a christmas miracle.

i found an outfit for tuesday. not just any outfit, but THE perfect outfit....not without help from my dear friend nancy....(what is tuesday??? you're dying to know. all 3 of you. more on that later...hint? WINNING again. it's getting old. i know)....

apologies to my girls for the de-ja-vu....yes, this is exactly what i posted on our board, but it sums it up perfectly and....without further ado...(adue?)

 i went to the mall with such low hopes today. in fact, i went to DSW first even though i didn't need shoes just to procrastinate...i was there for an HOUR. i did get some really cute sandals though....

so now i have this vision in my head of a flowy, chiffon, flowered maxi dress in shades of ivory, brown, peach, pink, yellow and green with the denim jacket and my new shoes....


well. you HAVE to know that that outfit doesn't exist in reality.


i'm a stupid shopper. the way i shop (because i am afraid of facing reality, i think) is that even if i find something really great at the first store, i won't even try it on. i will just make a mental note of it and keep looking for the PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT THING (that doesn't exist....or does it?) so i go to EVERY store in the GD mall, getting increasingly deflated and stressed the fuck out, buying things for ben and crying on the inside....after i have been at the mall for 3 hours, i will just finally give up and head back to the car, hanging my head and ready to eat arsenic....


today was pretty much like that except on my way back to the car, i glanced back at banana republic ( i never go in there because it is too expensive but i made myself go in today on the first round because i had to look at EVERY store just in case) and the little voice said "what about that black dress you saw when you first got here?" and i thought "*sigh* it is going to SUCK, they will only have size XSP" but i went in anyway.....found an XL, dragged it off the rack and walked to the dressing room trying not to make eye contact with all the people staring at me and thinking " that dress is going to look awful on her" (this really goes on in my head)....


LO AND BE-FREAKIN HOLD....first of all, the dress was PERFECT but better yet, the XL was too big!!!!!!!!!!! *faint*. i got re-dressed, smiling like a fool and practically skipped back to the rack...i found a L (miracle!) and skipped back to the dressing rooms. perfect. perfectperfectperfect! AND, original price = $130 marked down to $89, on sale for 40% off that price!!!!!!!!!

what the hell?

here it is! it is the SOFTEST cotton jersey and you can't really see int he pic, but the top has an unfinished chiffon edge. it is SO flattering and it feels like pijamas. i want to pinch myself!

i tried on a jacket at AE and i think it was too cropped. i need about 3 more inches on the length (that's juniors sizing). it was a GOOD jacket, but it hit right at my real waist and that's a bad place to hit with hips like mine so i am back to the drawing board for a denim jacket....i also need a statement necklace and to decide what bag to bring but.....uh...my dress? is KILLER.

you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(omg WHAT is happening tuesday? my fandom is coming unglued, i know....hint #2? this loud morning ....it's a BIG day y'all....and i'ma be a part of it!!!)

i have lost control of my child.

not that i ever really had control, but at least i had the allusion of it….now even that is totally out the window.

i need some serious help. ben was sleeping great, having his last bottle of the day at around 7:30 as part of his bedtime routine, then he’d go down and sleep through till around 1:00-1:30 or so and cry for food, so he’d get a bottle then and sleep like a rock till we woke him up at 6:30 to feed him and get him ready to go to grandma’s or daycare, depending on the day….well…something happened. the last three nights?

anarchy.

hot holy mess.

nothing has changed as far as his bedtime routine…it’s pijamas, fresh dipe and bottle as usual, only now he is waking up at 11:30 (right about exactly when i get good and asleep of course) and coming totally unglued. before you suggest i try and soothe him without feeding him, please trust that i have tried this. ad nauseum. the bottle is the only way out, so he gets fed, and he goes right back to sleep after talking for about 10 minutes.….which is great…until 4:30 when he wakes up again, going ape shit, totally inconsolable until he gets a bottle.

four thirty in the morning.

THIS IS COMPLETELY UNREASONABLE TIME TO WAKE UP FOR EVERY POSSIBLE REASON. feeding him at 4:30 means not feeding him again until he gets to grandma’s or daycare at 8:00, which should be fine except today it sure wasn’t cuz he lost his mind again on the expressway and i had to give him a bottle WHILE I WAS DRIVING.

go ahead. call CPS. i’ll wait.

oh. and in case you think he goes right back to sleep after he has his 4:30 nosh, you're wrong. he thinks this is an excellent time to start the day and he lays there on his back, holding on to his feet, rolling around and jabbering until 6am, when the alarm goes off and i have to get up.

then he proceeds to fall into a deep sleep while i am in the shower.

this set-up is a total clusterf*ck, obv.

so basically, my 6 month old, 22 pound bruiser is a) still not sleeping through the night and b) not only is he not sleeping through the night, he’s also back to taking a bottle every 3 hours. he might as well be 4 weeks old. this is so totally not cool. i don’t care if he wakes up once, i really don’t. it’s a small price to pay and i know he will sleep through the night before he goes off to college, so there’s a light, however dim, at the end of the tunnel but this waking up twice has to stop and wanting a bottle at 4:30 is an actual emergency situation that needs to be corrected like yesterday. how do i do this??? i’m afraid to up his bottles during the day to 8 ounces for fear that he will STILL want 7 bottles a day and uh…with his two big jars of fruit & veggies and his cereal, i’m sorry, i know the pediatrician says if he’s hungry, feed him, but i’m not doing that to my baby. it’s too much.

if anybody actually reads this thing, can you please help me? or else come and take the kid for a night so i can get some rest. i am about to jump out the window.

happy first day of summer!!!!

it's finally here....

fireflies and grilled corn on the cob, floating and boating and sunburns.

there are so many things about summer that make it the season i live for. i hope ben grows to love it as much as i do...i never knew if i felt that way about summer just because i am a summer baby....

but so far so good...

"just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water" ~daddy

check this kid out!!!

look who can sit!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok yeah, so he's still a bit of a tripod but he's like a week away from driving or something. i might pass out.
this kid is perfection.

patience, grasshopper......wordless{ish} wednesday

for your patience, i reward you (i know, you've been on the edge of your seats for a week...all 3 of you who read my blog)...

i bring you, a very, very happy day....my acoustic cafe date with my boyfriend david cook, last wednesday in hartford....

also, MUCHO sorry about not using a storyboard or something to group some of these pictures so each huge one didn't have to come up seperately. i am STILL waiting for the PSE fairy to drop one in my lap and therefor, cannot do diddly squat in the way of cool groupings. sucks. anyway, onward and upward.

shhhh. stop typing. it's wordless wednesday!

 can you find me? sorta like 'where's waldo?'

via: brian ambrose

 

 

 

gotta love the look of crazy in my eye....

obviously, all watermarked pics & the crazy eye group shot via the lovely & talented brian ambrose and all unedited, oompa loompa shots via: me.

my best shot

i know i promised a photodump of the yumminess that was my wednesday afternoon playdate, but the truth is, i am kind of still recovering and also, i think i am going to wait till the pro photog posts the meet & greet pics on his site so i can share the real goods.

while the boy with the guitar, his magical voice and the snuggle session that followed (i am a tease, i know it) were exceptionally amazing, the lighting was tragic. my pictures all came out orange and he looks a little like an oompa loompa…had I had my wits about me, I might have been able to make the necessary adjustments, but I was just too busy swooning, which is exactly how it should be….

so, in lieu of a lengthy, drool-filled recap of my gallivant back into the thick of insanity, i bring you my entry in the “my best shot” photo challenge over at the paper mama. not to sound like a trite oscar speech, but seriously, i don’t expect to win this thing and it really is an honor just to participate. the bloggers who share their photos in these challenges blow me away daily with their talent and creativity. i will never be that good and i’m totally cool with that…that said, i love this picture. i love it with my whole heart. i love naked babies and there is just nothing cuter than a bare butt (and i hope i’m not breaking the pg-13 rule…) but most of all, i love this little boy. his blue eyes are the music of my heart and i’m so excited to share my best shot of him so far….



wordless wednesday...with a couple of words.

as previously stated, it is NOT always all about mr. david cook....but sometimes? it is. like today for example....
i won passes (winning again. see?) to an acoustic cafe show in connecticut where this knucklehead will be strumming his guitar and i will be dead from a major case of the swoons.

it's been too long, my love....too, too long.

if, by some miracle i survive, i will do a massive photo dump tomorrow of the hotness....

in the meantime, i will be just over here breathing into a paper bag....

memorial day weekend....and yes, i know it's almost the 4th of july already.

sometimes it takes a person a week to recover from a 3 day weekend, you know?

we all had a great time....ben got his pop up sun tent and lounged on the deck in the shade for hours while i got to catch a minimal amount of rays in the fancy shmanc barka-lounger sun chairs i got for mother's day....we even threw ben in a swim dipe and took a dip in the still freezing pool! he was a champ in his little bucket hat and lobster suit!

got my sunscreen mom?? help a brother out! i'm white as an aspirin over here!

chillaxin in his new tent...

we're (ok, this is all on me) starting to get a lot better about bringing him out to public places...ever since he was born, i have been so afraid of him having a meltdown that every trip to the store or the mall would induce a panic attack...slowly i'm coming to realize that for the most part, i've got a really chill kid who just likes to hang and laugh and play. truth be told, it's ME we have to worry about when it comes to public meltdowns. imagine the irony....

so we packed the kid up and headed down to a little shack on the water called Crabby Amy's to see a blues guitarist that the hubs really likes and have the first lobster rolls of the summer which were definitely decent. decent but not perfect, which was an excellent starting point for the Ultimate Lobster Roll Quest of Summer '11....

if we had started the summer off with one that knocked us right off our picnic bench, what would we have to look forward to???

this little boy is the love of my life. the freakin' love of my life i tell you! i could eat him whole. just look at that bald head, will you???

my two boys....just enjoying the warm breeze, the salt air and the tunes....

i'd like to place an order right now for an entire summer full of days just like these...

black eyed pea salad with basil dressing

this salad was born of not having a freakin' clue what to make for dinner to go with the skirt steak i thawed, flipping through old issues of food network magazine for inspiration, coming up basically flat, remembering i had a rogue can of black eyed peas in the cabinet from last year when i thought it would be a real nifty idea to serve them on new years day for good luck and then never followed through with that (imagine...), doing some googling, adapting all over town and then, upon first bite, realizing i had completely knocked this one out of the park.
not to toot my own horn or anything, but this is good. really, really good. like, one of the first recipes in my imaginary cookbook good.......so whip a batch up and serve it at your next bbq or bring it to a potluck and thank me later for being a black eyed pea badass....i'm sure it's even better after a day maxin' & relaxin' in the fridge but i challenge you to have the willpower to let it sit around long enough to find out....

basil dressing:

1/4- 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2 garlic cloves, pressed
1 cup (approximately) chopped fresh basil
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 cup (or less. i think i used less but i have a nasty habit of not measuring anything...) good olive oil

(i used this. i love trader joes)

kosher salt & cracked black pepper

salad:

1 can black eyed peas, rinsed and drained
1 1/2 - 2 cups of fresh corn kernals
1-3 stalks of celery, sliced into thin half moons
1 1/2 cups grape tomatoes, quartered
3 thick cut rings of red onion, brushed with olive oil and seasoned with salt & pepper, then grilled and chopped.

mix the dressing in the bottom of a big bowl, then add the rest of the ingredients and stir to mix. season to taste with more salt & pepper. try not to eat the entire thing in one, glutoneous sitting.