God, if you can’t turn certain people in my life to the light, at least protect the ones I love from their darkness.

R.I.P Barbara Park – You gave the world Junie B. Jones and the love of reading to countless children like my niece. There is no greater legacy and you will be missed.

There are many reasons I’m glad our football season is winding down, chief among them being that I won’t have to hear “does your son play for UMass?” for a while. Granted the past few seasons have aged me a bit, but how old do you really think I am? What happened to the days when people lowballed my age by at least half a decade?

Note to self:  Either start next year’s Christmas ornaments by June or stop thinking of people to give them to.

I’m hardly a football expert (though I like to think I know more than most women), but there’s no way pass interference should have been called on the Carolina Panthers Monday night – the replay clearly showed that Tom Brady’s pass would have been a couple of yards short even if Gronkowski hadn’t been held. That makes it an uncatchable pass and an uncatchable pass can’t be interfered with; the refs called the play correctly.  And yes, I’m a Panthers fan but even Brady admitted he couldn’t see where Gronk was and didn’t want to overthrow him in the endzone, so he adjusted and threw short. Enough said.

My new favorite crafting tools are an Exacto knife (for cutting out perforated plastic cross stitch) and a hot glue gun (for converting said cross stitch into lapel pins).  People everywhere should be afraid, at least of the glue gun. My track records for burns in the kitchen is bad enough, never mind future crafting mishaps. Good thing I’ve got a low heat glue gun. I shudder to think of what would happen with a high heat one.

Favorite movie quote of the moment (because it’s relevant to my life recently), brought to us by June Carter Cash and the screenwriters of The Apostle:  “…sometimes he talks to the Lord and sometimes he yells at the Lord. Tonight, he just happens to be yellin’ at him.”