Saturday, February 28, 2009

daughter is beautiful

Daughter and I went out to buy husband/daddy some birthday cards on Thursday. For some reason the card store was way too hot and after a few minutes daughter had had enough of it. I took off her hat and then her socks.. she seemed amused by that and quieted down.. even smiled.

When we got to the back of the store, one of the women working came up to us and told me how beautiful daughter was. I already know this of course, but I said "thank you". She went on and on about how beautiful she was ("the cutest baby to come into the store"), how round her face was, commented on her cheeks and asked what she was "hiding in there", etc. It was nice to hear. Daughter smiled widely and sucked on her fingers.

Circuit City is going out of business. I went to one of their stores today- a woman there also wanted to tell me how beautiful daughter was- several times. Not only that, but she also told me I looked good (after she asked how old daughter was). Then we briefly commented on the lack of sleep one gets during constant baby feedings.

Friday, February 27, 2009

tokidoki and the moofia

I discovered the Tokidoki blog today. I don't know, I have probably discovered it before but just forgotten about it. I came across it while on the search for the Moofia. I've looked at them for a few years, but still have yet to purchase any. They are $7 directly from tokidoki, but there is a store locally that sells them for $6.99.. so I could save a penny AND not pay for shipping.

I also found on their blog that there is a tokidoki capsule store opening in New York City on March 7th. This was somewhat exciting to me as I seem to find myself in that city about once a year now.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

I went to passive-aggressive notes online after coming across the book version on amazon while I was ordering a ridiculous book for my husband's birthday. Not that I wanted to buy him a ridiculous book.. he thinks lolcats are funny and I do not.

Anyway.. passiveaggressivenotes.com is actually really funny. I love this kind of thing.. reminds me of Found. Except maybe Passive Aggressive notes is better because it's all just notes. Funny weird notes.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

i am eating lunch

For lunch today I am eating the Mediterranean Pasta from Healthy Choice's All Natural Entrees line. It is my favorite so far from their new and updated meals- it's really good (I add just a little salt to it). Orzo, rice, beans, apples, cranberries, spinach, onion, tomato, cheese- yum.

The first one I tried was one my husband bought and cooked for me. It had something to do with portobello mushrooms. It was good, but when I went to buy another one, I dared to read the ingredients- I was really disappointed to find that it had chicken fat in it. Gross- that was the end of that.

I've tried the pumpkin squash ravioli (just like Grace did), but I found it a bit bland and I actually really dislike asparagus. The tomato basil(?) pasta was good, but the potstickers meal was a little too spicy for me.

So the moral of this blog story is that I recommend the Mediterranean Pasta meal and if you aren't a vegetarian then the Portobello meals are pretty good too.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

for those that say honesty doesn't pay..

Sometime around Christmas I received an e-gift certificate addressed to someone I was not from someone I did not know. There was no email from the purchaser included and I wasn't sure what to do. 

I had a few options. One, I could just ignore it- but someone did spend $50 (I think it was $50) to buy it and it would therefore be wasted. Two, I could use it myself (so the money would not be wasted) although that felt pretty dishonest (for obvious reasons). Three, it was a shot in the dark but I thought maybe the retailer would be able to refund the person's money due to the error.

I went with option three and contacted the retailer via email. Customer service responded a few days later asking for the certificate, which I then supplied them with.

About a week later, I was contacted again with an update from the retailer.. they were working on tracking down the original purchaser to work out a refund. Well that's good I thought.. and figured that was the end of it.

Over a month later, I received this email..

"We have contacted the customer who had purchased this item and let them know to contact us and we could forward them or the recipient the gift e-mail at an alternate address. Thank you again for bringing this to our attention. We value your honesty and have included a code for $25 for an online purchase below. The code is case sensitive and is not valid for tax or shipping costs. Thank you again for your assistance in this matter."

See that? My honesty was valued!

Monday, February 23, 2009

how to make an impression at Target

I don't really get out of the house as much as I would like to with my daughter- it is the middle of winter and she is 4 months old. Sometimes we go to Target and walk around. It's a nice big store, they usually have interesting stuff, and some of them have a yummy Starbucks inside them!

On Friday, daughter and I went to a Target. Mainly we went for more drop-ins for her bottles, but the added bonus Starbucks coffee certainly helped get us (I mean me) there.

Daughter was fine for the getting of the coffee, but as soon as we started to on our way into the real part of the store, the screaming started (not me, daughter). 

At first it was sort of "cute" while I looked for a sweatshirt for her as she bit on one of her toys. But it started to get a little less "cute" when we entered the toy section. A few Yo Gabba Gabba toys got a smile out of her as we played around with them for 10 minutes in the way of all sorts of other customers, but as soon as we walked away the screams started back up.

It didn't take me long to figure out that shaking the Brobee (YGG character) one I was carrying with me and having it play its music quieted daughter down for the duration of the sound. But then I started to think how silly I must look shaking the weird looking furry green striped toy at my baby. And of course playing it and playing it and playing it was sort of difficult to do while trying to push a stroller. 

I tried to keep sticking the pacifier in her mouth, but she didn't want it and it would just fall back out again- this was also difficult to do while trying to push a stroller. 

At this point I gave up on shopping. With screaming daughter I just wanted to buy the stupid bottle dropins, the sweatshirt I kept dropping, the weird looking furry green striped toy, and the smaller blue cat dragon YGG toy that daughter was getting (but was really kind of for me).

I kept hearing "blah blah baby blah blah" the more she screamed and the more people I walked by. A few people that passed me actually turned around to look at her, to see what horrible thing I had done to my child to make her scream like a maniac banshee- I wanted to hide. Why was the front of the store and those lovely registers so very far away?! Was I actually running through the store to get to them? 

I had to shut out  every person in the store because daughter just would not stop her screaming/crying. Stopping every other step to try to jam the pacifier back in her mouth was just making the journey to the registers take even longer. Shaking and making the toy play it's music was just drawing more attention to us- was that even possible?

Of course almost as soon as we got into line, she stopped all noise making.. and fell asleep. Daughter wins again.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

how to promote your band

You can promote your band by having Apple showcase your song (Shut Up And Let Me Go). Or you can play a song on Yo Gabba Gabba (Happy Birthday).

I heard The Ting Tings on the Apple commercial awhile ago and I thought about buying the song, but I decided I didn't like it that much. Then while watching an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba with my daughter a few days ago, a kind of catchy rendition of "Happy Birthday" came on. Who was singing this? The Ting Tings. And that's why I ended up buying "We Started Nothing" on Friday, even though that song isn't even on the cd. (But it IS on itunes, so I plan to get that one as well.)

"That's Not My Name" is the song I'm liking the best on the cd so far, but I actually didn't get to listen to the entire thing yet. I bought it at Best Buy and only listened to it as far as it took me to drive home. 

I would have bought this cd at Newbury Comics since they are sort of my local independent music store, but when I checked the prices online, Best Buy won out by two dollars.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

it's not me, it's you

I bought Lily Allen's new cd (It's Not Me, It's You) the day it came out- February 10.

I listened to it over and over- which is what I did when I bought her first cd. At first, I thought it was okay and it grew on me little by little the more times I listened to it. (When I bought Alright, Still I loved it almost instantly.) The first cd is still my favorite.

My favorite songs so far are probably "Fuck You" (how can you not love a song with lyrics like "fuck you. fuck you very much.")and "The Fear".

Not that I know her personally, but from what I take away from her music, how I've seen her perform on tv, and a couple of things I've read about her.. I think Lily Allen is charming.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Ugg

I am now the proud owner of a pair of Uggs. My first pair- black Knightsbridge. They are nice.. and warm.. but not usually overly warm. At the moment I don't regret having them.

However, I am a vegetarian. For health or for the animals? For the animals. Then why do I own boots made out of animals if I do not want to eat them? The short answer is.. it's complicated. The long answer has to do with having mixed feelings about meat eating. 

Do I think in a perfect world that animals shouldn't be eaten? No, not really I guess. I understand there can be benefits to animal consumption. But, I'm very, very against the conditions that I think most meat raised animals live in. Against how they have to live, how they are killed, the disrespect they go through (does that sound weird?), and on and on and on. And of course at this point in my vegetarianism, I can't really imagine eating a dead thing that used to have thoughts, feelings, fears, and happiness. When I see chopped up dead animal carcasses hanging out on shelves at the grocery store I find it almost gory- like it may as well be chopped up people.