life is sweet

so today is my last day in the office. it's a thursday, i'm wearing jeans, i DGAF. heh.

i've been debating whether or not to talk about the new gig here, because i knew that revealing the specifics would make me super easy to find. but then again, i've already done that before - like, anyone could've tracked me down effortlessly with all of my wan-derful women's expo talk. right?

besides, i'm so stoked about the fun environment i'm going to be in now. it's such a big part of what's going on in my life right now, so it's going to be awful hard to keep my yap shut. i started training last week, just a few hours for a couple of days to get myself into the swing of things, meet some of the staff, and get an idea of what i've gotten myself into. and so far, i'm really having a ball.

if you've been reading for a while, you'll have an idea of my love for dot's cupcakes in pasadena. i'd become friendly with the owner way back when she first opened, almost four years ago, because i was such a frequent customer. and then we found out that we have a mutual friend in my buddy lilcee. so when i was bitching and moaning on facebook a while back about being so over my current job, she messaged me, which led to a phone call, and that resulted in a job offer! i was hesitant at first, knowing that it'd be a slight cut in pay, and the anti-social snob in me wasn't sure if i wanted to go into a service-oriented industry and have to talk to people face-to-face. i mean, i haven't worked retail since i was 16 and cashiering at target!

i ran it by the teen, who said "mom, i'd rather have you make a little less money and be happy at your job. besides, i'm kinda tired of hearing you complain about work every day." d-oh! and while i was fully expecting the hub to either shoot the idea down completely or make endless fun of me for even toying with it at all, he instead said "oh, that's cool. you'd be a lot happier there than in that office."

i tweeted vague info about it to get my twirlies' opinions, and they all agreed. so i took it. i still get to keep working part-time weekdays, and eventually, maybe i'll get to help out with corporate and wedding orders. there's also the social media aspect - they have a facebook page and a twitter account, but it's not updated as regularly as it could be. plus, instead of having to deal with figuring out something to wear to work every day, i get to just throw on one of these, with a pair of jeans and tennies:

and i get to be surrounded by delicious morsels and cute packaging like this:

not to mention, dot's has kind of earned itself a bad rep (at least that's what i got from reading 100+ reviews on yelp) for lousy service and clueless/rude employees. as a customer, i personally never experienced any of the things that people complained about, so i'm making it my mission to turn that around and increase our star rating.

the sweet tooth definitely runs in the family. at the american girl place this weekend, the teen picked out this cute little set of "sweet treats" for the bean to share with her dolly. she loves to set up her little table and chairs and have an ice cream party now:

aren't they cute? there's a glass with lemonade and one with a root beer float, plus a banana split and a hot fudge sundae. well, actually, when the bean served it to me, she said "here's your tuesday, mommy." haha!

she digs the little spoons it came with, too. such a ham.

fun stuff!

singing makes the pee come out

this is what we think of the celtics:

tee hee! mind you, i've gotta hand it to 'em for last night's game - it sure ain't fun to lose a big game when you're playing in front of your hometown crowd. doesn't mean i'm not stoked about the laker win, though - and GO D-FISH!

the bean has been doing really well with the potty training. we still have a few oopsies here and there, but she's getting the hang of it. she likes to have me hang out in there with her while she makes herself comfy on the pot, and often she serenades me with her repertoire of musical ditties. like this:



there's also her educational series:



sometimes, she's just silly.



and a classic.



every day is someone's birthday to her.



i just like how she says "little lamb."



this concludes our video presentations for the day. heh.

on another note, i'm super duper excited that we've decided to embark on a fun road trip for our big summer vacay! for obvious reasons, we skipped travel for the most part of last year, and this year we're making up for it with a two-week long east coast extravaganza. we're flying into boston, heading up to maine and rhode island (because we'll be there, and we can), and then making our way down the coast, eventually flying home from fort lauderdale. we'll stop in NYC, D.C., philly, hilton head, disney world, and whatever happens to strike our fancy along the way. we're not going to book hotels ahead of time (aside from the first night, when we land close to midnight EST), we're going to be all spontaneous and stuff and just wing it. if we find a place we like, we'll stay there.

if you don't love road trips, this probably sounds pretty damn miserable to you. but we've been talking about doing something like this for YEARS. i'm giddy at the fact that we're finally going to do it!

got any suggestions for fun stuff to do/places to visit/yummy grub? i'd love to hear 'em.

expo-sing ourselves

so the very first wan-derful women's expo was this weekend. i'd done my typical wan thing and procrastinated like mad, and didn't do as much in the way of marketing as i'd planned to. oops.

but between me and the rest of the vendors who'd signed up to exhibit, we covered a lot of ground in online marketing. there were lots of tweets and facebook status updates snd e-mails, and even an inclusion in a weekly e-newsletter the week of the event. one of the vendors went out on friday afternoon and passed flyers out in monrovia, where our venue was located.

i even got my friend lilcee to create an awesome hand-painted banner for me, like the one she'd done for her baby girl's birthday party a couple of weeks ago. she was even going to deliver it to me! she's such a rock star.

after taking the bean to gymnastics, heading home and packing everything up into the hub's tahoe, the teen and i arrived just after 11.

a good handful of the vendors had already arrived, and as i headed into the patio area - the first thing walk-in customers see when they enter the restaurant - i noticed that there was a serious shortage in tables set out for us. i went in to ask the manager to set us up with a few more tables, and let's just say that she was, uh, less than accommodating. "we have other parties going on today," she said. when i asked if there was one right after us, she waffled. "well, not until 7. but i didn't know this was going on," she said. WTF. and then, she wanted to know where they were supposed to serve lunch. because, as she so politely (not) put it, they're a restaurant, and the tables are used for food. ugh. i wanted to kick her in the side of the head.

meanwhile, the teen got a head start on some set-up for me. since i'd upgraded my computer, my photoshop wasn't working - like, it wouldn't even open. blech. i'd planned on creating a large-format copy of our flyer so that we could prop it up on an easel at the entrance, but i had to nix that idea and settle for just printing the logo and using some balloons to pretty it up.

the rest of our vendors (18 total!) were busy worker bees, getting ready and setting up their stations.

we had custom diaper bags and burp cloths, courtesy of danielle elizabeth.

custom cupcake stands by pedestals.

my old high school buddy, momreen, was my tupperware rep.

my partner in crime, kelley, repped beachbody fitness products and had roped in a co-worker to bring avon.

my buddy tater had forwarded the WWE info to an old friend of hers who does cute custom onesies. i meant to scoop up a couple of them during the event, but got so busy that i forgot. whoops. good thing she has an etsy store.

my esthetician friend, who planted the seed of WWE in my head to begin with, forwarded the info to her mom. she came to sell her handmade wine and gift tags.

so you know i'm always on the nest's message boards. well, that all stemmed from my addiction to the knot, back in the day while we were wedding planning. anyway, there were a handful of girls on my local board who i'd gotten friendly with but had never met. i knew one of them, deezgirl, had an etsy shop where she sold her handmade little girls' hair accessories. so i hit her up, and she not only brought her wares but a friend who makes aprons and tote bags, too. it was nice to meet her at last.

pampered chef came in and was gracious about squeezing her stuff onto half of a table.

my buddy MommyBelle came to sell some of her custom notecards and brought her ex-boss to showcase their "eye catchers" - they're necklaces with a little hoop for holding your glasses.

and of course, my own stella & dot stuff. didn't lilcee do a fabulous job on the banner? i love it.

i'd thrown a stampin' up party at our old house years ago. the rep was a neighbor who had built an addition to her home for the purpose of parties and rubber stamping workshops, and i thought she'd make a great addition to our little gathering. she brought a bunch of really cool stuff, including a machine for die-cutting all sorts of things from paper to fabric, that i had to hold myself back from scooping up.

this vendor was another cousin of deezgirl's - she handcrafts and redesigns vintage purses. i knew the teen would love this, and hoped that others would too. i ended up buying that little black number in the bottom left corner for her, sort of a thank-you for all of her help that day.

lastly, a friend of kelley's came to sell her super cute women's apparel. i thought i'd gotten a shot of the goods, but i guess i didn't. i was so distracted that afternoon, geez. anyway, she seemed to do fairly well. she ended up taking the table i'd reserved for our passion party/scentsy candle gal, who was a no-show for the day.

the teen took advantage of our close proximity to some OG video games at some point in the day.

and right at 4, after we'd paid the bill for our lunches, everyone packed up and got the eff outta there. it was slightly less successful than i'd hoped for, and whew - it was HOT in there. a few ceiling fans on what turned out to be the hottest day of the week didn't do much to cool us off. i was a super sweaty monkey that day, yuck. the aftermath:

and since we'd forgotten to get a shot of us at the expo, the teen and i settled for one on the way home.

although we hadn't sold as much stuff as we'd hoped to, we're still planning to forge ahead with WWE2. we may end up in pasadena this time, unless we come across some other fantastic venue ideas. i figure it's probably good to switch it up as often as possible, giving us exposure in different local communities. and hopefully we can find a place with more foot traffic, too.

stay tuned for updates. you know you're dying to hear all about it.

hairography

so we tried to take the bean for a haircut a couple of weeks ago, but it ended in disaster. she'd just woken up from a nap and absolutely refused to sit down on one of the fun animals at the specialty kids' cut place we've taken her to before.

not to mention, there's an episode of "the upside-down show" (which she loves) called "barbershop," and for some reason, she's terrified of it. so you mention "haircut" and she's already shaking her head and walking away from you.

but today, i'd timed it well - she's at her best pre-noon - and i MIGHT have bribed enticed her with the promise of a lollipop. um, and maybe some ice cream, too. so when we arrived here:

she was feeling pretty saucy and ready to go. the before (you'll note that head-tilt in quite a few more pictures, i don't know where she gets it):

she decided to turn the tables on her mommy like her sister had done before:

i'd also promised her that she could sit in my lap while her hairs were getting cut. the stylist was really nice, remembered us from the meltdown the week before, and was more than happy to drape a cape around both of us as she got to work. a basket full of toys to play with helped distract her, too, and in no time we got up to find this on the floor:

she happily posed for me (blogger is being a pain, i don't know what's up with this freaky formatting):

and picked up her camera again.

gave me her fabulous frown:

collected her rewards:

and then played for a while with the zillion toys in the waiting area.

she liked this vacuum then and now.

i was pleased at the successful trip, and the hub and the teen both loved the new cut. yay!

later, for dinner, i decided to test out a different recipe for homemade flour tortillas. the ingredients were pretty similar, but the process was a little different - allowing the dough to "rest" a couple of times before cooking. this was obviously the key, as i ended up with much less sticky stuff to work with this time.

and it was much easier to roll out, too. still not perfect circles, but i like to think that the imperfection of homemade goodies adds to its charm. heh.

this recipe's definitely a keeper.