Stephanie in Suburbia

Where I Face the Music

2011-10-24T21:34:00.000-05:00

In addition to the car drama, a lot has been happening around here. I am about to start a new job, and just as I was prepared for that, an opportunity came up to continue working with my current position on a contractor basis. This means a lot more money for our family, which is more than necessary with two car repair bills looming.

It also means a lot of hours away from my family, something I've struggled with while making the decision to keep both positions. For the next few months, I have to put my big girl pants on and accept that the things that are taking me away from my family for the short-term will ultimately allow us to comfortably spend more time together in the long-term...and hopefully grow our little family, too!

It means I need to make a conscious effort to spend every non-working second keeping my marriage and my parenting as the biggest priority.

And this means taking a longer hiatus than I had planned.

As much as I wish I could do it all, I know I can't. As much as I know I will miss this outlet and corner of the Internet, I also know I would miss so much more if I didn't take a step back for awhile.

I won't pretend there won't be days where I'll want to post, and maybe I will. And I hope to be back to posting as usual after the holidays. In the meantime, I look forward to keeping up with as many blogs as I can and seeing you all on Twitter and hopefully some of you in person.

I hope when I return, I'll see all your smiling faces and amazing comments. For the last two years, I have depended on you and turning my back on that, no matter how brief, isn't an easy decision. I don't ever take that for granted.

All my best for a beautiful and happy rest of the year!

Stephanie

What Fresh Hell?

2011-10-17T17:08:00.000-05:00

I wanted to wax poetic about how I got an awesome new job and how excited I was to start a new adventure.

To celebrate my adventure, I went away with some friends to Wisconsin. Near the site of my recent rocky road incident.

I had some celebratory Prosecco and so allowed Scott to drive the car I had borrowed from my sister-in-law.

All of a sudden one of my friends yells "WATCH OUT" and I hear SLAM, followed by seeing a hoof and a very airborne deer.

To put this in perspective: that is two trips to Wisconsin resulting in a car being put into the shop. That's two car repair bills, if my car can even be repaired.

And that pretty much takes care of any extra money I was making at the new job.

I've been trying to keep a stiff upper lip through a lot lately. We seem to repeatedly hit financial setbacks right when we think we have our finances where we want them. Additionally, there's the fact that I hurt someone else's car, and all of the drama and horror that went with making that phone call.

I just don't have anything to spare at the moment, so I'll be taking a hiatus this week.

Hope your days find you deer-less and healthy this week!

Potty Power or Well of Course She Did

2011-10-14T07:00:00.002-05:00

So my parents have taken to picking Wee 'Burb up on Thursdays and hanging with her. She gets pancakes and Elmo and all of the other awesome grandparent things that go along with that.

Really, this couldn't work out better for Scott and I. It's quiet time, sometimes a date night, sometimes just catching up on Tivo and eating dinner together. It's magical.

So we go to pick Wee 'Burb up after a rather awesome dinner at a malt shop nearby. We were high on peanut butter and chocolate malts and Wee 'Burb was high on grilled cheese and Elmo movies.

My parents hand me the daycare daily sheet and point out where it says she sat on the potty. I tried to ask her if she sat on the potty at school and she giggled, pointed to their dog and yelled "CASS!"

The dog's name is Cash.

The kid is Fort Knox about what she's into at daycare, I tells ya.

I almost forgot about it but in the car I said to Scott "you don't think she like..is potty-training at daycare, do you?"

We both snorted. We had a traumatic experience a few months ago when we ordered her an Elmo potty chair only to discover it has like 100 sayings in 4 or 5 languages. Traumatized, I forced Scott to disable the voice and we kind of didn't talk much about potty-training after that.

I mean, really, what's the kid going to do in the real world when Elmo doesn't cheer her on for dropping a deuce? Right? Isn't it just setting her up for disappointment??

Anyway, since then she's sat on it, oh, like 4 times. She's very fascinated with flushing the big toilet and every time she farts she declares "I poo-poo."

That's the extent of training.

Confession time: I kind of like diapers. I know, apparently this makes me a freak. But honestly, they're super convenient. Expensive, yes. But so damn convenient. 3-hour trip to a cabin in Wisconsin? It's cool, she has a diaper. Grocery cart full with only 10 minutes before we have to be somewhere? It's cool, she has a diaper.

You see where I'm going. Also, in addition to my selfishness, I just kind of assumed potty training would come a bit late to Wee 'Burb given our walking dilemma.

So I go in to the daycare the next morning and a teacher confirms that it was probably a mix-up, that there is a girl with a slightly similar name to Wee 'Burb and the new teacher probably mixed up the charts.

Confession time: I had kind of hoped she had just, you know, taught herself to go potty.

Later that day, I pick her up and the teacher writes on the sheet that this is NOT a mistake. In fact, Wee 'Burb has been sitting, and sometimes actually going, on the potty at daycare.

Wazza...whah????

Apparently her seeing other kids do it was just too much and she has been asking every day since at daycare to sit on the potty. She only goes a few times, and she has ZERO interest in sitting for more than 12 seconds on the now-silent Elmo potty here at home.

I by no means think this means she is potty-trained, or even really that ready to make this happen for reals.

But somehow it just seems right that every time I think I know how to guide my daughter developmentally, she has a different idea.

So now, moms, I need your help. I want to say this: NO JUDGMENT! I don't want anyone saying anything negative about anyone else's comments or thoughts. I DO want to know how you potty-trained your kiddo. What worked as a reward system? What didn't work? How long did it really take?

Not Sure I'm That Kreativ

2011-10-12T07:00:00.002-05:00

Ryan over at The Woven Moments gave me this loverly award recently.

Coincidentally when I had actually given her the 7x7 award I had received.

So the challenge is to come up with 7 random things about me. Because I just tagged a bunch of people in my 7x7 post, I'm not going to tag anyone. I decided to make this 7 things I am afraid of.

1. I'm afraid of carcass. I love meat, but I can't deal with anything in the form it was when it was alive. One of my biggest accomplishments was making Thanksgiving turkey. I only cried for a few minutes. It's not like I feel there's a soul or whatever, it's just too primal for me to deal with.

2. I'm constantly afraid people will be hurt. Whenever I hear a traffic accident or see anything on the news, I have to go through in my head where all my loved ones are to see if they are in the vicinity. If they were, I have to call or e-mail. One time there was an accident near where Scott was working and he didn't answer his cell. I cried for an hour, paced for another hour, texted and called him excessively. Turned out he was on a job site with no cell phone access. He thought it was "sweet" that someone cared that much. And he now knows to text me whenever he will be late, even if it means leaving his work site.

3. I'm afraid to speak Spanish. I'm technically fluent. I studied it through college, I can understand it almost perfectly. I can speak it almost perfectly...technically. But I am so afraid of being judged, I don't speak it enough with native speakers, and therefore my accent isn't what it used to be, which makes me more afraid. Here was just one incident where this was a bad thing.

4. I'm afraid I have no personal style. I'm always jealous of people who walk in a room, no matter their size or appearance, and they just OWN it. Because they are 100% confident in their skin and style. Here's a good example of why I am like this, and why it bothers me.

5. I'm afraid I'll miss things. I'm about to take on some things in life that will mean more time away from Wee 'Burb. While I want to believe in the long run that this will show her that women can hold positions of power, that I will do almost anything to try to relate to what my daughter will be going through in the future, the reality is in the "now" I will miss some things. And I worry she will resent me for it instead of really understanding why I do it. I know, I know. She's not even 2.

6. I'm afraid I won't be able to let go of my body issues. I am working so hard, between seeing a nutritionist and a personal trainer and meal planning. I don't ever want my daughter to be where I am, to be feeling like despite my best efforts, I will not be able reach the goals I wanted for my body. I want her to love food and not worry about what it will do. I want her to try new foods, to always see healthy as a flavorful option. And yet, I know that her growing up in this media-rich collarbone-obsessed society...that's not likely. And a part of me dies every day knowing she might look in the mirror and not see how amazing she is.

7. I'm afraid the wrong decision will lead to ruin. I'm not talking about my recent car drama, but more that as I look to change some things in my life, particularly as it relates to work, that it will be wrong for my family. Currently I am the breadwinner and there's pressure to make all the right financial decisions to make sure we're all taken care of. If I fail, for once it's not just me who will fall, it could be my family, our lifestyle. In a weird way, the pressure is exciting and driving, and then on the other hand of course it's just stifling and overwhelming.

What are you afraid of?

Rocky Road, Indeed

2011-10-10T07:00:00.001-05:00

I feel I have a healthy fear of cars, a fear that has been slightly alleviated by having a husband who likes to tinker with them. But overall, I live in a constant state of anxiety that I will do something totally insane and my car will blow up.

My nightmare came true a couple of weekends ago. It started off so wonderfully, you guys. I had packed up Wee 'Burb and met my roommate at her work and we took the tot off on her first girl's weekend with my sister-in-law at her cabin.

It promised to be magical: Wee 'Burb got to play with the puppies, the adult chickies would drink some vino and play in the hot tub and watch some movies. It was meant to be a relaxing weekend I had so very much needed.

And then GPS happened. You may recall my GPS was horrifically stolen recently, and Scott kindly lent me his.

Yes, I've been to her place before. But I'm one of those people who, when I am riding in a car, I play with the radio, eat a lot of junk food, babble a lot, and pay ZERO attention to where I am going. GPS, my friends, was a necessity.

And the complete undoing of my life.

It was all going along perfectly, I even recognized the dirt road to my sister-in-law's cabin. The problem is, I couldn't remember what side she was on and all the houses have long dirt driveways with lots of trees. GPS was telling me it was somewhere I was confident it was not, so I went past the non-existent driveway that she was insisting I take and decided I would turn around and call my sister-in-law.

I found a road I thought I could turn on (the road I was on was super skinny and full of trees, didn't want to damage my car with branches, you see). It was all going good for about 50 feet or so when I kind of noticed that the road was also getting thinner.

Before I could realize that, I heard the most ungodly THUMP followed by my stomach going into my throat.

Roommate and I GASP and look ahead of us. She aptly described it as "Titanic: the boulder version."

By this point, I felt I was pot committed. There was nowhere to turn around.

I absolutely, positively should have just backed up. Every fiber of my being told me to back up, but I just...I kept going.

I don't know why. Perhaps boulder #3 occurring simultaneously with branch #200 on my roof just turned my brain to mush. I don't know.

At this point, the hood of my car started smoking and there was an awful stench. I looked everywhere, no lights. Nothing came on. I stopped and looked under the hood.

For what? Right? I mean, unless wires were exposed or something was on fire, I wasn't going to KNOW anything was wrong.

But we didn't see anything so I felt like the only thing I could do was do a 50-point turn and go back over boulder Titanic and pray. I had to get off this road, which meant going back over what I was sure was certain death for my car.

Every time I tried to steer around a rock, another one would hit my tire or another branch scraped the top and I felt the bile rising as I tried to hold back tears. Wee 'Burb was DEAD QUIET in the back, sensing that the Roommate and I were going to lose it any second.

I finally called my sister-in-law and figured out where I was, got to her house and saw more smoking. As soon as I turned the car off, my car, my sweet lovely car with over 100,000 miles on it, she started bleeding.

Seriously, dark red fluid pouring out of the vehicle as I stared on, completely helpless.

After my awesome brother-in-law consulted with my equally awesome sister-in-law and I simultaneously tearfully thanked my awesome husband for not telling me how stupid I am, everyone concurred that it was transmission fluid mixed with oil.

Which meant both pans were gone.

I was okay with this. Assuming that was "all" that was wrong, I had resigned myself to leaving my car in Wisconsin and facing a pretty hefty bill. Small price to pay for another 100,000 miles of no car payment.

Thankfully my in-laws had an extra car to lend me, we had free towing thanks to my Roommate, and we managed to get through the weekend drunk and happy.

Until I was informed by the mechanic that I drive a Saturn.

Yes, I know I drive a Saturn. This wasn't news. I'm not that stupid about cars.

I also know that they don't make Saturns anymore. Which means the part that I need? Doesn't exist.

Well, it does. Possibly in Pennsylvania. It's, seriously, the ONLY ONE out there and they're not keen to part with it. If they did, it would be $400.

My car is worth $1300 max.

All this is to say, please pray for me as I pull the girl card, crying softly while calling junk yards on my lunch hour today to see if they have Saturn parts.

Otherwise, know anyone who is selling a car?

Please tell me I am not the only directionally challenged one. And also that I am not the only one who has done something stupid knowing full well while doing it that it's stupid.

Drawing the Line

2011-10-07T07:00:00.001-05:00

When I was in Elementary School I recall doing a lot of art projects. I remember being slightly excited and more than slightly anxious when they were assigned.

You see, I loved tag board. I loved the idea of art, though my execution was terrible.

I did not love my lack of creativity and the inevitable "help" my mother would offer.

Each trip to Target meant we would buy two pieces of tag board, the first being a practice piece, you see.

Each time I thought for sure I wouldn't need the second piece. I would get it right the first time.

I should have bought stock in the stuff.

I've never been one to focus on anything artistic. Even now, I use Shutterfly as my only means of Scrapbooking and PowerPoint as any illustration I ever need. If it takes more than an hour to do any project, I'm just not that interested.

You could say I have artistic ADD.

Anyway, my mother is a perfectionist. She would immediately begin "helping" by drawing lines with a ruler and getting out stencils. While other children were out there (GASP) free-forming their text on tag board, I sat with ruled lines and small dots to indicate the spot where the stencil should butt up, thus allowing for even and clear spaces between letters for maximum legibility.

Making the lines took about an hour, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to do anything beyond that. While most kids were willy-nilly gluing on objects from magazines and catalogues, I was story-boarding my ideas by carefully placing items down on the tag board in the form I wished them to be later.

If those were deemed appropriately spaced, I would then draw a line at the top and bottom of the item so I would know where to glue when I was finally allowed the glue stick.

Back then I saw my mother as a demanding perfectionist. Now I think she just wanted us to take pride in our projects. I think she was encouraging us to think and plan before doing. Just as I would always write an outline to a paper, having a plan before execution was crucial to tag board art in her mind.

Wee 'Burb is too young for any kind of art, really. Though I do of course hang her "sticker art" from daycare (which is exactly as it sounds, she places stickers on a piece of paper). When she's old enough for art, I doubt it will involve tag board. Instead, it will involve whatever future form of illustration software is out there.

I wonder, though, if I will be standing over her, encouraging her to count cursor spaces between illustrations and double check her fonts are all sans serif.

How did your parents "help" with your homework growing up? Were you grateful for their involvement or resentful? What do you think now as you're older? How do you plan to help your children or students?

Mute This!

2011-10-05T07:00:00.001-05:00

Our lifetime has brought about some pretty damn amazing technological breakthroughs, wouldn't you agree?

But none quite as miraculous as the power to selectively mute certain people.

Here's the gist:

Matt Richardson, a video producer for technology magazine Make, likes to keep the TV on in the background while he works but got irritated when certain celebrities came on the air. So he invented "The Enough Already," a device that let him put those bothersome blowhards on mute automatically.

Using a versatile piece of computer hardware called Arduino, Richardson cobbled together an infrared device that he programmed to decode his TV's closed-captioning system. The device monitors the closed-captioning track in real time, and automatically puts the TV on mute for 30 seconds when certain keywords—the ones Richardson programmed it to pick out—appear. He made it in about a week, working in his spare time, he told CNN, and his prototype cost about $70 to put together.

I submit to you the Top 5 words/people (in no particular order) I would mute if given the technology:

1. Taco Bell
2. Kardashian (all. And since they're all the same, they count as one).
3. Fox News
4. Chelsea Handler (she's not funny, do not argue this with me, you will not win)
5. Palin (any and all)

Please share yours!

Oh, The Shame or How I Failed as a Toddler Parent Part #342

2011-10-03T09:49:00.000-05:00

Dear Parent,

It has come to our attention that your child has shown up to school without some requested Learning Material. We understand you may be used to a home school environment, where you merely walked across the street in your pajamas and willingly dropped your child off with a mixed-age group of bandits to do God knows what with Nobody knows who.

We here at La Petite Academy* expect something a little different from our Parents. We have carefully laid out a curriculum to make your daughter a productive member of society. As such, we expect that our Parents not only participate in, but also embrace our philosophy of collective learning.

Perhaps you look at your child and simply see a teething diaper-wearing toddler on the precipice of discovering the potty and a big girl bed. You scoff: but she's not even two years old!

Well, Parent, we here at La Petite Academy expect just a little more from our Parents. We expect involvement in your child's curriculum. After all, do you think President Barack Obama got where he is today by having a Mother who simply ignored a calendar curriculum? Had she said to herself "Oh, I am so busy, my toddler is throwing tantrums today, I can't be bothered to bring in the required Learning Material," what would have become of the man we know today?

I think our point is clear, Dear Parent. We respectfully request that you reconsider your lack of participation in this matter and bring in your pre-presidential child's required Learning Material at your earliest convenience.

Thank you for your attention and cooperation in this matter.

Sincerely,

La Petite Academy Faculty, Toddler Director

*Names changed to protect the innocent
** Okay, here's what really was sent home, but the message is clear, no?

*** My shame knows no bounds.

Where I Give You My Super Secret Meal Planning Strategy...Because I Was Told To

2011-09-30T07:00:00.001-05:00

For quite some time Life with Baby Donut has been asking me to give the details about my meal planning strategy. In particular, she was interested in knowing more about my recipe binders.

The binders started actually as one binder, and it was used to simply hold recipes I tore out of magazines. For some time, I had boxes of food magazines with flags attached. Shockingly they weren't used. Also shockingly, I had zero room for them.

So I just tore them all out and stuffed them in the binder.

Shockingly, them just sitting in the binder also didn't lead to much success in meal planning. So I finally got it together and organized the binder by food type (poultry, beef, pasta, etc).

Once I had the organization, I felt liberated! I started reading more and more magazines and filing more and more recipes and all of a sudden the one binder was overflowing. It was challenging to do meal planning for different things: when I wanted to have a healthy meal versus when we were entertaining or just wanted to indulge a little.

And thus my idea was born: I would arrange one "healthy" binder and one "entertaining" binder. I defined healthy as 400 calories or under.

My process goes like this:

Find a binder. I really like a bigger 3-ring binder, and I think it's important for it to have pockets for some items that won't do well with three-hole punches.

Make your own categories. I chose to organize mine by type of meat because more often than not, I look in our freezer to see what we have extra. You may wish to sort by entree, time, slow cooker recipes, whatever floats your boat.

Make tabs for that category. All I used to make the tabs were manila folders that I tore in half.
As I go through magazines, I yank out recipes and put them in a folder I keep in the binder until I can organize them.

My Folder 'O Recipes

My "Tabs"

I punch holes in them with my handy dandy three-hole puncher and VIOLA!

Did I mention I need a new binder? I kind of overstuffed this one. So many healthy recipes, YAY!

Then when I am ready to meal plan, I go through the recipes and just put them here on my handy dandy recipe holder (which, incidentally, comes from the husband and I kind of want to replace it).

I have to say, our three-week meal plan was pretty ideal. We purchased all of the non-perishable items and then just shopped for the fresh stuff the week of. Game-changer, people! We've wasted significantly less food and while we certainly went out to eat a few times in there, for the most part knowing we had a meal more or less waiting for us at home made a difference.

One new thing I did with the meal plan was also pick a veggie side. The Sister Wife and I were discussing that we would be more willing to eat veggies more often if they just tasted like something. So I can declare success with spinach and pine nuts; Parmesan broccoli; and green beans and bacon. Amazingly, each item was pretty healthy b/c the toppings weren't overdone, but it gave them a lot of flavor.

Peppers with Parmesan and Thyme

So that's it! How do you plan your meals and/or organize your recipes?

Lola's Rant: THE HORROR, THE HORROR!

2011-09-28T07:00:00.001-05:00

Please welcome Lola again! When she told me this story, I begged her to write this up, as I think it's blog gold!

Who here remembers their first driving lesson? I know I do – I almost plowed into a parked van trying to execute a left turn. Good thing those instructor cars came with two sets of brakes. Then there was confusing the gas pedal with the brakes on a road test with my dad. Certainly an unforgettable experience – especially for my dad!

I got to appreciate his bravery a little bit more just a few weeks ago, when I gave my very first driving lesson. Did I mention that it was to my mom?

That’s right. My mom still hasn’t learned how to drive, and now that my parents may be moving to a much more car-intensive city, I finally managed to talk her into giving it a whirl.

So picture this: a deserted parking lot on a weekend. It’s almost dusk. I get into the passenger seat and it sinks in – I have absolutely no control whatsoever. All I can do is hope and pray that I can talk her through navigating around the mailbox and the street lights. And really, that’s not a comfortable place to be.

But hey, this was all my idea and I at least have to look like I’m totally okay with this (and not having a little mental freak-out).

She gets in the car, which is already running (it’s cheating, but it’s our first lesson, so whatever). I kindly ask her to adjust the mirrors. She refuses because “she doesn’t know how to use them.”

Dear Jesus, if I get home alive and without serious damage to my vehicle, I promise to build several churches in your honor. But hey, gotta stay calm! The last thing I want to do is freak her out by letting on how nervous I am!

So she puts her foot on the brake, puts the car in Drive, and we sloooowly take off. Watching her go, I begin to understand who I get my overcautious nature from – she’s not exactly a giddy 16-year-old who’s, like, totally psyched to finally get behind the wheel.

Like, omigawd!

So we start making figure eights around the parking lot at a snail’s pace. At some point, I actually relax enough to start having evil, envious thoughts – my first driving lesson didn’t go this smoothly! Somehow, the idea that my mom is a better neophyte drive than I was overrides the terror within me. The little voice inside my head that was screaming “she’ll kill us all!” five minutes ago is now saying “you got served! By your mom!”

But I look over and she’s actually kind of enjoying herself. I suggest we try the gas pedal (you can imagine the speed we were going just riding the brakes). She does. We don’t hit a chestnut tree.

Woo hoo! My mom ROCKS, people!

I guess this is that same mixed feeling of terror and pride that parents get when their teen finally starts to drive. It’s sort of overwhelming. Plus I’m getting just a tad nauseated from going in circles over and over. And yet I don’t say anything, because it really is quite an amazing feeling to watch someone take one tiny, miniscule step toward conquering a huge fear.

What the hey, I’m actually very proud of her!

The moment is ruined when some kid shows up to learn to ride his bike on that very same lot. Somehow, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to mix the two forces of destruction. We pull over without incident and I get out and walk over to the driver’s side on jelly legs.

Sitting in the car, I start thinking how something that I find so easy, so automatic – like breathing – can seem so daunting to someone else. Someone who’s even afraid of the mirrors. And about how little it takes to feel a bit more empowered.

Not that I’m itching to have a second driving lesson with mom anytime soon. Not until she learns to adjust the mirrors, anyway.

Do you remember your first driving lesson? Do you have more respect for whoever had to be in the car with you now?

Two Years

2011-09-26T07:00:00.005-05:00

Brooke over at My Small Soldiers kindly gave me an award recently and I saved it until today because I thought it was a great prompt to look back.

You see, I've been doing this for two years. I debated whether I would even say anything. I'm not the type to wax poetic about what blogging has done for me. I love it, I love my readers and the world it has opened up, but I won't sit here and pretend there haven't been times where I wondered what I was doing.

Want proof? I initially wrote "wax poetic about what blogging has done TO me."

Still and all, I am proud of almost everything I have written here. It has given me the outlet I craved to continue creative writing without the pressure of assignments or deadlines.

Choosing 7 was harder than I anticipated, but here goes nothing:

Most Beautiful:

Where I Worry Someday My Daughter Will Experience The Lonelies
One of my favorite lines: But as I looked down at my daughter, I wondered: how do I tell her that if she gets that feeling, that lonely feeling, she’s in the wrong crowd, she’s with the wrong person?

Most Helpful:

I Don't Know if I Helped Anyone, But My Advice on What to Do Before Getting Married Did Inspire Conversation
One of my favorite lines: But I think for most couples, cohabitation is imperative to really understanding how your relationship will progress. When you each have your own corner to run to when things get tough, it's just not the same as having to be in the same space and work it out.

Most Controversial:

This Wasn't as Controversial as I had Feared, but I Dared Write About Spanking.
One of my favorite lines: As I may have mentioned, I love me some Dr Phil and he says something that has always stuck with me. “When you have a child, you write on the slate of who they are every day.” Well, if that’s true, Amber and Gary’s kid’s slate is covered in expletives, smeared with Dorito dust.

Most Popular:

Stats Don't Lie: People Love When I Write About TV
One of my favorite lines: (these were the days before Oz, so I am sure it was put nicely, but the moral of the story was you either get shivved in the shower or you become some big man’s lady).

Most Underrated:

I Thought Slapping Someone at a Church Function Would Have Garnered More Enthusiasm and Interest.
One of my favorite lines: You could hear the smack followed by just total silence until Scott gasps to the woman next to him “did that dude just hit his wife??!!” and the woman nods and Cowboy Hat abuser has now realized what he’s done and pats her head and said something like “that was harder than the demonstration required.”

Most Surprisingly Successful:

Talking About My Mistakes in a Serious Way was a Departure for Me, but People Got the Message (and nobody got hurt)
One of my favorite lines: In my heart, all I wanted in the world was to crawl in that car and tell her how sorry I was, to hug her children and her and tell her how reckless I was, how incredibly self-absorbed I was to think getting to that restaurant sooner was worth more than her children.

Most Pride Worthy:

Where My Empathy Brings Me Back to Childhood
One of my favorite lines: Constantly starving for attention, not always understanding that the attention I was getting was at my expense, or not caring. I took everything so seriously, I never got the jokes.

So, seriously, thank you to Brooke because this was a great way for me to look back and realize how much I've written that I am truly proud of.

Here's who I would love to hear from on their blogs, and thus I bequeath them this award (and even if they don't accept, you should visit them and love them as I do):

The Woven Moments
It's Blogworthy
Life with Baby Donut
Fragile X Files
Not a Perfect Mom
La Petite Pancake
HungriGyrl

And I would actually love if all of you commented on either a post of mine that's your favorite, or a post of yours you are most proud of.

A Flower in the Prison Cell Makes All the Difference, Don't It?

2011-09-23T07:00:00.001-05:00

Are you sick of me whining about having to commute now?

Let's do something more fun, shall we? Let's talk decor. Namely, what do you do to make your cubicle feel like YOU?

I figure there are some basic dos and don'ts. Do keep it tasteful and simple. Don't put up religious stuff or advertise how much you like booze. But I'm just not sure how to go with it beyond that.

I have a home office that my awesome husband built. Did I mention he's awesome? Because he BUILT IT! Sadly, I am not awesome and because I tend to end up watching a lot of TV on the couch, I didn't really decorate it. My office now looks more like this.

Organizers: UNITE!

Obviously, I can't keep this kind of trashiness in a cubicle at work. So I want something orderly, personalized, something that will make me feel as at home as I can possibly feel.

Naturally, I went to Twitter first and got these great responses:

So, definitely pictures of my kiddo. And here are a few other odds and ends I have lying around that I'm considering putting in.

We call him Chairman Oink.

Also, I kind of figured I'd step into this century and give Pinterest a shot. I didn't find a lot that I feel I could realistically do, but there were a few nice ones:

I like the idea of some wallpaper.

I really love the idea of these hanging portraits. Maybe smaller ones w/ photos. But kind of serene.

Doesn't this just look so tidy and beachy??

So, share your wisdom, oh cubicle/office dwellers. How do you decorate? What's your favorite thing in your cube? Are there no-nos?

My Second Childhood

2011-09-21T07:00:00.001-05:00

You guys, there isn't much I don't love about the daycare that sparked the DAYCARE DILEMMA.

Except one major thing. They give a lot of homework.

For me.

Sunday afternoon while watching the Patriots I spent an hour searching for family photos. Because apparently next week my child will be making a family tree.

It's cool. She's not even 2 and still sees pictures of a baby and sometimes says "Momma" (yeah, I'm youthful like that), but she's going to be going all Ancestor.com up in her toddler classroom.

I wish this was it. The week prior I spent my Sunday organizing her clothing for the week because it was Color Week and she was to wear the chosen color of the day.

Lest you think they're too structured, Friday was Favorite Color Day. Also known around these parts as Well, What Does She Still Fit Into Day (kiddo had a growth spurt, we're all reeling a bit).

You guys, I love that they expand her mind, I truly do. I find things like book orders and School Picture Day adorable and goofy.

But this requires actual work on my part, and I just don't have the energy. I feel especially bad for the people there who have school-age kids with ACTUAL homework and permission slips and the like who now have to add color coordination to their already packed to-do list.

But maybe they don't feel the need to be A++ Valedictorian Mom and I just have issues with perfectionism?

No that can't be it.

Can't you just put up a color wheel like everyone else? Can't you draw a stick figure in a dress and call it Momma? Or...okay, a stick figure in work pajamas. I've spent close to two hours on these projects and I'm pretty sure the highlight of Wee 'Burb's day will STILL be snack time.

Anyone else have overzealous school preparedness daycares? Am I just overly cranky and denying my child a great education?

Grocery Budget

2011-09-19T07:00:00.001-05:00

So, those of you who've been with me the last few months know that we've put Wee 'Burb in a new, more expensive daycare, thus requiring some financial magic and finally resulting in the loss of my data plan and some unfortunate dealings with my cell phone company and ebay.

Anyway, I came across this article about typical grocery budgets and started wondering if maybe we can't cut a wee bit more in this area.

But I am also wondering if it's even remotely realistic. The article says:

According to the USDA, in 2011 it should cost me $523.70 per month to feed my family of two adults and two children ages two and five a nutritious diet on a thrifty budget. To feed the same family on a low-cost plan would cost $667.20; a moderate-cost plan would cost $823.60; and a liberal plan would cost $1,018.80.

In fairness, I would say we're between the moderate cost and liberal plan.

But then again, we only have one kid. Does Cous Cous count as a kid?

The key focus of this article is not over-buying, which is something I admit I am guilty of. In our house, we consider certain things "staples" and that usually means sweet peppers, onions, garlic, and yogurt. Unfortunately, some of those items get ignored for a little bit and then we have soft peppers, melted onions, sprouty garlic, and chunky yogurt.

Wonh wonh wonnnnhhhhh.

I'm hoping our three-week meal plan will help this. We should have a decent amount of recipes on hand should we have extra produce.

Where in this budget do you fall? Have you taken steps to reduce your grocery budget at all?

Driving Into Different Territory

2011-09-16T07:00:00.001-05:00

So, some of you may already know that my full-time telecommuter status has been revoked. Come October it looks like I will be back in the office full-time, and it's got me more than a little stressed. The autonomy and work/life balance of working at home has been something I have come to cherish.

The fact that my new commute (about 40 minutes) will come right before winter offers me little in the way of consolation.

Consider this article on how it's more difficult for women to commute than men. At first I found the premise sexist and kind of absurd, but then I really thought about it. While my husband doesn't love driving all over creation for his job, he's rarely stressed about it. Because I am the one who usually picks Wee 'Burb up, because if I can't, I have the sexless sister wife to back me up. And then, of course, my parents help out at least once a week. He doesn't worry about dinner being late because I'm the one who prepares it and cooks it well before he's even on the road.

We've both taken for granted that since I've been a Mom, I've been working at home.

The article puts it succinctly: Researchers attribute women's heightened "sensitivity to time spent commuting" to our "greater responsibility for day to day household tasks (including childcare and housework)."

I have gently broached the subject with Scott in terms of us re-regulating our life. While it made sense for me to do household chores and cook while I was home (because I could do them on a lunch break, or because I could start work earlier and have more time to prepare dinner, etc), we'll now both be on the road, stuck in traffic, racing to see which of us can pick Wee 'Burb up before having to hand the daycare a late fee.

I'm not sure I'm ready for this. I'm not sure he is, either.

Do you agree that commutes are harder on women, especially working moms? Have you had this kind of switch? If you went from working to staying at home, did you just start assuming housework? How do you divide chores if you both work outside the home? Is your entire weekend spent cleaning and catching up?

Famous Foodies Like My Stuff

2011-09-14T07:00:00.001-05:00

So I am perusing Food Network magazine the other day when I stumble across this!

It's my cow creamer, the one that started our first registry argument, featured prominently in the house of The Pioneer Woman.

Anyone see a pineapple corer there? No? I thought so.

Take THAT, Scott!

Wherein I Pat Myself on the Back

2011-09-12T07:00:00.001-05:00

You guys? I want to kind of brag a little bit here. Some of you longer-time readers may know that I have been seeing a nutritionist. You can see the post where I first see her here and where she talks me off a ledge here and where I realize I need more help than just her here.

I am not going to pretend I met my weight, and consequently my BMI goals.

But another area I had focused on was triglycerides. High triglycerides can be an indicator of Diabetes, something that is just rampant in my family. I've always been hyper-aware of the possibility that my weight, though less than it used to be, still puts me in a risk area for this disease. Seeing what my father has gone through, as well as myriad other people in my life, I just don't want to ever have to deal with Diabetes if I don't have to.

My triglycerides had actually gone higher from my first biometric screening to the next, so I was concerned about the trend. She immediately suggested fish oil and more fiber.

My screening was in February. I had it retested a few weeks ago. 38% lower.

While I am not proud of my lack of weight loss, I am very proud of how much my health has improved.

My nutritionist and I determined we don't need to continue to see each other, but I told her I owe her a lot, and I know I will keep what I learned going forward as I work on improving my body and my lifestyle.

Some of the biggies I learned:

1. Fiber is key for everything. Healthy digestion, weight loss (keeps you full longer), and lowering triglycerides and even bad cholesterol. My favorite sources of fiber have been high-fiber Trader Joe's bread and spinach.

2. Get water where you can. If you're like me and don't love just chugging boring plain old water, try flavored water or flavored seltzer (watch out for added sugar, though) or decaf tea. Lemonade counts, too (again, watch the sugar).

3. Check your sugar. Have I said enough about sugar? Honestly, guys, my diet focus was always on fat. So I did a lot of those 100 calorie packs and yogurts. But when you look at the sugar content of some of these items, it can be quite alarming. Keeping sugar at or around 6 grams is a good guideline. BUT, some things will be higher. I was nervous about these fruit bars from Trader Joes that I ate.

Source: Yummy Diet Food

Well, I needn't have been. My nutritionist declared them almost the perfect snack. Low calorie, has a serving of fruit and/or veggies, and all of the sugar comes naturally. If you see something high in sugar and it comes from fruit or something else naturally high in sugar, check the ingredients to make sure there's nothing added or processed.

4. Supplements can be your friend. I was a bit anxious about adding supplements to my diet. I mean, I take a multivitamin, but otherwise I'm sort of skeptical about adding a bunch of pills to my life. However, I can now say with 100% certainty that fish oil was integral in lowering my triglycerides. I also am taking Vitamin D. I can't point to any particular effect, but I do feel more energetic.

So overall I feel like I have the tools, and now the key is using them correctly.

Have I convinced any of you to see a nutritionist or dietitian? Do you take supplements? What nutrition fact surprises you the most?

Back on the Wagon

2011-09-09T07:00:00.001-05:00

You guys, I had a wee bit too much vacation on my vacation, if ya know what I mean. I drank Dunkaccinos almost every day (please, Minnesota, get a Dunkin Donuts IMMEDIATELY), I drank some fabulous wine on the fabulous porch, and I enjoyed so much fried fish, I may have sprouted gills.

I had to face the music when I got back. I was most afraid of my new personal trainer, John. He was surprisingly easy on me. Easier than I was on myself when I saw myself in those gym mirrors. SHUDDER.

Epic diet fail, people.

My roommate and I also admitted that we spent the day I got back in my parents' hot tub (she's house-sitting) drinking Prosecco and downing a family-size pizza.

Sunday we got together and decided we had to get back on the wagon. We took out my humongo binder of recipes and set about creating a meal plan.

Instead of doing just a weekly plan, we decided to come up with entree/side combinations for about three weeks and shop every Sunday based on grocery store sales and what we could get at the farmer's market.

When we were done, we were both sort of shocked we hadn't thought of this before. Meal plans can feel so restrictive sometimes. And sometimes you just can't stomach 3 chicken dishes in one week. Sometimes the broccolini just looks so damn good at Trader Joe's, you must have it.

Anyone with me?

Anyway, it's great. Or it will be when we start it next week. We are trying almost 80% new recipes, including veggie sides. We're integrating some good fall-like foods like sweet potatoes.

It's amazing how having a plan can make you feel skinnier in moments.

We also may or may not have set our weight loss goals based on New England Patriots goals.

What? We're kind of dudes sometimes. It happens.

What do you do when you go totally off your meal and/or fitness plan? Do you dive back in or do you have to phase in? Do you go nutty on vacation or stay on plan?

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

2011-09-07T10:04:00.000-05:00

Last week I got an unpleasant paperwork surprise when I went to pick up Wee 'Burb at daycare. It was our very first Incident Report. The report read: "While Wee 'Burb was playing, a friend bit her on the left arm."

Some friend.

Honestly, the write-up kind of made me laugh. I shrugged it off at first, but then sure enough, there was a bite mark clear as day on her little arm.

The teacher said she didn't cry.

For some reason, that made me more emotional about the whole thing, that my little girl just stood there and took it while some kid bit her in frustration.

I know this is the age. Wee 'Burb is a notorious slapper, though for some reason only at home. She never hits at daycare and she never hits other kids. But she has zero fear of smacking me right in the face when she's mad.

My parents told me I should have asked what was done to the biter, to determine if there was a time out or if the tot is being removed from other kids. I felt weird about doing that. They had clearly taken pains to not mention his or her name,

When I expressed my doubt over whether or not I had the right to ask about some other kid's punishment, my mom staunchly said: "I did when it was Pacman."

Pacman was my daycare taunter, a child who constantly chased and bit other kids. Before I wrote an essay to become a latchkey kid, I was stuck with Pacman, a younger boy, and his terrible teeth. Because I was shy and quiet, I was an easy target. Looking back, I think he enjoyed getting a rise out of me. It took a lot.

My mom bringing him up made me laugh. When I was in college, my mom casually said "I went to so-and-so's graduation party last weekend." I had no clue who she was talking to. She did the usual Mom thing "of course you know who he is, he went to your daycare, you were a few years apart...you know, Pacman?"

I still do not remember the actual name of this guy. But I guess it's good to know he's now a productive learned member of society. And that while I obviously vividly remember this kid, it hasn't affected my relationships or my life in any long-term way. There's hope for Wee 'Burb and the chomping child, I guess.

How would you have dealt with this? Would you wait for it to happen again to ask about what's being done, or assume the kiddo is a serial biter and express concern? Is this just age-appropriate behavior? Were you the biter or bitee when you were little?

Ch-Ch-Ch Changes...

2011-09-05T07:00:00.001-05:00

So, after multiple different managers and departments, the edict has been finally handed down: I will no longer be a full-time telecommutercome October. While my new arrangement will be helpful career-wise, it will also mean a huge change in my day-to-day life.

Let me break it down for you: when I started full-time telecommuting, I had just purchased a house, I was newly engaged, I wasn't even 30 yet.

Things have changed a bit since then. I take Wee 'Burb to her daycare in workout clothes. I only apply concealer when absolutely necessary...foundation even less often. My hair is in a ponytail so often than the times I do take it down, Wee 'Burb is fascinated that I actually have hair.

Also? I haven't put on work clothes in years. Among the fears I had about commuting, waking up before 6:30, and having to be presentable before coffee, my biggest fear is what I will wear.

And then it hit me, this vague memory that before I was working at home full-time, I had clothes I wore to work. In fact, I recalled having quite a few pants I had paid good money to have tailored about 6 months before I was told I could work at home.

But where were they? I looked for a full week and gave up. Then late one night while watching the Red Sox kick some butt, it occurred to me that there was one place I hadn't looked. I had mostly cleaned out the closet my roommate now uses, but I recalled I had stuck a bin or two there that hadn't fit anywhere else.

After completely dismantling the closet, I found it! The bin labeled "Steph's Closet" that held a treasure trove of tailored delight.

Remember me saying I had basically none of the top 10 Gunn recommendations? Well, I still kind of am missing some things but I did find 8 pair of tailored dress pants, 3 black skirts, 1 white button-down shirt, and 2 nice wrap dress shirts.

So I'm feeling good and then I see this! 50 CLASSICS???? I couldn't even make the top 10.

Allow me to share my feelings about the 50 classics.

What are your thoughts on the 50 classics? When is "classics" outdated? Does anyone know what an Oxford Shirt is????

As Coping Mechanisms Go, it Could be Worse

2011-09-02T09:38:00.000-05:00

When things get tough, I get cleaning.

Imposing organization on thing just makes me feel a million times better.

After a vacation, I usually feel a strong need to clean and organize. I always try to do this before I leave so I don't return to a messy house. But typically we all think of things to add at the last minute, and there's no time to pick up after yourself, and so there's a pile of clothes here, and a bunch of shampoos and travel size stuff there, and then a very sad Stephanie when she returns to anarchy.

This time I tackled our bathroom. I have done a good job of putting everything in these little bins. We each have our own bin, and then a few communal ones in our linen closet.

This time, I tackled the bins even further and imposed some more order by putting like items together in Ziploc bags and throwing out expired and useless meds (e.g., I had a bunch of sleeping pills and No-Doz I had taken to my trip to Italy over 5 years ago that fell into both of those categories, as neither worked and my jet lag was legendary).

First Aid Bin Before

After: Sigh, we had a loooot of extra stuff in there.

Extra Supply Bin of Mystery, including bug spray from when I was pregnant with Wee 'Burb.

Slightly more organized. Why did I keep the bug spray now that I think of it?

I also put all my travel size items and other things I don't use that often in separate bags and moved them to our larger linen closet in our downstairs bathroom, a very under-utilized space (because I'm too lazy to go all the way downstairs to get most things).

What is the hardest room in your house to organize? Does organizing stress you out, or do you find it therapeutic? How long does your organization usually stick around?

Planning Your Present

2011-08-30T21:00:00.000-05:00

Recently posts from Motherese and Tenaciously Yours have gotten me thinking about time management and paper calendars.

Right now, I have three calendars. We have a family one, a wall calendar with important appointments and social events. Then I have a calendar on my phone that I sync with my work Outlook. And most recently, I moved to a paper planner-style calendar.

I've always adored daily planners. Really, I've just adored the act of planning, of imposing my organization on life. The idea that a post-it can mean the difference between my mortgage being paid and getting a rather unfriendly second notice.

I need to see my life in living color.

So I went through Amazon and got overwhelmed. Like Motherese, I am a tactile person. I need to see and feel something as intimate as a planner. So I decided instead to hit Office Max.

I immediately got overwhelmed. What did I want in a planner? What was I trying to accomplish? I knew I didn't need a full daily calendar because I wasn't going to plan life hourly. I still use Outlook for all of my work projects, a necessity. Most of my weekly hours are taken up with those meetings, and so there's no need for me to map that out.

But I wanted enough room to write my other appointments and notes, so a monthly calendar wouldn't do.

I narrowed it down to weekly planners, wire-bound because I like to lay it on my desk or coffee table when I'm working. And it's easier for me to write when it's perfectly flat.

Nobody was more shocked than what I came home with. It's sort of a running joke around these parts.

I picked The Day-Timer Mom Planner.

Yup, the Mom Planner.

I tried to avoid it. I did. I didn't want those calendars with color coded stickers identifying who is doing what. Honestly, Wee 'Burb's days are mostly as stable as mine. She's in daycare a good chunk of it. She's hardly filling a calendar full of Girl Scout meetings or anything at 21 months.

But this planner is simple. It's got enough room to write. It divides days into morning, noon, and night for better organization.

But my favorite part? The part that tickled my organizational fancy so deeply that I was able to look past the Mom moniker?

A MEAL PLANNER!

Okay, you can't see it that well, but on the top of the right page has space for meal planning.

I've gotten away from meal planning over the summer. It's just so damn hot, more often than not we do frozen meals on the stovetop or grill whatever we have laying around.

But imposing this level of organization was more than exciting for me. It inspired me to get back on the meal-planning bandwagon.

Also? For some reason this planner started in July! So I actually was paying for a calendar that wasn't half useless. Double score!

The official Daytimer site has the planners listed as $22 but I believe I payed about $15. Either way, it was worth it for me.

So spill it. How do you organize your life? Right now I color-code my calendar. Work deadlines (including freelance) are in blue with green highlighting, appointments (doctor, hair, etc) are in red, and fun social stuff is in purple with a pink highlighter. And it's already covered in post-it reminders. The only thing that makes me happier than color-coding is lots of post-its.

The Top 5 Reasons Why L.A. is Overrated

2011-08-29T07:00:00.001-05:00

I found Ameena at Fancy That Fancy This through Kat at Tenaciously Yours and I am so glad I did! I love finding someone who is honest: sometimes, ya kind of get sick of your husband and your kid. Do you love them? OF COURSE! But do you sometimes want to smack them until they stop whining? OF COURSE! The thing is, there's never a post where you don't think she's an awesome mom and wife. Her writing is captivating and funny, self-deprecating and humble. Start with this post on being overwhelmed whether at home or on vacation. Something tells me I am sitting here relating right now as I return from my trip.

Those of you who are familiar with my blog www.fancythatfancythis.com know that I hate Los Angeles with a passion. You probably also know that I escape at every opportunity. I even welcomed a visit to Stephanie's home state of Minnesota during the depths of winter this past January! But what you may not know is why I detest L.A., so when Stephanie called for guest posts tackling Top 5 lists, I realized this was the perfect chance for me to explain myself.

The Top 5 Reasons Why L.A. is Overrated

1. L.A. is hard on the self-esteem. Some days I'll actually make an effort with my hair and clothes, maybe even slap on some blush if I'm feeling particularly energetic, and I'll feel pretty good about myself. Until I walk out of the house and run into Jessica Alba and/or Jennifer Aniston and/or one of the many other gorgeous stars that inhabit L.A., at which point I'll feel like a fat, hideous, unattractive mess.

2. The traffic is horrific. Since 99% of my day is spent sitting in gridlock traffic trying to get somewhere, there is little to no time left to enjoy what few attractions (the beach, Disneyland) L.A. has to offer.

3. L.A. is hard on the skin. You are probably thinking, "Ameena, must you complain about everything? Just put on some lotion." Trust me when I say that even a trough of Curel can't repair the damage that the dry and smoggy L.A. weather causes. I've tried. My skin still looks like crap.

4. Everything is fake. From fake body parts to fake people...L.A. is full of it. Literally.

5. The weather is overrated. Yes, I realize I am likely the only person who complains about the mild L.A. weather. But spend one Santa Ana wind-driven, fire-filled October and/or November here and you'll want to hightail it out of here as well. I guarantee it.

The beaches here are gorgeous. If only it didn’t take hours to get to them.

I hate to be so negative so I'll end this guest post with the one major perk Los Angeles offers: LAX is the second busiest airport in the country which means that if I can maneuver my dry-skinned self through the horrendous traffic and the sea of fake people surrounding me, I can hop on a flight out of here at the drop of a hat.

So I guess L.A. isn't so bad after all...

I'm Baaaack!

2011-08-28T15:18:00.000-05:00

Hard as it was, cutting myself off a bit from technology for two weeks was oddly liberating. For the first few nights, I didn't know what to do. I read a book. And caught up on my magazines. I actually talked to my husband. It was odd.

I just want to thank everyone who guest posted for me while I was gone, you'll be getting one more tomorrow too. I also want to thank those of you who came over here, commented, and even joined my site! I'm thrilled to have you all here.

There were a million great things about my vacation to Cape Cod. I had tons of amazing fresh food, I met Sparkling over at Lia Sophia Tomgirl (can I tell you, it's so awesome finding out that someone you think will be super cool and easy-going is actually that in real life?), and I had an amazing new drink called PainKiller that was just about the most magical thing I've ever tasted.

But one of the best parts? Really spending time with Wee 'Burb and getting to know her as the little person she's becoming at 21 months. I had no clue just how much she's learned at this new daycare.

So my parents have an outdoor shower and I decided to take her out and see what she thought. She had an absolute blast playing in the water, but she didn't want to climb all the way in. So I tried to figure out a game to play to get her to stick her head in the water and wash off the shampoo without squealing like a piggy off to the slaughter.

So I start randomly singing the hokey pokey, figuring I'll teach her.

Apparently I was a bit too late. My child, not even two, started turning her little white naked baby butt around, clapping when I said "that's what it's all about" and then screeching with pure delight as she dunked her head in the water.

She spent the rest of the weekend turning around and clapping and yelling "pokey" until someone sang the song.

She also knows how to count in both English and Spanish, is proficient in "if you're happy and you know it" and is learning her colors.

How is it possible to fall more in love with this kid every day?

Top 5 Seriously Random Closet Finds

2011-08-26T07:00:00.005-05:00

So, Ryan over at The Woven Moments is the only person who responded to my post about period polish saying she would TOTALLY wear something with Menstruation in the title on her fingertips. Is it weird I liked her more after that? I relate to most of her posts, but this post about the terrible twos starting much earlier had me nodding the whole time. Go check her out for some TRUTH.

I was recently (inexplicably) motivated to clean out my toddler’s closet.

Wait, wait. Before you roll your eyes and wonder why the hell Steph let me guest post, let me explain.

Before my daughter (blog name Pumpkin) was born, this room was an office-slash-guest bedroom-slash-place-to-throw-stuff-where-no one-would-see-it.

You’ve got one of those, right?

When Pumpkin was born we transformed the room into a nursery. The room got painted, furnished, and decorated. The closet got ignored.

And now, almost two years later, that closet was calling to me. Beckoning me. I spent hours going through boxes, bags, and piles.

And now I give you, my top 5 favorite random closet finds.

#5. CD BINDER SHEETS

WTH?????

We made the digital music switch about five years ago. But in this closet, I found enough CDs, CD binders (remember 3-ring binders? Yeah, me neither.), and CD binder sheets to make 19-year-old-me cackle in Eve-6-and-Third-Eye-Blind delight.

I wracked my brain for a new use for these CD binder sheets. Ironic coasters? Waterproof toddler mattress pad?

Destination: Donate Pile. May they make some archaic music lover very happy.

#4. EMPTY DAY PLANNERS AND JOURNALS

Think of the tasks left undone! The appointments never scheduled! Tragic, really.

This is a perfect example of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. My darling husband (B) is a brilliant problem-solver type who struggles with organization. And writing things down. And remembering to do things because he hasn’t written them down.

So here I come, Miss I-Can-Totally-Fix-You-By-Teaching-You-To-Be-More-Like-Me, and buy him a day-planner. Which he promptly ~~throws away when I’m not looking~~ loses.

So I buy him another.

And another.

Changing tactics, I bought him a journal. So he could write about his FEEEEELINGS about being disorganized. (I realize I need help.)

Eventually, I decided to stop badgering him and just accept the lack of organization. He has a whole room in the house that he can trash enjoy. It has doors that close and lock when anyone (ANYONE) comes over.

So it’s no surprise that I found the unused day planners when I cleaned out the closet. They are about as useful to my husband as the CD binder sheets are to me.

Destination: Trash Pile (outdated planners) and Donate Pile (sad, empty journal)

#3. AN OLD LOVE LETTER

Oh! The cheesiness of young love!

Most love letters are, well, LETTERS. Leave it to me to create a handmade valentine, complete with glitter.

Shut up. I was an elementary school teacher. I was 22. I was in love.

Destination: Memory Box. Because my kids will definitely want to make fun of me for this someday. And let’s be honest, I deserve it.

#2. TOBACCOLESS CIGARETTES

Box of Illegal-Smelling Awesomeness

Remember smoking? I do. Fondly.

When I first quit smoking, I faced a seriously uphill battle of cravings for nicotine. The gum never appealed to me; I wanted to smoke. A friend recommended the nicotine-free cigarettes.

I immediately ordered a carton.

The problem? Well, when you pull a big bright green box out of your pocket that has the words “Ecstacy” written on it, you tend to get some questions.

But the sideways glances really start when you light up and everything starts to smell like pot.

I found no fewer than six packs of these babies in the closet that day. Sigh.

Destination: Trash Pile but only after seriously considering smoking one out back, then reconsidering because I live next door to a cop.

#1. MY HUSBAND, THE (NEARLY) FAMOUS ACTOR

Hands down the best part of cleaning out this closet was finding the old pictures. And with that, I introduce you to my husband, B. The Scottish stone mason.

I'm completely overwhelmed by caption possibilities here.

I wish I could have a caption contest for this picture. My entries would be:

“I take my re-enactments very seriously.”

“Stop pretending you don’t love these bloomers.”

“This is me sniffing the air of my own awesomeness.”

The truth of this picture is pretty great. B was an extra in HBO’s Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning mini-series, John Adams. It was filmed near our home in 2007.

B got to rub elbows with Laura Linney (swoon) and even got to be in a scene with Paul Giamatti. You can view that scene here…but you ~~totally can’t see~~ can baaaaarrrrreeeeely see B.

Destination: Memory Box. Because we are still waiting for HBO to send B his little gold statue. Any day now....

This is Stephanie and I am totally initiating a Caption Contest. I don't know what the prize will be, but I really am dying to see what people write.

Top 10 Ways I Knew I Was A Mom

2011-08-24T07:00:00.001-05:00

I kind of want to write my own Top 10 list for why I love Rachel at Life with Baby Donut. Not only is she a prolific commenter, she's also an amazing support person on Twitter. Also? She's not afraid to ask for support when she needs it, something I respect in a woman, especially a mom. Check out this post on blogging insecurities for an example of her honest writing and reaching out to others.

I believe there comes a time when every woman who has a child looks at herself and thinks “Oh my gosh—I am such a mom!” Now you’d think going through a painful labor and birthing a child would be that defining moment. Or perhaps even breastfeeding and ending up sore and in pain. While those moments certainly point to mom-hood, there were actually a few other, subtler ways that I knew I’d arrived.

Here I present the top 10 ways I realized that I was a mama:

1. I picked a giant booger. And it wasn’t mine.

2. I can tell if a diaper is full simply by scent.

3. I let my kid lick my face. I don’t allow anyone, including my dog, to do that.

4. “Ssshhhh” has become the most often used word in our house.

5. I typed up a spreadsheet comparing the price of diapers between different stores. (I realize this also makes me a nerd.)

6. I wear zero makeup. This is a big deal!

7. I googled the words to “Pat-A-Cake.”

8. I can eat, hold a baby, do a load of laundry and unload the dishwasher at the same time! With only 2 hands!

9. I can no longer leave the house in less than 30 minutes.

10. I make sure most everything in my purse can be used as a chew toy in an emergency.

There you have it. What was your defining moment?

Top 5 Horrific Fashion Choices that I have Personally Donned

2011-08-22T07:00:00.001-05:00

Everybody, meet Mads at La Petite Pancakes. Her Today in Tweets always make me laugh and wish I commented more on her awesome Tweets when they cross my path. Speaking of commenting, Mads is an awesome blog commenter, and always has something fun or insightful to say. Also, if her pug doesn't make you just want to squish its little face even more, then I can't help you. Please read her immediately.

I would like to say that my fashion “dont's” have been largely attributed to passing trends. If only! I so wish my worst nightmares were pictures of me in acid washed jeans or big 80s hair.

But no.

The majority of my faux pas have all been self-discovered “gems”. Things I thought were totally cool, but nobody else would touch with a ten foot pole.

Some examples:

1) Monotone colors. As in, yellow tights, yellow sweatshirt, and a giant yellow bow in my hair. I did this every day for the entirety of 1st grade. And yes, my big yellow bows were pretty similar to Princess Beatrice’s. Hot mess.

2) The single thick braid. I’m not talking about braiding my whole head of hair. No, no, that would be too cute. I’m talking about wearing my hair down with one large braided chunk hanging off to the side. I wasn’t following a junior high fad, I simply thought it was awesome. Add this to the fact that I frequently wore pajamas to school. Who allowed that?!

3) Hemp necklaces. This would have been cool in high school if I was a pothead, but alas, I was not. Instead, I made them in “art club” and sported the stinky thing around my neck every day. I was also in “earth club”. No really, I wasn’t a stoner. Really.

4) Bracelets from my wrist up to my elbow…on Both. Arms. Horrific.

5) Leather mini skirt. I bought this for a Halloween costume and continued to wear it out and about town. I watch women on “What Not to Wear” reuse costumes as “normal” clothes all the time, and I am sad to say I was one of those women.

I’m oh so sorry that I don’t have any pictures. We could all share in the hilarity and mortification.

What’s your worst self-discovered fashion “gem”?

Five Bucks and Five Minutes

2011-08-19T07:00:00.001-05:00

Are you guys sick of me constantly quoting and referencing Kat from Tenaciously Yours? I just find her writing so relatable and her blog is as welcome to me as my glass of wine at the end of the day. One of my favorite recent posts has her going on a dive bar date with her new husband. So if you aren't reading her by now...what's WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE??? At least enjoy her guest post and give her some love.

When Stephanie was looking for guest posters, I was like...obviously. So here goes, kittens. Get ready to hang on for the ride.

I'm a die-hard shopaholic, fashionista and wine bar-lover. But I like to keep a busy schedule so, nine times out of ten you'll find me running around the cities like a chicken with my head cut-off. Or you might just find me running. The realities of a 24-hour day aside, I'm definitely the girl who believes that little luxuries can make the biggest difference.

There's something to be said about otherwise mundane things that can make you feel happy. Pretty. Worth it. Things that take less than 15 minutes. But just long enough that you have to set it aside for yourself.

I'm also That Person who is totally guilty of saving things for A Special Occasion, and then never finding an occasion quite special enough. So little luxuries save me from stockpiling.

1. Red lipstick.

This, is most assuredly a luxury that doesn't lend itself well to over-thinking. Red is BOLD. For those who keep their eye color and skin tone in-mind when selecting an appropriate color palette for clothing and make-up, it can be overwhelming.

My advice? Next time you're at Target, just grab a tube. You're going to want to think about the situation. Keep it rational. But do yourself a favor, and don't do that. Because thoughtfulness is what has kept you from bringing that tube of lipstick home before today.

And yes, it's okay to choose the brand/color of red that's on sale (you bet your Birkin that's what I did). Ease into the situation.

2. A DIY mani-pedi.

I have a sneaking suspicion that half of the people who read this today will look down at their hands and realize that no, they haven't painted their nails in the last two weeks. Me too.

Even when I know I finally have enough time to make it happen, I find something else more Useful and more Productive to fill that space with.

But there's a certain amount of catharsis that comes with looking down at your mitts and seeing color instead of chips. A glossy shimmer instead of a hangnail.

If you're the type of person that does a basecoat and a topcoat, dispense with both of them. This is about a quick fix so that you're not That Friend at happy hour.

3. A new magazine.

Yes, this means that you have to read it when it hits the newsstands instead of in the month/week it claims it's published for. You get bonus points if it doesn't contain any recipes. Because as much as I love a good cooking magazine a la Cooking Light or bon appetit, they mean Work. Which is exactly the opposite of what we're trying to accomplish.

4. A mug of tea.

If you're the kind of person that owns an espresso machine with a milk frother, then please feel free to disregard the following message. For the rest of the group, we continue.

Because it's time to spring for that box of tea that costs $5 at the store instead of $3. The kind with the nice paper wrappers that you would never, ever consider buying for yourself but you would be more than happy to offer-up to guests. The kind of tea that feels like an escape instead of a chore (let me tell you, Green Tea is ALWAYS a chore for this lady).

5. Fancy sweets.

I was just going to call this one Ridiculously Expensive Dark Chocolate. But then it occurred to me that some of you might be into salted caramels...or something like that.

If all else fails (since I tried to keep the other four options calorie-free), we turn to the pantry. Not because we're feeling emotional, but because delightful things come from That Place. So break out that treat that someone else gave you as a hostess gift. Because it has a shiny wrapper, and a lovely provenance.

Before you eat it, put it on a saucer. And get out a cocktail napkin. Because this is 90% experience and 10% reality.

What is your little luxury of choice?

Summertime and the Livin’ is Good? Top 8 reasons Summer is toooo long

2011-08-17T07:00:00.001-05:00

Let's thank whatever deity you believe in that Melissa over at The Literal Mom joined the blogging world this year. A veteran of "top" lists like this, The Literal Mom is also an awesome supporter of other bloggers, featuring guest posts by other mommy bloggers on various topics, both important and funny. Please run to her blog now and offer her thanks for all she shares, especially right here.

1. Summer becomes winter. In other words, you reach a point where you can’t go outside. Why? Too hot to go out, too sweaty to have fun, too many mosquitoes.

2. Pool food makes you fat. “Hi, I’ll take fried with a side of fried. And ice cream for dessert.” Abandon the pool for the state fair? Makes you even fatter. We now have deep fried Snickers at our state fair. Delicious – even IF it’s heart attack on a Styrofoam plate.

3. No matter how much stamina you start with in June, there’s a tipping point, about now, where entertaining your children for 13-14 hours a day is impossible and listening to them entertain themselves with “I’M BORED,” arguing and fighting is even worse.

4. 1000 calories of ice cream per week guarantee a 3 pound weight gain by week 9. That’s math my 4th grader can do. But it’s self-control I apparently can’t do.

5. GOOD LORD, where did the routine go?

6. Back to School shoe shopping is more painful than a root canal. Or maybe more painful than being drawn and quartered. Tarred and feathered. Sliding down a razor into a vat of alcohol.

7. Too much TV starts feeling like child abuse. Like watching their brains turn to goo before your eyes. See #1 for why too much TV starts happening. What do YOU define as too much TV? I define it as when the breaks in between TV watching become shorter than the TV watching itself.

8. No matter how much you’re DONE with summer, the end means a new chapter in your lives. A new milestone reached. And my friends, watching your kids grow up is hard. Gratifying, but hard. Excuse me, I need to go have a good cry now.

What surprises you every summer? What makes you look forward to fall?

The Literal Mom talks about all kinds of fun stuff at www.literalmom.com. Come on over and check me out. Become a subscriber and let’s go through the journey together. Why? Because together, we are stronger. Hope to see you soon. Thanks, Stephanie!

More to Life Than a Cow Creamer

2011-08-15T07:00:00.002-05:00

I found Life as a Wife through an awesome Twitter #commenthour and have enjoyed getting to know her and her awesome family through her Tweets and her adorable blog, Life as Wife. Some of my favorite posts are her musings on her husband as a man and father, including this one on how her baby is just like daddy and a letter to daddy from his son that made me cry. Please join me in saying hello and a big thank you for guest posting for me while I am on vacation.

Stephanie in Suburbia never fails to make me laugh; between her live-in-roommate and smarty-pants wee' burb, the chuckles are endless. Of course, I am preaching to the choir because you people are reading her blog and must like her too!

Recently she reminisced about her experience creating a wedding registry and the corer that almost ended it all. To be honest, I had no f-ing idea what the heck a corer even was before her post. I should have known but alas, I did not. Why? Because the hubby and I planned our wedding in three days and I was worried about silly little things like him getting kicked out of the Army for sneaking to the next county to marry me. (For the record, his chain-of-command was none the wiser and he served an amazing three years of service.

I may not covet a ceramic cow creamer but there are a few things that I am not sure how the heck I have survived without. So, without any further bs-ing here are the top five things every newlywed couple should have put on their registry.

1.) A sturdy serving platter: Every new wife needs a beautiful serving platter. During that first year when you burn every meal you will eventually catch your poor hubby mumbling under his breath, use your platter to hit him in the back of the head. The heavier the platter, the better.

2.) Blender: Eventually nothing will sound better then a margarita and having a blender will be a lifesaver (your husband's that is!) The loud noise also works well for drowning out the noise of the game that will be playing on T.V. (A vacuum works as well but I wouldn't recommend registering for one because then you will be expected to clean.)

3.) Monogrammed coffee mugs: Monograms may be the only way you remember to spell your new last name because trust me, your hubby will only think you scribbling out your signature is cute so many times. Really anything from monogrammed towels to a doormat works well.

4.) Comfortable and stylish bedding: The trick here is to register for bedding for both your marital bed and guest room or pull-out. Why? So when his snoring gets unbearable or he hogs the covers you will have somewhere comfy and cute to crash!

5.) Beer keg cooler: This item will serve two purposes. For one - major brownie points with the husband and the other? Look at number three for a reminder.

I blame this all on Steph because before her post, I didn't really care that I didn't have monogrammed, his-and-hers mugs or a blender with over 100 speeds. Don't worry though, I made up for it when it came time for Little Man's baby registry.

What do you wish you had registered for? If you've done a baby registry, were you traumatized by the wedding experience?

The Weeks Ahead

2011-08-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

I want to mention that I will be having some amazing guest posts coming up in the next two weeks. I know what this means for some people. I know sometimes when I see a guest blogger, I skip the post. It's not who I came to see. It's not the headliner, so to speak.

I hope you don't feel this way about the bloggers I've chosen.

Here's the truth. A few weeks ago, we instituted "take a break" with Wee 'Burb. Like a time out, but less punitive given she's 20 months. It was more about having her step away from a situation and calm down.

It works like 50% of the time. Or to quote Anchorman, "60% of the time, it works all the time."

Which is to say, sometimes it serves its purpose and she just sits and gets distracted from whatever it was that was making her frustrated enough to hit someone. Usually me.

I started thinking about this in my own life, about how great the idea is, really. To sit somewhere with no distractions and just reset.

So that's what I am doing.

Initially, I wanted bloggers to cover the week that I was out. And then I got such great submissions, I decided to go ahead and take the week before, too. To prepare for the weeks ahead. Where I will be traveling with my family and a toddler. Where I will be unplugged for 7 days. Where I will hopefully reset a little bit.

Nothing will change here. I'm still the same old Stephanie, blogging about inanities and showing pictures of my kid.

The truth is, I chose these bloggers because they are funny, sweet, sentimental. They are all so worth reading, I am proud to have them here. I really, truly hope that you go and read each and every one of them.

And I truly hope you'll be back when I am.

Wishing you all the breaks you need!

Stephanie

My Life as a Luddite. Part Deux.

2011-08-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, so if you're not insanely bored with my first saga, here's the rest of the story.

As I said, giving up my data plan was hard enough. I wasn't going to give up texting, and luckily (?) my bills wouldn't be reduced by making that particular sacrifice.

Scott suggested I find a pay-as-you-go/no contract phone. Because Verizon doesn't offer great trade-in value for phones and doesn't give credit for phones after your initial contract, I had to find something affordable.

The only requirement I had was that it have a QWERTY keyboard.

Um, yeah, apparently that was a tall order. The cheapest phone there that met my, apparently, difficult requirement? $80!!

I barely paid that for my Blackberry.

So I did what any resourceful girl would do...I went to eBay.

This was not any easier. I found so many great deals with a label attached later saying "Bad ESN" or "use for parts."

I had to Google everything. Apparently, a Bad ESN means someone (probably) stole it and Verizon has a stopgap where you can't use it.

I finally found one for $50 that said it was usable and also that I could return it in 7 days if need be.

My confidence in Verizon had waned by this point, so I was afraid need may be. And that fear turned out to be quite founded as I entered Verizon and had the guy look at me, puzzled. "Does anyone still use this phone?"

And I stood there, looking at him, feeling like a complete tool. As soon as I said I got the phone on ebay, he laughed. So I told him I was going to go out and buy a phone. He recommended against that. Apparently Verizon recently changed its policy and pay-as-you-go phones no longer work with people who have contracts.

My only phone option? $130. And I would still have to upgrade my contract.

So I left, feeling totally helpless and depressed.

Did I mention I went to a Verizon that was near other errands, so 30 minutes away from me?

I get home and pack up the cell phone to ship back the phone when I realize the guy at Verizon had kept one of the cords. Thank God for my friend Lola who lived nearby and brought it to me, for I was near a breaking point.

I take one last stab at contacting the seller, letting him know I was about to write some negative feedback. He was apologetic, assured me there was nothing wrong with the phone. After some discussion, he called Verizon and got it worked out. It had to do with not fully deactivating a phone number.

I went in Wednesday morning and VIOLA! New phone!

I miss my data plan so much. I miss it when I'm standing in line and want to comment on what somebody is wearing or saying. I miss the little "CHING CHING" when I get a new mention on Twitter. I miss the reassuring "DING" when I get e-mail.

But still? I know it was the right decision. I know I'll get used to it soon. As soon as I can speedily start texting again.

Lousy with Louses or Balding Gracefully

2011-08-10T07:00:00.001-05:00

On Wee 'Burb's first day of her new daycare, I saw the dreaded note on the door. Parents of the center daycare will know what notice I am speaking of.

It's the infectious disease report, usually a one-page note letting you know one of the rhesus monkeys your toddler has been sharing spit-laden toys with has come down with some sort of plague.

Given it was her first day there, I didn't pay much attention until I caught another look at it.

LICE!

When I was growing up, lice was like herpes. Every girl dreaded getting it, and we all avoided talking about it as long as possible if we got it.

For half of my life, I had hair down to my butt. Thick, beautiful hair. Thick beautiful hair that I didn't want to lose.

For you see, my first experience with lice was when it made its way through my elementary class, somewhere around third or fourth grade. The dreaded note came out and my mother did her usual check, and all was clear.

The next day I went to school. There were two girls, sisters, who I was sort of mildly friends with. Inasmuch as I was friends with anyone at that age. I was painfully shy and withdrawn.

Anyway, we'll call them the M Sisters.

The M Sisters were on the playground, being actively avoided by the other kids. I approached and then took a step back.

The M Sisters were BALD! Their newly shorn pates shining brightly in the sun. The M Sisters were possibly the whitest kids in our school. They were borderline grey. Their naked scalps were nearly transparent.

You guys? They did NOT have lice!! Their mom just freaked out so much given this was the third or fourth outbreak of lice, she took preventive action. By shaving their heads.

From that day on, any time a letter came home about lice I would sob hysterically while my mom checked me, positive that my luscious locks would be shaved as soon as one of those egg sacks was found.

Thank God it never happened (and my mom assured me years later, she NEVER would have shaved my head).

But to this day, when I see the word "lice" I immediately grab my hair protectively, positive someone will show up with a razor and leave my scalp exposed.

Do you think shaving a head is kind of crazy? Have you had to deal with these infectious outbreaks? Has your child ever been Patient Zero on any of these? Do you admit it? Are you itchy now just thinking about it?

Where I Start to Think the Amish Have the Right Idea

2011-08-08T07:00:00.001-05:00

So, as you may recall, we enrolled Wee 'Burb in a new, slightly more expensive, daycare.

Ok, more than slightly more expensive. $30 a week more.

To say I have been concerned about where this $30 was going to come from is rather like saying there's a possibility the words "goddess" and "tiger blood" might be used in the Charlie Sheen roast.

We figured out some of it will come from the fact that Scott has cheaper insurance at his new job. While Wee 'Burb and I will stay on mine, him getting his own will save us a decent amount of money.

We are also considering canceling cable. The challenge we have there is I have an older Tivo without Hulu, so it would become effectively useless with over a year left on my contract. Also, my Comcast deal, thanks to all their insane screw-ups, lasts until January. So there's no immediate need to cancel.

The other easy place to cut back? Our cell phone bills. Because Scott was working on a side business, and his old job gave him a generous stipend for cell phones, we have 3 lines on our cell phone plan. To cancel the third line, we'd have to pay $300. Or we can continue to pay the $10 a month the line costs for a year.

I was a journalism major, but I believe my math works out where that's a no-brainer.

Did I mention I loathe cell phone contracts?

Anyway, so that wasn't an option. I told the guy we were desperate, what could we do to lower this bill?

He said the saddest words I ever heard: you can cancel your data plan.

The thing is, a year ago when I found a phone I loved, I was told I had to have a data plan and I was put off. What the hell was I going to do with all of these applications? All the complications?

Um, spend half my day on Twitter and e-mail people while standing in line, of course!

But I'm willing to be a team player here, so I said I would give up my data plan.

The catch? Because, let's face it, there's ALWAYS a catch.

My phone was not compatible with no data plan. It was, in other words, far too good for the simple plan I was now trying to reduce my life to.

So I got a list of compatible phones after the dude condescendingly asked me: "does anyone have, like, a basic phone you could use?"

Yes, all my friends and family have cell phones laying about. Piles of 'em.

I grieved for the loss of Internet at my fingers and began searching for a phone crappy enough to allow me to just, you know, talk on the phone.

Oh, and text. I text a lot. And that's not part of my data plan, so I didn't need to give that up.

People? I have to draw the line somewhere. And if I can't e-mail people while waiting for my Starbucks, then I damn sure am going to text them.

Since this is getting a little bit long, I'm going to make the second part of this drama another post.

Are there cuttable bills in your life? How often do you review your budget and bills?

How Selling Used Clothes is Like Internet Dating or How I Got Married and Bought a Skirt

2011-08-05T07:00:00.001-05:00

Recently, to aid my ailing closet, I have been trolling eBay. What I noticed was some of the items up for sale were items I was preparing to donate.

So I did a double check and pulled out some of the nicer brand items to see if I could make a little eBay money.

I sat on it for about a week and then finally decided to dive in. After all, what could it hurt? eBay has some nice no-nonsense deals for small sellers like moi. I only pay if my item sells, and even then it's a relatively small portion of what I make. And anything I made in the end was more than I would have made if I donated, right?

As I put my items up, I began to realize something. This is EXACTLY like Internet dating.

Allow me to illustrate.

1. People over-value themselves. When doing some eBay comparisons, I was shocked to find some people trying to sell items for only a few dollars less than I could find new in a department store. Similar to some of the men I came across on Internet dating who demanded women be financially stable, white collar, working women while they advertised themselves as white collar salesmen and turned out to be a lawnmower salesman at Sears. Or women I knew who refused to date divorced men despite having a few divorces under their belt. Be reasonable, people! Play in the right league.

2. People want the details...all of them. I made a rookie mistake on eBay and did not post the measurements of the items I was selling. Huuuuge mistake! I got three or four e-mails a day asking for specifics. Similar to when I was Internet dating and men asked outright for multiple pictures in obvious distrust that the ones you posted were current and accurate. I learned more is more in this scenario.

3. The details don't always sell it. I gave measurements of a shirt to a woman who asked on eBay. She told me that "no woman is THAT big." Granted, it was a shirt I had grown out of, but I thought that comment in bad taste. Much like an e-mail I got that said "oh, okay, I see you do keep yourself in decent shape. Many women don't and just put up pictures that don't show them as whales." Or when I found out the white collar lawnmower salesman's dream job was to sell electronics at Best Buy and I kindly told him things would not be between us.

4. Sometimes people don't read the details. I got a comment from a woman telling me the measurements I had put on a shirt on eBay were incorrect. She told me those were clearly for a large size shirt. The item I was selling was a size large shirt, clearly marked in my post. Just as in my Internet profile it was clear what my age range was and yet 40-year-old men contacted me daily to let me know they loved my smile.

5. Rejection is part of the game, you have to put yourself back out there. So the first round of eBay? Not so hot, people. I sold one shirt out of 5 items. Because it was free, I went ahead and re-listed my items and so far have sold two more. It hurts to see how many people are watching you and not bidding, just like it hurt to see over 30 people had viewed my profile and I had nary an Internet dating e-mail.

But hey, the money I earned on eBay bought me two new skirts so far. And that Internet dating thing? Yeah, it kind of worked out. Thanks to Yahoo personals, I've been married almost three years now.

Are you an eBayer? Any advice for the buyers OR the sellers? Did you try Internet dating?

Period Polish and Other Inspirations

2011-08-03T07:00:00.001-05:00

So, some of you may recall mine and Lola's obsession with naming nail polish. To say our picks were slightly out there is like saying Jennifer Anniston has slightly bad luck with men.

But nothing I could come up with would be nearly as sick as this.

According to their web site, STRANGEBEAUTIFUL creator Jane Schub took "inspirations (sic) and references range from the vampiric gradations of a healing bruise; the moody rusts of menstrual blood; sooty, phantasmal India ink; the profile of a gray blue Heron scooping fish against a background of gooey river runoff and the apocalyptic color palette of Medieval Flemish paintings. Visceral and private, each shade cloaks the finger in an aqueous film of color for an effect that is strange, beautiful, and impossible to forget."

Yes, you read that right. Menstrual blood. Because one wishes to be reminded of that time of the month on date night. Oh, and in case you were wondering, it's a specific day of that time of the month. The polish is reportedly called Menstrual Last Day.

Lola's and my animal noises are looking a might normal now, eh?

What's the weirdest marketing you've heard recently? Would you wear something with the word Menstruation in it on your nails? Or anywhere other than the obvious parts?

The Daycare Dilemma

2011-08-01T07:00:00.002-05:00

Wooooh boy have things been interesting around here as far as Wee 'Burb has been concerned! Last week I alluded to our daycare dilemma.

In early June, I got notice from my daycare provider that she was going to have to have surgery and would be out for at least 6 weeks. Her surgery was scheduled for the end of June!

Last year, this woman was my savior. Tired of paying astronomical prices for infant daycare at a center, a spot opened up in the home daycare across the street. I couldn't believe my luck! A neighbor we knew who already loved my kid, and who also provided everything but diapers. Including formula!!! We figured out we were saving $80 a week.

That figure stayed in our minds for awhile. When I started to realize that Wee 'Burb's development was lagging. When she came home begging for her favorite cartoon, one I had never heard of before in my life. When I realized that Wee 'Burb was the only one not participating in art projects or other curriculum-based items. When the daycare closing at 4:45 meant I had to pick her up every day, couldn't make plans during the evenings.

She was taken care of, she was loved. She went outside twice a day, and I could see she was having a blast. But she was one of 5 kids for one person, and she was the youngest. She was doted on, but I felt maybe not focused on, if that makes sense.

In addition to my suspicions that Wee 'Burb's development wasn't being prioritized (understandably so), there were the constant absences. While I knew the provider had 10 paid days a year, we didn't often get a lot of notice. There was the sump pump disaster, which meant she couldn't go for two days. There were mysterious illnesses (ultimately leading to the aforementioned surgery). Of course I couldn't blame my neighbor, which almost made it more annoying. How can I be mad at a woman whose basement has just flooded for the second or third time in weeks?

But she didn't offer backup care. So we either had to essentially pay two people for one day of care, or I had to quickly rearrange my schedule to have Wee 'Burb home with me.

So, some dissatisfaction was brewing, although I couldn't bring myself to really research other centers because a) I love my neighbor and b) Wee 'Burb loves my neighbor.

But when she approached me about the surgery, I had no choice. There was no way I could keep Wee 'Burb home with me for 6 weeks. To say my current work situation is tenuous is rather like saying Jesse James has a concerning track record with women. I can't afford to have Wee 'Burb yelling "ELMO" on my conference calls right now.

Scott's co-worker recommended a place nearby that had more of a preschool focus. Similar to a Montessori, but without the official label. We went to check it out and to say we fell in love was an understatement.

Along with only 10 other toddlers, with two teachers, Wee 'Burb would learn Spanish twice a week, participate in Music classes the other three. They would spend an hour a day each on gross motor and fine motor skills.

And when the time comes, they would gladly participate in any potty training method we choose.

The kicker? What sealed the deal? Date night.

One night a month, FOR FREE, they would keep my kid until 9 p.m. FOR FREE!

The cost was the problem. $30 more a week is no small deal for us right now. We discussed and debated and then threw up our hands.

Within two weeks of being in this daycare, Wee 'Burb was walking like a pro, climbing stairs, marching in place, trying to sing her ABCs (it goes something like "A B B BEEEE"), and sleeping on a cot (we still have her in a crib at home).

I felt like the choice was made for us. Every instinct told me this was the place for Wee 'Burb.

I thought finding the extra $30 a week was going to be hard. But the worst part? Telling my neighbor.

I brought her flowers and brought Wee 'Burb with me as a cuteness reinforcement. I discovered there's no card titled "Sorry for kicking you while you're down, but we're going another way."

I explained to her about the development issue (she was aware that we had consulted with a physical therapist) and she was so great about it. She admitted she had been considering downsizing or closing. And so far I think the relationship has been just fine.

Every day I get a report of Wee 'Burb's progress at her new daycare. She's playing dress-up, excelling at Simon Says, even learning about hula hoops. I know I made the right decision, even though it was a tough decision.

But how can you put a price on this?

What have been your tough decisions lately? How do you deliver bad news? Do you just rip the Band-aid off or plan it for weeks like I did?

Working It Out

2011-07-29T09:30:00.000-05:00

So, I had another less than pleasant trip to the nutritionist where ONCE AGAIN I hadn't lost any weight. She tried to silver lining it for me by saying it was good I hadn't gained weight, but it was still beyond frustrating to know that since JANUARY I haven't really maintained a weight loss of more than 2 pounds.

I got depressed and when I get depressed, the only way for me to get out of it is to control my life in some way. So I sat and looked at my options and decided the best thing for me was to join a gym.

I've been working out largely to On Demand Comcast workout videos and walking with the pup. In the past, I've had good luck with gyms. I just haven't belonged to one in awhile because a) they're expensive and b) they require time commitments longer than my marriage.

My neighbor and former daycare lady (yeah, remind me to tell you the story of the new daycare dilemma) works out at one of those 24-hour gyms down the street. Most importantly, she sees a person trainer there she loves. I decided this was the way to go. A personal trainer would NOT let me cheat, and while it would be an expense, it would be worth it to get these last 10 pounds out of the way.

I downloaded a two-week pass. I knew exactly how this would go. And I was right on.

You bring in the pass. A very aggressive, very jacked dude asks you about how committed you REALLY are to fitness. He shows you around the club, he highlights the awesomeness of the facility, and then he tells you he has this awesome deal for you if you will only trade in your two-week pass for a membership.

You guys? I told everyone near me that I was NOT going to fall for it. I was going to use my two-week pass and take my time to make the right decision.

But then the guy told me it's only $30 a month for this gym and I get a free personal training session. And I also get 10% off with a company discount.

I figured I couldn't beat that, until I signed the contract and realized it was for 18 months. I balked. The monthly cost would go up significantly if I did anything less than 18 months. But suddenly I became the 16-year-old dude who needs space.

I mean, I like you. I just don't know if I like you that way.

But I felt pressured and signed. And immediately regretted it.

Have you guys experienced this kind of buyer's remorse? Where you're frantically looking through the loophole in the contract?

In my case, the loophole was I had three days to cancel.

I went back to my research and did another calculation and realized that if I bought a membership to the Community Center, it would be about half the cost. In fact, if I bought a family membership, it was still $100 less than this would be.

So I decided I'd do a test workout at the Community Center and do a pro/con list when I was done.

I present to you, my pro/con list. Also known as "Did I seriously choose the more expensive gym because it has ESPN?"

So I talked it over with Scott and he broke it down for me. Where would I actually go? Which gym would really motivate me to show up? Because even if it's cheaper for a year, if I have trouble parking and get frustrated and can't do the workout I want to because of the crowds, is it worth it?

So I didn't exercise (pun intended) my three-day out option and have been working out quite a bit at the new gym. I'm going to pull the trigger on the personal trainer soon and see if that's something I want to add on for a bit.

Have you experienced buyer's remorse? Do you belong to a gym? Do you actually go? Do you make pro/con lists for things?

What the Quesadilla is a Fajita???

2011-07-27T07:00:00.001-05:00

So the other day, the roommate and I are hanging out watching Lifetime movies. As we do. Wee 'Burb was engaged with her blocks and the roommate and I were engaged in our normal movie dialogues that go something like this:

Me: That dude is totally gay. We're to believe he's hanging with Tori Spelling?

Roommate: He's beyond gay. But then, Tori Spelling is built like a guy. Or would be if she didn't have the fake boobies.

From a pile of blocks I hear "GAYYY!" and then a moment later "BOO-BIES!"

Aaaand it's here.

Wee 'Burb has begun to pick up on the words of others.

To say all of us have a potty mouth is rather like saying Kim Kardashian has a slightly large posterior.

Over dinner, we hatched a plan. We would come up with code words to mask our swearing.

What? We're supposed to give up swearing? Please!

So our system was naturally food-related. We determined the answer to our problem was: Mexican Food.

And now our dialogues go something like this:

Me: What the fajita is that quesadilla WEARING??

Roommate: I don't know, but her chimichangas are hanging out of that dress.

Scott: What the frijole are you talking about??

Wee 'Burb is none the wiser and right up until it's Taco Tuesday and daycare and we have some 'splainin to do, it's working for us.

How do you deal with the swearing around little kids? Are you able to just tone it down or do you use code words? My parents used Pig Latin!

The Corer Was Our Separator

2011-07-25T07:00:00.003-05:00

Before we get started here, I'm looking for some good folks to guest post for me in August. Comment here or shoot me an e-mail if you're interested.

Recently, I've been reliving my wedding planning with Kat from Tenaciously Yours. Go visit her and offer your congrats on her recent wedding, which if the pictures are any judge, was a complete party.

I wasn't much into wedding planning myself. I was probably the worst bride, not in a Bridezilla way, but in whatever the opposite is. I just couldn't bring myself to care what colors the tablecloth were or whether the flowers matched the cake. Just didn't care.

I only really cared that I looked good in my dress, people had fun, and the groom showed up.

Also? I kind of cared about the registry.

Our registry was a challenge, our first real one in wedding planning. We had made most of our other wedding decisions very quickly (a necessity since we got engaged in February and married in October), but the registry was a bit of a stumble for us.

Scott was of the mind that we should go for the big ticket items, as we already had between us some of the best kitchen tools out there. I was of the mind that if we went for big ticket items, we'd get nothing from our registry and people would take to buying us what they THINK we should have, and spending the week after my wedding in return lines was less than appealing to me.

So we compromised and agreed we would do one registry at Target for the more reasonable registry items and Williams-Sonoma for our more extravagant wants and needs.

Scott virtually skipped into Williams-Sonoma on registry day. Under normal circumstances, we do not enter this store because I begin howler monkey screeching: "$25 for a measuring cup?? I could get four of those at Target for half the price!!"

So knowing he had carte blanche to wander and admire and shoot a gun at items in Williams-Sonoma may have made him happier than me saying I would marry him.

I began to dream of wine glasses, mugs, and serving ware when I heard my name shouted across the store.

Scott was standing near a saleswoman whose eyes told me she was getting commission and was about to buy herself a new living room set.

Thank God I was smart enough to keep the gun myself, but I wandered over and indulgently smiled at the saleswoman. She showed us what I like to call the "trinket aisle." You know the one, right? Magnetic conversion charts, mini spatulas, cookie cutters.

And the piece de resistance: a pineapple slicer and corer.

I wish I had taken a picture of Scott's face when he saw this.

Never mind we had never had a pineapple in our time together. Never mind that we had registered for some very expensive knives that would quite easily cut a pineapple.

HE.HAD.TO.HAVE.THE.EFFING.CORER!!

I could not talk him out of it.

In retaliation, I registered for a cow coffee creamer. The creamer comes out of the cow's mouth in a barf-like manner.

Source: Williams-Sonoma

So we do the gift opening, and I get the cow coffee creamer and everyone who has heard our story dies laughing.

Scott is slightly pouting. We are corer-less.

For Christmas this past year, my parents broke down and bought Scott the pineapple corer and slicer.

Scott, this is the closest you'll get to a "you were right."

I confess, we do buy pineapple once a month or so. I confess, the pineapple corer and slicer is pretty slick. I confess getting a whole pineapple and cutting it is more economical. I confess a grilled pineapple is one of the most amazing summer treats ever.

Allow me to demonstrate:

Cut the top off the pineapple.

THE CORER!

Corer goes in. I totally forgot to cut off the bottom of the pineapple. Rookie mistake.

So I had to cut the skin off the sides.

Out comes the core! Easy peasy!

Cut up to put on the grill. Is there ANYTHING better than pineapple on the grill????

So what registry arguments did you have, or what is on your dream registry when you get hitched?

Pay or Play?

2011-07-22T08:01:00.000-05:00

Thanks to those of you who voted for Dress Me for Date Night. It's between 2 and 3 for me right now, we'll have to see how I feel. It was fun for me to see the comments, though! Thanks for playing!

Growing up, we had varying rules about allowance and chores. During the summer when we stayed at a guest house in Cape Cod, we got a quarter to make our beds every day. This quarter was then happily spent on getting a total (sugar) high at the local penny candy store.

Sometimes we got $5 a week to do our assigned chores, and then later in life we basically had to do what the parents told us in return for money to go out and access to the car. So there was no set allowance. As I was a total loser in high school and didn't do more than go to a movie on occasion, I feel I was a pretty cheap date as far as allowances went.

But I made up for it by going to a rather expensive college.
Scott and I have loosely talked about what we're going to do for allowances when Wee 'Burb is big enough for these things. My thought was about $10 a week or so with the understanding that $1 of it goes to the church each week, sort of an early lesson in saving and giving to good causes.

Then I read this on the Wall Street Journal:

A rising proportion of parents are adopting the pay-for-work view, based on a new survey. A surprising 71% of parents will pay their kids for doing chores this summer, according to a June 2011 survey of 2,004 consumers. And they’re going beyond pocket change, paying an average $25 a month just for doing laundry, says the American Express Spending & Saving Tracker. No comparable data from previous Tracker surveys is available.

I don't think $25 a month is astronomical on its face, although I do think it is for doing one chore. Growing up I standardly unloaded the dishwasher, cleaned the bathroom, and vacuumed upstairs. I also, as I mentioned, was at the whim of my parents to do additional chores as needed.

Other friends growing up had chore wheels, chore jars, or other ways in which the chores were rotated.

And yet others were never paid for chores. But some were paid for grades, which I found odd. Why, I wonder, do I think paying for chores teaches responsibility and time management, but paying for grades is somehow grandiose? Aren't we paid for performance often at work?

Still others never had to do chores. Their parents felt they were children and should enjoy childhood. Incidentally, these were the kids at college who looked at the washing machine like it was the sphynx.

I feel like it's about expectations, and also about money management and I am just not sure the best way to instill those values. Also, given that Wee 'Burb is only 20 months, who's to say the rules won't change? On $5 a week I could at least go to a movie. Nowadays $5 won't get you in the door!

I'm curious, how did you handle this in your house growing up? How do you do it now, or plan to do it in the future? Do you and your significant other have different views on this issue?

You Don't Know Me! Death By Chocolate Chip

2011-07-21T07:00:00.003-05:00

Since I have doubled my readership in the last few months (thanks for coming to see me!) I've decided to do a little experiment. On Thursdays I'll be posting some items from the first year of blogging under the title You Don't Know Me!
Posted originally in May 2010.

Oh my gosh, I almost experienced ACTUAL death by chocolate! You hear about it, but you don’t think it’s true. And then, it happens to you.

So, my girlfriend and I get together once a week or so and have movie nights. We pick completely random movies at least one of us hasn’t seen and we take turns hosting. It’s all very low key and relaxing: the host provides dinner (usually Chinese) and the guest provides dessert and booze.

So it’s my turn to go to her house and I am having a bad week. Like just record-breaking blahs. And while nothing cures the blahs like a good old-fashioned movie night, the idea of getting in the car and getting there just exhausts. So adding extra stops for booze and dessert? Forget it. So there’s a liquor store nearby that I know keeps champagne cold and I am in a cheap champagne mood.

Next door is a little Mexican gas station/taco stand. Yup, you read that right. In the middle of the country…in a gas station. Anyway, I get the lightbulb that I can just go ahead and buy the “dessert” right there in the gas station. So I go in looking for a bag of cookies. I’ll say this: bless my friend for loving cheap cookies and even cheaper booze. I’ve cooked for her and she’s graciously eaten it all, but I swear nothing makes the girl happier than a bag of Milanos and that’s why we’re friends.

Only this isn’t exactly that kind of gas station/taco stand, know what I mean? They’re selection isn’t exactly vast. But for some reason in my exhaustion, I find this funny and so end up purchasing the rather festive-looking cookie box you see here. Cute, right? She’s making a little Russian dish for me so I figure I’ll bring her a little Spanish dish of my own.

So I pay and leave and go get my champagne. I’ve parked between the liquor store and the gas station/taco stand, so about 20 feet from both. I am in my car, about to shut the door when I hear this little voice call out to me in a thick Mexican accent “hellooooo?” So I turn around and a Mexican man wearing an apron is waving at me. But he’s not moving off the sidewalk by the store. He’s just like yelling to me, which kind of weirds me out.

I start to stress a little because this is a small parking lot and it’s empty. And also, irrationally, I’m freaked out about speaking Spanish. I hate when I do this! The thing is: I know Spanish. And I know in situations like this, where he’s gearing up for a big conversation, I could probably speak Spanish and cut through it all much quicker.

Instead, I panic. I do this totally circular self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to my fluency in Spanish. I am, in fact, half Puerto Rican. And also, in fact, am fluent in Spanish. But you get me around native speakers and I just melt into my little Irish girl half. I don’t know what it is. Well, that’s not true, I do. I am self-conscious about sounding stupid so I won’t speak it in front of native speakers. Which means I don’t speak it often. Which means when I DO have to speak it, it sounds awkward and I stutter and then that makes me not want to speak it in front of native speakers.

Ok, so all of this is going through my mind as I stare blankly at him. So he asks “how much did you pay for those cookies?”

So, remember I’m tired, right? Bad week? A million things are going through my mind like “did I overpay? Underpay? Is he going to tell me I got ripped off? Does he have some sort of cheap cookie connection he wants to introduce me to?

Side note: this is why I can’t do yoga anymore. My brain REFUSES to slow down and make sense. And it for sure won’t stop to concentrate on my breathing. The classes were TORTURE for me. The whole time, my mind would be going a mile a minute: “that girl shouldn’t wear such short shorts; I hope nobody is behind me, if they’re behind me they’ll see how fat my ass is; I wonder what would happen if I fell over right now? Would they laugh or are they too zen for that? Because I would laugh, but I also can’t do a perfect tree pose without falling over, so they’re all better than me.” And then the worst part is the end when you’re just supposed to lay there and like reflect on the beauty of a dewdrop on the water or whatever? Yeah, then I go into overdrive: “Okay, so just turn off, brain. We won’t think about anything. Is thinking about not thinking about something thinking about it? I should stop. The person next to me looks very serene. Crap! I’m supposed to have my eyes closed. But so is the instructor so if she calls me out, then she’s just a phony, right?” And then all of a sudden it’s like “Namaste” and I feel totally gypped.

Anyway, so I told the man I paid $3.99 for the cookies. And he says “too much, they’re really bad, you should get your money back.” And I’m like, wow, there are lots of things in life I don’t like, but I can’t think of a time that I’ve actually stood outside to persuade someone not to do it. I mean that’s ballsy! So I shout back “well, I don’t mind giving them a try” because I can’t imagine going back in and explaining to the man behind the counter that the other dude who sells tacos told me these cookies sucked and could you please return my $3.99, thank you? It’s just too awkward.

So I see him turn and look at someone, who I later realize is the dude who sold me the cookies, and then he says “they’re old!” And again, stupid brain goes, old, like old school? And I start thinking about pop rocks and other candy I haven’t seen in awhile and maybe he’s just letting me know that his generation is smarter about these things and therefore knows that they’re total crap cookies.

And he’s getting more and more riled up. And I’m getting more and more weirded out because, dude, no matter what you say, I’m not getting out of my car to return the cookies. The whole reason I got them at your gas station/taco stand was because I was too lazy to go down the street to the multiple grocery stores or gas stations I could encounter that would have had Milanos instead of your, apparently, crap cookies.

And for some reason this like rebellious teenager in me comes out and I’m thinking: “well, now I will try the damn cookies and I will love them. Who tells me not to like cookies?” The gall! And again while I am doing this he is frantically whispering to the dude who sold me the cookies and finally as I am putting my seat belt on yells “expired! They expired! It would be better for you to return.”

And now I’m just embarrassed. And guilty because maybe if I had just spoken Spanish to the guy we would have been on the same page. Only I don’t know the Spanish word for expired. Crap, my fluency is fading.

So I’m feeling bad in general because I was all “I should speak English, it’s better” and made him struggle to explain to me the cookies I purchased were bad. And also feeling bad because first I’ve pegged this guy as some sort of back-alley cookie connection, then as some sort of anti-cookie crank, when in reality all he’s doing is trying not to poison me. I’m too embarrassed to reply so I just wave and take off.

I stop a ways down the road. And sure as hell: expired June 2009. Think about that. Think about the shelf life of a crappy generic cookie. I think that cookie could have been made while I still had braces on!

But don’t think for a second I wasn’t still tempted to try the cookies. Instead, $3.99 down the tubes.

Guest Post: Lola's Fear of (Not) Flying

2011-07-20T07:00:00.001-05:00

It's that time again! My good buddy Lola is taking over my blog. I have a month until my vacation when I get to fly with a toddler, so this is not the feel-good story of the year. And yet, totally relatable.

Hands up, who here has gotten seriously drunk on an airplane? Two weeks ago, I would have gasped in ladylike horror at such a notion. Maybe even clutched my pearls.

But not anymore.

I hope you will not judge me too harshly, I had a good excuse (old Lola: sure, that’s what they all say!). And in my defense, I did not start any arguments with the flight attendant, didn’t get the federal marshals involved, nor did I activate the inflatable escape slide, as giddy with drunken delight as I was. Come on, those things look like fun! Totally just one of those backyard slides, only with a freezing ocean at the end…

Really, Delta is to blame. Things started out innocently enough with my first flight landing on time. I casually strolled out, determined to hit a few duty-free shops during the four-hour layover. But first, I needed my boarding pass (for some stupid reason, I was only issued one for the first half of my trip).

So I casually moseyed up to the counter, even letting a nice elderly couple ahead of me, that’s how good of a mood I was in. Finally, it’s my turn. The check-in lady fiddles with my itinerary. But instead of handing me a boarding pass with a beaming smile and sending me on my way, she furrows her brow.

Wuh-oh.

But I’m telling myself to stay positive. Maybe all this means is that I won’t get a window seat. She keeps at the keyboard. Clickety-clack. Okay, now I’m getting REALLY nervous. Finally, she looks up and tells me with a nice Dutch accent that my flight is almost done boarding.

Um, excuse me?? I have four hours! Oh no, no, she tells me. My flight leaves in 20 minutes! Oh, and my bag is already on board.

I think I am going to throw up on her nice counter. She picks up the phone and starts chatting away to someone in Dutch, which is when I hear the following message over the PA system: “Lola, you are delaying the flight. Please board immediately, or we will proceed to offload your luggage.”

Dear God, this harkened me back to the time I was paged to the principle’s office over the intercom in sixth grade. Only now, my precious luggage is in just as much trouble, is probably getting suspected of containing a bomb, possibly getting sniffed by police dogs and getting rudely kicked off the plane. A plane it wasn’t even supposed to be on because THIS IS NOT MY FLIGHT!!

And the Check-in Lady of Doom? Still chatting. In Dutch.

Finally, FINALLY she hangs up after what felt like three hours. “Well, I managed to move you to the five o’clock flight,” she tells me wearily. Chatting in Dutch can wear one out, I hear. “It leaves in four hours.”

Yes, the flight I was SUPPOSED TO BE ON!

Of course now, my thoughts turn back to my bag. She assures me the bag was taken off the departing flight and will make it to the later one. I remain skeptical. I mean, if Delta can’t even keep their passengers on the right flights, what chance is there for humble luggage?! Even for pretty, dark burgundy luggage that’s probably getting abused by luggage handlers as we speak.

Still, I clutch onto my hard-earned boarding pass and walk away. The whole time, I feel like it’s going to get snatched away. I keep checking the boarding time over and over, afraid that I didn’t read it right or something. I even show up at the gate an hour early just to make sure I’m going to be on the right flight.

Finally, it’s time to board. The flight is, of course, full. And one row down from me, something ain’t right – an older woman in a cardigan is arguing about something with a young Asian guy. Then flight attendants get involved.

Apparently, both of them have a boarding pass for the exact same seat! Gulp.

A little while later, poor Cardigan Woman gets loaded off into nowhere – as much as I’m straining to hear the conversation, I can’t quite tell how they managed to mess up the flight manifest this time.

Of course, this throws me into total panic mode for a second time. I keep waiting for someone to show up and claim my seat.

Somehow, I don’t think “I was here first!” is going to cut it. So I eye each passenger walking up the aisle with psycho suspicion, chanting to myself: “keep walking, keep walking, keep walking.” The nice German gentleman next to me is probably thinking about switching seats. I can’t blame him.

And then, they finally close the doors.

Thank you, sweet Jesus! I’m GOING HOME! So yes, in celebration, I proceeded to get exceedingly tipsy. Can you blame a girl?

How about you, what’s your awful travel story?

Dress Me For Date Night

2011-07-18T11:38:00.000-05:00

So last week we covered that I had zero wardrobe staples and was a hot mess in the clothing department.

I've since done some shopping. I was going to present an array of options for you, but as it is 117 degrees here today and the rest of the week, we'll be wearing the only cute skirt I own, which was purchased for $11 on eBay.

I'll show you the other stuff I bought on my next date night.

So some of may recall for Christmas, I bought Scott The 12 Dates of Christmas. Basically once a month we go to a different spot we've always wanted to go. This month we are going to The Nicollet Island Inn.

Without further ado, here are my wardrobe options. As I do not have any technological know-how, I can't do an actual poll so please comment here on what you think I should wear.

Oooh, one last thing! I totally need to do dry cleaning, so forgive the wrinkles on all my clothing. I'll get my act together before date night, I'm not that big of a slob.

Option 1: Cardigan from Banana Republic, Tank from The Gap, and my eBay Ann Taylor Skirt.

Option 2: Tank by Ann Taylor

Option 3: Cardigan: Herbergers, Tank: Ann Taylor

Option 4

Option 5: Blazer and Top by Kohls

Can Babies Baby-Sit???

2011-07-15T07:00:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, our neighbor's 11-year-old came over to sell me some cookies. Long-time readers will recall I am a SUCKER for solicitors, so of COURSE I bought some.

This was also around the time we were faced with a big change: our daycare provider announced she would need surgery and would be out for 6 weeks. We were debating whether we wanted to try to find a nanny or whether we wanted to start really looking at other daycares.

We had been seeing a lot of fliers around the area for summer helpers, and it was a consideration. Then this girl came to my door. She didn't even bring up baby-sitting!

So I don't know why my reaction was the way it was.

I just looked at Scott and said "no way."

Now, this girl is awesome. She's smart and sweet, she gets great grades, she's responsible enough to be left at home for a few hours each evening.

She's me at 11 years old.

When I was 11 we moved into a new neighborhood and I papered the area with fliers. Using my mother's very new Print Shop program, I created adorable little diapered-baby covered business cards with my name and address and phone number.

Would you ever allow your kid to do this now?? Of course not! It's like an invitation for a pedophile, right?

It was a simpler time.

Within weeks, I had three different gigs. One was for a 6-month-old infant down the street.

At 11 years old.

You guys? I looked at this neighbor girl and thought "absolutely not." This little person hasn't even gone through puberty, she's going nowhere near my daughter.

And it's not just me.

When Wee 'Burb was in center daycare and I took my dad, he got a little flustered. When we got in the car, he whispered "she's kind of...young, right?"

She was probably 19. At 17 I was working in a daycare center, running an entire kindergarten-age room by myself.

But he was right. She was kind of young.

I can't figure out why this reaction was so visceral. I feel awful about it. I was a great baby-sitter. I took the Red Cross Baby-Sitting Course. My mother was down the street. I was great with kids. They loved me. I wanted to form my own Baby-Sitters Club right then and there.

What are your thoughts? Do you let your older kids baby-sit? What age is your baby-sitter? Am I just being insane?

You Don't Know Me! The Slap Heard 'Round the Churchyard

2011-07-14T07:00:00.003-05:00

Since I have doubled my readership in the last few months (thanks for coming to see me!) I've decided to do a little experiment. On Thursdays I'll be posting some items from the first year of blogging under the title You Don't Know Me!

I hope that's not blog cheating. I'll still be posting my usual three times a week, so stop clutching your pearls and enjoy.

I’ve been on sort of an endless search for new parent friends since we moved to the boonies. Not to replace my existing friends (hi, guys, love you, thanks for being my only readers), but to supplement them so we have local people to talk to about schools, where to get the best deals on soap…or whatever the hell parent friends talk about, I honestly don’t know.

One of the brilliant ideas I came up with is church. I’ve never been much of a church-goer and I could bore you with all my philosophical and political reasons for that, but this isn’t that kind of blog. But religion is important to Scott and knowing he wanted to raise all the Wee ‘Burbs we manage to pop out in the church meant I had to find one I liked. And since the actual message didn’t matter a lot to me (again except for political ones I’ll keep to myself), I set off trying to find a church with a lot of young families.

So we found a great one near us with a 10:45 mass so on the blessed days when I can sleep in, we can still make it. And it happens to be a children’s mass, which means loads of young parents. So I spend most of my time in church scouting for potential friends. I’m aware this makes me both pathetic and a heathen, but there it is. You married me for better or worse, Scott! Love you.

Anyway, so when we officially joined the church to get Wee ‘Burb baptized, we were told they host occasional welcome dinners where they “pair up” veteran parishioners with new ones for a nice dinner at the priest’s house. Once I got over the initial “Oh my GOD…I mean gosh…we’re going to eat…at the priest’s house? Like talk to him one-on-one? Like he’s a person or something?” spaz, I agreed to go.

So we got in our finest “Priest’s House Casual BBQ” clothes (thank goodness I’ve become accustomed to being overdressed since I moved back here) and went to dinner. I’m not sure how much “matching” went into this particular gathering. Let’s just say there were repeated comments like “ohhh, I have a granddaughter your age.” I did bond with one woman who recently started working at home, and we did share our guilt over doing laundry between calls, but the conversation grew awkward when she said she had a daughter “not much older than me” who turned out to have a 18-year-old graduating from high school. Um, okay? Time for Stephanie to invest in Botox, apparently.

Anyway, I look over and see that Scott has found the only other couple there who are under 40. Jackpot! We’ll ignore the fact that the dude was wearing a cowboy hat…desperate times and all that. So I go over and schmooze the wife and find out they have an 8-year-old boy and are in their late 30s. They also didn’t know a ton of people outside of their family, having moved to the area only a few years ago. A few glasses of chardonnay, and I’m thinking we have found our soulmates, cowboy hat and all.

Scott tells me later in the evening, about 5 minutes into the conversation, Cowboy Hat had already insulted him. Scott was discussing how he has every tool known to man and Cowboy Hat says “maybe if you relied on manual labor instead of tools, you’d lose some weight.” Um, excuse me? I should note that Cowboy Hat was NOT A SMALL MAN.

But whatever, I didn’t know this and Scott is nicer than me and didn’t tell me until much later. So, we’re gathered in a circle after the worst meal I’ve ever had (if you can call sausage stew and Skinny Cow ice cream a meal) courtesy of what the priest had the gall to call “the catering committee.” Sorry, but my God doesn’t look kindly on people who pretend store-bought cupcakes and lowfat ice cream sandwiches is “dessert.”

So we’re gathered in the circle and we’re instructed to tell everyone what brought us to the church. Most people have simple stories. Live in the area, heard about it, liked the look of the church, the usual. One guy rambled on how he knew the priest from seminary school, but then married a fiery Argentinian who got shot at when she visited the Mall of America. Yeah, I don’t know, either.

Then it’s Cowboy Hat’s turn. And he begins to ramble about how he hated the other churches, naming priests by NAME who apparently take too long to say the “Our Father” for his tastes.

People uncomfortably giggle and the priest nods a little and sort of clasps his hands, waiting for this to be over. But Cowboy Hat is just gearing up! He continues to go on about how it is his personal mission to put signs on the cars of everyone who is late saying “don’t bother to come in” because people stumble in about 5 minutes into service. Granted, he’s not wrong here, people are late in ways that make me anxious as a girl who attended church only on special occasions and was told “10 minutes early is 5 minutes late” and was forced to wear Sunday best while everyone else wore jeans.

Anyway, this goes on for like 5 minutes and then I have to follow him! And I am momentarily speechless, partly because I’m actually not 100% sure he’s done. But he solemnly nods at me like “good luck following THAT, sweetheart” and I manage to squeak out we wanted a place with lots of kids and we liked the sermons and the evening continues at a more normal pace.

Until about an hour, and (apparently) a few beers, later for Cowboy Hat. He is telling a story by the firepit to the priest about going to Easter mass with his nieces and nephews. He’s explaining to the priest that back in the day, if he was talking during mass, he would get a swift backhand to the head and then he PROCEEDS TO DEMONSTRATE ON HIS WIFE!

You could hear the smack followed by just total silence until Scott gasps to the woman next to him “did that dude just hit his wife??!!” and the woman nods and Cowboy Hat abuser has now realized what he’s done and pats her head and said something like “that was harder than the demonstration required.”

Um, it required NO demonstration!

I was waiting for the priest to get out his appointment book then and there for a little marital counseling, but instead they made their excuses that they had to go pick up their kid and we followed shortly thereafter. We were silent for the walk down the street to our car and when we were belted in, Scott looked at me and said, “seriously, did that guy hit his wife??!!”

Yes, yes he did. And with that slap went any hopes of parental bonding.

Guide to the Styleless

2011-07-13T07:00:00.001-05:00

I recently got a friendly little note from our local charity requesting that I donate some clothing, as I have in years past. I thought this was a good time to do some of that spring cleaning people are always talking about...in July.

So I took everything out of my closet and drawers and began a purging the likes of which I haven't experienced since I moved from junior high to high school and declared all my clothing "utterly juvenile."

As a side note, my mother hates watching us toss clothes. She still wears some of those junior high toss-outs. If you see a woman sporting a Snoopy Chicago Bulls sweatshirt, say hey to Mommy Suburbia.

I was ruthless. Anything I hadn't worn in two years (I gave myself some leeway considering last year I was still trying to shed the baby weight) went in to the garbage bag.

Two garbage bags later I was met with a sobering fact: I have no good clothes.

I'm in that awful weight loss place where I've lost enough weight to look odd in my regular clothes, but not quite enough to be a size smaller.

I kept the pieces I could tailor, but I was still left with a closet FULL of empty hangers.

Not having an unlimited budget and being slightly wary of maintaining this size, I began ~~whining~~ seeking help from those closest to me to figure out what it is I needed.

My roommate is a Tim Gunn aficionado and pointed me out to this list of his 10 Essential Items Every Woman Needs:

Basic black dress
Trench coat
Classic dress pants
Classic white shirt
Skirt
Blazer
Day dress
Cashmere sweater
Jeans
A comfortable alternative to a sweatsuit

Um, you guys? I have #2, #4 and a lot of #9 in varying stages of saggy butt.

So I consulted Twitter to see what real people considered their top wardrobe must-haves:

Nope: don't have either of these!

I totally have both, but the yoga pants are super stretched out. Not appropriate for outdoor wear.

I kind of hate my black pants.

I do have some jeans I love. They are Kut from the Kloth and they're great! I wear them everywhere.

Cous Cous ate my favorite black heels. My cardigan is too big now.

Sigh, jeans are seriously the only thing I have of this list!!!

Clearly, some shopping was in order. So 4th of July I went out to the malls with my roommate, and promptly came back sobbing hysterically.

Nothing looked right. Here I was with an actual shopping budget, and a desire to buy quality pieces versus my usual cheap pants that will last me 6 months and end up in the next donation bag.

I found nothing.

Fueled by terror at my empty closet, I took to the Internet. I've always done better with online shopping, anyway. I don't have to look at the size 0, I can immediately find my size with a click of a button, and most importantly I can try it on with a glass of wine in the comfort of my own bedroom, where only the dog has to witness my sobbing.

Next week I'll show you my purchases in a feature I am calling Dress Me For Date Night.

Meanwhile, what are your wardrobe staples? Have you ever been faced with the dreaded empty closet?

Cubicle Condundrums: An Etiquette Guide

2011-07-11T07:00:00.002-05:00

I didn't post on Friday, though if I am being honest, you may not have noticed. And that's okay.

Honestly, after a week of barely escaping a major downsizing with my job, getting a new boss, being cordially invited to the office where all my new co-workers go and barely escaping with my telecommuting status intact...I just didn't have it in me. To be 100% honest, the posts I put up last week happened to be ones I already had in draft.

My energy was sapped.

I am grateful for my job, grateful for some new opportunities, but still in a bit of mourning for the co-workers who didn't get so lucky. Good people in bad circumstances.

I was able to get a little tension out by having some fun on Twitter. Because, really, if you can't have fun there, you can't have fun anywhere.

It took very little time for me to remember why I hated having to work in an office. As I began to complain about overhearing very personal things about someone's pregnancy and weekend plans, I must have hit a nerve because Twitter blew up with people sharing their cubicle nightmares.

I submit a few to you:

E.T. No Phone Home

Courtesy of The Random Blogette, who experienced a co-worker who only used speaker phone for all their calls, I submit to you rule #1: thou shalt not use the phone above a reasonable volume. Also? Don't use said phone for personal things.

We almost all have cell phones now, take a five-minute walk to a private area, outside, or in your car to do your personal business.

When I was in the office, there was a chick we referred to as "Rectal Chick" because we heard such horrific details about various medical procedures she was undergoing. When she got pregnant, all bets were off. I think I may have known before her husband did. She proceeded to do nurseline calls discussing very unpleasant symptoms, interviewed daycares (when she was approximately 10 weeks pregnant) and tell every client how tired she was all the time.

While I worked at the office I planned a wedding and bought a house, and I can count on one hand the number of times I EVER spoke about those things on the phone in the office. Much less something as personal as my lady business.

No Hour is Happy Outside of a Bathroom

Courtesy of Terri at Creative Pathways, rule #2: thou shalt not hold cocktail hour in your cube.

When I was in the office, I had the grave misfortune of having a cubicle right by the bathroom hallway. Not wanting to be so tacky as to hold a conversation in the bathroom itself (vulgar, that), ladies would convene and lean AGAINST my cubicle walls and continue to host "personal" conversations. That word is in quotes for a reason.

What makes otherwise rational adults think 4-foot-carpeted grey walls insulate people from your very private thoughts? I do not wish to know your son has problems with coke and is marrying a common street whore, I actually have work to do!

I went so far as to put up a sign saying "Working Area: Quiet Please" and someone had the unmitigated gall to lean AGAINST the sign so long it fell off, while regaling coworkers with tales of her messy divorce.

Groom in the Proper Room

Also courtesy of the Random Blogette, who desperately needs a telecommuting situation, rule #3: bathroom behaviors are for that room and that room only. I've experienced the gamut of this behavior, including putting on perfume, deodorant, letting one loose, loudly blowing noses...but the worst ever was at one of my first jobs when someone would constantly cut their nails. I pray to everything holy it was their fingernails, but the CLIP sound haunts me to this day. Honestly? I'm a bathroom habit prude. I do not put makeup on in public, I do not allow Scott to cut his toenails in front of me, and I close the bathroom door whenever humanly possible (I do have a toddler now, so those boundaries get pushed). Although you are there for half your day and it may feel like it, your cubicle is not your house. And it certainly is not your bathroom.

I'm sure there are a million more, so while I try to get adjusted to a new life and count my blessings, please share with me what your office no-nos are.

Here in My Car, I'm Safest of All?

2011-07-06T07:00:00.001-05:00

I learned to drive in Arizona, a few months before I was set to leave it for Minnesota. As part of the driver's ed course, you had to learn highway driving. This was a bit of a challenge where I lived. There were no real highways.

The one there was led directly to Mexico.

So, picture if you will, a 15-year-old Stephanie, slightly rageful at the injustice of having to move away my junior year, even more rageful about moving back to the town where I grew up. A town I did not have fond memories of. Rage Stephanie is yawning and rolling her eyes and waiting for her turn at driving.

The turn finally comes and I try not to get distracted by the demonstration of the instructor on how he can make me brake any ole time he felt like it. The car jerks as he shows me and I sigh heavily. Finally, he lets me go on my own.

I do okay, I'm gripping the wheel tight at 10 and 2 and following directions. And then all of a sudden I see THE SIGN.

Border Crossing Ahead.

I start trying to swerve wildly, only my instructor has caught on to my terror and is controlling the wheel.

As I am hyperventilating, he is repeating over and over "we are not going to cross the border, we are not going to cross the border" and he's giving me instructions on where the turn-off is to not cross the border, only all I am hearing is white noise as I imagine my little 15-year-old self trying to slow through the checkpoint.

I will hit a guard. I will be put in Mexican prison. I will surely die in Mexican prison, and the worst part is, since I know Spanish, I'll hear all about their death plot long before it's carried out.

I don't know how we got to the turnoff, but I insisted on getting out of the car and wouldn't drive the rest of the lesson.

This experience and parallel parking were all I could think of when I went to take my driver's test.

I had practiced this more, of course. I had been allowed to drive my mother's van approximately three times: each time she apparently thought she had the driver's ed car and frantically stomped her feet on the floor to make me brake. When she wasn't doing this, she was gripping the door handle as if planning a quick roll-out escape should I try to take her across the border.

I was wired, remembering everything I had to check off to satisfy the license people. I took the written test first. You had to pass the written before they even allowed you behind the wheel. I just about bit through my lip in anticipation.

And then the man handed me my test back, I had passed!! I tried not to jump up and down, fearing points off for excessive celebration.

And then it got better.

He handed me my license paperwork! I had been approved! For a license! Without taking the behind the wheel test!!! I must have looked a little surprised because he said the name of my driving school and I nodded and he said "happy birthday" and went on to his next person.

I kept it together until I got outside and then squealed like a schoolgirl. My mom smirked in confusion, and handed me a gift. It was my first set of keys, my very own. Complete with pepper spray (I suspect this was my dad's doing).

Awhile later I found out that the driver's ed school I took was certified about a week before my birthday to give the behind the wheel as part of the class. While the class I took was not qualified, they just saw the qualification stamp on the name of the school and asked no further questions.

To this day I have never had to take a behind the wheel exam. But I am a kick-ass parallel parker. I dare you to let me prove it!

What was your first driving experience? Did you pass your first time? What was on your first keychain?

Keeping the Home Fires Burning

2011-07-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

On one very hot day in May when my husband was away, I looked at my roommate and declared "I am going to have to use the grill."

We've had the grill since we moved into our house three years ago now. I refused to touch it. Refused, in fact, to go near it until early spring when Scott insisted I learn how to turn it on.

Luckily for all of us, the instructions on turning this machine on are also on the grill itself. Yet, still, I held my breath.

When it was time to hit the ingite button, I scooted as far back as humanly possible so that only the EDGE of my finger was near enough to be singed off when the entire thing exploded. I mean, let's face it, I would NOT look cute sans eyebrows.

In a frightening WHOOSH, the thing was alive and I was cooking with gas.

I managed to burn neither myself nor my dinner.

I was pretty damn proud of myself. But also still totally petrified of the grill.

During another heat spell here in Minnesota, I bucked up. Because I telecommute, I am the one who is responsible for at least getting dinner started. And there was no way said dinner was going to be made in my house.

Having not experienced my first success at the grill, I was excited to show Scott what I knew. And to my delight, so was he. In fact, three grilled meals later, he declared me a Grill Mastress.

For Father's Day I suggested we grill and asked him what he wanted. He gave me the menu and then dropped this little bomb: he was turning the tongs over to me!

You read that right, the man told me I was a better griller than he, and that I should go with my strengths.

My strengths being, I think, an ability to not open the grill to check on meat 100 times in five minutes, therefore regulating the grill temperature to some degree of accuracy.

Anyway, I was only too glad to take the task on, feeling like kind of a badass. Kind of like the first time in my single life I used an electric drill and did a Tim Allen grunt before putting together my Target bookshelf.

You know who wasn't glad? Scott's dad. HORRIFIED, in fact. Throughout the entire dinner, he just kept shaking his head and said "can't believe you turned grilling over to your wife. It's the only thing we men can do other than sit and drink beer."

Well, no argument on the latter part, anyway.

My husband shrugged his shoulders, complimented me on an awesome kabob, and went about his beer drinking.

That, my friends, is why I married this man. Secure enough in his manhood to occasionally give me good shoe advice and gracious enough to let the best man win in the grilling war.

Who does the grilling in your house? Safe to say I'll be grilling our 4th food. What's on your menu this glorious LONG WEEKEND??

Getting My Way

2011-06-29T07:00:00.001-05:00

I was what you would call a rather precocious child. I was anxious around other kids and tended to be more comfortable around adults. I found out early the best way to explain myself to anyone was through writing. I focused this primarily on my parents and primarily as a way to get what I wanted.

The first essay I recall writing was "Why I Deserve to be a Latchkey Kid." I think it focused on me being a whole 11 years old and way too old for daycare, and being really, really responsible and such. I believe I promised to call as soon as I walked in the door, open said door for nobody else, and stay put until a parent came through said door.

I presented the essay to my parents, they conferred, and I was allowed to be a latchkey kid. Let me make one small point of clarification: It was for approximately 30 minutes. But I got a taste of freedom and I went with it.

Essays ensued from there on to include Why I Deserve a Cat (I ended up with a bunny, after being extra manipulative and ending with "I just want something of my own to love"), Why I Deserve a Later Bedtime (I got that one, too) and Why I Deserve my Own Phone (a beautiful dark dusty rose that actually came a few years after the essay, so I guess I was losing my touch).

I've decided this is how I am going to handle things with Wee 'Burb. If she wants something, she has to present a logical argument for it. And accept she may not always get it.

How were your requests handled when you were growing up?

The Drive of Shame

2011-06-27T07:00:00.001-05:00

All my life, I have wanted to drive a golf cart.

I even tried to convince Scott that we should drive away from our wedding in a golf cart. No sale.

Possibly because we were married in a rather urban area and our reception was like 15 miles away.

Details, people, details!

Anyway, for my birthday I asked Scott to book a golf day, where I could drive a golf cart.

I've never golfed before. EVER.

My roommate and Scott have each golfed a few times. None of us has clubs or any of the other required golf paraphernalia, so we went in early to get costumed.

I told the guy flat out we were all newbies and we needed everything. So he set us up with a golf cart and clubs. We were so shocked by the total at that point, we didn't notice something was missing until we got to the golf cart.

We didn't have balls.

So Scott goes back in and looks kind of green at the cost of the golf balls and I'm beginning to get that "bad idea" feeling.

Then we realize we don't have tees.

This time I go in and get tees, which the manager kindly gives me for free. I think he had the "bad idea" feeling himself.

So I'm tentative with the golf cart at first, but then find it as cool as I imagined. We drive to the first tee and while we wait for the foursome ahead of us, we talk to the ranger. He gives us a few pointers and we kind of smile. I ask him what we're aiming for. He points to a flag faaaar away. I think we BOTH get the "bad idea" feeling.

So it's finally time for us to tee up and I'm getting pointers while watching people behind us pile up. We all hit into different areas, and Scott can't even find his ball (tee hee, does golf terminology make you giggle, too?). We park the cart in the general direction of where we think the ball is and while he searches, I do my next few...um, hits? Swings? I'm not sure. Let's say I was at 6 on a par 3 and I hadn't even met the green yet.

This is when the ranger came down. Did we know that we could bring our golf carts on to the green to aid in the search for Scott's wayward ball? We did not. In fact, we had given up at this point looking for his ball and were working on me getting to the green.

We looked behind us and saw more people following us. So we decided to skip this hole and go to hole 2.

I actually got it on the green and I gave a "woo hoo" which I was cautioned by my roommate was not acceptable golf behavior.

Then the manager came down, with the ranger right behind him. Yup, "bad idea" feeling rearing its ugly head.

The manager reminds us that we need to keep up with the group ahead of us on this course. We said we knew, that's why we skipped the hole.

He says "I'm not here to scold you, you did the right thing skipping the hole. I just wanted to offer you something, if you're open to it. We can refund your money and you guys can take the golf carts to the driving range. We'll give you free tokens to the driving range and you guys can hit balls there."

Through laughs I choked out a "thank you, that's a nice offer. We'll take it."

Then we had to drive the golf carts PAST the people lined up behind us and I truly think golf etiquette was the only thing keeping them from clapping and a rousing round of "na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye."

It's what I would have done.

You guys? That was the most shameful apology tour EVER. We just drove by and waved at all the foursomes behind us, who were all kind enough to wave back and not outwardly laugh at our incompetence.

We had a great time at the driving range, where it's OK to suck.

And they did indeed refund all of our money.

The funny thing? I would totally golf again. We picked a pro course, which was a huge mistake. My roommate suggests golfing as early in the morning as possible under cover of darkness. SOLD!

Have you ever been kicked out of a sporting event?

All Mine

2011-06-24T07:00:00.001-05:00

My first real apartment was about 600 square feet. All mine. It was considered desirable because it was a two-room studio, which meant there was a wall between the living room/kitchen portion and the bedroom/bathroom portion. No door, but a wall.

All mine.

For the first few months I was there, I would get up early and sip my coffee from my newly purchased yellow coffee mugs (Corelle outlet). I would sit in my alcove on my inherited chairs in front of my inherited teeny-tiny table pushed up against my bay window. That was my favorite feature of the apartment. Other than it being all mine.

I think about this apartment a lot lately. While I love my little chaotic home life, some days I am wistful about being ALONE. Sipping a cup of coffee, watching what I want on TV, cooking for one and hand-washing the dishes afterward.

Mornings now are spent listening to Wee 'Burb's chatting get more and more insistent until I know she has to be removed from the crib. I get her dressed, and we brush our teeth and hair. Then she plays a little game where she says "where daddy?" until he comes and gets her. He plays with her a little bit while I throw on some clothes to take her across the street to daycare. I come home and either take the dog for a walk if I have a lighter deadline week, or pour myself a cup of coffee (out of my wedding present, a set of glass coffee mugs from William Sonoma) and log in to work.

This chaos? Also all mine. In a different way. In a wonderful way. But in a different way. For now? I am never alone. Also? I am never lonely.

How I Plan to Stop Grocery Terrorists

2011-06-22T07:00:00.001-05:00

Hey hey! Go check me out on Tenaciously Yours today where I talk about how I actively fight against Grocery Terrorism.

Post-Posting Thoughts and I'm Blogworthy!

2011-06-20T07:00:00.001-05:00

After thinking more on my post Is Optimism Good and reading Amanda at It's Blogworthy's advice to interns on how to approach internships without a sense of entitlement, I have just a few more observations.

1. Thanks so much to Amanda for giving me this awesome award! Seriously, she has inspired me so much with my blog, it's a total honor to get something like this.

2. I think my post seemed more wistful than I intended. There is no day where I am sad that I am not running a magazine. There are some days, maybe, where I wish I could be published. But a lot of you pointed out that this blog is some form of that, and for now other than freelance work, it's what I have the time and patience for.

3. If my post interested you at all, you really should go read the comments. I really loved each and every one I got, and did my best to respond to those I could. But some of my favorites included:

Erica and Pine Lakes Redhead who explained: I feel that my parents gave me the confidence that I could take on any challenge I wanted. But at the same time, I was raised to be practical. I know where my strengths and weakness lie. It must work because I don't feel limited in what I do.
Sam from Life as a Wife says: I was raised being told I could do anything I wanted but also was taught that dreams require hard work and time.
Serena at the Bewildered Bug quotes: A friend of mine from high school aptly put it - reach up for the moon because if you miss, you'll be among the stars.
Ixy over at Illusion tells it like it is: I feel really strongly about this - you're not doing your child (or the world) a favour by pretending they can do anything they want. That said, the world is so cruel and parents should be the support kids can always count on. I think our job is to guide our kids about the consequences of their decisions, and encourage them to ask questions that will get them thinking realistically. For example, "what else would you like to do if becoming a rock star is taking longer than expected"?
Mama Spaghetti spells it out: I am a Gen-Y-er, but I am constantly frustrated by my peers and how entitled they feel about, well, pretty much everything. Somewhere along the way it was like building self-esteem steam-rolled right over realism, and it's left a lot of people I know floundering.

The more I think about it, I think it comes down to confidence and then the real-world application. Bottom line: it's about rolling with the punches. Maybe a big dream can be broken down into smaller dreams, right? So while I am certainly not going to be starting my own magazine, I did start this blog, and I did go for freelance jobs outside of my day-to-day work that allow me to write what I like.

Maybe I will never publish a book, but my name is out there in bylines. I've published work before.

The thing is, I'm so happy with my life. I CHOSE this life, and chose which items of my list were no longer important. At some point, my priorities shifted and I realized that I wanted to focus on my family. I woke up one day and said "my job is not going to keep me warm at night" and that was that.

Because my parents taught me to trust my gut and make my own decisions, I was able to decide to go in a direction that makes me happiest. I had the confidence to reset my goals. I used to see this as settling. I settled for this blog instead of a magazine, or settled for small freelance assignments rather than a published book.

But now I realize it's not settling. It's simply rolling with life's punches. Truly, we all need to evaluate our lists every few years, and focus on what's important now. And have the confidence to say "it's okay, I didn't complete that. I have something better."

As something better goes, how can you beat this?

Wilma, Get Me Off of This Thing Called...CARTOONS

2011-06-17T07:00:00.001-05:00

I am entering the world of cartoon obsession slowly with Wee 'Burb. At 19 months, she doesn't have much of an attention span, though she will come crawling as fast as she can when any of the following theme songs come on: Elmo's World, Bubble Guppies, and The Simpsons (what? She doesn't know the difference). And since my roommate introduced her to Elmo on YouTube, she just shouts "ELMO" at every computer she sees. So I can see the obsession building.

Recently, Shine waxed nostalgic about the best and worst cartoon heroines for our daughters.

Thankfully, one of my FAVORITES made the good girl list. Jem! Jem! She's truly outrageous, truly truly outrageous!

Source: Wikipedia

Here's what Shine says about our girl Jem:

If your daughters have never seen Jem, she may be worth an introduction. For a cartoon, she's one heck of a woman. Not only does Jem front an arena rock band, she's a big-time music producer—a rarity in the real-life male dominated industry. Jem also runs a non-profit foundation that supports foster kids, 12 of whom live with her and the Holograms at their sweet pad.

So who made the worst list? Wilma from The Flinstones was billed as an abuse survivor. Tinkerbell was written off as the nymph she is. And did you guys know this about Smurfette??!!

Totally true cartoon backstory of how the only lady Smurf (until 2008) came into being: evil Gargamel created her from clay to sabotage the pleasant, woman-free (they probably call it 'smurfy') way of life in Smurf Village. When she was found out as nothing but a two-bit seductress, she was shamed in Smurf court. Papa Smurf, kind-hearted leader or lecherous, racist tyrant depending on your outlook, took pity on her and broke the spell Gargamel used to create her. Here's where she gets even worse: once Papa removed her dark powers, her brown, frizzy her turned to blond, wavy locks. Also her flats became heels. And her white dress got embellishments.

I thought she was just slightly slutty in her smurfy way! I had no idea she came with a back story.

So let's talk cartoons, people. What should I allow my kiddo to watch? What do you remember about your childhood cartoons? I recently introduced Wee 'Burb to Fraggle Rock and she loves it. I'm scared to find out the back stories of some of those! Especially since I am convinced Trash Heap is Edna Garrett in trash form. Do you even care about role models, or is it just a good way to keep them quiet for a few mintues so you can pee?

A Beary Happy Birthday to Me

2011-06-15T07:00:00.001-05:00

So the roommate got me an early birthday present of a trip to her boss’ cabin in Wisconsin. My expertise on cabins and cabin travel is limited to my sister-in-law’s awesomely tricked out house on like a billion acres. Complete with hot tub.

Oh, and bears.

Her dog, fondly called Frankendog for awhile, still bears (pun intended) the scars of her run-in with a bear mommy who was less than thrilled with the pup for deciding her cub was her new playmate. And later, the bear (or one of its relatives) took out their frustration on their hot tub cover, completely annihilating it not 10 feet from their door.

People? I don’t do nature. I’m sorry if this makes me a princess. It’s just how I roll. So my first question to the roommate and her boss was if they had bears.

While I was waiting for an answer, my husband stepped in. He decided he wanted me to be prepared in case I came face-to-face with a cranky bear. I decided to share this with you because a) it’s freaking hilarious and b) it may just save your life.

“The most important thing is to not run away from the bear. Because if you run, you’re prey.”

I’m pretty sure if you’re there, you’re prey, right? Like it’s not like the Terminator where the bear is all assessing me to see if I am THE ONE. Or if he can steal my clothes. I’m fairly confident they bite first, ask questions later. Yes?

“Do not try to climb trees.”

Is this a common instinct? I guess I don’t know what I would do, besides pee my pants and lay down and play dead (incidentally, also ill-advised). But I would think attempting to climb a tree would be low on the list. I don’t do trees, either. Though apparently I was an expert tree climber as a youth. Someday we can discuss the multiple complaints my mother had as I ruined the handmade dresses…and, you know, climbed trees in a dress. Flashing neighbors early, that’s how I roll.

“Never sneak up on a bear.”

Like, is this really a common thing? Does he seriously think I’d be stalking some bear like “bwaahaha, I’ve got you know, Grizzly!” I have no words for this one.

“Make yourself a bigger force than the bear.”

So this was the crux of the advice. I’m 5 foot 4. So is my roommate. Somehow I was picturing her like boosting me up on her shoulders so we look like one really tall person?

In all seriousness, apparently you are supposed to wear something called bear spray (I am imagining it has to do with pee of some sort of animal, and I just am too traumatized to look it up) and make a lot of noise when approaching anywhere with potential bear-like creatures.

Fortunately, her boss’ cabin did not have bears. But she did cite ticks, so we didn’t do any venturing around the property.

I should ask Scott what to do with ticks.

Why We Should All Have a Sister Wife

2011-06-13T10:45:00.000-05:00

When Wee 'Burb was a few months old, one of my closest friends came to live with us from Boston. Having had enough of living in her parents' basement and going from job to job, she moved into our basement for a little reprieve.

She is one of the few people I could ever live with, other than my husband. She's someone I can flat out say "I need my space" to and she would not take offense, and would thank me for letting her know.

Which is why over a year later, she's still here. It works for us, and while it's not permanent, we're in no rush to see her go.

Scott jokingly calls her the non-sexual sister wife. And in many ways, this is what she is.

In addition to being my friend, she is now Scott's friend, and one of Wee Burb's favorite people (Cous Cous, too). In fact, when I tell her no, she often goes running to our roommate for comfort. "She" being both Wee 'Burb AND Cous Cous in this scenario, sadly.

Frankly, I think the whole polygamy thing gets a bad rap. Having an extra person around to help with cleaning, diapering, and just overall amusing my kid is like a dream come true. I will be the first to admit I have a completely skewed version of motherhood as a result. Scott has a week-long work trip? That's cool, enter Sister Wife to help me with dinner while I give Wee 'Burb a bath. Scott's not excited about going to the zoo and a craft fair? Come on, Sister Wife, grab the keys!

Her mother has thanked me approximately 400 times for taking her daughter in and welcoming her. The truth? I want to thank HER every day because sometimes I think cheap rent and her own bathroom isn't nearly equal to all the help she provides.

Now naturally, the whole issue of sharing a man doesn't come into play here. Being firmly in the kindly brother/sister camp, there's no risk of hanky panky going on with the roommate and the husband. So I get the help without the uncomfortable sex scheduling thing.

I recently read an article on 10 reasons why Tina Fey would be a great sister wife. What celebrity would you love to have as your sister wife?

Defensive Driving

2011-06-10T07:00:00.002-05:00

This past weekend was a beautiful one here in Minnesota, and we haven't seen that since, oh, last summer. It begged for time spent outdoors. So, I packed up Wee 'Burb and my roommate and we went off to the zoo.

We were having a lovely drive, rocking out to 80s music and getting Wee 'Burb to dance to Abba, when all of a sudden, life slowed down.

I saw a bolt in the air, so tiny I feel I couldn't have seen it. Except I did.

Followed closely and quickly, but still in slow motion, by a bicycle. Heading directly at me.

I gasped and swore and the whole time I remember thinking to myself "do NOT drive into the ditch, just drive. The bike is going to hit you, but you just need to drive" and I did, and the bike hit and I kept driving until I could safely pull over to the side of the road.

To discover despite the bicycle ricocheting off the side of my car, all I had was a scratch by my driver's side mirror.

A scratch. A bicycle over 2 lanes of traffic and all I had was a scratch on my car.

Naturally, the rest of the ride I thought of all the horrible things that could have happened. I grabbed Wee 'Burb extra tight and tried to shake it off.

But I'm giving extra thanks.

Is Optimism Good?

2011-06-08T07:00:00.002-05:00

I was going to do the following by the time I was 25 years old, according to my 18-year-old self:

Be an editor of a magazine
Look into starting my own magazine
Married (of course)
Starting a family (because, you know, that is totally conducive to #s 1 and 2)
Publish a book

I did exactly none of those. Instead, between the age of 21 and 25 I had 4 jobs in as many years, and finally gave up on Boston and moved back with my tail between my legs to Minnesota.

I still haven't done 1, 2, and 5. I've accepted I probably never will, largely because of 2 and 3.

The Huffington Post featured a piece by a self-proclaimed Gen-Y Expert saying that Generation Y has what she calls Expectation Hangovers. I should probably absolve myself now because I'm totally Gen X. But I was also raised with the expectation that I could do anything, because I was great, we all get trophies for showing up, and gosh darnit, people like me.

The author illuminates the crisis I faced around age 25, and that I think a lot of my younger friends are facing now:

Some 20-somethings are less willing to take or stay at a job that they don't like since they believe they are supposed to -- dare I say... entitled to -- love their job because that is what was "promised." Moreover, many prefer not to make a lot of lifestyle sacrifices, and now that moving back to the Hotel of Mom and Dad has become more of a trend than an embarrassment, they don't have to.

So the question is, as a parent, what do we do here? How do we manage expectations without raining on our precious child's parade? Are successful people coddled like this, or did folks like Obama and Oprah grow up seeing the harsh realities, and just overcome them?

Is telling our kids "you can be anything, yes anything" realistic? What do we do, then, when they return to us, empty wallets open, saying "you said I can be anything, but NASA isn't hiring, can I stay on the couch?"

I have always been a big believer in the fact that my main job is to prepare my child for the REAL world. I just don't want to do so while crushing their hopeful spirit.

The fact that my parents raised me to think I could run the world if I wanted to gave me the confidence to reach for the university I wanted to (and did) attend, and the courage to leave home and go out on my own. I would never want to deny my child that, but I also don't want them going in to things with rose-colored glasses and then giving up when they realize their big dreams may need to be minimized some to fit in with real life.

The author does go on to give a few tips to the younger set still bent on ruling the world...or at least working on it (and frankly, this is good advice for anyone not in a job or on a career path now):

Get fiscally fit
Stop using the economy as a scapegoat
Get a job. Any job. Don't wait for a career
Get off your parents' payroll
Increase your financial IQ

So, tell me your thoughts, readers. Did your parents raise you to think you can do anything? Are you raising your kids like that? When do you start talking about the reality of what they CAN do versus what they WANT to do? Or is figuring it out on your own part of the battle?

Guest Post: Lola Putting the “Cure” in Manicure

2011-06-06T07:00:00.001-05:00

You guys, Lola is leaving me for the Motherland this weekend. She'll be gone for two weeks. We chat daily...hourly, in fact. Minutely, mostly. And here you'll see what exactly it is we chat about. I promised her we'll start a fund for her bail if for any reason she's detained in Russia and not allowed back.

I don’t know if many of you know this, but Stephanie and I love to waste company time. Really, slacking off is never quite so much fun at home, when you’re at your leisure and free to wallow in your own crapulence – i.e., check Facebook, catch up on your favorite blogs, visit stupid sites and Google random things. Personally, I always feel like I’m wasting precious time – I could be vacuuming! And hey, the car needs a wash.

But at work, things are different. You’re not going anywhere, not for the next 8 hours anyway, so you might as well make the most of it. I think this is how people who were stupid and/or lazy enough to go into crime end up getting law degrees and writing best-selling books while in prison. Back on the outside, there are convenience stores to rob! But here, it’s just you and the bunk! So why not attend Harvard Law by correspondence? The prison return address alone makes your admission essay a shoo-in.

So on a lazy Thursday in prison…I mean the office, Stephanie and I got to talking. Strictly girl talking – nail polish, to be exact. And we both love and adore OPI, not least of all because of their colorful (no pun intended) shade names.

We took a stab at coming up with some potential ones, which this is where we discovered that we may have a great career ahead of us in marketing. And so, I bring you The 10 Greatest Nail Polish Names OPI Will Never Go For. (Just so you know, these are mainly on the subject of animal noises – Wee ‘Burb has been rebelliously learning them in French to annoy her mother. But hey, that’s a whole separate blog topic.) So here we go:

#10. “Pre-MOO-nition pink”
#9. “RIBBIT-tickling red”
#8. “WOOF-it-down grey”
#7. “Can I BAA-row a Feeling white” (Kirk Van Houten, you’re our homeboy)
#6. “You bel-OINK to me blue”

#5. Then, an obligatory PSA: “NEIGH-borhood watch black”

#4. While we’re on the subject of horses: “after-NEIGH-n delight”

#3. A big of magic: “Occult-it like I see it lavender”

#2. “MEOW, that's lovely pink”

#1. And, the ultimate, the Numero Uno (drum roll please): Growl-and-Eat-Humans Green (bears). Stephanie, I can’t take the credit for that one, it was all yours!

Any other gems we’re missing? (P.S. if any OPI execs are reading this, my resume and portfolio of other brilliant ideas are available upon request. Lola loves OPI, y’all!)

It Amounted to a Hill of Beans

2011-06-03T07:00:00.001-05:00

In reading the Baconista's post on Memorial Day Baked Beans, I wrote a rather snarky comment back about my husband.

My husband, since I have known him, has created much ado about his mother’s baked beans recipe. They called them “funeral beans” because apparently everyone in their family (and all around Minnesota, actually) brought this type of bean casserole type thing to funerals. Other events, too, but they were just known as “funeral beans.”

There’s really nothing less appetizing to me than sugary beans right up until you put “funeral” in front of them. I’m about as interested in sampling those as I am attending an open-casket wake, which is to say not at all.

But my husband has had something of a rough year and so this year when he once again brought up the funeral beans, I agreed we should get the recipe.

Then I came down with what is known around these parts as “The Baby Plague,” which any mother with a child in daycare or school will know all too well.

For those not familiar, The Baby Plague is when your child brings home some sort of Rhesius Monkey Transplant bubonic nonsense every other kid has at school.

One of us ALWAYS fall victim to The Baby Plague…typically whoever it would be most inopportune for. My roommate’s experience with The Baby Plague came when she was about to take the bar exam. My husband’s came right before a week-long trip for work. And mine came right before our week-long baby-less vacation. And apparently the universe thought it would be my turn again.

This has little to do with anything other than that I was in no condition to make funeral beans for Memorial Day. Or anything.

So he gets the recipe and sets to work, and his mother calls repeatedly to second-guess the recipe, until she goes to Target and assures him the measurements are right. And I am delirious and trying to keep the toddler entertained while simultaneously coughing so hard I throw up, and so I’m just not overly interested in the whole endeavor.

So the beans are made and he seems happy and Wee ‘Burb ingests, oh, approximately 100 pounds of beans.

And this is when I sort of become alert because I’m thinking “oh the hell that will be this diaper” and already touching my nose for the universal sign of “not it” when I kind of giggle.

Because my husband was distracted by my threats of divorce if he thought for ONE SECOND I was changing the diaper when HE was the one who made this child eat BEANS for Pete’s sake, he did not notice my chuckle. .

The super secret mystery Funeral Beans recipe? Was basically a couple cans of Bush’s baked beans, some hamburger, and a buttload of sugar.

Now some of you who enjoy the kind of comical banter I enjoy with my husband are waiting now for the punchline of what I said and how I got him to confess that this mystery was kind of a letdown.

I said nothing.

And here’s why.

Growing up, my mom baked twice a year: Thanksgiving and Christmas. We savored EVERY treat that woman made because we knew once the holidays were over, so were the cookies and bars and peanut butter balls. And most important to me growing up: The Jello Pudding Pie.

You guys, I still salivate like a Pavlovian dog at a dinner bell when I see the box of Jello.

I thought my mother did something magic with that box, you see, because we’d had the jiggly fruit Jello and ain’t no pie coming from THAT! And because she made it but twice a year, I was sure there was some magic in that old black box she found.

So cut to YEEEEARS later when I am going over to Scott’s sister’s house for one of the first times, possibly the first. You need to know before I tell the rest of this that his sister is like super insane gourmet girl. We should just call them The Foodie Family and we should just all bow to their superior food knowledge and culinary skills.

I thought: I will wow them, I will make my mom’s super famous delicious Jello Pudding Pie.

But it was last minute and I was racing through the aisles trying to figure out what I would need so I could call my mom and get the recipe on the fly. And Scott, he was so good, he was so quiet. And finally he could take no more and he showed me the back of the box, where the recipe for Jello Pudding Pie was.

But…surely that couldn’t be my Mom’s Jello Pudding Pie. Because…well, no, because this had approximately 3 steps and required ingredients everyone has at home.

I think you guys can guess how this ended. I went to his sister’s house with a Jello Pudding Pie of SHAME and they were nice enough not to mock me incessantly, and Scott married me anyway, and his sister is the sister I never had…

And this is why I could not put the fun in “funeral beans.”

Where were you when you first demystified a super secret family recipe? It reminds me of the episode of Friends where Phoebe discovers the cookies she grew up were not from Nestlay Toolhauz, but rather Nestle Tollhouse.

Veggie Tales: What I Learned This Month

2011-06-01T07:00:00.002-05:00

Today I'm also blogging over at Imperfect Home where you can witness organization gone wild when I tackle how to organize meat. Yup, you heard me, MEAT. I also give away a great recipe for sweet potato cottage pie. And if that doesn't tempt you, Kristin's amazing ideas of working with small spaces and organizing a home with the ptitter patter of dirty feet surely will!

Last week I completed another meeting with my dietitian. I'm still not happy with the way the scale is going. But I do notice I am almost down an entire size of pants and my bathing suit fits significantly better. Also, my energy levels are AMAZING! Since I've cut out caffeine and focused on eating cleaner, I am finding I don't have that 3:00 crash I used to have.

Don't worry if you don't believe me, I didn't either until I experienced it.

Because she is looking to distract me from my uber-focus on the scale, this meeting we focused on two things: water and veggies.

The focus on water was brief. She had previously recommended I get 70 ounces of water because of how much I work out. You guys, I TRIED! I did. But as I put it to my very amused dietitian: "I'd have to quit my job." I told her the second I hit 60 ounces, I have to move in to the bathroom. So we agreed 60-64 would be sufficient. And not require that I usurp Wee 'Burb's potty chair for my office.

So the veggies. I struggle a bit to get the right amounts of fruits and veggies. Fruit I like to snack on. I have switched one snack a day to either apples with cheese or a smoothie. So fruit and I are simpatico.

Veggies? Well that's a bit tougher. I'm good at getting them in at dinner time as a side dish. But throughout the day, it's just not that exciting. So we discussed at least making half my dish (versus a quarter) veggies to at least get what I can in.

The benefit to doing this at dinner is also that it would reduce portions of other food. Filling up on veggies would mean less of whatever the main entree was, ultimately reducing calories.

I told her this would be simple pimple because we've been hitting the farmer's market lately. She asked what we get and I ruminated on the pretty zucchini and corn. I bragged about this sweet potato cottage pie I had made full of corn and peas. And she's kind of coughing and going "That's...great. Only those are starches, not really vegetables."

Mind? BLOWN!

I had been slipping corn and peas (frozen) into a ton of dishes recently. These are also starches. Add to that list any potato, parsnip, pumpkin and other assorted squash.

Now it's not that they're bad, necessarily. I mean a starch like these are better than pasta or bread. But still, a bit of a heartbreaker. Especially because Scott has been giving me the eye when I serve spinach of late, an expression that clearly says "We are going to review our marriage contract if you serve me wilted spinach with lemon juice ONE MORE TIME, Woman."

So because I haven't been doing well with weight loss goals, I'm switching it out and focusing on what I eat. This month's decision was made for me: we'll be focusing on veggies. Specifically, how to dress up the sides so we can eat non-starchy veggies and meet the recommended servings.

Do you love veggies? Did you know the difference between starches and veggies? How do you dress up your veg and still keep it healthy?

Kreative Thoughts by Stephanie in Suburbia

2011-05-30T07:00:00.003-05:00

I want to thank Married in Chicago for awarding me this awesome award!

I really love reading her blogs for so many reasons, but mostly because she lives in Chicago and if I hadn't ended up moving to Minneapolis and then the 'burbs, I would totally live in Chicago. So I just live vicariously through her life in the Windy City.

So my task is to come up with 10 facts about myself, which is always an awkward endeavor. I'll give it a shot.

1. I have a food issue with carcass. If anything looks like what it did when alive, I have a lot of difficulty eating it. I made my first ever Thanksgiving turkey 2 years ago and it still haunts me a little.

2. I'm half Puerto Rican and half Irish. I look like neither and both, which has led (on more than one occasion, sadly) to a rousing game of "Guess Stephanie's Ethnicity" while in a bar. True story, I did an article once on the L Street Tavern where they filmed Good Will Hunting. One of the Irish guys there is like "you have a dimple in your chin, so you must be Irish, but what's the rest of ya" (I believe looking down at my, um, ample rack and backside). People guessed the usual: Greek, Italian. I finally let the cat out of the bag and the dude did an ACTUAL spit take with his beer and shouted "What the f**k kind of mix is that?"

3. My parents started dating when my mom was 16 and they are the single strongest relationship I've ever seen.

4. I'm a very intelligent girl, but I love television. In particular, I am hooked on Real Housewives (Atlanta, New Jersey and slightly less so on OC), Lifetime movies, and any shows that show the inside workings of jail or the justice system. If a Lifetime movie is based on a true story that involves the inside workings of jail and the justice system, I am SOLD! Also? I will watch any Lifetime movie with anyone formerly on any Aaron Spelling show. Because even when they're bad, they're sooo good.

5. I am a Boston sports nut. Like total dude sports nut. I will shush my husband if he wants to talk during a Patriots game. I pay for HD service for the very few games of Boston sports I can see. My daughter was brought home in full Patriots gear. Also important? I do NOT EVER wear pink sports memorabilia. It goes against everything I believe in.

6. My husband and I decided not to find out the gender of our baby. The thinking was both heartfelt and logical. Heartfelt because I always feel there are too few good surprises in life. Logical because I also 1) dislike pink and 2) didn't want a ton of clothes. I knew I had people to give me clothes for my baby, but what I didn't have was ANYTHING else. At my shower I got mostly bath stuff for the baby, leading to a complete breakdown in my third trimester when I looked around the baby's room only to see a crib and towels. We'll be finding out the gender when we have another.

7. I have traveled to or through all of the 50 states except for Hawaii and Alaska. We took a lot of road trips growing up and those are some of the happiest memories I have.

8. I didn't do much cooking until after I was 25 and I decided it was time to learn. I found I was quite good at it. But I didn't experiment much, or at all, really, until I met my husband. He is single-handedly responsible for my ability now to be okay with eyeballing a measurement now and then, and even make substitutions. He is also responsible for having me try and like foie gras and sweetbreads.

9. I am an organization nut, but my house is never neat. All of my recipes are organized perfectly in two binders (one for healthy recipes under 400 calories and the other we refer to as "entertaining"), but my laundry is almost never folded and put away. I used a label maker and labeled every spice bottle in my ample spice cabinet, but my bedroom floor has never been clean enough to vacuum the whole thing at one time.

And the #10 interesting fact? I met my husband online dating.

I really don't like tagging people and pressuring them to answer things, so instead I am going to cheat and list my 10 favorite posts of the last month and if those named wish to be tagged and accept their award, great. If not, you guys find some great blogs.

Incidentally, if you are looking for new blogs and/or promotion for your blog, I highly recommend checking out SITS Girls' #commenthour hashtag on Twitter. You sign up Mondays and Tuesdays, and the blogs are chosen and announced every few minutes for an hour on Wednesdays on Twitter. I've gotten about 20 new followers (hiii, guys!) since signing up. And found twice as many great blogs.

On to my faves:

I'm Gonna Kill Him writes a hilarious but also serious post about making a will.

Holly at Holly's House wrote a maddening post about facing some very ignorant people and yet doing the right thing.

Frogs in my Formula writes a hilarious and cringe-worthy post about what happens when you have food poisoning and two kids.

Pampers and Pinot wonders about those minor characters in cartoon movies and what it would be like to hang with them.

Just One Donna makes one of the prettiest chicken piccatas I've ever seen.

Wait in the Van tries to joke about her kid sucking down wine and meds. (seriously, one of the funniest posts I've read this month).

Life with Baby Donuts realizes you can go home again, and sometimes it rocks.

Taming Insanity writes a story about getting locked out that I think it's okay to laugh at now.

It's Blogworthy and baby in a tie. Nuff said.

Hungry, Healthy, Happy (Hungrigyrl) gives her perspective on the Mommy Wine controversy. I'm all for it.

Why do Moms Matter? One Word: Mascara

2011-05-27T08:05:00.001-05:00

When I was going into middle school, we moved from Minnesota to Tucson, Arizona. I wasn't all that broken up about the move. I wasn't overly popular, I was constantly teased, or sometimes worse, ignored. While I had a core group of friends I would miss, I was a little more focused on how I could be DIFFERENT. Plus this was around the time of 90210 (Lord, I'm dating myself here) and they moved from Minnesota to Beverly Hills, so it was almost the same (actually it kind of was because the area we moved to was quite well to do).

Like one of those 80s transformation movies, I cut my hair and got contacts. I had my braces off a few years before, but the picture was...well, an improvement.

I was fortunate to be taken under the wing of a sweet girl named Tracy who then introduced me to her friends and within a few months I had a GROUP of friends. A real group of girls who went to boy/girl parties and had sleepovers and went to the mall to hang out.

One such boy/girl party had me the subject of much scrutiny with this group of friends. See, they almost all wore makeup and were slightly distressed that I didn't. I honestly hadn't really brought this subject up with my mother, so I didn't know where she stood on makeup. I had a general idea it wasn't going to be a hit. Sure, I'd stolen a few red or coral lipsticks discarded from her freebies at the mall makeup counter (sorry, Mom), but I'd never actually SEEN her put on makeup, nor did I have a clue what it involved.

That night I acquiesced to my group of friends and found out it involved A LOT! Like three people and a lot of blotting and closing my eyes and fearing for my contacts and the inevitable mascara wand stabbing that would occur.

But the result when all the fuss was over? I felt beautiful. I felt AMAZING. I felt a part of things, finally in these girls' league. Like Cinderella watching the clock on the wall dreading midnight, I dreaded the next day when I had to go back to ME. The me without the glass slipper of foundation and eyeshadow.

So I was in the car the next morning with my mom and I casually broached the subject. These girls had allowed me into their group, had experimented on me, and the boys that came over were quite responsive (I'm sure I downplayed that part).

My mom shocked me and said "if you want to wear makeup, you have to do it right."

WHAT? If I want to wear makeup? As if...had I had that choice the whole time?

My mom made an executive decision and got us an appointment at Merle Norman. I don't know if those even exist anymore. It certainly wasn't your average MAC or Sephora counter. It was definitely geared toward a...more mature crowd. But to me it was like the Disney World of hotness. This.Would.Change.My.LIFE! Of this I was sure.

And you know what? It kind of did. The woman showed me how to blend makeup to make sure there were no makeup lines (something I thank her for to this day when I see chicks with a huge orange ring around their face), how to apply mascara properly, and how to care for my brushes and skin.

You guys? Going home with that little bag of makeup was one of the happiest days of my life. I still look back on it as part of that overall transformation to a place where my ethnicity wasn't scrutinized, where people could actually pronounce my Puerto Rican last name, and where I felt beautiful.

And I still think this may have been one of the most beautiful gifts my mother has ever given me. So on this her birthday, I want to thank her for the gift of confidence and belonging that had long been missing in my life. There were so many other ways that day could have gone, but she looked into my eyes and realized what this meant to me and did what only the best mothers do: whatever it took to make her daughter happy.

I will carry this with me when my daughter comes to me with a similar plea...you know, in 20 years.

Memories in the Corner of the Page

2011-05-25T08:53:00.000-05:00

Before I was even pregnant, I knew I would keep a journal for my baby. I didn’t want a baby book with lines that specified firsts, I wanted a blank canvass to write whatever I was feeling. When we got our first ultrasound at 10 weeks, I went ahead and bought a journal for what was going to become Wee ‘Burb.

I have been trying to write in the journal every month and during milestones. Some months have been easier than others.

When I write in it, I often think about Wee ‘Burb reading it. I imagine and hope she will pick it up after some terrible fight we have when she’s a teenager, and it will humanize me somehow — remind her that there were phases in her life when she wanted nothing more than to hug her mommy and daddy and be with us. I hope that it will show that she was created in love, nurtured in a peaceful and happy home. And then, after I wrote the post on 5 Things To Do Before Getting Married , I started thinking about what I wanted this journal to be.

I started to think about the kind of advice I wish I could have gotten. I wanted to go beyond just what she’s doing now. I started to think, not in a macabre way, about what I would want her to know if for any reason I couldn’t be there. Maybe not even be away, but just disconnected somehow. What would I want to tell her, that teenager who would never listen to her Mom, because, really how could Mom EVER understand HER plight?

So I wrote my first entry dedicated to future Wee ‘Burb. I titled it “Boys”, but now I wish I had just put “Love.” Because, you know, who knows who she will love down the road? But in the end the message I wanted to share was the same, and while I wrote a lot, here’s the summary I left her with: You do not need a man, or anyone, to complete you. When you find the right person, they will enhance you enough to realize you are already complete. And that’s how you know it’s real love.

What advice would you give your future son or daughter? Do you keep a journal for your child, or plan to? Do you focus on their life chronologically, or do you offer tidbits of advice, too?

Thank You Notes: An Imperative in My World

2011-05-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

When we were little, many a night was spent at the kitchen table writing what then felt like an epic thank you note. We could not simply say "thanks for the loot, Grandma!" We had to outline what she gave, how we wanted it every so badly, and how we were currently using it.

Confession: I plan to do the exact same thing to Wee 'Burb.

In the world of the evite and invites via Twitter and Facebook, I know the hand-written paper thank you card is a lost art. But I will never let it go.

For right now, Wee 'Burb personalizes her thank you cards with her handprint and the date.

For my own thank you cards, I try to follow the basic rules my mom taught me.

Yes, they will likely be thrown away. Yes, other than weddings and birthdays, some people may never care about getting a thank you card. But I care.

I keep a bin of thank you cards handy for all occasions. I'm looking to renew my bin (Wee 'Burb has been the receipt of much generosity lately, the girl is cleaning out my supply...and possibly turning completely blue with the plethora of handprints she delivers) so here are a few of my most coveted:

Source: Amazon.com

Source: Papyrusonline.com

Do you write thank you cards and/or make your kids write them? Do you think they've lost importance? If not, where do you get your favorite thank you cards? Do you pick them individually or buy a box of them?

Were THESE Shoes Made for Walking?

2011-05-20T07:00:00.001-05:00

We have, more or less, reached the end of the walking saga. And in true form, it was not without its hilarity and frustration.

The county’s free program had its advantages in that it was free and they committed to completing Wee ‘Burb’s evaluation within 45 days. I’m still on the waiting list for the private company.

The disadvantage was that it was a PROCESS.

Even though the only concern was in the gross motor area, we had to have two other meetings: one with a special ed teacher to review social and cognitive skills and the other to review fine motor skills.

Now, these ladies could NOT have been nicer, and Wee ‘Burb came around to them pretty quickly. But it was exhausting for both of us. Their skills test basically goes through her age group and up until she misses three tasks.

I have to say, this was amazing to watch. I was amazed at some of the things that Wee ‘Burb could actually do. Like the lady took out a peg board and Wee ‘Burb just put the pegs in all in a row like she’d been doing it forever. It was one of the most amazing moments I’ve had as a mother, to see her intelligence on display like that. To see that hamster wheel in her huge head turn and turn and get it right, then have her smile a huge smile and acknowledge the claps.

But on the flip side, when she couldn’t get something? It was excruciating. To watch her struggle and not step in was just borderline torture for me. Particularly when she seemed to be struggling with tasks I absolutely knew she could do.

Then to top off the drama? I was in the midst of some huge deadlines at work so I had to pick her up from daycare, let these strangers make her perform tasks like a cymbal-playing monkey, and then drop her back off at daycare. I’m going through deadlines, but she’s going through mega separation anxiety. So she sobs hysterically whenever I drop her off, which I got to go through twice a day.

We were both ragged by the time the actual physical therapist arrived. At this point I was completely convinced we’d never get through this. Wee ‘Burb picked up her car and walked with it a bit so the PT could see her stance.

As we were discussing her stance, Wee ‘Burb looked at me, then at the PT, and hand to God took three steps like “See? TOLD YOU!”

I was floored. The PT jumped up and clapped, which of course made Wee ‘Burb’s day because that child is a whore for applause. And she’s been walking a little bit more each day.

We still have a final meeting scheduled for the 31st, but the PT indicated that more than likely it is just an issue of low muscle tone. Wee ‘Burb was on the smaller side when she was born and it’s possible her muscles are just slower to develop. So more than likely we’ll just need to be patient with her and know her gross motor skills will just take a bit longer.

Of course the PT also indicated it may just be a “personality” issue. Once again: diagnosis, baby jerk!

Whether or not your baby has any issues, I would so suggest hooking up with whatever county programs you have. The time it takes to do the questionnaires is so worth it compared to the issues you will have if you get your little one to preschool not knowing any issues.

My 5 Things to do Before Getting Married

2011-05-18T07:00:00.001-05:00

Shine ran this article on things you should do as a couple before getting married. Their list:

1. Living Together
2. Babysit
3. Get a Joint Checking Account
4. Couples Counseling Classes.

I actually think this is a pretty good list given that it represents the common pitfalls for couples in marriage: household duties, children, money, and long-term relationship health.

But I have a slightly different list, although I am going to co-opt their #1 for mine. I understand completely that some people don't believe in this, and that is of course totally your prerogative. But I think for most couples, cohabitation is imperative to really understanding how your relationship will progress. When you each have your own corner to run to when things get tough, it's just not the same as having to be in the same space and work it out. You can read my opinions and recommendations on this here.

2. Travel Apart and Travel Together. When Scott and I first met, I took off for four days with my friend to Rome. It was important to me to have this time away and be on my own a bit. I missed him like crazy and it took our relationship to a more serious level when I returned because I realized I missed HIM, not just having a relationship. So then we also traveled together. And one of the highest compliments Scott has ever paid me was "you're the only person I can travel with for more than a day or two without getting totally sick of them." Though I don't like the thought of a "test", traveling together is definitely a good indicator of the foundation of a relationship. Before I met Scott, I had traveled with a guy who liked to get to the airport 30 minutes before the plane takes off (I'm a 2-hour before girl) and planned a million things to do right off the plane (whereas I like to settle into my hotel, get organized). Don't believe me that it's a test? Just look at the Amazing Race.

3. Live on Your Own. Yes, living together is crucial. But living on your own before that is crucial, too. You don't know who you are until you're paying your own bills, cleaning your own place, cooking your own meals. You start to separate your needs from your parents and roommates. And then when you go into a relationship, you go into it with a solid idea of who you are and your wants and needs.

4. Make and Keep Your Own Friends. I can't tell you the number of people who "joked" that Scott would never be "allowed" to go out once he got married. I was horrified. Why should a piece of paper and a name change alter the fundamentals of our relationship with each other and our friends? Keeping your old friends and making ones outside of your marriage is crucial to a healthy separation of church and state when it comes to coupling. But also?

5. Have Stuff That's JUST for You Two. My first fight with Scott was over hobbies. He was afraid we didn't have much in common because I wasn't into the outdoorsy things he was. BUT, we found common ground on cooking, reading, watching the same movies, and even kind of silly things like UFC (I freaking love UFC, I have problems). We like to spend our spare time doing the same types of things. And even more long term we agree on how we want to spend retirement.

So, tell me, what are your 5 things you think need to happen before someone gets married?

Making Lemonade

2011-05-15T14:54:00.000-05:00

In this nearby town, there's a little boy with a lemonade stand. But he's not your average little boy, and he isn't sitting behind the usual cardboard box or folding table. He's wearing a full suit (no matter how hot the weather) and he stands behind a very fancy wooden stand with a clearly Kinko's manufactured sign proudly displaying his name.

Seeing this article on being a lemonade stand entrepreneur made me think of him and took me back to a simpler time.

I was lucky to have grown up next door to my godparents and their three kids. They were close in age to myself and my brother, and we got up to all sorts of shenanigans.

Like most kids, we had our own lemonade stand at the end of our road. We weren't quite aware of just how out of the way we were, so most days were spent getting tan and getting high off our own supply.

But one day a jogger ran by. He was clearly at the end of a long run and was looking longingly at our lemonade. We were holding it up, tantalizing him with our 25 cent wares.

He came up to our stand and we were all standing a little straighter, putting our professional entrepreneur hats on as we said "how many cups do you want, Sir?"

And he admitted he wanted one. Oh so badly. But sadly, he did not bring money with him on his run. But he'd gladly pay us later.

We pointed to our mailbox and said he could leave it in there. Forget how stupid it was that we just gave this strange man our address, we were SO excited.

Every day that next week we ran to the mailboxes, anxiously awaiting the 25 cents.

It never came.

I've been thinking about this lately because the best part was our parents were totally supportive. I mean, of COURSE they knew we'd gotten taken (if you can count being out nothing as "taken," since we didn't purchase ANY of the items for this lemonade stand with our own non-existent money) but they totally indulged us. And when the money never came rolling in, they feigned shock and horror at the violation.

Now, I keep change in my car and any time I see a lemonade stand, I always stop and buy a cup, even though I haven't had a taste for the sugary stuff in forever. Hey, I may be working for them someday!

Pawning it Hardcore: That's Pawn, You Gutter Minds

2011-05-11T07:00:00.001-05:00

If you think you have a tough job, you should try wrestling over a fur coat or getting threatened with bodily harm through a tiny plastic window.

I’m talking about the good, but totally insane, folks at Hardcore Pawn, my new-to-me favorite show. It’s new to me because I just found this gem on On Demand. But it’s in its third season already, so maybe you already know about it?

I’ve had a fascination with pawn shops forever. Now I don’t want this to turn into a Basketball Wives “Oh my God, Jennifer has never seen a food stamp" thing. I’m not some privileged snob who has never fallen on tough times. I’ve just honestly never had anything I thought I could pawn.

But, see, apparently you can pawn ANYYYYTHING. In the time I’ve watched this show, people have pawned and sold skulls, gold teeth, and even a prosthetic leg (that he was WEARING INTO THE SHOP! Like, he just left on crutches minus one leg so he could pay some bills).

So what I learned is that pawning means you can get it back. It’s like getting a loan on your crap so you can pay the credit card bill you probably used to buy said crap. If you don’t pay back the loan, they can sell your crap. And you’re crap out of luck, although this particular pawn shop in Detroit is slightly more lenient than I imagine most.

You can also choose to sell your items outright. Which then they re-sell, almost always at a higher cost. Which is what really kills me. People go in there either having no clue what something is worth and get wayyy underbid, or they go in with their fake Chanel purses and demand $300. It’s called the INTERNET, PEOPLE! Take five seconds to look it up on eBay so you don’t get hosed or embarrass yourself. Those aren’t mutually exclusive, by the way.

Ok, so naturally a big part of the reality show is the people, right? This is a family-owned business, started by Les Gold. I refuse to believe that’s his real name, but we’ll move on. He’s hoping to pass it on, he says, to his son, Seth Gold, and his daughter Ashley Broad.

Les Gold: Source TruTV

Only I have some serious doubts about Ashley getting her hands on any of this. Despite TLC’s upcoming show, Pawn Queens, I’m convinced pawn shops are the height of misogyny. There are almost no other female workers featured in this shop other than Ashley. And every time Ashley screws up (which is kind of a lot, I’ll confess), Seth and Les are right there to tell her that since she went off and had a couple of kids (how DARE she, that selfish cow), things have changed in the pawn world.

Seth Gold: Source TruTV

Ashley Broad: Source TruTV

Um, really? REALLY? Far as I can tell people who need money for Lord knows what enter this store, get up in someone’s face, get half of what they want and need, and leave unhappy. How has three years changed this gig?

Now, in fairness, Ashley doesn’t exactly have her MBA in salesmanship. She’s the first one to get in a customer’s face when they’re late and Les wants her to make a deal with them. She also gets very snotty when she asks what the person wants for something and the person gives a price she thinks is outrageous. Her little nose turns up and she gets this very combative stance.

It’s not exactly the type of ‘tude you want in an already volatile transaction.

But a lot of the time she’s right in her thought train, it just don’t make it to the station without a few bumps in the road.

Only half the time, Seth and Les derail it completely and take over, leaving her looking stupid. You can just see the resentment building and quite frankly, if anyone was in my store pawning a gun, I’d make sure Ashley didn’t know about it if I was Les.

But at least Ashley isn’t smarmy and smug like her super closeted brother Seth. That dude’s gaydar reading is OFF.THE.CHARTS.

Perhaps he just resents his sister’s ability to spawn children when he, himself, wishes he had a womb. I’m not sure, but his hatred of his sister is of the hair-pulling “Mom, she’s touching my part of the seat” variety.

While I think Ashley has legit beef with her brother, his constant undermining is just pointless and petty. We rarely see him sell unless he’s making a bet with Ashley, or jumping in on her sale because, excuse you, he’s the expert on jewelry and entertainment and everything other than masking his latent homosexuality.

Then there are the customers. I’m not sure why the customers allow themselves to be filmed, but at least once an episode there’s someone who is SHOCKED.THAT.THEIR.CRAP.ISN’T.WORTH.MILLIONS and downright insulted at the offer Les levies their way. More than half the time it escalates to where security has to drag them out.

Half those times involve someone whose feet don’t touch the ground on the way out. Those are my favorite parts. Judge me as you see fit.

Also, of course, there are some sad stories. This person or that died and left them something sentimental, and now they have to sell said sentimental something to make rent.

One couple almost sold Les on their hard-luck newly married just trying to make their way in the world story until the dude admitted he was a gambling addict.

But, look, Les does occasionally try to help a few people out in the pawn department, playing the hooker with a heart of gold role very nicely as he sympathetically nods and says he’s so sorry about their tough times, while giving them roughly a third of what something is worth.

Anyway, if you have TRU TV, you can check out the current episodes. And if you have Comcast On Demand, you can check out the first season there.

So now, tell me. Have you ever pawned anything or been to a pawn shop? I think I’m planning a trip to replace my poor stolen GPS.

Where I Sheepishly Admit I'm Hooked on Sheep Shearing

2011-05-08T19:54:00.000-05:00

Ok, so Saturday was just about the most beautiful day we've seen around these parts in quite some time. Which was perfect for the Shepherds Harvest Festival in Lake Elmo. It also included Llama Magic, which so absolutely lived up to its name, I can't even describe.

Last year we went to this festival and I had such high hopes, but it was pouring rain and Wee 'Burb thought this of the whole experience:

So this year I was so excited because she has gotten really into animal noises. We practiced our "Baaas" all the way there, and even threw in a "llama" for good measure, though I didn't exactly know what sound, if any, a llama makes. Anyone? We heard one doing a sort of low whine at one point. I'm just not sure how to channel that into toddler language.

She was definitely more aware this year. But possibly more freaked out, too.

That would be her baby death grip on me the WHOLE day.

The highlight for me is always the sheep shearing. The sheep go to this happy place and just lay there, glassy-eyed while the shearer does his thing.

I used to feel really bad for them, but when you see everything that comes off, I gotta think it's somewhat of a relief to walk around bare nakey for awhile!

That's JUST the wool! Doesn't it look like a separate animal?

So, in addition to the sheep, Llama Magic was happening. Wee 'Burb is verrry into llamas, her favorite book is Llama Llama Red Pajama and whenever I'm putting her jammies on, she repeatedly says "llama."

She was much more willing to touch the llamas, but still not willing to let go of her death grip for these nice fellows.

If you're ever sad, you seriously need to see a picture of llamas. They might be the funniest looking things EVER.

More cute sheep pics:

Afterward, I convinced Wee 'Burb to do some finger painting so we could put some fingerprints on her Mother's Day cards.

This mess required immediate tubby time. There were not enough wipes in the world.

And that was about enough for her Saturday. 6:00 bedtime? Yes, please!

I found this event through Festival Net (not a paid or even known endorsement on their part). I highly recommend if you like to get to some different cities and check out great crafts or local fairs.

Kitsch-en Window

2011-05-06T08:02:00.001-05:00

You guys, I am forcing Lola to do a monthly column here. Here's her most recent post for me. Poor Lola has been in the middle of insanity trying to help her parents move all the while beginning renovations on her own condo. Please to enjoy.

I’m remodeling my kitchen. These words strike terror in the heart of anyone who’s ever had to undertake a remodeling project. I could tell you about how I remodeled my bathroom a few years back, but that’s still something I’m only able to discuss with my therapist. And yet, here I am, back for more, more, MORE! Because I am Lola and I’m a masochist.

But the reality of it is, I need to turn that early-70s dimly lit hell into something that’s passably 21st- century. Of course I don’t want it to bankrupt me, so all the changes are as cosmetic as possible (at first, I thought I could get away with maybe just changing the cabinet handles…or maybe just blind-folding all my guests, but realized that wasn’t going to be enough).

First of all, it has this awesome fluorescent-light drop ceiling with yellowed-out panels that make me want to cry. It also makes the ceiling about a foot lower than it is. Here’s a shot. That ceiling has GOT to go. Unless I buckle down and wait for plastic-panel drop ceilings to come back in style over the next 50 years or so. Hey, it could happen, right? Martha Stewart will SO embrace the look one day! Or Martha Stewart’s floating head in a jar will.

But what other retro horrors lurk in Lola’s freakshow kitchen? And why haven’t the producers of That 70s Show ever contacted me for a shooting location? Let’s take a look. How about the wallpaper that hides inside my nice, white cabinets?! Have you ever seen a more groovy pattern of green and poopish gold paisley? Well, that’s just the TOP layer of wallpaper, people! I’m sure even more psychedelic treasures hide within!

So yes, traveling back in time got me thinking about other faded trends of the past millennium. Who remembers mood lipstick of the 1980s? It always came out kind of beigeish/greenish/brownish on me, but maybe that’s because my mood never changes? And then there were jelly shoes! And speaking of jelly, who was onboard with the jelly roll pens – my favorite was this barely-there pink that was completely illegible to my high school English teacher. Who needs to study when you can just write gibberish in almost-invisible ink?

And how about the slightly more recent trend of the Rachel – that hairdo that looked so effortless yet took hours to recreate? For some reason, I usually have a perfect example of that retro classic whenever I roll out of bed on the days that I work from home. Yet when I actually have to go into the office, it takes me hours to concoct anything decent on my head. Why, oh cruel gods of Friends episodes past?? What have I done to anger thee??

I’m sure I’m leaving a few awesome trends out, but I’m sure you guys can think of some! What were some of your regrettable or perhaps nostalgic trend favorites?

What's In Your Kitchen?

2011-05-04T14:16:00.000-05:00

When Scott and I were registering for our wedding, we were totally stuck. Because we had both lived on our own for quite some time, and we were both foodies, it was virtually impossible to find something that we didn't have. A lot of our presents were things like mugs and serving dishes that were upgraded versions of what we had.

I saw this list from Gal Time and it made me think about what I have in my kitchen now, and my top 5 kitchen loves.

1. My Cuisinart. For the obvious reasons of chopping and shredding. But I also used it extensively when I was making baby food, and it saved me from having to purchase one of those $300 combo baby food makers. I just used our steamer and then threw it in the Cuisinart. Because this bad boy wasn't cheap, I also got a cheaper Hamilton Beach one for Target when it went on sale for $30. It does not chop as well, but works on simple veggies and makes a decent smoothie. I also have a smaller one for a single onion or herbs.

2. My Salt Pig. Scott saw these on Top Chef and he basically did the adult equivalent of "please, mommy" over and over until I got one for him. This one was VERY cheap on Amazon and it's served us well. It's survived many a top-over from a clumsy cook. And there's just NOTHING like tossing in some salt straight from this bowl that makes me feel like a legit chef.

3. My Go-To Cookbook: How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. I got this when I first got my apartment and was scared about doing ANYTHING with food. I mean, down to how to hard boil an egg, this book has everything! I highly recommend the banana bread and cookie recipes. MAGIC! My uncle gave this to me and even added his own specially made seal of approval. Because that's how my family rolls.

4. My Herb Scissors. I got these for Christmas and I ADORE them. Have I mentioned I am a lazy cook? So often I would try to rip or coarsely chop my herbs and so some people would get potatoes with a mouthful of rosemary and other pieces would have none. My FAVORITE feature is that it has a stem cutter at the base. Genius and cheap!

5. My Herb Keeper. I used almost exclusively dried herbs before I got these bad boys about two years ago. I was so tired of spending money on cilantro and parsley when I used barely a TBSP of them. Now thanks to my meal planning and supercook.com I can use more. Still, with the Herb Keeper, I can keep them fresh for two weeks or more (leafy ones like parsley and cilantro hit about 2 weeks, but stronger ones like rosemary can last closer to 3).

So what are your five favorite kitchen items?

Cooking Tips I Love

2011-05-02T09:00:00.002-05:00

The April issue of Food Network Magazine was exciting for me because it advertised their article on the 100 Greatest Cooking Tips by their famous chefs.

I'm a new foodie, having really just gotten confident in my cooking skills in the last year or so. This article was AWESOME for me!

Here are some of my favorites:

Always make stock in a large quantity and freeze it in plastic bags. That way, when you want to make a nice soup or boil veggies, you can simply pull the bag out of the freezer. Charlie Trotter, Charlie Trotter's, Chicago

Cook pasta 1 minute less than the package instructions and cook it the rest of the way in the pan with sauce.
Mario Batali, Iron Chef America [I'm TOTALLY trying this!]

For rich, creamy dressings made healthy, substitute half the mayo with Greek-style yogurt. Ellie Krieger,
Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger [You guys, if you don't read Ellie Krieger you need to immediately. I don't think she's the greatest TV personality, but her recipes are TO DIE FOR!]

For an easy weeknight meal, save and freeze leftover sauces from previous meals in ice cube trays. The cubes can be reheated in a sauté pan when you need a quick sauce. David Burke, David Burke Townhouse, New York City

Buy fruit at its peak at a farmers' market and freeze it in an airtight container so you can enjoy it year round.
Mindy Segal, Mindy's HotChocolate, Chicago

Cook with other people who want to learn or who know how to cook. Laurent Gras, New York City [I'm testing out this idea: MN Blogger Cooking Meetup???]

So what are your favorite tips?

Stephanie's No Good, Terrible, Very Bad Sunday

2011-05-01T15:01:00.000-05:00

Usually, Sundays are my happy day. It's usually a chance for some family togetherness and some quiet. On a typical Sunday, Scott gets up with Wee 'Burb, feeds her breakfast and plays with her. I get to sleep in, which is seriously the most heavenly part of my day. Even though I get up and get her and I ready for church with Scott and his dad,which should be probably more heavenly.

Most weeks I accompany them to church.

I do NOT blog about religious stuff here. And this post isn't about that. Not really.

So this morning, I decided to forgo my sleeping in for healthier pursuits: a trip to the St. Paul Farmer's Market. Now, being in the 'burbs means this is a bit of a hike. But since I didn't see any snow this morning, I was determined to bundle the kiddo up and make the trek with my husband and roommate.

We get there and it was so windy I expected the horse-drawn carriage in front of us to go over at any moment. But we parked, got out, and fought our way through the wind to get to fresh produce. I'm THAT dedicated, you guys. This day, opening weekend of the farmer's market, has been on my calendar for a MONTH! Frost-bitten baby be damned, I was going to get my rhubarb.

Yeahhh, except there were approximately 8 vendors there. Almost all of whom sold meat or soaps. Even my favorite hummus vendor (Seriously, Deena's is the bomb) had brought a paltry amount for selling.

So five minutes later we crammed ourselves back in the car, turned up the heat, and really turned up the pouting.

As I said, I make an effort to go to church with Scott and his dad. But sometimes during busy times, it's one day I take to myself. Today was that day. I had a few appointments and errands I needed to get done today, so I sent them on their way.

With the diaper bag that held my wallet and cell phone.

Luckily I had Scott's cell memorized and managed to get him from my land line. He had just arrived at church and rather than have him put Wee 'Burb back in her carseat and drive home, I met him at church. But because his dad hadn't arrived yet and he had claimed a coveted seat in the lobby (last week at Easter, Wee 'Burb yelled out "Elmo" just as the priest was getting to the resurrection. It's imperative we not sit in actual church for this reason), I had to run in and grab my stuff.

I was dressed in yoga pants and a fleece.

It was apparently First Communion Day.

Now, one would think the fact that I was dressed this way and parked with hazards on in front of the church would be an indication to those STARING at me that I was not going to be attending mass today.

In my hurry, I noticed people were extremely dressed up. But did not yet realize it was First Communion Day.

I used to be one of those people, by the way. Being a lapsed Catholic, I was always taught growing up you dressed your best for church. It's taken me much convincing to show up there in jeans. MUCH convincing.

Anyway, so I'm frustrated and still in a bad mood and I hear this man BELLOW to his wife, standing not two feet from me, in his khakis and polo shirt "Gee, honey, and I thought I was underdressed!"

Which of course caused other people to turn and stare. Which of course caused me to immediately blush and tear up. I ran and got my stuff, whispered "I am so embarassed, I need to leave" to Scott and ran out the door. I didn't even say hi to Wee 'Burb who just stared at me like "who is this flash of orange that sounds like my mommy?"

Once I was done the humiliation, I got a little angry. I've seen people show up to church in Vikings jerseys, white tops with black bras, skirts that show wayyy too much skin, stripper heels, flip-flops, you name it. I'm not perfect. I tooootally judge!

I'm just nice and appropriate enough to wait until brunch to sigh and go "oh my gosh, did you SEE that???"

I have no moral or question. This is purely a vent post from a girl with a beer trying very hard to salvage a cranky Sunday. Thank you for your time.

What I Learn From You, My Readers

2011-04-29T14:20:00.000-05:00

Last week when I saw that the SITS girls chose me as part of their Comment Hour on Twitter, I was both happy and freaked out. I was happy of course to get new traffic to my blog and to meet other new bloggers. But freaked out because my post on constant mommy talk was sort of a departure for me.

I worried when I wrote it that it was kind of a downer, or whiny, or just a result of a few awkward weeks. I was unsure of what the response would be given that for many this would be the first impression.

I’m still sort of wrapping my head around all the amazing responses I got.

I really appreciate people giving their honest opinions on the topic, and it really put it in perspective for me. I think, for me, what I am concerned about is losing myself.

When we had our baby, Scott and I made a sincere effort to keep some things normal. He and I each take one night a week with our individual friends. We always make sure we allow each other time to work out, which often means switching off baby duties during the week and weekends.

I’m just not sure if that’s enough, really? Do you have to do more to retain your self-ness when you’re a parent?

Maybe it’s more of an effort because you’re giving something up. I mean, sure I was giving up time with Scott when we were married without children and I went out separate from him. But I looked at that as a good thing. And while I know going out now is a good thing for Wee ‘Burb, it’s a more difficult and delicate balance now.

I just envisioned, I guess, a network of people when I had a baby. A village and all that, right? I blogged here a lot about struggling finding mommy friends and that struggle continues. I remember my mom trying to comfort me and said “oh when she goes to school, you’ll meet tons of other moms.”

School? She just cut her molars! I can’t wait that long.

I just thought I would have my mommy friends to help me through those phases and then my non-mommy friends who would keep me grounded and remind me there’s life beyond diapers and drool.

And I think a lot of you had very valid points about there being times in your life when you are at a phase where you need to be sort of absorbed in your child. Wee ‘Burb is developing so quickly and I’m so conflicted on loving her growth and being scared of it, being aware of how formative this little person is and wanting to do it right.

And it sounds like those of you who are not in this phase are extremely understanding women who frankly, I want to be besties with right now.

And then there are times when you just need to be a girl. Talk clothes and food and pop culture. Where you want nothing more than to FORGET you’re a mom for as long as possible. And so we cling then to our single friends, or friends without children.

I seriously hope I am half as good of a friend as most of you seem to be.

Here were a few of my favorite comments:
Amanda at It’s Blogworthy: It's Blogworthy
I think that it's a season. Someday when Wee Burb is grown up, you're going to reconnect with your husband and talk about other things, but right now she's the center of your world and not only is that OK, it's NORMAL. So what if you become that couple for a little while? I know that someday (with us at least) it will pass or at least lessen.

Sparkling at Lia Sophia Tomgirl
It's the mother who cannot be separated from their kids that bother me the most. Those who vehemently refuse to even try to have a normal life because they now have kids. I think it's extremely unrealistic.
At least no one has ever said to me "well, you wouldn't understand because you don't have kids." That would really annoy me.

Laurie from Consultant Calamities
Heck, I'm a mom, but *I* get tired of hearing about some people's kids, if it gets to be too much after a while...I have all kinds of friends: some with kids, some with no kids. some with babies, some with adult kids. I have friends of all ages, when I think about it. there's SO much else to talk about !! I do talk about the little man, but I want to talk about other things, too!

The Mays writing at It Builds Character
Oooh, I'm with you. I'm losing my single/childless friends - and I need them. Much more than they need me these days. It's a difficult thing - our little people are our biggest "project", "achievement", or whatever you want to call it... And they're stinkin' cute!

Gin from Life as Topher's Mama
I have been clinging to my single and or childless girlfriends since having my baby. I also have to make a constant effor to not say, "man, I remember those days..." when they talk about taking an impromptu trip or sleeping in. I honestly have dug my claws into them and made a conscious effort to hang with them; with and without my son. They're totally cool with and without him, which is a blessing.

Kat from Tenaciously Yours
I would have to say that I'm rarely offended by baby talk as long as mommies make it a point to include me in the conversation. Like, we all go through different life stages/phases and sometimes it's important to be the talker. Other times it's important to be the listener. If you have that balance, you're golden.

Jessica B from Sugar in My Grits
Having only had him 20 months ago, & expecting our daughter this June- I find that I have lost myself. Only, I am hoping that once she is here, I'm done being pregnant, & once things are balanced I can find myself once again. More than likely a new version of myself but hopefully there is a part of me left that doesn't have to revolve around my kids.

I Think I Can...I Think I Can

2011-04-27T07:00:00.014-05:00

You guys, this week is testing me. It's not even that anything that bad has happened, but it's just been so exhausting and it's only Wednesday!

First of all, thanks to those of you who commented on the walking and food issues we're having with Wee 'Burb. While the problem of the walking wasn't solved overnight (dammit), we have made some headway with getting some help.

It turns out the county has a free program through the schools! They'll come out to our house and evaluate Wee 'Burb and just be sure there's nothing wrong. I'm happy for two reasons: 1. Duh, it's free and 2. I'm happy to have them work on Wee 'Burb's home turf because then they can see her whole environment.

Wee 'Burb says "MWAH" for all the support. She also says she'll walk when she damn well feels like it. Kiss off!

The food is going better. So far she's really only skipped two meals, and she's eaten everything she skipped the first time at the next meal. So I feel really positive about it. I think Wee 'Burb is fairly adaptable on this front. I know we'll have good and bad days on this, but I'm pleased by the progress.

Which couldn't have come at a better time because I got some downer news today. Initially, our daycare provider had put her daughter on her license so that when she was out of town, she wouldn't have to close daycare down (a real problem because she had 10 paid days off in addition to holidays last year). So she's out of town on Thursday and Friday and the plan was the daughter would cover those two days.

Got an e-mail YESTERDAY at noon saying they were going to close instead, because apparently the daughter can't handle this on her own.

Now, these are my neighbors. They're good people. I actually like the daughter and I understand that she's 18 and 6 children under 4 is a lot to handle. Frankly, I go out of my gourd with the one half the time!

But couldn't that decision have been made...oh, I don't know...earlier than two days before the planned vacation??!!

I got this e-mail when I was in the parking lot of my dietitian, so I wasn't in a good place mentally. I've been sort of dreading this visit. I even put it off a few weeks because initially I wanted to lose more weight after San Francisco.

Yeah, didn't happen.

Anyway, I was feeling very discouraged. So we talked it out. We talked about how I sabotage myself during the weekends. We talked about pre-planning more weekend meals and planning to work out the days I know I'm going to go out. We talked about integrating vegetables and other filling fibers during the day so I'm less likely to pick at food when I go out. We talked about alternating a glass of wine with a glass of seltzer water to ease up on the alcohol when I'm out with my friends or the hubs.

I left feeling hopeful. It's unlikely I will meet the goals I had originally set in the timeframe I set. And she convinced me that's okay. We have strategies and I have renewed accountability. And license from a professional to not.be.SO.PERFECT.ALL.THE.FREAKING.TIME! In the past month my little brother got married, my friend passed the bar, and I took my first vacation without a baby. She assured me these are things to celebrate, and with just a little more preparation and some willpower, those celebrations don't have to derail me.

Seriously, if you have insurance or employee assistance programs, you should check into a nutritionist or dietitian. I thought I knew EVERYTHING about weight loss. I've been at it for a bazillion years, people. I know how to read a label, I know tracking food is important.

But WHAT should I EAT?? And when? And how much? It can change depending on where you are in your dieting (are you at a plateau, have you just started?). It can change depending on hormones and environment and time of year.

And that's what she told me. And told me again.

So we set a goal of losing 6-8 pounds before my next visit in a month. I'm armed with a ton of new nutritional data I'll share with you along the way. Hopefully we can all get motivated together, yes??!!

Have you seen a nutritionist or dietitian? What's the best food advice you've gotten recently? What gets you motivated when you get off the diet wagon?