oreos, cutie pies and whippy icecream

ate
far far too many mint oreos today

played
a whole lot of bookworm and i am at an all-time high level... now i am scared to play more in case i get too many fire tires and it all goes to hell in a handbasket

noticed
that the bathroom does smell mysteriously like corn chips (???)

received
at least 6 very tempting offers to stay with MGM's group of hotels... but after the elevator incident last week and their lame resort fee, they'd have to pay me to stay there again :|

bought
6 pairs of sunglasses, 2 dinosaurs, pizza dough, 8 x gazillion bubbles, cutie pies, full size sheets, new bedroom lamps, a reaaaaaally long piece of wood to make a shelf from and 6 stacking bowls at IKEA (and a whippy icecream of course :)

going
to pump it up tomorrow - hurray!!!! because it's the last day of summer break - boooooo :(

bedtime - pics soon xox

simple minds, earbuds and the big C

listening to
'alive and kicking' by simple minds - the only song by simple minds i could ever stand to listen to

eating
ginger cat cookies and milk just for a change

feeling
so proud of myself for making a bookshelf today - the thought of going to IKEA was sickening and nauseating so i made one from items i found lying around the house (and Sam even said it was pretty :)

loving
vanilla yo baby by stonyfield

also loving
David Lee Roth - he is just a hunk and positively the high point of Van Halen's career (for me :)

not loving
Julia Roberts at all since seeing Notting Hill (yes i am that behind the times with movies....) she was so mean to Hugh Grant and he's so nice - how could anyone ever be mean to Hugh Grant...? i even rationalized that maybe it was part of her role to be mean and watched some biography thing about her (my dvr was 0% full... just awful) anyway she has dated sooooo many married men and broken up so many marriage (two!) now i just can't like her at all ever again, and i think her huge smile looks like zippy's :|

also hating
that my stupid asshole earbuds only play in one ear if i move at all (grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr)

wanting
to watch more of 'the big c'. right now i'd even take 'weeds' even though it woefully jumped the shark during the 'maternity world' shit...

wondering
if 'complete body cleanses' are supposed to detox one's vocabulary too... i have said 'shit' an unusual number of times today (even for me....)

back tomorrow with pictures xoxx

oh. my. gawd.

i will never ever again ponder and pore over that mysterious box at trader joe's that says it is an 'entire body cleanse' :|

last night i started my 14 day 'cleanse'. i set out the pills - seven of them no less - HUGE too - in plastic capsules i swear that were thicker than tupperware, and got a big jug of water to wash them down. well it took at least 10 jugs of water to swallow all those pills, they were absolutely disgusting and smelled like old people. one time we went to Vegas, unbeknownst to us there was a geriatric convention going on, and the smell of Vegas that trip was the smell of my disgusting vomity burps all night -vitamins and psyllium and moth balls. sooooo not cool - i had to brush my teeth over and over again and douse myself with baby powder and baby lotion to counterbalance the elderly smell seeping from my pores.

and my tummy, oh the agony - gurgling and stirring all night long... and awful restless legs too.... i went online and found like A HUNDRED reviews about this program, people saying they choked on the pills, other people doing powdery burps that smelled like old people, others saying they immediately got really bad flu and by day 14 were at death's door.... no-one said ANYTHING about dropping 10 pounds and being able to fasten up their jeans again :| it was BAD - i didn't sleep all night thinking about it, drinking water so i wouldn't choke, cough up powder or contract the plague.

thankfully TJs have a remarkably awesome return policy - even for opened/hated items and i was able to get all my money back AND see Pedro Hernandez so it ended well :) and the tasting hut was serving THE most delicious mahi mahi burgers which were so heavenly (one might even say: "sex on a plate":) and only 100 calories, 5 fat grams and 15 grams of protein :) so i think it's official: i am a fully fledged pescatarian till i can muster up more willpower to go fully vegetarian.... besides you can't live in Cape Cod if you don't like fish, right??!

back later... maybe with pictures xoxo

today's things

• woke up and played bookworm while watching dr phil, shopping online at IKEA and having my ginger cat breakfast (i have to multitask or i get bored)

• went to Costco in hateful evil Tustin Ranch. ate far too many samples of nutella, bought nutella, went back for one more sample of nutella to make sure i wasn't just shopping hungry, memorized the calorie content of a tablespoon of nutella (it's not good...), also bought the bread the nutella was on, tried some tilapia (i am a bad vegetarian), spent $212 on back-to-school lunchpail supplies and invested in some omega 3 capsules for the boys... i just watched a show on serial killers and apparently if they had taken omega 3 as children, they wouldn't have felt such an insatiable urge to kill in later life. or something like that. so i thought it was worth a try... they have that money back guarantee and all ;)

• redownloaded the joshua tree. and the unforgettable fire too. now i have to figure out how to plead with the songs to come from itunes to my iphone. i hope there will be traffic going to the beach tonight so i can listen to my new (old) tunes - just watch, there will be NO TRAFFIC because i have tunes to listen to :|

• boys went to jiu jitsu for their family picture

• made tomato soup for lunch - i have no idea why some tomato soup is really high in fat and some is really low in fat... today's was really low but it bugs me that tomato soup is not a sure thing
  

• watched 'the big c' - how i want showtime.... maybe if we switch to uverse, it will magically show up? but the thought of reprogramming an entire lifetime of shows onto a new dvr and potentially missing the first episode of 'law and order: los angeles' or the season opener of 'tabatha takes over' is frightening stuff.... hmmm what to do...

• going to the beach for a barbecue as a vegetarian. i will be eating yogurt and grapes :| it sucks being a vegetarian :|
  

back later xoxox

summer

i miss summer already and it isn't even technically over :( i want to go to Joshua Tree and take pictures of joshua trees and stay in a hotel with a really nice pool in Palm Springs - is that too much to ask?????

i also realized i don't have THE joshua tree on my iphone. i must fix that today. i had a dream Bono was digging holes last night, which must be connected to the dead joshua tree story... i wonder who killed THE joshua tree and why someone would do something like that??? i wonder if joshua trees can just fall over by themselves - i have to look it up...

i tried to grow my very own joshua trees in 1994 - quite a feat of horticultural magic in dark rainy England (ohhh how typing those words just made my heart break a little with inside day missing blues). i had successfully raised a batch of 12 trees in my little IKEA greenhouse when my Mum decided she and her green thumb knew best and give them some sunshine. they all died instantly :( which is strange seeing as they grow in death valley here....

i don't know who rachel zoe is, but boy is she boring. i hate all those clothes shows - project runway too - SO boring. and all the cake ones too - they are so lame and trite. and for the record, if i ever got a cake made of iced marshmallow treats, boy would i be PISSED... now that would be a show worth watching :|

i am still hopelessly addicted to bookworm - it's bad.... like we-have-no-groceries bad :|

i really want showtime

off to do a jigsaw puzzle with a small child - because it's what i do :)

udders tofu and housewives

losing sleep over
Otis from back at the barnyard... i don't think a boy cow should have udders :(

wondering
what on earth this sign at the zoo means... if it means what i think it means, will i really get to milk a cow???! yes that is a fake plastic cow... this is orange county after all, but i will take what i can get!


thinking
i should just give up buying/soaking in balsamic vinegar/gingerly trying/throwing away every kind of tofu/fake chicken/veggie burger... they all taste like sawdust and wood putty :| i wonder if one can live off blueberries, condensed milk and diet coke...?

hoping
vegetarians eat fish... gawd i suck at this vegetarian business :| surely they eat fish and chips? why would anyone not???!

puzzling
over why anyone would want a muffin top pan.... doesn't the bottom of the muffin top become hard if there is no stump to tear it from....? i just don't see the point :|

also puzzling
over the odd message on our answering machine in a scary robotic voice, asking if we have a 25 pound dog :| that was all he said... just "hello, do you have a 25 pound dog?" then the robot hung up (hanged up - i never know what is correct)

also also puzzling
over why God made people's skin darken in the sun - surely if he had made skin turn lighter in the sun, people in very hot countries could stay cooler since white reflects the sun. and people in cold countries could be be darker to absorb heat.

loving
the real housewives of DC... they just might be my favorite housewives of all (for all the wrong reasons) except Cat - her husky man voice makes me feel cold and pasty. how on earth was she ever married to Charles? he is lovely and charming and soooo much better off without fag ash Lil ;) i am sure, however, that the whole White House photographer is a pork pie... i have looked through every single White House photo on flickr (all those pictures of Obama's winning smile... it was a VERY tough job) and found not one crediting him :| hmmmmmmmmmm.....

pictures of the trip at last:
the little weasel of my dreams (must have black nose and a "whatchu lookin' at" expression :)

this is a degu - and naturally i want one :)

you can "like" pet kingdom usa on facebook :)

Juggs hanging out with the bunnies

delicious kit kat concrete



waiting for the elevator - we spent approximately half our vacation in this spot (and the other half waiting to come back up from the lobby :)






Grimaldi's

Vegas Loves

• roadtrips that begin before dawn
• extra creamy extra strong homemade coffee in a to-go cup
• zero traffic (how i love thee!)
• having a full tank of gas and squeaky clean windows
• zzyzx road (though we didn't stop at the magic butterfly tree :)
• the first glimpse of the Vegas Strip
• going to dunkin donuts for breakfast and dunkin' our donuts in hot chocolate with whipped cream on top
• exploring the 99 cent store in a new city :)
• pet kingdom usa - the most amazingly adorable and cool pet store in the usa :)
• Ruggs the pet store cat who hangs out with the bunnies :)
• snuggling with an ADORABLE ferret... he was soooo soft, like puppy soft with puppy playful wrestliness :)
• hedgehogs - i so want one... my neverland zoo would be a lot like pet kingdom usa (minus the spider/snake section)
• munchkin cats - i have never heard of short legged cats... but they were so cute!!
• getting a quick cooking lesson in making wood fired pizza at due
• soft hotel beds with more pillows than necessary and extra white sheets
• lazing poolside while my boys play effortlessly together :)
• ehow for being my guide to how to blow up a beach ball (yes i had to google it and yes there was a tutorial :)
• my iphone for helping out when our gps decided to go on strike
• Vegas drivers/taxi drivers for being extremely forgiving and gracious to hopelessly lost Vegas visitors :)
• Grimaldi's pizza (Sara... yes, it was soooooooo good!) i wish we had one here... California doesn't allow wood fired ovens or something stupid like that... no ferrets either - two very good reasons to move if you ask me... they're legal in Massachusetts, of course :)
• yelp for recommending the frozen custard place right next to Grimaldi's - also sooooooooo good!!
• my boys talking about that frozen custard with kit kats ALL NIGHT - apparently Sea World and frozen custard are two of the highlights of their summer :)
• having a completely, entirely free trip :| i mentioned (over and over until having a complete meltdown...) that the elevators were not working correctly and bingo bango bongo, the trip was free :| and so was breakfast... note to self: complain more (and stay on the second floor where possible :)
• taking pictures of lookalike joshua trees in Death Valley to photoshop to infinity - THE original joshua tree in zabriski point is sadly dead now... rest in peace, joshua tree :(
• mcdonald's frenchie fries - we stopped for lunch in the cosmo-opolis that is Barstow, California (also known as 'armpit of California' by some)
• zero traffic again on our side of the freeway - deadstopped on the other side (mwahahahahaha!!)
• arriving home... i love going home so much :)
• strawberries and caramel yogurt and granola for lunch watching 'my supermodel baby' in bed (ps i thought Madelyn was by far the cutest and she was a competitor baby to Hadley who looked like he ate too many carrots to me...)
  

pictures later... too pooped to look now xox

santa monica, vegas and the tree

listening to
'santa monica' by everclear

eating
maple syrup sandwich cookies from the dollar tree - they are so soooo soooooo good (and sadly almost gone... again)

wondering
if Grimaldis in Vegas can possibly compare to the real Brooklyn Bridge location (i am thinking not... and not getting my hopes up....)

still being
a vegetarian. we had boca burgers for dinner and they weren't completely horrible :)

craving
peanut butter all day long... and i don't even really like peanut butter :|

starting
a new job on Wednesday :)

going
to shower and try to scrub some medium golden brown out of my hair... it's far far too dark for Vegas :|

this was all Danny's idea... he wanted to look like he was swinging from the tree branch :)

yesterday...

we went to Sea World... it was this quiet for the first couple of hours. we had a completely awesome day and saw everything there was to see :)


Danny spends soooo many hours poring over the little animal figures in Michaels he could name the whales and point out their babies (who said shopping isn't, like, totally educational??!)

walrus

taking pictures of the boys' eyes instead of the polar bears (pretty light:)

we got to feed the sea lions and it was terrifying - a very scary bird almost stole my pilchard right out of my hand (i am still shaking)

we went to see our cousin's new show (she is the one looking at the camera...)

we clearly had to see each show :) we were up here next :)


meeting the pilot whales - i want to invent a miniature tank sized whale, she was so very sweet :)

and of course i would invent mini dolphins too :) ones with freckles like this one :)

bookworm flakes and black sabbath

• now woefully addicted to bookworm for iphone (thanks Aaron :)

• going to pump it up this morning (must take multivitamin and very fizzy diet coke.... i am the ONLY MOM who adheres to the 'no food and drink' rule.... so i'm breaking the law today:)
  

• loving that the chuck e cheese in orange played black sabbath nonstop at the party :)

• also loving that our fridge is plastered with chuck e cheese pencil sketches of the kids :)

• but pretty sure i can NEVER go there again... the service is just AWFUL :)

• needing to clean the kitty litter (peee-ewww)

• tired of making 90% of the effort with some friends - it really gets me down and makes me feel worthless
  

• avoiding chaos at all costs (even in Vegas - especially in Vegas)
  

• direly needing a trip to Trader Joe's today in search of garden burgers... i really hope they taste like meat, i need to convince the boys that we CAN do this!

• needing maybe just one more cup of coffee and that magic horse pill (why so big??!)
  

• neeeeding to take some pictures today...

off to bounce - back later xoxo

life icecream and bears

still playing
letter blocks compulsively - sorry Corey for wasting your night too with this game :) Aaron even found the app version. oh deary deary me, i am not going to get any sleep tonight :)

munching on
cinnamon toast crunch... i just don't get people who prefer cinnamon life, i say they need to GET a life - life tastes like triscuits, when it should taste like graham crackers :)

wishing
there was a wonderfully bitchy and mean show on tonight - gasp! i think maybe it's flipping out night???!

speaking of...
i love peanut butter chocolate flipped out by ben and jerry's :)

loving
(although all the while hating LA) that while in LA one can type "Jeff Lewis Valley Oak" into one's handy dandy iphone and up will pop directions on how to drive there (though i am too scared to actually do so and be scorned by his Majesty :)

wondering
where all the bugs came from :| i found 2 - two, count em - on my desk today

really not liking
that Bear Grylls person. he ate a frog today - no warning, he just scarfed it down, biting off it's head first so it wouldn't wriggle in his esophagus... disgusting :|


random pictures i love:
best friends :)


i like the man on the right (i do NOT like the man on the left - oh but nice capri pants :)


i want this house sans the weird furniture


from the gentle barn - cutest smile ever :)

how to make a monkey out of nothing but socks and cotton :)

(the really concise helpful instructions are here...)

what you will need:

• one pair of socks - for the original sock monkey use red heel socks, which you can also buy at creepy men stores like army and navy (which incidentally i originally thought old navy was, and would never go in...) anyway, i buy socks at the 99 cent store, Michaels and Target and never pay more than one dollar :)

• needle and cotton in matching color - also embroidery thread in contrasting color

• scissors

• buttons for eyes*

• stuffing - i use the contents of an old cushion because i am cheap and too lazy to print a coupon and go to Joanns

today i used a pair of baby tights (99.99 cents)


turn tights inside out and firstly sew along the lines, cut after sewing then stuff each piece, but not the ears unless you want your monkey to have huge jug ears.


sew on arms, mouth, fold and attach ears, and add nostrils and buttons for eyes. *use embroidery thread when making a sock monkey for a baby instead of buttons

how she will look later tonight :)


you can also make an elephant but anyone of sound political mind would reconfigure that trunk and make a donkey instead :)

it's just my nineteenth nervous breakdown

feeling
restless (legs especially), anxious, guilty over things i haven't done right, ashamed over things that i have done wrong, woefully underwhelmed by mankind in general, sick of people who do half a job :| headachey and overly warm and cranky :| oh and it's that time of the month too :|

craving
burnt sausages with HP sauce :| which i can't have because i am a vegetarian now :| yes i still am.

thinking
it probably wasn't a good day to go to Chuck E Cheese.... the people who work there are really really really horrible and apathetic and clearly hate their jobs (which makes me wonder why they took a job at what clearly must be the most horrific place to work if you hate children, smiling and menial tasks like exchanging tickets for rubber fish and tootsie rolls)

listening to

the soundtrack of "merry christmas mr lawrence"... remember that movie with David Bowie? i know he's the worst actor ever, but he's just so completely perfect and perfectly british, as is Tom Conti who is the narrator of Andy Pandy and the reason i hang on every single word when i watch it :)

stressing
over the Vegas trip - i just know taking a five year old to a Cirque du Soleil show is a total waste of $100... but for some reason i am hellbent on doing it :| and can i decide which hotel to stay at? nope - we have reservations at two until i make a decision :|

hoping
for quiet time tonight... the boys are supposed to go to jiu jitsu which grants me two hours of silence. they have been too sick/busy to go lately - if they don't go tonight, i will lose my mind :|

making
a teeny tiny pink sock monkey from a teeny tiny pair of stripey baby tights - i will post my tutorial later, they are soooo easy to make, seriously easy and fast and almost fun... and all the supplies are from the 99 cent store :)

back later, it's dinner time (with no chicken on my fettuccine and a little bit of extra char on my french bread) xoxo

robots and shopping

loving
grocery shopping on a quiet monday morning. we bought yo-on-the-go, meat(less) crumbles (i sooooo hope they taste like cow) a new set of brooms (not technically edible), one churro (warm, edible, crunchy and delicious), a book about that wimpy kid, flea and tick treatment, a kindergarten boot camp kit and two big jugs of milk (i intend for us to go vegan as soon as we figure out the meatless crumble situation :)

wondering
why i keep buying the darned kindergarten workbooks - it is like extracting blood out of a stone getting Danny to actually do them :| but as always i attempt to reach expectations i will clearly fail at

going
to a Chuck E Cheese party in one hour... we missed a party there on friday sadly, but Danny seems 75% less likely to barf over everyone today (fingers crossed...)

taking
a HUGE GI Joe robot who randomly lifts his arm and fires his gun, for the birthday boy - i really hope there aren't any of those "good mommies" at the party who will recoil in horror at my lifesize gun-toting robot :)

drinking
diet coke for lunch - i am so glad it is vegetarian and maybe even vegan too...?

dreaming
of Las Vegas!! that's where we will be in one week!!! i am still on the fence about the Beatles Love tickets... they are half price and on the front row :| but i fear Danny will be too freaked out/too noisy/too restless/too tired to let us all truly enjoy it. hmm....

back later xoxox

it was a velvety soft kind of day

listening to
the pet shop boys, they remind me of smash hits, blackpool pleasure beach and saturday superstore (ie home :)

waiting to
go to bed and watch the waitress... we went to the little pie diner from the movie for breakfast today, and i am itching to see the movie again :)

realizing that
i only ate pie today :| and red hot munchies :|

wanting to
become vegetarian forever. i can live off tomato soup and bread and pie and munchies :)

loving
the gentle animals at the gentle barn (the reason for the sudden need to be vegetarian :)

not so much loving
static buzz and Diddy Riese (yes it's over between us - they don't allow pictures inside the store, because, like, icecream sandwiches are such a cutting edge invention... huge eye roll, get over yourself Diddy...)

Los Angeles yesterday - it was dirty, frantic, cash only, hard to park and smelled of pee (i don't really love big cities)

at Joe's pie diner this morning (where the waitresses are incredibly sweet, just like in the movie :)

little boys' tea parties are held in tree houses with sock monkeys, stories about sneetches and bones for the dogs :)




gentle eyes at the gentle barn

shhh... piggies sleeping :)





all the animals had tragic stories about how they ended up at the gentle barn - i stopped reading after the third one (to avoid a public emotional breakdown)

this is Prince Charming, his story was the last one i read :( i got to groom him and he was a true prince :)