cookies, banoffee pie and vegenaise....

my computer always won't do things because of some message about cookies - urgh. thanks - i wasn't thinking about cookies... but i am now :|

today i made the banoffee pie. kids are WEIRD - they wouldn't touch it. this is very bad news because i love it to death and could it eat it whole... darned freaking weirdo kids hating fruit and stuff. who hates bananas????! it's like hating labrador puppies... it's inconceivable and just plain freakishly odd

i got 'the kind diet' by Alicia Silverstone today. bleck. i want to be a good vegetarian, i really really do (hence the book) but i just don't think i can shop at (A)whole foods and do yoga and eat tofu for EVERY SINGLE MEAL - every recipe seems to have tofu in it :| i'd rather eat a sweaty microwaved ziploc bag... oh that's the other thing, she recommends you give away the microwave. SOOOO not going to happen :)

one recipe is for seaweed burritos.... one for 'raw balls' based on a friend's own 'raw balls' :| another for "ridiculously rich chocolate brownies" (you SOOO know they aren't rich...) made with grain-sweeteneed carob chips... so you just know they will smell like hemp and have the consistency of fire logs. oh and if you think potatoes and peppers and tomatoes are vegetarian fare, she says not to eat those evil 'nightshade vegetables' because they are bad for your joints. yup, life without french fries swimming in tomato ketchup.... go ahead and kill me now :( next she'll be saying that watching 'teen mom' is unacceptable too.....

yadda yadda yadda... my heart's 100% vegetarian but i don't think my tummy really is yet... we'll see if i can find mochi and nut milk (do nuts even have breasts....?) and brown rice crispies and maple sugar and vegenaise at Albertson's - if not, i reserve the right to give up :)

PS Tarnya, i don't think there is such a thing as pre-boiled condensed milk in the USA... this being such a third world country and all. i should start my own company and call it T'N'T in your honor (and because i'd probably blow up the factory by falling asleep 2.75 hours into the process :)

a gift for the president :)

i am babysitting a boiling can of condensed milk. for three hours. that's how long it takes to turn into rich thick decadent caramel!!!! yes, i'm still on the diet.... but it doesn't mean i'm not making the caramel :)

thanks to that show 'come dine with me' (my latest guilty pleasure) i intend to make a banoffee pie tomorrow. the can of former condensed milk, turned rich thick caramel MUST BE ALLOWED TO COOL before sampling - i once burnt off my entire tasting finger whilst making a batch of fudge... so i have learned my lesson, when it says "allow to cool", i now begrudgingly do so :)

i am also going to make some chocolate covered caramels which i will decorate with sparkly rocks of salt, to send to my beloved President Obama. i know they are his favorite! and i like him so very much, i just want him to have a token of my esteem :) i will also include a picture of my children eating one of the caramels (sans salt) to prove they are not poisoned. i am sure he gets all kind of crackpots sending him candy

the can is hissing. it doesn't say anything online about what to do if the can starts hissing :[ it does, however, refer to boiled condensed milk as 'danger pudding' because if the water level doesn't always cover the can, it could explode causing loss of eyes and a big hole in the ceiling :[ note to self: don't become engrossed in Dr Phil's housewives/fall asleep before 8pm :)

back tomorrow with tales of my pie and candy making adventure xoxoxo

yesterday it was 108 degrees : and like an idiot i still went for a 6 mile walk :[ don't ask how much weight i GAINED from said walk, because i am still feeling positively suicidal over it :( how can you gain weight walking....? forget it, i don't want to know

i can't believe Catelynn's mom is 37.... i thought she was at least 50 :[

speaking of age, i don't know why i have pet rescue places on my facebook.... but i do.... and this dog's story broke my heart over the weekend. firstly i cannot fathom ever giving up a pet, but dumping one at the pound like trash, is beyond heartless and deserving of some really horrible kharmic retribution... this dog, Mack, was 19 years old, frail and hardly able to walk... i tossed and turned all weekend over him, since our house is up to it's pet maximum and the furthest thing from a restful place for an old gentleman of a dog to live out his days. i couldn't look at pet connect on all weekend for fear of hearing the worst, i hid it from view and tried to pretend evil people don't exist. last night i braved a peek... and found this video posted by his new Mom and Dad who drove four hours to get him :) i l-o-v-e these people

back later... i cannot stand blogging with the blue E xoxo

what's on my mind...... (and it isn't much :)

i must get out of here. yesterday it was at least 110 degrees :| picking apples, trying to act all fall-like (the jumpers and jeans didn't stand a chance...) while perspiring to death, is just awful times one million. people in Massachusetts don't know how lucky they are - they get to pick apples AND wear clothes AND not be blinded by sweat :(

one minus point for Massachusetts - they don't have Cici's Pizza which i have fallen in love with this weekend... their salad with the banana peppers and cherry tomatoes and big fresh hoopy onions, not to mention pasta (and it's ALL all you can eat!!), plus awesome veggie flatbread pizza, plus a bazillion other kinds of pizza even one with mac and cheese on top, plus warm brownies, plus gooey cinnamon rolls - all for $3.99 :| California FINALLY has a check in it's lonesome empty 'pro' column on my spreadsheet!!

one more minus of Massachusetts - it's a lot of syllables to type... so is California but California has all the letters in our names so it's easier to type...

still looking for a huge upright freezer for the garage. i refuse to buy a brand new one (we are moving to Massachusetts, you see :) but the ones on Craigs List are all used and might have stored things like frozen rats or worse still, frozen sperm (in my mind, everything is unimaginably horrible:) hmmm, what to do.... i want a brand new one that someone has won, but they don't need, who will bring to my garage for under $100. it can even have a small dent in the door, i'm not that fussy :)

i smell like babies.... there are worse things to smell like :)

i can't decide whether Clarice would be happier in a fishbowl (drum shaped not round) or to stay in her little fish tank. she is a very shy fish and has a large privacy shell plus a red phonebox which she uses all the time. plus i sandwich her tank between the can opener and fruit bowl so the cats can't terrorize her. i love the fishbowl, it's more space and it looks much cuter but it doesn't have a top to keep cat paws out and it would take up more counter space. i should send a video to Nate, huh? Nate would know what to do!!

i also can't decide whether to walk to Trader Joe's in the 100 degree heat... i should because i have to lose all the weight from the million of banana peppers/flatbread pizza/brownies i ate yesterday but i don't want to bake to the sidewalk either.... did i already put a big red X in the California column about the sunshine....? if not, here it is and it's not nearly big enough :|

X

i must must must go to the bank too... i now have so much money in my wallet, it won't fasten and i have checks that i KNOW are approaching the six month mark... why do i fear the bank so much??!

off to walk - wish me luck, if i bake to the sidewalk, i probably won't be posting later :(

weekends pictures

Danny bought his costume, Sam is going to keep looking :)


on second thoughts... maybe we look clever-er without glasses :)

psst... do you think anyone really samples them....?

at Oak Glen (for approximately 12 minutes - it was unseasonably hot and very un-fall-like today)

pizze, octomom and bread

it's date night - we're going to our italian restaurant next to a big fake lake in Rancho Santa Margarita (city names with so many syllables in them should be ILLEGAL, i don't care how pertiful that fake lake is, i cannot/will not live in a city with an eight syllable name:)

so far i have eaten nothing but 3 gummivites and a 70 calorie yogurt (i scraped every last smidget of yogurt from the lid:) and i walked five miles in the horrific California sunshine. the pizza, oops they call it "pizze" (eye roll) in RSM is that good :) indeed, their only flaw (besides horrible spelling) is that they call extra virgin olive oil "EVOO" which really really really upsets my sensibilities :|

Octomom is having a garage sale tomorrow!!! i REALLY REALLY want to go. Aaron says it will be a circus (his point being.....?) she is selling an autographed pair of maternity panties (awww man, i hate that word) and a bikini..... why would anyone NOT want to go is my question!!

instead we are going to pick apples :|

since i saw the picture below, i can't stop thinking about this bread. because i love bread. and i adore butter - whole sticks of it at a time. but this combination, broiled to smithereens... I HAVE TO HAVE THIS!!! i really need to not look at the Pioneer Woman's website on the first day for SIX WHOLE WEEKS that the scales actually moved in a downward direction :| surely there can't be that many calories in an entire stick of butter......?

berries, typos and weight gain woes

today i walked 6.66 miles :| and when i got home, more dead than alive, i dashed to the scales and found i had actually GAINED an entire pound :| how is that even possible????

i had a blueberry and a raspberry for lunch with a spoonful of fat free yogurt and lean cuisine vodka pasta thing for dinner. i am far too scared to weigh myself after that oinkfest :| i bet i gained at least 10 pounds ;)

i want to make my children into iphones for halloween - however they won't hear of it and i am DYING to make humungous iphones out of foamcore boards covered with stick-on app icons :( i just want to make them a costume, just once in their lives... is it too much to ask??! i am going to write to Nate Berkus about it. for no other reason than i want to get close enough to him to smell his hair :)

lastly, here is the latest gripping episode of the Ray Moors/Joe Ferret saga.... the story so far, Joe Ferret sent a survey to Ray Moors, who is running for CA state assemblyman, asking him his position on legalizing ferrets, should he get elected. Ray, being the hot headed republican that he is, replied that he had had a ferret for dinner because he needs more meat (which is kind of gross seeing as he owns a barbecue restaurant in Chino... i wonder if they serve ferret meat there...) his reply was full of spelling mistakes and Joe Ferret mentioned that in her reply.... well today she got this note from Mr Hot Head:

"Heidi, I’ve had an operation on my right hand (carpal tunnel - you know it:) which sometimes causes me to mistype. I’m quite a busy guy right now doing that which few people have the courage to do. ... True, I did not have the time to do a spell check on my post and take great opposition on that account that you sum me up as “What a Jerk!” However, I do now have the time to invite you to go to hell on the fastest ferret you can find. Gratefully, Ray Moors
Post That"

and with that i am going to bed to watch some Flipping Out (Jeff is my kind of hot head though i don't like his puffy upper lip....) and overindulge in ginger cat cookies and ice cold milk. screw you, scales - SCREW YOU!!!

kindness, coupons and colonics :)

while i love the idea of random acts of kindness, they really aren't suited to oc living. whenever i am in michaels or joanns or wherever, and the lady in front of me doesn't have a coupon and asks the mean little witch cashier if she has one and the mean little witch snaps back that no she bloody well doesn't, and i offer said customer one of my coupons because i am just that nice (and i print multiple ones on sheets in case i have a project that requires multiple trips:), said customer seems surprised and suspicious, but snatches it from me with a very forced begrudging thank you... and no, this is not just a one-off thing, i have tried sooooooo many times to be nice and here there is just no pay-off for niceness (maybe there is a little heaven-like place on a soft fluffy cloud, full of grateful people waiting for me at the end of the long and winding road:)

today i bought my very first groupon - i feel sick with worry that it won't work or it's a scam:) it is for soap.com so what could possibly go wrong, right? everyone needs soap (except the french hehe) actually i want to buy 4 x neutrogena anti-residue shampoo since it is the closest thing to confession that i have tried so far (i so wish they made rainbath in that clean, sin-free scent)

great. the stupid brownie thing made me gain one pound :| is it even possible to walk six miles? because today i'm walking six miles :|

i am wondering if fruit has too much sugar and i need to give it up...? i usually have berries with yogurt for lunch, i am officially cutting out the berries from now on... can life get ANY worse???!

this is far far far too much information.... but i really want colonic hydrotherapy :| it's $220 but they promise such things as improved digestion, a sense of well-being, less bloating and reduced discomfort. HOT DOG!!! that sounds awesome! surely $220 is a small price to pay?? but... i am soooo painfully shy, i am too ashamed to even get a pedicure because my second toe is longer than my big toe and i read that people with such abnormalities should join the circus because they will never be accepted in polite society... and also i can't even pee if the toilet door isn't locked and the windows are closed to dissuade peeping toms.... so i want to invent my own at-home colonic irrigation system!!! like an enema with a shop vac attachment and of course a disposable reservoir tank - i know it would be a winner because it would pay for itself in one session. oh gosh, i must get it patented!!!

off to do playdoh and jigsaw puzzles, while dreaming of my first appearance on QVC :)

unsalted crackers, sowing the seeds of love and ferret legalization

loving
unsalted saltine crackers, by far the best part of my snackwell brownie testing position is the palette cleansing unsalted saltines that taste so much better than those 150 calorie brownies with 'creme' filling (trust me, they're so not worth the calories)

hating
the expressions "bring it" and "LOL" and "let's do this!" ;)

hoping
oh hope of hopes that i can accompany my hubbie to some project management thingie next month. "whhhhhhhhhhhy?" because of the keynote speaker: Bill Clinton (only my third most favorite president of all-time:) it's $1825 - gulp. but i think dinner is included though....

wishing
for Teddy's face to get better soon... he looks like the elephant rat with his big puffy cheek :( and he just wants lots of lovings which is so not like him :(

listening
to 'sowing the seeds of love' by tears for fears which i love despite it's pathetically idealistic line that everything is possible. i can think of thousands of things that aren't, such as me running for office alongside Sarah Palin (i'm not a born citizen of this fine country... i so hope she runs in 2012, she's hi-WAW-wius as Danny would say)

"LOLing"
at this facebook status update from John Ferret: (yes i have a friend who is a ferret...)

ASSHOLE ALERT - I called Ray Moors, the Republican (of course) candidate in the 61st Assembly District to ask did he get our survey on ferrets? He "had one for dinner last night, they need more meat." He's all about jobs and does not take the ferrret issue seriously.

well, what a grade A douchebag he is :| also of note, both positive and negative, on the ferretsanon survey:

• Tim Thiesen : "Bigger problem in California than ferrets right now"...... gasp :| like what, exactly.....?
  
• Lucille Kring: "had a long discussion with Ms. Kring, she is open but it isn't a priority" unbelievable :|
  
• Kathryn Moore : sent us a great drawing of a ferret (what a nice lady, i'd vote for her! but she really should get a better headshot...

pics from today... M was the letter of the day. M is for model, so i had him model for me, as our homeschooling lesson :)

oh yeah....

so this is why i don't take pics for money anymore... because no amount of money is worth giving up a perfectly golden saturday afternoon for, then putting off over and over staring at someone's family in the post processing part of the shoot :| not that they're unattractive or the pics are that bad... i just don't love working on pics that aren't mine :| and then there's this side of the 'business' where women become sorority sisters and start tearing clumps of each other's hair out :| someone really ought to write a book about them :)

not that i'm counting or nuthin but in 2 months and 2 days i will be moonwalking all the way to Walmart for my copy of Michael Jackson: the Experience!!! i cannot even wait three more days till black friday to see if i can get it for less money but way waaaaay more work - i neeeeeed that game the day it comes out!! and it's even a furlough day, so we can all play it ALL DAY LONG!!! so i guess the budget cuts are good for that at least (and ps screw you Oprah - i like my kids' teachers just fine and they have a TOUGH JOB THAT I COULDN'T DO FOR ONE SINGLE DAY (and yes it's just a JOB with an everyday paycheck - they don't make Oprah money - and i'd never EVER in a million years let my kids call their teacher at 11pm for homework help - WHO DOES THAT????! it incensed me on behalf of every teacher i know.... what are those kids doing for eight hours after school???! and how come their parents can't help?!!!)

anyway........... back on the important topic of dancing like Michael, this graphic kind of freaks me out.... i might have to cheat and just hold the remote at an impossibly sideways angle for this :)


it's raining slightly today or "spitting" as they would say in the north western part of England :) does one walk when it's spitting? sure they do in England.... but what to do with a baby in tow... i should walk, huh? it will be refreshing and bold and i have the rain cover for the buggy somewhere... i mean it's only been 4 years or so since i last needed it (it doesn't rain much in Southern California:) i bet it's with the lunchboxes - because that's the obvious place to store such a thing..... back later. probably with no pictures since doing a photo shoot extracts last ounce of camera love from my soul (i really don't like taking pictures for money) xxoxox

weeds brownies and chocolate

reading

star magazine:) apparently Ashton Doucher is cheating on Demi (i had no clue they were even married:|) and kate (plus8) has a tattoo that looks like a lizard desperately trying to escape from her 'bikini' area :) and Bethenny Frankel always always looks like she has wads of cotton wool stuffed in her cheeks

wishing

my headache would go away. it's one of those awful headaches that only a large quantity of chocolate will cure, but can i eat chocolate? no. because there is a lot of sugar in chocolate, it turns out...

loving

that the adorableness that is Nate Berkus is now a daily fixture - he is just so completely beyond :) sure i have to FF to about 20 mins into the show until he forgets to keep up the faux, boomy, too deep voice but i like him oh so much and he is as cute as a speckled pup and maybe even cuter when he cries :)

also loving
that one eyed, fur matted, amputated tail, growlsome Bob got adopted from our little cat rescue center this weekend... whoever adopted him really has a heart of gold :)

craving
chicken tikka masala and chicken soft tacos and a spicy chicken burrito and sasoon chicken and chicken teriyaki... in short i think i am craving chicken :|

not craving
snackwell brownie bites. that's what's up at the tasting place this week... and i'm only eating them because i get $50 an hour to :| i am trying to help snackwells by being brutally honest... i told them their products are woefully middle of america and synthetic tasting and they never fail to disappoint me. i hope they appreciate constructive criticism... but brownies don't need to taste that bad, it's something i feel strongly about ;)

desperately seeking
an upright freezer to replace our garage chest freezer. it is going to make life soooo much easier - right...?

neeeeeding
an early night and a half a unisom and a couple of aleve too and maybe a teeny bar of chocolate and an episode of 'weeds' for bedtime - back tomorrow xxoox

today i....

• overslept :| we talked too much last night and i can't even remember what about :)

• had a spoonful of peanut butter for breakfast (i dream of peanut butter day and night)

• went to the 99 cent store and bought supplies for Danny's teacher who didn't even say thank you to him :| big mistake. H-U-G-E!! she can just forget EVER getting any more donations off us, for we're only nice to nice people :)

• walked 5.26 miles for some goldfish... made it home without eating them all

• had burnt tomato soup and burnt bread for lunch. burnt my mouth eating it :|

• watched RHODC in bed. Tareq is a huge unattractive douchebag :|

• took the boys to California Pets where we almost bought Clarice a pineapple shaped house for her fish tank and a schoolbus for the mice, but we came to our senses and left empty handed :)

• went to feed and play with the cats at Petsmart

• stopped at 85c for dinner - yuuuuuuuum!!! the roll thingie with the garlic and the parmesan on top with melted cheese inside is addictive :)

• even though we don't understand a single squiggle of japanese, and had to keep saying 'yes we are sure' even though we didn't really know what we were agreeing to, we successfully made sticki pickis! then we saw they had all kinds of Mario props :| which only means one thing: we have to go back and make MORE!!! i think this year's christmas card will be a family sticki picki :)
  

• ordered showtime - at last!!!

Cricket :)

Tilly - his sister :)

this is Betsy, Crickey and Tilly's adopted Mommy

at 85c (yes it's that good!)

can you guess which ones i made? (hint: i love sparkles and hearts :)

what i did today in chronological order

• slept in till 6:59am (and today has been much less fraught and much more radiant and skippy - sleep is amazing)

• forgot breakfast. and lunch :| (if i don't lose weight at my nightly weigh in, it's soooo on for my scales... i am drowning them in the bath tub and then flushing them down the toilet. and yes i weigh myself at night because i am a sucker for worst case scenario painful honesty)

• walked to Michaels. the wicked little witch and the flock of seagulls guy both had the day off - they are the reason i hate going to Michaels because they are so mean and always huff and puff over my coupons because i tear them out instead of cutting them (seriously, who has the time?) i got a two headed dragon and a DIY spiderweb
  

• walked 5.01 miles (not that my scales give a damn...)

• listened to U2 on shuffle and didn't skip through a single song - i am so crazy about U2 right now... we are going to see them again in June 2011

• bought this frame from moo

• picked up the minivan from Kevin (he is to cars what honest Pete is to household appliances) the remote hasn't been locking/unlocking the trunk and it has been pure HELL on earth. anyway it's fixed again!!!
  

• had the most amazingly awesome fish sticks for dinner... since i was four, they have been my favorite tea ever (though in England they are called "fishfingers" :)

• called around a few vets to get an appointment for Teddy - his puffy face is troubling me :( we took him to an 'exotic vet' (who knew rats were exotic...) in Yorba Linda and he got some cherry flavored medicine and an injection - i hope he's going to be OK. then we took him to Petsmart as it's the only place you can go shopping with a rat. Aaron suggested we take him to Costco - i bet he would love the free samples and i haven't seen a 'no rats allowed' sign :)

• against my better judgment set up two photo shoots... i truly despise taking family pictures, they give me hives/tourettes/migraines. i told myself i will only do it if i can use the money to take the boys to this vacation home for presidents weekend. plus the families must be completely gorgeous (they are :)

• got a phone call from the taste test people by the Dollar Tree - they want me to eat a brownie filled with gooey caramel on monday... this sounds so much better than triscuits :)
  

Cricket

a self portrait... of Danny pretending to be a plant-eating T Rex :|

rattie day out (Jerry went too)

i love mice :)

i hate my metabolism

it is mean and cruel and clearly faulty, and i want to hack it to bits with a bread knife.

i haven't eaten for a month - i am so not kidding. for the past week i have eaten nothing but yogurt (70 calories and 0 grams of fat) every day for every meal (except a fish taco or two... and a mars bar... and one bowl of spaghetti) i hang on every word the thintervention woman says and scribble it down in my phone notebook - she is my new prophet.

i walk EVERY EFFING DAY. 5 miles x 3 MPH x uphill all the way x 80 degrees blistering heat x premenstrual syndrome minus Michael Jackson.... the sum of all this equals NOTHING. all my fat clothes are still tight. according to my asshole scales i haven't lost a single solitary pound. what the heck is going on???! i even gave up diet coke, ok not really but kind of, and not an ounce lost. if i could somehow make a keyhole incision in my belly button and get a small stapler inside to staple my stomach completely closed, i would. but that's the thing... that would only work because i would be forced to eat less - and i already eat NOTHING but thin air. a child sized yogurt here and there! 5 ginger cat cookies if it's a party. maybe a lean cuisine if i'm really living la vida loca. i am very very upset and i hate hate hate hate my metabolism

in other news i have wanted a keurig coffee maker for at least one year and i just saw it on sale for $50. but thanks to my asshole metabolism, i am now wary to buy anything that could throw me further into dieting disaster. my life officially sucks :( and with that i am going to dinner to drown my sorrows at wahoos:(

ps back from wahoo's - i don't like wahoo's so much anymore. that was short lived :|

lamenting
how absolutely impossible the white house 3D jigsaw puzzle is that i got Sam for his birthday. it says '5 years'... clearly meaning it is going to take 5 years to put together :|

hoping
Teddy the rat is going to be ok... his face looks swollen and sore and i am worried about my sweet rattie boy :(

feeling
super jetlagged... getting up at 4:32am to google 'swollen rat face' and 'loco moco' will do that to you i guess (yes i wanted rice and gravy with a fried egg (no burger) on top at 4:32am... starvation diets will do that to you, also)

walking
back to Walgreens with my $2.99 in my hand for the white nail pencil thingie today... i hope the crime scene tape is gone :)

hoping
Danny doesn't get all shy and bashful after school today - he is going home with his new friend in his new friend's car :)

not looking forward to
back to school night... am i the only person who really really dreads stuff like that? firstly it clearly says 'absolutely no kids' all over the flyer - but last year we were the only parents there without kids... plus the school waits two weeks till we've all figured out, by trial and error, everything we need to know for being back in school... i just don't see the point :|

wishing
when i finally get the courage to say 'no' to someone, they didn't try to bend over backwards to change my mind... i am a ball of indecisiveness with the disease to please at the best of times and i really just need 'no' to be my final answer, with no further negotiations, tweaking of the terms or sweetening the deal allowed :| arghhhhhhh!!!!!!

wondering
how terrible a stick of butter in place of yogurt in the no pudge brownie mix is... because having nibbled on the very corner of those no pudge brownies (grossly underbaked and refridgerated for increased fudginess), they're pretty dense and fudgy and they don't taste non-pudgy at all :)

going
to school... back later xoxox

awake...

at 4:32am with a very itchy ankle that if i itch too much i know will bleed profusely (it's the scene of a recent very gruesome leg-shaving-far-too-fast accident)

wishing i wasn't so hopeless at directions, i swear people stop me all the time and they shouldn't because i am totally useless at remembering which one is El Camino Real (and yes i could just consult my gps but it's always busy tracking important stuff like distance/mph/calories burnt)

wondering if it can possibly be right that i have to walk 35 miles to burn off one pound of calories?? surely my math is wrong... should it be 10 pounds per 35 miles?? because one pound sounds hopelessly depressing and almost worth giving up over :|

looking at a little house in MA on a street called Captain Bacon... i just want to buy it today, it's sooooo cheap and adorable and i want to go to there. i want to be surrounded by neighbors with irish surnames... around people who take the jamminess of their donuts very seriously... where there isn't a local whole foods but there is a trader joe's... where there's even an albertsons too... where spray paint isn't kept locked up at the hardware store and keys are still cut by hand... where people have minivans instead of SUVs because they just makes more sense... where the boys can sail and ride their bikes and not bake alive like worms on the sidewalk 11 months of the year. yes - i am aware that it snows.... but i want to wear jeans and sweaters and boots again... i want the weather to have moods and seasons and excuses to stay home once in a while because it's NOT a beautiful day outside. sigh... in lieu of England i need New England

this is Cricket - we take care of the cats at our local Petsmart adoption center and he is one of the kitties (also Danny's favorite)

after school yesterday




new shoes

i can't decide if this goes this way

or this way

a new adorable baby cousin





first kindy homework... oh how i miss him each day. but i'm so grateful we just did two-days-per-week preschool last year and we had days to spend together for play dates and beach days - everyday school is a lot

today i:

• really really really didn't want to get up (but i did anyway)
  

• took Danny to our favorite park to feed the ducks, even though i had left my park parking pass in my other car and had to pay to get in (very out of character for me...)

• walked a very long way to Walgreens to get a white nail pencil thingie

• arrived sweaty and exhausted only to find Walgreens was taped off with yellow crime scene tape :| twas robbed in the night :| i guess someone really really needed a 90 day supply of something that they only had a 30 day rx for :)
  

• went to Trader Joe's instead. today the tasting hut had maple granola with ice cold milk. now that's what i'm talking about, Willis :)

• watched a really boring man buying a condo in Tokyo on house hunters. it was extremely dull and made me never want to move to Tokyo (as cute as the japanese grocery store is at south coast plaza, actual homes in Tokyo look very dull indeed - they don't even have ovens, can you imagine life without homemade cake???

• took Danny to cherry on top after school where he poured the entire tub of peanut m&ms in his yogurt :)

• then he stirred it up and refused to eat it ;)

• went to pick up Sam from school and somehow ended up with him, Danny and three other children in my teeny tiny car - which is too many kids for too few seats (but we were only going around the corner so we just drove really carefully and purposefully didn't crash) i take my minivan far far far too much for granted. one child informed me that his mom just puts a kid in the trunk if there isn't enough room (note to self: don't ever let that mom pick my boys up from school:)
  

• had pasta with vodka on it for dinner

• watched the new housewives series on Dr Phil - i like it, i do!! i like the one who walks off stage all the time at the drop of a hat, who ISN'T EVEN MARRIED :) she's a hoot!
  

• made Trader Joe's no-pudge brownies... then decided they would taste oh soooo much better with 'best butter' (as my Grandma used to call it) instead of fat free yogurt... which they did... but i'm guessing that means they aren't strictly no pudge anymore :) but they are tasty alright :)
  

• tried to figure out how to enable cookies - that's why no pictures for eons, Tarnya. my computer has been saying something about cookies that i didn't understand (but made my tummy feel very empty and sad and desperate for soft baked snickerdoodles) now the pics still won't upload... i am typing really really stabby and mean, to hurt the computer as much as it hurts me :(
  

likes and dislikes this week

this week i really liked Cat from real housewives. and she's usually absolutely horrible. but this week she was refreshingly british, commonsensical and honest in all the right ways :) and plus her (ex)hubbie is really incredibly sweet and lovely ;)

due to being too incredibly sick to shop today (i had big plans for finding more japanese treasures), tune wiki became my bestest friend. and i didn't know if you turn it sideways, the words get even bigger :)

i love that target has small paul pyjamas in mom too :) i was in too much of a vertigo tizzy to decide between the skull pjs or the big apple pjs but i must go back when the world is spinning a little slower around me :|

i love 'it might be you' from the movie tootsie :) i don't have any cool classy movies in my favorite movies ever top ten - i like unclassy movies like tootsie, pretty woman, my cousin vinny and the wedding singer :)

i like (with a huge sigh of relief) that i successfully scared alpha boy's mom away from ever dumping him on me again, by hinting that he really really really was quite a handful....... i do feel kind of awful about it, but not really, since i just don't like bratty self-important behavior at all, in big or small people.

i don't like the verb 'to photo', because it's very very wrong. you photograph something, you don't photo it, i might just have to unfriend Gentle Barn because of their cruelty to the english language

i hate ornaments that tell me to live laugh love. what option is there other than to live - dead people generally don't buy personality-void ornaments

i don't like when people say they 'pull' something instead of choose it - pull, then what?? the nuns at my old school would flip their habits....

and i don't like the term to 'pick up' instead of ' buy' - pick up, then what????!

i hate when someone asks where i've been and how come they never see me anymore and then they 'tie me down' to a date... and then on the day they postpone because something came up... and then postpone again... but somehow they still think it's me that's the flake....?

i don't like those dumbed-down kindle songs - musically i'm light years beyond organic nursery rhymes at this point, i like angst filled lyrics, feedback and the potential for blisters on my fingers (is Rock Bank 3 really really really out next month??!)

i still... after 9 years... cringe when hearing George W Bush refer to the 9/11 terrorists as 'folks'. i figured it was just down to shock and a poor vocabulary and not due to a lack of empathy. that was until Laura Bush appeared on Oprah complaining that she and George had had to sleep on camp beds that night and they were so darned uncomfortable :[ no mention of tossing and turning and waking, sweaty from unthinkable nightmares that were actually true... no, their beds just weren't soft enough :[

sigh. so i guess he and his wife still make my mean reds unlike list too :[

back tomorrow xoxox

today i....

had ginger cat cookies and coffee in bed while watching the re-broadcast of the news from 9/11 9 years ago... i don't know why i watch it... but i always do... will they ever stop playing it... and will i ever be able to not watch....? and Dr Phil, is this normal...? :[

stopped being polite and really did start getting real... i am sure i will regret it in the morning when the person i stopped being polite with realizes i started getting real and wonders what on earth happened to me and if someone hijacked my email address :) but it really IS ok, because i MEANT what i said and i said what i meant - and i'm not being nice anymore!! i am balancing my emotional checkbook daily and crossing people out who make me feel emotionally poor, with big thick black permanent sharpie Xs

shopped at the sublime japanese supermarket in costa mesa. i absolutely love the japanese supermarket - it's so unbelievably cute! it's like going to Tokyo for the weekend without having to take off your shoes at the airport or get squeeeeezed into a jam packed subway train or eat live fish or anything like that. and best of all, right outside, it's america again :)

went to the japanese 99 cent store - which i DO NOT love quite so much :[ firstly 99 cents is really $1.98 and some things are even more, which is just wrong :( and the bento boxes were sooo teeny tiny, i started to question if we are all giants compared to japanese people :( an uncrustable wouldn't fit in those bento boxes cut in half, and the little cups would hold one grape MAXIMUM... i left empty handed :(

went to a place called 'the burnt tortilla' for dinner. however upon checking every item on the darned menu, there was not a single dish boasting burnt tortillas so we left there also :(

had Rubio's fish tacos for dinner - the icky fried battered fish ones. even Friday the cat was woefully unimpressed... note to self: do yourself a favor and stick with wahoo's

bought a voodoo doll. and she is pretty cool with an massive head for bashing on my desk :) i got her from a vending machine at the japanese supermarket (i think japanese people must be really quite awesomely vicious underneath their proper exteriors) i only have one issue with my voodoo doll so far - her eyes are little red beads and i can't penetrate them with a pin :(

off to bed to watch 'come dine with me' - the most awesome show EVER on bbc america to date (excluding 'little britain')

taking care
of alpha boy again for the third consecutive day. apparently his grandma and grandpa on wednesday 'didn't want to get his cough', thursday 'were getting ready for vacation' and today well their Mom has just given up asking, since clearly the desire to spend time with him just isn't there :( i surely hope they don't miss him too much while they're spending grandparents day alone in Hawaii though ;)

wondering
will i be that grandma....? there'll be time before grandchildren and time after grandchildren- i want to be there for the wonder years... there are soooo few of them. i hope i never feel the need to avoid my grandkids and i hope i miss them horribly if we can't be together... however full of "why?" questions alpha boy may be, and however annoying that cough is, and however many times per 5 minute period he may ask for a snack, i can't imagine a time when vacation preparations or germ worries could seem more important than hanging out with the baby of my baby :( it's my one item on my very short (one item) life wish list (the term 'bucket list' makes me sick, it's the radio song of generic movies) to have TIME and PATIENCE to spend with my grandchildren and to be physically able to swing them high in the air between my hubbie and i as we walk through Disneyland :) and buy them mickey ears with their nickname embroidered on the back, and to let them have cotton candy and tigger tails and ride 'it's a small world' over and over if they wish till they're a drooly, sticky, exhausted mess in my arms :)

going
to Tustin Ranch Costco today (sign of the cross). to print pics for alpha boy's mom of him looking truly angelic and silent :)

wanting
to pick apples this weekend and make a pie with that new fake stevie sugar stuff that also has no crust... is there such a thing? i can't have the calories or the sugar but how i want apple pie.......

off to play alphabet bingo and be a gracious loser :)

Disneyland, Joshua Tree and Massachusetts

listening to
'in God's country' by U2... how i have missed the lush oasis of calm, healing, rejuvenating powers that is 'the joshua tree'. it's the 1980s 'automatic for the people'

wondering
if 'running to stand still' will ever not be the story of my life? i like 'running to stand still' but could it please stop being the story of my life....

loving
still after soooo many years the video to i still haven't found what i'm looking for... the sum of everything i loved about Vegas before the Elvis wedding, the Bellagio fountains, the Beatles Love show and Pet Kingdom USA made the list too :)

wondering
if 10 and 6 is too young to go to see U2? i say no, Daddy says yes :( i heard U2 are at Anaheim Stadium the weekend school ends in June 2011... i also heard that Bono loves to play Anaheim because his wife/kids loves to spend a week straight at Disneyland..... awwww :)

still wondering
what part of "his name's actually Danny... would you mind calling him Danny? because that's his name... not Daniel" Danny's teacher doesn't get... she said she 'would try to remember'. clearly my 'or-i-will-make-the-next-9-months-a-living-hell' smile was lost in translation...

going
to orientation tomorrow to become an official cat rescue center helper at Petsmart. i am stressing a little - i can't take all the cats home... i could possibly keep a couple in the minivan though, right? :) and we have an attic. we need to move to an apple farm in Massachusetts so i can start a place like Caboodle Ranch

back later xoxx

wonderlings

why oh why oh why do we have to endure dunkin donuts commercials when there is a not a dunkin donuts for 300 miles...? and why must they show grotesque pig filled bagel sandwiches when they have those magical jelly donuts??? (though they are nowhere near as magical as they jelly donuts at country kitchen in walpole, ma which is number 7 on my move-to-ma-list and worth the 3000 mile drive)

why can't i find the amazing cashmere toothbrushes my dentist gives away anywhere but from his treat drawer? they are impossible to buy online (it's called a 509:) and the clean polished feeling after using the 509 is absolutely wonderful and addictive :)

why can't Danny's teacher remember his name is actually Danny... that's D-A-N-N-Y not Daniel :| she actually sent a writing page home with his name corrected from Danny to Daniel :| seriously??? it's so totally on if she wants it to be on :| no-one messes with my babies

why can't facebook block replies and comments from douchebag friends of friends who comment on friend's pages? then actually suggest you become friends too? um, no thanks, i'd rather stick burning hot rusty needles through my eyes ;)

why are forever stamps so completely useless and impossible to get rid of? you can't use them to send a letter to Britain. they should be called useless stamps instead :|

why are the people with the little crosses and fish on their cars the absolute most inconsiderate and rudest drivers? i guess there's no babble in the bible about loving thy neighbor, even on the road ;)

back later - with pics even xoxox

feeling just a little cranky

i have the sorest of sore throats, a really horrible gurgly cough, one of those alpha children in my house who is terrorizing my sweet little Dannybear and asking 100% too many questions (whhhy do i say yes of course, when i mean HELL NO!) i have spots ALL OVER my face (ok two... but i feel like a leper) and i have a frickin frackin dentist appointment.

it says on my card 'a broken appointment is a loss to everyone'. so i am guessing i cannot cancel at this late hour (my appointment is an hour) because i have spots and a sore throat. but on the bright side, an hour at the dentist is much better than an hour with "alpha child"... and the dentist is so very Orson Hodge (except he isn't a murderer... at least i don't think he is, he seems soooo proper and cordial - but so does Orson Hodge... did he get killed off in the last season of DH... i can't remember... i remember being woefully disappointed but i can't remember why... hmm. the dentist is a DH fan, i should ask him :)

in other news, i have finally printed some pictures

and i really want to make blackened fish tacos for dinner (can you overdose on fish...?)

and i need to find out if the lemon juice that burns fat can be the stuff from a bottle or must it be fresh? and would lemon in diet coke burn fat just as well?

and i need to rid my fridge of every yogurt with over 7g of sugar... that means no more yoplait boston cream pie :( at least until i give up giving up sugar :)

off to build a train track - because that's what i do :| and because i have been asked 17 times since starting to type this 8.5 minutes ago :| when i was little i did stuff like that all by myself while my Mum chatted with her friends and they sat and drank coffee and smoked cigarettes- not that i'm bitter and resentful at all but WHEN DO I GET TO BE THE GROWN UP?????!! (i don't want the cigarette part... just the coffee and sitting with real human beings part)

today i

• thought it was wednesday all day when it should feel like a monday even though it's actually taco tuesday

• had awful icky hair from sleeping too soundly last night (thanks to nyquil)

• in a bid to eat breakfast like everyone says you should, ate activia fat free vanilla yogurt for breakfast :)

• played starfall with Danny and was shocked at how much he loved it (i think it's soooo boring....)

• wuh-wuh-went a luh-luh-little cuh-cuh-crazy as Danny has been carefully accenting his suh-suh-sounds all day :)

• walked to the library - 2.72 miles

• was driven insane by the staff there... they must hand pick the most annoying slow people on earth to work at Tustin Library, they all walk and work really really slow which, as a taxpayer, bugs me and makes me want to write them up for not walking/working faster

• went to the bank to pay in the raggedy check that's been in my wallet for like 500 years, but it wasn't signed... grrrr :|

• walked home the long way (past the fish taco place i really want to try) - 3.03 miles

• watched part 2 of the real housewives of NJ reunion in bed during lunch
  

• avoided eye contact at kindy pick-up by pretending to do very important things on my phone... the moms are SO COMPLETELY DULL and talk about the weather every single day!!! but luckily there are less tattooed ladies than last year so that's good ;)

• played bookworm... very stressful, i am up to 510,000 points and one wrong move could spell disaster :| incidentally, i never knew a 'coney' was a rabbit. or that 'dis' is actually a word... i thought 'dis' was short of disrespect - huh!

• thought about fish tacos pretty much all day

• got fish tacos for dinner - horray!! they were really good :) Friday insisted i share with her, then didn't eat her portion :|
  

• watched the rest of the rhonj reunion - oh deary me, oh deary deary me...
  

• watched 'thintervention' - the woman on there says putting lemon juice into water makes you lose one pound a week :| i don't believe it for a second. but i'm soooo trying it ;)

my wish list

i wish:

• we had showtime (alas we don't. yet :)
  

• to go sailing tomorrow

• to have fish tacos for lunch (from wahoo's - i am officially in LOVE with wahoo's!)

• to take the boys to Tokyo and ride the bullet train to Kyoto

• the second week of school to be as good as the first

• to stop being polite and start getting real (urgh, i just need to tattoo it onto my hand....)

• to find the perfect rental in Palm Springs for winter break (must have floor to ceiling windows, a heated pool and really awesome furniture)

• to eat more vegetables
  

• to pick apples next weekend and make them into a pie

• to try sushi and maybe hate it but at least try it

• to go back to Half Moon Bay

• to decorate the yard for fall - it's my favorite season

• to actually just ONCE finish wii golds gym punch dodge without losing all 10 lives
  

• for my very sore throat to go away and to be able to yell again - it's hard to yell in a wispy voice :|
  

• the expression "kthnxbye" to be censored from my computer screen. and "thankyou.that.is.all" too
  

• for an unrestless-leggy night - i am going to have a swig of nyquil to make sure my legs can't move :)
  

back tomorrow xoxoxx

today i....

spent far far far too much time waiting for dinosaurs to fricking walk already. the boy next to us used 'her' instead of 'she' and 'him' instead of 'he' and i had to bite my tongue to not correct him. because if anyone corrected Danny for saying 'wizard' instead of 'lizard', i would surely go Mama T Rex on them :)

also of note at 'walking with dinosaurs' (as well as thousands of little boys with matching haircuts, dino teeshirts and speech impediments) our tickets were $80 and half of that was taxes and fees :| a plastic 'dollar tree' dinosaur was twenty dollars and EVERY KID seemed to have one but Danny :( i felt very had by the whole thing.... the show was designed so only approximately 5% of the audience got to see it fully and everyone on the sides just had to imagine what it might look like if they had those magical seats. oh and those 5% of seats weren't even occupied :| and the really nice staff at the Anaheim Pond wouldn't allow anyone to move into them because ??? i am still trying to think why they would leave the best seats empty and have the really steep nosebleed seats on the sides full of kids :| the paleontologist's voice was all echo-y and barely audible, what i could hear was kind of boring AND he looked like Mel Gibson... it could NOT get any worse for me :|

it was clearly a miss for me but Danny seemed to love it, despite the fact that the fight scenes and Oviraptor eating Brachiosaurus' babies were censored (eye roll). Danny yelled "whoa!!!!!" every time a new dinosaur appeared and was able to name each one (in a much more animated, audible voice than that paleontologist :) anyway we didn't buy the $20 plastic dinosaur, we did sneak into those forbidden 5% seats and despite the show being the most boring thing since 'Cats' on Broadway, he loved it and that's all that really matters :)




second day of kindy and still loving it :)

malibu, dinosaurs and yogurt

today i really really really want to wear something floaty, drive up the coast, listen to the doors, stop somewhere yelp says is completely awesome for blackened fish tacos, preferably at the country mart in Malibu, since i've always wanted to stop there, then supervise the boys building sand castles from a reclined beach chair on Mandalay Beach

instead we are going to 'walking with dinosaurs', which i HOPED would be the 5 year old boy's equivilent of the above perfect day :) when i told Danny we are going to see the show that he has dreamt of seeing for years, pored over books and videos and youtube clips of, his reply was "but Mom, they're not even real - they're just dumb robots" :( gasp. i of course blame the boy at kindy who stole the jelly snacks for turning my baby into a cynical unappreciative orange county child :| jelly snack boy never came back by the way, and i didn't even have to take his mom down - weird :) but also: horray!! next week the classes are being rearranged and he will be one of 12 kids in kindy... which is good because it's just one packet of pre-made cookies/tray of cupcakes :)

last night i had a dream that i was walking through a canyon and i found a koala bull terrier :| the owner let me borrow it to show the family, who were all mightily unimpressed, and then i found out the dog had cost $4 million and i couldn't find the owner and the next thing, helicopters were circling over our house and i was arrested for stealing the $4 million dog before i could explain. woefully wide awake at 4:56am, i resorted to playing bookworm. of note: 'caca' is not a word (though it is in my vocabulary) but 'qua' is...

for the past two days i have been stuck in flor hell. not only can i not do the math but there are soooo many designs and i am woefully overwhelmed with ideas but hopelessly indecisive about what will look good and feel good for little kids to play on :| by the way i got a lecture from Sam this week about saying to someone i had little kids because apparently fifth grade equals big kid :| he's still little, right...? he has a stuffed black dog on his bed - so he's still a little kid to me :)

also: i am madly craving fish.... like if i don't have fish every single day i have to sniff the wet cat food to get my fix and it sends me my olfactory senses into outer space :| all i can think of when i wake up is white flaky fish... must suggest fish yogurt to activia which is my other new obsession - Jamie Lee Curtis is right, their fat free vanilla yogurt is sooo sooooooooo good!! but i haven't noticed my, ahem, digestive system being more regulated now (blush)

so i wonder - can someone (ie me) live off yogurt and fish? with the occasional handful of trader joe's ginger cat cookies and coffee thrown in? i have to ask Dr Oz who i hate but i need to know and maybe i will like him better after he has read my letter on the air! which reminds me Nate Berkus is coming soon!!! though i find his ideas wildly unchildfriendly he is totally cute and puppy-like and maybe one day he will have a baby (with George Michael, who will be rehabbed and fixed, and they will move in next door and we will be best friends and pet sit for each other... or so the dream goes) and learn that coffee tables and kids should never be uttered in the same sentence, but big leather padded ottomans that hide dinosaurs and wii guitars are a much better choice :) phew

off to walk with dogs... then dinosaurs. back later xoxoxo

first day

loving
both boys' teachers this year - that's a very good thing. i hope they don't let me down after labor day by wearing white shoes or anything like that :)

hoping
the little brat who stole Danny $10 gummies at snack yesterday doesn't reoffend today - or i might have to go Kelly Bersimon on his mom after school and 'take her down' for raising a thief of a child (yes they were really $10 - for 20 packs of anemic looking organic bunnies - i hate organic things they are so orange county and useless... so much for costco being a bargain place to shop... but Danny tried them and wanted them and it was his first day of kindy so i buckled under the emotional pressure to make him happy and he ended up unhappy anyway thanks to that little crook... his mom's goin' down...)

recovering
from a very, very, very long walk yesterday - i was like a runaway horse (not a runaway bride - i do NOT like Julia Roberts) without kids to hold me back and whine about being too hot/too tired/too achey :)

wondering
why moms on facebook feel the need to compete for being the best mom... if they're trying to impress me and overwhelm me with their greatness, i remain woefully unimpressed and underwhelmed :)

off to school xox

fifth grader

kindergartner