As many of you know, my husband and I were in Maui, five miles north of Lahaina, when the huge fire hit. The winds were incredible, the smoke so black it was night. We'd been in Lahaina, our favorite town on Maui, on both Sunday and Monday, out on a dinner cruise from Lahaina harbor and back some six hours before the devastation.

The amazing 4th of July is now in the rearview. I won't forget the incredible fireworks we saw (Sausalito, Oakland and San Francisco) -- always awesome. The cities compete to see who can light the sky up with the most dramatic displays.

Organized chaos is just around the corner, leaving this Saturday for the OBX (The Outer Banks, N.C.) for our yearly family reunion with 40 relatives, maybe more this year since people keep insisting on procreating and so the list gets longer and longer and there's so much laughter and eating and ping pong and movies and yelling kids all you can do is go shopping.

Happy May: Lots of fun things this month: Cinco de Mayo, Mother's Day, Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day - lots of celebrations and gratefulness and maybe even some margaritas or Diet Snapple with a shot of Grey Goose.

Yep, that's right, we're calling it Super Bloom — what with all the rain in California, the flowers and wildflowers are going nuts, bursting out of their leaves or buds, depending on how persnickety you are, painting the hills red and blue but not black, thankfully.

We go from flowers and chocolates and mushy Valentine's Day cards (thank you, Hallmark) to green beer and parades and drunken orgies for St. Pat's Day on the 17th. Lots of folks visit Savannah for St. Pat's Day and believe me, it's a huge deal. Talk about wild parties and drinking your brains out, Savannah beats out Boston as the place to be and yes, been there, done that. You know, if you don't look, you really don't taste the green in the beer, like drinking non-fat milk, if you don't look at it, it tastes the same.

Happy Post Valentine’s Day with Chocolate yummies long gone but there’s still a happy smile on your face? Guys, if you scored chocolates too, do you enjoy the nuts and chews just as much as your significant other? With the result you want to see a romantic comedy? Put extra butter on your popcorn? Wear sexy boxers? Or not?

Happy first month of this brave new year: Let's talk new year resolutions: The old perennial – lose weight. I got an idea here: use only a dessert plate (that's right, dump dinner plates, bring them out only for skinny company), load up dessert plate once, and that's it. Walk thirty minutes 3 days a week and you'll be fit and ready to turn heads in how long? How about six months, if you don't cheat and you don't have a lot of skinny friends to dinner.

Merry Christmas One and All: So many of you have posted your Christmas decorations, particularly your trees, on my Facebook page. I'm always astounded at the creativity and uniqueness of what you guys come up with. On another note, those of you who are grieving this year and don't want to even recognize Christmas, please do me a favor: put up a tree, doesn't matter if it's big or small, and string lights. I swear to you every time you pass it, you will smile and the world will seem just a little brighter. And everyone, forget any disagreements with friends or family, put them aside and join together to celebrate this amazing time of year.

Happy Thanksgiving: I know most of you will have turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, and all the other goodies plus pumpkin pie for dessert. Moi? Nope, not this year. This blessed beautiful year I'm going to make pasties, our generational family steak pie (with thin sliced potatoes, bite-size steak, celery, onion, in layers) And a brand-new bottle of catsup. Then Black Friday's breakfast will be glorious – cold pasty (with tons of cold catsup). I'm already salivating. If you're a traditionalist, please do not mock me out or give me grief for this culinary aberration.