This Stop Willoughby

You've probably been asked this a million times in the last few days, but, what are you doing for New Years Eve?  Do you have plans with friends and/or family?  Will you be going out?  Are you hosting a party?  In keeping with a tradition we started a few years ago, we'll be staying home.  I've been looking forward to it for months. Our festivities begins at 8:00 a.m. when our friend Rod gets here.  You know Rod, don't you? Okay, Rod Serling doesn't really come over.  That would be impossible, as well as creepy, since he died in 1975, but the SyFy channel runs an annual Twilight Zone marathon beginning at 8:00 a.m. on New Years Eve and ending at 5:00 a.m. on January 2.   We'll be watching quite a bit of it. It will be a pretty unstructured day/weekend around here.  In addition to watching our favorite Twilight Zone episodes there will be plenty of talking and laughing.  We may play cards or Scrabble....

I hope you had a wonderful time enjoying the holidays with family and friends.  All of the festive activity kept me pretty busy and away from my blog, but now I'm back and I have a belated Christmas gift for you.  I'm having a giveaway and I think you're going to be as excited about it as I am. Recently, Novica gave me the opportunity to choose a product for myself to keep, review and post on my blog, as well as a $50 gift card to award to one of my followers.  If you're not familiar with Novica , they work in association with National Geographic to bring the work of talented artists and artisans around the globe to the rest of the world via the internet.  Shopping their website is a unique experience as you can view information about each artist along with the works they create.  It gives each item a very personal feeling. Mr. Willoughby and I spent an afternoon pouring over the website before deciding what item to choose.  I wante...

I'm not a huge fan of winter weather, but I have to admit, yesterday started out to be a very pretty day.  At noon, the temperature was 32º with very little wind.  A few inches of snow had fallen overnight and coated everything in fluffy white. The snow was falling gently in large flakes.  It felt like being in a giant snow globe.  It was the perfect day to make our annual trip to the tree farm to pick out our Christmas tree. We go to the same farm every year. The people are friendly, the selection is great and the price can't be beat (and it includes shaking and wrapping your tree). After you pick out your saw, they give you a map of the farm with the phone number on top. Once you've picked out your tree, you can call them from the field and they will come with a wagon to pick you and your tree up. No matter where you looked, the view was like a Christmas card.  The trees were perfectly frosted with snow.  It didn't take long to find our per...

How do I know?  Because the Willoughby house has become the midwest regional outpost of Santa's workshop.  We've been decorating. And filling gift basket orders. We've been stocking our Etsy store, The Cabbage Rose , with Body Scrubs Bubble Bath Vintage Silver Keychains Olive Oil Storage Bottles and a few other goodies. There are still custom orders to fill, shopping to do, and baking to start. So if I haven't stopped by to say hello in a while, it's because Santa has been keeping me busy! What have you been up to? Willoughby

We don't go out to eat very often, so when we do, I want to have a good time.  I want the food to be tasty, the atmosphere to be fun and the service to be good.   A local morning show recently had listeners call in with what they consider "deal breakers", or experiences that would keep them from going back to a particular restaurant.  I didn't call in, but here are some experiences that were deal breakers for me. Waiting Too Long To Be Seated -  There is a restaurant a few miles out of town that makes great fish and chips and killer Long Islands, so it's usually our first choice for dining out without going very far from home.  Once, when my niece was visiting my parents, we all decided to go there for dinner.  It was a Friday evening and it was pretty crowded, so we were prepared to wait for a table.  There is no real waiting area, so we stood near the door.  The owner's wife had a problem with...

Why is the cord on my mouse so long?  How far away from the computer do they expect me to sit? When was the first American Thanksgiving?  In history books, the illustrations always show the Pilgrims and the Indians having their feast outdoors.  It seems highly unlikely that anyone would have an outdoor dinner in late November in Massachusetts. (An internet search narrowed it down to autumn of 1621, no actual date) Why, when unemployment and foreclosures are skyrocketing, are local governments spending time and money deciding whether McDonalds should be able to sell Happy Meals? Is daylight savings time really necessary?  I have yet to find any benefit to turning on the lights at 5:00 pm. In countries where languages other than English are spoken, do they ever use English expressions?  Here, in the US, we say things like "Ciao" (hello in Italian), "Gracias" (thank you in Spanish), "Au Revior" (goodbye in French) and so on.  Do they do that...

I'm not an idiot.  I may look like one sometimes, I may act like one sometimes, but I'm really not an idiot, so I hate to be treated like one.  Recently, I was in situation where someone was talking down to me and treating me like an idiot.  This was someone I had never met before, so the condescending attitude was unexpected.  How did I handle it?  I didn't.  While I'm not normally confrontational, I'm most certainly not opposed to opening up a can of verbal whoop-ass when push comes to shove (metaphorically, not physically).  Now, I can't help thinking about what I could have or should have said.  Did I keep my mouth shut because I was caught off guard?  Was I simply being polite?  Does it make me the better person?  Would I regret it now if I had been equally rude?  I just don't know, but it's bothering me. So what are your thoughts, blog friends?  When do you speak up for yourself and when do you let it go?...