Happiness is...a mug of hot Postum.

I have been extremely under the weather lately.  Turns out I have a lovely little viral infection of sorts that will take weeks to fully recover from...hooray!  And the only thing I can do about it is to get lots of rest and drink plenty of liquids.

Well, last night I did just that.  I came home from work and put my pajamas on about 7:30 pm, heated up a mug of hot Postum and settled in to watch a few episodes of Castle.

I grew up drinking Postum, a delicious caffeine-free grain derived beverage. It was the perfect substitute for sugary hot chocolate, particularly when one was sick. But the dang ol' Kraft company went and discontinued it a few years ago.  That's right.  I've been hoarding one last jar in my cupboard for years, plural. I have about 1/3 of it left and I ration it out to myself only under the most carefully scrutinized conditions. Last night it was just what the doctor ordered.

I think it helped that I drank it out of a monster mug. :)

I cry when I think about scraping out the last of the rich, dark crystals and drinking the final mug full.  (And no, Pero is not a worthy substitute.) But until that dreaded day I will savor the restorative and reminiscent properties contained in each and every mug!

Happiness is...surviving a disaster. (Part 2)

As someone said at church today: Some people have Shark Week, we have Disaster Week. And we've all lived to tell about it. 

Irene didn't affect us nearly as much as we'd all anticipated (at least in my neck of the woods.) Aside from a few broken branches and a bit of flooding in our basement (nothing that a healthy stack of towels couldn't handle) you'd never even know she'd been here. If there's one thing I've learned since living out on the East Coast it's how to panic. I suppose with this many people crammed into the same spot the over-dramatized and dire predictions do encourage people to be more prepared than would otherwise be, but I have yet to experience something that lives up to its pre-event hype. (I suppose that's probably a good thing.)

In the midst of all the chaos and upheaval (both real and incredibly over-hyped) though, I managed to find a few random things that made me smile this week:

• Cheesy mid-week movies with even cheesier lines that stay stuck in your head for days afterwards

(They seek him here, they seek him there,

those Frenchies seek him everywhere

Is he in heaven or is he in hell,

That damned illusive Pimpernell?)

• A bird wandering the aisles in the grocery store
•  A double rainbow
• Made up words-hurriquake (goes nicely with snowmageddon, don’t you think?)
• Choristers with a sense of humor: today at church we sang “Master the Tempest is Raging” and “How Firm a Foundation”
• A hurricane induced movie marathon (Jane Eyre…the good one, Charade, Just Go With It, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Vantage Point and a few episodes of Suits)
• Fresh figs (surprisingly delicious, way better than disgusting Fig Newtons)
• Getting lost in a good book
• Hints of amazing sunsets (which never really happen out here because of all the darned trees)
• Potatoes masquerading as cupcakes
• Plans to re-decorate my bedroom (there will be paint involved, I just haven’t decided what color yet)
• Finding out that Richard Castle books really do exist! (sort of)

Of course I didn't have my camera with me for any of these events so my goal for this last official week of summer is to take my camera everywhere, capture some amazing last official week of summer moments and blog about at least 3 or 4 of them to give you all something to read about.  Here’s hoping there are no more disasters coming our way to throw a cog in my works (volcanoes? Plagues? Rivers turning to blood? I’ll have to re-read my Old Testament to see what else we’re missing.)

So, dear readers, what do you have planned for this week? Please, tell me all about it!