New rule

From now on, whenever  I come across something that I just absolutely love, I am going to by it. No more contemplating. If I love it, it's mine. Once again my "sleep on it" rule has thwarted my efforts to buy something that I've really researched and carefully thought about. I found the perfect patio set at HomeGoods yesterday evening. That's right, not quite 24 hours ago. I went back to buy it today and all of the sets were gone. Gone! There were several colors: orange, yellow, white, teal, green. The only one left was an orange set and for those of you who know me best, you know how I feel about orange. So, instead I was forced to take home two different teal chairs (I had to take them! They were the only two left and I just knew all the people in the store were eying them, just waiting to steal them away from me!) I actually like these chairs better than the ones that came with the set, but now we're stuck with the problem of finding a table. It's not looking good. Luckily, the kind lady at the checkout told me that the sets we saw were the first ones they had received so it's probable that they will get some more in. Maybe even tomorrow! So, I'll be calling tomorrow to check.

Tomorrow starts my week of vacation. I have a lot of stuff to do but some intense relaxation is also in store. Of course my visions of relaxation included my perfect patio set on our deck with me reading my latest book purchase, enjoying coffee in the morning, pasta at lunch, maybe even an afternoon ice cream. Now that all hangs in the balance of tomorrow and a potential truckload full of beauteous patio furniture. I'll let you know how it's looking!

My most recently purchased book How Italian Food Conquered the World is turning out to be fascinating. Granted the entire forward and first few chapters are a lot of history (which, in this volume, usually bores me to tears), but it's so interesting to see how quickly Italian food really developed over just about the last 100 years. It makes sense, though. Most people don't know that Italy, as a unified country, didn't exist until 1861, almost 100 years after the U.S. It's also surprising how many silly things we owe to Italian-American culture, such as:
Hokey-pokey: "O, che poco..." as the street vendors used to yell.
The macaroni reference in the Yankee Doodle song, one of the first references to Italian cuisine in "pop culture".
Anyway, I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the history of Italian food and its rise to popularity.