I'm sorry about the link... let's try this one. The Apron Book It's very special indeed. Part of the reason for posting about it here is to honor her thoughtfulness and time she put into this gift. She has sewn some curtains and pillow covers but really doesn't care too much about sewing. And that just adds another dimension to the specialness of the gift.

Twisties to tie up produce bags are totally unknown here. I wouldn't use them anyway (I cleaned out a drawer a few months ago that was literally an inch deep in unused twisties from packages of freezer bags, accumulated over 15 years!). I tie a slipknot with a loop in my bags so they can easily be opened again and if I haven't a trolley handy I can carry several bags with a finger slipped through the loop. Misbehaving children I have no compunction against telling off. Miss Manners suggests the line, "Don't do that, you might get hurt!", accompanied by the Look that says "And I will be doing the hurting". Works for me :-D Takes a village to raise a child and I am part of the village. My shopping-related pet peeve is our local grocery store (I live in a small town 37 km from the nearest other town) that either orders ridiculously small amounts of perishables, so they run out two days before the next delivery, or so much that you can't buy anything except what's right on the expiry date because they're not going to put fresher stuff out until all the old stuff is gone. And you can't buy the good brand of icecream in vanilla- lots of other flavours, but choc-mint doesn't go so well with apple cobbler :-P Why doesn't the person who orders consider that??? No one wants to eat a whole bowl of icecream in winter! (This is Australia, in case you hadn't guessed :-) .)

This is a totally different idea, but I wanted to mention it because I recently rediscovered my immersion blender. I wanted something I could take out of town with me that was small and easy to pack, and...I know this would sound odd to some...offered a little bit of ''help'' in case I decided I wanted to bake. (A readily-available kitchen is a good thing.) Anyway, I realized my immersion blender (Kitchen Aid) had a whip attachment (like a miniature hand-mixer) that I'd never used. Eureka! Of course I had to try it out, and it works beautifully. If your friend doesn't have one, she would probably love it for blending soups, making smoothies or chopping things. The best part is they're not terrible expensive. (FYI; maybe not for now, but for the future.)

I've never sent a text, and I had my cell phone turned off a few months ago and do not miss it. I also drive very little, and on week-ends Kevin drives us to the stores. I wonder why no one seems to be getting tickets for driving while texting. My not-too-bright niece had a layover in L.A. a few years ago (back when I lived in Venice), and she was unable to call me using a pay phone at the airport because she kept dialing 1+area code, and I was in the same area code as the airport, and back then, you did not have to dial the area code, and so she had to borrow someone's cell phone to call me. We did buy a cell phone in Orvieto, Italy (on our way to Florence) so that I could call the hotel and confirm where to park and exactly how to get there, but I used the phone while Kevin was driving. I also had a cell phone in Costa Rica (to call hotels), but again I used the phone while Kevin was driving. I guess most of my cell phone conversations have been either in Italian or Spanish. We had GPS in the cars in both Italy and Costa Rica, but sometimes that was not enough, especially when roads were unexpectedly closed. Before we were so connected, we may have gotten lost a bit more often, like Kevin and I did on our first trip to Death Valley.