"If you give a mouse a cookie, he will ask for new tires"

Recently, I had to deal with a series of events that started out with needing a simple car registration renewal and ended up with me having to buy 4 new tires for my car. The whole incident reminded me of a children's book that I grew up reading that is called "If you give a mouse a cookie". Basically, it states that if you give a mouse a cookie,  he will ask for a glass of milk; if you give him a glass of milk, he will ask for something else; and so on, and so on.

So in my case the story went like this: if you need a new car registration they will ask for an inspection; if you need an inspection they will ask you to get a new tire; if you need a new tire, they will tell you that you really need 4 tires; and so on, and so on.

It occurred to me that by reading "If you give a mouse a cookie" I should have been prepared for this unexpected life event. Most adults don't look to children's books to learn their life's lessons, but I'm thinking that I may need to go back and re-read some of my favorite stories in order to prepare myself for other inevitable life lessons that may be heading my way.

Here is a list of other stories that I feel we as adults should re-visit:

1) Cinderella. Lesson: house work is very necessary. And if you get it done in a timely manner you can get all gussied up and head out for a night on the town. Just be careful, once the clock strikes midnight make sure you have appropriate transportation arranged in case yours turns into a pumpkin.

2) Sleeping Beauty. Lesson: a good night's sleep really can do wonders for your looks. Sleeping Beauty slept for a very, very long time and she woke up looking like she hadn't aged a day.

3) 101 Dalmatians. Lesson: always spay and neuter your pets.

4) Alice in Wonderland. Lesson: don't do drugs.

5) Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Lesson: If life just gets to be too tough, you can always move to Australia.

Leah-Tard, Britt-Tard

Growing up I was always a very intelligent child, constantly spouting out pieces of genius that always seemed to amaze my parents. They never would have guessed that a small child could be so intuitive, creative and thoughtful. Ok, that's not really true (mom and dad, please stop laughing), but like most kids I did sometimes provide my family with entertainment from the not-so- intelligent things that I would say.

One of these times happened when I was pretty young, probably about 3 or 4, not too long after I had been enrolled in dance classes. My sister Brittany was enrolled in gymnastics classes at the time, so we both went to an activity that involved the same article of clothing: a leotard.

Being the genius youngster that I was, I asked my mom the question that I was just dying to know: if my uniform was called a leotard, why was my sister's uniform also called a leotard? It just didn't make sense to me.. if mine was a leotard, then hers should have been a Britt-tard, right?

In my mind I thought it was a Leah-tard, so therefore my sister would wear a Britt-tard because we each had our own "tards".  That made perfectly logical sense to my 3-4 year old self (and it still kind of does, actually). I thought that everyone in dance, gymnastics or any other activity that involved a leotard each got their own "tard" to wear, making it an "insert name here - tard".

Needless to say my parents got a kick out of that one. My sister should be grateful that I was nice enough to let her keep wearing my "tards" as she continued to do gymnastics through the years. You're welcome, Britt-tard.

Heifer International

I mentioned in my previous post about how I have managed to acquire the nicknames "Heifer" or "Little Heifer" over the years, but thank goodness it was in no way a reference to my girth. It does however, have everything to do with what my name means.

I'm sure that everyone knows that their name  has a meaning, and if you don't then go look yours up in a name book or Google it.. you might be surprised to read what your name actually means. I know that I sure was.  I also understand that my parents are not the type to pick a name based on what it means, they chose names for my sister and myself based on the sound of the name itself and how it worked with our last name. At least this is what I tell myself.

So while other girls have names that mean "lady", or "princess", or "admiring", I have a name that means "weary" and "little heifer". Yes, that's right: my name actually means little heifer. Thanks mom and dad.

My friends took it upon themselves to deem that my nickname, and thus in high school my dear friends so lovingly referred to me as "little heifer". Don't worry, I assigned them all beautiful nicknames as well and used them as often as possible.

Fast forward to my Junior year of college at UNC: out of the blue one day I received a copy of "Heifer International" magazine, addressed to me. Seeing as how I am 1) not a cattle farmer, 2) not a meat buyer for a grocery store, and 3) in no way interested in the world of cattle, I had no idea why I would receive such a publication.

Then it dawned on me that perhaps my sweet, loving friends had in fact signed me up for a subscription as a joke in reference to my nickname. I asked each of them, and although they all laughed so hard they almost peed themselves at the thought of the idea, none of them took credit for the prank. I'm still not sure if I believe that none of them came up with the idea, but it's been 5 years and still no one has fessed up.

Oh, and I still receive Heifer International in the mail a few times a year. Despite the fact that I've moved 4 times since I first received the magazine, it still manages to find me wherever I go. Maybe it's a sign that I should just go ahead and buy a heifer, after all they only cost $500. Or maybe I'll start small and get a llama for $150. Or maybe, just maybe I should send a hiefer as a gift to my friends who first called me "little heifer". Shipping and handling not included.

Yes, I've started a new blog

Although I love writing about food and cooking, and plan on continuing to do so in the future, I decided that there are just way too many other things that I want to write about as well. So I've decided to create a new blog, one where I can express my views and opinions on anything and everything (you're all super excited, I know).

The title of my blog may be confusing to some people though, so I'm thinking that for my first post it's only appropriate that I tell the story of how I obtained my most frequently used nickname: Ree.

I have come to acquire quite a few nicknames over the years: leah-tard (that story to come later), heifer, little heifer (a whole different story that is to come later as well), penguin, sexual harassment penguin (still no idea how I acquired that one), and Coley just to name a few. But none of my nicknames have stuck more and been around longer than Ree.

When I was born, my sister at the age of 2 1/2 could not pronounce my name correctly so she would therefore call me "Rittle Rittle Reah" instead of "Little Little Leah" (yes, I've always been small). So for years my family would call me Rittle Rittle Reah as a nickname, until the day that my mom and my sister changed it all.

One day out of the blue my mom starts calling my sister (Brittany) "B", so in return my sister starts calling my mom (Donna) "D". Being the loving family that they are they decided not to leave me out, but "Lee" just wasn't going to work. That's when they instead decided to call me "Ree", short for Reah, and that has stuck with me ever since.

It has stuck so much actually that I don't remember the last time anyone in my family called me by my real name (unless I was in trouble, in which case my real first and middle names were used, and then I knew I had done something really, really bad).

So that's what this blog is all about, the world according to me, Ree.