Sometimes I’m willing to pay for convenience. These parchment paper sheets made their way into my cart, and I have no regrets.

Have you ever tried to wrestle with parchment paper? First off, the roll is longer than plastic wrap or aluminum foil, so it’s awkward to store. Then you roll a length out and it’s hard to cut. Then you try to make line your pan, and it’s not the right size, and the edges curl up, and you can’t get it to lie flat.

So, yeah. I’m glad these sheets exist.

Last weekend Andy and I went for a walk together in our neighborhood. Well, if we’re being pedantic it wasn’t technically our neighborhood. The neighborhood lines in Atlanta are funny. If you live in one, you know it, but the divide is much fuzzier to everyone else. So anyway, we technically crossed neighborhood borders, but we were within a mile of home. Just had to let that be known.

This wild gem of a community garden exists.

And I do mean wild. This house has been reclaimed!

(Obviously no one lives there.)

According to my mom, who is my on-call plant taxonomist and can identify species via texted pictures, this is a passion flower. It does grow a fruit, one of which we spotted, that is, in fact, passionfruit. However, the edible species is native only to Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. I doubt the caterpillar knows that.

I love living in an older neighborhood for the trees. Though, I also love that I live in a complex with none in it, because I’m sure I would worry about this guy falling on my house. It’s awfully majestic, though.

If we cross a different neighborhood border just to our north, there’s another touch of country in the city. An emu and his duck friends live there.

Atlanta is cool.

Apparently there is a whole genre of board and video games known as “co-op games.” This is pretty much what it sounds like: games where you play as a team and the outcome is good or bad for everyone. Andy has always been more into games than I have, though I have a few I like. But recently he ordered two new games from Amazon, and I offered over the long weekend to learn one with him, because I thought it would be a good way to spend time together. He told me to look at the two and pick one. I read the back of this one called Pandemic and selected it. To my surprise, it was a co-op game! His response? “That’s why you picked it, isn’t it?” Yes, I’ll be honest: I’m not always the best sport when it comes to games. I get frustrated when I don’t understand the rules, and I don’t like losing simply because I haven’t grasped the strategy yet. So especially for playing with only the two of us, a game where it was us against the board seemed like a good option!

We ended up playing about 4 rounds over the course of a lazy Sunday at home, and it was a lot of fun. There’s no secrecy; you all look at each other’s cards, know each other’s roles, and help each other plan out your actions. I tend to fall short on the long-term planning aspect of strategy games, so being able to pick Andy’s brain about my moves was useful. But then sometimes I had good suggestions, too. It was collaborative and enjoyable, and it felt more fun to win together than for one of us to beat the other. (Yeah, okay, maybe I’m a pacifist. I know plenty of people enjoy healthy competition with their spouse. There’s nothing wrong with that, but for me playing together was more fun!)

I’m about to share a secret with you that may just make you the most popular gal at the potluck. I’m taking a risk letting you in on this, because right now that title belongs to me. But it’s amazed me that every time I’ve prepared a crockpot full of this deliciousness, people rave about it. And I think good things should be shared, so here goes.

Deliciously Simple Slowcooker Meatballs

1 bag of frozen meatballs (I usually use Armour Turkey Meatballs)

1 jar of grape jelly (jelly, not jam–you want it to be smooth and to have added sugar)

1 bottle of chili sauce (it lives next to the ketchup)

Whisk together the jelly and the chili sauce to get some of the clumps out. It will look gross and you will wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into. Power through. Add the meatballs and stir to coat. Dump the entire concoction into your slowcooker and cook on low for some number of hours greater than or equal to 4. Serve straight from the crockpot. They’re delicious with King’s Hawaiian Rolls, but you can also eat straight off a toothpick.

For a variation, you can try it with li’l smokies (aka tiny hot dogs aka cocktail weenies).

People seriously think these are the best things ever. Someone asked me last time if I had made the meatballs. Oh, honey. No. If I’m going to bother to make meatballs, they’re certainly not going to sit in a crockpot for hours and hours…they’re going to right on top of a pile o’ spaghetti and straight into my belly. (I do love homemade meatballs.) But I’m glad you thought these were up to snuff! I always feel sheepish admitting how simple this recipe is. Someone asked me to write it down for them, and I was all, really, you don’t even need that. The hardest part is figuring out where to find the chili sauce, and I’ve demystified that for you.

I don’t know where I found this recipe the first time, or whose idea it originally was. I do know that one time as a kid, when my mom dragged me to an art gallery opening, I installed myself near the refreshment table and proudly counted how many cocktail weenies I ate. (It was a gross number.) They were probably in this very same sauce. I feel like this recipe is in every Southern woman’s arsenal, and now you can add it to yours, even if you’re a Southern man or a Northern girl. Go make these meatballs. You can thank me later.

One of the first times Andy spent time with my mom and me, he mentioned that she seemed very critical of me. My immediate reaction was surprise that he saw it that way, because I’d never thought that before. Upon further reflection, though, I realized he was right–but that it had never entered my mind because I also know that she loves me for me, unequivocally and unconditionally. And so I could take her criticism constructively.

I’ve realized that I have a favorite kind of person, and that it’s one who is critical of the world, of the people around them, who has extremely high standards and expectations, but who doesn’t withhold her praise, to the extent that you sometimes feel like you’re being praised simply for doing your job!

It’s amazing what a simple “thank you” can do for one’s self-esteem. Look, we know I’m incredibly hard on myself, often harder on myself than anyone else will ever be of me! My parents never had to fuss at me about grades, because they knew if I brought home a less-than-stellar one I had probably already beaten myself up over it. Their only question was, “Do you know WHY you got those answers wrong?”–a constructive response to make sure I learned the material and moved on. They didn’t need to punish me; that wouldn’t have been productive.

I could never do the visualization thing at swim meets, either, because I always visualized myself winning (natch), which wasn’t usually within my reach, and so then when I didn’t win, I would end up crying in the locker room. (No joke. This happened a lot.) One meet my goal was to place in the top 8 in the 200 backstroke and to break a certain time (maybe 2:30?). I placed 7th and went something like 2:29.99, so my mom met me after the race with a big grin and ready for a congratulatory hug. Instead I stormed off saying I hadn’t placed high enough and hadn’t broken my time goal by enough.

Not enough.

I expect a lot of myself.

So needless to say it doesn’t come as a surprise to me when other people expect a lot of me. And when I fall short of something, it comes more naturally to me to dwell on it and to be upset.

But what I’m learning is that high expectations can be a launching pad for personal development, and that people can appreciate your work even when you don’t feel like you’ve done anything special.

It may feel easy to me to take care of schedules and coordinate timing, but that’s not something everyone is good at. And so I shouldn’t brush it off when someone says, “Thank you for all you do.” They mean it. The things I do make life easier for them. Don’t equivocate, don’t belittle what you’ve done–take it. Say you’re welcome. And add it to your fuel tank to remember during the times you’re feeling low and feeling like you can’t accomplish anything.

Likewise, when you forget to send that email or inadvertently leave someone off the invite list and your coworker calls you on it, don’t get defensive, don’t make excuses. Say you’re sorry and make a mental note for the next time. Learn from it. They’re not discounting you as a human being. They’re pointing out an action that you didn’t take or an action that you took wrong, and all they need for you to do is to not do it that way again.

Criticism for criticism’s sake stings. But all criticism doesn’t have to.

So this is what I know: I’m critical of myself in unproductive ways, and so I have an incredible appreciation for the people around me who push me through that. Who are hard on me and expect a lot but who also appreciate me for who I am and what I do. When I’m built up by their appreciation (which I maybe don’t give myself enough of), their criticism makes me grow. And who doesn’t need a little of that in their life?