how fresh would you like your steak?

Country roadkill. We sped by this on the way to church and back. Sorry for the udderly bad picture. I was hoping to snap it with the cow still on the shoulder of the road, but the creature had been moved over to the ditch by the time I returned to the scene. I'm guessing it escaped from the pasture and got hit by a vehicle. What a loss for the farmer. I've seen all the skunks, racoons, dogs, cats, coyotes, wolves, armadillos, turtles, and opossums for roadkill. Those are roadkill both in town and country. Cows?--only in the country.

it was a fine china kind of day

Valentine's Day is a good reason (or excuse) to bake and decorate some pretty sugar cookies. Hearts, tulips and butterflies. The tulips must be red. My parents and grandparents always had red tulips in their gardens and yards, the kind with the yellow inner basins and black stamens. Of course now I believe that a tulip garden is incomplete without those specific red ones. Wish I knew the variety name. (If you think you know what tulip variety I'm referring to, would you be a dear & leave a comment saying so?) I'd love to plant some. Anyway, I baked and decorated some sugar cookies.

But grandma always said "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach".

Since My Darling Husband is a Meat Consumer of the First Order, I reused the small heart cookie cutter on the sausage. Heart pancakes and heart sausages baked with love for breakfast. The first use of our wedding china. My advice on the matter of love through body parts is thus--if you really truly want to reach his heart through his stomach, have breakfast ready prior to noon.

Then dinner at a historic hotel-turned apartment building/event space in This Small Town. A local school held the dinner as a fundraiser. We were impressed with how beautiful the evening was. The room's striking architectural features were highlighted by the school's frugal decorating: delicate pink balloons, red jelly beans in a glass hurricane to anchor a candle, vases of single red roses. The light dancing off the crystal was so pretty. All the servers, cooks and hosts were from the school: high school students, parents and staff. A couple of school personnel volunteered as entertainers by serenading with piano tunes all the evening long. Lovely.

Calgon, take me away!

That's what I might be saying soon.

My sub-heading for this blog is "Take the girl out of the big city--can't take the big city out of the girl". I lived in The Big City for many years until last September, when I married a man whose only drawback (how I saw it back then) was that he lives in The Small Town. I thought, "Aaahhh! No popping into the local yarn shops or Hobby Lobby to check out the clearance crafts or the mall on any ol' day. Too much quiet. And less visiting with my family. What'll I do?????"

What I've done is what everybody should do when they move to a new place, whether it's a sprawling metropolis or a self-contained little town. I have become involved. There's new friends added to the old friends, church and church functions, work, knitting group at the local library each week, and various local small-town events. I've learned to live with fewer shops and that's been good because I am actually finishing projects instead of just salivating over yarn and pretty home goods at the shops. I can visit the shops when we travel. And...My Darling Husband has become my family.

Last week My Darling Husband came home from his work with the news that he's been laid off.

Whuh?!

Mental thud.

Where did that come from?

I practically just moved here!

...and I like it here now!!!

I've pleasantly discovered that you can take the big city out of this gal. We might have to move because My Darling Husband's line of work is specialized and there's only the one company around here that could hire him. There's no market here for him to start a company doing his line of work. If we do move to a large city, I'll miss the quiet, the three-car traffic jams, the general politeness, the easily formed friendships, the quick drive to the countryside. I'll need lots of bubble baths. At least for a time.

The blog sub-heading has got to be revised.