Perseverance, the newest NASA Mars Rover, lands on the red planet today at 3:55 p.m. EST. Starting at 2:15 p.m. EST, you can watch the NASA coverage of the landing.

I was glued to my computer when Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012. It was a tense 14 minutes as everyone waited to see if the intricate maneuver worked. I’ll be watching as NASA attempts to land another rover today.

Perseverance looks a little bit like Curiosity, but it’s unique in two big ways. It’s collecting rock and soil samples that will hopefully be sent back to Earth. It’s also carrying the Mars Helicopter, a small drone called Ingenuity that will be the first object ever flown on a different planet.

I’m more excited about testing the helicopter than collecting samples, but planetary science is important. And if we don’t look for life, we’ll never find it, so I’m glad Perseverance will get its chance.

If you want to see the rover landing, you can watch it here on the JPL YouTube channel or go to the NASA website for other options. The countdown is on.

I was halfway through my pepperoni pizza dinner last night before I remembered that I was having pizza for lunch today. I don’t mind having pizza that often, but it made me wonder how much pizza people ate on average. I figured it was a lot, and I wasn’t wrong.

Whether the following facts are completely accurate or not, they’re a lot of fun. All the sites I checked agreed, but none of them was a primary source. However, these numbers don’t seem outrageous considering how much pizza I like to eat. Enjoy!

• Americans eat an average of 46 slices of pizza a year. That is 350 slices of pizza eaten per second.
• The average American eats 40 pizzas per year, 3 billion pizzas for the entire country.
• Every day, 13% of Americans are eating some form of pizza.
• There are 70,000 pizza restaurants in America. 9,000 of them are in New York City.

I feel like I’m average when it comes to my pizza consumption, but it would be fun to count how much pizza I eat in a year. It wouldn’t surprise me if I were above average because pizza is awesome.

Today is Fat Tuesday, but I’d rather call it Skinny Tuesday. I’m getting fitter for my June races and trying something new.

It isn’t a new diet or eating plan; it’s a checklist. I watched this Youtube video by Matt D’Avella on the power of checklists, and I thought maybe I could use one to stay on my health plan. It’s been a week now, and remarkably, it’s working.

I shouldn’t be surprised. I love completing lists and checking off each item. I made a list in the Notes app that came with my iPhone. It’s basically a sheet of paper with no bells or whistles. Each day I check off the healthy tasks as I do them. My goal is to finish the list. That seems easier than being on a diet.

The video says that checklists can help with many areas of our lives. I might eventually try it for other goals, but right now, I just want to succeed at this one checklist.

If checklists sound interesting, watch this video. I’ve seen many of Matt’s videos and found his advice helpful.

I once again signed up for Disney+ and am watching Wandavision. I’m catching up, so no spoilers. I’ll be back tomorrow with a new post once I’ve figured out what the heck Marvel is doing.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!

Many of us may write XOXO on a card today, meaning hugs and kisses. But why do we do that? 

First off, X means kisses, and O means hugs, right?. I think it would make more sense the other way since the X looks like crossed arms (or a hug), and the O could be an open mouth (or a kiss.) So why does X mean kiss and O mean hug?

The X has a more traceable past. People who can’t write often sign their name with an X. The X originated in the middle ages when people signed with a cross. They “signed in Christ,” and, therefore, it was trustworthy. 

Over time people would kiss their signature, and it was called “kissing the Christ,” and thus a sworn oath. By the seventeenth century, there are some writings where Xs are used to mean kisses in a letter, which may have come from the signature habit. 

Many sites agree with this history, but they all admit it’s sketchy. The origin of O for hugs is even worse. Some say that Jewish people would use O rather than a cross for their signature, but it seems odd that that would turn into hugs. It was more probably created as a symbol to go along with X once people started using X for kisses. 

We may live in a time when it is hazardous to give hugs and kisses freely, but we can always write XOXO on our cards and let people know that we love them.

We are experiencing our first and possibly only snowfall of the season. I’ve enjoyed watching the snow bury the grass and flock the trees through my office window. It has been snowing for two full days, and since I have nowhere to go, it’s a wonderful change.

We have several deer that live on our street and love to nibble on the many trees around our house. Since the snow began, I’ve seen one of them each day eating the cedar needles. This deer could stand under the cedar where it was dry, but instead, it stands out in the falling snow. I wondered why it didn’t care about the cold.

Deer have three traits that keep them warm in cold weather.

• They have hollow hair that allows air to get trapped and act as insulation.
• Their winter coat absorbs more sunlight.
• They produce oil on their skin that makes them waterproof.

With all that, it’s no wonder that the deer in my yard don’t care about the snow. They just can’t resist a cedar snowcone.

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

It is the year of the Ox. I was born in 1973, also a year of the Ox. I love reading Chinese zodiacs as much as I love reading western horoscopes. Here is a description of people born in the year of the Ox.

People born in the Year of the Ox are strong, reliable, fair and conscientious, inspiring confidence in others. They are also calm, patient, methodical and can be trusted. Although they say little they can be very opinionated. They believe strongly in themselves, but are also stubborn and hate to fail or be challenged. Although they do not lose their temper easily their anger can become explosive and impulsive. They are serious, quiet and not naturally sociable, which can make them dull. Ox people have a great deal of common sense.

Victoria and Albert Museum.com

I resemble many of these traits (actually a great many of them.) If you are an Ox, I hope you inspire confidence in others, and you’re not too stubborn.

I have decluttered 1,000 pieces of paper in just February. Ninety-nine percent of it was scanned before I recycled it, and this doesn’t include all the photos I’ve added (which is in the hundreds.)

What amazes me is that, even though I have scanned about 3,000 paper items in 2021, I still have thousands left to get rid of. The reason this surprises me is that my paper is organized.

I can put my hand on any bill from the last seven years. I know where all the articles I want to keep are, and I read them all the time. I don’t have horizontal piles of paper; everything is in a file folder, plastic folder, or binder. I like to organize, and my paper reflects this tendency.

Organizing isn’t my problem.

Hiding is my problem. After organizing my paper, I tucked it in a closet, a bin, a drawer, and a shelf. I spread it around, so it didn’t look like a lot. But as I am now discovering, IT’S A LOT.

At the rate I’m scanning things (about 100 items an hour), it will take me a few months to get rid of all the paper in my life. That makes me tired just thinking about it.

I haven’t reached the point where I can see the empty drawers, bins, and shelves because more paper keeps emerging. But I know that day will come, and I will rejoice.

Do you have an item in your life that has multiplied like Tribbles (those cute Star Trek creatures)? Apparently, they keep increasing unless you put a stop to it.

I have a plan for future papers, so my paper overflow can’t happen again. That is my favorite part. I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Realizing there is a problem is the first step. Accepting that you can stop the overflow is the second. The actual reduction isn’t hard, but it can be tedious. I’m sure the end results will be worth it.

I’ll let you know when that day arrives. Sometime in mid-March at the earliest.

My list is long, so I thought we could all use a little encouragement. When you feel a little overwhelmed, repeat, “I can do this.” 

Because it’s true.

I searched for a recipe to use up a bag of peanut butter chips and found one that called for all sorts of ingredients from my pantry. Oh, and it tasted good too.

I have a clear bin where I keep food that comes in bags like taco mixes, rice, and chocolate chips. Of course, I want to empty this bin so I rummaged through it to see what I could use.

Down at the bottom was a bag of peanut butter chips. I have no idea where this came from, but it was time for it to disappear. I googled recipes, and one caught my eye. Taste of Home had a recipe called Peanut Butter Granola Mini Bars. I could tell from the photo that it used oats so I checked it out.

Not only does it use oats (which everyone knows I’m trying to use up), it asked for peanut butter and honey, two other ingredients that I’d love to remove from my pantry. We have two containers of honey and neither one of us use it. Why did we buy it?

The recipe is easy to make and the results are delicious. I refrigerated the bars, which helped them hold together and made them less sticky. The combination of peanut butter, chocolate, honey, and oats is a winner. I have just enough peanut butter chips left to make another batch, and then that bag is gone. Decluttering the kitchen is tasty work.