Kate Warren

The lovely and talented, and also super sweet, J.M. Blackman has tagged me for the Super Sweet Blogging Award.

The process is quite simple.  Link back to the person who recommended you for the award, answer some questions about your favorite sweets, and tag a baker's dozen of other sweet bloggers.  Here are my answers to the decreed questions.

1. Cookies or Cake?   This is a hard one for me, but I'm going to have to go with cake.

2. Chocolate or Vanilla?  Usually chocolate.  Though I almost had a chocolate overload yesterday--a thing I did not think was possible before trying Culvers' Chocolate Oreo Volcano frozen custard.  The COV nearly had me convinced that there is indeed such a thing as too much chocolate.  Scary.  I shall avoid that flavor in the future.

3. Favorite sweet treat?  Um...other than chocolate in all its glorious forms?  Probably pie because there are so many variations.  And most are fruit-based, and fruit is good for me. :o)

4. When do you crave sweet things the most?  There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.  It really varies.  Except for a certain cyclical chocolate craving.  Regardless of what scientific experts say, that craving does exist, and it is triggered by hormones.

5. If you had a sweet nickname, what would it be?  Heck if I know!  I'm not very tall so maybe shortcake?  If anyone has any ideas of a good sweet nickname for me, please let me know. 

Questions answered.  Now it is time to nominate a baker's dozen (13, for those who don't know) of super sweet bloggers:

Teresa Cypher
Donna Cummings
Sara Barnard
Lauren Royal
Sarah Ballance
Emma Lai
Sandra Sookoo
Charmaine Gordon
Ann Swann
Carrie Crain
Joanne Stewart
Carrie-Anne Brownian
Kate Meader

That's it.  Now I must notify my nominees.  For this task I will use a combination of Twitter, blog comments, and Facebook.  Thank you for reading.  Please stop by again for a peek at my WIP The DeFord Chronicles, Part II for Weekend Writing Warriors on Saturday and/or Sunday.

Kate

It's your friendly Mayo Clinic, St. Mary's Hospital food critic coming to you live from the second floor atrium of, well I'm not quite sure which building I'm in.  Today's topic is food.  Why?  Partly because my son has started eating.  It's primarily Goldfish crackers, but it's a start.  If only we could get him to drink...  That's one of the hang-ups on getting him back home.  They can't determine his insulin dosage until he's eating at least semi-normally.

One other tiny thing is the 4 mm adenoma they found in his brain.  I've noticed that some of the doctors don't like to use the word tumor.  Probably because it scares people.  And it scares people even more when combined with the word brain.  The good news is, besides being in the tumor pee-wee league, this type of tumor is almost always harmless--heck, sometimes they even go away on their own.  The not so good news is that because of its location it could be causing or poised to cause a boatload of trouble.

The overall mood of the day has been a positive one.  And I'm pleased to report that Ben is happily watching SpongeBob DVDs from the Patient and Visitor Library, and even singing along with thte theme song.  I also found a fantastic children's book called Taming the Diabetes Dragon by Anne Dennis.  Her son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age two, and the book does a wonderful job of explaining the necessary care measures in a way children can understand.  Whether Ben will let me read it to him or not, I'm getting a copy.  It could help his siblings understand, and maybe his classmates.

On to the cafeteria food.  Pretty satisfied.  The pizza varies, depending on when you get there.  The pumpkin pie was a disappointment, but I do admit to being spoiled in that regard by a very old family recipe that leaves all challengers writhing in agony on buffet tables of despair.  The donuts are amazing.  Here at Mayo they apparently know that the secret to the world's best donut is to take your average, ordinary yeast donut, cover it with a thin film of standard glaze, and then add chocolate frosting. 

Concious of my decreased activity and my wish to be able to continue fitting into my clothes, I'm trying to make healthy choices (except for the occasional heavenly donut).  The produce here is great.  I ate broccoli the other day.  That's a big deal for me.  I have fruit every day, and I've been eating salad without being forced.  The nice ladies who work during the week have been rather unhelpful about the calories by heaping my plate and asking me if I'm sure I don't want something more.  I don't know where they got the idea that I need to gain weight, but their concern is touching.  Actually I think it might be the same lady each time, and it might be more of a "you're paying full price, you might as well get a full plate" mentality.  But I like to think she cares.

I'm getting tired and I've forgotten whether I actually had a point other than that the cafeteria food is pretty good, and things are probably looking up.  Still no word on discharge.  That all depends on Ben's stomach, and his head.  I'll keep the updates coming as I can.

From the second floor atrium, I'm Kate Warren with half-rambling news.