Babbles.

I'm up late at night again, talking to myself. Todd conked out at 9:30 while we were watching "The New Adventures of Old Christine" on DVD. I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Anybody who can look that good at whatever her age is--without getting all plastic-surgery-freakish--is a hero to me. (Wikipedia says she's 48.) And she is so funny, and she loves being funny and doing whatever it takes to get the laugh. Love it!

We had fajitas tonight because I saw Tyler Florence make them on the Food Network last week and they looked delicious. I used his recipe, which calls for chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, which I'm sure are stacked in mountains on the grocery store shelves in L.A. and New York, but which are harder to come by here in what we fondly call the butt crack of Virginia.

I had to go to two different stores to find them, and in the second store, I had to keep muttering "chipotles in adobo, chipotles in adobo" to myself as I was shopping, so I wouldn't forget to go back to the Mexican aisle and pick them up, as I'd already passed that aisle once and forgotten.

It occurred to me that "chipotles in adobo" would be a good mantra if you were in one of the goofier meditative religions and needed a catchy mantra. It's just this side of nonsensical, especially if you mutter it 10 or 20 times.

I think weird thoughts in the grocery store. At my old grocery store, I would wheel my cart around and sing along with the oldies they played on the Muzak system, so chanting grocery items is a step up from that, I think. Maybe not. Anyway, the fajitas were good. It was hard to scrub the chipotle stink off my hands, though.

I was doing really well for a long time with planning meals, making grocery lists, and cooking, but somehow the double whammy of Christmas travel and being sick really threw me off my stride. We're still eating at home most of the time, but I'm scrounging around at the last moment every night for an idea, and I don't like that. I need to get back into my groove.

The couponing has just been dreadful lately, too, and that's also disheartening. There are so many of them I just can't or won't use because the products are too salty or too gross or whatever, and it seems like the ones I do use are getting worse. 50¢ off one item is much better (when your store doubles and triples coupons under 99¢) than $1.00 off two items is. And the sticker shock is such that I really feel motivated to get those coupons and USE them with the sales. It's just not happening.

I've been having to go to my happy place a lot the past few days because of my anxiety over this economic stimulus package and the cost of it and hearing every day about jobs lost, and homes lost, and the post office talking about cutting back mail days because it's so broke...it's all a little disturbing. I try not to fret about it because there's nothing I can do about any of it, but it's this nagging worry and you can't help but wonder how bad it's really going to get. And you have no idea who to believe about what we need to do to fix it all. It's not keeping me up nights, but I know there are lots and lots of people who are having sleepless nights wondering how they're going to survive, and I feel terrible for them. We are doing okay for now--Todd's company has more work than they have people to do it--but I don't want to get complacent. Things can change in an instant.

And on that cheerful note--night-night.

Thank you, thank you for the sweet comments below. When I started writing that last post, I certainly wasn't thinking it would turn into what the girls at Two Peas call a PVM (please validate me) post, but it kind of did! So thanks for the validation. Sometimes you just need a pat on the back, I guess.

We are having a big pile of lousy weather here--no snow, but lots of rain and wind, both of which are currently slamming against my study windows. It was about 60 degrees this morning, so I opened some of the downstairs windows to let the fresh air blow around a little. But the window screens smell funky, so the air that blew through them ended up smelling funky, too. Is there some homemaker rule about regularly scrubbing down window screens that I missed out on, along with all the other homemaker rules I missed out on? Is this a job for Febreze?

I saw on somebody's blog the other day where she wrapped a store-bought candle with fancy paper, so I grabbed a scrap of paper and an old sticker that were on top of a pile of supplies sitting on the floor, and covered a Glade candle.

You could really get fancy with such a project, but I was in a slap-it-on mood. It's a strawberries-and-cream scent, and it smells so good. On a gloomy day like today, you want a nice summery scent, something that reminds you of sunshine. But now I want some strawberry ice cream.

I'm feeling very scratchy and impatient with myself today. I don't seem to be able to get into the zone on anything I've attempted, all day long. Everything I touch seems to break or stop working. Urgh.

Hope the sun comes out tomorrow, that would be quite nice!