Fresh popcorn smells good – unless you burn it. The smell of scorched popcorn from a microwave can seep into every corner of the office or the house. I would rather have a few unpopped kernels and take the bag out too early than to leave it in the microwave too long and end up with some of it burnt.

I am going to try some of the different brands and new flavors that are on the shelves now. I’m especially a fan of extra butter, but I’m not sure the “movie theater” style will taste enough like real butter. If it doesn’t, I would rather melt my own real butter and drizzle it over a bag of regular popcorn.

The tough part of letting your short hair “grow out” is the couple of weeks of hair that just won’t behave. It doesn’t look good no matter what you do. I can only wear a hat for so many days. I would like to have longer hair with some strategic layering and it’s not there yet. Hopefully by the end of next week it will be long enough for my hairdresser to have something to work with and I can have better hair days. I can tell you, starting the day off with bad hair can cast a pall over the entire day and really effect your mood. I need to have happy mornings and obviously need a good haircut – soon.

Pretty sure I’m not the only one who buys lots of candy to give out on Halloween and that the type of candy you choose to buy is going to be the candy that you don’t mind eating yourself if you have some left over. Am I right?

I’m going to buy a big assortment bag from Sam’s Club that has Tootsie Rolls, Tootsie Roll Pops, and little boxes of Dots gumdrops. At least I think they technically gumdrops. They are my favorite non-chocolate candies. I might even pick out those boxes and set them back so that I am sure to have some Dots by the end of the evening!

Having grown up in the suburbs of a major metropolitan area, I am very accustomed to being in an urban setting. I have worked in downtown locations and lived in just about every type of modern American dwelling – from apartment to condo to townhouse to single family homes as little as 800 sq. ft. to over 6,000 sq. ft.

I once designed and built my dream home. It was almost perfect, and if I had the chance to live there longer I could have made the couple of small changes necessary and had a wonderful house to live in my whole life. Unfortunately, that required having a loving, faithful, dependable husband to help take care of the family. So I moved out and moved on.

I used to love going downtown – day or night. I love all the big cities. Especially Chicago. But I’ve lost my taste for the urban setting other than maybe a weekend visit here and there. I am longing to be out in the country or down on the beach. I would love to have more solitude in my life. I need and miss my alone time.

There are people who like dogs and people who don’t like dogs. If you are one of the people who don’t like dogs, then I’m probably not going to like you.

There is a difference in the character and disposition of people who like dogs. Dog people are good people, and I can usually tell upon meeting someone within the first few minutes if they are dog people or not.