How to mess up your kid in two words or less...

I've made it no secret that the job I'm currently holding (that's such a funny expression...holding a job....) isn't my favorite. I've recently been involved in helping to organize the registration for an event that's expecting to pull in 800 people. Sounds exciting, right? Well, today my "exciting" task was to get all of the registration sheets in alphabetical order. Which is like having a migraine at the DMV, except that they don't make Excedrin-for-filing.

Will someone please get on that? We can fly to the moon, but we can't come up with some sort of pill for the filing-ache? Priorities people, priorities.

In an attempt to save a few brain cells from the numbing task, I decided to pay close attention to the names I was filing as there never seems to be a shortage of idiotic parents out there. I was not let down. We had Atilla (I pray she's skinny and beautiful, otherwise she won't make it through junior high), and Lolly (only funny because in Australia a lolly is their word for candy. And "Fancy a lolly?" can be interpreted so many ways....). How about Art Poster? No need to question what his parents were... My favorite though, the name that had me giggling all day long - Phil McCracken.

I wish I was joking. We can only hope he has 20 / 20 vision and perfect teeth.

Phil? This is psychological abuse, and you don't have to take it. Get a therapist. Quick.

Lunar Eclipse

So did anyone stay up late on Monday night to check out the lunar eclipse? No?! Someone at work told me that the next one wouldn't be until 2287! I have no idea if that's true or not, I didn't really check the facts. We thought it would be cool, so we set our alarm for 2:30 am to check it out.

The alarm went off and all my enthusiasm lay snuggled in my covers. It was rough. But I persevered, threw on my over-sized pajama shirt and literally waddled out the back door in my flip flops. No pants. Because really, who's going to be up at 2:30 in the morning making sure I had pants on? Not me, that's for sure. And Caleb knew better than to go that route.

I stood outside, head thrown back, looking at the (eclipsing? is that word?) moon while Caleb set up the tripod trying to etch the memory into my brain. You know, for the day when my grandchildren are sitting atop my knee asking me where I was when I saw the historic 2007 Lunar Eclipse. "Grandma! Tell us more!" Well my little darlings....back when the iPhone was all the rage....

I lasted another 5 minutes. Caleb's pictures would have to suffice.

By the time he was shooting these next few shots, I was (trying....) to fall asleep. Bear was going crazy, obviously upset at being left out of Caleb's shenanigans, his nails click-clacking all over the house.


At least he was doing something worthwhile while missing his beauty sleep. :) Love you too, Cabe.

Our Oven: A Series of Unfortunate Events

It's like a miracle. We have an oven. Not only do we have an oven, but it WORKS. That's key, people. It turns on, and it heats up to the desired temperature AND IT STAYS THERE. It's freakin' amazing. Mostly because um, we just got it. Days ago.


We first noticed that the oven wasn't working when we were preparing a meal for our friends. I preheated the oven to 350 degrees but even after waiting several minutes past that familiar your-oven-is-ready-for-you-ma'am-BEEP, the oven clearly wasn't anywhere near 150 degrees, let alone 350. It made for an interesting meal. We let our landlord know and he asked us to schedule an appointment for a GE service technician to come out. After taking a look at it, the technician gave us a quote for over $1,000. A large fee for any oven, but most especially for that one, seeing as it was 14 years old. Even the technician told us that it wasn't worth the fix and that we should get a new oven, and we of course agreed. I scanned the quote and we sent it to our landlord along with an explanation and our thoughts. We'd also taken the initiative to research ovens and found several very nice ovens that were much less than $1,000. It was a no-brainer for us.

Not so for the landlord. He and his assistant flip-flopped more times than John Kerry (here, here or here...), and I really couldn't understand it. I am a fairly logical person, sometimes even too logical (Caleb will wholeheartedly agree with me here), and I just couldn't wrap my head around it. Why was it even a question?! You pay less money for a new oven that will continue to work for years! How long did he expect it to continue working? But after a week or two of deliberating (yes...a week or two...) they decided they wanted to fix the old oven. Which, fine. Whatever. We didn't want a NEW oven, really, we just freaking wanted a working oven. It just so happened to make more sense to spend less for a new one. So I called GE again and scheduled them to fix it. Finally, we were getting it fixed.

Except that we weren't. GE showed up and basically said "Hi. What are we doing today?" Um, yes, you're FIXING OUR OVEN. As discussed. But of course, you guessed it, it wasn't discussed. GE had failed to mention to the independent contractors (grrrr.....) that we were fixing the oven. So now we needed to not only reschedule, we needed to order the parts. Fabulous. We did, and waited another week for the parts to arrive.

Remember, this is our oven. Just wanted to remind you.

The parts finally arrived, yee-hoo, and I called GE. "Oh, yes Ma'am, we've already scheduled an appointment for you for tomorrow!" WELL. That's a step in the right direction, isn't it? The next morning Caleb is waiting at home for the appointed service call, sometime between 8 am and noon (We'll be there sometime between 6 am and 6 pm, and yes you need to stay at home the entire day....). And yup, you guessed it, there was a glitch. This time, however, a very unexpected one.

I get a call at work from Caleb and he says, "Kim, GE called. They said that (our landlord) called them and ordered a new oven. We're getting it sometime next week."

YEAH! WE'RE GETTING A NEW OVEN! SMART MOVE! FINALLY!

And........when were they going to tell us that? Just curious......

So we had to wait another week. Fantabulous. I was getting a little sad, thinking about retiring our itty-bitty George Foreman, missing already the lingering smell of grilled chicken from three days ago. And cereal. All that cereal for dinner.

You can see why, when I mentioned a few days ago that we may be getting our oven the next day, I was a little hesitant.

But it's here, in all it's $500 glory. Caleb and I both left work early that day to watch them put it in. After six weeks of waiting, it was like going to Disneyland for the first time. Magical.

Flora

Flowers from the few bushes in my backyard that I plan to keep:


And our neighbors plant that I covet:

Baby Elijah

One of my good friends, Katie, had her second little baby this last weekend, Elijah.

So beautiful.

Congratulations Katie and Josh! Can't wait to snuggle him at our annual Girls Christmas party....

Dessert

Last night we had planned to head down to our friend Mark's house for a barbecue with my sister and her best friend (who brought our *new* car! yeah!!!), along with a few of Mark's colleagues (and interns...). That was the plan at least, a lovely Sunday barbecue. I planned on bringing a summery pasta salad and a dessert. Nothing fancy, since um, we still don't have an oven. But that's another story for another day. I don't even want to jinx it by talking about it, but we're hopefully getting one tomorrow.

(This is where I make a quick dash to knock on wood, I'm not superstitious, but desperate times call for desperate measures...)

A few hours before we were supposed to head down for dinner I called Mark to check up on things. He told me that his friend, a native Italian, was coming to dinner and had decided to "whip up a few things". And by a few things, he meant three different types of pasta, two different types of anti pasta, and a little dish of mushrooms in his own special sauce. All this, thrown together on a whim at 11:30 the previous night.

We both agreed that it was probably smart for me to uh, ditch my pasta. Poste haste. There's no competing with an Italian. Ever.

Of course, it was absolutely fantastic. Everything. He spent at least an hour and a half preparing everything, and my little thrown-together-at-the-last-minute green salad looked piddly in comparison. After we'd filled ourselves to near overflowing, we sat around the table talking about how amazing it was, totally and completely satisfied.

It took me about five minutes before I realized that I'd brought Indoor Smores for dessert. Indoor smores. Indoor. Smores.

It's a lovely compliment to pesto tortellini, fettucini carbonara, and gnocchi. Just......lovely.

Very high society.

As Is

I haven't talked much about everything that Caleb and I have been doing to improve our little rental home, mostly because we've been too busy working. Caleb has been the busiest, re-painting the white picket fence and fixing the sprinklers. We also re-painted the bathroom, and it looks one bajillion times better. Pictures will follow, once I find a shower curtain that measures 72 x 92. I'd prefer one that doesn't have fishies, odd blue tile swirls, or random geometric shapes. It's proving to be a difficult task, and the longer it takes the better and better the fishies look. I'm praying it doesn't come down to that.

One of our recent purchases was a last minute decision while checking out at Ikea. Caleb was in a less-than-happy mood because I was "being difficult", not wanting to purchase the first lamp I laid eyes on. We're in dire need of some more light fixtures around the place, these old homes don't come equipped with as many ceiling lights as we're used to. So we're checking out and I decided to run and check the As-Is area to see if maybe some fabulous couch was waiting for us to take it home, and oh yeah, only costs $100.

No such luck. But it's better to have looked and lost, than never to have looked at all.

(Wow, it's late.)

At the very end of the pile I found a few boxes of discontinued hanging lights for $10. And while we quickly discovered the reason they were discontinued (doesn't align flush with the ceiling, and um...the white bulbs are different. One has a lip and the other one doesn't! But hey! It's eclectic, right?!), with a little lovin', a bit of black spray paint, it looks fabulous. Or, at the very least, brightens the area.

Those curtains are not my favorite, but just so happen to be on the bottom of my To Do list. I have my priorities straight, people.

Sort of.

8 Counts

Is it that bad to be really, genuinely sad that a reality show is nearing it's end? Thank heavens for my DVR, because I can feel the withdrawals coming......

And so my next item of business is to find a real live legitimate dance studio. For adults.

Meme

Bethany tagged me to do this meme, and I usually try to save those as my "quick post" ideas. You know, when you haven't posted in a few days.....and you know you should....but you can't find time....or have an idea....

So. It's perfectly fitting for tonight.

5 Things I was Doing 10 Years Ago

*Wow, 13. I was hiding. Drowning in arms that were too long, feet and hands that were too big, and braces. Ugh.

*I'd just started dancing at a horribly new dance studio that taught me nothing, except that I needed to find another studio if I wanted to keep doing it.

*If I remember correctly, I was raising, about to raise, or had just sent back, my Guide Dog puppy. It's too late to figure out which.

*Was this the Spice Girls era? I shudder.....

*I've blocked this age out of my memory, if you couldn't tell. I'm scrounging. I really really really hated junior high. Loathed. Couldn't wait to escape it.

5 Things On My To-Do List Today

*Organize Caleb's closet and drawers. They're stuffed to the brim of clothes he doesn't wear. I swear I've talked about this already.....

*Find a freaking couch that we like and can afford. It's impossible.

*Transfer and decorate our new big bookshelf. All hail Ikea!

*Transform our home into something my style. Something I love. Something I'm proud of. Something.....not......THIS.

*Decide what I want to be when I grow up. Among other things.

5 Snacks I Enjoy

*Granny Smith apples with Adam's crunchy peanut butter. Heaven.

*Blueberries, cherries, raspberries, strawberries, watermelon, pineapple, banana's (only if they're still green), lychee's......and any other fruit. Till I'm brimming with it.

* A Laughing Cow Lite Garlic & Herb cheese triangle slathered onto 5 Ritz Crackers.

*Chocolate covered sunflower seeds from Trader Joe's.

*I LOVE dipping little red, yellow, and orange peppers into some lovely little sauce. Mmm....

5 Songs I Know the Lyrics To

*Almost all the Dave Matthews Band songs. He is The King, after all. How do you even pick a favorite though? It's impossible really, but I've always loved the good 'ole classic, Ants Marching.

*Man In the Mirror by Michael Jackson. How can you NOT love this song? Caleb!? I'm talking to you!

*Promise by Eve6. Ah, junior year. How I loved thee.

*Nearly all of the Dixie Chick's songs as mandated, because I am a Female. Our girl children will soon be born with this knowledge, singing along in their cribs. "Cause Earl had to die...."

That's a little creepy.

*Missy Higgins anyone? Well, she's a little Aussie girl I came to love in...Australia. Duh. Most famous for her song, "Scar". The Aussie version is better than the one they're touting around here in the States. Just so you know.

5 Things I Would Do If I were A Millionaire

I'm assuming it means all of a sudden. And because this is imaginary, I'm going to assume by millionaire it means more than one million....because I can. That's called IMAGINING.

*Buy a house here in La Silicon Valley. So that when we sell it to move back to Utah we could put cash down on the Utah house and have enough left over to travel Europe. For a month.

*Invest! Invest! I'm like a little chipmunk, keeping nuts in my ginormous cheek pockets for later. It helps me breathe.

*Take Caleb to Australia, show him all around Sydney, and then go explore the places I didn't get to see. Like Ayers Rock.

*Find a little deserted island in the Caribbean, buy it, and build one fantabulous resort. Then I would charge A-List celebrities a ridiculous fee to stay the night. Richard Branson ain't got nuthin' on me....

*I've always wanted a cabin or vacation home somewhere. Like the Poconos. Or Hawaii. Or Italy, I suppose I could handle that, too.

5 Bad Habits

*I People Watch. A lot. Which is a lovely aesthetic term for staring. I can't help it, people are fascinating.

*I always forget a load in the washer. Sometimes for days, long enough that the clothes start smelling funny....so I have to wash them again. WASTEFUL, I tell you.

*I check the internet way. too. often.

*I am my own worst critic.

*When I'm concentrating I fiddle with my cuticles, and they are in desperate need of an intervention.

5 Things I'd Never Wear Again

*Can anyone say matching sweaters with stirrup pants?!

*Those hideous glitter and puffy glue shirts.

*A perm. Ugh.

*Remember those accordion shirts? The ones that look like they were made for dolls, but then stretch out to your size? WHAT WERE WE THINKING?! Yes, can I please get one of those shirts that add two inches to my waist? Thank you.......

*Fabric hair scrunchies.

5 Favorite Toys

Toys? Like, now? Alright....

*My (alright...our...) camera. Totally worth the price tag.

*My (alright...our...) laptop. See above bad habit...

*The DVR. Best invention EVER.

*I really love my heart rate monitor / watch. Seriously. It's amazing.

*I've run out. Honestly. My tennis racket? Is that a toy?

4 Jobs I've Had

It'll have to be my four favorite jobs....

*Cold Stone Creamery. As sad as it is, I really loved working there. Best high school job ever, we had so much fun.

*Receptionist at my dad's engineering office. LOVED the people. Still do.

*Bridal Consultant at my uncle's (not my uncle....my mother's cousin...) famous bridal shop, Abbey Bridal (Maggie Sottero, anyone?) in downtown Sydney, Australia. If I could, I would STILL work there.

*Admin at the OSU Foundation in Oregon. Great people, amazing (read: FABULOUS) benefits. Lots of fun.

Notice that my current job isn't on the list? Hmmm.....

4 Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

*Moulin Rouge, love the music.

*Sense and Sensibility. Nothing to explain there.

*O Brother, Where Art Thou? Nothing beats the first time I watched it, but it always comes close...

*Stranger Than Fiction. Really loved that show.

4 Places I've Lived

*Good 'ole Bountiful, Utah. The Homeland.

*North Ryde, NSW, Australia. My own personal Real World.

*Albany, Or. Where the sun don't shine....hehehe......

*Silicon Valley, CA. Totally crazy, totally populated. So much to see and do. And the sun always shines.

4 Shows I Enjoy

*So You Think You Can Dance? Amazing. Love it. Miss it already.

*The Office. Love it.

*Divine Design (thanks Bridgette! I love it!)

*Lost. When does that start again?

4 Places I've Been On Vacation

Again, favorites....

*Lake Powell. #1, as always. My other home is my houseboat.

*Paris, France. We also visited Nice, Cannes, Monte Carlo and drove into Italy for the day. Amazing.

*Hawaii (Maui and Oahu). Ahhhhhh.............

*Melbourne & Cairns, Australia (and Sydney I suppose, though I was technically working and going to school...)

4 Favorite Restaurants

*Biaggi's Italian Restaurant. Where I finally gave in and fell in love with salmon again.

*Thea Mediterranean Restaurant - slightly expensive, but different and SO SO good. In fact, I could really go for that lemon soup right about now....

*Novak's Hungarian Restaurant. Owned by a little old Hungarian man and his wife, the man up front and seating people (he even pulled my chair out for me!) and the wife in the kitchen. Amazing. Seriously.

*P F Chang's. Mmmm........lettuce wraps....


Phew!!! And now to tag....wah ah ah...Kjersti, Bridgette, Jess, Trisha, Kelly, Lindsay, Shannon, Miranda, Em....okay, so if you're reading this? You're tagged. Now. Go and do.

Tyler, or, how I ruined his senior year

Since our good friend Tyler is here, I thought I'd regale you with one of my favorite Tyler Stories.

Tyler is one of Caleb's best friends, and so in high school we'd hang out quite a bit. One of these times they decided that they were going to give Ty a buzz cut. They watched Ocean's 11 quite a bit. I sat on the toilet watching, since the closest I'd ever come to cutting hair was shaving my own leg, and I'll just go ahead and be presumptuous and assume that somehow that didn't qualify me. Caleb had however, so he quickly did his thing, and soon Tyler was all buzzed and stuff, feelin' pretty Brad Pitt-hot. Caleb handed me the shaver (buzzer? No...that's not right...) and instructed me to go trim his sideburns in the garage while he cleaned up the bathroom. "Uh........okay...." I stuttered, thinking surely that was something I could handle. But as I stared up at his sideburns, weapon in hand, well...I was a little nervous. I sucked it up though, turned it on, and......slipped. Slipped going UP, and using the wrong side. So he pretty much had a huge bald stripe going halfway up his head. A sideways, inverted mohawk. A landing strip for flies. It was disastrous. I don't think I've ever felt so embarrassed, so horrible, so......well, I wanted to crawl under my covers and stay there for a century or so. Tyler saw my face, and I can only imagine what he was feeling. The next few minutes were a blur, Caleb saw my butchering job and they decided they'd need to just shave the rest of his head that length. That's how bad it was. He literally looked like a cancer patient, bald, with just a glint of dark hair pushing it's way through. All I remember is Tyler saying that his mom was going to kill him, and me silently afraid she'd turn on me next.

It all turned out okay in the end, his hair grew back as hair tends to do, and Tyler decided he'd still be my friend, which was mighty big of him I think. But to this day, I still have to refer to him as the kid I butchered. "Oh, he's THAT kid....", or "OH! I remember that.....". And so on and so forth.

Most recently...

Mom: Who's going to buy your car, again?

Me: Tyler, Caleb's good friend? You know? The one that I shaved?

Mom: OH! Yeah, Tyler. He's a good kid, I like him.

Me: Yes, we do too.....

A change will do you good

I had my hair cut today, super short.

Remind you of anyone? Hmm? Ringin' any bells?

Alright. If I must.

Okay, so I need to work on my pout. Loose a few....or 400...pounds. About three hours in the tanning bed, and win the lottery in four states. And even then, I could never pull off those glasses.

I'd been thinking about doing this for a while but was having a hard time finding a salon. Not that there is any shortage of beauty salons in the Silicon Valley, far from it actually, but I couldn't honestly believe how expensive it is to get a decent hair cut. I couldn't find anything under $55, and even then, those salons didn't have good reviews. Last night we took our lovely friend Tyler (who is visiting us from Utah and oh yeah, is buying our car that we haven't replaced yet.....OH, THIS SHOULD BE FUN) out to dinner at a fancy little mall near our home. Mall is really an operative word, it's more like a conglomeration of fancy restaurants, posh stores (eh? you like that?), and nothing within a 5 miles radius that any normal person can afford.

Anyway.

So while we were waiting for our table I popped into the Aveda salon to see if they had any openings in the next, oh, three weeks. "Actually, yes, we just had a cancellation, can you come in tomorrow afternoon?" COULD I? Ahem. Yes, that'll do.

I arrived on time apparently to wait 30 minutes while drinking ice water and reading an article on Ashley Olsen. Apparently this is protocol. Then a thin, black haired woman, a little reminiscent of Nelly Furtado, came and finally said she'd get to that whole cutting-my-hair business. Or whatever.

"Oh my gosh, I'm like, SO sorry. I've been like, color-correcting since like....ohmigosh, like, 9 this morning? Wait, today's Friday? Yeah, since like, 9 am."

Oh boy. This is going to be painful.

I showed her the pictures I'd printed off the internet, right side, left side, and back that explained exactly how to cut the hair. She took one look at it, and was like "Oh yeah, I know how to do that. I took a class." she said, though it only took a few seconds of her twirling my hair before she'd picked up the paper and started intently reading it. I tried to suppress my worry, I mean, she was a senior level hair stylist right? She knew what she was doing. Sure, maybe she's not the brightest of the bunch, but they wouldn't let her work there if she couldn't properly wield a pair of scissors. Right? RIGHT?!

I was right on both accounts. She knew how to cut hair, very well in fact, and was a total and complete ditz. Maybe I'm being too harsh, maybe I was just annoyed from the wait and her endless suggestions that this cut would look so much better with highlights. Have you ever thought of highlighting your hair? My hair used to be your exact color, but look! I dyed mine. If you highlight your hair, it would just like, totally make it pop, make it shinier, make it smoother. Totally look like, way better. Hey? Have you ever thought of dying your hair?

Needless to say, I won't be going back. I love it, but in her very own words, "Any stylist could like, totally do this cut." Well! Lovely! I shan't be back then! Toodles!

So she charged me an arm, a leg, my first born child, and all of my allowance. And then she asked for my credit card. Besides my car and plane tickets, it was the single most expensive item I've ever purchased for myself. The woman told me how much it would be and my eyes nearly bugged out of my head. I had an idea of course, knew it would be expensive, but I was just not expecting to hear that number. I might have nightmares.

I don't even want to think about what would have happened if I'd let her add highlights.

I'm feeling a little queasy, excuse me.

(Okay, quick! Look at the back! I like it.)

Belated goodbyes to our apartment complex

To the staff: Goodbye. We will not miss your snooty (snotty!) ways. Nor will we miss your fake smiles. We will however, miss the hilarious pinched nasal sound of your robotic salutations: "Wel-come to (insert name here) Apartments." (No seriously, try it, pinch your nose and try it!)

To the one neighbor we talked to: Goodbye. We sometimes crossed paths at the gym. We found your student id and credit card on the bench downstairs and when we returned it you gave an exasperated "I've been LOOKING for those....", like they were nothing but a comfy pair of socks. Maybe a misplaced bookmark. You also left your bike chain in front of our door for a long time and one day I got so sick of seeing it I hung it from your door knob. Sorry about that.

To the man in the wife beater: We had our routine at the gym. You always, without fail, wore a white wife beater and always had a smile and hello for me, even at 6 am. You always watched the news while working out, the tv turned on very loudly. I didn't mind. You helped me figure out how to break the rules by unplugging the tv cord so that I didn't have to listen through my headphones. Thanks, it helped through the miles. You were also very nice and pretended not to notice when I'd suddenly hop off the treadmill and run to the bathroom - knowing, I'm sure, that when you're jogging and need to go? Well, there's just no tip-toeing around it. Thanks for that.

To the cute Indian family two doors from us: I fell head over heels in love with your little girl, she is the cutest baby I've ever seen. Sorry about that day Caleb and I ran into you and your parents at the elevator, that was a little awkward....

To the quirky man with the purse dog: You were weird. But I liked you. You let us crash your party in the rec room our first weekend there so that we could watch "The Office" since our tv wasn't hooked up, and turned it up full blast so that we could sort of hear it over your drunk friends. That was very cool of you.

To the gay man in the puffy white jacket: I don't know what to make of you, you didn't seem to have a job. You walked around the complex with your poofy little white dog at odd hours of the day, when I would exercise before work, in the middle of the day, and late at night. There was not one time that I saw you walking that you weren't picking your nose. Not once. You didn't drive on your own, at least not that I saw, always getting rides from an older couple that I can only assume is your parents. I hope you're enjoying that.

To the man who lived above us: You woke me up once in the middle of the night, screaming "I HATE MY LIFE!!!!" at the top of your lungs. Several times. It scared me more than I can say, I laid there, eyes wide open and heart pounding, for at least an hour after, trying to calm down. I hope you're getting some help.

To the odd couple with the black lab: Sorry we took Bear away from you, you seemed to have an odd love for him. Every time we were outside for more than five minutes you'd come running down so that your dog could play with Bear. Hopefully you've found a replacement.

To the maintenance / cleaner guy: You were the only nice staff person. Hopefully they treat you well, and if not? You can totally find a better job, one that doesn't require wiping down treadmills four times a day.

And to everyone else living there: There's much better out there. Trust us.

Score!

I've been trying to re-vamp this place for a while now, and, well...it wasn't going well. Mostly because I have no idea what I'm doing. At all. Me don't know squat. In fact, I've been so frustrated with my lack of knowledge that I found myself looking up online degrees in......something about how to build your own website and learn all that silly HTML mumbo jumbo...or something.

I swear it was legitimate.

I started trying to come up with a masthead um, three or four months ago. I started late one night following some very vague directions I found online and then got frustrated, deleted most of it, and left it alone. I'd come back to it every week or so and made absolutely no progress, and almost deleted the whole thing once. I finally picked it back up this week and made it a goal to finish before the week was over. It's 11:56 pm on Saturday. Yeah for me!

I sat, cocking my head and admiring my (super hard!) work, and got a hankering to figure out the centering issue once and for all. I was going to do it! Yes! Go me! Actually, I just went to Beautiful Beta's forum (he'd helped me figure out how to add another sidebar and clean up my html) where I had posted my problem SEVERAL months ago to see if someone had answered my question out of the goodness of their heart. And lo! Someone had! Turns out I only needed to add TWO FREAKING LETTERS to the margin. Seriously. I tried it out, a little skeptical, and........it worked. Imagine that. Maybe I need to dig up that media degree web page again....

In other news, my Jamba Juice exploded all over me today. I was walking back to my car, my small Berry Fulfilling smoothie in hand, desperately trying to get something out of the straw. It wasn't having it. And deciding that some lovely little fruit chunk must be clogging the end, I blew into the straw to dislodge it and it literally exploded, the lid nearly flying off and a golf ball sized splatter landing smack dab on my new white shirt. Curse you, push-up bra. I played it cool though, continuing to my car, hearing the snickers from the punk-kids loitering outside. I'm so above that.

Luckily for me Target was near, so I slung my newly-favorite BIG purse strategically over my um, splatter, and quickly bought the nearest do-able shirt, begging the fitting room lady to please let me wear it out. "Oh, sure, you can do that, just make sure you pay for it." OHH!!!!! Is THAT how this whole store-thing works!! PHEW.

It's too bad I wasn't closer to the mall.....

Eat, Sleep, Drink it up

After flipping through the photos from our most recent trip (see below), I think you'll see how fabulous it was. We had ourselves a really good time. Caleb tried out surfing and discovered that he really loved it. I hardly saw him at the beach and his skin is now about 12 shades darker. It looks like I've gone and run off with my Latin Lover. Or maybe just a regular beach bum. And me? This is the first year that I haven't wanted to go, go, go. I relaxed. A lot. And shopped, nearly as much. It was perfect.

OH! My gosh. The best part. We saw Wicked. You know, like Wicked, the Broadway play. And I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT. It was absolutely positively the best play I've ever seen, and I've seen Phantom twice. I actually CRIED at the end of the first act, and it's not a sad play. Quite the opposite in fact, it was hilarious. It was just beautiful, and perfect, and wow. I need the music. And I need to see it again, and again. Apparently though, I've already missed the San Francisco performances which totally blows, and I've been trying to concoct a really fabulous reason to travel to um...Chicago....Philidelphia....New York...Hartford, CT.....or really, just back to LA. It's way past wanting now, it's a full blown need. Right up there with vacuum lines.

Oceanside, CA 2007

Disaster, originally uploaded by dancingnancy_1.

You're going to want to see this one up REAL close-like.