Seeing Green

They say that everyone should have a signature color. Mine would have to be chartreuse green. Any green, really. Other than mint, that is. Lime, chartreause, kelly.
I love green because you can pair it with pink, black, brown or white and it always seems to look good. Plus, it's Oprah's favorite and when has she ever steered us wrong?
I've picked out a few of my favorites for fall and I thought I'd share them with you.

Love this bag from Boden. I feel like I could fill this puppy up and not have to use another bag all season!



This double breasted cardigan from Boden is perfect for those crisp fall days and can carry you into spring as well.



This is one of those items that I love online, but I'll have to see it in person before I buy. Love the cut. Not sure if the color is truly green or yellow? No worries...I'll be stopping by J. Crew soon.



This I absolutely adore. A gorgeous velvet jacket from Boden. Pair it with black slacks, a denim skirt or chocolate cords for a great look anyday.



I love V-necks. They just seem to work better with my, er, bust. I love this with a black or white tee underneath and paired with some cute skinny jeans.



I bought these flats from Tory Burch last fall and they quickly became a staple of my wardrobe. They are so comfortable...it feels as though you're wearing bedroom slippers.



I love the pairing of kelly green and navy blue on these wellies from Kate Spade. Now that I no longer have a garage for the old Volvo Wagon, I guess these might come in handy on rainy days!!!



This is my favorite new necklace from Turq Jewelry. You could dress it down with a crisp black button down and jeans or fancy it up with a cute black dress.



Last, but not least, my favorite black dress from J. Crew to coordinate with all of the green!

Girls Rule, Boys Drool

We've had a typical "week before school starts" so far. Yesterday BabyBoy had his yearly physical. All went well until they had to prick his finger, at which point he screamed as though his arm had been amputated. Better than last year, though. In my infinite wisdom I chose to have his five year shots at his four year appointment since he was going to JK. It was a nightmare. This child is such a drama queen. After the nurse (who just so happens to be a hateful, mean person) finished with his five shots, BabyBoy took time between screams to yell "I hate that nurse. She's such a bitch." Oops! Guess he heard me talking about her to Dr. Daddy that morning.
On our way home from the doctor BabyBoy allowed me to know that he hates my car and BabyGirl proved once again that girls really do have mental superiority.

BabyBoy: I hate this car.

Me: Really, why?

BabyBoy: I liked our car with the DVD player better.

Me: Well, you better learn to like it because when you get your driver's license this is what you'll be driving.

BabyBoy: I'm not driving this car...I'm going to get Daddy's fast car.

Me: Hah! Good luck.

BabyGirl: I'll drive this car, mommy. I love it. Besides, you can't watch movies while you're driving anyway. (looking at her brother) DUH.

BabyBoy: Speechless.

BabyGirl: Girls rule, boys drool.

And that was the end of that.

It's in the Bag!

I am so excited to bring you a new shopping site today. I am absolutely in love with these adorable clutches from laurence e. available at Initial Thoughts. They are the perfect size for a wedding, cocktail club or a night out on the town. There are so many colors to choose from and each clutch has a cute, coordinating fabric on the inside. The price is right, too. At $58 each you can't really go wrong! Pat Carstensen, a fellow Southerner, is the designer. She gets lots of input from her two daughters who are 23 and 26. While you're visiting the site don't forget to click on the bottom right corner to see the rest of their adorable offerings.

KooKoo for KooKoo Bear Kids

Since I've been shopping for lots of stuff for my kids' rooms lately, I've found tons of adorable websites. I particularly love this site by KooKoo Bear Kids. They have tons of great stuff for kids. The artwork is adorable, and they have so many personalized pieces to work with. I also love these towels in a bag that can be monogrammed. What a great gift! The lunchboxes are adorable and you can't beat the price. Check it out!

Seeing Things In a New Light

I'm happy to come to you today with a project!!! Better yet, a monogramming project. Even better? You can do it yourself and it's so easy.
BabyGirl's bedroom in our old house was truly my favorite room in the house. Loved it. I put it all together when I was pregnant and had all those great hormonal creative ideas. Her room in the new (old) house, however, is another story entirely. I've really been struggling to come up with an overall theme that I'm happy with. One of my first priorities was getting new lamps. Her old room had cute little lampshades covered with hot pink gerbera daisies. Terribly cute, but not for her new room. So, I headed over to Tarjay to find some inspiration. I had thought about buying one of the adorable lampshades I've seen online that have the ribbon and the monogramming but wasn't sure I'd like the colors. And, I'm more into instant gratification. None of this waiting for the mail stuff. I picked out a cute white shade trimmed in pink ric rac and a matching base. Total cost was less than $25. Then I had an epiphany and thought, "Why not monogram it myself?".
Oh, I know why! I don't have an artistic bone in my body.
I headed over to the local craft store (we have A.C. Moore around here, but Michael's or Hobby Lobby would work, too) and bought some letter stencils. I bought 5 inch letters for the center and four inch letters for either side. I bought some pink paint and a stencil brush and headed home.
All in all, this project took me less than ten minutes once I got started. I simply taped the middle letter of the monogram on first and stenciled it in. I let it dry a bit and then did the smaller letters on the side. I went over it all again with a regular paintbrush, filling in the spaces left from the stencil and making the letters a little curlier, which was more to my liking. Then, voila! A plain shade turned into an adorable, personalized lamp. Now I'm thinking I'm going to monogram her table and chairs that I've been re-painting. Look for the sequal in days to come...

Before:



After:

Dumb, da dumb, dumb!

I'm feeling really dumb right about now. For the past four days I have been calling the poor people at Verizon INSISTING that they shut off my voice mail service because it is messing with my answering machine. Literally, I have demanded to speak to the supervisor three times. I'm sure they've put out a hit on my house and my phone service will never be the same. Or maybe they'll turn my number into a 1-900 number and I'll get a bunch of calls from random perverts. I would if I were them. You see, everytime my answering machine picked up it would play two messages at once and it sounded like I was drunk and repeating myself when I had recorded the initial greeting. For those of you who know me, you know that this is not entirely unlikely. At any rate, I THOUGHT that it was my voicemail picking up over top of my machine and therefore wanted my voicemail cut off. Verizon assured me on SEVERAL occasions that my voice mail was, indeed, shut off. "Call my phone and you can hear it for yourself!" I said. Finally, I called the manufacturer of the phone. This poor woman who was surely sitting in some sweatshop in Pakistan listened patiently through my entire sordid story. Finally, after I was all done and practically in tears, she asked me to unplug my phone. Porquoi? Unplug it, she said. Just trust me. So I unplug the phone from the power source and she calls my home phone while I wait on my cell. She has me walk around the house listening for her voice. Weird, right? Then, as though the sun was rising and everything all of a sudden became clear, I realized that my sweet, clueless husband had plugged in the old phone in the basement without turning off the old answering machine. DUH. So, we had two machines going off at once. Being the good person I am I did call the phone company back to apologize profusely. Then I paged Dr. Daddy and allowed him to know that he was the source of my angst for the past four days. His reply? "What's new?"

You can't make this stuff up....

What a day we've had! It all started with me picking up our sitter. This girl has been sitting for me for several years, but has just this summer taken over the post that her older sister used to hold. She sits for me twice a week and also went to the beach with us. Thus far, she has been incredibly helpful and at the beach she was truly indispensable. Today, however, was another story. We got home and I insisted the kids go outside. They spent all day inside yesterday and were complete couch potatoes. So does she help me get their clothes on and get them out the door while they're both screaming that they won't go? No. She stands in the hallway watching me wrestle them knowing that I only have three hours with her to help me and I'm wasting a good 30 minutes. WTF? Finally, they go outside and she just sits there in her JEANS and LONG SLEEVES. Hello? It's 93 degrees outside! What was she thinking?
So that was our morning. Later this evening I'm sitting outside with the lovies watching them play and our new neighbor walks by and stops for a chat. Lovely person, really. And, I really want to make friends with this gal 'cause she has been seriously wronged by the gal who we bought the house from. LONG STORY. So what does my sweet, precious daughter do when she says hello? NO JOKE. She spit in her face!!! Full on spit. OH DEAR LORD IN HEAVEN. Definitely in the top five most embarrassing moments of my life. After apologizing profusely I took BabyGirl inside to douse her mouth in Texas Pete. Call me a bad mother if you will but I WILL NOT TOLERATE BAD MANNERS!
Later on, it was time for supper. BabyBoy is eating reheated pizza. Yes, Mommy had just a tidge of a hangover yesterday and ordered the requisite cheese pizza from the Papa. After two bites, he insists he's done. Here's how it went down.

Me: You must eat five more bites before you get up from the table.
BabyBoy: I will not tolerate this from you.
Me: Excuse me?
BabyBoy: There is no excuse for you.
Me: Ahem, WHAT DID YOU SAY?
BabyBoy: You're making me crazy.
Me: If you do not finish your dinner this minute I will go upstairs and disassemble the computer and you will not play games for weeks.
BabyBoy: That's not even a word and I can hook it back up anyway. I'll eat three bites and then I'm done.
Me: This is not Let's Make a Deal. You will eat FIVE BITES!
BabyBoy: That show isn't even on anymore.

What the hell? When did he start sounding just like me? He's five for Christ's sake. Finally, Dr. Daddy got home and put them both to bed so I could finish painting BabyGirl's room for the third time. I think I just painted it the color it was originally. Damn.

Shake, rattle and roll

So what does a girl do when she's got a thousand boxes to unpack and crap everywhere? She watches High School Musical 2, of course! I haven't even seen the first one but my three year old was dying to watch this so I joined in whilst folding some laundry. I have to tell you, I was completely enthralled. It's like Grease for this generation. BabyGirl was having the time of her life dancing in front of the mirror. She has allowed me to know that she wants to be a cheerleader and a dancer. No surprise there. With that bootie she's got to be in some kind of music. BabyBoy was completely uninterested, which surprised me. Alas, he is a boy afterall.
We spent today wasting time at Target, unpacking many, many boxes of VHS tapes (I'm tellin ya'll, Dr. Daddy is stuck in the 80's and will never leave), and unpacking tons of books (again, stuck in the 80's) When I tried to explain that the stellar set of encyclopedias that he was unpacking were completely obsolete and that our kids would use the internet to get their school info he looked at me as though I had just sprouted a second head and suggested we move to Mars. Seriously.
At any rate, our playset is reassembled in the back yard and we're ready for playdates. Desperate, actually. Tomorrow will be more of the same with cooler weather, thank God.
Hope ya'll have a better weekend than me!

Warning...Burnout Ahead

I have to apologize for not posting lately. We just got our computer hooked back up yesterday and I didn't get my new email address until today. So far, we've made the move with no major catastrophies. Everything's in and it all fits. Kind of. It WILL fit once I get it all put away and out of the middle of the floor. I finally had to put the closet together yesterday after Dr. Daddy woke me up at the buttcrack of dawn to ask where the hell his pants were. Oops. I mean really. Does he really NEED pants to wear to work? What about those cute little scrubs they have? Whateva. Anyhoo...MOST of the clothes are put away. That would be all the clean clothes. Let's not even discuss the mounds of clothes that need to be washed.
On the washing note I do have good news. As a result of the move I am the proud new owner of a front loading washer and dryer. Let me tell you folks, these are the bomb. I will never hate on doing laundry again. They are amazing. I bitched for a few days about the cost and all of the other FUN things I could be spending the cash on but after using these puppies I am hooked.
The next thing I'll have to spend some dough on is Weight Watchers. I can't even remember the last time I worked out and I've been chowing down on all the baked goods the neighbors have brought by. Awesome cookies, by the way KM. When we ate them the first time they were still warm. Have mercy.
I'm done working for tonight. More organizing tomorrow! I think I'll load the china cabinet tomorrow. Does that sound fun or what?!

Bust a Move

Moving week is here in full force. Dr. Daddy has conveniently been on call all week. Lovely. BabyGirl is in Richmond with my parents and they've lost her lovie, Ellie. Good luck with getting her to sleep tonight suckas. BabyBoy is in soccer camp from 9-12 each day and I've had wonderful, generous friends who have taken him off my hands for a few hours after that each day. My brothers have both come to help. Paid help, of course, but who can blame them? Going to college and drinking heavily costs money these days. And apparently for these two, so do Gucci jeans. Excuse me, but I didn't even know Gucci made jeans. How pedestrian.
At any rate, we've gotten a ton done over the past three days. Carpets cleaned, wallpaper istalled in the dining room (it's gorgeous, ya'll. I can't wait to show pics...), plumbing issues fixed (for now), painting continues, carpet install and rugs arrive tomorrow, kitchen unloaded (210 glasses alone, thank you very much), carpentry completed in playroom. The moving company will come on Saturday to move the furniture and then we'll be officially in! Then we have to deal with where to mount the plasmas, where to hang pictures (including the God awful collage of my MIL that we received two years ago for Christmas), and having the garage doors put on. Seriously ya'll, it's taking a frikin' VILLAGE to get these dang garage doors put on. Who would have thought? Oh, and my electrician cancelled so I had to beg, borrow and steal to get someone out to the house to install six fixtures, take down two, and wire the foyer for sconces. No easy task in a 67 year old house. I'm lovin it.
On that note, did you see the Today show this morning where they talked about whether fast food advertising has an effect on how much crap our kids eat? HELLO? You would have to be living in a hole just north of Antarctica to think it didn't. So what? Free enterprise, ya'll. After having watched Fast Food Nation I have come to terms with the fact that my kids and myself are super abusers. Poor Dr. Daddy refuses to eat fast food unless there is nothing else within 100 miles. Literally. Maybe that would explain why he's been the same weight for 25 years and I've gained 10 pounds in the last year. Hmmmm. We'll reflect on that another time.

Snow In August

We're back from the beach and good times were had by all. With five adults, six college kids, two high schoolers, and two toddlers you can imagine the chaos! Our week was filled with the beach, drinking too much, the pool, eating too much, the aquarium, tennis, and did I mention drinking too much? We had some truly entertaining evenings that ran the gamut from dinner at a five star restaurant to getting kicked out of a sketchy karaoke bar. (note to self: you're 31, it's time to start behaving like an adult and not a college coed) We even had the time to finish the second season of Weeds on DVD. If you haven't seen this show you absolutely MUST. It kicks NIP/TUCK in the rear.
So we got back yesterday and the packing has begun again. I ran down to the basement for a few minutes. When I returned upstairs, to what my wondering eyes should appear, but two children laughing hysterically and throwing paper shreds all over the house as though they were frolicking in the snow. You see, Dr. Daddy bought himself a fancy new shredder and had given me the fruits of his labor to use for padding dishes. The kids found the bag full of shred and decided to throw it all over the first floor of the house. I have to say, when I saw the disaster I couldn't help but laugh. They were having SO much fun. Of course, when they saw me they immediately ran to hide behind the couch inside the fort they had made out of boxes. An hour later, the mess was cleaned up and the children had gone upstairs to terrorize their father. Good times.