Ever have things that you thought you didn’t like and then you have them later in life after avoiding them for years and years and you find that, yes, you DO like this thing and how ever did you spend so many years being so so very wrong???

So started my love affair with salted butter.

When I was little, we always had margarine. My best friend had real butter at her house. I did not like it at all. I think it may have been the unsalted variety, though, which I *still* don’t like. So I spent years thinking I just didn’t like real butter at all.

Then several years ago, I had dinner at a friend’s house, and he served *salted* butter with the bread. And I LOVED it. And from that moment, my tastes have completely changed. I don’t care for margarine at all now. It’s edible, if there’s nothing else, but bleah. Not my favorite.

Now, I use salted butter at every opportunity. Even when recipes call for unsalted, I ignore them and use what I like. I’m just glad I was eventually forced to give it a shot! Just imagine how many more years I could have gone! The horror!

I love the dollar store. And I mean the real dollar store where all the items cost a dollar, not the discount stores with the word dollar in their title that really just have stuff that is often cheaper but usually more than a dollar.

Just wanted to be clear on that part!

One of my finds there actually wasn’t my own find but my mother’s. (Thanks!)

In the baby section they have what they call (I believe, and I’m going by memory here since the packaging is long gone) “baby snack cups.” They’re small (probably about 5 oz. or so) plastic bowls with lids that are really useful. They come 5 to a pack, so they’re only about 20 cents each.

• storage of small amounts of leftovers
• holding ingredients during meal preparation
• sending samples of home made flavored vodka home with guests after holiday parties
• serving ice cream when you don’t want a whole lot (or when you’re telling yourself you don’t want a whole lot)

Pretend I don’t sound slightly out of breath through most of this video. Also, pretend that I didn’t drop the stack of bowls right before making this, which is why the “clean” bowl I’m referring to has a couple crumbs stuck to the bottom of it that it picked up from the not-as-clean counter top. Oops. So I didn’t wipe them down yet! Sorry!

I wanted a Furminator for a long time before I actually bought one. They were in the $30ish range and that just seemed like a lot of money for a cat brush.

I do have 5 cats, though, and I had seen videos of them in action (sadly, I don’t have one of those for you here. It would have been too hard to make one and brush Mr. Baby Cat one handed.) They just looked so impressive! I’ve seen the video of someone using it on a big dog at the vet’s office and there are just piles and piles of hair!

So eventually I acquired one and when I actually remember to use it, it really is awesome. I have another comb that gets used some too, but it’s more to keep my one kitty detangled, since he develops clumpy mats in his mane. Poor Muffin! He even had to get shaved last summer. He looked ridiculous. So now I comb him pretty much every day, sometimes multiple times.

When I want to get a lot of extra hair off, though, I go straight for the Furminator. Here’s a video of what you get after just a couple minutes of furmination! And I’ve seen worse!