As One Judge Said to Another, "If You Can't Be Just, Be Arbitrary"

Yeah, I don't want to talk about it either. I made that cake back in 2009. I suspect every American child that had the Betty Crocker Junior Cookbook lusted after that cake. These days I just lust after a functioning democracy. 

 

I really don't want to talk about it. 

We can change the national bird to the cuckoo. Feels more appropriate.

We've been having some absolutely wild weather. This storm produced 110 mph winds, tennis ball sized hail, and flooding. We missed the worst of that one. The river is
overflowing as I type. We live outside the floodplain and at the top of a hill, but parts of the city have been getting clobbered. *Sarcasm* At least we're no longer in a drought.

Couldn't make it to the Chicken Show in Wayne this year, but decided to wear my rubber chicken purse anyway. A good waterproof bag makes sense in this weather. 

Such a silly thing, but it does make people smile when I wear it out. 

Might as well post a few outfits. You've likely seen most of it before.

Layers are nice. The dress was too short for my comfort, so I improvised.

LillyAnn jacket

Still wearing Dan's shark shirt

Mood.

Rare dress that looks interesting from the back as well.

Not vintage, but the print certainly looks it. 

Beach pajamas for the landlocked. I hated the pleating on the top, but the trousers were good

 

Not my sort of thing, but it cost .98 cents at the thrift store and I can keep it out of the landfill. Maybe I'll wear the top as a turban and go topless😆.

Well, I'm off to watch the fireworks down the street. It feels more like a wake than a birthday party. God speed, USA, it was grand.

Twenty Years of Eat the Blog

 

Twenty Years? Oh My!

I certainly never expected this blog to go two decades when I first sat down to type a few recipes back on 2 June 2004. Good thing I did, as search engines have become largely useless thanks to AI-at least I have a record of successful recipes. I have a record of some rather terrible ones as well but that's what I'll call the learning curve of doing things well. *coughs*.

I didn't set out to blog every moment of Dan's childhood, and for that we're both thankful. I've tried to be respectful of his privacy, and not post things likely to embarrass later on. There's a generation that have had their toilet training and worse documented online. 

My hope is that the homeschooling posts will be reassuring to parents wondering if they are up to the task. So much of what's online in the homeschooling community is downright intimidating. I wasn't the best teacher, nor was I the worst. What homeschooling provided was one-on-one instruction and the ability to tailor to curriculum as needed. That sort of flexibility isn't possible in a classroom of 30 students. If there's anything I'd encourage thinking about before deciding to homeschool, it is behaviour. If you are having behaviour/discipline issues with your child, homeschooling might not be the direction to go. Sometimes an outside authority figure is needed. Sometimes. You know your child, so use that knowledge and be honest with yourself. 

By 2013 the blog started to shift away from cooking and focus on my vintage clothing/thrifted fashion interests. Chuck some perfume posts in there too. I'm glad I did the perfume reviews because I was treated to the most virulent, hilarious, outraged comment on J Love perfume I'd received  in 20 years of blogging. I wouldn't have wanted to miss that. It wasn't even a negative review! People have strong opinions about perfume (and everything else) though it is telling that comment was left in 2024. It took twenty years of blogging before someone went full-on personal attack on a long-ago post, on a largely abandoned blog. I wonder if it has to do with the demise of Twitter and the uselessness of X as a forum, or if people are just getting angrier? 

Outraged comments aside, twenty years of blogging has brought so many lovely people into my life. I'm so lucky to know such wonderful people. We've been through a lot together, haven't we? Thank you for being here, and thank you for letting me be a part of your lives as well. 

I'm going to try to pop in here a bit more often, and visit your blogs as well. I have a new computer and phone and I'm sure (okay not that sure) there must be some way to get photographs up here without copying them from Tumblr, but otherwise I am still on Tumblr as @goodymcgoodface. I'm spending less time on Instagram as it seems all I do is block scammers and get bombarded with ads. I log out now when I'm not using it. That keeps the listening tobetter target ads down, and it forces me to be thoughtful about logging in to use social media rather than mindlessly scrolling. Why use something designed to make you feel bad about yourself? My mother is dead, I don't need Instagram taking her place.

I hope you're having a great summer/winter and again, thanks again for being here. My life is better for having such great people in it.

We Are Fine

 Just a quick update for people that might be seeing tornado footage coming out of Omaha. We missed the worst of it, and I luckily cancelled an appointment I had in the western part of the city when I heard the weather radio alert. I would have been driving right into the tornado path. 

Lincoln, Nebraska took heavy damage as well. No amount of storm spotter training prepares you for seeing a multi-vortex tornado in real time. We're still getting details, but it looks pretty bad. 

Anyway, if you can keep the impacted people in your thoughts, that would be great.