We were pleasantly surprised to see darling fawn and her mamma eating grass in our front yard this morning. Chris and I stood quietly, steaming coffee mugs in hand, and took in the peaceful scene. I internally sighed with contentment and settled in for quiet wildlife watching.

And then, brrrrrrrrm! off takes the fawn, at full speed, like a little puppy full of energy. The idyllic scene of mamma and baby was interrupted by the bounding, leaping streak of energy. She went running up and down and around the yard for about 5 minutes – roaring off here, jumping and bounding off there.

I’ve never seen such playful activity out of a deer. The video is only 7 seconds. Imagine the little baby zooming around for five minutes. It wasn’t idyllic but it was delightful and mood lifting.

We don’t have a dishwasher in our home, at least not one that doesn’t have two legs and a brain. That means a lot of handwashing dishes. I’ve heard the rumor that it’s meditative but I don’t believe it. It just seems to take a lot of time, dry my hands out and I always manage to use the green scratchy side of the sponge on the silverware and scratch them.

Last week, I felt like I was scrubbing too much. I washed dishes in the morning before work and then, I washed dishes in the evening after dinner. I could have sworn my husband was not washing any dishes, whatsoever. Of course, in his defense, he was busy doing other things like the laundry, taking out all the trash loads and filling up the bird and chipmunk feeders, but still, his absence from the sink was duly noted.

So, I deliberately left dishes in the sink. The dishes did not miraculously get cleaned. I then felt justified to mention something about the inequality in the dishwashing.

Chris has done the dishes conscientiously for the last week. Because he’s a competitive guy, he’s suggested that we have a little check off list of who does what. That seems a little extreme to me. I also suspect I might lose.

Our household is not the only one that goes through this little housework tug-o-war though.

Women spent approximately 18 hours a week doing housework, according to a 2001 study by the University of Maryland. This is about 40% more than the men contribute. This doesn’t make much sense now that 49% of women work outside the home and contribute about 35% to the total family income. In fact, in 24% of homes, the woman outearns the man.

Yet, I suspect even in those homes, she’s still doing the bulk of the housework.

My dear husband Chris has been purchasing plants and delivering them to my office every week for over 2 years. He has never missed a week.

Unfortunately, I kill about 85% of the plants. A few do end up living. Those lucky plants end up at our home. For those that live long lives, thissmallish-but-cute planter from doe would look very unique.

Amber, who does all the newsletters for Bramble Berry, saw my blog post from yesterday.

She initially chortled with a bit of laughter but in a misguided attempt to spare my feelings, tried to pretend that she wasn’t laughing at my miserable bath bomb attempts. The conversation went something like this:

Amber: “Wow, I had forgotten um, how many attempts you did at the bath frosting.”

Anne-Marie: (indignant) “Well, it just goes to show you that greatness isn’t achieved in one try. After all…” Amber doubles over with laughter. Anne-Marie is forced to quit her soap boxing.

Amber: (laughing) “Seven tries! Pathetic. And those horrible green sprinkles. What were you thinking?!?”

Anne-Marie: (indignant) “See! This is what you need to do to reach success! Test, test, test! It took me almost four hours with all the recipe compounding, making the batches, washing the dishes …”

Anne-Marie breaks off again as Amber shrieks with laughter, “And you don’t even have a dishwasher!”

She’s right. No dishwasher and many dirty bowls to clean from the Bathcake Debacle. Ah, the glamorous life of an entrepreneur, reduced to washing dishes by hand!

As teeth get older, they start to lose some enamel which affects whiteness, shine and luster. Those of us that are more vain are thrilled that scientists are diligently working on a cure for losing tooth luster. Apparently chocolate has the same compounds that green tea does to help prevent enamel loss. Or, you could just skip the chocolate and use a flouride toothpaste. You’d probably harness more of those green tea weight loss benefits if you skipped the chocolate.

My favorite green tea is Pink Grapefruit infused Green Tea from Republic of Tea. It never seems to get bitter, even when I forget to take it out of the cup. Even better is that this tea is affliated with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and Republic of Tea, thus far, has donated $556,000 to the cause just from sales of this yummy tea.

Do something good for yourself and buy some green tea. And, if you’re feeling charitable, make it a Sip for the Cure tea and help others while improving your life.