First of all, this scone recipe from Alton Brown, who is apparently some sort of food-television personality, judging by the little thumbnail portrait of him on the recipe page? And he looks like he's tsk-tsking you for buying expired bargain hamburger meat? Whatever, Alton, those scones were freaking awesome, especially if you mixed in a handful of semi-sweet mini chocolate chips, and used heavy whipping cream instead of regular cream because that's all you had in the refrigerator because you hadn't really checked your shopping list ahead of time, you just flang yourself into your baking project all willy nilly and arms akimbo.

Secondly, my favorite post so far this year includes this possibly stroke-inducing paragraph: "A weird thing happened as I pulled into my driveway. I took a big drink of chai, and before I swallowed, I completely forgot that I had taken a drink. And then I freaked out because my mouth was full of something, and I had no idea what. And then, Oh! I must have taken a drink of chai! And I swallowed."

One of the reasons this post appeals to me so much is because at some point while in the shower I made three new year's resolutions, and then as soon as I got out of the shower I forgot what they were. I think I'd read my horoscope and possibly believed the planets and stars want me to laugh more this year, and also make a pile of money. And maybe read the Bible? Because I always never do that and some people get so angry that I don't know all about the salvation of my eternal soul, and not just mine but my poor unbaptized little heathen baby boy's. And every great once in awhile some one of them gets all up in my grill about it and I'm all like, Whoa! Practice forgiveness, motherfucker!

THREE, I'm just giving the hell up on my yoga practice this year. It is not humanly possible for me to fit a two-hour Ashtanga yoga session into my day by going to the yoga shala, whose doors open at 4:40 a.m. for my convenience. Get my ass out of bed at that hour do my practice with at least half a mind and then race to get home so Jack can get to the job site by 7 a.m.? YEAH, RIGHT. My other yoga option is to go in the evening, which pushes dinner up to an ungainly and not-very-child-friendly 7:30 p.m. Option three is to motivate my lazy ass to do it at home on my days off, in the morning, when no one's around, which would, you know, probably work just fine. Fuck. I guess I'll be doing yoga this year after all.

My other favorite post so far this year, even though I've linked to her twice in a month and I promise I'll stop, is this, for a number of reasons apart from it being a superior and free-of-charge Internet offering. One: people who do have to do chemo with their feet and hands in tubs of ice water? Jesus god. And two: I didn't know what a farrier was when I read the first mention of it in this post but I didn't look it up in the hope that the context would bring the meaning alive, and lo and behold it was given unto me.

I was kind of let down after such a lovely Christmas as I had. I was blue. Depressed, even. Not suicidal or anything, but rather intensely melancholy, and actually it kind of felt good. Once I stopped fighting it and decided it was okay to push a cart around Vons with a frown on my face I realized it could be kind of healing to curl up inside myself and not talk very much.

It also lead to the most gigantic fight of my married life. I won't go into details but some shit had been building up and together we went to the brink of the marriage abyss. And I found something I needed there, too. Every once in awhile events conspire to make me remember who I am, and I think it was really helpful for the two of us to hate each other's fucking guts and then wake up a couple of days later and realize that we still really loved each other.

Yeah, I know, I'm kind of new to this whole self-acceptance thing.

Happy new year!