Hubby reads the paper first thing in the morning, and then stacks it deliberately with the sports section on top so I don’t inadvertently see headlines or news stories, as I continue on my blissfully ignorant news fast. But today, Hubby had to show me something.

Hubby: I know you’re on a news fast and I don’t want you to read the news anyway, but you have to see this.
*moves aside sports section*
Hubby: The American Idol winner is a top story, above the fold.

Sarah: That’s it. We’re leaving the country. 

Our front garden has a yellow brick path going from the driveway to the front door. While I do need to pay attention to the front entrance, like installing a railing and such, no one uses that entrance because we don’t have a sidewalk. Not having a sidewalk means we don’t get trick or treaters, and we don’t have to shovel any snow.

But since we have the yellow brick path, and since our garden is going green like gangbusters and will soon be all flowering wonderfulness that I will totally love, I’ve decided to do what I originally thought when we had the landscaping done last year- I’m going to hide Wizard of Oz-themed lawn ornaments in the front yard. Get it? Yellow brick road?

Yeah, I know. I’m super dork. Where’s my cape?

Thanks to eBay, I’ve found a tin man vintage sign I can hang on a wall somewhere, a cast iron scottie dog to hide in the foliage, and a scarecrow birdbath/feeder that might be too ugly for words and require hiding underneath a bush.

I’m still looking for a cowardly lion, and Dorothy is proving to be the most difficult. No one makes a Dorothy lawn ornament, or shoes, or a basket, or anything else. However, I bet I could find a cement Dorothy the Dinosaur ornament no problem.

I might have to throw myself on the mercy of the nearest summer camp that will let me in their pottery shed so I can make my own pair of shoes out of clay and fire it to cone 4 or something.

Also, who came up with the term “lawn decor?” Because that is just doofy, especially when used to describe a gnome mooning your neighbors.

Furthermore, buy these only if you let your kids run barefoot in the yard. OUCH!

It is so nice to know that no matter what your problem is you are never alone in that problem, so long as you have the internet.

I think there’s a limited number of words I have to offer from my brain in a day. Today has been a big make-notes-for-other-site day, when I’ve been scribbling this and that for SBTB because the world is conspiring to give me things to talk and ask about. Plus there’s this site, and while I don’t feel an obligation to write something every day, the truth is, this site started as a writing exercise for me. A seven year writing exercise. Jeez.

It makes me wonder, if I stopped writing online, what would I end up writing?

Something really long and boring, no doubt. For the next seven years. 

Tonight is the start of Shavuot, known to me as the Holiday where you Eat Dairy, and known to the rest of the much-better-informed-and-not-thinking-with-their-stomachs as the celebration of the giving of the Torah.

Hubby and I, while we do Friday night dinner, and observe major holidays, we have been slacking a bit with our Judaic involvement. Part of the problem is, Friday night services, which we like a lot, are right at Freebird’s bedtime, and he doesn’t want to sit through them much. We do go to the early children’s service, though the rabbinic intern’s performance at the last one left me with an eyebrow raised and not as much of a desire for further involvement.

Our favorite holidays in the Jewish calendar are those that are observed or celebrated at home, particularly with family. Passover, for example, is one of our favorites. Shavuot, we’ve never really observed at home, mostly because Hubby isn’t a big fan of cheese blintzes.

Now that I have 1 child plus the development of another (ow, that was my kidney) I’m trying to figure how I can incorporate more holidays into the house, since services, again, are usually at bedtime. For shavuot, this would mean something other than cheese blintzes. Maybe blueberry?

So in case you’re wondering, “Gee, what is Morag searching for online today?” The answer would be really easy fruit blintz recipes. I am ever so interesting, I know.

Hubby and I are part of an organic food co-op, which we like a lot, despite the manager being among the most disorganized people around. Her email messages are these huge long lists of attachments in multiple colors, and pretty much only my Mac renders them correctly. I end up cutting and pasting the salient details and forwarding the mess on to Hubby.

In today’s email: oh, the hilarity.

When placing a special order by email, please remember to tell us your name, the name of your coordinator and what day you pick up. An email name of Hoochie Mama doesn’t tell us whom its for or where to send the food!

Yes. An email of Hoochie Mama doesn’t tell you anything except that the person sending the email hasn’t learned the “professional email addresses are a good thing” lesson.

My Tupperware totally threw off the crowds, as the chocolate chip cookies (and a small plate of brownies that someone else brought) were among the first desserts to disappear. One woman painstakingly made individual cheesecakes with fruit toppings, but it was cold and raining and eating a cookie or brownie one-handed is something I can handle. But balancing an umbrella while unwrapping a personal cheesecake? Forget it. So those went untouched by me, and by many of the other folks (sorry ma’am).

But the best was having someone say, ‘Oh these cookies are SO GOOD. I wonder who made them?’

I didn’t tempt lightning striking me by saying, ‘Oh I did!’ but I enjoyed the fact that the person munching really liked them. Stop n’ Shop cookies are really freaking awesome.

Oh, the magical presence of Tupperware. Makes everything look homemade. Even perfectly spherical and utterly store-bought looking cookies.