Let's talk about SHOES!

I've noticed a few bloggers making a point of taking a picture of their child(ren) every single day for a year. Well things being what they are, I don't see mine every single day of the year. It turns out his dad gets to see him too. But I wanted to take pictures every day. So I decided to combine my love of pictures with my love of shoes, and ta-da!

365 Days of Shoes. This is only day 11 or something, so we'll see how it goes.

You like?

I'm Back!

I would love to tell you that I missed the internet this weekend, but that would be a bold-faced lie. My mom, sister and I escaped our sons and drove to Santa Barbara, where we ate, drank, lounged, shopped, explored, gossiped, strolled, and then did it all over again.

I lived in Santa Barbara for five years, which is sort of ideal for me, because we don't have to play guessing games to find the good restaurants, or the beaches with minimal tar-foot potential, but it's still warm and lovely and VACATION.

There were an unusual number of babies and weddings this weekend. Congratulations to everyone who, in some capacity or another, welcomed a new person into their family. I myself was eating brie and shopping for shoes.

I'm not sure when I would have gotten tired of all the lounging about. I'm pretty sure I could live a life of pool-side wine sipping and novel reading for quite some time without feeling moved to do something more complex than stroll peacefully on the beach.

Now it's Monday, and I'm back. How was your weekend?

You love it when I talk about MAH BOOBS

I'm contestant numero 25 in Sarcastic Mom's BEWB FEST 09. And I want to win. REALLY REALLY. You can vote daily :)

You get to pick your three faves and there are other fabulous racks, and they also need love (But not as much love as entry 25, because I don't compete unless I think I can win). (HINT: 10, 23, 39, 41, 42 did I leave out any of my lovies? Didn't mean to).

Also? There are MEWBS!

And ALSO? If you don't care about my boobs (which I guess YEAH MAYBE is possible I suppose), you can NOM NOM on this picture of Gabriel (and why are you here if you care about neither my boobs nor Gabriel? I think you're at the wrong blog? Because that's pretty much all that's going on here).

Anyways. I put him to bed in his pj's. I found him in the morning like this:

Tuesdays! Rarely Awesome!

1. Tuesdays. Not Generally Awesome.
Tuesday is my least favorite day of the work week, because on Mondays everyone expects you to be sorta hungover or at least useless, and from Wednesday on you can at least envision what your weekend might look like, and fantasize about being pantsless with a quart of ice cream and a cocktail and Weeds on DVD.
Also Tuesdays are the day that I have to complete the most ACTUAL REAL LIVE WORK just on account of when we print checks for invoicing and stuff (oh yeah I accidentally fell into a black hole where I'm responsible for accounting?).
And I maybe kinda got sort of intoxicated while I was dicking around on the internet after Gabriel went to bed last night, so waking up this morning was Less Than Ideal. But I made up for it by concocting An Outfit.

2. Outfit!
I look sorta cute today. Except every time anyone tells me so I feel the need to point out that my skirt is actually a dress with a shirt over it, and look at this weird thing my bra's doing, and my awesomely hot pink Shoes Of Goodness aren't actually the exact shade of pink in the flower of my skirt/dress. So I need to learn to take a compliment in a slightly less self-sabotaging way. Also I'm wearing a green cardigan over this whole ensemble and it's lead to my personal DID YOU GET THE MEMO nightmare with my most very hated of coworkers.

3. Hated coworker!
So one of my rules for this site is not to talk too much shit about people that might someday read this blog but honestly I kind of hope that she reads this because then maybe we wouldn't have to speak words.
I work with this woman, and I have a really hard time describing the depths of my hate to people who don't know her, yet can just utter her name and everyone who does know her knows exactly who/what/why. She's sort of like an android. Like a robot who's pretending to be a person, and therefore has no understanding of normal social cues, such as my refusal to speak to her unless work related and necessary. Objectively it's almost Terribly Sad, but as a person who has to live in the situation, I just find it Terribly Infuriating. She makes me feel dead inside.
One of the things she clings to for normal social interaction is this: If two people (of the 40 or so in our office) are wearing the same color shirt/pants/shoes (including black!) she'll say something like, "Oh I didn't get the blue trousers memo." And then she'll repeat it to everyone who might not have heard the first go around. Trust that EVERY DAY there are at least two people wearing jeans, or black shoes, or whatever. So I have to hear this MANY MANY TIMES. This morning as I was walking to the building I saw her husband dropping her off up ahead and first thought is OH NOES we are both wearing green sweaters shoot me now fuck double fuck she's going to use that as a conversation piece fuck. So I speedily put my headphones in my ears (playing nothing), and am walking slowly to avoid, but shit, she sees me and slows down too but I'm not making eye contact and OH MY GOD and then she leaps from behind a pillar to say GREEN SWEATER DAY!
She sucks the joy out of living.

4. Mini-Break!
My mom's taking me and my sister to Santa Barbara this weekend! We're all ditching our sons! And staying in a posh hotel! And eating delicious foodstuffs! Squee double squee!

Monday Thoughts

EASTERN EUROPEAN BOARDWALK SLAVES
Every summer The Boardwalk fills most of its hiring needs with local area teenagers. From what I've been able to deduce, they then fill remaining positions with slaves from Eastern Europe. Some significant portion of their earnings gets taken directly out of their paychecks so they can live in this seedy, boardwalk-owned, roach-infested, beach flats motel. And some other significant portion goes to the agency that placed them. So they end up with about $30/week to eat and live. My mom says this makes them more like indentured servants than slaves. Whatever. They can always be spotted when they're allowed away from The Boardwalk, because, well:



NEW CAMERA
Is. Awesome.
Also? I think it might make kids cuter. Is that science?





POOL
There is some magic Number Of Drinks : Pool Playing Ability ratio that I'm trying to figure out. With zero drinks, I can't even hit the cue ball with the stick (yes I'm calling it a stick, please to refrain from judging), let alone, y'know, hit one ball into another ball into a pocket, or something. In the range of 2-6 alcoholic beverages, I can play. Not well, but not embarrassingly bad. I can more or less hold my own with someone else who is not embarrassingly bad. Balls! Go the places I think they should! Usually!
So what's that all about? I also speak Spanish better when I'm drunk, but I at least understand why (don't tell me my linguistics degree wasn't good for anything! Ha!).
Also? Everything I know about playing pool I learned from Donald in Mathmagic Land. The part where he's playing billiards with Pythagoras. I'm not kidding.

Fathers

I sincerely wish you the best, and hope you can be the best possible father to our son.

Happy Father's Day

*Edit: K asked me to take the pictures down. I took them, so I own them, so part of me is like pfft whatever, but, okay. So they're not on my blog.

**But are still on flickr.

Must Love Gingers

I met Amber in 6th grade. Which was actually not a particularly good year for me. My two friends (I was super popular, I know) had both gone to different schools, and 11 was probably my most physically and socially awkward age regardless.

Anyhow.

Amber.

My kindred pasty-white and befreckled red-headed girl. We make a good matched pair.



I feel like 6th grade may have been the only year we actually went to school together? Can that be right? Did you go to Aptos Jr High? I know that when I went to Aptos High, you were in private school, and when I went to private school, you were going to Aptos High.

I've always been pretty sure she was Full Of Awesome.

And she is.

Full Of Awesome.



One of those fabulous people who you always feel comfortable with, even if it's been months or years or whatever. She's funny and adorable and supah fly.

She's always fun.

Plus she's wickedly cute.

Today's her birthday, so I think I can make fun of her and call her old? At least until my birthday.



Happy Birthday Sugar Sugar!

Toys

I bought a Canon Rebel XS, I got it today last night (it took me awhile to finish this post). This camera might possibly be the best thing I've EVER owned, and I really like my computer. And my iPod. And my vibrator.

Anyhow, the camera I lost was a Canon PowerShot (I'm still hoping it turns up - I LOVE that thing), which Gabriel was allowed to use, under supervision. NOT SO MUCH with the new one. I'm not even sure *I'm* allowed to use it.

So the initial test drive? It went Not So Well.

He doesn't know I'm a cruel mother yet.


Hey! What do you have?? GIVE IT TO ME!! I NEED IT!!!


IN THE HISTORY OF MEAN MOMS, YOU ARE THE MEANEST OF THEM ALL. GO. YOU ARE DEAD TO ME.


--

I posted a book review over here. It's worth a read.

Review: Pacify Me

I'm not expecting a baby, and I don't have a penis. Regardless, I jumped at the chance to read and review Pacify Me: A Handbook for the Freaked-Out New Dad by Chris Mancini, just because I think he's a pretty funny dude.

When I was pregnant, Gabriel's dad was very I-don't-need-to-read-anything-because-I-already-know-everything about the whole situation. So he didn't express to me any particular anxiety about the whole fatherhood thing, and instead stuck with making me feel stupid and crazy for being anxious.

ANYWAYS.

Pacify Me? Is overall pretty awesome. I was right there with the geeky cultural references. Although at times some of the humor seemed forced and/or contrived, I think that Mancini has a nice light and humorous writing style.

Reading this book I started to keep a mental list of people I think would benefit from reading it. A couple soon to be or new fathers, moms who just don't get why their husband JUST DOESN'T GET IT, men who are starting to get The Talk from their partners about baby having.
It was helpful to read the "man" point of view, even when I found myself rolling my eyes at just what that point of view was. I think that's kind of the point. A book that validates the feelings that you're not sure if you should have, because your wife just rolls her eyes.

This is an honest and funny book about how men feel about this whole BABY MAKING business. Not the making part, I think I KNOW how they feel about that, but y'know, the decisions and the pregnancy and the tiny squalling child. It's not, however, a true guidebook for the many tiny practicalities of being responsible for another human life. If you're looking for that, I recommend Dr. Sears (Mancini recommends Dr. Spock, but I'm hear to tell you that he's wrong; Dr. Sears is much better).

Mancini seems like more of a traditionalist parent than me, and I in fact I disagree with some of his advice. I took a bit of issue with his standpoint on attachment parenting (and I would recommend just sort of skimming over that section if you want to avoid a little bit of jaw grinding). That said, I've yet to read a parenting book or even to meet a parent that I agree with 100%, and this is a funny, calm-your-ass-down book if you know an expectant father, or a husband who is trying to avoid becoming an expectant father. I think Mancini has written a piece of work that fills a void in the realm of Parenting Advice You Can Read. Dudes need guide books too. They need the kind that they want to read. I think this is one.

--

Disclosure: The book was free, but I'm not paid. I'm very professional with this whole disclosure bit, aren't I?

Grandma

My grandmother grew up in New York City. She was a part of that vague East Coast Elite society, the ones who have owned land since the 1600's, who grew up in Brooklyn brownstones the size of city blocks. She was raised by her French governess and her Irish nanny until she was sent to boarding school in Switzerland. She used to see her mother once a day, to say good night, before she was shuttled off to the nursery, to be raised by other women.



Her mom loved her long brown hair. At summer camp when she was nine, my grandma cut off her braids and mailed them to her mom, no letter attached. I think she had already started drinking and smoking by then, I think she started all that when she was seven. Maybe eight.

My grandma ran away from the East Coast to one of the Claremont Colleges, I don't remember which. When she graduated, her parents got her a new car, so she could drive home to New York.



She drove to Alaska instead.

She was living in Alaska and she wasn't coming home. So my great-grandmother sent her a telegram that her dad was dying. My grandmother came back to New York to say goodbye to her father, only to find him alive and well.
I don't think she ever forgave her mother for lots of things, and I think this is one of them.

Her family offered her this estate or that country chateau if she would just stay there and be good and have tea with the old ladies and marry the right man.

She moved to California with my grandfather.

I guess she drank a lot when my mom was a kid. Probably, she wasn't the best mother. Damaged and self-medicating and cut off from her family, with six young kids that she didn't know what to do with, and an asshole husband who also drank too much and who probably didn't know what to do with her.

But when she was my grandma? She was really, really wonderful.

Often I think that she was the keystone holding my family together, and when she died everything crumbled a little bit.

When I was 19 I went to Ireland and I stayed with the family of my grandmother's Irish nanny. Anna, who my grandmother loved like her own mother, who loved my grandmother and her siblings like they were her own. I got of the bus in Donegal, and a woman came up to me.

"You must be Caryl's granddaughter. You look just like her."

That made me smile.

Dude kinda has a point

Gabriel (WHINING): I want a strawberry bar. Right NOW.

Me: I really don't like it when you whine like that.

Gabriel: Well I don't like it when you say no.

--

Well then.

I suck at mornings

It's 6:15 in the morning. I'm standing at my kitchen sink, drinking juice, waiting for the water to boil for my coffee. I'm gazing out the window, completely unfocused. Ticking things off in my head. Do I have time to make Gabriel lunch? Is the fog going to clear? Where are my glasses? Did I remember to fix the button on my gray slacks?

All of a sudden I'm making eye contact with some groundskeeper dude, about two feet away from my face. I jump about a foot in the air. He grins from ear to ear, and waves at me. Confused and bleary, I wave back.

He has totally stopped whatever he was ever doing. He's just....standing there...staring at me. Slightly bothered, I nod at him again, and leave the kitchen.

Then I realize I've been standing in front of the open window in my underwear.

Fuck.

SHINY HAPPY THINGS

My last post was the 666th and yes I am superstitious and yes it is bothering me so yes there will be three posts today. My mail on Saturday was sort of awesome.

Here's a postcard I got from my friend Kathy:

Jenny Lady!!
Hellos and hugs to you and Gabriel and hoping you're enjoying the beginning of summer!
Santorini is kind of ridiculous, you turn around every corner and it's like you're looking at a postcard...you also turn around every corner and there are a bunch of beautiful Greek men! All a little pushy, but the majority of them very cute! :)
Can't wait to see you again soon!!
Miss you!
Love always,
Kathy

Here's a card from my friend Emma:

Hello Jenny my love!
I'm in Melbourne! Finally! I am without internet and a computer for awhile (I have to visit seedy internet cafes that charge $2/15 min) so I decided to visit the Meet Me at Mike's Craft Shop, I got to their website through your blog so I thought I'd send you an original screen print card from there!
Your website lifted my spirits every day while I was battling life in Fremantle, you are such a gorgeous person, never stop sharing your life with us all!
All my love,
Emx

--
My friends are the best friends in the whole world.

To cheer things up a bit.

God let's push all that angst a little further down on the page shall we?

Last week Baylee (who I know from Junior High, and who is adorable, and who is new to blogging, and who has two adorable sons) tagged me for a meme where you post your favorite picture of yourself.

I usually don't participate in memes and "awards" and what not because I'm lazy and THE PRESSURE I CAN'T TAKE THE PRESSURE WITH ALL THE DIFFERENT RULES ETC BLAH, but this one I haven't seen before so I wanted to share.

However I don't have a favorite picture of myself. I have some pictures where I think I look prettier than normal, and some that I think are funny, but I can't think off the top of my head of any OH EM GEE LOVE pictures.

So here's a picture of me with Gabriel that I like, not because it's particularly flattering, but because we were having such a good time, and I think it shows. We were just goofing around and taking pictures in the living room some afternoon after work.

Your turn!

So it continues

I took the bus this morning.

A quick note about my morning routine: Gabriel goes to school a ten minute drive in one direction, and I work a two minute walk to a two minute bus ride in the other. Normally, I drive him to school, park at my house, walk to the bus stop, and take the bus to work. In the afternoon, depending on which bus passes me first, I'll either take the bus all the way to Gabriel's preschool, or just to my house, where I get my car and drive to pick him up.

So.
When I say I took the bus this morning, I don't mean that.
What I mean is this. I had to wake up a half hour earlier to schlep Gabriel to the bus stop, take the bus downtown, get there about a half hour earlier than I need to (there's an infrequency of buses that early in the morning and I can't be late, so early it is), sit on a downtown bench and feed Gabriel breakfast, pretend that the bums aren't trying to engage us in conversation, walk to his school, drop him off, and after all that waiting around and dawdling, sprint back to the bus station so I can catch the bus back up to work.

It makes my mornings....somewhat less pleasant.

Especially when Gabriel spent the weekend at his dad's and was all keyed up and couldn't possibly fall asleep until he talked to himself for over an hour about jetpacks and it was well after ten o'clock.

--

My car! Oh hey!
So, I drive a shitty car, because a little over a year ago I completely totaled my nice car and shattered a bone in my foot and traumatized my son. I couldn't afford to re-enter a Car Payment Situation, let alone whatever my car insurance would cost me if I had anything besides liability. I used my insurance money to buy the car I drive now. Which is not a bad little car really, it's just 15 years old, and fussy.
It's had two distinct problems so far. The first was that the clutch went out, which is fine and normal, albeit expensive. It doesn't make me trust my car less, or feel like it's liable to explode on the highway or anything.

Then my car broke down in the disconcerting Total Mystery To Mechanics way. Finally I took it to the dealership, and they fixed some aspect of it, plus my mom gave me money to have it tuned up, with the idea that it wouldn't break again. Because that would be nice.
Then my engine started dying. You know, just because. If I was stopped at a light or something. It wouldn't die every time though, and it always started again no problem. Because that's normal?
So I took it back to the dealership because WHAT THE FUCK, and they were like, throttle motor sensor something something something same problem as before but different and OH HAI YOU CAN GIVE US $500! But I don't have $500 so if you could please to tell me Good Sirs: What's the worst case scenario here? Because I don't mind starting my car at stoplights sometimes, if the problem's not gonna get worse.
Oh yes dear ma'am, you're currently operating in WORST CASE SCENARIO MODE.
Huh.
So I'll put a dollar in this jar every time my engine dies, and when I get to $473 I'll fix it.

I was up to $22 (yes the money jar was really my plan shaddup) when my car started doing something NEW AND EXCITING. Which is this:
Sometimes, the gas pedal just decides to be For Pretend Only. Like, you're driving your car, which involves a gas pedal, y'know, for driving purposes, and then OH JUST KIDDING NO GAS FOR YOU. You drive a manual transmission, so the car sorta needs to be moving to be in gear, so it starts doing that I'M GONNA DIE NOW SPUTTER THING AND GAS PEDAL STILL NOT WORKING NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU STEP ON IT NOTHING IS HAPPENING so you put it in neutral but your car has afore mentioned THROTTLE MOTOR SENSOR SOMETHING SOMETHING and it doesn't really always like to just stop in neutral and it dies. So that's fun.

The thrice it's happened, I've managed to restart my car, keep calm and carry on, but I don't want to not be able to start it again in the middle of the road with Gabriel in the car, so my car is at my house right now and I'm deciding between the following:
1. Try to drive car to mechanic.
2. Get car towed to mechanic.
3. Call mobile mechanic.

And now I have one of those cars that makes me nervous every time I think about it. Which. Fuck.

Let's vote!

Which of the following is most likely to give me an ulcer before the day summer is out:

1. My car, and its continuing inability to function, despite my continued dedication of cash funds to the Miss Grace Car Fund. Right now? It's doing....not....good....things. Not good at all.

2. My custody agreement. That I agreed to. Mainly on account of the aforementioned car. And it's....non....working....ness.

3. Talking to Gabriel's dad, who at eight o'clock this morning texted me to tell me that mosquito hawks don't eat mosquitoes. Apparently he's concerned that Gabriel believes that? And it's my fault? Gabriel's three. I don't really care if Gabriel thinks that mosquito hawks eat mosquitoes.

4. A combination the three.

Family Fears

My aunt Ellen is a nurse in the ER. Once a toddler came in. He had choked on a grape, and died. My aunt cuts her kids' food into bites no larger than pencil erasers. She tells us the story every time the kids have grapes.

When they were two and four, my brother Daniel and my cousin Elijah were playing at the top of my aunt Rebecca's stairs. Elijah fell to the bottom. My aunt carried him over to our house limp and broken-looking. He was unconscious, we thought he was dead. He is fine, but my aunt gets nervous when little kids are on the stairs.

When I was five, I stepped on a bee. My foot got infected, and there was a red streak going up the inside of my leg, over my ankle. My mom took me to the doctor. I remember he called it blood poisoning. He said if that red streak came up to my heart, I would die. I watch bites and scrapes very carefully.

When my sister was nine, our kitten scratched her. She got Cat Scratch Fever. She ended up missing almost six weeks of fourth grade. We always wash animal scratches with soap and water.

When my dad was a little kid, he liked to spin around in circles until he got so dizzy he fell down. Until he spun himself into a doorway and sliced open his head. He doesn't like it when he sees little kids spinning around.

When I was 7 1/2, my siblings and some other kids that were over tried to lock me out of the house. They slammed my finger in the front door. From the outside, I pulled out my hand and stuck in my mouth. From the inside, my sister saw my finger tip. She opened the door, and it fell on the floor. She looked at me, and I had blood pouring out of my mouth, all over my shirt, the porch, my toes. Two reconstructive surgeries later, I have a functional (albeit ugly) hand and finger tip. We don't ever slam doors.

When my dad was in elementary school, one of his friends fell and got a particularly bad bruise. But it was just a bruise, and no one really thought anything of it. However when he still had the bruise a month later, his parents took him to the doctor. He had cancer. He died. My dad is very watchful of bruises.

What do you worry about?

In retrospect, it could be the layers

USING MY CRAPPY WEBCAM CAMERA, here are photos to explain this tweet:
So. I kept getting treated a little too-obviously as a college student, when I emphatically am not. I think it's because I allowed my 3-year-old to pick out my clothes.

Old Navy cardigan & t-shirt, three dots dress, black leggings.

Without the cardigan:

Why I need to wear a shirt over the dress (serious boobage):

And since I think I look sort of mannish and frumpy in the face in all of these pics, here's a gratuitous close-up:

Tra La La The End

Boobs and Lube and Other What-Nots

Boobs: Have you checked out Boob Emancipation? I know you have, because I know you love boobs as much as EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD. Who can say no to breasts?

Lovely write-ups from around the blogosphere:

A Round World Through Square Glasses

Hot Dads

The Girl With The Pink Teacup

And, since it's somewhat(?) on the subject, I wrote a review for Eden Fantasys. It's over here. It's adult in nature, and while there are no inappropriate pictures, the words are probably not appropriate for work, yknow, if you have to worry about that sort of thing. Also not appropriate if you're related to me, and picking this post up through your facebook feed. Fair warning! Otherwise, you can go over here and check it out.

Not Awesome At All

*I've been sick since Sunday night. Bizarrely, it started with a tummy ache, and turned into a chest cold? I think it must have been two unrelated illnesses, striking back to back, because I'm pretty sure those are relatively unrelated parts of my body. Anyways, not awesome.

*Gabriel I think has been sick for longer, but less so. I've been letting him sleep in in the mornings (that in in looks really weird, but I can't think of another way to write that - in sleep in? no), and go to bed earlier at night, and he seems to be having good days at school. Which is good, as I have no contingency plan. Anyways. Gabriel sick: Also not awesome.

*I have to work an extra 20 hours over the weekend. Which is not awesome at all.

*Word on the street is that we're going to have salary reductions after fiscal year close. Fuckers. I would so much rather be furloughed, getting paid the same amount for less time, then salary reduction, wherein I still have to work the same hours, just for less money. Fuckers. NOT. AWESOME. AT. ALL. Of course it's all speculation at this point, but when my boss is speculating TO ME, I take it pretty seriously.

*I know I've beaten this point to death, but I still.can't.find.my.camera. It's driving me nuts, because I didn't do anything WEIRD with it, or take it somewhere strange, or anything. The last time I know I had it was Wednesday, May 27th. I took it to Gabriel's first swim lesson. I got home, I took it out of our swim bag, I put it on the kitchen counter. I'm very certain of all of that.
I keep thinking of places where I could have lost it, like if I took it to the park and left it on a bench or something, but Gabriel was with his dad that weekend, so I didn't take him to the park, and I didn't go out that weekend, and I didn't have my camera besides, because that's when I first started bitching and moaning about it. VEXED. And? Not awesome. Not awesome at all.

*I've totally flaked and abandoned a bunch of writing I'm supposed to do, like the kind where I get "paid." And the more I avoid it, the more I have it hanging over my head. I haven't even thought up reliable excuses yet. Not. Awesome. At. All.

*An old classmate of mine lost her baby yesterday. It's so sad. I can't stop thinking about it. Because it's just so sad. There's nothing you can say, really. It's so heartbreakingly sad. We aren't close, but I just. It's adding an extra layer of sadness to everything I think about, because I can't imagine, but then I can't help but imagining, and there is no way to help with that kind of pain, and I just. It's so sad.

Huh.

Oh. Are you still here?

I um....I don't have a camera.

A couple of moments that are tragically unphotographed as a result:

*My sister in a dive bar bathroom, sliding involuntarily into the splits, struggling to get up, and hitting the back of her head on the underside of the sink.

*Elliot turning three.

*Gabriel's dinosaur colony.

*My successful incorporation of one of those flower clip thingies into my hair.

*All of the boys on a woods walk.

*The looks on everyone's faces after trying a drink that tasted, to me, like Southern Comfort & grenadine. With maybe a little bit of water?

*The fact that, thanks to three new bookshelves, a coffee table, and one of those cubist organizer thingies, my apartment no longer looks like this. Although, the desk still has the creepy dolls, etc. Seriously, it's worth reading that post if only to see my creepy doll collection, which I don't believe I ever really mention.

Bungalow Gables Dress

I know without even trying it on that this dress is a perfect cut for my body. It also comes in yellow, which is more interesting, but not a good color for me. $138 at Anthropologie.

I really really really REALLY REALLY want this. REALLY.

But it's $218. Can anyone come up with a good reason to spend that kind of money? Grass Blade Dress from Anthropologie.

Girl Talk Thursday - Boozy McBoozerston

Unlike Maria, I do not have an ongoing love affair with tequila. Nay, tequila and I officially broke up in high school after a messy and abusive relationship. I rarely get hangovers. Drinking has led to vomiting less than 10 times in my life to date. That said, the smell of tequila was, for years, the smell of hangovers and vomit. We've slowly come back to neutral. I can appreciate a light-on-the-liquor margarita, and I think one of the last times I was in L.A. some girl kept buying me shots of Patron because my name is Jenny.

So. Tequila and I? Don't always get along that well, but our relationship may be on the mend.

When I went away to college and started drinking RUM! This lasted for two or three years. But, yknow, when you typically split a handle of either Captain Morgan or Bacardi with just two friends on a Friday night? Eventually rum starts to taste like burning, and you start to lose control of your extremities.


About the time I was legally old enough to drink, I started drinking gin & tonic. Preferably Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray, but I'll drink well liquor when I'm poor. That's still my "go-to" drink, with extra limes. It's virtually always what I order in bars, and it's generally what I pick to drink if I'm the one buying the liquor.

I've never gone on enough of a vodka glut to feel like I hated vodka, although when I was 18 I distinctly remember taking shots of vodka, chased with water, and I remember that was a mistake.
I've more recently discovered that vanilla vodka + ingredient of your choice = magical fairy drink.
While I can't stand licorice, I think that Jager & Coke is surprisingly delicious.
I'm always willing to try new froufrou girly cocktails, but I'll never mix dairy and liquor (well, never again- white russians, I'm looking at you!). I'm not a fan of whiskey, but I've been known to enjoy it on occasion, mostly as a result of peer pressure, but once, when I was freezing my ass off in Lesotho, whiskey poured generously into a hot cup of cocoa was the only thing that kept me from setting myself on fire in an effort to keep warm.

I typically don't take shots, because I don't like them, but I'm occasionally coerced:


Throughout it all, I'm also a lover of beer and wine, but yknow, that's more of a side hobby. Really quick though: For wine, I know nothing, so 2 Buck Chuck does me just fine. Beer Favorites-Sierra Nevada, Fat Tire, Pacifico, New Castle, Smithwick's, Guinness, St. Pauly Girl, PBR. I could list more, but I'll spare you.


Oh! I am a big fan of drinking pink box wine, particularly on Valentine's Day.

Today is fired.

I was up half the night with Gabriel, who, seriously? What is with the peeing? He's been peeing THROUGH HIS PULL-UPS lately, and I just can't deal. That's what the pull-ups are for! I cut him off of the liquids WAY before his bedtime, I make him pee, and what. is. the. deal. I can't be changing any sheets at 3am. It's just not my best time.

This morning I dropped my bagel face down on the carpet. So I was robbed of breakfast, AND I had to get down on my hands and knees to scrub my STUPID CARPET WHICH I HATE BECAUSE IT'S INSTA-STAINED IF YOU SPILL WATER ON IT.

Gabriel was sad when I dropped him off at school. His dad stopped by the school to have lunch with him yesterday, which Gabey loved! Except his dad wasn't picking him up. So Gabriel was crushed! Last night he just kept talking about how, "My dad was gonna pick me up, but then he decided to leave." No that's not what happened baby. Anyhow, this morning at school he was all sleepy (see: bed-wetting) and sad (see: dad), so dropping him off sucked.

And then! I got to go to my annual exam! And get prodded in the ladybits! And hassled for gaining 10lbs in the past year! But trust that I already hassle myself! "If you haven't changed your eating or exercise habits, it's probably stress. Stress can cause weight gain. So you just need to reduce the stress in your life." Oh-gee-thanks. I'll get right on that.

Now I'm at work and I'm tired (see also: grouchy), and there's a whole lot of I DON'T WANNA.

happy mother-fucking wednesday

Today's beauty tip: BATHE!

"You look really nice today!"

"Yeah, well, I showered. So."

"Well if that's all it takes, maybe you should do it more often."

Apparently that IS all it takes, since every time I wake up early enough to shower in the morning, in come the nice comments, which honestly, I view as a thinly veiled critique of what I normally look like at work*.
When your son crawls into bed with you and then pees through his pull-ups TWICE, once causing you to change your sheets at two a.m., and once simply leading you to drag your pillow down onto the floor and sleep there, yeah, you'll find time to take a shower**.

*Although to be perfectly honest, I think I prefer looking like a frump, and getting compliments when I look nice, as opposed to looking nice, and getting concerned inquiries when I'm too lazy to do my hair.
**In the morning, as opposed to waiting until you get home, I DO shower regularly, I swear!

Moral: If you dedicate a blog to your boobs, men will tell you you're hot!

No sooner had Boob Emancipation, the brain child of Holly, Danielle and I gone live, than I got an email from the Hot Dads! I am a HOT MAMA! Show a little something up top, and it pays off almost immediately. I am both blushing, and proud. Go check out my new blog, and go check out these hot dads. You'll leave both places happy.