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Monday Muse says Hi to Smitty Baby

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Thanks to a recent post on the Pioneer Woman (turns out she’s also the idol of today’s Monday Muse) I learned about Smitty Baby…and am jealous I didn’t think of that idea first! Not the crafty clothes and baby items, I’ll gladly ooh and aah and let someone else design and create those things  – but that adorable book – what an awesome idea! I may make one with Lil’ G simply for the joy of doing it. The book’s design reminds me of Lauren Child’s work – (you know, Charlie and Lola?) with patterns and colors and a funky scrapbooky feel to the layout of it.

smitty baby book

Smitty baby’s Mama, Meridith, is close to my age, and had her first baby just a few months after Lil’ G was born…I think it’s amazing all she has managed to do as a new Mama in the past year. Check out her blog – she and her husband seem fun and funny and I wish them all the best in every crafty cool idea they come up with.

In Search of the Sony Reader: AKA “It’s Like a Kindle, but not.”

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My time as a test driver of a Sony e-reader for the SmartBitches is nearly at an end. As an added bonus for having pimped out their bling to all our friends and family for the summer, Sony has offered to let us test drivers keep our Readers for a significantly reduced price…or if we prefer, we can get a 10% discount on a purchase of one of the newer models.

I love Miss Scarlett, as I told SBSarah – we have bonded on the treadmill, and in the grocery store line, and in the middle of  the night when I couldn’t sleep. I very well may decide to fork over the dough and keep Miss Scarlett forever; enjoying a HEA of walking and e-book reading into the sunset.

But I am human, after all, and when offered a choice, I want to explore my options. Which is why I have been trying to hunt down a Sony Pocket (the 300) to hold in my hand and play with for awhile. I want to know what I’m giving up – that kind of thing.

Someone on our test driver e-mail loop mentioned Staples had the models in store. So off I go to push the easy button…except when I get there it takes the dudes working there a bit of navel gazing to realize what the hell I’m talking about…finally lighting up as I compare the Sony to a Kindle,  they consult the computer to see if one is in the store (really? you roam these aisles all day…) eventually determining that no, these are not in the store and only on-line. But they print me out a bunch of propaganda on the Pocket and Touch, oh gee, thanks.

Next, I swing by Borders, where one of the Staples dudes swears they are on display. Sure enough, there is a big table covered in Reader boxes and a banner proudly announcing sale of the Pocket and Touch waves above…but the boxes are empty, and aside from various accessories such as carrying cases and adapters – there is nothing for me to fondle. “Ooops,” says the portly employee whom I corner a moment later…”there was a mix-up and we didn’t get the right parts.” Huh? I demand to know if this is going to be a problem at all Borders, or just my home-town one. Mr. Get a Clue seems to think it’ s only a problem here, so I plan to trek to  a few other Borders in a 30 minute radius this weekend.

In the meantime, I swung into my local Best Buy, the husband seemed to remember hearing they had Sony Readers on display there. So I roamed around the store, a walking advertisement for birth control with Lil’ G screaming holy hell in the shopping cart seat because she has decided this week she has better things to do then hang with her Mama, and Miss A jumping on and off the bottom of the cart and randomly touching expensive electronic devices – eventually an employee asks if he can help me find something. When I tell him what I’m looking for, he stares at me blankfaced…he then calls over another lackey, who also stares blankfaced before calling over a third dude. This guy at least acted like he knew what I was talking about, and quickly told me, “Uh…no, we don’t have those in the store.”  Strike 3 Sony – I mean what the hell?

First of all, most of the employees I talked to at STORES THAT SUPPOSEDLY CARRY YOUR PRODUCT didn’t have half a clue as to what I was talking about:

Me: I’m looking for a PRS…Personal Reading System….

Useless Store Tool: Huh?

Me: Like a a Kindle.

Useless Tool: Oooooooh.

What’s the deal Sony? Amazon, who only sells their product on-line, is widely more recognized than your stuff…clearly, you have dropped the marketing ball.

I love my PRS 505 Miss Scarlett – I do. I will more than likely cough up the dough to keep her. I may very well decide I like the Pocket better…but before I kiss $200 goodbye I would like to see what I am buying…but if I have to jump through this many hoops and go on a wild goose chase just to see an item I want to buy…wow, you REALLY need to sell me on it (assuming I ever actually see the product of which I seek).

Like I said, I’ll search out a few other area Borders this weekend, and maybe even see if a Sony Store exists somewhere near me…I’ll get my E-Reader HEA one way or the other…it just won’t be easy.

Monday Muse Master

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Today’s Monday Muse is a bit different – not because she doesn’t do all the things the rest of us Mama artists struggle to do each day (laundry, parenting, dishes, laundry, creative time!, vacuuming…) but because she’s managed to become insanely successful at her craft and beat the odds in so many ways.  She taught in the science field and wrote comics on the side – but has become an internationally best selling author of what I would loosely call romantic fiction (if you have ever read DG, you know it’s soooo much more than that). Her books smash all expectations: they cross genres, demolish typical expected page counts,  span gender preferences, and become their own thing – simply beause there is nothing in the world quite like them, not even close.

I’m talking, of course, of Diana Gabaldon – author of the Outlander series, and high on my list of people I’d love to sit down to dinner with for a long evening of wine and conversation. The latest book in her series comes out tomorrow (Echo In the Bone – #7 in the series – and not the last she promises us!)

She is launching her book tour…and will be within 90 minutes of my house next week…do I ditch my sand volleyball game to play gushing fangirl?

Let me see how much a ticket costs to her book reading/signing and I’ll get back to you.

Realities of Homeschool with a Toddler

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In a perfect world, I’d have a separate classroom full of organized shelves, drawers, cabinets for books and supplies, easels, desks, and lots of light.

In reality, we are more often than not “doin’ school” at the kitchen table, and most of the books are squished onto a few shelves.  For the start of this school year, I sacrificed the sanctity of my “formal” living room to add an Ikea-shoe-bench-turned-homeschool-textbook-organizer-and-impromptu-desk. In a slightly less than perfect world, Miss A would sit at the bench doing her schoolwork while Lil’ G happily played nearby with her toys, and I’d hang out on the couch and catch up on some magazine reading time.  It actually happened like that…for about 2 minutes. At which point Lil’ G decided it was more fun to rip all the workbooks, papers, and folders out of their neatly organized cubby holes, Miss A didn’t like sitting on the floor, so spent the next 20 minutes or so arranging a chair so it was “just right” and I tried to visualize myself at Starbucks lounging on a leather chair, thumbing a book, sipping a cafe mocha while jazz music crooned softly in the background (while I cleaned up toys, reorganized books, and stacked unread magazines that were now ripped thanks to a certain little redhead.

In a perfect world, Lil G would nap and/or play contentedly with her toys during designated school hours. But she has decided that such activities are beneath her…not when big sister is having so much more fun with paper, pencils, crayons and what not. I suppose this will turn out to be a good thing  (her dexterity with crayons and pencils is amazing) but at the moment it is nothing short of frustrating.

So I have given up having school in the living room, and we’re back at the kitchen table.

Miss A and Lil G hard at work

This looks like a nice little scene, doesn’t it?

Lil G doin school too

Lil’ G is enjoying some “big girl” time.

Lil G doin school 2

Everything looks to be in perfect harmony – everybody happy and doing their thing…so what’s the problem?

About 10 seconds after I took this picture Lil’ G fell off that chair and I almost had a heart attack. Turns out I can’t help Miss A with her nouns and keep an eye on Lil’ G at the same time.

So if she wants to do school, it’s while strapped into her high chair…which she doesn’t enjoy as much.

Which means nobody is enjoying much of anything…not for long anyway.

I am constantly wondering how families with several kids (many under the age of 4) manage to homeschool with their sanity intact…

maybe that’s it…

they gave up their sanity long ago.

Dishin’ on Disney Dining Part 3: Play N’ Dine at Hollywood and Vine

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For our last full day in a park, and our second at Hollywood Studios (on a 7 day pass we spent 3 days at Magic Kingdom, 2 at Hollywood Studios, 1 at Animal Kingdom, and 1 at Epcot) we had lunch scheduled at Play N’ Dine at Hollywood and Vine.

We managed to squeeze a whole lot in on our first day at Hollywood Studios (HS), and didn’t have a meal reservation in the park that day since we had late dinner reservations at the Grand Floridian for the Storybook Dinner with Cinderella and friends (I’ll be getting to that one eventually).  So on our second day at HS, the plan was simple: see the Beauty and the Beast  show, ride Miss A’s 2 favorite rides again, and have lunch at Hollywood and Vine.  We planned to ger out of HS early and spend the evening shopping in Downtown Disney – it was the best plan we could have come up with, because shortly after arriving back at our hotel , it started to rain…and rain…and RAIN.  This was the only time it rained our entire trip (I am so grateful!) and it couldn’t have been timed better.

But I digress, we’re talking Dining now, rides and shows will all come later.

As I mentioned last time, my biggest beef with Disney Dining is the plethora of buffets. It gets old – fast.  First of all, it is frustrating to try and make your child leave the table to get something to eat when they are petrified they will surely miss seeing so-and-so if they leave the table for even a second. So, sure the parent can go and choose foods for their kids, but as a parent, I was petrified that I’d leave the table and miss my kids seeing so-and-so and not get any pictures  – aaaaah! All this tension makes for a less than relaxing dining experience.

Also, like I said before, I’m on vacation – I want to be served, I want to feel taken care of, and after standing in lines all day, I don’t want to stand in line so Miss A can have some mac’n cheese!

The husband was the first to point this out, and maybe it’s because he is about as picky as Miss A and ate the same 2 or 3 items at each buffet…but once he said it, I realized it’s true: no matter where you are eating: the food at Disney is all the same. It all tastes the same. It’s not horrible, but it’s definitely not wonderful…and the buffet delivery just makes it taste even more like cafeteria fare.  I hope this is not the case at the more expensive “gourmet” dining experiences Disney offers…but I have to wonder.

So the food isn’t anything to write home about…and that’s true at any of the buffet meals we had. I would much prefer to sit down and order an individual meal – but I suppose that isn’t as cost or time effective for Disney as the trough. Bottom line is Miss A ate the mac’n cheese wherever we went, and so it could have been worse.

Enough about that, the food isn’t why we were there anyway: it was for the interaction with the characters! At Play’NDine, the featured characters are from Playhouse Disney: the day we had lunch, we met JoJo and her pet lion Goliath of JoJo’s Circus, and Judy and Leo from Little Einsteins.

The characters came around one at a time to sign autographs and pose for pictures.

jojo and miss a 2

Continue reading “Dishin’ on Disney Dining Part 3: Play N’ Dine at Hollywood and Vine” →

MIA Monday Muse

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I’m skipping Monday Muse this week – my children’s theatre company is still in its infancy, and started its first fall semester run on classes this afternoon. I was playing the role of multi-tasking maven today to the hilt as I put the finishing touches on the script, got Miss A’s homeschool lesson plans together for the week, actually taught a bit of those lessons, ran over for this week’s Biggest Loser weigh-in (down 3 lbs, yeah!)…all that on top of the usual feeding and cleaning and dressing of children and laundry and dishes.

We did accept the lovely invitation to play in a friend of  a friend’s pool before it closed for the summer.  I’m glad I let Miss A have that hour of fun…yes my schedule was full and hectic, but summer is almost over and you only live once. She had an awesome time (Lil G gad fun too).

I also managed to squeeze in a shower.

So you know what? I’m my own muse today!

Drama Mama…Multi-Tasking Maven.

Butt Rock and People of WalMart

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A few weeks ago I was at a book club meeting and somehow the term “butt rock” came up…that is to say, at some point I referred to a band as possible butt rock and received blank stares in return.

It seems none of my lady book club friends have heard this term.

Butt Rock was first introduced to me as a genre of music by my husband. Based on my knowledge of the genre, I’d say bands like the Scorpions and ACDC are the epitome of butt rockism. Trying to explain  to my book club buds what qualified as butt rock was surprisingly difficult…the husband and I can be channel surfing – hear a song come on and immediately agree that such and such song most certainly belongs in the butt rock genre. Baffled by their complete ignorance to this term, I decided to google it…just now…

Here is my favorite definition as described on Urban Dictionary:

The name “butt rock” has a few possible origins. First, in the 1980s, the musicians in many hair metal bands often dressed in a “glam” style, wearing tight pants that would accentuate their butts. (This may also be the origin of the term “cock rock,” which has the same connotations, as the tight pants would also accentuate the musicians’ crotches.) A less flattering origin for the name is that the lead singers of these bands sounded like they were singing out of their asses. Finally, the term can generally mean that the music sounds like ass.

Dude, turn off that butt rock. We’re not at the gym.
Yep, music that sounds like ass is exactly how I would describe it.
On to people who probably listen to lots of butt rock, a website I will be wasting way too much time on, indulging in one of my favorite guilty pleasures..people mocking (hey, I mock myself all the time too). Recently, someone alerted me to the site called People of WalMart where it seems camera pics of Wal-Mart shoppers have been posted with mocking comments…some may say this is rude and unkind…but I say if you choose to leave the house dressed like this:
weird walmart dude
Then you pretty much deserve what you get. (Props to the poster, this was his comment: “What are you wearing sexy?” -Cowboy boots. “Ya that’s hot.” – Pink velour pants. “Ya I like that.” – a little green baby girl hoodie. “Oh damn, that sounds sexy.” – and I kinda look like Gallagher. “Oh ya…wait…what?”
He DOES look like Gallagher! Maybe all his clothes got stolen from the laundromat, so he borrowed some from the sorority girl’s basket one aisle over.
And I’d like to point out that the people posting these pics and poking fun ARE ALSO CUSTOMERS OF WALMART SINCE THEY HAD TO BE THERE IN ORDER TO TAKE THE PHOTOS.
Also, the site is hosting a contest for “pictures of the most ridiculous and insanely disturbing people who call Walmart their home.”
The prize?
A Wal-Mart gift card.

Double Yay for More Free Books!

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Thanks to a tip over at the SB’s, I learned of the offer from Mills&Boon (the equivalent to HQ across the pond).  You can download a selected book from several of their series; a total 10 free books! I like using the e-pub file for downloads, load it up to Adobe Digital Reader, then copy it to my Sony Reader Library when I’m ready to tote it around (our time is nearly at an end…I must ship Miss Scarlett back Sept 30th).

And speaking of HQ, I’m sure you are already aware of the similar promotion they have been offering all summer, but in case you haven’t heard about it, in honor of their 60th anniversary, they are offering 16 free e-books.

Now granted, many of the titles are beyond absurd (Pleasure,Pregnancy, and a Proposition anyone?), and I’m sure my gag reflex will kick in from time to time at the awfulness…but if I find just one new author that I like, it will have been worth it.

Besides, did I mention they are free?

Monday Muse Mamas

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I was so happy when I found this site, after seeing it advertised over at SmartBitches. It’s like an entire site devoted to the Monday Muse concept! Here, from their About page:

Being a mom and a writer is hard, and the only other people who know just how hard are other Mama Writers. We want you to know that you have a place to come where you belong, where you can feel like part of a real community. And that’s something very special.

We have all dedicated ourselves to being the very best mom we can be, which means becoming a better person. And we’ve have dedicated ourselves to being the best story-tellers we can be.

allaboutthelove

It’s a great place to go for when you feel…as so wonderfully articulated by Aimee over at Artsyville:

03-creative-well-color

And if that’s not enough...every month they have a contest, giving away a bag of goodies to whoever comments the most at their site.

I haven’t had a lot of time to dig around on the site, but I look forward to finding ideas and inspiration…Mama Writers…what a great idea! Go check it out today!