The other day I was at Children's Storytime at the library, and I ran into my friend Brianna, who was there with her niece (who happens to be Goldie's BFF). I mentioned that we were throwing Indy a "spooky party" for his fifth birthday, and she said "OH. You have to make worms!"
Apparently there is a recipe all over the Internet that explains how one can pour raspberry Jell-O into bendy straws, and somehow end up with worms.
WORMS.
...Well, okay, I didn't get a tattoo in a bar-bar. More like an room that had been transformed into 1/4 bar, 1/4 vintage boutique, 1/4 epic fashion display, and 1/4 tattoo parlor.
I'm going to back up for a sec.
I started the night at an event at Au Fudge (Jessica Biel's kid-friendly restaurant in Los Angeles) celebrating CNN anchor Adrianna Costa's Haute Mom's Life podcast, where she has candid conversations with celeb moms like Kate Hudson, Heidi Klum, Jessica Alba, and Gwen Stefani, among others. My lovely (very new mom) friend Audrey came with me, and we drank delicious things out of mismatched crystal goblets and chatted about the disaster that is newborns. We cracked up talking to Kristin Cruz of MomAngeles (such a fun site, btw, with tons of great ideas about family-friendly local events), wondered whether that was Soleil Moon Frye over there (still not sure), and furrowed our brows wondering how, exactly, Adrianna can be two weeks away from giving birth to her second child and still capable of peppily hosting a glamorous party in a skintight hot pink dress.
Alum Rock Park San Jose, California
Dress (similar, for $28) Boots (similar) Camera Bag Hat
Today in Superb Life Choices: wearing 2 1/2 inch heels to hike in the woods. In my defense, "hiking" (and the associated crossing-of-streams) wasn't on the original schedule; we were just planning a quick picnic lunch in a nearby state park before heading to a party...but then Indy spotted a creek, and:
Greenhorn Ranch | Quincy, California
Eddie Bauer Shirt | Frye Boots
I noticed the first Weird Thing about Greenhorn Ranch twenty minutes after we arrived and wandered into the pool area for a pre-dinner swim. There were about ten teenagers hanging around, laying on their stomachs next to the water, tossing rainbow beach balls at each other, and drinking A&Ws in the shade. Something seemed off, but I couldn't put my finger on it for a second. And then I realized what was making the whole scene feel so bizarre:
Monterey Bay | California
Because this morning's post was so light and fluffy, I thought I'd bring it back down and talk about something really, really important:
...
Mommy-and-me swimsuits that broke me (I am so sorry), my thoughts on that ludicrous Me-ternity kerfuffle, and the ugliest piece of clothing I've seen in a long time. (And more, obviously.)
{ Coogee Wave, by Gray Malin (from the A La Plage collection) | Lulu & Georgia Lamp }
For a little while in the summer of 2002, I lived in Coogee Beach, near Sydney. Well, technically it was
"squatting," and technically it was only for two months, but it sounds much more glamorous to say, "Oh, I spent the summer living in Austraaaaaalia." My college boyfriend had done his semester abroad there while I did mine in England, and my school year ended earlier than his, so when I finished up I hopped a quick 26-hour flight (via Japan, where I accidentally spent two hundred dollars on a sushi dinner because I couldn't read the menu and thought what I was getting was one roll, not a boat of rare fish the size of a piano bench) to spend some time reconnecting - because semesters abroad are many things, but "good for relationships" is not one of them.
My boyfriend had to go to classes every day, and it was wintertime in Australia so it wasn't quite warm enough to spend hours at the beach, and the house was...well, there's really just no other way to say it: it was fucking disgusting, in the way that only a house inhabited by nine 20-year-old boys and a rotating cast of female companions can be. Boxed wine, flies, dirty dishes, someone threw up in the bathtub, et cetera. It was fun for a party (and that happened basically every night), but not exactly a relaxing place to spend the day.
What I'm about to describe to you is like this, except the shark is me and Rihanna is cheese.
I have this thing for Safeway's generic-brand string cheese. (Just stay with me here; I promise I have a point.) They're sort of like large, very mildly mozzarella-flavored plastic gummi worms, and I cannot stop eating them. I eat them for breakfast when I'm in a rush to get out of the house; I eat them for snacks; I eat them at in bed at 11PM (sneakily, though, so Kendrick doesn't hear me, because eating crappy string cheese in the dark is a sort of embarrassing thing to do). Mostly, though, I eat them when I'm watching my hour of bad TV that I watch every night (or, okay, sometimes I watch two hours, but in my defense The Bachelor is kind of a TV emergency. Also #Lace4Eva).
When I was pregnant, I decided to knit my daughter a blanket (still have a point, hold on). And then when I was finished with that, I decided to knit my friend's daughter a blanket. And then another friend's daughter. And I did this not because I especially love knitting (although I do), but rather because having something to keep your hands busy during the evening TV-watching session both makes you feel like you're being somewhat productive (as opposed to doing absolutely nothing save for slowly destroying your brain cells), and also makes you not eat twenty string cheeses in a row, because you can't when your hands have things that aren't cheese in them.
Alright, we're officially Ren Faire people.
If we hear about one, we are going.
This particular Renaissance Faire - held in downtown San Jose for one weekend only - we heard about last summer from a guy who came to fix the cabinet in our rental (and who called me 'milady' and actually bowed to me when he left). We considered going, and then realized that would mean wandering around a hot, dusty field one week prior to my due date and thought...eh. Mayhap (see what I did there?!) not the best idea.
So there's this quiz that you can take on the Internet, and it might just change your life.
No, I'm not talking about the "Which Cruel Intentions Character Are You?" quiz, although that one's pretty great (I'm Annette, which is annoying, because obviously Kathryn would be much more fun). I'm talking the Five Love Languages quiz.
I'm a little embarrassed about jumping on board the Internet Armchair Psychology train, but for real: it's kind of amazing.
