeah, and how attractive we’ve always looked too!

Also my half-birthday 2-pager uses those journal cards and prompts to put a time-capsule bubble around my brain at 48-1/2 years old. Making “right here, right now” ordinary day a time capsule page every now and then is fun too!

 

Credits: Hello!  by Scrumptiously and other papers from my stash

The pages are full-resolution if you want to enlarge them and read on the pages, but if you want to read what they say in simple written form, the contents of the cards are right here:

So there’s my self-indulgent answer to the winter blues. For my birthday festival I encourage everyone to have ice cream to celebrate and last year it was to buy ice cream for a kid. So if you want to celebrate my half birthday with me have a cookie. That’s nice to go with hot cocoa to shake a winter frown away. If you like the snow and ice, go enjoy it! And have a hot cocoa for me when you get in because if I was there, you know that’s where I’d be!

Find the happy, everyone!