Just Another Day

Today, in a fit of inspiration, Hubba-hubba suggested we take Mr. Personality to the Balboa Pier . Today was the first day in the past few that we have not had any rain, and rain is forecast for the next few days as well. Mr. Personality was literally bouncing off the walls yesterday, and I knew that if we didn't take him outside somewhere, we were going to have some serious issues. The Newport Beach/Balboa Peninsula/Lido Isle area is where the people I like to call hyper-rich live. There are no oil rigs a couple miles offshore to mar the views from their 3 story millions of dollars homes like there are further north up the coast. They have an almost straight-on view of Catalina and the water at the South County beaches is clear and beautiful. So, we tried to walk on the pier, but Mr. Personality was really more interested in the sand and waves below. So, down we went and we all had such a wonderful time collecting sea shells, then promptly throwing the shells into the w

Yesterday, Hubba-hubba and I paid my 24 year old cousin 40 bucks so that we could have some time to ourselves. We got very spoiled on our last outing, and have vowed that we will do whatever it takes to go out alone at least once a month. My cousin is very sweet and on winter break from nursing school, so it was a nice fit. I'm not sure what will happen to us when she goes back to school, as I am highly paranoid and refuse to leave Mr. Personality with someone I don't know well. We decided to go to Downtown Disney since we didn't have a whole lot of time, and parking is free for the first three hours. Now, for those of you that have been to Disney World, the Downtown Disney at Disneyland is much smaller, with much less to do. It is basically a glorified outdoor shopping mall with some expensive restaurants. However, it was close and seemed like a refreshing thing to do. The first restaurant off the parking lot is ESPN Zone, which has some fairly inexpensive ham

O, old Winnie the Pooh pajama bottoms, you were the best. Until the other morning when I woke up with my left butt cheek hanging rather unexpectedly in the breeze, you were my most favorite pair of pajama pants. Your softness was unbeatable, like brushed silk, even though you were made of cotton. I guess ten years or so of constant washing will do that to fabric. It also will eventually produce said tear above. You didn't bunch up at the crotch, a very important feature for pajama pants. You hung loosely and comfortably, rather like harem pants. Over the years, you seemed to expand with me, but in a good and comfortable way. Even though you had little rips and stains from God knows where, I still loved you dearly, and all other pajama pants had to measure up to your standards. All of them failed, but now, you are gone. I will have to make do with the ones that are cut a little too tight in the thigh, or ones that bunch up around my waist when I turn in bed. I w

Well, Christmas has pretty much come and gone. Family came in from out of state, unexpected family came by for a Christmas Day breakfast. It was mostly fun, with very few mishaps, no family spats (except the one that occurred a couple weeks ago, which is done with), and by the end of Saturday night, an only slightly hysterical two year old. This Christmas reminded me of when I used to work as a Recreation Leader for a city park system. One of our biggest events was actually Easter, when all 7 parks hosted an egg hunt. As Rec Leaders, we would spend hours and hours cutting out hundreds of small and medium sized construction paper eggs, we had various staff meetings mapping out what was going to happen and when. I mean, this event was all we thought about for probably a month leading up to the big day. Then, we would drag ourselves at 7am to the park to set up, desperately hoping for the coffee and donuts that the coordinator would usually supply. It took about 2 1/2 hours to

Well, that was nothing compared to today. After wrapping what seemed like a million presents on the living room floor, my back is in full protest mode. Hubba-hubba was even nice enough to take Mr. Personality to the park and the library for about two hours so that I could wrap uninterrupted. It still wasn't enough time, even though I cheated and put as many adult presents as I could into gift bags. Really, Christmas is all about the kids, and I have no problem wrapping their presents because they are so into it when they tear open the paper. Adults are a little different, and my gift bags were brand new and very nice, so there is no shame there. There seems to be no perfect place to wrap presents in this house. The living room floor requires a lot of bending and sitting on the knees. The kitchen table was a bit too small for some of the presents, and a little on the low side for me to be bending over it. Impossible to cut wrapping paper sitting in a chair. Doubly im

There is cleaning, and then there is cleaning for company. When I know people are coming over, all of a sudden my super-laser vision kicks in and I start to see all kinds of dirt and stains that went previously unnoticed. Where the heck did that little spider web under the kitchen cabinets come from? And why did I not see that there were some stains on the kitchen windowsill? Don't even get me started on the bathrooms, they were all of a sudden the most disgusting bathrooms on the West Coast. So after the adrenaline faded, my back began complaining, and a little nagging voice in my head whispered, "Are they really going to be looking at the tops of your baseboards? What the heck kind of people look at other people's baseboards? You are doing all of this for nothing!" It doesn't help that my baseboards are painted the most butt white color you have ever seen. One piece of dust lands on the damn things, and you can see it. I was very tempted to listen

Why oh why did not one person mention that a large Christmas tree and a two year old boy is a bad, bad combination? If he is not trying to touch the ornaments, he is trying to experiment as to how close he can drive his truck into it, or throwing fake bananas into it, as he did this morning. I inherited a large amount of glass ornaments, some of them from as far back as the 50's, and my tree is decked out with 99% glass, from glittered golden teardrop shapes to multi-colored swirly icicles. I thought about Mr. Personality for just a second when I decided to use them, but he is pretty well behaved and rarely repeats bad behavior. Well, he has certainly met his match in this tree. There is something so alluring about it that he literally cannot control himself. He wants to see it move, he wants things to fall off it, he would probably be delighted if he knocked it over. Life as he knows it would then be over, but it hasn't happened yet. Let's just see if we ca

Hubby is on vacation! Yay! Because of the way the holidays fall this year, he will be using up only 5 days of vacation to get 16 straight days off. The last time he took this much time was when Mr. Personality was born, and he was lucky enough to get three weeks. Perhaps a year after that, he took about ten days off at one point, and for some reason we had no "plans" to do anything. Partly because Mr. Personality was not quite a year old, and we still didn't have traveling with him down to any kind of science. Mr. Personality is what Dr. Sears lovingly calls a "high needs baby." Well, actually Dr. Sears said that a high needs baby grows into a high needs toddler, into a high needs elementary student... you get the picture. I was always a little envious of those mothers whose babies sat placidly in their carriers and dozed off, even in noisy restaurants. Mr. Personality could never fall asleep when other people were around, and I can only think of o

In my world, you just don't do certain things. When you choose to do these certain things, be sure that I am going to judge you (harshly) and assume the worst. Yes, ho-bag, I'm talkin' to you. There are rules to being a good neighbor, and the divorcee with the slutty daughter who washes her car in string bikinis has just broken some major ones. DO NOT pull your car over on the street and talk to my husband when he is with our son about your poor plumbing problem and how you now have toxic mold. DO NOT mention to him about all the workmen that are going to be going in and out of your house, and how he shouldn't worry about it. (This one almost made me snort, WTF? Why should my husband give a shit about workmen going in and out of your damn house?) DO NOT suddenly stop talking to him when his wife pulls up in her car and roar off in your stupid sports car, not acknowledging her in the least. What is with these sleaze bag women? Are they so desperat

While watching a commercial for a Ralph Lauren perfume, I noted how you could see light in between the model's thighs. Then I thought about Desperate Housewives and how you could see literally inches between their thighs also. I tried to think of someone who has completely passed puberty in real life that has thighs that thin and perfect, and I couldn't think of anyone. Although not totally thrilled with either candidate for The Apprentice II, I think out of the two, Kelly was the appropriate choice. Again, all the candidates from The Apprentice make me feel like the world's biggest underachiever. Why does my son dislike meat? I swear I never thought I would be raising a semi-vegetarian. Is it really true that blood is thicker than water? I say it isn't. Why is it so much more fun to be outside when it is nice and windy? I was told that this year my card was the best photo Christmas card that person had ever received. And on a purely random no

Have you ever experienced a Tectonic shift in your thought process? Where you receive a certain bit of information that gives you a sucker punch in the gut and leaves you wheezing on the floor? Well, I kind of got one of those last night, and boy did that sucker punch come out of nowhere. I wasn't expecting it, wasn't looking for it, and WHAM, there is Gina on the floor wondering what the hell hit her. One of the worst parts about it is that the person who had this bit of information had posession of it for over a month. I'm not looking to get all high-school and emotional, but this person should have told me the second they next saw me, nay, they had an obligation to tell me. If that person had told me, many things would not have happened if that info had been shared. Needless to say, I am a bit upset with this person right now, as well as the other people involved, who unfortunately, I pretty much have to deal with constantly, as they are family. But back

Let me just start by saying that I was born and raised Catholic. I was baptized, had First Communion, and was Confirmed, the three biggies. I attended private Catholic schools from grades 1-12. We went to Church every week, the Saturday 5:30 mass since it was less crowded. This was post Vatican II, and Mass was for the most part comforting, I especially liked the singing, I always have. I was taught religion every single day in elementary school, I know the Bible very very well, and was required in high school to take a class pertaining to religion once a year. My grandparents are highly active in the Catholic Church, my grandfather has been an usher for over 20 years. So what happened? In high school, I began to get too "busy" for Church. It wasn't a true rejection of the Church, I just couldn't be bothered to find the time for it. Between playing club volleyball, studying, and hanging out with friends, Church was really low on the list of priorities. I ju

If you are a person who deals with money- which means everyone then it is up to you to handle it responsibly. One of the things I love about hubby is his fiscal responsiblity and savvy. He really does a lot of research on money issues and how we can save the most money possible, whether it be through investments or just switching phone carriers. A person that hubby trusts is Clark Howard . Clark has a radio show, and has been featured on Oprah as the self-made millionare that he is. I have listened to him and read up on his site as well, and I can truly say that he is deeply concerned about the debt that people carry, and sincerely tries to be a consumer advocate. Even if you think you know a lot about finance, check out his website, and you will be sure to learn a thing or two. Hubby just restructured his student loans thanks to Clark's info, and we are now paying $30 a month less than we were with no change in the interest rate (which is a good thing). I mean, how ca

Ok, at least for a day. It was above 80 degrees today, the computer said 84. I don't think there will be another day quite as blistering as this one was, but it was nice to pretend it was summer there for a while. Of course, today was the day we got our tree- and I promised I wouldn't say things about unseasonal weather during Christmas activities, so I won't (wink wink). Hubby frustrated me a bit when he spent at least a half hour attempting to jam a 5 inch tree trunk into a 4 inch Christmas tree stand. He then of course blamed it on me because I picked too big of a tree. I pointed out that he was the one who grabbed that tree, taunting me with its perfection. We had been looking at the 3-5 footers, which I can say were absolutely pathetic. Hubby had warned me walking up to the tree lot "Remember, we are going for a Charlie Brown tree." Ha, so why did he pick up the 6-7 foot Noble and wave it in my face? I was diligently studying the 3-5's like

Usually, Mr. Personality is a great little guy to spend the day with. But today, I just wanted to rip my hair out. He just would not listen to me. Now, I already have this problem with hubby. I am forced to constantly repeat myself to him, he "forgets" things constantly. Like most males, he claims to be detail oriented, but really he is only oriented on the things that he thinks are important, not the other 94% that occur in daily life. So today when I had to ask Mr. Personality 5 times or more to put the caps back on his markers, to put his blocks away, to not play with his pizza just eat it for goodness sake, to not throw every piece of lint he saw in the trashcan, to not shove the markers into one of his toys where they will go in but not come out without the aid of a Phillips screwdriver, to not step on my newspaper, to not step in the deep puddle of water at the park, I just wanted to shriek a little. For the most part, I kept my cool. I almost always prefa

My son is a wonderful little guy, if I do say so myself. People are drawn to him whenever either hubby or I take him anywhere. They smile at him, they stop to watch him if he is doing his usual antics, they talk to him- let's face it, people just love him. Luckily, he is a people person. He rarely shies away from anyone, I do not ever remember him hiding behind me as I have seen other children do in unfamiliar situations. He takes it all in with those big brown eyes of his, and then usually bubbles over with a comment, or more normally, tries to point something of interest out to the person speaking to him. He is a great observer, and he doesn't want anyone to miss whatever interesting thing he has spotted. He even pointed out the very obvious 60 foot tall Christmas tree to Santa at Disneyland. He just wanted to make sure that Santa hadn't missed it. So, from now on, my son will be known on this blog as Mr. Personality. I like it, it fits.

In an article in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times, I read that Californians pay on average 58 billion dollars more in federal taxes than they receive in services. At first I thought that the billion part was a typo, but to my horror, it was not. I had been told by hubby that we get back only about 77 cents on every dollar that we pay, but that is a hard number for this extremely math-challenged English major to calculate. Then, according to the same article, the Republican controlled Congress is fixin' to get even more of our money by disallowing our state income taxes to be deducted off of the federal return. This is ours, and often many others' largest deduction on their federal taxes. Wait a minute, I thought Republicans were for less taxes, not more. I thought they supported less government intrusion into our incomes. Oh, but apparently they are all for that unless you live in a "blue state" to whom the rewritten tax code would disproportionatel

Last year we sent out Christmas cards with a photo of all three of us that I had made at Costco. Such an efficient and economical way to do cards! Just plop a photo in their database, pick your template, write your witty/serious/religious message, wait about 2 hours and you have 50 cards (with envelopes) for 19 bucks or so. Desperate to match the fairly good photo we had last year, I had two people take pictures of all of us on Thanksgiving. No go. Even with Photoshop, you just can't make the picture look good when 1/3 of the picture is being taken up by a large chair- a shout out to my BIL for messing up that particular series. Hubby didn't really want to do the pics in the first place, and Cutest just was not cooperating in his usual manner. So, I gave up. Now it hit me today that it is December 4th! I have no picture! My friend told me today that it is impossible to get booked for a semi-professional photo. (Sorry, I just cannot bring myself to call the colleg

I could have sworn that I had waaay more Pisces in me than just 47%! Take this quiz and see how much like your zodiac sign you are! You are 47 % Pisces How much do you match your zodiac sign?

Are there many things better than being at the park on a cold, windy day with your 2 year old son? Running pell-mell down hills, trying not to fall down, sometimes without success? Gathering leaves,throwing them in the air, and watching with delight as they flutter and twirl to the ground? Placing oddly shaped rocks in the "secret hiding place?" Swinging on the big boy swing with him, gripping the cold metal with your even colder hands and praying you both don't fall off? Not many, I say, not many.

OK- so I was born and raised here in sunny Southern California. Usually, sweaters are put on at Thanksgiving only as a nod to the fact that it is a holiday, and dammit, Thanksgiving deserves a sweater. Even Christmas is a mostly balmy affair, with me wishing for cold weather. I get jealous of people who have white Christmases, I have never experienced one here. This year, I won't be wishing for colder weather, because it is friggin' cold here! Yes, yes, I know that 40 degrees overnight makes some people think we can wear bikinis outside. But, to someone who has never really been exposed to a heck of a lot of cold weather on a regular basis, I am complaining. I actually had to buy my son mittens! Mittens of all things! The world has turned upside down. Unless going up to the snow, mittens just are not required wear around here. I am also forcing him to wear a knit cap! The blasphemy is just beyond comprehension. I think the coldest I have ever been was in New Ha