• BIG news,  diary illos,  domesticity,  Family Matters,  instagram,  my books,  Tis the Season

    A little catch-up linkapolooza!

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    November started off a little rough for me. I had big plans of blogging everyday and participating in my own version of nablopomo. I was even thinking of telling stories from my Pet Hotel days (my parents owned and operated a boarding kennel when I was in my teens) but you can see how well that went! One lonely post showed up in November. Go Brenda.

    I do want to get back to those stories one of these days though. Ask me about the time my brother and I were hiking back behind the kennel and we discovered a ditch full of freshly dead dogs. It was a Stand By Me moment if I’ve ever had one, even though my brother has no recollection of the event.

    Anyway! I’m posting my pictures backwards so let’s just go back in time from the most recent to the least recent. Most of these photos are from Instagram. That’s where I hang out these days. If you follow me there this will all be old news. Sorry! Instagram killed the blogger.

    First up: An advent calendar that is a village that is a wreath! I’m such an over-achiever. I like to cram three things into one because I can!  I’ve already made a few villages. You remember that tiny Hanukkah village? That was so fun, made out of raisin boxes. And my favorite village of all: The Milk Carton Village!  (who doesn’t love recycling.) And I’ve made a few advent calendars and even an advent wreath with lollipops! but never a village AND an advent calendar IN a wreath. Whatever whatever…we’re over it already. Who’s gonna go spend three hours hand-painting an advent calendar and lighting it and assembling it all in a bla bla bla stinkin’ wreath. Obviously only me. But it was fun and if you are crazy like me I recommend it!

    Next up: Boba and Bug. Bug LOVES boba. She begs for it every mother-daughter date we go on. I’m wondering what ingredient is in it that is so addictive. Taro root? Sugar? Caffeine? Hmmmmm….

    Get this: we are planning Bug’s twelfth (!) birthday party for January (I like to start early)  and we have happened upon the greatest party idea of all: A limo ride! It solves so many problems. She wanted a green party like the one we threw for her third birthday. (She’s not spoiled or anything, heh.) But I just couldn’t land on a cohesive theme for the party and  you know me. It has to have a grand vision.  These grand visions get harder to visualize when kids are old enough to muck things up with their own ideas.  Kids.

    She wanted everyone to wear green and have some kind of loosely interpreted fairy theme with vines and flowers and fairy crowns and maybe a dinner party in the backyard and of course everyone bringing their Pusheen stuffed animals because that is a THING. So green, fairies, flowers, Pusheens, boba, green mochi…it just wasn’t coming together for me and I didn’t want to just do another galaxy party in a new color. Then I realized I could make all her friends wear green, take them on a trip to get boba in a limo, maybe make a few other stops along the way to do fun green-themed adventures (green piñata in the park maybe?) and then drop them all back home for a green dinner with green mochi ice cream for dessert! Brilliant plan! I’m sure I will keep you posted on that progress.

    Le sigh. Remember her pink phase? I’m so glad I had a daughter. I’m also so thankful for an extra daughter. I’d take 12 daughters if I could afford them. I think Joon wants a race car-themed birthday this year. That should be interesting. Like daughter, like father. They are both really into cars which is completely opposite of me. But I do love a challenge.

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    Next: The sticks. My parents are planning an eventual move from their property. This is good news as their neighborhood has gone south in the past ten years. Drug dealers and users and half-way houses full of people who aren’t really serious about rehabbing have moved in and increasingly deteriorated the safety and beauty of their neighborhood. It’s a sad state of affairs. While they plan to sell their property they are packing everything up and planning on moving to Idaho which is crazy far away for me. BUT I have grand plans of visiting them and taking vacations there. This means they are giving everything away and forcing me to clean out the shed that I used to store old things in that I wasn’t quite ready to get rid of. Yep. No more free storage for me.

    I took a trip out there and cleaned out my shed.  It was a task and a half. I brought back box after box of old journals, tons of yellowing photo albums, flower-business supplies, artwork, certificates, awards, newspaper clippings, yearbooks… all that stuff. And guess what? I don’t want it!! I went through a few journals and they are SO BORING!!! I thought I’d save them for Bug but I couldn’t even get through them myself! Who really cares what the weather was like in 1986?!!

    I chucked my old yearbooks. I don’t care about them anymore. I took all the photos I cared about out of the old non-acid-free albums and organized them into a box full of labeled ziplock bags. It took forever and I sneezed for days from all the dust but it’s done and I’m happy to report I only have one box full of photos left. Everything else I either tossed or squirreled away in Payam’s house where nobody will ever really notice it until we have to move someday. I’m really good at squirreling things away. It’s always a super rude awakening come moving time.

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    The big news of November was THANKSGIVING! More on that later. For alphamom I made some drink-stirrer thing-a-ma-bobs that look really cool but aren’t that useful since I don’t think feathers are dishwasher safe. But they are really really easy to make and everyone loves an easy craft. (Except me!) If you’re looking for an easy but impressive gift for your lush friend who likes to throw boozy parties, these things would be the ticket.

    I also made some mad-lib style placemats that I think would be a hoot for a thanksgiving with a lot of kids. Too bad Thanksgiving is already over but save this link for next year!

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    ALSO in the news, I have a new book coming out. I don’t know the exact date yet but I finished it in November and it is in the publisher’s hands now. I will keep you posted to that when I know more.

    It’s actually written by my friend Teri’s (of mettaprints) husband, Chris, and it’s all in rhyme. I had the idea of writing a story something like a Dr. Seuss style Cat in the Hat but involving slime because I hate slime and it has sort of taken over our house and contaminated everything. I never got around to writing this story but shared my idea with Chris and he wrote it for me! It’s really cute and really long so you’ll get your money’s worth of illustrations out of this one. Though you might hate us if you have to read it before bedtime too many times.  I’m excited about it.

    Speaking of books, did you know you can hear me read my own books on epic!? It is the coolest thing ever and I can’t believe I never looked into it before now. I recorded a few books for my publisher years ago but never really investigated where my voice went to. I don’t read all of them (thankfully, my voice is horrible!) but I do read a few like “Be Mine” and I think the bunny books too. Anyway, if you have epic, you should head over there and take advantage of that. It’s really cool.

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    But the big news of November is THANKSGIVING! I finally pulled it off you guys! I made a turkey from start to finish (with the constant help of a good friend via text) and it turned out GREAT!!!! It was the best turkey ever!  I was so stressed about it too. I’ve had a few flop dinners served to Payam’s family and I have been living in shame over it secretly for years. I really want to be a good cook but I just never quite got there. I do like to cook and I do cook well a lot of the time just not 100% of the time. It’s been a source of stress for a long time. But this year I conquered it and now I can’t wait to do it again!

    Everything went smoothly. Everything was done on time. Everything even tasted great! I think I’m more proud of this silly thanksgiving dinner than I am of all the parties I’ve thrown over the years. It’s funny how some things are just a thorn in your side. So phew! Turkey achievement unlocked!

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    Next up Christmas! Except this Christmas is going to be kind of sad for me. Bug will be spending two weeks in Hawaii with her dad (lucky duck). While I’m really excited for her to finally go on a trip he’s promised her for years, I am going to miss her like CRAZY! I feel like I finally figured Christmas out last year and I really want to keep the traditions going but it’s kind of hard when you’re missing one kid. I’m sure we’ll manage and Joon is a very good stand-in kid. But it will be weird.

    All for now! Hopefully I’ll be back here again soon!

  • Bad Mom,  BIG news,  Bug,  crazy stuff,  Newsbreaking Hair News,  spilling my guts

    Bug turns ELEVEN! (and gets blue hair!)

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    Can you believe Bug is ELEVEN?!!! Of course you can’t. Neither can I. It was like yesterday when she was born. I get heart palpitations every time I take a picture of her and she looks like a teenager already. But I can’t stop time and I can’t stop her. This girl is a powerhouse and she just keeps growing up every day!

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    Bug has wanted to dye her hair blue for about two years. Her cousins constant chameleon hair-change-ups might have something to do with it and her obsession with anime and changing her minecraft skins etc… If you know Bug you know how she is about color. Color is her thing and she has strong opinions.

    Of course I told her that dying her hair was a silly idea and gave her about a thousand lectures on how pretty her hair was naturally. But as you can see she wore me down. And wore me down some more. Because I love my crazy girl and I really wanted to give her a present that would make her really really happy. I caved!

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    Off to the salon we went! Bug has a favorite salon and a favorite stylist. She’s way more loyal to her stylist than I ever have been. It might have something to do with her stylist being 24 and a really cool surfer dude but he always does a really good job with her hair and we make a special treat out of it when we go. You know, macarons at Lette, hotdog from the hotdog stand. It’s our bi-annual thing.

    At first, when we started to take the hair-coloring subject seriously, I thought we’d go to a beauty college and save some $$$ but then I got worried that I might fry her hair and I’d ruin her (red flag number 1). So we opted to ask her stylist for a recommendation and he recommended Ally.

    We set the appointment and waited for the day with great anticipation. It was crazy how excited we were. Then the day came and the bleaching began. BLEACHING. Oh-my-goodness. I bleached my daughter’s beautiful long healthy honey-blonde hair?!!! Who am I? This so wrong on so many levels. (Red flag number 2.)

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    The plan was to lighten Bug’s hair to a white blonde and then apply a blue-indigo ombre effect to that white blonde. It was a great plan. But then as Ally started blow-drying out the blonde, Bug and I both gasped at how pretty it was. It was this amazing out-of-the-bottle blonde color that every Californian aspires to. We thought, maybe we should keep the blonde and just apply the dark ombre indigo-teal color to the underneath in a cool peek-a-boo effect. In fact, that idea sat with me even better because the blonde was more natural, right? (Red flag number 3 with blinking lights and a siren!)

    But then as she finished blow-drying and I saw the blonde getting brassy all the way up to Bug’s eyes, I started to feel anxious. I couldn’t ignore the sirens going off in my head any more. My kid should not look like this. This is the kind of blonde ombre effect grown women on Real Housewives of Orange County have. I started to feel sick to my stomach. But Bug loved it and was over the moon! Ally curled it all pretty and Bug felt like a golden princess. I was a ball of mixed feelings with alarms going off in my head.

    By the time we got to her Dad’s house (she was at his house that week) I was experiencing a full panic attack over her hair. Sweating, my heart hurt… How could I have done this to my child! She looked like Iris from Taxi Driver and it was just wrong. Poor Bug had no idea why I was getting so upset. She started crying and I was crying.  It’s amazing I could even drive. We were a mess.

    Thankfully, Toby didn’t lose his marbles over my mistake when we got to the door and I exploded all of my worries and concerns. He agreed it didn’t look right for an eleven-year-old and we all decided we’d go back to the salon to fix it as soon as possible and stick to the original blue plan.

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    But Bug loved her blonde hair. It was such a mixed bag of emotions. On the morning of her next appointment Bug and I took an early morning walk with the dogs. She wore her rollerblades (her favorite accessory these days) and I took a few photos (with the dogs pulling me this way and that)  just so we could remember how pretty it was. We put her hair up in tight Princess Lea buns so the swirls of blue showed through. It didn’t seem quite so offensive. I wanted to take more photos but we ran out of time. I’m glad we have these though.

    It was such an emotional experience for both Bug and I, I know we will remember it for years. Someday we’ll laugh about it.Bug-turns-11-blue-hair-5

    Back to the salon we went. This time with strict instructions to be pastel blue, indigo blue, and teal blue and nothing else. Everyone at the salon totally understood our concerns and they happily fixed her up into the prettiest mermaid princess you have ever seen. Bug was sad to see her golden locks wash down the drain in a puddle of purple but it was best. And we know the blue will wash out over time and the blonde will come back slowly and not so shockingly. AND best of all it’s just hair. It will grow back to her pretty honey blonde someday. And no she’s not getting another hair-dye-job as a birthday present ever again.

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    The blue turned out to be so much cooler in the end. I feel like I have my eleven-year-old back again. My crazy, cool, color-obsessed eleven-year-old. This is just so Bug.

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    I love you to pieces, you big blue smurf-head. Which Bug is quick to correct and let me know that smurfs have blue skin NOT blue hair. (eye roll)