MerrinDonahue.com

In honor of Leap Day, click here for a list of birthdays and events that occur on February 29th (Happy Birthday to Ja Rule and Tony Robbins!). Don’t say I never gave you anything.

I’m pretty easy to please. It doesn’t take too terribly much to make me happy, and I think the perfect example just might be the love affair I have with my whisk. That’s right: my whisk. When I visited Camille last year for G’s birthday, I got to use her super-cool KitchenAid whisk. If you cook a lot, you may have given some thought to your whisk (ok, you probably never even thought about it, but I’m a big dork). I have whisks in all different shapes and sizes, and up until that night in Camille’s kitchen, I’d never found the perfect whisk. After using it for a mere couple of minutes, my life changed. I had to have one. Even more, I had to have one in pink. And so the search commenced. Finally, I found one. My kitchen has never been the same. I no longer use any of my other whisks (although I’m still hanging on to my balloon whisk, because you never know when you’ll need one).
So there you have it. My pink KitchenAid whisk is what’s making me happy today.

Camille mentioned to me that I am slowly losing my Texas accent. This must be stopped IMMEDIATELY. I absolutely, positively don’t want to lose my Texas. I love that I say “fixin’ to” and “y’all”. I love that I say “Raiht” instead of “right”. I can’t stand the thought of losing my native language. So if you notice me sounding not Texas, please point it out so I can fix it.

I must have been really out of touch today, since I had to find out from CNN that there is apparently a huge blackout in the state of Florida right now. Upon further research, it appears that it has knocked power out from Miami to Jacksonville, and everywhere in between. There are parts of the Orlando area sans electricity, but fortunately, we haven’t been hit. This in itself is a minor miracle, since we haven’t been able to maintain reliable internet or phone service. Given the choice, I’d rather have power than internet. Maybe.

So I finally broke down and made Camille’s blueberry pie yesterday. Yes, I am aware that I have a pie obsession, thanks for asking. It’s all I can do not to scarf the entire thing down, but so far, I have managed to only eat one piece. I’m fairly sure this has to do with the fact that I had to buy some new clothes this weekend. It seems that none of my shorts fit me anymore. And that’s actually a very good thing. In the last 6 months, I’ve lost 4—that’s right FOUR—sizes. I haven’t really done anything very differently; we’ve always eaten pretty healthy, and I’m fairly active. The one big thing I’ve done is basically cut out diet soda. I’m essentially off caffeine entirely, and that means I drink crazy amounts of water. I also make a conscious effort to drink a full glass of water before a meal, then another during a meal, then another after a meal. It may not seem like a huge thing, but it’s the only thing I can think of that’s making me shrink. I think my favorite part of all of this is finally being able to fit into a pair of shorts I bought two years ago. I didn’t try them on in the store, and when I got home, they didn’t fit. I mean, they REALLY didn’t fit. So they’ve remained folded in a drawer with the tags still attached with the vague hope that one day I would be able to wear them. That day is today, since they not only fit, they’re a little big. So when the doctor tells you to drink more water, you should listen.

It’s Sunday, and that’s the day we do our grocery shopping. Kevin is great about going to the grocery store with me (he even carries in all the groceries). Every Sunday morning, I spend about an hour making my grocery list for the week, and that involves a lot of menu planning. You know how it is: you get in a food rut, and it’s hard to get out of. Each week, I like to try at least one new thing, and we’ve had some amazing successes (hellooooo Tuscan chicken). Mondays are easy to plan; after all, it’s taco night for Taco Kevin (aside: he actually managed to eat tacos THREE TIMES in the past seven days. The man has a sickness). As I don’t eat tacos (love Mexican food, hate the tacos), I usually make something on Sunday that I can eat on Monday as leftovers.

That leaves Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (Fridays are Date Night, and Saturdays are usually just whatever). So yeah, I cook 5 nights a week. Multiply that by 52 weeks, and it’s not hard to see why some stuff gets old. I even made Kevin a menu years ago so he could pick and choose, but the stuff on Kevin’s Menu got old. This is why it takes me forever to make a list. I spend hours scouring the internets trying to find new recipes, and I swear I’ve tried most of them. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find new and interesting ways to cook fish? And yes, we have fish tacos a LOT.

So here’s a question: Are you a once-a-week shopper or do you fly by the seat of your pants and stop at the store on your way home from work every day? How often do you eat tacos? And most importantly: What’s your favorite thing to fix for dinner?

Today we watched Vantage Point and Juno, and the reviews are in: skip Vantage Point. It tries too hard to be creative, and it’s just not. There are too many characters, none of which are ever fully developed. Juno, on the other hand, is AWESOME. First off, it’s frickin’ hilarious….like in the way Superbad is hilarious, but nowhere near as raunchy. Secondly, it’s an incredibly frank look at adoption from both perspectives. To be honest, it’s the best movie I’ve seen in a long time. And any screenplay that can work in the phrase “It makes my boyfriend’s junk smell like pie” is a winner in my book. Go see Juno. You so totally won’t be sorry.

It looks like a hotel owned by Nora Roberts went up in smoke today. I’m pretty sure she’s already written a book about exactly that, and I’m pretty sure I’ve read it. The good news is that, unlike in her books, no one was hurt.

Some of you may know that I am a total water snob. I can hear y’all rolling your eyes and saying “Water is water. It doesn’t taste like anything”. Well, you’re wrong. Not all water is created equal. For example: I don’t like to drink water out of the tap here in Florida (I had no problem with it in the Mound). Here, I can smell AND taste the chlorine, and I can’t quite stomach it. So I buy water. Now, normally, I’m an Evian girl through and through. It’s heavy, it’s creamy, and it’s slightly sweet. I don’t care much for Volvic, since it tastes gritty to me. I HATE Dasani: it makes me thirsty because of the sodium content (yes, Virginia, they add sodium to some waters). Ozarka is out because, well, you can’t get it here, and even if you could, it tastes like dirt. Fiji is ok, but a little expensive and a bit on the minerally side. The holy grail of bottled water is Gleneagles, but I can’t even find that online anymore (which is sad, because even Camille realized that not all water is just water after she tried it). And here’s a quick aside on Gleneagles: It’s rainwater that falls in Scotland, travels down into caverns, and percolates for 15 years before being bottled. And if anyone knows where I can get some, please let me know.
Most people think I’m crazy, but if you start paying attention to the water that you drink, you’ll begin to notice a difference. So yes, I buy my water. The good news for Kevin’s wallet is that there is a great alternative here in the Sunshine State: Zephyrhills water. It’s bottled straight from the spring in the next county over, and it is delicious, even if it isn’t Gleneagles. And before you go thinking I’m all crazy, there are people who actually do this for a living.

Don’t miss your chance to catch the total lunar eclipse tonight. It’ll start around 10 PM EST. Bonus: If you have a telescope, you’ll even be able to catch the rings of Saturn.

I am a Texan. A proud one, in fact. Regardless of geography, I will always be a Texan. Having said that, however, I have to (reluctantly) admit that I have acclimated to Florida. Case in point: It’s 72 degrees outside today, and I caught myself saying “It’s chilly”. Seriously? I guess I’ve gotten used to consistent 80 degree days. Sure, we’ve had a couple of true cold snaps, but for the most part, it’s been clear and sunny.

On a somewhat related subject, when we moved down here, I kind of suspected that I would have a hard time adjusting to life outside of Texas. There have been some rough moments (no Kroger, and really bad local news), but all in all, I’ve actually been having a great time. Kevin and I have made a concerted effort to play tourist in our own town, and as a result, we’ve gotten to do some pretty cool stuff (hellooooo air boat ride). We’ve done more down here than we ever did in the Mound. Sure, we hit the parks, but there’s also supposed to be a really good Farmer’s Market that I’d like to check out this weekend. And don’t get me started on the wildlife. Manatees, eagles, hawks, alligators….all pretty cool stuff. Kevin is having fun finding new restaurants for us to try, so Date Night has certainly been refreshed.

Even though I’m not crazy about change, I think I can finally say that we have officially settled into life as transplanted Texans.

Kevin has been taking Lipitor for almost two years now. Since that time, his memory has been, shall we say, nonexistent. The boy can’t remember ANYTHING. I’ve gotten to where I have to leave him notes reminding him of just about everything. If I tell him something important, I know that I’d better send him a follow-up email just to jog his memory.
This week, Camille told me about the piece featured on GMA about memory-related problems in patients taking Lipitor. I spent a good amount of time researching this week, and lo and behold, I think we have found the cause of Kevin’s complete and total lack of memory. I’ve been keeping a list of every time he blanks out, and it is LONG. Last night, he was in the middle of a thought, and said “Hang on. I’m having a Lipitor moment”. I think that pretty much says it all. Needless to say, he goes to the doctor next month, and we’re getting him off this drug.

For the record, there are conflicting studies on this issue. Of course, the drug companies say that there is no basis of fact in these claims, but there are plenty of other people who have suffered from memory problems that went away when they stopped taking Lipitor.

I’ve been meaning to blog this for a couple of weeks, but I keep forgetting. In our quest to do all things Disney, we finally got over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios (formerly known as MGM) to take in Fantasmic.We had really high expectations for this particular show, since we have heard so much about it. Lots of people have said that it is hands-down the best fireworks show at Disney. I’m the first to admit that I’m biased towards the Magic Kingdom’s show Wishes, and Kevin really likes Illuminations at Epcot.

The first thing I didn’t like about Fantasmic was the amphitheater seating. Part of the Disney fireworks experience is staking out just the right spot to watch the show. I really didn’t like being packed in like sardines. Once the show started, I was kind of engaged; after all, for the first couple of minutes, the use of water and fire is kind of cool. After that, it got old, and it got old fast. The show is very dark: The whole thing is centered around Disney villains and nightmares. I definitely wouldn’t recommend bringing young children. The show lasts about 30 minutes, and even though it has a couple of redeeming moments (the princesses on the boats, for example), it just isn’t anywhere near the caliber of Wishes or Illuminations.

Long story short: If you’re ever at Disney, skip Fantasmic. Use that time to ride Rockin’ Roller Coaster one more time before the park closes, then head over to the Magic Kingdom for the best fireworks show in town.

I’ve been after Kevin for MONTHS to play mini golf with me. Yes, I know it’s cheesy, but some days, you just need the cheese! Tonight, for Date Night, we headed over to Fantasia Gardens at the House of Mouse to play a round (or two). There are two courses there: one whimsical and fun, and one REALLY challenging. Fantasia Fairways bills itself as the “World’s Hardest Mini Golf Course”, and boy was it ever. There are dog-legs, sand traps, and water hazards, and not a windmill in sight. That didn’t stop me from hitting a hole in one, though! Kevin won on the fun course (by one stroke), but I annihilated him on the tough course (thanks in large part to the aforementioned hole in one).

That course really is challenging, but boy did we ever have a ball. I can’t wait to try out another one of the few thousand or so mini golf havens around these parts!

We live in the entertainment capital of the world. And here it is, a beautiful day, and Kevin’s headed home early. The only problem is trying to figure out what to do. I definitely want to be outside, since it’s absolutely gorgeous today. I guess I’m off to do a little research!