Month: June 2013

The Sleepover Tradition

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This weekend is going to be fun.  I am packing an overnight bag and heading to Ciao Bella’s home at dusk for a sleepover.  Her adorable husband and toddler daughter will be exiled to one part of the house for 18 hours while Ciao Bella, the ever energetic Catalina, and I sip pink champagne,  chow down on her amazing homemade macaroons (really, CB needs to start a business, they’re that good) and catch up the way we typically try to on the phone while their respective two year olds are napping or out playing.  There are dinners, there are shopping dates, and of course brunches and lunches, but the ‘thing’ that is really our “thing” is our super girly, funny to the bones sleepover.  Since the three of us became friends a decade ago, we love to have slumber parties now and then.   It’s become part of our friendship culture We’ll be sharing our latest skin care discoveries, squeezing in a trip to Michael’s, and discussing our percolating creative endeavors.  Pulling an all-nighter sans …

Why I’m Not Sweating My Late-r Thirties

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Over the weekend I was so so so excited to buy my first real overnight serum.  I felt so sophisticated.  So mature.  So adult.  You’d think I was getting my first bra!  I have always done as much as I can to take care of my skin, but I am at that point in my life where it is time to add a serum to my arsenal of “you-have-so-many-products-and-you-just-look-the-same-anyway” …  ugh, pipe down, husband, nobody asked you.  He’ll be thanking me years from now when I still have the complexion of someone who eats wild salmon, instead of one whose skin texture and color resembles a wild piece of dead fish.Today I felt very grown up when I got to work, happy that my fancy new shampoo is working to treat my scalp and condition my hair, thrilled the fruit acid pads might be doing the trick for my trouble spots, and exhilarated that the eight hour eating schedule I am trying is giving me the mindfulness & metabolism reboot I am desperately needing. Reading …

My Daddy’s Girl

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Due to a complete overhaul of our closets, I have been going through every piece of clothing, paper, box, and folder to see what can stay and what needs to go.  Inside one of my dusty boxes that has been sitting in the corner for months untouched, I found a few scrappy looking notebooks.   I have been writing in journals for years, but not meticulously so.  Mismatched notebooks, packing lists mixed in with curriculum ideas, and wedding notes tossed in with recipes, I write down anything and everything, and will often use bits and pieces of each notebook for streams of thought.  There are certain notebooks and journals that I have ripped up, shredded and tossed out because there was nothing much to them.  I will do that with the ones that hold no significance and mark nothing of importance to me.  Looking at the most conspicuous of today’s bunch, I flipped through a very random tiny notebook already knowing it was going to the shred pile, but suddenly, I saw it…..  the notes …

Three at Three

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I ate three croissants the other day.  Three croissants in the span of one hour, at around 3pm without even realizing it.  This is what happened: Wanting to lightly toast my convenience store open faced croissant, I watched it go from ‘just crisp enough’ in the toaster oven, to suddenly darker and darker and darker.  Just like watching a beautiful sunset, my bread of choice for the day went from golden in color to black black black.  I love to cook and am quite good at it, but I cannot, as of late, toast a single piece of bread without turning it into charcoal. This is where it gets sad, as if eating a repackaged Costco-by-way-of-Asian-convenience-store croissant isn’t sad enough.  I was craving and desperate.  Give me a break, you’ve been there, so STAHP it.  Having a love for reusing leftovers and bits of unused food,  I scraped off the top and tried to eat around it.  Hmmm…..  Not being satisfied, I thought it only fair to have a do over.  This time I sliced …

My Favorite Kind of Date

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Quite possibly the best moments I have had getting to know another person are the times we’ve spent while walking and talking.  Of all the memories I have with friends, my husband, and the boys I used to know, the ones while talking on a walk are by far some of the sweetest ones. The walking date is underrated.  There’s never a preplanned topic of conversation when you find yourself on foot, and I find that the words exchanged from points A to B are often the most candid and heartfelt.  With every step, my theory is, the soul opens up allowing us to become more confident sharers and willing listeners.  Good weather or starry nights help kick up the romance factor too.   There is nothing to get in the way of a conversation walking side by side, except for his hand on the small of your back to guide you or an unintentional brush up against the arm, but that’s not really a bad thing, is it?   The walking date is all …