Random Stuff That Makes Me Happy

Way to go, Antwerp.

Crap, tagged again...

As a rule, I'm not a fan of tags. But I'm a lazy blogger and I can't ignore my sweet little Meghan, so here goes:

MOUTHOLOGY
Q: What is your salad dressing of choice?
A: Poppy seed
Q: What is your favorite fast food restaurant?
A: Ew
Q: What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
A: The Cheesecake Factory
Q: On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant?
A: 20%
Q: What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of?
A: Potatoes
Q: What are your pizza toppings of choice?
A: Pepperoni
Q: What do you like to put on your toast?
A: Butter, or peanut butter and my home made apple butter.


TECHNOLOGY
Q: What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A: The tropical island in the middle of the ocean.
Q: How many televisions are in your house?
A: Three


BIOLOGY
Q: Are you right-handed or left-handed?
A: Right
Q: Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A: 3 babies, one who didn't make it, and a pyogenic granuloma.
Q: When was the last time you had a cavity?
A: I refuse to answer on the grounds that I will not jinx this.
Q: What is the last heavy item you lifted?
A: Ethan.
Q: Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
A: Other than by the smell of Brady's diapers, no, but I've fainted a couple of times.


BULL[CRAP]OLOGY
Q: If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
A: No, but a general range would help me obsess even more.
Q: If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
A: OK Mommy.
Q: What color do you think looks best on you?
A: Pink or red.
Q: Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake?
A: Probably but I'd rather not think about it.
Q: Have you ever saved someones life?
A: You mean not counting the three I carried around in my body and gave birth to?
Q: Has someone ever saved yours?
A: No


DAREOLOGY
Q: Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
A: Quick kiss on the lips...sure
Q: Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
A: No
Q: Would you never blog again for $50,000?
A: Where's my check?
Q: Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
A: No. And anyone who'd pay to see me naked would be one sick puppy.
Q: Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1,000?
A. How hot?
Q: Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
A: Do I get to pick which human?

DUMBOLOGY
Q: What is in your left pocket?
A: Lint.
Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
A: There are worse.
Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
A: Hardwood downstairs, carpet upstairs. Thanks, flood.
Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
A: stand
Q: Would you live with roommates?
A: Only if his name was George Clooney.
Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
A: Several. But I wouldn't mind some new ones.
Q: Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
A: When the helicopter was circling overhead as my crazy-as-a-fucking-loon neighbor was taking a leak in my bathroom and hiding from her husband. Still wondering why I couldn't wait to move?



LASTOLOGY
Q: Last Friend you talked to?
A: Julie
Q: Last person who called you?
A: Kim
Q: Last person you hugged?
A: Julia
Q: Last person to stick their foot in your face?
A: Brady



CURRENTOLOGY
Q: Missing someone?
A: Yes
Q: Mood?
A: Sleepy and annoyed at today's UCLA basketball game.
Q: Listening to?
A: Steve Tyrell.
Q: Watching?
A: Nothing
Q: Worrying about?
A: Nothing much. It's a miracle.



RANDOMOLOGY
Q: First place you went this morning?
A: To my mom's to drop off the kids.
Q: What can you not wait to do?
A: Go to bed
Q: What's the last movie you saw in theater?
A: Can't remember. Pathetic.
Q: Do you smile often?
A: Absolutely
Q: Are you a friendly person?
A: Yes

And now, I must spread the love by tagging:

Nik
Beth
Kim
Jodi

Have fun ladies!

Rock On

You know what's awesome when you feel like something the cat threw up? Being told that you rock. And that is exactly what has happened to me.

It turns out that I am a Rockin' Girl Blogger! I never would have thought! My buddy Meghan, who is quite rockin' in her own right, has tagged me. I'd like to thank all the little people, particularly the three who provide me with so much blog fodder. As stated in the rules, I must now tag 5 others. Of course, I can't narrow it down to just 5 so I'm throwing in a bonus at no extra charge:

1. Of course, my curly little Tannazie of All Kinds of Yum. Even if you don't appreciate her meandering posts about the most arcane food news and information, you'll love her photos, including the occasional very cute child model or two, and her blog is sure to leave you hungry and itching to visit her cute neighborhood in L.A. Stay tuned for her big blog remodel. It is gonna look great. Now we just have to bring her over to the dark side and get her scrapping.
   
2. The lovely Rambling Tara herself of Tara's Ramblings. This girl is a military wife, has 5 adorable kids whom she homeschools!, and still manages to crank out gorgeous detailed scrapbook pages. Amazing!
   
3. Tara Whitney, who I'm sure doesn't read my piddly blog but is still rockin' nevertheless. She is a mom of 4, a photographer whose family pictures have been made to make even bitchy me teary, and a really awesome scrapbooker whose emotions for her kids come through in all of her pages and photography.
   
4. My darling Just Nicole of Nik's Notations. Truth be told, Just Nicole hasn't posted in a while but she just turned 30, started a new job and is traveling this weekend so we'll cut her some slack. Her blog treats us to a slice of her life in Australia and when we're lucky we get pictures of beautiful scenery, her lovely lovely scrapbooking and awesome Indi, her precocious and foul-mouthed daughter. Hmm...wonder where she gets that from.
   
5. Speaking of daughters, mine is certainly rockin' at All About Me. Certainly, she would post more often if she wasn't so busy feeding her Webkinz or devoid of computer privileges for the infraction of the day.
   
6. Finally, sweet Lissa of Life's Reflections. She has such a lovely way with words that even when her posts don't include cute pictures of Dalton or her gorgeous scrapbook pages, her blog is a treat to read.
   

There are several other blogs I read daily who are definitely written by rockin' girls (Kim, Jax, Beth, Teri-Lynn, and others). However, I believe those have already been granted official rockin' status. Hope you enjoy the ones I mentioned here. Tell them I sent you and thanks again Meghan!

Signs That It's Going To Be The Best Summer Ever

Thank God it's summer at last and The Best Summer Ever at that. Well, the Best Summer Ever since last summer, and definitely The Best Summer Ever until next summer. It's already looking to be a great one:

• 2 days of summer vacation so far and 2 play dates already. Both involved ice cream. Excellent.
• This summer there is an actual pool in my backyard...something I haven't had for almost 20 years. And it's finally hot enough that the water temperature is starting to inch up a few degrees. No more schlepping to other people's pools. No more listening to "Moooooooom, why can't we have a pool too?" Woo Hoo!!
• Last year's infant is this year's Toddler-Who-Sleeps-Through-The-Night.
• A new house that we're no longer embarrassed to have people visit. Welcome Friends and Family.
• Shave It. Heaven on a spoon. If I could afford it, I'd have the Shave It Van parked permanently in my driveway. Since I can't, I'll have to drive like the rest of the riff-raff.
• Two kids in school means more friends than ever. And they all want to hang out with us. Hooray!
• Preschool starts in July. As much as I love him, I also love that my little bundle of energy (and noise) has someplace to be 3 mornings a week.
• Our babysitter, who we love, has agreed to come over one morning a week. Mom's sanity, which is in short supply, will benefit greatly. She's looking to work a lot. Hopefully this means a couple of movie dates too!
• My friend around the corner wants to scrapbook as much as I do. I love a good enabler.
  
• The credit cards haven't been rejected yet. Keep the fun coming!
  

Birthday Party Saturday

Ah, picture a beautiful spring Saturday at the local neighborhood park. The sun is shining, there is a mild breeze blowing, and the air is filled with the sound of children laughing and playing. A little pizza, a little cake, what could be better?

But this is LA, or at least the LA suburbs, so you know it doesn't end right there, right? That would be boring.

For one thing, it really is a picture perfect day and there are not just one, but two birthday parties going on simultaneously. Two piles of presents, twice as many kids running around and twice the number of Israeli party guests. To entertain all the little cherubs, we have not just Tinkerbell and Peter Pan (and their teeny tiny little dogs which they stopped every so often to hug and kiss) but also Superman, whose pinata likeness ended up being sadly decapitated later in the day.

Our particular birthday girl was adopted from China by her American/Israeli family and, in addition to her school friends, there are a lot of other Chinese girls running around in their princess makeup. While the girls decorate angel wings, the boys create pirate hats. My boy, scary swashbuckler that he is, decided to go all out and put all kinds of sparkly glitter and jewels on his hat. As the kids work on their crafts, they are serenaded by a random guest who sings operatic Princess movie songs a Capella. I am not making this up.

Because this is LA and you can't go out and get your morning paper without tripping over a celebrity, we notice that one of the moms at the party is an actress & director, most recently from ER. Much whispering and pointing ensues as we pretend that we are all so cool and not at all star struck.

Finally, as if all this weren't enough, a guest at the other party provides this:

even without the front view, which would showcase her Cleopatra pony tail which is not quite the same color as the rest of her hair, she has inspired me to start my own civilian version of GoFugYourself, which I would do if I was one iota as good of a writer as the Fug girls and had given up all hope of ever getting into heaven and also didn't mind getting sued.

Where else can you get all this, and birthday cake too? I love L.A.

A Toad Among the Fairy Princesses

My friend Kim is not only a great scrapper with a keen eye for decorating - I mean, she has a red front door; how cool is that? - but she has a really cool new blog that's taking off big time. Today'sCreativeBlog is a blog blog in that each day Kim showcases another creative blog of some sort. So far she's touched upon decorating, scrapbooking and photography. Who knows what she'll find next? Each of the blogs she features are inspirational, with lots of photos and plenty of eye candy and ideas.

So far I see two major problems with this. First, checking out all her cool posts is going to seriously cut into my computer time for things like ordering groceries. Second, it's starting to give me a complex about my own scrapping and decorating (ha ha, as if) not to mention this pitiful little blog. I feel like all these other talented ladies are fairy princesses and I'm a big brown bumpy toad.

Seeing as that kind of pressure will only lead to anxiety, and I don't need any of that right now - oy, that's a whole other post - I'll just focus on how cool Kim and her blogs are and encourage you to check them out. I, for one, am definitely stockpiling inspiration for when I'm out of boxes and unpacking mode and decorating and scrapping for real.

On a side note, this marks my 100th post here. Thanks to those of you who have come by and read and commented, or just lurked. Hope it's been worth the click.

Cure Autism Now

My cool cousin Sam is taking part in the Los Angeles Cure Autism Now walk tomorrow. God forbid I should actually walk myself. But I want to do more to support Sam than just make a donation on his web page (which I did). So I am entreating my generous and benevolent readers to join me in contributing to this great cause. Autism is on the rise and it remains pretty much a mystery. Imagine sitting in a doctor's office, being told that your child has autism. Now imagine if a cure could be found for this confounding condition. If you haven't blown your charity budget on American Idol, consider clicking here and donating to Cure Autism Now.

Happy New Year!

The New Year has been rung in and we have almost managed to get the confetti out of all the crevices it found its way into. We celebrated with the two families who have recently moved into our cul-de-sac and the goodwill, cheer and pomegranate martinis were flowing freely. No matter how many years pass, I will never forget New Year's Eve two years ago. It was a night of great celebration because Julia was finally moved from her PICU room in the hospital to the regular peds floor. We tried to make it as festive as possible, but the picture of her wearing her pink feather New Year crown and oxygen tubes in her nose will always haunt me. What a blessing to watch her running around this New Year: healthy, strong and NOISY, there is thankfully nothing wrong with her lungs now.

So far, 2007 feels a whole lot like 2006. Kids running around, neglected laundry, and a baby crying himself to sleep(hopefully). Still, it's hard not to have a good feeling about the new year. Hopefully this will be the year that our family will find its new home, preferably without a divorce being the result of house-finding stress. This is also the year that Ray officially starts his new title at work and resumes the godawful commute. May they both be painless and profitable. Since I found out years ago that I pretty much suck at keeping New Year's resolutions, I'm keeping it simple this year by striving to do the following:

• Be healthier (which includes cook more and sleep more)
  
• Scrap more
• Be a more fun mom and wife

That's it: easy peasy lemon squeezy! With that out of the way, and a little more blogging space to fill, I thought I'd do my part to make the world a better place and help some others who desperately need some resolutions:

Britney Spears: one word: Underwear.
Hillary Clinton: to please spare the American people the blood and gore of any Presidential campaign which includes her and just not run.
George W.: Find a clue, and fast!
Rosie O'Donnell: Shut up.
Barbara Walters: Fire Rosie.
Southern California Homeowners: Sell your homes. The time is now. Preferably to me. Preferably dirt cheap.
The Iranian People: Figure out a way to get rid of your laughingstock baboon of a President before America or Israel does it for you. Really, do we want George Bush taking this on too?
Tannaz: Enjoy the hell out of your new unemployed status and put your new found daily freedom to good use by coming over to hang out with my kids as often as possible. Getting a few articles or a book published would also be good.
Tom Cruise: see Rosie O'Donnell

Everyone Else: Be good to yourselves and each other. This world is a tough enough place without all the senseless crap that people do to each other. If given the chance to complain about something or actually do something about it, choose the latter. Smile more. Hug your kids, especially when you don't feel like it. Have a great year!

For Kyle

I know I said I wouldn't be around much, but this is too important not to pass along.

All of us who are parents have the chance this mom wishes she had: to save her baby from a deadly car accident and still have him in her arms. Get your kids in a car seat with a 5-point harness, make sure they're buckled in safely, and make sure it's tethered to your car.

It's Fall!

Once upon a time, I used to subscribe to Martha Stewart's magazine and do things like take cake decorating classes and attend cooking lessons taught by actual chefs in actual restaurant kitchens. Restaurants that did not serve chicken tenders and fries, even. I had a cute and quirky little house, with a kitchen I would give my right pinkie finger to have again, and I had a lot of fun decorating it in my own amateur way. Those days are gone. I now live in a crappy little house, and most decorating attempts are quickly nullified by Ethan The Tornado (more like a dust storm, but you get the picture). Still, I always try to put a few pretty things out when it starts feeling like fall. Today was the day.



To top it off, Mr. Tornado and I spent the morning making candy corn cookies for his preschool's Halloween party tomorrow. We had a great time, he couldn't have been cuter, and it helped with my constant guilt about him not getting enough of my attention since he became The Middle Child. The recipe is out of the October issue of Parent's magazine.


So, even though it's supposed to be 90 degrees tomorrow, at our house, it will officially be fall.

Forgiveness

Although I'm not the most observant Jew these days, there's a lot I love about being Jewish. Apart from the joy that accompanies every celebration, the great food (NOT gefilte fish, but the really good stuff), the tradition, the community, all of it, it's just a religion that makes sense to me. Growing up in a traditional Jewish family, I had a pretty extensive Jewish education. And although Hebrew school is as much social as it is educational, if not more so, a lot of what they taught seemed to stick. Add to that my own experience with a pretty observant extended family, and exposure to both Orthodox and Reform Judaism, as well as the Conservative temple that I grew up in, and I know enough about this complex religion to know that it works for me.

Case in point is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the year. Today. Yom Kippur falls 10 days after the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, and is a day where we ask God to forgive us for the sins we have committed against Him, and to inscribe us and our loved ones in the book of life for the coming year. Although it involves a 25 hour fast (there are many exemptions to this for those who are pregnant, elderly, nursing and/or infirm) and almost as many hours in a synagogue, it's a good way to start the year. You make your peace with God, the slate is wiped clean, and the new year is yours to do with as you like. Judaism is a religion of freedom and choices, and you alone can direct the course of the coming year.

Here's the clincher about Yom Kippur, and the part that makes it seem so logical to me. While you can pray and fast and earn God's forgiveness, that forgiveness only goes as far as the sins that you've committed against Him. So if you've sinned against another person, you're to use the 10 days before Yom Kippur to find that person, be accountable, and make amends, in the hopes that he or she will forgive you. Only he or she has that power. That's right, even God almighty is powerless to intervene if you've wronged another person. And each person holds a power that God cannot possess: that of forgiving one who's transgressed against him or her. But as you think it through, you realize that if God can forgive us the sins that we commit, knowingly or unknowingly every day, shouldn't we also forgive those who come to us with sincere contrition, bothered by the fact that they may have hurt us, and ask for another chance? Doesn't that act bring us just a little closer to God?

Believe it or not, I hate discussing religion. I think it's so personal, so private, that I hate to talk about it with most people. I hate explaining it, or feeling like I have to defend it. There are parts that I'm not even sure of my own views about, and parts that I feel guilty about, and much I struggle with. In addition, unlike most religions, Jews are discouraged, if not outright forbidden, to proselytize. But observing Yom Kippur is one of the things I love about being Jewish. My observance of this holiday as an adult is a bit different from how my parents observed it as we grew up, and I'm sure it will evolve as my own kids get older. But I don't think contrition and forgiveness are strictly Jewish issues. In fact, if I've offended anyone by anything I've written in this blog, I sincerely apologize.

To all who are fasting, I hope it goes quickly and easily. And may we all be inscribed in the book of life for the year to come.