Well, it appears I’m good at growing something.
Behold…
July 10, 2011
DUDE! Look how big these sunflowers are!!!
And now…
August 7, 2011
Umm. Holy crap. And the flowers still haven’t bloomed yet, which makes me wonder…Exactly how tall are these mo-fos gonna get? Hey neighbors, I hope you like sunflowers in your yard!
So. Who wants roasted sunflower seeds this fall? Anyone?
Also, remind me to tell you sometime about my fear of plants. It’s…interesting.
Today I’m guest-posting at Work It, Mom!, talking about taking five minutes to transform oneself from a greasy-haired, sweater-teethed frazzle-bum into a human being.
(I have a lot of experience being a greasy-haired, sweater-teethed frazzle-bum, but I also still manage to look relatively presentable most of the time, so trust me here!)
I used to work at Long’s, which for those of you not on the west coast, was a drugstore chain that’s now become CVS.
Among many different departments, I spent a good chunk of time working in cosmetics. So I basically spent a good chunk of time deciding which new mascara and/or lip gloss I was going to buy, Windexing countertops, and avoiding customers.
(It was at Long’s that I honed my stellar people skills, and by stellar, I mean my boss told me he didn’t want to have to fire me, but was going to have to fire me if I didn’t get better secret shopper scores. (I also honed my facing/dusting skills; in fact, I still face shelves when I go to a drugstore. Pull from the back, from the back! And if still I carried a feather duster around in my back pocket, I’d dust the shit out of those shelves too.))
Anyway, all of this is not really relevant. What IS relevant (sort of, not really) is that I took away one thing from all those years working at Long’s. And I’m going to share it with you today, so that you can go forth with this invaluable knowledge and change lives. Or whatever. Okay, are you ready? Are you ready to have your life changed or whatever? Here you go…
When a product says it’s non-scented or unscented, it means something has been ADDED TO IT to make it not scented.
I KNOW. Does it totally blow your mind, too?
All those times you’ve bought something unscented because you didn’t want to use a product that had extra ingredients in it? You were using a product with extra ingredients in it!
I’m still sort of shocked myself.
Anyway, do what you will with this information. Go on, change lives. Or whatever.
In the meantime, what’s your favorite lotion? I use Jergens Ultra Healing lotion, but in the winter, when it’s too chilly for lotioning, I use Neutrogena body oil. Oh! And in the summer I sometimes use Aveeno Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing Lotion with SPF 15.
Every morning (and mid-morning and afternoon and mid-afternoon and evening and night) this week, I’ve held LG and said, “DON’T LEAVE MEEEEEE!” Understandably, she looks at me like I’ve lost it.
I go back to work on Monday and it’s a mixed bag, as you can imagine. I’m half looking forward to it — adult conversation! A reason to put on pants every day! Uninterrupted meals! Okay, maybe not that last one, but whatever. Meals without someone crying! Okay, still not that last one — and half not. The cost of daycare is practically the cost of our mortgage! I don’t want to leave my BABY! (And those are really the only two bad things. Still pretty bad things, though.)
The truth is, daycare is better for LG than staying home with me. I love the kid and all, but, yeah — I’m not interested in getting into a work-outside-the-home v. work-inside-the-home discussion here, so suffice it to say, different strokes and all of that — LG will get more out of daycare than being home with me, I think. Every time I get sad, which is ALL OF THE TIME, I remember that. She’ll thank me later! Yes? Yes. (PLEASE TELL ME YES.)
So that’s where we are right now. I plan to finish out rest of this week pretending like it’s not Thursday, then Friday, then Saturday, then Sunday and come Monday, I’ll either need to have Chris come with me for the daycare drop-off or I’ll pull a Tami Taylor and just take LG to work with me.
I may be a hard-hearted bitch most of the time, but this time? Not so much.
My friend Hillary, whose baby Willie should be making his appearance into the world soon-ish(!), posted pictures of her baby’s nursery the other day and it reminded me that I fully intended to write a post about how I’d finally decided to decorate LG’s room the cool place for me to hang out, but then she arrived early and things weren’t done yet and we had a newborn to keep alive parent and, well, now, at just over three months old, I finally have pictures to share.
If this were an episode of MTV Cribs, I’d say this is where the magic happens (get it? because it’s HER BED? God, I need to work on my material.) Anyway, no magic actually happens here, as LG hasn’t spent even one night in her crib, but whatever. Look how pretty all those homemade/personalized blankets are!
Here’s another shot of the room, which I am taking from inside the closet, which still doesn’t have doors. No, that doesn’t bother me at all.
After consulting with one of my Internet personal stylists, Christina, I decided to purchase this mobile from The Starcraft on Etsy:
LG totally digs it, too. Babies, man, so easily entertained
You already know that Chris, handy and useful man he is, refinished his baby changing table/dresser for LG. Then, a couple weeks after she was born, he finished up the shelving, where I store six packs of bee–I mean receiving blankets and diapers and whatnot.
I bought these baskets at Michael’s on sale months and months before she was born, when I was in the throes of my WHY MUST EVERYTHING BABY GIRL = PINK crisis. I even scored a basket (not pictured) (where we store all LG’s bath accessories) that is purple and green and says “Baby” all over it. So. I’m kind of over that crisis.
The only art I ever purchased for the room was found via Style Lush:
You probably know by now, because I mention it all the damn time, that Chris and I got engaged in Seattle, so it’s one of my favorite cities (and his, but that should go without saying, being the native PNWer that he is.) It came in green (it also comes in black and red, white & blue, not to mention different cities AND the human brain and heart — something for everyone!), so it seemed perfect for LG’s crib.
In the week or so before she arrived, I went on a massive shopping trip to Mecca Target and spotted this gem, which I scored on sale:
I think I sort of missed out on the Keep Calm & ________ trend, because I hear it’s fallen out of vogue, but eh, I like it.
Finally, this is my little nook where I store mugs of coffee or glasses of wine or books or whatever else I’m doing when I’m sitting in LG’s room feeding her or trying to get her to sleep or just watching her sleep. (WHAT?)
Chris’s cousin (Brant, who is the brains behind this website)’s wife Mariko made the stitched name sign for LG, which I love love love. Thanks, Mariko! And thanks, Brant!
So, there you have it, LG’s room, the cool place for me to hang out, and also the library. (We store all our books on the bookshelf in the closet of that room, which didn’t exactly come in handy the other night when Chris realized a ways into his book that he’d already read it, possibly in the summer of 2004, he wasn’t sure. Anyway, LG was already asleep, so no book for him!)
I think people think we actually call LG “LG,” like as a nickname (like LC, Lauren Conrad, OMG!!1! No.) but we really don’t. Sometimes members of my family, from reading the blog, will call her LG and I think it’s cute, but it’s just not something we actually call her. We sometimes call her by her given name (imagine that!), but most of the time, we call her one of the name nicknames we’ve bestowed upon her. Here they are:
Turd (also: Turd Monster, Turd Monkey, Turdasaurus, and also sometimes used as a verb, as in, “What’s that kid up to?”, “Oh, just turding it up!”)
Nasty Mac (also: Ol’ Nasty Mac Herself, e.g.: “How’s Ol’ Nasty Mac Herself?”, “Just turding it up!”)
Honorable mentions: Cheeks McGee, Stinkarella, and Karl
My nickname as a kid is (still) was Sar-Bear. I don’t see that changing anytime soon, so maybe I should give LG a better nickname. I don’t really think it will be endearing for a 28 year old woman to be called Nasty Mac.
Cheeks McGee, though? SUPER endearing
Did you have a nickname as a kid? Has it stuck with you through the years? If you have kids, do they have nicknames? Spill it.
LG’s still here and being her usual cool self. In the mornings, I’ll go into her room and she’s just sitting in her bed, staring at the fan and talking up a storm. It looks something like this:
And if that doesn’t make you a morning person, I don’t know what would
Her cheeks are as huge as ever, so big in fact, that a picture I sent my parents prompted my dad to say she looked like Chairman Mao:
Too much General Mao’s chicken, perhaps? Hardy har har, I’ll be here all week.
I go back to work soon and am half looking forward to it and half not. Within the past couple weeks, LG has really ramped up the cuteness what with all that smiling and the talking. Oh, the talking. She’s having a VERY SERIOUS conversation right here:
(Click picture to view the video; I’m not adept at putting videos on my blog)
In the meantime, I still have two more weekends of freedom before I go back to the grind, so I’m trying to take advantage of this time and not go too batshit crazy when she begins LG’s Witching Hour from 6pm-9pm every night. Why can’t she just be cool all the time?
“Be cool, Honey Bunny, be cool.”
But hey, we all find our ways to survive:
There is no time-stamp on this picture for a reason
Not pictured: LG’s mom, straight guzzling
All in all, life’s good right now. Life’s very Good.
It’s also hard out there for a princess, you know
I’m generally a fan of anything Showtime puts out. I watch Weeds, Dexter, Californication, and Shameless. I would probably also watch The Big C and Nurse Jackie and United States of Tara, but I just never got into any of those shows, which isn’t to say I won’t at some point in time, but you know. Not yet.
Anyway, I have a bone to pick with Showtime with regard to two shows. Weeds and Shameless, I’m looking at you.
Let’s start with Weeds, shall we? Oh, I should mention here that if you’re not caught up with last season, then you probably don’t want to read anymore. Come back after the ——————————————- when we’ll start talking about Shameless. Unless you haven’t seen Shameless either, in which case, skip to the second ——————————————- where I discuss what an ass Rocco DiSpirito is.
Okay, so, Weeds. When it first started and Nancy Botwin was dealing drugs to her fellow Orange County moms, I thought it was weird, yes, but not totally out of the range of possibilities (for a Showtime show, not for real life, obvs. At least not MY real life.) But then, as things spiraled more and more out of control each season and Nancy took up with a Mexican drug lord and then had his baby and then went on the lamb and then last season, when we found out Silas wasn’t Judah’s kid? I was like, HOLD UP (HEY.) I require some clarification, please.
HOW did Nancy get to this point in her life? What happened in her childhood or in her marriage with Judah or in her relationship with Silas’s biological father that made her so freaking crazy? Why does she continuously do things that are harmful to herself and her family? Even though she (rarely) does the drugs she’s dealing, she’s obviously addicted to this dangerous life. But why, Showtime, WHY? Give us a little background info, will ya? Maybe some flashbacks, Dexter-style. That would be helpful.
(And if this is one of the situations where I, as the viewer, am given the opportunity to watch the show and make my own determinations as to why Nancy is the way she is? Well, I call bullshit. I’m watching the ‘tube for a reason. And that reason is to not have to think.)
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Now, Shameless. Basically I have the same problem with Shameless that I do with Weeds. How in THE HELL did this family get to be so, so fucked up? Sure it’s funny to see Frank get hammered and then fall asleep on a park bench or under a freeway, but dude has six kids with (for the most part) the same woman. Things weren’t always so awful. He must have been a decent guy at some point in time. When did things start to go off the deep end? These are things I would like to know, Showtime. Please to address.
Also, other than Frank getting all hammered, nothing really happened on Shameless. There was that weird little side-plot where Steve wasn’t actually Steve, but it never really went anywhere and was never resolved and I had high hopes for a little bit of an explanation into The Crazy when the kids’ mom came around with her girlfriend, but even that storyline went away as quickly as it had arrived.
And, not for nothing, but if you can’t throw a flashback or two in there, then you need to make the show 30 minutes long, not an hour. Because an hour of watching William H. Macy screw things up and then Emmy Rossum (LOVE HER) fix all his mistakes OR watching all the truly fucked up shit that goes on with Joan Cusack and her family makes me depressed on a Sunday night*. Thanks a lot, Showtime, now I’m depressed.
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Has anyone been watching Rocco’s Dinner Party? I’ve been watching it, even though I hate (hate, hate, HATE) Rocco DiSpirito. He is just truly awful to his contestants, making rude, almost snarky remarks. Snark is a dish (see what I did there?) best served by a 13-year-old girl, Rocco. It’s not a good look for you.
Speaking of looks, Rocco acts like that cute guy from high school who was a jerk to all the ladies because he KNEW he was hot shit. You know the guy. The guy you went after, who totally wasn’t interested because you weren’t, like, the cutest girl and didn’t have good hair, but it doesn’t matter now because he’s a college drop-out who works in “law enforcement” (read: “private security”) (read: rent-a-cop.)
Rocco is that guy. He was cute and dare I say likeable when he did that show on NBC about opening his (first?) restaurant. He treated his mama nicely and worked hard to get that restaurant open. And then he became a “celebrity chef” (barf me) and his head grew a few sizes and he turned into that jerk from high school. Listen Rocco, just because you’re one of the better-looking chefs out there doesn’t mean you’re hot. It just means you’re better-looking than Mario Batali (sorry Mario.) Also, you’re just a chef, not Tim Riggins.
Anyway, so Rocco’s an asshole and the show is kind of stupid, but he has really good dinner guests and – this is sort of sad – Chris and I are the special brand of dorky food people who like to put ourselves in the challenge, hypothetically, and discuss what meals we’d make and why and yeah, okay…Maybe it’s time for me to drown my dorky sorrows in a glass of champagne.
Happy Friday! Work sucks weekend, woo-hoo!
*During the winter, I went through a bit of a dark period where I couldn’t watch Dexter. It got dark outside so early; it was Sunday night, arguably the worst night of the week; and I just couldn’t sit around and watch murderin’ going on on my TV. I am easily affected, y’all.
