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I've mentioned before that Mr. Gadget and I have been doing some entertaining now that we've got new digs. Last night we invited a few neighbors over for coffee and dessert. If you ever decide to do this yourself, here's an absolute gotta-have item:A crock pot. One that's well-seasoned both inside and out... This will enable you to cook dinner with precious little effort while you're putting your attention on other things.

I made a carrot cake. I hadn't made a carrot cake in ages, and I should have realized my license to operate a bundt pan had expired long ago. Thankfully, the cake tasted fine, even though I had to use some of the cream cheese frosting to mortar the poor thing together after it hung on to the pan for dear life. Next time I'll go layered.

The evening was fun and the neighbors seemed to enjoy themselves. And I was able to use the good dishes and flatware for the second time in two weeks. I don't know what's gotten into me.

In other news, Tech Guy got his car fixed--all on his own without any help from us. I love when that happens. I had no idea when I signed up for parenthood that my life would be marked by repeating bouts of worry, briefly interrupted by short spurts of serenity. Maybe it's just as well someone forgot to give us the read-this-before-signing-on-the-dotted-line booklet before we decided to have offspring.

I received my application for the old hotel holiday fair the other day, along with a nice note from the organizer. She mentioned that she had purchased a couple of my dolls at the Columbus Day fair and is now eager to see what I've been working on for the holidays. She also said she was so fond of my dolls that as far as she was concerned I should be working on them full time. I told this to Mr. G, since I thought it was such a nice compliment, and he said, "Isn't that what you do now?"

"No, I don't think so," I replied. "You've got clean underwear, don't you?"