Arguments against legal same-sex marriage (and why they're nonsense)

Finally, President Obama has taken a stand and voiced his support for gay marriage.  No, not gay marriage, just marriage -- marriage for everyone, regardless of race, religion, economic status, or sexual orientation.

I've long been an advocate for marriage for all, despite my Catholic upbringing. And no matter what your religious beliefs are, I'm hoping you'll agree that the law should allow any two consenting adults to wed.  If you keep in mind that we're talking about marriage as a legal contract, I don't see any arguments against it!  Here are all the usual reasons people oppose same-sex marriage -- and why I don't think they matter:

Taste This! Sunday Potluck

Who doesn't love a potluck party?  You get to try a smorgasbord of awesomely yummy food without the hassle of preparing all of it.  So when my friend Gina suggested getting together with a group of friends for a supper potluck based on her latest cookbook, Taste This: The Delicious Sequel, I told her, count me in.  There was just one tiny detail -- we all live in different states.  So we did the next-best thing:  hosted a virtual potluck, with each person cooking and sharing her dish online.

Dress your berry best

Summer is here, and along with it comes all kinds of yummy summer fruit like strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and cherries.  Is it any wonder that berry shades are so in vogue for summer?  Last week I met Today fashion stylist Bobbie Thomas at a blog event, where she was giving tips to attendees on how to make the most of this season's hottest colors that work from season to season, and look great on women of all shapes and sizes.  Here are 3 pieces of advice I loved:

A taste of summer: Currant, Cilantro & Almond Barley

I love going to blog events, but I can't help but spare a guilty thought for the family I leave behind.  I get to fly somewhere nice, eat great food, meet great people and learn interesting things, while Alfie has to be a single parent, juggling work and afterschool schedules, and the kids have to eat the so-so-school lunch and get farmed off to playdates whether they like it or not.  Having just arrived from a great two days of food at fun at the McDonald's Taste of Summer Event, the least I could do was cook a kickass-awesome meal for them.

A taste of summer: berry salad

Earlier this week I was invited to the launch of McDonald's latest dishes, the Cherry Berry Chiller and Blueberry Banana Nut Oatmeal.  Since they're both berry inspired, McDonald's celebrated with a berry-themed dinner party at The Culinary Loft in downtown Manhattan.  Chef Dave Martin (of Top Chef fame) and his team created a wonderful menu featuring berries in each and every dish.  I loved his Summer Watermelon Salad so much that I couldn't even wait a day after arriving back home to recreate this dish and serve it to Alfie and the kids.  After all, I got two days of food and fun in Manhattan while they had soccer practice and pasta -- it was the least I could do.

Listen to your mother!

I have always been fascinated by Vanessa Williams. I first heard of her existence when she was crowned the first black Miss America, and was subsequently stripped of her title after the Penthouse photos came out. I was eleven at the time, and I took the view that any sheltered, self-righteous Catholic schoolgirl would -- serves her right, what a hussy! I was amazed that she rose out of the ashes of that scandal and forged a successful singing and acting career.

 As I grew up and as my own views of the world changed, so did my opinion of Vanessa Williams. If the Penthouse scandal were happening to her today, I would throw my full support behind her. These days, people can't wait to bare it all, make sex tapes, even dress their four year olds in prostitute clothing for the sake of a beauty title! I think Vanessa Williams is an amazing woman (and the only person I can imaging playing Willie Slater) who got a bad rap when she was younger, and I admire her for putting it all behind her and moving on.

Giving Old Shoes a New Life

I don't think I ever ruined a piece of clothing throughout my childhood. Sure, I ripped a hem or two, and stained a few shirts with permanent markers or paint.  But for the most part, I outgrew my clothes before I wore them out.   I never, ever subjected them to the kind of abuse that 3Po and Jammy rain on their trousers and shoes every single day.   Maybe I had a bigger pool of clothes to draw from and alternate.  Maybe clothes and shoes were sturdier back then.  I guess I wasn't as active as they are.  And I'm sure I didn't go around sliding on my knees and elbows in the mud and grass and concrete. So I never ended up with shoes that are literally peeling from their soles.  It took 3Po just one month to get his shoes in that state, people.  ONE MONTH. 

What's on your running playlist?

When I got my first iPod and started listening to music while running, I couldn't believe how much more enjoyable running could be. Music truly lifts the spirits and makes the hours and the miles pass much more quickly. But you can only listen to your favorite 100 songs again and again before you end up hating those songs as much as you hate Barney the dinosaur's I Love You song. Rather than banish YMCA from my running playlist forever, I resolved to add at least 10 new songs to my running playlist before my 40th birthday.

To many people, that would be a no-brainer, but as you many have guessed, I am not the most adventurous listener. I stopped listening to the radio in my late teens, so until I started dating Alfie, my musical tastes were stuck in the 80's. Much to Alfie's embarrassment, when we married in 2000, the "new artists" in my cd collection included names like Hall & Oates, Kenny G, Barry Manilow, Duran Duran and Tears for Fears (thank goodness Madonna has reinvented herself time and time again over the years, so at least I did have 1 hip artist on my favorites list). I'd probably still be running to the same hundred songs if it weren't for these five secret sources for discovering new music:

Our kitchen remodel: Putting on a new face

 The Pea and I in our kitchen, 11 years ago

Since moving in to our home, we've made quite a few changes to our kitchen --  replaced the ceiling lights, replaced the stove, repainted the walls.  But the mainstay of our kitchen, the thing that gives our kitchen its look and feel -- the white cabinets -- have remained.

The cabinets came with the house, so we have no idea how old they actually are, but after seeing them deteriorate year after year, it was time for a change.  Some of the cabinet doors were falling off their hinges, and some had paint peeling and flaking off from water damage.  Simply changing the doors and drawer fronts was not enough, because we wanted to change the color of the cabinets from white to cream.  Since we were happy with the general layout, we decided on cabinet refacing instead of outright replacement.  This was too big a job to do on our own, so we found a contractor who seemed well established and charged reasonable rates.  We picked out our cabinet and drawer colors and styles, chose some hardware, and began the Refacing Phase.

Our kitchen remodel: Everything but the kitchen sink

We probably spend more time in our kitchen than in any other room in our home, but we've never given it the same amount of attention, design-wise, that we've given to our other rooms. It was high time to redecorate, so we embarked on Project Kitchen Remodel on November 21, 2011. We hired a contractor to refinish our kitchen cabinets (and that's the subject of a future post!) , but Alfie, the kids and I did everything else. We reframed the windows. We painted the walls, the baseboards, the cabinets and the windows. We changed the light fixtures. We restored the wooden butcher block on our center island. (I say "we", but in all fairness I have to give most of the credit to Alfie; the kids and I were the supporting cast).

Except for choosing a piece of artwork for one of the kitchen walls, we're finally done. It was a long, slow, difficult process, and it has taken me a while to recover from the trauma, but I'm finally ready to relive the experience, so over the next couple of months I'll be writing posts about the various areas we transformed, starting with the area around our kitchen sink.

I'm forever forgetting to take proper "Before" photos, but here's a shot to give you an idea of what we started out with: