February 2024 – Page 2 – The Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist

This Valentine’s Day: Finding Love On the Charcuterie Board

Cheese can be messy and hard. Cheese can be complicated and temperamental.

And cheese – in its purest form – is sheer decadence.

Ditto love.

Valentine’s Day sometimes feels contrived and sappy, not to mention hypercommercialized….

Holidays, Marriage
Feb, 14, 2024
33 Comments

Top Five/Bottom Five: Basic Hygiene and Self-Care Routines

Top Five/Bottom Five posts always seem to generate lots of fun discussion and I needed something a bit lighter than yesterday’s topic.

I had a hard time concretely defining the parameters, but I’m thinking…

The State of My Uterus Address

You may not want to hear about the state of my uterus. Fair enough. Come back tomorrow and there will be nary a fallopian tube or cervix in discussion.

But today I’m going to share…

Health
Feb, 12, 2024
40 Comments

Happy Things Friday: 9 February

Can I let you in on a little secret? Some weeks I have to dig really deep to identify happy things. It’s not that they aren’t are, it’s just that the debris of life…

Life Lately: A Roundup of What I’ve Been Eating, Watching, and Reading + Recipe Recommendations?

Time to talk food, television, and books. Who’s ready?

FOOD

I recently took part in a church-wide fast. For the first time – in my life! – I abstained from food for a spiritual reason, and…

Food, Life, Reading
Feb, 08, 2024
48 Comments

What’s In A Name? Let’s Talk Pronunciation, Grandparents, and Other Language Topics

I think we can all agree the English language is a regular ol’ hoot sometimes. The rules, the syntax. The quirks that make absolutely zero sense.

And then there is pronunciation.

Growing up Canadian, I…

My Year of Shmita: January Recap

I’m still not sure how to best track/recap my real-time progression through a “Year of Shmita”; for this month at least, I’m simply going to write down a smorgasbord of ideas without too much…