Monthly Archive for May, 2008

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Lost Observations – “There’s No Place Like Home, Part 1”

Published on Friday, May 16, 2008 in TV Shows and TV: Lost - The Show. 3 Comments

Well, I don’t know about you, but the title of this latest episode of Lost makes me want to close my eyes and tap my heels together.

What a great episode. There are only two hours left! Then, we have to wait 9-months! Gee, that would be plenty of time to hide a pregnancy from the rest of the world and then come home with a really big 5-week old baby.

Well, ya win some and ya lose some. I was right about Aaron being one of the Oceanic Six, but I was wrong about what the cover story was going to be. Kate gave birth to him? She was six months pregnant when they crashed? Mmm-hmm. I guess it’s possible. John’s mother was six months pregnant and was able to hide her pregnancy with a poodle skirt. And, there *are* women out there who don’t show until later, if at all. So, I’ll just have to suspend my disbelief on that one.

(I mean, we all know the truth…I’m just trying to see this from an outsider’s perspective.)

And, before I had Claire, I was really horrible at guessing how old a baby was by how big he or she was…and I still am. But, does Aaron look 5-weeks old to you? No? Yes? Maybe? Okay, I’ll let that one slide, too.

I do believe that Sun could pull off the “well, I was pregnant before I flew and didn’t know it” line. She herself didn’t know if Jin was the father of her baby until Juliet did the ultrasound, so that is very plausible.

Hurley not losing weight is actually the most unrealistic part of the story, but he was able to laugh his way through that.

And, it was nice to see good ol’ #108 make a reappearance. That’s the number of days they were on the fake island in the cover story before they set sail on the boat that washed up. So, is Day 103 the date of the “typhoon” really the date of the Tsunami that happened in real life? I’m sure someone has checked that by the time I even post this…

So, we know the cover story…what’s the real story? I really hope we find out next week.

And, did they say anything about the supposed plane they found at the bottom of the trench…the one that was planted by Widmore (or so we’ve been led to believe)? Are we to believe that these six (or eight) people got out of the plane before it sunk to the bottom? Is that the story? Or, does something wacky happen with that whole thing in the space/time continuum, when/if they move the island? Did I miss something?

WHO IS IN THE COFFIN!? Just kidding.

Let’s talk about some shocking and not so shocking things we learned in this episode. Ben is still in charge. I’m really not surprised. He always has a plan. We know this.

Claire’s mom came out of her coma!? She’s the one who drops the bombshell on Jack about him being Claire’s ½ brother and therefore Aaron’s uncle!? Wow! I did not see that one coming.

Sun bought the controlling portion of Daddy Paik’s company!? Wow. Go Sun! She said that two people were responsible for Jin’s death, and her father was one of them. Who is the other? My hubby thinks she was referring to herself, but I didn’t get that vibe from her. I could be wrong; I’ve been wrong before.

Also shocking was my own sadness for Kate when they got off the Coast Guard plane and she had no one there. I’ve never really liked Kate, and I actually felt a little twang of sadness for her, clutching baby Aaron, all alone.

But, in most of the rest of that flashforward, I’m actually happy for the survivors. They appear happy. We know it’s short-lived. We know it doesn’t end well for Sayid or Jack or Hurley, and we don’t really know yet what happens to Sun or Kate or Aaron in the future. But for a moment, they really do appear happy.

And, then the numbers make a (maybe not so) coincidental appearance, and Hurley starts his descent. The numbers really do make him crazy.

And, I guess I shouldn’t say “we know it doesn’t end well,” because we don’t really know where it all ends. This is all just the middle…or the beginning of something much larger.

And, does anyone else wonder why Daniel has all of these things scribbled in his notebook? Is this from the past? It doesn’t look like it’s from a briefing of what’s going to happen on the island before their mission, because he has formulas scrawled all over the place. Or, maybe that’s just how crazy physicists take notes in a meeting.

So, I can’t wait to read all the buzz online about this episode. (Check out my blogroll for some cool Lost sites.) I love getting more and more of the story even though each piece of the puzzle brings us closer to the end.

Momma’s Bag of Tricks

Published on Thursday, May 15, 2008 in Parenting 101, Photos and Random Thoughts. 4 Comments

The other day, Claire helped me pick out a new purse. Before I had Claire, I would use a bunch of different purses for different occasions. Most of them were very small and carried my essentials: wallet, palm pilot, keys, phone, sun glasses, lipstick.

When I was in college, I had even fewer essentials and carried a little ID holder with attached keyring. It was so freeing! I was so mobile! Ahhh, the carefree days of being a college student.

But, times changed.

Then, I had a baby.

I refrained from carrying “everything including the kitchen sink,” and usually, I was able to get by with keeping the full-on diaper bag in the trunk. (It’s a special diaper bag in the form of a backpack, which my hubby picked out…very gender neutral and something he wouldn’t be embarrassed carrying.) If we were going to be miles and miles from the car, I would put my essentials in that and just use that as my bag.

Even then, we just needed a lot of diapers. I was breastfeeding, so we didn’t need f0rmula or bottles, and we just never got to the point where we needed all the other things that so many people cart around with their kids. We’re minimalistic, and it works for us.

Now that we’re in the toddler stage, Claire needs very little to get through an outside adventure, and they are different than when she was a baby.

I still keep a fully-stocked diaper bag in the trunk…just in case.

So, what does my new purse look like?

Click to enlarge photos.
Clicking a second time will show more detail.

It’s bright. It’s fun. It’s reversible! (It was cheap from Tar-jay.) It’s small, but not too small and yet big enough to hold all my essentials and Claire’s. And, there will be plenty of room for things for our summer trip, like the camera or my hubby’s sunglasses when he hands them to me and says, “here.” (I love that. *cough*)

Claire thinks it’s her purse because she picked it out. I don’t argue with her. It’s just easier that way. Luckily, she lets me wear it on my shoulder.

So, what’s in my new purse?

We have my essentials: wallet, palm pilot, phone, lipstick, sunglasses (in the hard case), keys, pen. (You’ll notice a hair-band on my keyring. This has been a lifesaver! It’s so easy to slip my keys on my wrist to get Claire in and out of the car!)

We have Claire’s essentials: her sunglasses.

Then, we have the “Emergency Pack.” That pack has things for all three of us, such as:

An extra pen. (I hate using the pen that is provided at stores, so I always have an extra.)

Band-Aids & Neosporin (for obvious reasons)

Travel-size Aquaphor (a special healing cream)

“Lip-stuff” (this is for my hubby. It will soon be replaced by his “favorite” kind because he keeps complaining about the generic kind I have. It was free! It was from my dentist. It’s all natural! But, it’s not his kind. He’s picky.)

Sunscreen Stick (SO important here)

A sample-pack of Desitin (diaper cream that came in some promotional thing and I thought would fit here perfectly)

Antibacterial wipes (for obvious reasons)

A small spoon and small fork (you wouldn’t think this would be an emergency item, but you’d be amazed at how many times we’ve used these.)

A small pack of crayons (again, only seen as an emergency item if you’ve ever spent time with a bored toddler.)

And, what you can’t see, in the back behind the clear divider: a folded up diaper, a ziplock of wet-wipes, and some of those cool blue scented poopy diaper trash-bags, and a travel pack of Kleenexes.

I also have a secret stash (well, not so secret now, huh?) of feminine products that my hubby refers to lovingly as “liners and corks.” I’ll let you figure that one out.

Also, I have a diaper pin. You know, one of those safety pins with the big plastic ends. You’d be amazed at the uses we’ve found for that. And, no, I keep my MacGyver’s Handbook to Raising Toddlers at home on my shelf.

This Emergency Pack is easy to handle, since it’s all contained. It’s in a clear plastic zippered pack that I confiscated from one of my travel bags. I can remove it and use a teeny tiny purse if I want. Or not. Because it never fails that if one of my children (the 2-yr old girl) is home with the babysitter, the other one in my charge (the 35-yr old male) needs something.

Now, I feel the urge to give a Public Service Announcement about what I have in my purse and car. I don’t carry my Social Security Card with me. I have my ID behind the clear section of my wallet, but I have Claire’s picture in front of that, so that my personal info is hidden from view unless specifically requested. I have photo copies of the fronts and backs of all the cards in my purse safely stored at home, and I only carry essential cards with me. What about the car? The most valuable things we keep in the car (besides the car seat) is the diaper bag in the trunk. We also keep a folded up stroller and a travel booster seat in the trunk. I also keep a hair brush and breath mints in the center console. We don’t let the trash pile up in the car, and we don’t leave anything that looks remotely interesting in the car.

In a former life, my hubby had two cars stolen. He was able to retrieve the vehicles, but learned a valuable lesson: if you’re going to leave it in your car, be willing to never see it again.

So, there ya have it: a quick peek into this Momma’s Bag of Tricks.

An anniversary of sorts

Published on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 in Anniversaries and Blog Business. 5 Comments

May 14th marks the one year anniversary of my first post-dated post. Technically, this blog was born on July 22, 2007, but I really started writing with the intention of eventually posting online, one year ago today.

So, if you look in the archives, that is what you’ll see, because I post-dated my writings for clarity’s sake. One year and 481 posts later, here I am!

At first, I didn’t write every day, and it wasn’t until August that I started updating daily. Will I always update daily? I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out as time goes by.

A lot has changed around here. We have a new look. We have some ads. I captured the best of the blog for 2007 and published it in book-form. And, I have some new priorities. It’s ever-changing, and I love chronicling Claire’s journey into toddlerhood and my journey into parenthood. Both are full of surprises and adventure.

As I’ve heard many times before, the only constant is change, and I may be a perfectionist, but I’m trying to be casual about it. And, I’ve discovered that the more you pretend to be flexible, the more flexible you actually become. I dare say this may be one of the keys to surviving raising a toddler.

Well, that and always having Fruit Snacks on hand.

So…here’s to one year, and many more!

The best seats in the house

Published on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 in Claire, Gift Ideas and Photos. 5 Comments

Well, technically, they are the best seats outside the house.

Mother’s Day came and went leaving me with a fabulous gift sitting where our old plastic table and chairs once stood.

Clicking on each photo will enlarge it. Clicking a second time will show more detail.

I love the lines created by the morning sun on our deck and how they play with the lines of the new furniture.

Daddy and Claire had a lot of fun constructing all the pieces. I helped too, but took a little break to document their progress. Due to privacy obsessions, my hubby has requested that his digital image be obscured behind protective black bars. So please, pay no attention to the man behind the protective black bars.

Claire was excited to find that she got a cool present out of the whole deal too.

The table is much bigger than the old one, and there is ample seating for six or seven…

…depending on how cozy you want to get on the bench.

Now, the fun part will be picking out fun seat cushions and maybe matching placemats to use for our cookouts and informal grilling-with-friends-sessions that always make our summers so busy and exciting and relaxing.

Plus, we eat outside nearly every evening in the summer, so this is the perfect gift that will keep on giving.

Thank you, guys. I love it!

Featured on Indie Bloggers Today

Published on Monday, May 12, 2008 in Featured Elsewhere and Indie Ink. 4 Comments Tags: Indie Ink.

Indie Bloggers

If you’re a reader of Indie Bloggers, you’ll recognize the author of today’s post. Here’s a hint: It’s me!

Back in January, I had a post published on the site, and I was thrilled. Needless to say, I am so excited to have another piece featured on the site!

Here is the link to “I used to know” on Indie Bloggers.

Here is the original link to the piece on The Casual Perfectionist.

I love Indie Bloggers because it features pieces of work from so many different types of writers. I’ve found some of my favorite bloggers on that site. So, if you don’t have Indie Bloggers in your daily FeedReader, I suggest you add it! Or, enter your own submission to the site! It really is amazing seeing your words in “print” outside the forum of your own blog.

So, go check it out! And, if you’ve found this blog via Indie Bloggers, welcome! Feel free to post a comment with your own blog address in the comments portion below. I’m always on the lookout for new blogs to explore.

Hallmark’s got nuthin’ on this.

Published on Sunday, May 11, 2008 in Artwork, Claire and Gift Ideas. 0 Comments

Here is a picture of the card that Claire made for me today.

She and Daddy were up before I was, and he helped her with this project. It’s on my favorite colored paper (lavender), and according to the artist, there is a self-portrait in blue. She told me she’s the blue circle with the eyelashes. (If you click on the photo, you can see more detail.) To the right of her is “a green giraffe with a pink head.” And, to the left is a green elephant.

The font used in the message looks curiously like my hubby’s writing.

I love it!

Friday Night Fun – Rock Band & a Movie

Published on Saturday, May 10, 2008 in Fun, Games, Movies and Rock Band. 2 Comments

We had such a fun night last night! We started the evening with a round of Rock Band. Yes, we’re still playing that game. Yes, it still rocks.

We had something frustrating happen with the game a few months ago, right before I lost my voice. My hubby and I were on our last set of the night. It was a four song set. We finished it with flying colors. In fact, we’d passed one of the songs with 4 out of 5 stars and three of the songs with 5 out of 5 stars. The screen flashed something about 127,000 fans, and we were ecstatic! We’d already reached 600,000 fans, and our goal of reaching 1-million was even closer!

Then, we looked closer. It said we’d LOST 127,000 fans. WHAT!? We still don’t know what happened. A glitch in the game? Something had to be wrong. We’d rocked out those four songs, passed them with really good marks, and we LOST fans!? I was livid.

My hubby was upset too, but kept trying to remind me that it was just a game. He’s right. It’s just a game. But still! How could we lose fans after passing all the songs in a set? I didn’t even understand…and I still don’t.

Shortly after that, I had a lot of problems with my voice and it was hard for me to play large sets. We’d play Rock Band here and there, but not as much as before.

When my voice healed, we started playing again, and last night, we finally surpassed the 600,000 fan mark. Again. We closed out some venues and I feel good about the game again. We peeked at the Leaderboards (the list of where everyone online ranks), and there are bands out there with 342,000,000 fans. That’s more than THREE HUNDRED MILLION fans. Unbelievable.

Kudos to them, but who has that kind of time?

But, Rock Band wasn’t the only fun part of our evening. After Claire went to bed, we decided to watch one of our Netflix movies. Last night’s choice was Death at a Funeral. We haven’t laughed so hard at a movie in a long time. We actually had to pause the movie at one point, because I couldn’t breathe. (Now, that’s a good movie!) We both had tears streaming down our faces, and we still laugh about it today.

Death at a Funeral is a dramedy (a mix of drama and comedy) about a funeral (obviously). Some rather dysfunctional things happen and lead to a totally chaotic and hilarious fiasco. Personally, I think it has the feel of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead with a little bit of Grandma’s Boy and Forty-Year Old Virgin mixed in, yet it’s not like any of those movies at all.

It’s not for everyone. We have friends that we know would love it. And, we have friends we know would hate it. So, if you see it and then wonder what in the world is wrong with us, I apologize. If you see it and then hurt your ribs laughing, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I think my hubby summed it up best when he said, “That movie was so funny! And, well, weird… Then again, so are we.”

The Hiding Place

Published on Friday, May 9, 2008 in Claire, Parenting 101 and Photos. 5 Comments

Claire has a new Hiding Place. You’d think she’d call it her house or her tent or something more creative, but it’s “my hiding place.” That works, because, that’s what it is.

Click photos to enlarge.

Momma added a “curtain” to The Hiding Place yesterday, and now it’s perfect. (We didn’t have a table cloth on it prior to Claire’s interest in it…)

She likes to pretend to take naps in there. She reads books in there. She even convinces Momma to join her and read books in there, too.

It’s hard to capture the cool and calming blueness of The Hiding Place. It’s neat to see something as ordinary as our kitchen table from this perspective. It’s like we’ve discovered a new room in the house that has been hidden from view this whole time.

Lost Observations – “Cabin Fever”

Published on Friday, May 9, 2008 in TV Shows and TV: Lost - The Show. 0 Comments

Wow. I don’t even know where to start, and my head is still spinning. I definitely have to see this episode again!

I can’t believe we are almost to the end of the season. I feel like we were given a glimpse at so many answers only to be bombarded with more questions. And, do we really understand the answers that were given?

I love Lost. Have I mentioned that lately?

As always, I won’t recap the show, as there are sites out there that do that quite well. Check out my blogroll for some cool sites to check out. Here are some of my observations, questions, and comments regarding “Cabin Fever.” I’ll change it up a bit and use bullet points this week.

Here we go…shall we?

I think it’s pretty obvious that The Island doesn’t want John to die, and it never has.

The never-aging Richard Alpert (and Mittelos aka “Lost Time”) makes an appearance a few times in John’s flashbacks. Interesting! So, have they always been trying to recruit him from the beginning, or is Richard time-traveling from a point farther in the future to try to get John? Or, does that even matter? And, the bigger question is why?

What is the significance of the items that Richard Alpert shows John: Baseball Glove, Vial of Sand, Book of Laws, Compass, Knife, Comic Book? Which one should he have chosen? Richard said it would have already belonged to him. Thanks for being so clear about that, Richard. I think my head hurts. Is my nose bleeding?

John has never heard the story of Horace, has he? He doesn’t know that he’s the man that brought Ben and his father to the island, right? There is something very “real” to the visions/dreams that people have on the island. I wonder how all that works.

Horace said he’s been dead 12 years. How does that work with Alex’s age? If he died in “the purge,” and that was 12 years ago, that would have to have been in 1992, right? (2004 – 12) But, Ben supposedly kidnapped Alex when she was a baby, right?

If I’m not mistaken, Richard Alpert talked to John on the hillside in the last season. He gave him a file on Sawyer (James) so that Locke could “convince” him to kill the “real Sawyer” (John’s father). Why wouldn’t John remember him from his childhood? Had that not happened yet? Or, could it be something as simple as he just didn’t remember him? It would be hard to even consider him to logically be the same person, considering the non-aging factor, right? I guess that’s possible. (as possible as time-travel, polar bears in Tunisia, and a smoke-like monster on an island that may or may not exist.)

Speaking of Smokey…did you catch him in the picture young Locke drew? Spooky.

Is Richard Alpert working with Mr. Abaddon, or are they working for separate entities?

I can’t believe Claire showed up in Jacob’s cabin! Actually, I can believe it. I joked about that last week. Is she dead? Is she alive? Either way, she didn’t seem like the Claire we know and love.

We’ve seen Christian in Jacob’s chair before. This time, it didn’t require a quick trigger finger over the pause button on TiVO to see him. He “speaks for Jacob.” Interesting. And, move the island? What…?? I can’t wait to see how they pull that off.

And, I guess we know that the doctor met a rather unfriendly demise. Well, we assumed that last week when his dead body washed up on shore. Now we know that the Freighter People weren’t lying about the doc being fine. He just hadn’t been killed yet. Right. That’s not confusing at all.

Well, I’d better wrap this up. I can’t wait to read all the buzz about this episode online, and I can’t wait until next week!

Pink and Blue

Published on Thursday, May 8, 2008 in Claire, Fun and Photos. 4 Comments

Yesterday, Claire and I made a trip to SuperTarget to get groceries. On the list were two other items: swim suit and sandals.

Both her current swim suit (all three of them, actually) and her sandals are a little too snug. And, as much as I generally dislike shopping, shopping for fun things like swim suits and sandals is actually a lot of fun.

We found the new swim suit with no problems. I couldn’t resist the matching hat, and after what happened with the sunscreen incident, I’m even more vigilant about Claire wearing a hat.

Finding sandals, on the other hand, proved to be quite the challenge. I don’t know if it’s just the SuperTarget I went to, or if all shoe departments are total and utter chaos. Has anyone entertained the thought of actually putting shoes that are the same size together on the shelves? Seriously? How hard would it be to organize the shoe boxes based on size? Do they know that each box has a little number prominently displayed on the side? I’ve never seen such a mess.

And…what’s up with the styles these days for little girls’ sandals? My daughter is two. She does not need to be wearing the latest wedge fashion. I wanted simple sandals. Preferably in a brown, since that’s the color they’ll end up anyway. Flat sandals. She’s two! She has no need to master walking in anything with a high-heel. I could have overlooked the fact that the sandal was white, or silver, or gold (for real) if it wasn’t a cute little wedge. She’s two!

Also? She wears a Size Six. I felt like poor Goldilocks in the shoe aisle. The Fives were way too small and the Sevens were way too big. Do you know how hard it was to find Sixes? Either they are a really popular size or are a really unpopular size. Either way, they were few and far between, and the ones that actually existed were scattered throughout the entire shoe department. Lovely.

But, right when I was ready to give up and look somewhere else, I found the perfect little sandal, and I found the only Size Six. They are brown, faux leather, flat, and they fit. Finally.

Claire was extremely excited about her new swim suit and her new sandals, and she wanted to model the outfit for Daddy. She actually played in the whole ensemble all afternoon.

You can click on the photos to enlarge.

Claire’s new swim suit set and her new sandals.

You may think I only dress my daughter in pink. That is not entirely true. Yes, pink is one of her favorite colors, but I have no qualms about dressing her in other colors as well.

See?
I also dress her in blue.

Here is the pretty Cinderella dress I mentioned earlier.
It’s still a little too big, but that didn’t stop her from trying it on…

…and spinning to her heart’s content.