Arianne Go Bragh

If you aren't familiar with the famous phrase "Erin Go Bragh" that's probably because it isn't that famous and you obviously aren't Irish. I'm not Irish either. At least not that I know of. I know of a lot of European blood is floating around in my veins--Danish, English, Manx, German, Austrian, Hungarian, Czech...probably a few others--but as far as I know, I don't have a single solitary drop of Irish blood. So every year when St. Patrick's day rolls around, I begin asking myself:

Should I decorate?
Is there some classy way to make Kelly green blend in with my decor?
Who is St. Patrick anyhow?
Did he clear Ireland of rats with a flute?
Wait, I think that was the Pied Piper.
What IS a blarney stone?
Why are people kissing it?
Can kissing rocks give you weird lip fungus?
If you get a lip fungus, can you get rid of it with Abreva, like a cold sore?
And does Abreva really work?
And how can that tiny 1" long tube cost $18?!?

So you see how the arrival of St. Patrick’s day causes all kinds of upheaval in my life. I just don't know what to do with this holiday. I do like to dress up the house for the holidays a bit. Halloween is my favorite. I can't get enough of the macabre. Christmas is fun, just for the sheer amount of decor you can put up that is Christmas related (at least vaguely, like anything green, red, gold, silver, sparkly, round, star shaped, covered in ribbon, covered in stripes, covered in polka dots, or even plaid, if it's any combination of red, green, gold, silver, or white.), I do a bit of something like a fun wreath and some sparkly hearts around for Valentine's (another saint I have no idea who he is, but at least he comes bearing chocolates and flowers, so he is deemed worthy of my decorating), some pretty pastel eggs and such go in my apothecary jars for Easter. Even harvest might get some pumpkins and gourds and stuff thrown around (though I can't abide cheesy Thanksgiving items. Turkeys and Pilgrims do not inspire me aesthetically). But what to do for St. Patty’s? I perused the aisles of my local craft/decor store today and took in all the shamrocks, clovers, leprechauns, shamrocks, clovers, and shamrocks and...I just couldn't get inspired. I will do green pancakes and green milk on St. Patrick’s day. I'm not a complete Ebenezer Scrooge. (Misplaced metaphor?) But as far as that tacky green decor...well, what can I say? "Kiss me, I'm Anglo-Austrian!"

Boo Humbug!

I realize that this post is going to make me sound like some kind of cranky Halloween Skelescrooge, but I can't help it. I've got some bones to pick (get it, BONES?) about Halloween and the various way people evidently enjoy spoiling it for small children.

1) No costumes at school. Really, School? Because spending a whole 7 hours in costume is going to monumentally ruin my children's long term education? The absolutely FABULOUS education they're getting? LAME. Can't they even dress up as someone historical to brain up Halloween a little? Sheesh.

2) People not giving out candy. Seriously, how hard is it to give out candy? You spend $3 on treats, turn on your porch light, and start watching TV. Every so often, get up and hand some candy out. What's so hard about that?? Well, evidently it's super hard because this year (and in past years) at least half my neighborhood didn't give out candy. Do you know how lame it is explaining to your kids over and over again that they can't go knock at that dark house because mean weirdos live there who don't like candy or children or holidays?

3) Trunk-or-treat. I'm not sure if they have this where you live, but where I live they have this strange condensed version of Halloween where instead of the kids going door to door, all the people in the neighborhood gather their cars together in a small area like a cul-de-sac or church parking lot, and the kids just go trunk to trunk as the people hand them candy. It's kinda handy if the weather is super cold. And an indoor trunk-or-treat can work well if it's rainy or snowy. But this year it was a balmy 65 degrees. And yet they did a trunk or treat. So that probably explains why the houses were all dark and no one was giving out candy. And why no kids came to my house to eat the loads of candy I bought. Trunk or treat is such a lazy killjoy version of Halloween!

4) Houses who leave their porch lights on but who aren't home. Hello? How long have you been alive?? If you're not participating in Halloween (LAME) then turn your porch light off!

5) Similarly, people who deck their house all out for Halloween with giant spiders on the facade, big blow up Frankensteins in the yard, ghosts hanging from the trees, spooky music playing from a stuffed black cat, skeletons sitting on the porch welcoming you, AND THEN THE PORCH LIGHT IS OUT NO ONE IS HOME. I like to call that FALSE ADVERTISING.

Ok, that pretty much sums it up. Stay tuned in a few weeks for my Thanksgiving and Christmas versions of griping about the holidays and how everyone else does it wrong!

St.Patrilicious Day

I am usually quite a failure as a mom when it comes to theme-ing up my house/my kids lives for holidays. Maybe it's because thus far my kids haven't really understood about holidays or cared. But for some reason they have been super excited about St.Patrick's day all week. It's got to be the lamest holiday of them all. I mean, I don't even know who St.Patrick is or why we celebrate it, other than that it gives people a chance to wear great and pinch each other. But my kids could not WAIT for St.Patty's day this year. So I had to do something.

First, breakfast. Green pancakes with green milk. Daphne swore the green made the milk sweeter. Beck wouldn't even try his. But they both ate their shamrock pancakes.





Second, lunch. I thought they'd had enough of the green thing, but when I tried to serve them plain macaroni and cheese, they both freaked out and demanded green. So I died it green. Then Daphne said it looked liked slugs and refused to eat it.
Her bear seemed like it just fine, though.



Finally, a leprechaun hunt. When the kids got home from school, they spied a note left by the cat door and a sparkly green footprint. That tricky leprechaun must have been in our house when we were gone! The note said:
"I'm a leprechaun, and I visited your house! See if you can find me and steal away my treasure. I'm very shy, but you can follow my sparkles to see where I went, and if you find a gold coin, that's a clue! Keep on going. If you can find the favorite place for a leprechaun to sleep, you might find my pot of gold. Good luck!"


So we followed his advice and headed outside, because, of course, leprechauns only like to sleep outdoors where it's nice and green. There on the back steps, we found another footprint.


A few feet later, a gold coin with green sparkles on it. He must have dropped that coin!


We followed the trail down the sidewalk, and off into the grass.

A few gold coins left here and there led the way to the cherry tree in our back yard. There at the bottom the kids found a green pot and another note!






I guess we missed him. Shucks! Well, at least he left a bunch of treasure behind!




Maybe we'll be faster next year. Or maybe we can be more stneaky. Daphne's advice, after realizing we'd scared him away, was, "And next year, Mom, NO TALKING!" I guess next year I have to direct this whole endeavor silently. Well, a small price to pay for the joy of making your kids believe in little red-headed green men. Even the green stain all over my fingers was worth it.

And While I'm On the Subject Of Christmas...

I know it's 3 whole weeks since Christmas and so this topic may seem SO passé, but I'm just now finishing up the last of my stocking candy (What can I say? I like to nurse it.) and it lead me to wonder...What kind of candy do YOU put in your stockings? Do you put different stuff in yours than your kids? Do you have traditional candy items you put in every year or do you mix it up depending on your mood? Do you also put in presents, fruit, or other things? Or just candy?

Do tell!


As for us, we Davis kids grew up with real socks, not those giant store-bought stockings. They were my mom's cable knit knee socks. We had no mantle to hang them on, so usually they were just laid out in front of the tree or the Franklin stove. In a way those socks were really fun. Because they were stretchy, you could see shapes and bulges in them, which lead your imagination to run riot for those few minutes until you could open them and find out what those shapes were. You could always see a big bulge right in the center where the orange was stuffed, like a an ostrich who has swallowed a baseball.

Inside we almost always had peanut M&M's, my dad's favorite. There were mini peanut butter cups in honor of my mom's favorite candy. There were always nuts of some kind, usually cashews. And the rest seemed to vary year to year. My parents weren't big on presents in our stockings. Maybe a pair of socks wrapped up or a small item like a nail polish or chap stick. Mostly they left the room for lots of candy.

As a mom, I usually try to stick in a few small gifts for my kids--things from the dollar section at Target, their own box of tic tacs or a pack of gum, that sort of thing. I put in peanut M&M's to satisfy the traditionalist in me, and a Reese's peanut butter tree (better peanut butter to chocolate ratio). I throw in some cashews for protein, and the rest is filled with each child's favorite: mint for Beck, peanut butter for Daphne, Milk Duds for big Daddy, and usually a Ritter Sport Marzipan bar for me. And then Big Daddy and I usually try to sneak a small gift or two into each other's stocking without getting caught.

So, that's my stocking story. How about yours?

Misc. January

It's a good thing the word "miscillaneous" has an abbreviation because, as you can see, I have no idea how to spell miscilanious. Miscellaneous? Miscalaneous?Seriously, no idea. My guess is that no one else can spell it either and that's why someone finally said, "SCREW IT, I'm just writing "misc." from now on!"

First off, I am somehow still alive after the craziness that was December. I ended up not doing teacher gifts, which I feel super bad about. I even planned to make up for it over the break and make some and send them with Daphne and Beck this week, but that never happened either. Maybe a heartfelt thank you card would be just as good? Or maybe I should just forget about making soap and go get some gift cards to Target. Everyone can use those, right? Anyway, cutting that out might just have saved my sanity.

Also, after shopping 12 hours a day for 4 days straight, I managed to get gifts in time for Christmas. Gifts I think the people I bought them for actually liked. Of course, it didn't really matter what we got for Daphne other than this one present because, well...I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:


Meet Cuddles and Lollipop, baby Netherland Dwarf bunnies. Unfortunately, Daphne thinks the bunnies are toys and has been playing with them a bit too imaginatively. She actually lost Cuddles for 4 hours on December 26th--after spending an hour and a half ripping the house apart and not finding a single trace of Cuddles (we started eyeing the cat suspiciously at that point), Big Daddy sat quietly in the library (the last known location of Cuddles) with the lights off and just listened. Eventually he heard some scratching. Cuddles ended up being in a 3" high space on top of the books but under the next shelf, a shelf 3 1/2 feet off the ground. Cuddles did NOT get up there by herself. We've also found the bunnies in drawers, in doll-houses, dressed in doll clothes, and there was one incident that involved a toy hammer and a bloody bunny nose. We've promised not to discuss that one with anyone, so mortified is Daphne. Nonetheless, Daphne has been sentenced by the Court of Mom and Dad to have only supervised visitation rights until further notice.

New Years Eve was kinda lame, but I was Ok with it. I guess that makes me kinda lame. But I'm OK with it. We got a bunch of cocktail shrimp and some Meyers sparkling grape juice (SO delicious--if you haven't tried it, do! I recommend the Cold Duck), and a chocolate silk pie. Then we ate and drank and watched TV until I fell asleep on Big Daddy's chest at 11:30. He woke me up at midnight with a kiss and said "Happy New Year." And then we went to sleep. We are loads of fun.

Three exciting things are in my future:
1) My camera that I got for Christmas is on its way. Well, I traded in the one I got for Christmas for one that isn't so embarrassingly behind my photographic capabilities. And that one is on its way. I am sooo excited!!!

2) I am getting cabinet and drawer pulls for my kitchen. It currently doesn't have any and it has bugged me since we first looked at this house. I hate having to pull open the drawers and cupboards by sticking my fingers under the corners. Here are the contenders:



Thoughts?

3) That rash I got under my ring is going away. I finally found out that it is a sort of yeast infection caused by too much moisture staying under the ring when I wash my hands. So I got some OTC cream and it's almost gone. This may not seem worthy of a Top 3 Exciting Things That Are Happening To Me list, but trust me, it is. If you saw how gross my finger looked, you'd understand.

On a down note, I have now gained more weight at the 5 month mark of this pregnancy than I did in both my other two pregnancies by the very end. Which makes me wonder: Is it more worth it to eat whateverthehellIwant now and for the rest of my pregnancy even if I end up having 40 lbs to lose afterward? Or is it more worth it to take it easy on the eating now, do some exercise, and try to minimize any more weight gain so I don't have to kill myself losing it later? Hmmm....tough call. I'll decide after I finish the last slice of Chocolate Silk Pie.

School is back in session. This morning I was forced to get myself showered and dressed by the shockingly early hour of 11am. Let's just say I let those little things like hygiene and being clothed slide a little bit over the last 3 weeks. Hey, I had to prioritize, and laying around doing nothing was just higher on the list.

Ok, I think that sums it up. How was your December?

I Hereby Sentence Myself To The Naughty List

Why can't I prepare for Christmas in November? WHY??? Why do I wait until the last minute and make the few days before the holiday so stressful and crazy that I can't even enjoy them?

I currently have several days worth of goo on my kitchen floor from...
Attempts at making gingerbread men by my kids and their cousins
My mother making her shoes glittery. (Don't ask)
Me making rolls, then coffee cake, then tacos.

I have 60 Christmas cards sitting out on the ottoman that need to be stuffed, addressed, stamped, and hauled likitysplit to the post office in hopes that at least a few might arrive before New Years.

There are 18 loads of laundry to be done; 4 from our trip and 14 from my kids, who decided to spill on every pair of pants and every shirt they own while we were gone.

I still haven't bought gifts for my husband or children (but at least the relatives' gifts got bought, wrapped, and carried by hand to all the out-of-state relatives by my brother and SIL who just left from visiting us. THANK YOU for saving my butt on that one, Guys).

I still need to make neighbor gifts (candied cinnamon almonds) and teacher gifts (handmade soap. And yes, I realize that school let out a full week ago and I'm not going to see any of my kids' teachers before Christmas, but my guilt at not making gifts because I was on a cruise is clouding my sense of logic on that one right now so we'll see how it all turns out after the soap is made).

And my cat has decided that the house would have a more festive air if she used her kitty litter pebbles as confetti.

Seriously, next year I am going to start doing all this stuff in November. November will be the new December, and my cut-off for making Christmas cards, buying presents, and making teacher/neighbor gifts will be Thanksgiving. Never mind that I'm utterly NOT in the mood for Christmas in early November and it offends my sense of proper holidays to skip ahead. Come hell or high water, I WILL ENJOY DECEMBER NEXT YEAR!!!!

Shopping Elf (or Christmas Miracle) Needed. Apply Within.

Every year it turns December and I get really excited.

Excited to put up the tree. Slightly less excited about putting up the outdoor lights because it's always buttfreezingcold by December and putting up the outdoor lights takes FOREVER. But I do like it when they're done and my house looks so cheery all lit up.

Excited about making and receiving holiday treats for/from my neighbors.

Excited when the first Christmas card arrives in the mail. It's the only time of year I actually look forward to getting the mail.

Excited about doing holiday traditions with my kids, like breaking out the Christmas cookie cutters and decorating sugar cookies, opening a window of their Advent's Calendar so they can eat the chocolate each morning, lighting the candles on my German candle pyramid so the characters turn and dance while we watch, and waiting for a good snow so we can build a snowman or make snow angels.

But THEN I get hit with panic.

Panic that I haven't made/ordered/bought my own Christmas cards yet. Panic that I don't know if I want to make them or buy them in a store or order them online or make my husband design me some. Panic that I don't know if I want them to be edgy or cute or religious or if I want the picture to be separate or preprinted. Panic that I won't get them done and mailed by Christmas. Panic that I have no idea where I put my address book so I can address my nonexistent Christmas cards. Panic that I won't have enough stamps and I'll have to wait in line at the post office DURING DECEMBER to get more stamps or that I'll have to break down and get those horrible, generic, non-holiday ones from the automated machine that are of antique cars or famous librarians.

And then even worse panic hits when I realize I haven't bought a single, solitary Christmas present yet and NOW IT'S DECEMBER and the stores will be packed with people and I'll have to park way at the back of the parking lot and walk through arctic weather with a gigantic down jacket and gloves on so I don't freeze solid between my car and the store and then I'll have to tote that huge jacket around the burning hot stores with me because I was too wussie to leave it in the car and sprint through the snow and then I'll have to battle my way through crowded aisles to try to find presents for people that I have no idea how to shop for and I'll end up getting the wrong thing, or worse, gift cards that make me feel like I'm a total slacker and have walked so far and carried my coat around the store for nothing and then I wonder will I even be able to get the presents and gift cards in the mail in time for them to get there before Christmas because I'm pretty sure I have no shipping boxes and no wrapping paper and definitely no tape or sharp scissors and I'll end up having to wrap them in bubble wrap and newspaper and tape them with duct tape and hope they make it in one piece.

Sigh...


IS IT JANUARY YET???

Plundering Egypt

This was a fun Halloween. It's the first time that both kids "got it" and were looking forward to it for days ahead of time. It made it so much more exciting for us to have them excited. Daphne was especially excited about the prospect of dressing up as someone who died by self-inflicted cobra bite. (I'm not joking. She really thought that part was cool.) By Halloween day, the kids were counting down the hours until they could get their costumes on.

Since I only put the Halloween decorations up 3 days before, you can rightly guess that I never got around to carving the pumpkins. So just before we went out to get candy, I took a moment to carve one of the pumpkins. I felt like it would be some kind of holiday disgrace to not have a lit jack-o-lanturn on the porch. Like Christmas with no star on the tree. Like Easter with no Easter egg hunt. Like Thanksgiving with no giant nap! Anyway, while I was carving the one pumpkin, the kids took a moment to stab the other pumpkin to death. I think that was their favorite part of the day.




About the time we were mutilating pumpkins, it started pouring rain. It dumped for several hours leading up to Trick or Treating time. It was still sprinkling a bit as we headed out, though it cleared up after our first two houses. But the ground was still wet and puddley, so after a few houses, we had to come back and change Daphne's golden sandals into brown leather Mary Janes. Not very Egyptian. But very dry and warm.






The kids took the first shift of trick or treating with me while Big Daddy handed out candy. We hit the three culda sacs on our street, then down one side and up the other of the street our street comes off of. It actually wasn't as many houses as you'd think because about half the street was dark and not handing out candy (LOSERS! What's up with that??). Then we switched off--Big Daddy took the kids to the next street over while I handed out candy.

Aside from the soggy feet and Daphne's costume being soaked 4 inches up the hem by the end, it was a good night. And the loot was pretty decent.




Now to take down the Halloween decorations. Already. Sniff.

How Big Daddy Saved Father's Day

Tonight I ruined dessert. I am a pretty good cook, so usually things don't go awry that often. But tonight things were wry. Very wry. So wry, in fact, that I actually shed tears and came very close to throwing an entire Pyrex mixing bowl of whipped cream across the room. Fortunately, Big Daddy stopped me. But I'm getting head of myself...

I made Moon Cake. Moon Cake is delicious. And easy. And fattening (which is proof that it is delicious), and it is Big Daddy's favorite dessert. I was excited to make it for him. Then for some reason, I couldn't find the recipe. So I looked one up online. It appeared to be the same. I proceeded. But the eclair crust batter didn't look right while I was mixing it. That should have been a sign right there that something was wrong. But I carried on, and, after baking, it turned out flat and unattractive. Next came the pudding disaster. The middle layer calls for two 3.4oz packages of instant vanilla pudding mixed with one 8oz cream cheese, softened extensively. I softened it, pre-beat it to make sure it was truly smooth and not lumpy (lumpy will ruin Moon Cake), and then got out the pudding mix to add in. This is when I realized my main problem. Well, problemS. First of all, I bought a 5.1oz size of vanilla pudding and a 4.8 oz size. (Different brands are slightly different in size, it appears. Who knew?). I figured I could weigh out some of one package and add it to the other to get the right amount. But more importantly, I bought one instant and one Cook and Serve. Crappity! I didn't have time to cook and chill it, as I was already running about 1/2 hour behind schedule. So I used the 5.1 oz instant and added just enough of the cook and serve to make it 6.8oz total. I figured that little wouldn't hurt. WRONG. It did hurt. First of all, it wouldn't thicken as I beat it. Next, because it wouldn't thicken, the cream cheese wouldn't blend in. So despite my careful efforts at softening and pre-beating, little chunks of cream cheese floated at the top of the pudding soup no matter how long I mixed it. I hoped that it would thicken as it set, so I poured it over the flat, ugly crust and put it in the fridge. However, 20 minutes later, it was still pudding soup. LUMPY pudding soup. Lumpy pudding soup on top of a flat, unattractive crust. The whipped cream, which goes on top and should be covered in marbled chocolate sauce, turned out fine. But at this point I was so frustrated, and so late for dinner, that I figured the only logical thing to do with the perfectly good whipped cream was to chuck it at the wall.

And this is where Big Daddy stepped in and saved the day (and my small mixing bowl). He uttered the three most important words that a woman can hear during a baking crisis. Words that aren't spoken often around here, because it just isn't our style, but which, at the right time, with one person's hand laid on the other one's hand, can be the most wonderful words on earth: "Let's buy dessert."

And that is how we ended up 45 minutes late to dinner with store-bought cheesecake.

And that is why Father's Day 2010 will always be rememberd as the day that Mommy didn't end up being committed to the insane asylum for dairy-related assult. Gotta love that man of mine.

The Gift Of Solitude

This was my Mother's Day gift this year:






For Mother's Day I got to stay here ALL BY MYSELF.


I got to read, blog, surf the net, swim in the pool, go to brunch, cruise around town and check out my old stomping grounds, and, most importantly, I got to SLEEP IN. To me, this was heaven.


What about you? Would you consider a day and night by yourself a treat? Boring? Scary? Or would you wish to be with someone else?


p.s. Honey? Best Mother's Day Gift EVER.

Motherhood

A list of things I love about being a Mom.

1. When a baby falls asleep in my arms.
2. When a toddler falls asleep in my arms. Way less frequent, but so much more rewarding, their sweaty heads plastered to my chest, my arm so dead asleep I am sure there will be permanent nerve damage, but still unwilling to move for fear of waking them.
3. Footie pajamas
4. A child who says, "I missed-ed ya, Mom" when I come home.
5. An empty plate after a meal
6. Bedtime routines that call for a kiss, a hug, a five, other five, another kiss, another hug, and then finally an "I love you."
7. Watching the deep satisfaction of a child sucking on a beloved binky
8. Learning. Watching my children learn to do all the things they can do is priceless.
9. Mispronounced words.
10. Tiny, soft hands. I could just sit and stare at my kids' tiny hands, able to do so much but in a cute, miniature-handed sort of way.
11. A child who volunteers "I forgive you" to a sibling who hurt him.
12. Watching Daddy at his comedic best, cracking the kids up with his silly voices and songs and dance moves.
13. Hearing "Mom, this is the bestest food you ever made" even when all I did was heat up frozen chicken nuggets.
14. A child who loves all living creatures so much that she begs me not to squash the ants who have invaded our kitchen. She will carry them all outside, she promises.
15. A boy who asks to sing a solo for the extended family and then gets every word right.


I'm sure there are a million other things, but those are the favorites that come to mind now.

You Stay Young If You Eat Straight Sugar From a Spoon, Right???

I'm not much of a candy eater. I've mentioned this before. I take my sugar with flour, baking powder and eggs, baked, please.

Sugar is just too sweet for me now. Especially candy. Especially milk chocolate candy. And marshmallow candy. And sugary-crystal-coated candy.

But every year I eat just one Peep, out of respect for my childhood. As a child I loved Peeps. I no longer love Peeps. I might even be just a little bit disgusted by Peeps. But I think part of me fears that I will be betraying my inner child if I shun the Peeps completely. So I pay my homage to the Gods of Continuous Youth by eating sickeningly sweet seasonal children's candy and hope for the best: one yellow peep and one Cadbury cream egg, every Easter. Like medicine. GAG. (Shhh, don't tell The Gods. Cadbury Cream Eggs were my absolute DREAM candy as a child. A chocolate egg with an egg yolk made out of pure liquid sugar? Are you kidding me?!?)

I seriously hope it's keeping the wrinkles away. Please tell me it's keeping the wrinkles away. 'Cause it sure as hell isn't helping my hips.

Time For Passion!

Valentine's Day is almost here! Are you ready? Do you have something amazing planned? It's not too late to create a night you both will never forget.

Some of you already know that I am a consultant for Passion Parties, an in-home party company that aims to help couples (women especially) get more out of their love life. Some of you don't. Well, it's time you knew! I've been doing Passion Parties for four years and I love it. I love helping women grow closer to their significant other, empower themselves, and feel confident in the bedroom. I do tasteful and educational in-home parties, but I also take phone and internet orders in case you don't live close by.

So it's time to start thinking about doing something fun, sexy, surprising and new for your Sweetie for Valentine's Day! Orders can be placed as late as February 5th for pre-Valentine's Day delivery. But anyone who orders by January 31st can use the code "Jan15" on my website (or by email/phone) and get 15% off their order.

Click HERE to browse my website.

Or email me at arianne at the passionroom dot com if you'd prefer to have catalogues sent to you (in a discreet envelope, of course) or if you have questions. And don't be afraid to ask. Think of me as your own personal, non-German, over 5 foot, under 60, Dr. Ruth. I have suggestions for any problem or can let you know which products I recommend.

Here are a few Valentine's sales and specials I have going on now to pique your curiosity...



Romanta Therapy Creamy Massage Set. Heated Massage pack + creamy massage oil. (Sale - $6.50 Off!)


Hugs and Kisses heated massage packs with Creamsicle edible massage cream (Sale - $8.00 Off!)


Flavor Of Love - The Progressor + FREE Embrace flavored lubricant (Sale - $17 off!)


Fire & Dice - Fireworks warming massage oil + Dirty Dice (Sale - $5.00 off!)


Pure Passion Set. Pure Satisfaction Arousal Gel + FREE Pure Instinct pheramone perfume. (Sale - $20 Off!)



Nibblers Lip Balm. The great flavor of our Nipple Nibblers in a stick. Plumps lips!



Playful Set II. 52 Naughty IOU's, Revelation lubricant, and Bullet. (Sale - $5.00 off!)

Passion Play role playing set. (Sale - $5.00 off!)

Also, the following popular items are on sale:

Super Deluxe Smitten + Passion Massage Lotion - $2 off (Code "2406")
Revelation Lubricant - $1 off (Code "2207")
Tasty Temptation flavored massage candles - $2 off (Code "TT2")
Jelly Osaki - $2.50 off (code "1026")
Gigi - $3.00 off (Code "4003")
Silky Sheets - $1.50 off (Code "SS150")
Any Romanta Therapy product (your choice) - $1.50 off (Email me first for code)

These are just a few of the exiting sensual products we offer to spice up your love life and make your Valentine's Day 2010 the most memorable ever. Visit www.thepassionroom.com to shop my online store, or email me and I will mail catalogues to you. (All orders are confidential and mailed descreetly to your home.)


Happy Valentine's Day!

New Year's Wishes

For the New Year I Wish...


For a brother in law's continued sobriety

For a son to be potty trained

For a father in law's continued employment

For a husband's invention to come to fruition

To be one step closer to buying a new house, in a new neighborhood, with a garage and a heater that doesn't crackle and pop all night

For a pregnancy miracle

For a real best friend

For thinner hips

For more patience

For a sister in law to realize how wonderful she is and to leave behind anyone who doesn't feel the same.

For more energy

To give more time to my kids and not my computer

For more summer rain

For more time with my relatives

For a few more birdies and a few more pars

For safety, and health, and wealth and wisdom.




And if I can't have all of this, I wish to be happy with what I have.



.

Santa Baby

Why is it that as you get older, you want less and less for Christmas but the things you want cost more and more? I can only think of half a dozen things I really want for Christmas this year, and all of them cost more than I could probably earn for selling a child. (Anyone in the market? I know a very talkative 4 year old who would love to live with you.)


1) A new sapphire for my engagement ring. This is truly the ultimate in frivolity. But I can't help it. The stone on my ring looks black. People always ask me what stone it is. "Is it onyx?" No it's not onyx! Who would get an engagement ring with onyx in it??? Well, clearly it looks like I would. Hence, the desire for a bluer sapphire. I really don't think a couple hundred dollars could be put to better use. Those so-called starving children in Africa don't look that hungry to me.


2) A video camera. My digital still camera has a video feature, and in good lighting, at one static distance, for short periods of taping, it works fine. We've used it to take tons of little videos like Beck singing the sound of music with Daphne's fairy costume on, and Daphne running around naked sticking out her bum and yelling, "Waka waka waka!" You know, everyday stuff like that. But as soon as you try to zoom in, it goes dark. Or if you want to take something for longer than 90 seconds, like a recital or birthday party, it cuts off into 10 tiny segments. And forget taping in medium to low light; those boudoir videos are a no-go. So someday it would be nice to have a real video camera. Someday when I win the elusive $400 lottery.

3) Speaking of cameras, I'd love to have a really nice digital SLR camera. I have a digital point and shoot. But it lacks the ability to really play with the settings and take creative, professional looking shots. Somewhere buried in my house I have a classic SLR camera. But it uses film (do they even still develop real film??). And it doesn't allow you to see your shots as you go, which means experimenting with different settings is nearly pointless--you won't see the results of your setting changes until you get the film developed. If they even still develop film. So someday, when I have $600 lying around, I'd like a digital SLR camera.


4) Reebok EasyTone shoes. They're the ones you've seen in the commercials that tone your butt and legs just by walking around. I watched a whole exposé show about them, and they really do work. I'm all over that. For only a cool $100 I can quit working out. My lower body.



5) Lasering. I've already had my legs and bikini lasered. And I think nearly every day of my life how it was the best money I've ever spent. Not having to shave my legs (or slice up my poor husband's legs all summer long when we come into contact with each other) is wonderful. But I have a few more areas that I'd like to have worked on. Like...all of them. So as soon as I can come up with a grand or two for total body hair removal, I will be as smooth as a newborn rat. But hopefully not as revolting.



6) A steam mop. This one is probably my most justifiable request. Because it actually involves cleaning. And gifts that involve cleaning don't really count as gifts. They're necessities, right? My second least favorite job to do around the house is mopping. I just hate it. And our mop does such a terrible job on the bathroom tile that I must admit our bathroom tile doesn't get cleaned nearly as often is it should. The hippo tank at the zoo is probably more sanitary. So the steam mop will kill two germs with one stone: I might actually clean the floor, and if I do, it will use all 220 degrees of heating power to kill off anything I might have missed. And the fact that the one I want is only $69 means I might actually see an Amazon box under the tree this year.

As for the other things, I think me and my onyx ring will just have to wait. Unless you know a sugar daddy in the market for a 35 year old mother of two with a faint mustache who hates to mop. Then pass my number his way!

Oh Tannenbaum!

When Big Daddy and I were first married, we went to look for our first Christmas tree together. It was early December, a crisp, starry night. Ok, it was butt freezing cold. None the less, we visited several tree lots, wandered among the firs and pines wondering how big a tree should be, what color, if it should be bushy or branchy, and why it cost nearly as much to buy a tree as it did to make our house payment.

We ended up with a lovely, 6 foot, lush, green Noble Fir. We tied it to the roof of our car just as big fat flakes were starting to fall. And as we drove home, I felt like this was a scene from a movie. A romantic comedy. All except for the fact that, in the end, we ended up digging through a pile of discount trees in the Albertson's loading zone to find it.

Every year thereafter we spent an evening in early December wandering hand and hand through tree lots lined with colorful lights, searching for the perfect tree, and then heading to Albertsons to dig around under the florescents. I loved our fresh Christmas trees. The piney smell. The soft needles. The sap in my hair from trying to get the tree into the holder at the bottom. Ah, good times.

However, after about our 4th or 5th year of this, I began to notice the down sides of having a real tree. First of all, it's expensive. Secondly, it doesn't hold up ornaments that well with its soft, droopy branches. Thirdly, watering it is a pain. You get all scraped up crawling on your belly, trying to reach the water reservoir, and half your hair ends up hanging permanently from the bottom branches. Then it dies anyway, and by Christmas day it's hard, crisp, brittle, shedding everywhere, and begging for one tiny match to get lit within a 10 foot radius so it can burst into flames and burn your house down. After Christmas, it sits in front of your house shedding all the rest of its needles until the city decides to pick it up in late February.

So two years ago we bought a fake tree. I almost cried at the prospect. In fact, I might have pitched a fit or two when Big Daddy suggested it. But money was tight, so we headed to Target mid-December to see what we could find. What we found was that most of the trees were long gone. And the ones that were left were mostly hideous. White flocked trees, bright Kelly green trees, plastic trees, and pint sized trees were all that remained on the shelves. But there on the platforms amongst the other display trees was a real beauty. Just the right shade of green, kind of sage-y like a real tree. It had pine cones here and there. Really, you almost couldn't tell it was fake. It was tallish, about 7 1/2 feet. The branches were strong. It was even marked on sale, 30% off $199. But, of course, it was sold out.

And then we got lucky. When we asked an employee to check the back for us, she informed us that we could take the display model if we wanted. There was no box, but we could probably get a further discount because of that. So we grabbed two of the biggest rubbermade boxes you've ever seen from the containers aisle, disassembled our gorgeous fake tree, and headed up front.

This is where the real Christmas miracle took place. Our new sap-free, no-shed tree was marked down to $37.50. Thank you, Santa! Or Jesus. Or whoever.

So now each year, I haul up two coffin-sized boxes from the basement, plug in the pre-lit sections, pop them together, and voila, 8 minutes after I started I have a gorgeous, almost-as-good-as-real tree.

I even get to keep my hair in tact.

Don't tell the Christmas gods, but it's totally worth it. Totally.

Eating Humble Pie

In case any of you were wondering what pie I ended up making (no? well too bad), I went with my sister's amazing apple pie recipe.

I don't actually like apple pie much. Not an apple fan in general. But this recipe is so delicious I just can't resist it. Something about it---the mixture of different types of apples, the tartness, the firmness, the lack of carmely flavor- which I can't abide in apple desserts-and the lack of syrupy goo--just makes this pie wonderful. (If you want the recipe, you can find it at www.kingarthurflour.com.)

I got up early to make this pie. I wanted to give it time to settle (a tip I got from the website on working with fruit pies. They tend to give up their juice when cooking but they re-absorb it as they cool. So let your pie cool and then reheat later if you don't want a runny pie.) I worked on it all day...double crust (Ok, Marie Calendar actually made the crust, but I did have to roll out the top crust so it would fit. Besides, just peeling apples takes forever!). It looked so beautiful when I was done. The crust was a perfect golden brown. The inside was bubbling nicely and hadn't leaked out. I was so proud!

After dinner, I was excited to be the first to try my pie. But as I bit into the first piece, I decided that it was much too sour. Too many Granny Smiths, I decided. I should have added more sugar, I thought. And then the wheels in my head started to turn... I remembered putting in cinnamon, nutmeg, corn starch, vanilla, lemon juice....SHOOT! I forgot to add the sugar!

Luckily, with 7 different pies to choose from, no one had tried my pie yet except me. I took the other 7/8ths of my pie home in shame.

Later my mom came up with the brilliant idea of scooping out the filling, mixing in some sugar, and stuffing it back in. Delicious! And all the leftovers are at my house. Just the way I like it. (Thanks, Mom, for averting a serious pie disaster!)

Anyone for pie?

Pie On The Brain

So I'm in charge of making mashed potatoes and pie for our family Thanksgiving dinner. Mashed potatoes are no problem. Easy peasy. But pie is a bit more work. So I've been thinking about which pie, and which recipe, to make. It lead me to the following question:

What's your favorite pie?

It doesn't have to be a Thanksgiving pie. I just wondered what everyone else likes when they think pie.

I like pecan. I also like chocolatey confections with several layers. If the apple pie is fresh and well-made, I like apple. But I'm pretty picky about apple pies because most of them are gross. Sour cream berry pies are good. Pumpkin? NO THANKS. Blech.

What about you?

Obligatory Halloween Post

I am happy to say that we had the highest turnout of trick-or-treaters in the seven Halloweens we've lived here. Yay! I actually went through all my candy. I even bought a spare bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, just in case, and I ended up opening them and using all of them. Wait, that sucks now that I think about it! I was hoping to have to snack on them because they were left over. BUT I am happy to see my previously super-lame neighborhood finally get their act together on Halloween. (I think we had about 30 kids. That's good for the ghetto, where you're just as likely to get crack rocks in your sack as Snickers.)

As for my kids, they had a blast. They were both old enough to "get it." Miraculously, Daphne didn't walk into any houses this year! Beck, on the other hand, walked into two. Once he made it all the way back into the master bedroom at before we realized he wasn't on the doorstep with us anymore. Oops! Sorry about that, Neighbor.

We also hit double the houses this year. I could have gone on all night, and I'm sure Daphne could have too, but Beck petered out after 2 streets, up and down. Killjoy.

So, here are my lovely kids. (Oh and you may notice that they are dressed opposite to the way that 90% of you voted. As it turned out, they were out of the cowgirl costume I wanted in Daphne's size, and we decided it was unlikely that Beck would sport the braids in the Indian brave costume, so we went with the black and white cowboy and Indian squaw theme instead.) Beck, always so astute and p.c., announced at several houses, "Cowboys SHOOT Indians!" Thanks, Son. Now grab your M&M's and let's go.




Sadly, I packed up the Halloween decor today. Goodbye tombstones. Goodbye skeleton bones. Goodbye jack-o-lanterns and fake blood and spiders and webs. I'll see you in 10 months, 26 days.

Happy Devil's Night!

Don't know what Devil's Night is? Well, if you live in Detroit and you're lucky, your car might get egged. If you live in Detroit and you're not lucky, your car might get keyed. If you live in Detroit and you don't sit outside with a shotgun on October 30th, your house might get burnt to the ground. Why? 'Cause we Michiganders know how to paaaartay.

And now I'll leave you with a happier thought. The only vandalism here was committed against pumpkins. (click to enlarge)



p.s. Bonus points if you can tell me which 1997 movie set in the Detroit area made reference to Devil's Night. (No fair looking it up!)