monday

i have...
a serious hankering for salted caramels but sadly, i have not any left :(

i don't have...
the same hankering for sugar-free strawberry jello of which i have a full container :(

i only buy...
small pieces of fresh produce, especially potatoes and bananas, in a bid to reduce waste, save money and lose weight (yes Dr Phil... it's NOT working for me)

i really should...
take a shower but it's sooo cold here, that i just can't (ps since when did 61 degrees feel like Antarctica...?)

i am trying to distract myself from...
going on a mercy dash to trader joe's for salted caramels (and the other 17 favorite indulgences i always get when i am there:)

i wish...
i could think of what to make into a storyboard... how can i have 150 million pictures and not have 3 that belong together...?

i wonder....
when the new dish drainer will arrive and if it can possibly live up to my wildest dreams

i am still thinking...
about last night's desperate housewives and how dreadful it is... like 'after the writer's strike' dreadful :|

time for 'dead like me' and a dessert for one shared by two... ok maybe two desserts for one shared 50/50 by two so we both get a bite of brownie sundae and cookie dough icecream :)

sunday things

watched
jersey shore.... not sure what all the hoopla's about, but i don't think i'll be watching that again (did i get a bad episode...?)

searched
high and low for a peace cookie cutter... peace cutters are apparently VHTF ;)

agreed
with lady gaga about every song on her celeb playlist podcast (except black sabbath...)

then
got caught up listening to old janet jackson songs for the next hour :)

asked
my iphone to play david bowie. it played laurie berkner which is grounds for murder in my book. how does that sound like david bowie??! i yelled "DAVID FRICKING BOWIE ALREADY!"as clearly as i could and it played blondie. i yelled even louder till Aaron came running in thinking i was being attacked, and it started to play the police - maybe because it sounded like i was being attacked...? what is up with that....? oh man, and i just asked for michael jackson and it's playing the knack 'my sharona'?????!

hiked
the big huge hike. and it was really hot today - like this hot:




going to bed early - must see who 'didn't make it' on desperate housewives :|

target

today at target i made the mistake of walking down the reduced toy aisle and the faces of all the sad toys who didn't get a home for christmas almost made me cry :( i almost lost it completely when i saw a sweet little elephant who, when you petted him on his back, got all happy - it took me all my strength not to buy him :( i finally found another little elephant and put them together, hoping some big-hearted elephant-loving person would happen upon them huddled together and buy them both. urgh... why do i get so upset about leftover unbought toys after christmas? and don't get me started about the animal shelter... i can't even think about it :(

while at target i got a bee in my bonnet to clean the shower and bought the most toxic super poisonous shower cleaner to get the job done right. when i got home, the stupid cashier was so busy telling me my hair color was on sale so i couldn't use a coupon (in what world????) that he forgot to give me the damned shower cleaner that he had triple bagged so as not to spill in the car and vaporize me (eye roll). this is yet another reason why target totally sucks - it's like the millionth time this has happened (ok 2nd...) and the procedure to claim the goods is like torture...

• go back into the store - even though it's not the one by your house, that would be easy :|
  
• wait in the returns line - the week after christmas :|
• talk to clueless teenager with big nausea-inducing hoops in stretched earlobes (i bet they smell too...)
• wait while he uses his walkie-talkie to page security guard to guest services
• try to avoid falling flakes of dandruff as they confer and scratch their heads and look befuddled
  
• wait while security guard rides away on his segway back to his office where he will actually take the time to search the video footage and attempt to see if the cashier put the shower cleaner in the cart :|
• all for a bottle of shower cleaner :|
• which didn't make it into my cart afterall even though i look like a total crook :)
  

what else i did today:
bought edible silver glitter (for cookies)
and a cookie cutter of a black labrador
and a mold to make little chocolate jets
and mickey mouse sprinkles in red/white/black
and pink/green/yellow

i soooo wanted this little candy mold but wondered how weird eating newborn babies would be.... i just don't think i could bite a little baby in half :|

simple loves

• cookie cutters
• grey
• wood-fired pizza with just enough cheese, a little bit of extra sauce and a charred crust
• blissful mountaintop cabins with red deck furniture
• 'automatic for the people' from the first perfect note to the very last
• leap years
• the smell of pink baby lotion
• beach house rental shopping in Savannah, Georgia (i hope we see Ruby!!)
• chatting with a really good friend over a cup of really good coffee
• my mickey mouse cup which is now 17 years old and has moved house 8 times. i vow to return to disneyworld when it finally breaks (which i hope doesn't happen for a very long time...)
• finding really old, but still really funny friends on facebook
• mcdonalds diet coke and french fries
• my pretend baby coming to dinner and looking ohhh so gorgeous, chunky and adorable :)
• another entire week off school for Danny
• saturday nights :)

i might as well face it...

i am just NOT a museum person in any way shape or form. every so often i force myself to be what i imagine a good mother is, and go to a place like the discovery science center. today was one of those regrettably awful days :| i knew it was a big mistake while in the line - the radio was playing Raffi and as i covered my ears in agony, i noticed the woman behind was DANCING to it. she was dancing to Raffi and was of child-bearing age, of sane mind and had found someone willing to mate with her :|

the museum was full of such people in fact :| the kind of parents who use the built-in SLR flash, or worse still, their camera phone :| the kind of parents who call wipes "wipies" and sippy cups "sippies" and think their spawn are perfect, but everyone else's children are noisy little thugs (not mine - i was clicking my heels wishing to go home for most of the visit)

every exhibit was overrun with thousands of tiny children scurrying around like fire ants. and it was SO DARK! like 3200 iso dark :| and the exhibits didn't work very well. nor were they even very interesting or educational... sigh, i am sure there is something very wrong with me. i don't like:

• zoos
• theme parks (except super duper empty ones)
• aquariums
• crafts (well i do... but the stress of getting things perfect makes me regret wasting time on them)
  
• board games
• card games
• any kind of party game
• parties in general
• especially weddings :|
  
• sales e-s-p-e-c-i-a-l-l-y black friday
• big cities
• people smoking anywhere near me
  
• parking in LA where carparks are cramped and super busy
  
• crowded restaurants where i can't pick the perfect booth myself
• loud children in crowded restaurants with oblivious parents
  
• busy drive-thrus especially in n out
• target/walmart/costco after 10am on a weekend
• fairs
• parades
• dead stopped traffic merging into one lane
  
• irvine spectrum
• movie theaters
• shows and concerts (and if i must... leaving 10 minutes early is absolutely essential:)

is this normal Dr Phil???!

friday things

bought
really cool storyboard picture frames at michaels on sale for $3.50 - for a pack of 2! now i just have to decide what to put in them......... hmmmmm

hiked
the really really hilly hike with the boys and dogs and they didn't complain once :)

listened
to david bowie and elvis presley - it's a tie, i can't decide which one i love more today :)

made
the scrapbook calendar thingie that is the only crafty scrapbooky thingie i can make :|

roughly sketched
the route for our sea-to-shining-sea cross-country drive this summer... i want to visit carlsbad caverns, eat steak in texas, visit graceland, take Sam's 10th birthday pic at the huge numbers in indiana, visit the bill clinton library, eat at the automatic for the people restaurant in athens, ga and of course stop at many many random diners and superwalmarts along the way... note to self: get more SD cards :)

secretly set aside
the last deeply fudgy brownie... it is the most heavenly batch yet! i might share it though ;)

he wanted to fly a kite at the beach on his day to do whatever he wanted :)


and go to disneyland... we compromised and went as far as downtown disney :)



sparkly cupcakes



look what i found in a box in the garage....

and this unredeemed coupon :)

new year's resolutions and other crap

oh man facebook this morning... happy new year times 147 times :| really....? oh yeah - same status update(x147) - different year :) and how much do i hate 'twenty ten' instead of two thousand and ten? it's such a car commercial way to say it :|

we celebrated the new year at new york time as always - why stay up till midnight when you can do it at 9pm with no muss no fuss?! then we realized our first and only con for moving to Massachusetts... we would have to actually stay up till midnight... unless.... we celebrated Britain's new year at 7pm and then even the kids would still be up!!! yay, problem solved - we are moving!

i have resolutions as always! the same resolutions, different year, naturally:

1. spend less money on pointless crap
2. eat less things that are bad (already broken due to eating brownie for breakfast)
3. stop being polite and start getting real (and i MEAN IT THIS YEAR!!)

i break number 3 every single day several times a day, i am so scared to appear impolite.... eg. home depot: i go in there for the cheapest possible can of paint. i find it hard to pick one that isn't just like milky water but still isn't pointlessly overpriced, so i umm and ahh over the selection and some helpful person comes along and tells me i should really buy the behr paint/primer combo because they think it rocks. so i make a huge pantomime of thanking them profusely and walking away with it, like a weight has been lifted from my heavy shoulders. then i decide, heck, i don't really want to pay $30 for $15 worth of paint as the wall is basically being freshened up not radically changed in color, so i dump it in the plumbing aisle. as i go to check out with my one little pack of command adhesive strips, the helpful person is also heading to the checkout :| so i have to hide in the ceiling fan dept till they have left so as not to crush them by not heeding their good advice. it sucks to be sensitive and thoughtful

this morning i watched 'amazing wedding cakes' by accident, the title said it was 'bridezillas' but unfortunately this show was even more trivial and annoying. oh my god, cakegirls in chicago - i want to go in there with a big long piece of wood and smash every sorry cake to smithereens just to piss off the whiny little guy with the old man flat cap, the nerd glasses and the most annoying voice EVER. i hate most everyone on the show (it's cake for gawd's sake!!!! stop taking it all so damned seriously!!!!) but cakegirls in chicago - if i ever have very little time to live, you're soooo on my bad-things-i-will-do-when-i-have-very-little-time-left-to-live list :|

off to the mexican supermarket to look for the drainer again. Aaron says it's a strainer not a drainer. he's so wrong and we fight all the time about this pointless kind of stuff. it's 'tip me UP and pour me out' not 'tip me OVER and pour me out' man. and Max is way nicer than Ruby, you are the ONLY person on earth on team Ruby! and it's a drainer NOT a strainer :) subject: closed :|

all about rush limbaugh

i'd kind of forgotten about this grotesque-older-even-more-annoying-male-equivilent to "blythe beck", but over this morning's coffee i found some truly fascinating facts about 'the man':

his family refer to him as "Rusty"

his full name is Rush Hudson Limbaugh III

he is entirely deaf

he has been married (and DIVORCED... how odd) three times

born at 6:50am-CST... yes this is the second entry on his bio :|

he has been addicted to prescription pain medication for many years

he is the #1 nationally syndicated radio talk show host in America (this is why i avoid the radio at all costs - imagine how bad the rest is....)

he shares a birthday with Howard Stern... note to self: male capricorns are assholes

quotable quotes from 'the man':

• half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair
• talent on loan from GOD (God must be SOOOO PROUD!)
• feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream
  
• i love the women's movement. especially when I am walking behind it
• one thing i want to do before i die is to conduct the homeless olympics. events would include the ten-meter shopping cart relay, the dumpster dig and the hop, skip & trip (God...? regretting that loan yet.....?)
• the most beautiful thing about a tree is what you do with it after you cut it down
  

at that point i got sick of reading and went back to playing my runway game :)

rain

there is a light drizzle over southern california today! horray!!! we spent the day at home, sitting watching it rain and drinking coffee and cooking and landing planes and photoshopping - as a result the kitchen smells A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and i have 20 brand new pictures waiting to be picked up at costco. which, yes, i absolutely must pick up in the rain :)

i had the misfortune however to watch "blythe beck" on oxygen on demand. this hideous creature claims to be naughty and sexy but she is nothing of the sort. gordon ramsay is... blythe beck - not in a million. she has red hair, is very tall/wide and has a gruff voice like danny bonaduce :| she thinks she is cool and says she "hearts" everything (bleck) and thinks mentioning her "iceberg babies" twenty times a minute makes her a cool, innovative new chef :| she is also overbearingly southern and annoying and cries and is loud and did i mention her gruff horrible hairball hacking raspy voice? yes i don't "heart" her a whole lot :|

i do however love, no "heart" tabatha and her most excellent salon takeovers :)

intervention is so sooooo boring. i want to see real addictions on there, like to camera lenses and the gnashing of teeth that occurs when the price drops on amazon.com and there are only 3 of that particular lens left and the returning of yesterday's purchases to IKEA to raise the cash for that lens since there are only 3 left so you just have to grab it, then the rabid stalking of the ups man until he delivers 'the shit'. heroin just isn't nearly as relate-able :|

hmmm i smell flaky biscuits..... back after the meatloaf and the mercy dash in the rain to costco for my pics................

loving...

• two entire lazy weeks at home, just us, all off work/school/etc with no particular place to be at any particular time :)
• sorting, deleting and organizing the files on my computer :)
• beating my highest score playing runway on my iphone :)
• ... while lying in bed each morning watching teen mom :)
• homemade chilled guacamole - gawd i wish we had some - and pita chips (trader joe's are good:)
  
• the completely white 10 feet x 10 x 10 feet studio on the 'good light' side of the garage with shiny white floor :)
• Bo, Danny's newest build a bear pet, who suffers from terrible gas and must take a daily pill for it :)
• being able to remember every last detail about last night's odd dream that Oprah interviewed a waitress who found a severed hand of a 1970s model, in a field of what she thought was pretty yellow flowers but was actually blond hair... the show upped the ratings so much that she was able to build 27,000 habitat for humanity homes in kentucky, the biggest of which being for her and Steadman to retire to :)
• flying kites at the beach on a windy day :)
• the smell of homemade meatloaf cooking :)
• the whole house being christmas free and clean :)
• a day to just photoshop - nothing else, JUST photoshop my kids all day long :)