Welcome!

So what's been going on with me? Well, everything and nothing, as usual.

I've spent some time catching up with old friends and making new ones, which has been great. I got to see a musical version of Emma at the Old Globe about a month ago. It was wonderful. My friend Lisa, who scored us the tickets, doesn't even like musicals and she liked it. Then I won, for the first time in my life, movie tickets on the radio. I'd been looking forward to seeing the movie for weeks, and I was so excited to win that I screamed in the guy's ear. What movie? Jane Eyre. No, you didn't read that wrong; I did say Jane Eyre. And although they missed a few points of the story I would have loved to see, the movie was great.

I volunteer at my church when I get the opportunity. And at the beginning of May, I will once again be teaching a cooking class at my church. This class will be with our Family Group and the kids and I will be making pizza!

I've been doing less baking. (It's difficult buying quality ingredients when you are on a budget. Anyone willing to donate to my baking therapy, let me know.) :o) Anyway, I'm going to have to figure something out because not baking is torture for me. For Christmas I made Peppermint Snowballs and a very delicious fruitcake. (If I do say so myself.) For my birthday, I made amazing cookies: a melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cookie with chocolate chips and pecans.

I'd like to get back into developing my own recipes, particularly recipes for special diets. This has long been an area of interest for me, but I would love to spend more time exploring it.

I finally moved into my own place at the end of last year. It's a tiny little place: one bedroom, one bath, but it's all mine--no roommates. It's very cozy and I love it. It's just east of central San Diego, close to the freeways and yet very quiet.

I've got a wonderful neighbor, Rodney, who is in his 50s or 60s. and just so sweet. We exchange treats whenever we bake, and he even turned on my heat for me right after I moved in.

I am still working in the mortgage industry. Our company suffered a pretty significant round of layoffs in January, but I'm still there, and I'm very thankful for my job.

In lesser news, I'm addicted to BrickBreaker on BlackBerry. I've made it to level 12 of 34. I am determined to make it all the way through...someday. I also just finished a book by Kathy Reichs, one of the producers of Bones. The book was highly entertaining and a great read. I read it straight through in two days.

As you can see, my life isn't too terribly exciting. But if anything interesting does happen, you will find it here.