DEATH & TAXES

The date is looming for those of us that are Americans to once again sit down with pen, paper, and Tylenol and do our annual deed: file our taxes.

I always thought that Benjamin Franklin was our source for the phrase "Nothing is certain except death and taxes" but after a little research, I've found that our Mr Franklin actually copied it from someone else!

Benjie's phrase was "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." He wrote that in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789, which was re-printed in The Works of Benjamin Franklin, 1817. Yes, he even changed the words up a bit to make us think he thought of it all by himself.

Prior to this in 1726, Daniel Defoe in The Political History of the Devil wrote "Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed."

Another twist to the phrase was in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell as our favorite heroine mutters "Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them."

Any way you put it, it's true. Oh so true.

So even though I spent the past 3 hours doing my taxes, I thank God that I wasn't giving birth and I'm still alive!

Kinda makes taxes seem not so bad.

SALAD!

There's nothing better to have with dinner than a nice salad.

I usually grab whatever I have in the fridge and add to the salad just whatever.

This salad is just lettuce, carrots, cheese and radishes. I don't like the big radishes but for some reason, I don't mind if they're cubed really small in a salad.

I like to get fancy with the radishes for Daddeee (because he likes them a lot).

I went for a long time and wouldn't buy radishes for him. When we were first married, he left a container of them in the refridgerator for too long.

I was the lucky one to clean out the fridge and find them hidden in the back.

I was having one of those "what the heck is that smell in the fridge" moments.

Yeah, lucky me. No radishes was his punishment. My mom finally guilted me into buying them again. She said 15 years of punishment was enough.

Anyway, back to salad.

Always keep your favorite dressings (yes, plural because you just never know what your craving might be).

If you're a crouton person, get some of those too. Keep them around. They're not bad as a snack, either.

But add a salad to your meal. They're yummy. Do it right and they're healthy too!

GOOD TIMES!

Last night we went out to celebrate the birthday of one of my best friends.

We had dinner at Cafe Cedar.

We ordered a sampler platter of appetizers.

Daddeee and I both ordered Gyros and the kids order chicken (fabulous BTW!) and burgers.



After dinner, the employees brought out a piece of Baklava with a candle in it and sang to her.

Then the belly dancer came out and entertained us.

She even gave a short lesson to my friend's daughters.

After eating, we took a walk through Parkville and enjoyed the band in the park for a while.

We had a fabulous time and I was exhausted by the time we made it home.