This is not a blog

When reading comments on other people’s blogs, I’ll follow links for women that share my name. It doesn’t have to be exact, just similar. I don’t know why I do this, but it’s lead to some great finds.

Thanks to Kat I’ll have the snarkiest birthday gifts for my girlfriends. Who cares if it tastes like swill!? The label is worth it.

But then again, my sense of humor is a little off. I refer to these as mommy’s juice box.

***************************************

A few months ago I told my friend Amy that I have the perfect business for us. For my birthday I had wanted to have a wine tasting party. I looked for places that host that sort of thing. No luck. Then I went looking for a caterer of sorts that specializes in that. Again, no luck. I decided that Amy and I could do catered wine tasting parties at people’s homes. It would be like a normal catered event with heavy appetizers but also some education about wine. She said we should do it. We only have a few hurdles to cross

1. We’re not sommeliers
2. We’re not caterers
3. We lack funds

This wine renews my interest in my idea. How awesome would it be to have your mom friends over one evening for a fancy-shmancy wine tasting and have this bottle whipped out? I would probably be forced to couple it Road Kill Red.

It’s new bike season at our house! Elliot moved up to a 16″ bike from his 12″ bike. He can go so much faster on this bike than his old one. Also his knees don’t smack his chin on this bike. The crocodile bike got a little love from Audrey today. Although, I want her to ride the trike. I LOVE the trike. Nevermind that she can’t go very fast or that the other 2 year olds on the block are riding bikes with training wheels.

I sincerely love the people at 3M. In graduate school I heard the CIO from 3M speak. He said that they had a mandate that the organization had to take three new products to market per year. Everyone worked toward that goal. And because of that drive! that determination! I was able to hang our pictures without gazillions of holes in the wall. Which is good because I had l already punched a million holes in the walls in the last iteration. But now! Now our pictures are mostly held up with velcro.

I really like the 3M adhesive strip picture hooks, but they don’t work well on every type of frame. The velcro strips work on any frame that has a smooth, flat back surface. In all, I only had to put two holes in the wall. There’s a frame that has a velvet (maybe not real velvet, something fuzzy & black) and a teeny tiny angled hanger. It required two holes because my spatial relations are poor. Also, I was able to realign pictures to get them level, or at least level relative to their neighbors.

These velcro strips aren’t inexpensive. But, for the minimal packaging (yeah! less trash), the minimal plastic and the forgiving nature of the product I pink puffy heart them.

PS: if you’re from 3M, feel free to send me more! I have more pictures that need to be hung.

We learned something very important today. DO NOT ask for Banjo to get a Cocker Spaniel Cut. Poor Banjo. He looks absolutely ridiculous.  And his head is very, very small.

When Peter brought him home from the groomer I was sure he had the wrong dog.

I’ll just be over here mopping up the puddles of maternal pride.

Audrey really, honestly, truly loves her brother. She says so every day. Many times a day she uses boyfriend voice and says, “Brudder!. I love you brudder. My brudder.” To which he usually replies, “Yeah, I love you too.”

But yesteday in Target they were each possessed by the love for a sibling. They’d randomly stop and hug one another. It was a little eerie. Cute. But eerie.

On Monday we were at the Chiropractor’s office and Elliot very politely asked the doctor where she kept the tissues. She pointed, he retrieved and then went and wiped his sister’s nose and threw the tissue away. And! Audrey just let him do it. I was proud of him seeing that his sister needed help, helping her and doing it all without being asked or complaining.

That Elliot, he’s a good egg.

Poor Otter. He’s struggling with being small. Bad news kid, being big isn’t much better. Just ask E.

He’s big enough to know he’s hungry but not big enough to make himself something to eat.

He’s big enough to play at the playground without help but not big enough to go unsupervised.

He’s big enough to want to shower (not take a bath) but not big enough to reliably wash himself.

He’s big enough to color in the lines but not big enough to always remember that walls aren’t for coloring.

He’s big enough to not kiss mommy as he runs off to play but not big enough to console himself when hurt.

This all results in a frustrated kid that can mostly express his frustration verbally.  Except when he can’t. Because he’s not that big, really.

Really!? Makes total sense since tomorrow is May 1. I mean honestly, kids were wearing shorts yesterday and tomorrow they’ll be wearing coats.

It needs to be spring. For more than three days in a row.

Inspired by my new friend (Hi!),

(we take a break from the blog post to look for relevant photo, please enjoy the hold muzak)

I was planning this post about how during the warm months we hang our clothes on a clothes line (yay! no HOA) and it offsets all the A/C I like to use. Last summer our electricity use actually decreased even though the kids and I were home ALL THE TIME. Also, clothes smell super good when they’re dried outside. If you decide to try this yourself I highly recommend liquid fabric softener. Well, I guess that was the post.

The picture though was super cute. It was A’s two green kitties drying out on the line after a good scrub. But no picture for you. Poor internets, are you sad?

Don’t cry. Here are some pictures of kitties in action.

(hold muzak)

No there aren’t. WP hates me tonight.

Now you can cry.

Peter says ya’ll need back story … yesterday I was holding A in all of her Thomas the Tank Engine wonder (shirt and size 4T underwear over the pull-up) when the neighbor girl/babysitter said, “Who is your favorite princess?” She might have fallen over dead from the strength of my stare if she wasn’t oblivious. Fortunately, A didn’t hear the question.

It’s not that she doesn’t know the word princess. Or that she doesn’t like girly, princessy stuff. It’s just that she doesn’t really know what it means. For example, she was putting on new pajamas a few weeks back and as she smoothed them over her tummy she said, “My princess pjs!” Luckily her brother didn’t hear her since he was wearing the same ones and they had Lightening McQueen all over them. To her, being a princess is having a barrette in your hair and looking nice. Fair enough. We can all live with that princess definition.

So tonight as I was telling Peter about yesterday’s killing of the babysitter with the death stare I had to google Disney Princesses to figure out what our choices really are. Ariel seems like an obvious choice. But then I thought it would be so much funnier to google “I hate disney princesses.” That list is so much better.

This caught my eye. And it was awesome.

But then at the end was a link to find out which Disney Princess I am. And, as anyone who has read this blog for more than a week knows, I like a good survey.

You are Cinderella. You are hard-working and never complain, however, your trust is sometimes misplaced and people sometimes take advantage of you. Still, you are beautiful inside and out, and one day you will realize it and find true love. You can take the survey here.

In the word of my new addiction, Grace (I saw a mention of Buffy - how can you not love a girl that blogs about Buffy AND princesses and is watching FireFly? I mean really.) GAH.

Also, I must not have read the questions right. That bit about “and never complain”, heh. Is there a Disney Princess that is sarcastic to her core?

It’s the thought that counts.

Honestly.

This is the first year that my son is old enough to draw a picture that other people can recognize. For my birthday he drew a picture of our family, including our new dog. I thought the picture was wonderful (I’m his #1 fan).

And that’s the story of how a gift goes right.

The same gift went wrong too.

There’s a little yellow line connecting the dog to the ground. And while Banjo is a buff colored Cockapoo, that yellow stream is pee. My happy birthday picture is of the dog peeing.

I just noticed, I’m the only one that was bestowed arms.

This post inspired by PBN and Get In Her Head.