Monday, February 28, 2011

My Latest Obsessions


Dear Mom,
Thanks for explaining the ironic combination of my first and middle name of George Martin. I now get
all the Beattles references that folks have mentioned to me. Love, Georgie (almost 7 months)

Happy Monday! The gals had a couple of firsts last week (during the long holiday weekend) = skiing and staying overnight in a waterpark hotel (both of which they LOVED). Both PFC/I were pleasantly surprised at how long they lasted skiing. However, here I go again, Dear Winter, I'm REALLY and truly over you. I know I've been saying this for awhile. But I truly mean it now!

Some of my latest faves...

I'm trying to think spring. I came across Paper Source's newest color Clover. LOVE.

GMC's name reference. See pic above.

We love reading with the kids at night before going to bed. Lately I have found C and M reading to GMC (which is absolutely adorable!). C reads to GMC while I hear M making up stories to go along with the pictures! Here are 7 New Picture Books for Children from Daily Candy Kids.

You gotta love KidsSocks.com's motto of Happy Feet Make Happy Kids. I agree. If my feet are COLD I'm not a happy camper!

Ok, I gotta say that I LOVE the company Zappos.com. Seriously, their customer service is phenomenal. I cannot count how many items that have gone unreturned simply due to the inconvenience factor. However, Zappos makes things SUPER EASY! In some ways they remind me of Trader Joe's in terms of their customer service motto! Speaking of Trader Joe's, I was there this past Sunday picking up some of my youngest sister's faves for a care package (and I came across their dried blueberries). YUM and good for you.

What a great gift to give to a preschooler - A to Z Magnatab.

A good friend passed along this great blog entitled Not Just Cute. Love it! More about the blog and her reasoning behind the title.

And on to the Oscars from last PM = Red Carpet What we Loved. I loved Mila Kunis' dress. Granted, Black Swan was one of 2 movies that I watched that was up for a nomination so I was paying particular attention to the actors/actresses of both Black Swan and Social Network.

Friday, February 18, 2011

My Latest Obsessions

Happy Friday! We are enjoying a brief reprieve from the COLD (and the blizzard from 2 weeks ago) here in Chicago. A nice surprise and much appreciated (from my end that is!). Hope that all of you were channeling some pink, red and all things lovely this past Valentine's Day. Seeing the gals come home with valentines from all of their friends brought me back to those days (the shoebox that you decorated that held all of your cards). PFC/I held to our annual tradition of heading to Milwaukee in honor of Valentine's Day and had a great 24 hours away!

I am someone who is always talking notes in various forms - mental notes, written notes on scraps of paper, while some land in my trusty moleskin notebook. So, my latest faves (topics / items / articles) stem from random streams of consciousness from various convos over the last couple of weeks.
Quote of the week:
C: Ummm, I need 2 more sips of water.
Me: Okay, why do you need 2 more sips?
C: Because we are supposed to drink 8 sips of water a day. We learned that in class the other day.
Me: That is great C that you are learning about water and how good it is for you, however, instead of 8 sips of water they really say we should be drinking 8 glasses of water!
C: 8 GLASSES of water. That is a LOT of sips!

Friday, February 4, 2011

My Latest Obsessions

We made our Checker Tournament bracket yesterday and this afternoon we will see who plays Daddy/PFC!

Blizzard 2011 - Pic in front of our house.
Unfortunately, this pic doesn't show much perspective in relation to how much snow there really IS!

GMC chilling inside during Blizzard 2011 - 6 months old.
Happy Friday! I'm loving some of the terms used to describe this latest Blizzard. My fave = SNOmg. I have to admit, I'm not a HUGE fan of snow and/or of being COLD. So, I have had to really take some steps these last few days to turn some of my negative thoughts into positive ones.

And frankly that exact thought has been on my mind lately (taking any negative thought that pops up and trying to spin it into a positive). This same topic always seems to come up when I start to think about work-life balance (a topic that I touched upon in last week's Latest Obsessions). So, I'm going to reinstate my gratitude list again (which I seem to start at the beginning of every year but never seem to stick to).  So, this week I'm grateful that we own a snowblower. Enough said.

Last year around this time I wrote about mini moments. Some of my "mini moments" and the "little things in life" this week are pictured above. I have to laugh as I was basically "called out" this past week by a bagger at the grocery store for picking up my cell phone when I was checking out. She looked at me after I had finished my cell conversation (which was under a minute mind you) and asked if I was talking with Obama or Clinton. I was so in my head (thinking about which kid had to be where and when and if I had picked up everything on my mental "blizzard is coming" grocery shopping trip and praying that GMC would hold out a little longer as it was time to feed him) that it didn't dawn on me that I was being rude. I starred at her for a moment and laughed (um, no, not Obama nor was I solving world peace) and apologized (and refrained from asking her if she wanted to stay home w/the baby while I ran some errands that needed to happen in a very short time frame...hello, I wanted to say, ummm, that phone call just saved me another 10 minutes because now M is being picked up and if I had not picked up the phone I would not have known that fact...blah, blah, blah). But alas, she was a bit of a reality check for me (to some extent). And then there is always Relativism!!! Which then brings me to some of my favorite lines from JuJu (my mom) = It is what it is, and it ain't what it ain't AND It is ALL relative.

I'm all over the place this week in terms of topics and things on my mind. A good friend sent me the following blog post entitled The Me in Mommy. WOW - this gal really summed up (very honestly may I add) another topic that has been on my mind (and one that I'll delve into later)!