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Happy Valentine's Day! I started today off with a favorite breakfast from my childhood: oatmeal with raisins, a little bit of skim milk, and some Splenda brown sugar. Except back in the day it was REAL brown sugar, and lots of it. Which is one of the reasons I have to use the Splenda now, I'm thinking.

Check out what my valentine gave me:

I can't wait to use this! Dwight has had a hot stone massage before but I haven't; he loved it. I am going to wait until my body is good and sore to take full advantage of it. I love that guy.

I made the best dinner last night; so good that I had leftovers for lunch and I rarely eat leftover greens that are already dressed. It's the butternut squash and smoky black bean salad from Cooking Light.

If you decide to make it (and you should!), just a few comments: the butternut squash was done earlier than it says - I checked mine at 20 minutes and it was fine. And DO NOT chop the walnuts too finely! I learned that the hard way, as I pulled a pan of black carbon from the oven. And check them at five minutes; I think I did seven total the second time around. Oh, and the recipe calls for 9 ounces of baby arugula; I could only find 5 ounces at the store. I could probably have gone to Costco and gotten a bigger container, but the recipe only serves four, for God sake! There was a TON of arugula. It filled the entire salad bowl that I use when I make a salad for our family - when everyone is home. I was pretty hungry at dinner time, and I still couldn't finish my salad. The servings are LARGE.

You know how I told you about the Egyptian show that is currently at the Joslyn? Well, I was lucky enough to receive a free cartouche with my name spelled phonetically in hieroglyphs. Thanks, Jane. (You too can have one: $60 plus tax plus $12 shipping FROM EGYPT.)

At least it's supposed to say "Cathy". Or maybe "Kathy". I am always suspicious of things like that. Like tattoos that are supposed to say "persevere" or "love" in Chinese. I have a sneaking suspicion it might say "I love french fries." But anyway, even if it does speak to my love of fried potatoes, it's still pretty.

I thought I'd close by showing you a few photos of our shop so you can see how nice it looks, and how we have all things Egyptian. Cookie cutters? Got 'em. Egyptian playing cards? Check. Canopic jars? Check. Bowl and cup set? Check. Tote bag? Gorgeous handmade jewelry? Enameled Isis? Check, check, and check. (My iPhone didn't take the best pictures in the low light, but you get the idea.)

The double-strand necklace below is my current favorite piece of jewelry in the shop. It's made by Lynn Soloway, one of our artists. She's an art professor at Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska, and a world traveler. She buys and brings back stones and silver from around the world and crafts the most beautiful pieces. I tried this on last week when I was wearing a scoop-neck blue, white, and black striped top under a blue cardigan, and it looked pretty great. The lapis matched my cardi exactly - I may have worn it for a few hours....