It's polite to be selfish with your germs. Seriously, no need to share!

Here's your annual reminder to think of others and spread the word about keeping ones germs to oneself.

Cough and sneeze into your sleeve, wash your hands with soap and HOT water, and stay at home if you're sick.


Which safe sneezing technique video do you like best?

"The purpose of this video is to make coughing into one's sleeve fashionable, and even patriotic! It's the right thing, the polite thing to do!"


Or the Mythbusters' colorful experiments?

Random on a rainy Tuesday

(original title, "Random bullets on a rainy Tuesday" and then I read it over, and realized that the phrase "random bullets" has only one meaning now, and it's not "items in an unordered list that have nothing to do with each other.)

• Muffin Man won his classroom spelling bee last week. Which surprised me, not because he's not a good speller (he's a terrific speller), but because he'd told me a few weeks ago that he'd participated in a classroom bee and he'd done terribly. Turn out that other bee was geography. Okay then. His winning word was "necessary".
• This means he's now going to compete in the school spelling bee on the 24th. Not much time to study. I printed out the study guide from Mirriam-Webster, and he's pegging away at it.
• He's super excited, because if he wins the school spelling bee, he'll be joining his friend ReallyTheyCouldBeTwins*  at the county-wide spelling bee, since she won her school's bee a couple of weeks ago. The county-wide bee will include middle-schoolers, too.
• We brought banana cake to services this weekend. This time, I made a banana filling for it. Wow! Delicious.
• Speaking of services, Rev. Anya came over to our house to have a confab and I made latkes using a different recipe. The one I used to use was from Kosher Gourmet, and don't get me wrong, it was good. But the one I used this time was from this past December's Bon Appetit, and it was phenomenal. Oh. My. GOD.
• My left eye is itching. It's been two days now. What is UP with that?
• Everyone in my office is wearing blue today. Including me. So far as I know, there wasn't a memo.
• Even though the weather is gloomy, I'm kind of glad it's raining. It gave me an excuse to wear my silly rain boots and poncho.

*formerly known as "SheIsAlmostAsTallAsMe", which is an out-dated name. She's 5'4". Turning 11 next week

First sentences

It's (past) that time of year again.

Time to list the first sentence of the first post of each month from last year.

January: Starting the New Year off right.

"New Year's day was spent getting some hardware sorting boxes from BigBoxHardwareStore (and a rug to cover the speaker cables in the living room, because I was sick of tripping over them), and then helping with Muffin Man with the sorting of the pieces of his brand new Lego Mindstorms NXT set."

February: DOUBLE DIGITS!

"Muffin Man is 10 today."*

March: My son got excited and made something for me.

"The best part is that he made it using something that his dad got excited and made."

April: A fairy tale.

"Once upon a time two days ago, a wicked mother offered to go with her good and handsome son to buy a new two-wheeled steed for him to ride upon while slaying dragons in the surrounding kingdom."

May: What I've been reading, OMG I love my Kindle edition.

"The latest books in several series came out, and I got 'em that very day sent to my lovely lovely Kindle,"

June: Vacation review and wrap-up.

"I was away on vacation last week (sorry no notice, ever since I stopped blogging anonymously, I've stopped giving advance notice on absences). "

July: Maisie Dobbs is my new obsession.

"Just finished book 5 this morning"

August: Do you like my hat?

"This is the hat I've talked about before. "

September: Brief bullets of Labor Day

"Muffin Man is awesome and has an award to prove it."

October: "I don't suppose you have any sushi?"

"Muffin Man the other night at Bonefish."

November: It's election day. I'm at Dominion Trail Elementary handing out sample ballots.

"VOTE"

December: December holidays are here again

"Which means I'm bringing the music and the hand-made chocolates."**

*(The first February post is always about MM's B'day. He was born on the first)
**Boy oh boy did I ever bring the hand-made chocolates. 37 dozen. THIRTY-SEVEN DOZEN.