the biggest yay!/boo. EVER.

one of my most favorite places to shop for non-workout clothes is an online shop called ruche.  they have the cutest things - dresses and tops and skirts and shorts and things that are a little vintage-y, and all at super reasonable prices.  and because i've placed an order or twelve over the last couple of years, i'm on their email list for promo codes and sales and fun stuff like that.  even better?  they're somewhat local to me, which means that i'm able to take advantage of the warehouse pickup option if i want something fairly quickly.

the old lady and i hopped into the car a few days ago while the bean was at summer school to do just that.  and when we got there, i noticed that they'd done a little decorating since my last visit.  like this sign at the driveway:

and two spots saved right at the door for folks like me:

with the door clearly marked.

of course, i couldn't resist taking this in front of the pretty pastel-painted wall:

and inside, a cute little waiting area.

they've also started a punch card program:

as usual, i was super pleased with my purchases.  more on those later.

because we were hungry and had a little time left before we needed to pick up the bean, we decided to stop for some lunch.  we pulled into a nice-looking shopping plaza and drove through the parking lot in search of something that sounded delicious.  as we were driving along, we encountered one of those roundabouts and followed it around till we found the area we wanted to stop in.  while we were in the middle of that circle, we noticed a car that had pulled up to the roundabout and was apparently trying to enter it.  not thinking anything of it since they had a stop and we had the right-of-way, we continued on, exited, and parked the car.  that car parked in the handicapped spot next to us, and out of the corner of my eye i noticed the passenger kept staring at us.

now, the old lady does not take kindly to this sort of thing.  he'd caught our attention, and as he continued to stare rather hostile-like at us, she rolled down her window and asked him politely if there was a problem.  he got out of the car, shut the door, and as he started to walk away snarled "yeah, there's a problem.  you're an idiot who can't drive.  actually, the problem is that you've got those slanted eyes you can't see out of."

and then he scurried away, just like the coward he'd shown himself to be.

what?  i mean, WHAT??  the two of us just kind of looked at each other in a rather dumbfounded way, and i managed to call out something about him being supremely ignorant, but it didn't matter - he was long gone.  my heart was pounding, my head was reeling, and i was literally shaking with rage.  i was so incredibly angry that not only did this happen, but it happened with MY KID.  don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that racism is very much alive and well even in 2015.  but i couldn't recall ever having directly experienced it myself, and once we'd calmed down enough to talk, she said that she hadn't either.  and we both agreed that had there been a guy with us, that shithead wouldn't have had the balls to say a word to us.

we had discussed picking up the bean and taking her with us at first, so i was really grateful that we'd decided to let her play with her friends a little longer instead.  because i'd been caught so off-guard, i didn't really formulate any sort of proper response at the time, but i would have hated for her to have been around to witness that.  and it saddens me to think that she will inevitably face some form of racism at some point in her life.  that's just reality, and it sucks.

i did stop to take this and proceeded to blast it on facebook, instagram and twitter with the caption  "hey north OC friends - if you see this car, know that it's being driven by a racist asshole who doesn't understand basic rules of the road."  it sure didn't make me feel any better about it, but it's all i had.

okay, so technically i guess it was that "u.s. air force mom" who doesn't know how to handle driving into a roundabout, but whatever.  she had run away just as fast as he had, and so in my eyes that makes her just as bad as her jerkface passenger.

shame on them both.  ignorance ain't pretty, people.

giving dinner a helping hand

i'm in the 6th week of the 60-day challenge, and while i still get crazy cravings for starbucks and french fries like mad, eating clean-ish is starting to feel fairly easy and very do-able for me.  pinterest is still my main source of finding recipes to try, and i'm finding that there are lots of things that i can recreate using healthier ingredients.

back when i was young and broke as hell, i lived on all sorts of processed foods that are super tasty but seriously bad for you.  you know, like blue box mac & cheese, ramen that you could buy 6 for a buck, hamburger helper.  so when i found a recipe for "unprocessed hamburger helper," you know i had to give it a shot.

trader joe's carries brown rice pasta, which i've discovered is pretty damn good and not much different from pasta made with regular flour.

once i got my ground beef cooked and drained, i mixed it up with all of the other spices and ingredients.  the uncooked pasta was stirred in and then set to simmer for about 15 minutes.  looks kinda like dog food, right?  that means it really IS like hamburger helper!

even plated, it didn't look any prettier.  but the bean took one look and said "YUM!  did you make beefaroni, mom??"  heh.

i'm happy to report that it was just as tasty as the stuff you can get in the box, and the bean loved it so much she ate two bowls and took the leftovers in a thermos for lunch the next day.  awesome.

oh!  also, i finally got to sign the "100 barre" at xtend.  although to be honest, i'm actually closer to 200 classes at this point.

and i got the 100 classes shirt, too - i'm finally part of the cool kids club!

there's about two and a half weeks left in the challenge, and then it'll be weighing and measuring time again.  i've snuck a peek on the scale now and then, and while i'm not really seeing the number go down a whole lot, i'm feeling pretty good about how my clothes are fitting these days.  or not fitting, as the case may be.  there's a yay!/boo. for ya, huh?

a boo./yay!

my friend kelley is my biggest supporter when it comes to fitness and working out.  in fact, she's a beachbody coach, and she's awesome at the dual role of motivator/cheerleader.

i'd actually gotten myself all psyched up to join her at a boot camp class she takes on wednesday evenings, and had been prepping the bean to hang out with kelley's son at the daycare set up in the room next to where all the fun would be.  and then we were all super bummed when the instructor had a conflict in his schedule and had to cancel for the evening.

and so instead, we met up with lilcee and mini cee for a food truckfest that takes place every wednesday evening here:

there weren't too many choices, but we managed.

this poor girl looked super bored.  hopefully she got busier as people filled up on dinner and were ready for dessert.

and this truck was interesting (but not enough for me to go inside).

we decided to share a bunch of tacos, spicy meatballs, and truffle fries from the komodo truck.

this is how happy she was to get a hot dog instead:

when we were done chowing down, i picked up a couple of ice cream sandwiches from the coolhaus truck and drove up the street to memorial park's levitt pavilion.  kelley and her family were already there, watching the african drummers performing onstage for the final children's concert of the summer.

 unfortunately for us, the bean tripped and skinned her knee as we were walking from the parking lot.

she was a little out of sorts, but it was nothing a little ice cream couldn't fix (which she happily shared with mini cee).

as she warily watched the man on stilts cross the stage and head into the audience, i assured her that the area we were sitting in was way too crowded for him to come near us.  um, i was wrong.  oops.

she wasn't too freaked out though, and clapped to the music as the concert came to an end.  it was a lovely way to spend our evening, under the stars with friends, music, and ice cream.  plus, now i know about it so that i can look for the schedule next summer.

an oldie but goodie: yay!/boo.

i haven't done this in a while, and it seems fitting today. let's go:

i love my new job, and i'm having a blast at it. yay!
it's keeping me from being able to KIT with my online friends, and it's making me sad. boo.

i seem to have finally weaned myself off of constantly posting on thenest.com's message boards - a habit that's five-plus years old. yay!
my absence seems to be contributing to the dwindling numbers on my weekly blog stats. like, as of last week, my visit count is down to half of what it used to be. either y'all are on vacay, or i'm getting utterly boring. boo.

my iPad is awesome. i love that thing so much, and it's really come in handy a few times. yay!
updating my OS on the mac (doing it the cheapy way, remember?) has really fucked up my system. i can't get my photoshop or printers to work, and i think it's also got something to do with the fact that i can't update my iPhone software that just came out yesterday. i may have to pony up the $169 after all, which i should've just done to begin with. boo.

today is my brother's birthday. yay!
we haven't spoken since his wedding...in november. and i don't know why. yet neither of us seems to be able or willing to pick up the phone to clear the air. boo.

the teen is off for summer vacation. yay!
this also means that she's back to the week-on, week-off schedule with her dad. boo.

we're headed off for our two-week road trip extravaganza in less than a week! yay!
i am SO not ready for it. boo.

and lastly...

we're finally getting out of the thimble! we opened escrow on a house that we found last week and fell in love with, and we're closing in about a month. YAY!
packing. boo.

let's hear your yays!/boos for today. i know someone's still out there reading. i hope.