Monday, July 27, 2009

Kiddo On the Move

So it's like this: Kiddokabiddo has started walking (yes, for those of you keeping track at home, she's two days shy of fourteen months old. And Vee and I were both walking at ten months. Hey, the Kid reads books alone and has been feeding herself since she was six months old. I'm not fussing if she's a little late walking) which means I am spending my days holding her out at arms length, crowing, "Get your balance, get your balance!" and backing away as she walks towards me.

Probably the best thing ever. Parents who kept telling me, "Oh, you'll regret it when she starts to walk--she'll be all over into EVERYTHING," you were wrong. Even though she keeps pulling down my copy of "First Indian on the Moon" off the shelf she ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO REACH and bringing it over to me while grunting "Ungh, ungh" (in Kiddospeak, that means 'Read to me.' I don't know why my daughter, who has no problem saying "bunny" and "plane" and calling every liquid "wa-wa" can't say BOOK, but I'm going with it).

Still love that she's walking.

Kid on the move!

I performed one of the greatest Recession Miracles this weekend. I had gotten an email from Gap (to AN EMAIL ADDRESS THAT I NEVER, EVER GIVE OUT, so how they got it is SERIOUSLY ALARMING) letting me know about a recall on a coat I had bought for Kiddo way back in November. (We bought the pink duffle coat, in case you're actually looking at that link)

Buying the coat alone was a major coup, since it was inexplicably marked down from $44.50 to $9.99 (AMAZING!) and, even better, I had a $10 Gap Rewards certificate, so after tax got involved, I paid a whole $0.48 for it.

ROCK AND ROLL!

So I brought the coat in, even though Kiddo has long, long since outgrown it and it was just going to unsafely languish in the saving-for-the-next-kid clothes boxes. DON'T WANT FUTURE KIDDOS CHOKING! Even though I was pretty sure that it was pointless and I would be refunded $0.48 since I put it on my Gap Card and, surely, they will know that fact.

I brought the toggle-still-safely-attached coat to the lady at the counter, she took it, and told me that I would be issued a $44.50 merchandise credit.

YES!

So I bought a bunch of leggings for Kiddo and still have ~$15.

And, um, another $10 Gap Rewards certificate.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Winner! Champion!



Since I doubt you can read that fuzziness, let me tell you that the WINNER of the Pernille Vea Coffee Press, generously donated by Allmodern.com, is...

GRACE, commenter #3!

Grace, if you could send your email address and mailing address to kristineonseventeen at yahoo dot com, I will get your info sent along and your coffee press will be on its way! Congratulations!

And thanks, everyone, for commenting and letting me know who you are. Although I think I already knew who most of you are.

I am crazy-minded busy with work and getting my life back on track after three straight weekends of either being a guest, hosting guests, or traveling, so I'll be back later this week, hopefully, with a real post. In the meantime, in between time, I just need to say two things:

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (the movie) was ONE OF THE BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENTS I COULD HAVE IMAGINED. And this is coming from a MAJOR Harry Potter fan. More on that later--did you see it? What did you think?

2. Do you know what the most amazing thing about Savannah is? YOU CAN CARRY AROUND ROADIES ON THE STREET AND IT IS TOTALLY LEGAL!

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Give It Up! I Am!

I'm smack-dab between the amazing Ladeez Wiikynd of Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon (wow, that looks a lot more like Ladeez Wiik--no wonder I'm still recuperating) and the upcoming Bach Bacchanalia in Savannah for My Best Friend, so to keep y'all on your toes, here it comes...

Are you ready?

The sweet peeps at allmodern.com, who've got AMAZING modern furniture like the Aeron Chair by Herman Miller (dude, I should totally have this to go in my office so that my thrift-shopped Herman Miller chairs can partner up with their kin) and lust-inducing housewares (like, oh, basically everything by DwellStudio), were kind enough to contact me and offer up a giveaway.

Right here!

You're thinking to yourself, "Ok, so what did she pick out?"

This coffee press by Pernille Vea!


It beats hell out of my cheapo coffee press, so I'm really jealous of y'all right about now.

Want to be brewing up your morning goods in this sweetie?

YOU GOTTA COMMENT!

I know a lot of you have been hanging out, unwilling to offer your rebuttals on my insane Twilight lust or unable to comprehend why I pimped out actual pictures of myself karaoking during Blog Party Music Week, but you've got to STEP UP and MAKE YOUR PRESENCE KNOWN if you want a piece of that coffee press.

If you don't have a Blogger account, comment with a valid email address. Otherwise, BRING IT ON--one comment per person, but you can have a bonus entry if you comment with a story about a mwom or a dwad. DOUBLE bonus entry if you were the mwom/dwad in question.

I'm closing the entries at noon CST on Monday (July 20 09). So when I get back from Savannah, I'm random-picking a winner.

Don't be like Miley...

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Twenty-Something Turns, Well, Twenty-Something

First, can I just say that Keith Urban's tour bus is in town, and probably nothing would make my life like Keith Urban wishing me a happy birthday? Hey, we've both got 13 month old daughters and he's already got a red-headed wife; I'm not looking to hook up. Maybe just a hug. Or a kiss on the cheek. You know, like, that spot right between the cheekbone and the lips.

Anyway.

At 7:30 this morning, Vee brought me coffee, a biker-themed birthday card, and the new Taylor Swift CD (OMG I don't think I have talked yet about how much I love Taylor Swift and how obsessed I am with the new Taylor Swift single "You Belong to Me"--another post, y'all, another post) and woke me up from a dream where I was getting ready for a new semester of college and Vee and I were commiserating over how "this year's crop of new students are actually ATTRACTIVE."

Even in my dreams, I knew I was getting ONE YEAR OLDER and ONE YEAR further away from the adult I was and into the adult I am.

I am twenty-seven today, y'all. That's right: this mwom-evader is revealing her age, forever more, on the elephant-never-forgets Internet, which will record this fact a lot longer than your memories.

I LIKE being twenty-seven. I like being in my late 20s now. And I want you guys to know that I'm 27 because when I haul out the list of things I'm proud of, foremost is that I've done them all by the time I'm 27.

Where am I on my "list of things I thought I'd have done by now?" Like I mentioned in a previous post, I don't have my masters and I sure don't have a baby on the way, but I have a house in a city I love, a 13 month old Kiddo that delights me daily, a solid job (almost FIVE FULL YEARS with them now) with people and a mission that I respect, a family I love deeply and grow closer to with each passing year, friends I can pick right back up with even though we live far apart, and a husband I adore, who I have adored for almost eight years, and who is truly with me in every step of my life.

I don't LIKE being twenty-seven. I LOVE being twenty-seven.

You've made it this far. That means something. It's MY birthday, and while I'm not going to pretend twenty-seven has made me all potlatchy, I can tell you this: there is an EVADING MWOM FIRST GIVEAWAY on the horizon, so keep your eyes peeled and your blog readers updated. And thanks for sticking with me.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

All on the Fourth of July

Vee, Kiddo and I had a great Fourth of July with Gramma Goose, Grampa PhD, and AKA up in the Cities: we squeezed in an IKEA run, lunch out at my aunt & uncle's, several walks around the neighborhood, Kiddo's first conscious fireworks display (OMG, can I even tell you about last year for a second? We drove home from MN on the Fourth, and by the time we got home, she was crankdified and I could barely take her out on our deck so that I could see the fireworks.), and a great walk around Lake Calhoun.

Oh yeah, and VEE AND I GOT OUR FIRST NIGHT AWAY FROM THE KID!

As Vee's Father's Day gift, I got us a hotel room at the Hotel Minneapolis during one of our nights up with my 'rents. Yeah, I know, that seems counter-intuitive: to celebrate the fact that he's a father, he gets to spend a night NOT HAVING TO BE A FATHER. Tevs, doggy--it was rad. When we checked in, I had inexplicably received a $20 food credit (member of HHonors? Random 'First Night Away From Your Kid' fairy? I did not know, but I DID NOT CARE! FREEBIE!), so we had dinner in the hotel restaurant on the main floor. The Hotel Minneapolis used to be a bank, and YOU CAN TELL: huge marble columns everywhere, three-story-tall ceilings on the whole main floor, and yes, the rooms do appear to be former offices, no matter how much mod detailing they toss on them.

The coolest part was THE LIGHT FIXTURES! They had these gigantic metal circles strapped around the columns and red flat petals with lights extended beneath them, and the overall effect was THE COOLEST CORNER OF HELL (ironic, since Vee and I had breakfast at Hell's Kitchen the next morning, which did not appear hellish in any way other than the fact that it was in a basement).




(this is not us, but the cavalier attitude of these two urban twenty-somethings does mimic our presence that night. Except I was not drinking a three-years-ago Cosmo. Dude, get with the times and pimp one of your rad drinks, like the "Gatsby's Daisy" which I DID try, featuring green tea vodka, lavender simple syrup, and tarragon!)

My sister and her boyfriend met up with us a little later and we hung out in the bar portion of restaurant Max. After Vee pounded a Jameson on the rocks, he was out for the count and rowdily accosting Twins fans (Tigers v Twins was on the TV, and Vee is nothing if not Detroit-proud) between verbal assaults on the 60-something scraggly-haired "lawyer" (as he told our bartender) with the highest man-boobs ever (no, really, the dude HAD TO HAVE BEEN WEARING A MANSSIERE) who WAS IN THE BAR BECAUSE HIS 21-YEAR-OLD BRIDE-TO-BE was having her bachelorette dinner in the restaurant and I guess a certain SOMEBODY had to get involved (to the point of ordering Zombies for the whole table of giggling young Asian girls, which gave the entire affair a flavor of Mail Order Bride).

Anyway, it was great to have our first night off of Kiddokabiddo Night Duty after thirteen months, and when Gramma Goose and Grampa PhD picked us up the next morning, Kiddo was delighted to see us, but didn't really miss us THAT much. OUCH!

Great long weekend, easy drive home, but guess what DUMB THING WE DID?

Left VEE'S KEYS and MY CELL PHONE at my parents' house.

WELL DONE, WELL DONE!