MORE vote whoring.

so, thanks to my lurker friend carrie, i found out that the bean managed to advance to the next stage in the kiis-fm baby contest.



seriously, though, i'm up to HERE with fucking baby contests. i'll probably eat these words later, but i just don't want to deal with it anymore. not that i'm giving up or anything, but jeebus, i'll be glad when these things are over.

if you're so inclined, the bean is contestant #133 in gallery 3 for the kiis contest.

and she's stuck at 39% of the votes for that damn nest baby contest. luckily, i think that one ends soon - it says "cast your vote before 4/4."

come on, 4/4!

the bean, unmasked - version 2.0

aha. this is easier! again, it's group #92, contestant #13.



thanks to everyone who's voted thus far! i think the contest runs through april 8th or so. i wonder how on earth this will work out, with the gazillion entries in the contest. the practical side of me says "fuhgeddaboutit," while the optimist says "maaaaaaybe we've got a shot!"

we'll see who's right soon enough!

the bean, unmasked

okay, her picture's finally up in the "cutest baby in soCA" contest on kiisfm.com. so of course, i'm totally whoring for votes here.

thanks to my lurker friend carrie, who gave me the heads-up on locating the bean's picture amongst the zillion baby pictures. i still can't believe she sat there and looked through all the galleries! wow! i barely had the patience to go through the first 90. heh.

sooooo...if you have, like, 30 seconds to spare, we can use all the votes we can get. it's only one vote per e-mail address, and you don't have to sign up for any newsletters or clubs or any kind of shit like that. just click here, and click on "vote" next to group 92. the bean is lucky contestant #13.

but let's get real. with over 3,200 entries, i'm not kidding myself - our chances are pretty damn slim of placing in the top 3. that's a hell of a lot of pictures, and i don't know that many people :X it's just kind of cool to see her on a website i didn't create myself! ha!

the bean thanks you. i thank you. and most of all, my ego screams "grassy-ass" - very loudly. but not too loudly. it's gymboree friday, and the bean is zonked.

bullets of randomness

i usually have no shortage of things to talk about - blogorrhea, if you will. but today i just seem to have a bunch of random items, so i'll take my cue from tater and amber, who love to post in bullets.

• priceline rocks the house. the dude who owns the vacation rental in nyc that i thought i'd booked for our trip emailed me last week and said "i'm so sorry, i screwed up, i can only accommodate you for the last 3 nights of your trip. but here's a hotel i can book for you for the first 2" and linked me to some shitty ass looking place that i wouldn't have dreamt of reserving. ugh. so i managed to finagle us free airport transportation as compensation for the inconvenience, and got to work. after looking at a zillion different places, all $300+ per night, i decided to give priceline a shot. at first, i bid $150 for a 4-star hotel in the times square area, but it wasn't accepted (ha!). so i bumped it up to $175 and was rather surprised to score on a room at the millennium broadway hotel. whee!
• that "cutest baby in southern california" contest on kiis fm that i entered the bean in has apparently been overwhelmed with the zillion entries they've received. um, duh. you ask folks to submit pictures of their cute, cuddly offspring and you're bound to get bombarded - we parents are quick to whip out photos of our rugrats. anyway, they were supposed to start voting on monday, but when i looked at the site, they were still uploading pictures and were on gallery #60 - with 25 pictures in each one. oy. and there aren't any names or any way to search for a particular entry. so i looked through 2,200+ pictures, and...zip. the bean wasn't up yet! and today, with another 30 galleries uploaded, she STILL isn't there. grrrrrr. voting is now scheduled to begin on friday, so i'll just have to keep checking. and you know i'll be whoring here for votes as soon as i can pinpoint exactly what gallery and photo number she is. stay tuned.
• as i was perusing the kiis fm website, i stumbled upon some news that is going to send the kid over the freaking moon. they do a concert every spring called "wango tango" and she's always wanted to go. of course, it always falls on a weekend that she's with her dad, who's never been particularly flexible with scheduling ("you better check the schedule before you buy tickets for stuff, because if she's with me, oh well"). this year is no different, but this year she's older and more willing to incur his wrath for something she considers worthy. and of course, guess who's headline this year's wango tango? oh yes. that's right. my future SIL, apparently - the jonas brothers. heh. and miley cyrus, too - who she also likes, surprisingly. i love it when she's a typical tween-almost-teen (holy shit!). anyway, i'm going to see if i can discuss it with her dad and get tickets for her. we'll see - chances are decent, considering that's the day before her big 13th birthday. send us "cooperative ex" vibes, will ya?
  
• oh, and the website also says that the jo-bros (mm-hmmm) have set dates for their summer tour. the kid has mentioned about 298374203984 times that that was "the best concert ever, mom!" so of course, i'm going to do whatever i can to get my hands on some tickets again. which also means that i'll be ponying up the bucks for the fan club, who gets to buy tickets before they're on sale to the general public. i swear, i'm such a sucker for making my girls smile. i should just tattoo that shit on my forehead.
  
• the hub and i have been amusing ourselves lately by giving the bean a little taste of whatever we happen to be eating - a little ketchup here, some ranch sauce there, a bit of grape jelly. and the really amusing part is watching her facial expressions after that little tongue finds those surprises on her lips. oh man, it's comical.
• in more bean news, she's finally grown into a gift that her SFAM aunties gave her at the fabulous shower they threw for us way back when. she models it for you here:
• i have a few more orders that i'm working on, and i'm hoping to push them out fairly soon so that i can get started on something else that i've been mulling over in my head. it's something that i think could possibly take off, and i'm dying to get to work on a prototype to see if it actually works. i've already bought the supplies, and i'm hoping that i can manage to make my sewing machine work for me rather than against me. keep your fingers crossed.
• i'm looking forward to having dinner tonight with the monkey and lilcee at crepe vine. apparently, i didn't get my fill of crepes this weekend at farmers market, so i was quick to suggest this place, which i've heard good things about. mmmm. the hardest part is going to be choosing flavors, and tonight i'm not gonna hold back. sweet AND savory! no holds barred! livin' on the edge!
  
• lastly, bubbles are fun. at least, the bean sure thinks so. yay!

life is good.

it just is!

i think the gorgeous weather we're having lately is a big part of my cheery demeanor. sorry to those on the east coast, in the midwest, or anyone else who's experiencing shitty climates these days, but southern california is just so beautiful right now! it's been hovering around 80 degrees, clear skies, warm sun. i'm generally not a fan of particularly warm days, but after lots of cold and rain, even i'm happy for change. plus, i can dress the bean in short sleeves and i busted out a tank top this morning! whee! i hope it holds out for the weekend.

i scooped up a new client who's doing some really fun and pretty invitations. they're going for a spanish flair, using red and black as their primary colors, with splashes of yellow here and there. she mailed me a spool of 3-inch-wide black lace that we're incorporating in the design, and it's going to be oh so purty!

in a little while, i'm heading out to the bank to open coogan accounts for the kid and the bean. basically, any child in the entertainment industry has 15% of every check automatically deposited into this blocked trust account, and the money is untouchable until they're 18. just in time for cars and college! although our goal with this thing isn't necessarily to make boatloads of cash, but to have some fun and maybe have a tiny part of the glitz and glamour that is hollywood. yeah, i'm a starstruck mofo. so is the kid. and i think the bean would think it was kind of cool to look back at pictures and things of stuff she was in - that's if we actually get anything booked. with the writer's strike over, we could very well have a call here and there, so i just want to be prepared. their work permits are being processed, too, so as soon as we have those two things in place, we're ready to go!

mcdonald's has yummy iced coffee. haha - you KNEW i had to throw some kind of food up in here. anyway, the kid and i stumbled upon it while getting breakfast last weekend, and it's pretty delish. it's almost good enough to make me stop driving out to burger king for my beloved mocha joes. almost. [taking a sip of mocha joe picked up after dropping the kid off at school]

and today is the first day all week that i don't have anything to do that'll take me too far away from home! whee! i want to get some laundry done, relax, maybe play on the knot/nest a bit. and i'm going to make some ribs for dinner. i'm going to season them, put them under the broiler for about 15 minutes, and toss 'em in the crock pot with a shitload of bbq sauce. add some corn, salad, and au gratin potatoes, and we'll have quite a lovely dinner!

my honey ryan seacrest is doing a "kiis my baby" contest. a cash prize is at stake here, so of course, i submitted a photo of the bean. can't hurt to try, right? anyway, voting opens up on march 18th, so i'll post a link and if y'all feel so inclined... ;) i hate begging for votes, so i'll leave it at that. plus, the bean will be unmasked fo' real. ha!

and here's a couple of fun pictures i took yesterday. ah, i love my girls so much.