Small Potatoes

1.  Thank goodness for this cold front.  Fall is finally putting Summer in its place!

2.  In related news, our balcony jungle has enjoyed these dog days of summer - it has fully taken over the balcony, and even crept up to our upstairs neighbor's balcony (we talked to her about it; she says she likes it).  'Tis spreading like a beautiful weed.

3.  We hosted a garlic party last weekend; garlic pasta, garlic dips, shrimp scampi.  I think I'm still  sweating out the garlic.  I apologize to those of you who are unlucky enough to be on the treadmill next to me at the gym.  I hope you're not a vampire.

4.  My sister's birthday was this past week; mine is on Monday.  As a result of our birthdays being five days apart, I have had the pleasure of sharing birthday festivities with her for most of my life (with the exception of the monumental ones, like 13th, 21st, and my 30th last year).

My sister and me as children.  She's the cute chubby one.
I'm the one who looks like she's overthinking things.

5.  I really don't mind combining birthday celebrations, I just had a hard time with it as a kid, because I wanted to be excited for my birthday in five days but had to out that aside on my sister's actual day.  I never thought that was fair, and as a result, I have ridiculously overcompensated in adulthood by making the entire month of September my month.

6.  I was featured in Clean Eating magazine this month (October 2012) as the "Letter of the Month".  Pretty cool, huh?  I wrote in to them a while back in response to the touching farewell letter Robert Kennedy (the publisher wrote before his death from cancer earlier in the year.  It was a real wake-up call for me and I'm honored that they felt my letter was worth publishing.