Red All Year list-in-progress

I am working on a list of cultural reasons to wear red every month of the year. Suggestions welcome!

January - Chinese New Year (sometimes in February)
February - St. Valentine's Day and Women's Heart Health
March - Red Nose Day, which coordinated fund raising efforts for Comic Relief, was March 18, 2011. Why not continue this tradition by wearing red and making a donation this day?
April - The Sasha has suggested wearing red to celebrate the Red Hat Society on April 25th!
May - Celebrate unions on May Day! Suggested in the comments.
June - Summer Solstice - I mean, why not?
July - With blue and white for Bastille Day or USA's Independence Day.
August -
September - I invite you to wear red to celebrate my birthday.
October -
November -
December - With green for Christmas or with green and black for Kwanzaa.

Six pairs of my red shoes. 

Alphabet Games to Aid Sleep

You know how sometimes you can't sleep at night because your mind is racing, filled with lists of things to do and things you've done? Yeah, I hate that. So I play alphabet games to keep my mind occupied with Silly Things rather than Important Things. Sometimes it's just applying a category to the alphabet: Positive adjectives! Awesome, Brilliant, Cool, Decisive ... Careers! Astronaut, Baker, Con Artist, Deep Sea Diver .... Sometimes I alternate between adjective and noun as I go through the alphabet: Aerodynamic Bog, Chipper Deviant, Eclectic Fishwife ..., but every now and then I go all out. 

I Love My Love 

I love my love with an A because he is awesome. I hate when he's anxious. His name is Aaron and he's an air traffic controller from Akron. He gave me an apple. 

I love my love with a B because she is bright. I hate when she's blameworthy. Her name is Bonnie and she's a beautician from Bangladesh. She gave me a betta. 

... etc. 

There are many variants of the "I love my love with a ..." games, most of which seem to be called The Alphabet Game. I'd love to know more about it. I guess a consultation of the Opies is in order. My introduction to this game was from Alice: 

'I see nobody on the road,' said Alice.

'I only wish I had such eyes,' the King remarked in a fretful tone. 'To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!'

All this was lost on Alice, who was still looking intently along the road, shading her eyes with one hand. 'I see somebody now!' she exclaimed at last. 'But he's coming very slowly—and what curious attitudes he goes into!' (For the messenger kept skipping up and down, and wriggling like an eel, as he came along, with his great hands spread out like fans on each side.)

'Not at all,' said the King. 'He's an Anglo-Saxon Messenger—and those are Anglo-Saxon attitudes. He only does them when he's happy. His name is Haigha.' (He pronounced it so as to rhyme with 'mayor.')

'I love my love with an H,' Alice couldn't help beginning, 'because he is Happy. I hate him with an H, because he is Hideous. I fed him with—with—with Ham-sandwiches and Hay. His name is Haigha, and he lives—'

'He lives on the Hill,' the King remarked simply, without the least idea that he was joining in the game, while Alice was still hesitating for the name of a town beginning with H. 'The other Messenger's called Hatta. I must have TWO, you know—to come and go. One to come, and one to go.' - Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll. 

Menu Planning

I'm lazy and I love vegetables and lists. My meal-planning strategy is based on these facts.

I start with the produce. During the Summer and Fall I participate in a farm share that distributes on Thursday afternoon, so I do my meal planning for the week Thursday evening.

This week's farm share has loose salad greens, purple basil, broccoli, parsley, FIVE CUCUMBERS, zucchini, scallions, summer squash, chard, beets, snap peas and a head of romaine lettuce. 

Once I get home with my haul, I think about what protein and carbs would be good with what vegetables. I'm a vegetarian, and I try to vary my protein and carb sources and combinations to avoid the (admittedly delicious) Constant Pasta Syndrome. 

Carbs list:

• Wheat – pasta, couscous, noodles
• Wheat – bread, pita, tortilla
• Potato
• Rice
• Corn
• Oats
• Beets/Squashes

Proteins list:

• Soy – edamame, tofu, fake meat
• Beans – black or pinto
• Beans – lentil, white or chick peas
• Quinoa
• Other seeds or nuts
• Dairy – yogurt, cheeeeeses
• Egg

I cook/prepare big batches of a couple of things a couple of times a week, and then alternate between dinner and lunch with those batches until they run out and I do it again. I've got some feta and eggs I definitely want to use this week, and a new bread recipe I'd like to try. With those things in mind, here are a couple of ways this week's farmshare could shake out:

Either:

Edamame, zucchini and scallions stir fried, over rice with a cucumber salad on the side.
Basil walnut pesto pizza topped with mozzarella with a green salad on the side.
(and then, a few days later ....)
Broccoli quiche (egg-based) with sauteed chard on the side.
Beet, walnut and feta salad.

Or: 
Broccoli fried rice (egg-based) with a cucumber salad on the side.
Make basil into pesto and freeze it.
Zucchini and pasta salad in vinaigrette with feta and chick peas.
(and then, a few days later ...)
Roasted root vegetables with marinated tofu and buttered snap peas on the side.
Lentil soup with chard in it, crusty bread and a green salad on the side.