Tids and Bits: They're Adorable. Well, I Think They Are.

There is a locally owned non-franchise pizza place not far from the house that I fell in love with shortly after it opened. Not only does Lucky Duck Pizza have fabulous pizza and salads and whatnot, the owner is awesome. He's super-friendly and cheerful (but not in an annoying way), gets to know his customers, and is Always There, working right alongside his (also friendly and cheerful) employees. The first time I ever went in, shortly after he opened, he told me that if I ever had ANY questions or comments, to please let him know. I hesitated, asked if he really meant it, told him I'm an English teacher, and then let him know he had some grammatical errors on his flyers. Namely, the use of apostrophes to make plurals, which as far as I am concerned is one of the Major Grammatical Sins and drives me nuts. He not only freaked out too and made sure the next set of flyers was corrected, every time I go in he has me look over his flyers and let him know if they're okay!

You have no idea how much of a thrill it gives me to be ASKED to edit grammar and punctuation by people.

Seriously. I'm a total grammar geek.

So lately when I'm exhausted at the end of the day and need to feed my kids and don't want to default to fast food, Lucky Duck has become my go-to place. They're inexpensive, and two Baby Bellas and a Greek salad will feed all three of us no problem.

My children have also come to love the place, not least because of their reception there. It's where someone knows your name and calls you adorable, people. DramaBoy now insists on carrying the two little pizza boxes out to the car, calling out Who wants a pizza? to everyone and grinning like a little maniac. He's going to be a pizza boy, he informs me. The Widget drags carries the salad, safely ensconced in a plastic bag. And everyone smiles at us. I've even heard a few Awwws.

I'm telling you, my children are labelled "adorable" almost everywhere I go. I say almost because there are the occasional meltdowns in public that wouldn't lead anyone to use that particular adjective, but generally speaking, I'm not just biased when I say my boys are plain old stinkin' crazy C-U-T-E.

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I have some new best friends. Not of the human sort, but oh how I do love them. You see, I get cold easily, and my hands in particular turn to icicles in minutes. I blame my mother along with Michigan's frigid weather. I've also been worrying about my lack of neutral long-sleeved tops, the sort that can go under other tops or vests or whatnot.

Yesterday as I sat in my gab-fest venting-session Professional Learning Community group meeting, I noticed my girl Casey was wearing an adorable thermal top with cut out thumbs. I nearly squeeed (fortunately stopping myself) and had to ask where she got them. 2 for $20 in the juniors section at J.C. Penney, baby!

Guess where I went after work?

And guess what I'm wearing today?

I got the vest at Penney's too. It is also adorable.

WARM HANDS!!! Squ---er, YAY!

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My friend Melissa over at Rock and Drool recently joined the online writing community {W}rite-of-Passage, where members practice writing stories and essays on their blogs in response to weekly challenges, then critique each others' work in an effort to encourage and improve good writing. After some consideration, I've decided to join as well. This is a bit of a stretching exercise for me, as I've never been terribly confident in my creative writing abilities. But I do want to improve my writing, as that was a key reason to begin and continue this blog (besides the whole spew-my-angst-into-the-blogiverse thing), so I think this is a good idea for me. So be on the lookout for Writing Challenge entries coming your way. Feel free to critique (CONSTRUCTIVELY--I do have feelings, people) in the comments or in direct emails. Whether or not my entries are adorable or touching or hilarious or awful or boring...well, we'll just have to see.

Gulp.