Umm, since when was 120+ pounds considered overweight?
Open comment to the advertising group at facebook – seriously?
…yet, after a quick haircut, my sweet (and very smart) husband says I look younger.
I must say, Friday birthdays are the BEST as it’s practically guaranteed that the festivities will last a few days. It’s even better when you share a birthday with a bff.
We started celebrating with K&M last Thursday night with a wonderfully delicious dinner at Incanto and I received a fabulous necklace that I just love!
Friday was supposed to be a “me day”. It ended up being a “mommy and me” day. Mads wasn’t feeling so well Thursday, so I brought her to the pediatrician’s office: minor chest infection that will be relieved with 10 days of amoxicillin.
Though she was “sick” (she sure didn’t look like it), I wasn’t about to give up my shopping date. Mads ran around like no tomorrow and had lots of fun climbing through the clothes racks, munching on sugar-free chocolate and going through other people’s bags (sorry TZ!). Using my birthday as justification, I picked up two cute dresses and a super cute top!
After dropping Mads off at the babysitter’s, S & I made our way downtown to meet our friends B&L for dinner at Cafe de la Presse. Next time, I’m getting the escargots – L let me have one of hers and it was so delicious, drenched in butter, garlic and tomatoes of some sort. We finished off our French fare with a chocolate pot de creme and profiteroles.
birthdays wishes at Cafe de la Presse
Now, usually, for us old folks, this is where the evening ends. Hardly the case last Friday. After dinner, we were on our way to The Ambassador for K’s fabulous 30th birthday party. It’s been a while since S & I had been out, so we stayed as long as we could. Much to my surprise when the clock said 1.30a in the taxi. I tend to nurse my drinks, so I was in pretty good shape the next morning. (I get silly, then get very sleepy, then very grumpy if I do drink a lot.) I wish could say the same for my counterpart. Let’s just say it was a rough morning for him.
Saturday, our friends JC&T came over for dinner. It wasn’t intended to be a birthday dinner but Lola brought a birthday cake from Schubert’s. I made a wonderful chicken tagine (in the slow cooker, my new kitchen bff), with couscous with golden raisins and garlic sauteed spinach.
Strawberry Mousse Cake – yum!
Sunday started off stressful (everyone is okay), but ended with an always yummy dinner at Pasquale’s. I’ve been eating there 25+ years and I still think their pizza is pretty good, though I did have the eggplant parmigiana for dinner.
So, that in a large nutshell was my birthday weekend.
Though we’re in no rush, we decided to buy a training potty for Mads, just to get her used to the idea. Natch, we bought the one with all the bells & whistles – it sings, makes fun sounds, does everything short of dancing. She seemed to take to it, she’d sit on it, with or without a magazine and pretend flush when she was finished.
So, last Friday, when I pick her up from day care, her caretakers are telling me that I need to bring Pull-Ups on Monday. Huh?! Apparently, miss Mads has been requesting to use the potty after snacks and meals and has been successful using it! Of course, when she comes home, after meals, we go into the bathroom, I’m armed with books, puzzles and toys, and as we approach her potty, she looks up at me and says, “no”, and walks away. I try and coax her back in, short of offering chocolate or cookies, and again, “no”. I am supposing that it’s easier for her when she sees other kids doing it. And I thought this potty training this was going to be easy.
In other big-girl updates: we removed one of the crib side panels to make way for a big girl bed for Mads. Tonight is the first night so we’ll see how she does.
Al fresco
So last weekend, during the brief-est of heatwaves, we dined al fresco both for diner et dejuner. Saturday dinner we grilled some brats, with couscous and a tomato-cucumber salad, with fresh, homemade strawberry sorbet for dessert. For Sunday lunch, S grilled some marinated tri-tip from Mollie’s. Sides included cassava chips, my make-shift Meditteranean couscous salad: prepared organic couscous, chopped organic roma halved organic cherry tomatoes, chopped english cucumber, crumbled feta, chopped mint, olive oil and salt & pepper;
and a fruit salad: strawberries, pears, cara cara oranges, bananas, chopped mint. Both were delicious and refreshing on that sweltering day.
Seeing that Mads likes to splash around in the bathtub…and to our dismay, Lucie’s waterbowl, we naturally thought that she’d enjoy a wading pool. She splashed around alright, but do you think she took one step into the wading pool? Of course not. She threw her beach toys into the pool and made big splashes from kneeling over the edge of the pool and, yah, that was about it.
Coming up
I’ve got an occasion of sorts coming up and my goal was to find new dresses, but that didnt’ pan out too well. I suppose one can expect that from shopping online.
A while ago, I discovered this song from my mom (of all people!) – from her copy of a Hotel Costes mix. Yes, my mom has a Hotel Costes mix – is she uber-hip or what?
As the title mentions, I have no idea where to begin, I’ve got a lot running thru my head right now…
*I picked up my new glasses (cute little Prada frames with subtle bling)
*I went crazy at the bookstore and picked up 4 new books to read (I need to get a library card, buying full price is expensive!). I’m trying to venture out into different topics as to keep my brain working, so I picked up the following books:
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughs on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama
The Story of French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau, Julie Barlow
The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier
Anything that involves a “whirligig” sounds like fun!
Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee
*Mads is still on her Nemo kick, but when we do put the DVD on, she asks, “turtle?” Is is sad that I know that the Sea Turtle scene is #16 on the DVD?
But after watching Nemo for like, a jillion times, I’ve started to take notice of a few things. For example, Nemo’s friends at school, it’s the dads that are dropping off their kids. The turtle scene also lacks mama turtles. When Nemo gets scooped up by the diver, I thought it pretty rude that none of the class went to help (survival instinct, I suppose). Also, when Nemo is freed from the aquarium, he forgets his tank buddies, just like that – not that he could do much to help – but you get the idea.
*The search is over…I hope. I’ve got an occasion of sorts next week and have been frantically trying to find a dress, or two, or three. I found a cute little frock here and found a more casual one here. For the third, I may just recycle an older one from her.
*We’ve bought our tickets and will be visiting famille Rebaud later this summer. We’d like to take a side vacay, but with the price of airlines tickets, along with the price of gas/oil, and the weak dollar, I’m thinking exploring Paris may be just enough (financially). I’m not complaining, really!
*Not only can I listen to Madonna’s new single, I can watch the video over and over and over.
Okay a partial brain dump…I’ve got to convince a 20-month old to take a bath – not her favorite thing to do right now. Wish me luck!
…on so many levels, especially since I’m a mom…but it’s frickin’ funny.
How many do you think you can handle? 😉
After complaining about the cold weather, it’s finally heating up (for a few days at least). I am so glad that I bought this! It makes for a cute top, too.
So, we finally made it down to San Diego to visit friends & fam the other weekend via Virgin America. I already gave it a rave review on Yelp, but this is one discount airline I want to stay in business. Mads did exceptionally well during the flight. She was a bit iffy during takeoff and landing, but that may have been due to the pressure in her little ears.
We stopped for a little play time after our arrival and before you know it we were already ordering dinner at Phil’s (I LOVE Phil’s) BBQ. If you’re ever in SD, go to Phil’s for some of the best BBQ and go early as lines are out the door and around the corner (I kid you not).
It was a lax weekend for the most part…we went to the Scripps aquarium and had a BBQ Saturday and hung out until it was time to go. Sigh.