New Toys!

Target is my guilty pleasure.  I start having withdrawal symptoms if I haven't visited at least once a week.  Fortunately (or unfortunately?) there is a store near home...which is right next to my most-often-visited grocery store...and another near work.  I like to wander the aisles looking for that must-have item and I particularly haunt the back aisles looking for that can't-leave-it-there deal on the clearance racks.

My new toys were not on a clearance rack...and I certainly didn't need them.  One could argue that I am too old for toys.  One would be wrong, of course.  These were just too cool to leave alone.  In my defense, I did not buy them the first time I saw them.  I waited  until my next trip.

I am a real sucker for paper dolls.  I spent many, many hours as a child playing with them with my friend, Debby.  We would cover the floors of our bedrooms with dolls, clothes, and the houses and furniture that we would build for them.  When we tired of our store-bought ones, we would start cutting up the Sears catalog.  You could make the best paper dolls with the models and clothes in that big catalog.  At some point during my paper-doll-playing days, the manufacturers moved to punch out clothes instead of cut out clothes.  I really hated that.

Now this wooden doll is not quite the same.  You don't have the great fun of cutting out all the clothes.  But, oh, how cute.  There are nine outfits (but you could make more by mixing and matching) and six pairs of shoes.  They attach with magnets and they all store in a great wooden box with a plexiglass lid.  Now where is my friend, Debby, when I need her?

By the way, there are two different versions available.  I just couldn't justify both...assuming I could justify even one :)

And just across the aisle from the dolls was this.  A huge can of pop beads.

The coolest pop beads ever!!!  Who could resist??  You can make necklaces, bracelets, and rings.  There are 500 pieces.  So much creative potential!!!  And they were on sale :).  I seriously anticipate making cool necklaces and bracelets to actually wear.

Now come on...no excuses.  Don't you wish you had these?







An Excuse for Corned Beef

We don't go all out for St. Patrick's Day...it usually goes unnoticed.  But occassionally I will use it as an excuse to cook corned beef.  So today we are celebrating St. Patty's Day early with corned beef (it is done and waiting to be cooked a little longer in the oven with a brown sugar glaze), Jackie potatoes (named after a childhood friend's mother), and Red Cabbage Salad with Warm Pancetta-Balsamic Dressing....a twist on the typical corned beef, potatoes, and cabbage.

I think that the salad is beautiful.

By the way, it is a beautiful day in the neighborhood.  I did a little yard work early this afternoon and now I am heading to the front porch to soak up the last hour and a half of daylight.  Right now I am loving the switch to daylight-saving time, but ask me again in the morning when it will be dark for my 7 a.m. walk.