Things I Like.

Now that we're settling into our rural life, I am finding that I have to change some of my likes and dislikes to fit what is available to me in my current surroundings. For example, I like not being in crowds, and I don't have a problem finding open space here, so that's good. I also like Manchego cheese. Not so easy to find, so that's bad. However, stuff you can buy at Wal-Mart or the local grocery store is generally much cheaper than stuff you can buy at the stores where exotic cheeses are sold, so I have less cheese, but more snacks in general. Here are some of my new favorites:

1. Weight Watchers dark chocolate raspberry ice cream bars. These are tasty and healthy and chocolately. And, if you're doing WW, they're only two points. (If you're not, then it doesn't really matter. Eat them anyway.)

2. Quaker Quakes rosemary and roasted garlic rice cakes. A few days before I picked these out, someone gave me some of the cinnamon/caramel/something-or-other variety of these, and I thought "dude, the crunchiness makes me happy." But I also thought, "dude, it's too bad I have to slog through this odd, sweet flavor thing to get to the crunch." So, I perused the grocery shelves to find a savory flavor. This is new, and delightful, and I love it, and I hope you all buy yourselves a crateful so that they don't discontinue it.

3. Philly Swirl swirl stix. I was first introduced to the Philly Swirl line of frozen products when I was in the throes of morning sickness, and I loved the cool little ice-cream-type cups (it's more like an icy, sherbety thing). Now, I have rediscovered Philly Swirl in the form of pops. They have some cool flavors, like apple and berry, and also some I don't like so much, like blue raspberry with stripes. (I let The Bean eat those.)

4. Grandma Sycamore's white bread. I have had this bread many a time, but this is the first time as a married adult that I am buying white bread for myself, and I am not ashamed. When I was a child, we only had wheat bread, and any time I went to a friend's house and got to eat white bread, I thought it was the most amazing, magical thing in the world. When the sister and I became teens, we would take our hard-earned money down to the store and buy white bread and devour its unhealthy, tasty goodness. I've been trying to do the healthy thing (see the Weight Watchers pops, above), but sometimes there's nothing better than a slice of fluffy, nutritionless white bread to get you through the hard times.

5. Temple Grandin. This is not a food, it is a movie. It was a made-for HBO film, and it won a bunch of Emmys and such. I got it on the Redbox, and I can honestly say it's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time (maybe even better than Inception, but don't tell Q that). Find it, rent it, enjoy it.

There you go! A lovely list of items that I highly recommend. Do you have anything to add to the list?

And now, the Song du Jour!
I was ready to revert back to my mopey, mournful Brit Pop-loving ways, when I heard this little ditty, and I couldn't stop humming it in the grocery store. I like David Archuleta--so sue me.