Ornery Old Women

As I run my errands around town I watch people. Yes, I am a people watcher. I have recently noticed that older women seem very unhappy. Now I'm not talking about OLD ladies. I'm talking about women in their fifties. I try to smile at strangers to see if they'll smile back and this age group of women tend not to. In fact, it looks as though their face is permanently shaped into a scowl or a frown. Only occasionally do I find a woman in this age group that will smile back at me.

In the process of observing this phenomenon, I began to ponder the reasons for why these women are not happy. Many thoughts have come to mind. Maybe they're widowed or divorced and alone. Maybe they're husbands are recently retired and they're suddenly spending more time with their life long companion than they want to. Maybe their children are having children and are stressing out these women as they try to figure out how to deal with their posterity's problems. Maybe their children wore them down beyond repair. Maybe their bodies are beginning to age to the point that they are in constant pain and so they aren't enjoying life anymore. Maybe I should stop using the word maybe, it's bugging me.

In the meantime, I've got to figure out why these women are ornery so that I can prevent this from happening to me. I want to be a happy and fulfilled older woman. If you have any insights on how not to be an ornery older woman, I'd love to hear about it!

In Review: Salsa Leedo's Mexican Grill

My favorite Mexican Restaurant has closed. For some reason this seems to happen on a regular basis. I'd love to hear if any of you have a favorite Mexican Restaurant still in business that you could refer me to! In the meantime, I found a coupon in our local circular for Buy one Entre get one Entre 50% off. That works for me! So Matt and I decided to have a lunch date. I love that Matt works from home relatively often, allowing us to have lunch dates!

The restaurant is pretty big. This particular building used to be an Italian restaurant owned by the same local whose Mexican restaurant recently went under. :'-( I'd never been to that restaurant so I don't know how it was set up; however, I LOVE the ambience they've created in Salsa Leedos Mexican Grill. Other large restaurants I've been in that don't have walls built up everywhere become very loud when the restaurant is busy. This drives me nuts! I don't want to feel like I'm having my meal during a clown party. This restaurant has lots of walls and nooks built in, breaking up areas for privacy. The extra walls everywhere really help reduce the noise level during the lunch rush. Matt and I were seated in a back area where there were only two other tables nearby. It was wonderful! The other thing I noticed are the awesome colors on the walls. Being a Mexican restaurant, they have a lot of bright colors that look good together! Something else I noticed is they have a large party table.

Now for the menu. A friend of mine warned me that their food used to be amazing, but the last couples times they've eaten here is was just okay. With a coupon in hand, I was still willing to give it a try. For Matt, the Carne Esada (if the restaurant makes it at all) is the tell for how good the restaurant is. For me, it's the fajitas. If the fajitas aren't great, it's just an okay restaurant at best. So...Matt order his usual Carne Esada burrito and I ordered the mixed fajita platter with beef and chicken. First thing I noticed is their prices are higher than most other Mexican restaurants. Quite frankly, that sucks. Apparently there's a price for the ambience. The other thing I noticed right away was that the service was awesome. Diana was our server and she did a great job to check on us regularly, but not be there too much or too little. Woohoo! As it turned out, we ordered our drinks and our meals at the same time, since we knew what we wanted.

Just like all other Mexican restaurants, we were provided with freshly made chips and salsa. They were good, but not great. As we were running low, our server Diana, offered us more, so we asked for pico de gallo instead of the regular salsa. We were quite surprised to find the pico de gallo was very large chunks. I love chunky salsa, but this was a bit over the top in my opinion. Maybe somebody was trying to save time. Who knows? We decided to mix the salsa with the pico de gallo and it was pretty darn good; however, there was occasionally an extra spicy bite since the chunks of jalapeno were bigger than I would have liked.

Our meals came basically right after our chips were gone. I could hear my fajitas coming! I love how they sizzle! My hot platter was clear full and my plate of extras was huge! It felt like my food took up half the table. I told Matt, "Next time we can share an order of fajitas." Normally I use the plate and mix everything up into a big fajita salad and not even use the tortillas. Yes, already know I'm weird. But today I knew I couldn't eat nearly half of what they served me, so I decided to stick to the small tortillas. Everything looked so good!

Matt was taking his first bites while I was stacking my tortilla with food. He began singing his praises of the carne esada. Hurray! This was great news. Especially since the burrito was $11. Matt liked that the burrito was not full of beans and rice. It was meat, onions, green peppers, and cheese. About this time I finally started to eat my fajitas. First couple bites were okay, but nothing to write home about. There was a couple flavors I couldn't figure out that didn't taste right. I mentioned it to Matt and continued to eat. After my first tortilla I was full. Funny part is I'd only put a dent in my meal. When Matt finished his burrito I offered him some of mine and he tried it happily. His assessment was that they used curry on the meat. No wonder why I wasn't thrilled with it. I'm not a curry fan. He also mentioned that something tasted like pumpkin. That would be the zucchini and squash in the stir fry. Matt's comment was, "Indian food and Mexican food don't mix. You don't see Indians mixing curry with beef, Mexicans shouldn't, either." That pretty much sums it up. While the presentation was beautiful, I was disappointed in my fajitas.

Since the carne esada was a hit, I'm betting we'll return again for another date or two. Although I did not try it, the server said they do have fried ice cream, which is a favorite of mine! Next time we go, I'll have to try something else on the menu in hopes they don't use curry on everything. Matt rated his meal an 8 out of 10. I'd probably rate my meal a 3 out of 10.

In the meantime, what is your favorite restaurant? I miss my old favorite dive. *heavy sigh*

Hair Dye

After using a few different brands of hair dye, I've decided that Herbal essences is my favorite brand. I have not used all the brands, so I don't know if there are others that I would like as much, but here's why I like Herbal Essences.

I do not like to have to cut the tip off my squeeze bottle after mixing the color. For some reason this annoys me. The Herbal Essences bottle has a nice top that pops off for your convenience! I'm not positive, but I think the Herbal Essences bottle holds just a little bit more dye, which is helpful as my hair is VERY thick. Also, the Herbal Essences hair dye comes with six weeks of conditioner, to be used once a week! It is an amazing conditioner that leaves my hair super soft! Most of the other hair dyes I have tried gives you a 1-2 use conditioner.

There's one disadvantage I have found to using Herbal Essences. Walmart does not carry a good variety of colors in this brand. With only six or eight colors to cover all the hair colors, they often don't have the one I want. So, if you're going to try Herbal Essences, and if there's not a good variety, buy two of the color you want because it's very likely that when you go to buy another one six weeks later, they won't have it in stock. Unfortunately, today I am using Revlon due to Walmart's lack of color selection.

A Recycled Christmas

Do you ever feel like you've overdone Christmas' past? When you clean out closets, do find Christmas toys from the previous year that is rarely played with? Besides these usual dilemmas, Matt and I have decided that we need to simplify our lives and spend less money during the holidays. We've also decided we'd like to be able to do Christmas for my sister's family since they have been unemployed much of the year.

Every year about this time I go through the kids rooms and dejunk, taking out all the toys that are broken, incomplete, or no longer played with. Doing so creates space for whatever might arrive Christmas morning! The kids then thank me profusely when they get home from school and realize their rooms are spotless. This year I'm feeling the need to make some changes in the usual procedure.

As I deep clean, I have been finding lots of things that are in excellent condition but are not being used. Often times I find myself thinking that a certain member of the family might enjoy that item. In wanting to keep costs down this Christmas, I'm thinking this might be the way to do it. There will still be plenty of gifts under the tree, nice ones at that, and things that have gone unused will finally be loved and appreciated. Here's an example. Zack bought a fedora (cool hat) off ebay and it's too small for him. Elijah loves the hat but doesn't get to wear it because it is Zack's hat. If Zack were to "recycle" this hat as a gift to Elijah, Eli would be SO excited and the hat would be worn all the time. Another recycle gift idea that has crossed my mind is the snare drum Zack got for Christmas last year. He was so excited about it that he saved his money and bought a drum set, which, of course, already had a snare. So there's an extra snare drum sitting around unused. If Zack were to "recycle" the unused snare drum, one of the little boys would be thrilled to pieces to get it.

Some people may think this regifting idea is rude. Don't worry, you're not likely on the list of people to be receiving "recycled" gifts from us anyway! In the meantime, as we deep clean bedrooms, closets, and garages, there's so much to go around it's almost ridiculous. I'll still have to figure out what to do with the rest of the stuff not being used. If it were spring or summer or early fall, I'd have a HUGE yard sale. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, I'm a day late and a dollar short... as always.

The best fudge EVER!

My mom's neighbors in her tiny Idaho town are Twila and Scott Kent. They have perfected the fudge industry. You haven't tasted amazing fudge until you've tried theirs. Every year at Christmas time, my dad buys several pounds of several flavors of fudge for us all to share. My waistline will verify that their fudge is truly amazing.

So Matt and I have started buying our water at Water-Mart in 2700 West in Riverton. If you're interested, it's in the little strip mall that's behind the Maverick that's on 126th South and 2700 West. The Water-Mart sells really good filtered water (thank you Sue for the referral!), fudge, and authentic Italian Gilato. Matt was quite excited by the fudge and decided to buy some. We bought our favorite flavors: mine is mint chocolate and Matt's is peanut butter chocolate. The mint chocolate was fine, but the peanut butter chocolate left a lot to be desired. So I let the guy know how I felt. I told him he really should do business with Twila's fudge and he wouldn't be disappointed. He actually asked for her information, so I promptly called my mom and got her home phone number.

This happened Tuesday evening. Today is Friday (same week) and I bought fudge tonight at the farmer's market in Rexburg. Scott Kent saw me and let me know he'd just signed a fudge contract in Riverton. He drove down this morning, delivered the fudge, and drove back in time for the farmer's market to start at 4 pm. HOLY COW! I told him I had given them his phone number and he gave me a nice discount on my fudge purchase!

I am SO impressed. How many businesses take your advice when you share your opinion? How many businesses are genuinely interested in hearing your opinion? Twila's fudge is truly the creamiest fudge you'll ever put in your mouth! I highly recommend you stop into the Water-Mart and try the fudge. You won't regret it! For those of you that are not local, you can find Twila's fudge at www.allaboutfudge.com. If you're looking to do a yummy spread of treats for the holidays, this is the way to go! As for me, I'll be buying Twila's fudge at the Water-Mart!

Addidas deodorant?

Addidas is a big name sports maker. In the past, I've been plenty pleased with their shoes. I guess they figure that since they sell sports products, they should also sell deodorant to help you not stink while playing sports in their shoes and sports paraphernalia.

Several months ago, I became a coupon fanatic. One of the rules to couponing is to not be brand specific. You can get great deals by purchasing whatever is already on sale, plus your coupon. So, I stocked up on deodorant. This week I decided to try one of the new brands in my storage closet and pulled out the Addidas deodorant.

I showered late in the day, around noon, and used the deodorant as usual. By 4:00 pm, I couldn't stand the smell of myself. It's not just the smell of the deodorant, and it's worse than me not using deodorant at all. Pathetic. A sports deodorant that doesn't even last four hours. In my opinion, Addidas should stick to making shoes! Meanwhile, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with several bars of stinky deodorant taking up space in my linen closet.

Just in case you wanted to know.

Don't watch "The Dutchess"

Church_Mouse and I went on a double date Saturday night with some friends. After going to dinner, we went to see the movie "The Dutchess" starring Keira Knightly. We've enjoyed other movies that she has played in and figured this one would be good as well.

The movie had several sex scenes, including a lesbian sex scene. It was based on a true story and the story line was very sad. I was quite shocked and would like to warn everyone else this movie should have been rated R and I can't recommend it at all.