Okay, so I went a little bit overboard on Saturday at Teavana. I was out of my beloved Honeybush Vanilla tea, and was getting dangerously low on the Mate Vana/Rooibos Chai blend. How would I begin my day without it? And that German Rock Sugar, well I needed a refill on that too. I resisted the urge to buy a Perfect Tea maker to keep at work, because I thought my husband would have a cow, but I splurged and bought three tin canisters in order to keep my tea fresh. Oh, and I then I bought a cup of Spice Nut Mate tea, because well, I really needed some caffeine.

I brought all my tea (and canisters) home, lined them up on the counter, and watched my husband do an eye roll. He knew this day was coming, the day that I needed the tin canisters. They really do keep the tea fresher than the bags. Honestly.

So that afternoon we went to Whole Foods. I had a coupon for a free Seventh Generation laundry product -- ANY product. I wanted the big huge bottle of detergent, and I knew Whole Foods had the jumbo size. We love going to Whole Foods, one of the reasons being the free samples they have out. Zoe loves the Cheese Curls, my husband loves it all, and I love the bakery. When I told them we were going to Whole Foods my husband immediately piped up that he was getting a bag of the sunflower seed cookies. I admit, they are really really good, and I was hoping there'd be samples.

We get to Whole Foods, everyone goes off in their own direction, and the next thing I know they are both coming at me with armfuls of Cheese Curls (Zoe), Grace's Best sunflower seed cookies and beer (my husband). I counted all the bags they were stuffing into the cart, and seriously, it looked like we were hosting a party. Beer, cheese curls, and cookies. I gave him an eye roll, and he says to me: "They are two for $5."

Oh whatever, how can I argue two for $5? I can't. A little bit later we passed the cookie stand. $5.49 EACH. Not two for $5. I kinda cleared my throat, "Oh hello, they aren't two for $5." Then I made him put one back.

Tonight he was rummaging around in the snack closet, stuffing handful after handful of sunflower cookies into his mouth. Then he says, "I can't believe you made me put one of those bags back. All that tea over there (and then he pointed at the tea canister section on the counter top), that was waaaaay more than $5."

I believe in signs.

For instance, whenever I see someone make a Florida U-turn I know that it’s a sign from my grandpa, who died in 2003, he taught me what a Florida U-turn was. Another sign was when I was at the grocery store on the anniversary of the day that he died and I was paying for my groceries with my debit card when a penny shot out of the change machine right in front of me. It took me a whole day to figure it out, but the coincidence that a penny dropped out of nowhere on the death anniversary of a grandpa who collected his pennies for me (and my brother) was, to me, definitely a sign.

And then there is the sign from my other grandpa, Leonard. He died in 2002, and since then I get mail addressed to him … at my house. Yes. Mail. And he didn’t even live with me. It all started about a month after he died, and its been arriving a few times a year ever since. I’m not getting personal letters or anything, in fact some might call it junk mail. However I call it a sign.

So then onto yesterday.

It was my husband’s grandma’s funeral. Twelve years ago, when we were first married, she took us to a chicken dinner at her church. She made a huge deal out of it, and it really meant a lot to her, this chicken dinner. I’ll never forget it, it was mostly because of the music. I’m pretty sure there was a strolling accordion player playing a polka. A POLKA — and for some reason I thought that was just hilarious. Anyhow, there we are, at the funeral, which was at the church of the chicken dinner.

At first I sat in a pew on the far left, then I moved to the middle second row, and finally I decided to save the third row for my husband, his brothers, and his nephews, who were all pallbearers. I was sitting on the far lefthand side of the pew, and you’d think that the men could have come in from the right, but they didn’t. As a result, my husband and his family made me scoot all the way down to the other side of the pew.

I noticed right away that there was a bulletin in the book rack in front of us. It was from Sunday, September 21st, and I thought it was odd that it was there because it was Monday, September 22nd, and usually someone goes through the pews and removes anything that doesn’t belong there — like old bulletins. You only get a bulletin on your way out of church, not before. Anyhow, at one point, most likely to take my mind off of the funeral, I decided to flip through the bulletin. It was hard to miss the blue sheet of paper folded inside of it, and my husband noticed what it said before I did: Chicken Dinner & Raffle, Polka Mass, October 5th.

And there you have it. A sign. But for who? Him? Me? Us? My husband wasn’t too convinced at first, until he searched through all of the pews after the service to confirm what I already knew: we had the only bulletin left in the pews. The pew that wasn’t our first choice, second choice, but third choice. And if the guys would have filed into the pew the way I imagined they would, my husband’s nephew would have sat there, and it would have meant absolutely nothing to him. Instead, we are left with a sign.

(Cross-posted to Thoughts Outside My Head)

I love to shop for wine, and I was looking for a way to make choosing a wine more fun, and somewhat challenging. What did I come up with? It may sound rather silly, but I decided that I was going to go straight through the alphabet, starting with A and ending with Z.

I'll be sharing my wine choices with you as I go, and I'm going to begin with A, B, and C. All three wines were purchased from Sendik's in Brookfield.

A to Z Night to Day, 2004, Dundee, Oregon. $13.99. This was a red blend, and I thought the name of the wine was a perfect fit to begin my journey of buying wine in alphabetical order. The color was a dark garnet; nose was spicy; taste was very fresh and peppery; the finish was long. I had been wanting to try an A to Z wine for a long time, and I liked it a great deal. I served it with pizza and it paired well.

Ben Marco, 2006, producer is Dominio Del Plata, Mendoza, Argentina. $21.99. 90% Malbec, 10% Bonarda. The color was a dark ruby; nose was lavender; taste was spicy and lush; the finish was good. I really liked, I served it with hamburgers and chips, but I think it would have paired nicely with a steak.

Conn Creek Limited Release, 2004, Conn Creek Winery, Napa Valley, CA. $23.99. Cabernet Sauvignon. The color was a deep ruby red, no legs; nose was a light aroma, perhaps cherry; taste was very light; not a lot of tannins for a Cabernet; the finish was short but silky. My overall impression was that this was not a very robust Cabernet, it was very light, and I could have easily mistaken it for a Pinot Noir.

In the coming weeks and months I'll continue to tell you about my wine odyssey through the alphabet. Feel free to share in the comments your favorite wines, or follow my ABC wine list and compare tasting notes. I will warn you though, most of them will be red wines. Cheers!

That's right, I'm up to my eyeballs searching for the Hidden Mickeys, down here in Disney World, specifically the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Now, before you go and get all jealous that I'm down here, and you are up there, I've got to tell you that it's raining. RAINING!

Raining. On. My. Vacation.

With thunder too.

So, isn't that lovely?

However it does leave lots of time to find the Mickeys that are hidden around my resort. We've got a sheet of paper with instructions for 15 different hidden Mickey Mouse Ear locations, and so far we've found about six of them. Some are pretty easy to locate, others are terribly hard. And the thing is that once you start looking for them, you end up calling a lot of attention to yourself. My family and I were searching the wall around the pool slide, and suddenly we had company, yet they didn't know what they were looking for.

And, you can't have four people staring up in the lobby, discussing and pointing towards the lights, without people coming over to join in.

If it doesn't stop raining soon, we'll have run out of Hidden Mickeys at our resort, and will have to move on over to the next one.

I remember getting up at 3 o'clock in the morning to let the dog out, and the sprinklers were busy watering my lawn. Of course, now it's raining.