"you take pictures of the oddest shit."

truer words were never spoken.

the hub was perusing my iPhoto library and came across the random ass photos that i love to put in this blog. now, most of you are aware that he's not particularly thrilled about my blogging addiction, i think. he doesn't really get the need for an online diary of sorts - to me, it's just fun. to him, it's just unnecessary. so i just continue, never talk about it, and life is peachy.

but i do love to include visual aids in my posts whenever possible. it just makes it THAT much more interesting, yes? at least it gives y'all something to look at when i'm rambling on about nothing. like now!

i've always been a sucker for silly gift-shop novelties. here's my latest acquisition, which i tested out in the kitchen this morning. i was craving a lovely pb&j for breakfast, and i miraculously found this little toy in a box, which i'd bought last week:

oh yes. it'll cut the crusts off, slice the sandwich in quarters, and seal the edges. i can make my very own homemade uncrustables!

i made my sandwich:


opened my new toy, and pressed down hard - and learned the hard way that i'd been a little too generous with my pb & j:

oh, well. i poured myself a nice cold glass of milk and dug in. the hub glanced over, shook his head in amusement, and said "crustless sandwich, huh? can i have the crusts?"

too bad for him. i'd already tossed 'em in the trash. oops.

and that's my exciting saturday morning. ta-da!

i'm baaaaaaack!

and thank god for that. i tell you, not having access to the internet was like losing a damn eye. or something like that. a few days ago, i took the kid over to her BFF's house to hang out and BFF said "you want to check your emails while you're here?"

i was on it like a crack whore getting a fix. like, i wanted to tongue-kiss that computer. but i restrained myself and was on just long enough to e-mail a couple of clients and pay a couple of bills. i eyed the rest of the fun-looking emails longingly and logged off before i could get sucked into opening 'em all.

so we're all moved. and by "moved", i mean that all our shit is in the new house - by no means should you take that as "we're all unpacked and settled". i'm fully terrified of how long it's going to take for us to get to that point. the walls are much more of a disaster than we originally thought, and hubzilla wants to get them fixed and painted before we can move furniture in and unpack everything. so for the meantime, we're living out of suitcases and trying to do what we can, which ain't much.

last weekend's baby shower extravaganza was fabulous. exhausting as hell, but lots and lots of fun! the bean and i scored on a whole lot of gear, which currently looks like this:

and because we still haven't ordered the nursery furniture, only god knows how long it'll take for us to get THAT pile sorted out and settled. heh.

here are a few of the pro pics taken at the MIL's shower on sunday - sarah did a fabulous job and i can't thank her enough for these lovely photos!

as we perused the teaser pics from sarah, the kid exclaimed "OMG, mom, you're ginormous!" thanks, babe. love ya. :X

i picked up a box of goodies from dot's for the shower at my mom's. these are the minis, in red velvet and chocolate cheesecake (my new favorite flavor, btw. you MUST try it, it's so scrumptiously delicious):

and this is the fabulously soft blanket that my mom knitted for the bean. i'm hoping i managed to shrink this down enough to hide my sweatiness:

so for this week's belly pic, i managed to find a top that i'd completely forgotten i had. it still had the tags on it and everything - funny what you find when you're packing your life into boxes. and thank goodness, too, because i'm finding that the rest of my clothes that have served me so well over the last few months are simply getting too damn small. the hub and the kid both pointed and laughed at me at some point this week because inevitably the belly was a-peekin' out from the bottom of whatever top i happened to have on.

the countdown is at 2.5 weeks. crap. and the background is different now, although not much different from the rest. still boring white wall. ha! at least i'm consistent.

so. much. to. do.

i'm sneaking in a quickie post while the hub snores away on the couch next to me. because if i don't do it now, i won't get to post again for DAYS. we're getting an early start on what's going to be a ridiculously packed weekend. here's what's on tap:

friday:

• packing
• printing for a couple of wedding jobs i've got to get done
• more packing
• picking up textbooks at the kid's school
• setting up utilities for the new casa
• picking up the kid from school
• getting a mani/pedi for "baby shower weekend extravaganza"
• even more packing
• stopping at candy warehouse to scoop up candy buffet goods

saturday:

• "labor and delivery" class at the hospital
• picking up dot's mini cupcakes for baby shower #1
• heading out to manhattan beach to party like a rock star (or, as close as a woman with child can get)
• most likely, more packing
• laundry. i won't have the chance to do it again till after the big move.
  

sunday:

• church
• hopefully, packing will be done by now
• perhaps a nap? please?
• put all the crap in the car and get my ass to altadena country club
• yay for baby shower #2! it'll be a bit more refined. it's a country club, after all. no rock star-ness here.
• get the kid ready for the upcoming school week
  

boy, oh boy. it's gonna be quite the interesting weekend. and then the movers will be here bright and early on monday morning. although by that time, i'll be sitting in the empty house, waiting for the utility service people to show up. and hopefully, i can get all the printing done and my office supplies packed in my car so that i can get some work accomplished while i sit there for four hours. with my luck, they'll all get there right at the end of the allotted timeframe. isn't that ALWAYS how that works?

the saddest part is that the ONE utility company i really need - cable and internet, of course - isn't going to be at the house until WEDNESDAY. i'm going to be without tv and the world wide web for three whole days. how on earth will i survive??

"you look different...so happy."

this is what my lady told me today as she performed my brow snatching. yup, that's right: i did something about these eyebrows. ain't that a kick in the pants?

i actually am pretty darn happy, even as i sit amidst boxes and boxes of crap in my house. so it was nice to hear that, from someone who doesn't see me on a daily or even weekly basis.

and i finally ended my quest for a bathrobe and nightgown! i should've known tar-jay wouldn't steer me wrong. i found this:

yes, those are SOCK MONKEYS all over it. and it's pink. AND it was on clearance! i may finally be able to zip these hospital bags shut and leave 'em that way till i really need them. sah-weet!

it's the little things that make me happy. well, that, and coming home to find more presents on the doorstep from the UPS man. ha! the bean is getting to be pretty loaded up with gear. folks are so generous, and we're so thankful.

life is good, my friends, life is good.

just another day.

i had to make a paper source run today, and after the cupcake talk of the other day, decided to stop at violet's cakes and give 'em a second chance. the first time i went, i wasn't particularly impressed, but i was right there, y'know. it was practically CALLING to me!

$100+ at paper source later, i pulled into a fabulous parking spot right in front of violet's. i glanced at the sign on my way in and realized i'd gotten there one teeny, tiny little hour before they closed. i was afraid this meant there wouldn't be much to pick from, but i was happy to see that the selection was still fairly decent. i really wanted to try out their french toast flavor, but i was shit outta luck. boo. i can't remember them all now, but there was chocolate/chocolate, vanilla, something called south pacific, an apple caramel, and my mind blanks out after that.

i ended up with these lovely little gems: red velvet, s'mores, vanilla lemon buttercream, and chocolate peanut butter.

i decided to stop and pick up a salad so that i could justify (to myself, of course) the cupcakes. heh. i feel so much better about myself that way. you know, like how i always make sure i wash down those cookies or that twinkie with a nice tall glass of ice cold nonfat milk. calci-yum, indeed. are you buying this? yeah, the hub never does, either.

while waiting for my salad, i decided i'd press on in my pursuit to complete the hospital bag(s) that are supposed to be packed and ready at the door. mm-hmm. among other things, i still needed a bathrobe and some kind of nightgown - which isn't really necessary, but if i can get out of wearing that horrific ass-baring hospital gown, i'm all over it. but i should've known better than to hope that mervyn's would have anything good - every nightgown was either some kind of synthetic silky satin, or some horrific cotton flowery job that any 65-year-old in bifocals and support hose would be proud to sport. and the bathrobes! they weren't much better - and the majority of them were so big, thick, and fluffy that i was sweating just looking at 'em. ick.

i left mervyn's predictably empty-handed, picked up my salad, and went home to have lunch. the salad probably would have been better had i not been drooling over the cupcakes, so i gave up and dug into the red velvet.

violet's cupcakes always look like the handiwork of a 6-year-old helping her mommy make treats for her class. they're definitely not the sophisticated, modern products from, say, sprinkles or dot's. nor do they quite carry the sophisticated, modern price tag - $2.25 apiece vs. $3+. the frosting is globbed on like they used a big ol' spoon to do the job, and the colored sprinkles are tossed on almost as an afterthought.

but i have to admit, the cupcake is pretty damn good. it's *gulp* moist and just the right texture, and the frosting is sweet but not overly so. i think i managed to inhale the whole thing in about five bites. and now i want to eat another one.

eff it. the hub doesn't have to know i bought four, right?

stupid electric company.

i spent a good three hours sitting in the dark last night. prime time, too - from 8 till 11! i was right in the midst of some good old "friends" episodes on tbs and had just returned from grabbing dinner. i was sitting here munching and reading reviews on chowhound, when bzzzzzzt! the power cut out. frankly, as annoyed as i was at the inconvenience, i was a little surprised that it hadn't happened sooner. these 100+ degree temperatures over the last week or so have been a major power drain in the l.a. area, so we were bound to fall victim to an outage at some point.

as i sat at my desk, frozen in denial, the lights blinked on again - and i decided to light a couple of candles, just in case. and good thing, too, because the reprieve lasted for all of about 90 seconds.

my poor molly was terrified. she slunk around the house with tail tucked between her legs, looking up at me mournfully as i used the light from my cell to find the hub's ginormous mag-lite. i found more candles to light, and it was quite romantical. too bad it was just me. me and the dog.

we sat on the couch together for a while, looking at each other in the flickering candlelight, and then i got bored. so what did i do? i got up, found even more candles, and went into the other room to get some packing done. hey, i'd been putting off doing it because there were always other things to entertain me - all of which were currently unavailable to me. i managed to get all the DVDs and games packed in boxes before i ran out of steam. doesn't sound like much, but that was about five boxes worth! and then i was hot.

but i'm a pretty resourceful kinda girl when i need to be. i remembered that, per the childbirth class instructor's instructions, i'd picked up one of these handy dandy mini fans at bed bath and beyond. i waddled my sweaty ass into the bedroom, fished it out of the bag, fumbled for some AA batteries, and within seconds i was cooling down nicely. at some point the hub called to check on me (i'd sent him a text to bitch about the blackout), and i called the power company to see if they had any updated information on how long i'd be stuck with nothing to do. of course, there was NOTHING. hmph.

i sat at my desk, surrounded by candles, cooling off via mini fan, and reading a magazine by flashlight till the power finally came back on. SCE decided it would be fun to tease me a bit, so it went out and came back on a few times, but they got bored of that pretty quickly. i tucked myself into bed, set the sleep timer on the tv, and went to sleep a happy camper.

now it's 4:30 and what am i doing? i'm sitting here wide awake, blogging. and why? because the bean decided it would be fun to have a dance party in my belly. i hope she's got better moves than her mom, at least.

hey, this is post #101.

oops. i didn't even notice yesterday that i'd hit the 100-post mark! i mean, this is me, the girl who celebrates monthiversaries, our dating-versary, engagement-versary...i've even been known to wake up the hub with a big smackeroo on the date of our first kiss. yeah. oh, well.

[throwing happy 100-post confetti] yay!

so i was reading my buddy tater's new blog and clicked on her link for vanilla bake shop in santa monica. when the site came up, i literally gasped at the photo on their home page (now remember, i'm a major goober) because i recognized the girl as julie marie berman, who plays lulu spencer on "general hospital". i've been watching GH since the 5th grade, even before luke and laura's wedding. yup, i'm one of *those*. i've even attended the soap opera digest awards ceremony a few times. mm-hmm.

and so, of course i scoured the rest of the site to see if there were any more photos, or to figure out if there was a connection between this new cupcakery and lulu. looks like perhaps the owner is her sister, or a cousin. in any case, it lit a fire under my ass to check out the goods - baked goods, that is.

i went back to altadena country club on saturday to check out the other two rooms that became available for next weekend's baby shower, and gave the coordinator the dumbest blank stare EVER when she asked "do you have a cake?" um, duh! what's a party without CAKE??

one of my favorite local sweet spots, dot's cupcakes, isn't open on sundays, so that's out. sprinkles is simply too far away, and besides, i'm not really feeling the desire to stand in line in the sun for at least 30 minutes to pick them up. but vanilla IS open...and although they're pretty far away from altadena, my friend nanette lives in santa monica! i just dropped her an e-mail and e-begged her for a favor, and she's graciously consented to picking up some "cupcake babies" on her way to the shower. yay!

hmmm. we're going to eat cupcake babies at a baby shower. does that mean we'll be cannibals?

and now i'm thoroughly craving a cupcake. but today's supposed to set records for heat, and i'm just not in the mood to go out anywhere. so i find myself settling for these instead:

and you know what, they aren't bad. not bad at all. i better go get some milk.

baby shower 1.0, the professional version.

first of all, i must say that she who blogs first, doesn't necessarily blog best. i may have scooped you, WeeMo, but your post about yesterday's outing was way better! and, you beat me to posting the group picture from last week's SFAM shower. hmph. i don't care, though - i'm still going to share it, along with a handful of the other pro pics taken that day. here we go:

thanks to lilcee, who recommended her buddy jeff, the photographer! he did a great job of capturing the fun of the shower - um, and a whole lot of funny/weird/silly faces that i decided not to blog. i'd like to KEEP my friends, TYVM.

i have a confession.

i love chain restaurants.

mimi's cafe, marie callender's, macaroni grill, chili's, cheesecake factory, red lobster, IHOP, you name it - i dig it. well, with the exception of olive garden. that place is ass on a stick. and not claim jumper, either. that's just a ginormous plate of bland food. ew.

and why do i bring this up? well, mostly because i'm sitting here killing time before i meet up with the hub's mom, gram, and great-gram for dinner at mimi's. i love mimi's so much, i already know what i'm going to have - petite cobb salad tossed with blue cheese dressing and a buttermilk spice muffin. i'm such a creature of habit, it's ridiculous. sometimes, when i'm feeling crazy, i'll change it up and get a grilled ham stack sandwich (formerly known as the l'express, but maybe folks had too much trouble pronouncing it en français) and some french onion soup. mmmmmmm. [drooling]

this is a shameful confession mainly because it's pretty much the opposite of fine dining, and i know that a lot of my friends would rather go anywhere but a chain restaurant. and for the most part, if i have a choice between trying out some fabulous new place vs. hitting up an old standard, i'll take door #1. i guess it's kind of comforting, though, to walk into one of those joints and just know what i'll be having.

and this comes on the heels of hitting up a new place for lunch today with my friends A and WeezerMonkey. along with lilcee, we spent a relaxing hour (or so) getting our digits and tootsies done at bellacures. it was quite a lovely time - comfy chairs, friendly and competent staff (although i didn't escape unscathed - one of my fingers got nicked and is a little sore), toni braxton on continuous loop, and air conditioning! oh, the air conditioning was so wonderful. it was ridiculously hot (and still is). ick.

lilcee's hub came to pick her up and brought their adorable doggy, teddy. i was really relaxed and too zoned out to grab my camera, but WeezerMonkey did, and i bet if you check her blog, she'll have pictures up in a day or so. teddy had a mohawk! he's such a rock star. now i wish i'd have taken at least one picture. oh, well.

so the remaining three of us decided to feed our parking meters and walk up the street a few blocks to newsroom cafe. of course, by the time we got there, we'd damn near melted into a puddle (or at least, two of us were) and sat down to try and cool off a little. holy hell, it was hot. anyway, none of us had been there before, so we were pleasantly surprised to find that the menu offered quite a large variety of healthy choices. A and i went for the carved turkey breast sandwich on whole-grain bread, while WeezerMonkey chose the tandoori chicken sandwich. and while i'm typically all about eating as much processed food as i can get my grubby hands on, i really enjoyed my choice. i was fairly proud of myself, considering i'd had donuts for breakfast. :X

it was quite a fun afternoon, and we particularly enjoyed eyeballing the other diners in the restaurant, as well as the plethora of wannabes who flocked to kitson and lisa kline, just across the street. the ivy was right across the street as well, impossibly busy and overly impressed with itself. heh.

ah, i love l.a.