Bill-Bill and Jasmine Rice

Those two things actually have nothing in common.

I think people should consider themselves fortunate when they are blessed with godparents.

I consider myself exceptionally blessed, because Mike and Ruth saw fit to bless Caroline and me with not one, but two sets of godparents.

There's Iris and Bill-Bill, long-time friends of my parents from church; Iris passed away when I was still in high school, and Bill-Bill recently turned 90. They are both wonderful, wonderful people.

There's also Dave, my dad's frat bro from University of Richmond, and his wife, Kathy. We get together with them and their kids, our "godsiblings," as we have so fondly dubbed them, all the time. Mallory is 22 and Taylor is 26.

Last night, my parents and Caroline and I made dinner and brought it to eat with Bill-Bill at his house. He lives with his sweet puppy, Lucky.

We had vegetable soup, French bread, tossed salad with Olive Garden dressing (my absolute weakness), a winter berry fruit salad, cheese and whole wheat crackers, sugar-free and fat-free chocolate pie, and iced tea -- a specially prepared low-cal, low-fat, low-sodium meal all around, and quite delicious! I didn't get to snap a pic because everyone's tummies were rumbling, but props to Ruth for such a fantastic and considerate meal.

This is a horrible picture (of me) with Caroline and Bill-Bill last year celebrating my birthday at Brio Tuscan Grille.

I'm thankful to have people like Bill-Bill, Kathy, and Dave in my life. I was getting sleepy in Bill-Bill's very warm house, but I was trying to savor the time we had together, reminiscing and looking at photo albums. After Caroline and I go back to school, we don't know when we'll see him again.

Now, about that jasmine rice...

Tuesday night, my parents decided it would be a prime night for steamed snow king crab legs, yellow corn, spiced turnip greens, rice, and applesauce. I was like, hell yeah! I don't think I've ever turned down crab legs.

Our family typically tries to eat low-sodium, low-fat, low-sugar dishes. Diabetes and high cholesterol run in the family, so we like to aim for dark greens, fresh as opposed to processed foods, and very little red meat (or in my case, none).

I decided I wanted to experiment with jasmine rice. I keep reading about it on Twitter, and I was curious. I wasn't disappointed, but I found it to taste almost exactly like plain white rice. Caroline added a pinch of garlic powder to hers, and she said it was quite good.

If you're a rice connoisseur or if you just happen to know secrets for how to spice up (not necessarily literally) rice dishes, I'd love to pick your brain!

Well, I'm off to Roanoke for the weekend to visit Ian! I'm still new at this whole blogging thing, but I'll do my best from a foreign location :)