Mall Rat

I have a real love/hate relationship with the mall, most likely because I was raised in a small WV town where the best stores in the mall were Spencer's and Deb, and also because my parents are small business owners. Video killed the radio star.

But my kiddo really likes the activity at the mall, and Durham's Southpoint mall is nice. I went into Pottery Barn Kids today, again a store I have mixed feelings about, but I found these awesome placemats for $2.5o on clearance. I got pink and black. When I saw the black ones I thought, in an obvious stroke of genius, Wouldn't these be cool if you could write on them like a chalkboard? I ask the saleswoman about this, hoping to impress her with my ability to think outside the PB-box, and she said that in fact, you could use chalk on them. I smiled knowingly. When she rang me up, I saw on my receipt that these placemats are literally called - by the company - "Chalkboard Placemats". Oh, well. Nothing new under the sun. But aren't they cute?


No, your eyes do not deceive you - I may have to write another post about rhubarb. Arrrggghhh!!! First of all, I have such a problem with baked goods, the biggest being that I cannot refuse them at all. Last night I was browsing Amy Karol's site and discovered that she is wild for rhubarb as well and then saw this, and oh, my.


They are just delicious, and believe it or not, I have only had half of one. This is because I have sequestered myself to the upstairs of the house. Using her recipe I got about 5 pies, with some rhubarb left over. I also added a few chopped strawberries. The next time I make these I think I will throw in a little more sugar, but no harm done here - any tartness is completely off-set by the vanilla ice cream you will want to have on top.


I also recently became completely disgusted with the amount of extra cotton yarn I have lying around everywhere. This time last year, when I was just learning to crochet, I bought some really inexpensive cotton to play around on. Now that I'm much better I splurge on the good stuff, but that left dozens of half-used skeins on my hands. So, I've decided to make dishcloths with it. I made a red one the other night, very easy, just ch 31 and then sc until it's square. These dishcloths are so nice - heavy and textured and good. Perfect for scrubbing baked-on rhubarb.