Rainy-day reader

The children were skidding toward cabin fever this morning as the just-above-freezing rain continued. A brief outing to the grocery store, however, has restored the boys' interest in staying indoors. In celebration of domestic calm on a yucky day, I offer a few links.

David Owen offers stock-market grief counseling.

In his Broken Promise Land series, Waco Tribune-Herald writer (and family friend) J.B. Smith looks at illegal immigration, its dangers, and how a Baylor professor is helping identify those who don't survive. You might have to do a free registration to view the articles; it's worth it.

Nobody combines crafts and knitting with nature photography like Knitting Iris. I could spend all afternoon looking at her archives. Alas, I must bake cookies instead.

Update: About those cookies--I recently got a bottle of Saigon cinnamon. It's powerful stuff. Rocketboy used it to goose his morning cocoa and ended up with something so much like liquid Red Hots he couldn't drink it. However, if you use Saigon cinnamon in this recipe--without decreasing the amount of cinnamon called for--you will find Cookie Nirvana. And yes, that is my stage name.