I LOVE Neil Patrick Harris, and other stories from today

I've had a super busy day today. The two main themes from today were doctors and potatoes.

This morning I went for an annual doctor's checkup. I'm not sick or anything, but my health insurance company really encourages us to do our yearly preventative stuff, so I decided to go ahead and go. It was fine. My doctor is leaving Friday for a month in Italy, so we had a lot to talk about.

Also, I learned something interesting that is worth sharing. I always thought that the recommended amount of exercise was 30 minutes of exercise, 3-5 days per week. It probably was that before. The American Heart Association currently recommends exercising most days of the week ("5-6 days a week") for an hour each time. Whoa. That's a lot. And it's more than what is recommended for guys, my doctor said. Apparently they've decided that women benefit more from more exercise. "It's something to work up to, of course," she said.

The other reason my day was doctor-themed was that I received the first disc from Season 1 of Doogie Howser MD in the mail.

I love the show How I Met Your Mother, and while I was in New York a couple weeks ago, I told my friends all about it. And then after we did our Letterman taping, we stepped into the Buy Our Letterman Stuff! store, and HIMYM was on TV. "GUYS! Look! That's it!" I proudly told them. "Oh," one of my friends said, "Neil Patrick Harris is on it?" "What? The kid from Doogie Howser, I asked?" "Yeah, that's him right there." I had no idea! I love Barney. I didn't realize that he was the same guy who played Doogie Howser. (I never really watched Doogie Howser.)

And then my mom and I were talking about it the other day, and I think I told her how surprised I was to realize that he was the same guy. My mom said how fun it was to see him on the show because on recent episodes Barney typed onto a blue blog (which was a reference to Doogie Howser, who keeps a computer journal like that) and he also talked about how cool magic is. "Don't you remember Dad and I talking about seeing him at the Castle?" My parents are members at a private club in Hollywood, and apparently they've seen him there a bunch of times. AWESOME. I didn't realize my parents see Barney regularly (!) and in person (!). (And! Always SUITED UP!) I definitely didn't catch the reference to Doogie Howser with the blue screen, though, and my mom encouraged me to see some of the episodes (since I can easily get stuff like that with Netflix).

Well, that came today, and I watched the first few episodes. I love it! The funny thing about it is, in How I Met Your Mother, Neil Patrick Harris's character (Barney) is a total stud. He's handsome and charming, and he's AWESOME. And in Doogie Howser, I expected his character to be kind of dry or nerdy, but he isn't. He's a total stud in that, too, except just younger.

So now I'm totally jealous of my parents for getting to see him in person. I think Neil Patrick Harris is legen....dary!

The other part of my day was potato themed.

Basically, what happened was, on Sunday we had "Munch and Mingle" which is where people from church all stay afterwards and eat together. And talk together, so that we can get to know each other and find people to marry. Or something like that. And I'm part of the group that prepares the food. This Sunday we served loaded baked potatoes, with chili, sour cream, salsa, and a bunch of stuff. It was really good.

Afterwards, I went to the kitchen to help clean up, and the guy who is in charge of it all was throwing away baked potatoes. He tossed them into the trash one at a time, but there was a huge pile of baked potatoes in the big garbage can. "WAIT!" I stopped him. "Those are still good." (They weren't even opened. They were wrapped in foil, just out of the oven.) "Can't someone just take them home?" "I asked like 15 people and nobody wanted them." He kept tossing them. "And besides. Potatoes are like $3 for 15 pounds." "BUT!" I protested. "Do you want them?" he offered. "YES." I said.

So my roommate and I filled two big bags with right-out-of-the-oven hot baked potatoes. What are we going to do with all these? We discussed it, and I decided we would throw a potato party and invite everyone from our apartment complex.

So we did.

We made twice-baked potatoes, a real ham (which cooked all day) with ham sauce, broccoli and corn, and cut orange slices.

This afternoon I put fliers on everyone's doors in our whole complex. I had them printed on neon paper, and they said " WE KNOW YOU'RE BUSY BUT COME EAT ANYWAY!"

Quite a few people actually did come. Our kitchen and living room were both full of people. It was a huge success, and I think everyone who came had a great time.

And one final update: my garden is doing really well! I noticed today that a bunch of my plants already have roots that have grown through the little plant-starter things. And some of each type of plant is growing. Also, I ate my first home-grown strawberry yesterday. It was sweet, and full of flavor.