Thank you, Dallas Clark!

You may remember from last year that I’m in an office fantasy football league. I was pretty sure that I was sunk this past week: I was eleven points behind my opponent with only one more guy to play last night, the Colts’ tight end Dallas Clark. But he ended up having a great game and I ended up beating my opponent (and everyone else) this week!

The funny part about this matchup is that earlier in the year we got a new CEO. And with my working from home I haven’t had the chance to be formally introduced.

Until now, that is.

At the State Fair

My older brother Steven has some developmental disabilities and consequently lives with my parents. Last week my mom went to Korea to visit relatives and so Steven came to stay with us for a few weeks while she’s away.

On Saturday I took E and Steven to the state fair (fortunately one without an insane escaped killer on the loose). We rode some rides, walked through the midway, and petted the livestock. E loves rides and went nuts when we rode the ferris wheel and carousel. The weather was quite hot so after a while he kind of wilted, but overall he had a lot of fun.


I heart (in no particular order) pierogi and N

N is amazing and helps out a lot around the house and takes a turn cooking dinner every other night. It’s a huge relief not to be responsible for putting dinner on the table everyday. N’s probably the better cook of the two of us anyway and last night he put together this tasty meal of pierogi and vegetables. I love dumplings of all sorts and pierogi in particular. Dumplings stuffed with mashed potatoes and cheese–what’s not to like? Add some sour cream on the side and you are in heaven, my friend.

On an unrelated note, I’ve updated my URL. This is the new one. Please adjust your bookmarks accordingly. (Hee-hee! Make your own here.)

Have a great weekend.

I’m starting to get excited

Yesterday was my first day of woodworking class. Even though I’m still a little frustrated with the boxes I need to finish I’m starting to get excited about this semester. My priorities this term are

  1. Finish the jewlery boxes.
  2. Make myself a cutting board. (Last year I made some for Christmas gifts and liked how they turned out. But I ended up not having one left over for myself and I’d like one.)
  3. Make a toy for E. I found plans online for the toys below and think they’re cute AND doable. E is mad for anything with wheels and so I think he’d really like this bulldozer.


I don’t know if I’ll finish all three projects but I’m pretty sure I’ll at least get 1 and 2 done (famous last words, I know). I’m a pretty slow worker because I tend to make a lot of mistakes. I guess we’ll just have to see. I’ll try and take pictures and post about my progress as it goes.

Whole Foods Incident Update

Yesterday I sent an email to the store where this happened on Monday. This morning I received a nice email from the store manager Bryan apologizing for the way the employee handled the incident. He said that they “have procedures in place, for safety purposes, around cleaning up any type of bodily fluids. We also have other individuals in the store who can be called upon to assist in these types of situations.”

Bryan also said that they will talk to the employee I dealt with so she’s aware about how the situation could (and should) have been handled differently. He also offered to send me a giftcard for my inconvenience and time.

Phew! I feel so relieved. While the actual incident was stressful and humiliating, Bryan’s response cheered me up. Let’s face it, while it’s a bit of a drive for me, I like going to Whole Foods and now I feel better about returning there to shop.

Thanks, Bryan.

The Most Beautiful of the Skylarks

I can’t remember where I first came across it, but this Finnish wallpaper has been in the back of my mind for over 5 years. It’s call “The Most Beautiful of the Skylarks.” Isn’t that a great name?

If I had a daughter AND oodles of money (It’s $70 a roll) I would use it in her room. There’s a better picture of the pattern in a different colorway here.

I also really liked this pattern.

Rock and Roll?

Thanks for all the lovely support regarding The Whole Foods Incident. E doesn’t have much of an appetite yet but is otherwise back to normal. This morning he was bopping around to kids’ shows as he normally does. E loves dancing around to music and playing his little guitar. Both are pretty cute.


This picture cracked me up. Our fondness for The Beatles and the Wiggles’ influence may have destined E to be a Beatles fan. But then again he might rebel and become a Stones man just to spite us.

Despite E feeling better I’m really dragging this morning. A few weeks ago we had bought tickets for a concert last night and when E went to bed okay we decided to go as planned. We saw three Scottish bands: We Were Promised Jetpacks, The Twilight Sad, and Frightened Rabbit.

The show was supposed to start at 9pm but the first band didn’t start until 10pm. We had snagged some seats at a table but I was kind of struggling because I hadn’t slept well the night before. I didn’t fall completely asleep but I came close a couple of times to nodding off. I felt bad because it was disrespectful to the bands playing and also because falling asleep at a rock concert is really, REALLY lame. But I perked up once Frightened Rabbit came on. They were great.

By the time we got home and to bed it was 2am. Right now I’m basically counting down the hours until E takes his nap so I can take one myself. Poor N has to work all day. But he has an office so maybe he can close his door and catch some zzzs too.

Apparently Whole Foods doesn’t have a mop

I took E to Whole Foods this morning to get some specialty baking ingredients so I can bake him some milk-free, egg-free goodies. He had a cold over the weekend but seemed pretty much better today. But while he was sitting in the cart he started coughing really hard and then threw up his breakfast all over his clothes, his shoes, the floor, my shoes, and (by an impressive feat of agility) my hair. It was gross.

I was pretty stunned but then quickly started stripping E out of his wet clothes. The lady who worked in the section we were in (an older, grandmotherly type) was nice and brought a bunch of clean rags and stuff so I could clean E up. But then after I got E cleaned up the lady brought me more rags and plastic bags and a pair of plastic gloves. She was friendly about it but I distinctly caught the drift that she expected me to clean up the puke myself. I think the situation was that if I didn’t do it then she would have to do it herself.

And because I’m not good with confrontation I wrangled a shirtless pathetic-looking E with one hand while sopping up the puke with the rags. I kept expecting her to tell me not to worry about it, that she would go get a mop or something but she just watched me clean it up. Customers kept almost walking into the puddle and I had to stop them myself. I was so embarrassed! I just wanted to get out of there and get E home. I know no one likes to clean up a mess and it was my child who had made the mess, but it would have been really helpful if she had went and got a mop so I could focus on taking care of E.

When we got to the car I put his spare jacket on him and he seemed to be feeling better. But then he threw up again all over himself and his carseat. I didn’t have any more extra clothes so I just mopped it up the best I could and then kept driving. Once we got on the freeway he felt asleep, wet with puke and clutching a toy in his hand. Sad stuff.

He’s doing better now and napping, but I’m still a little peeved over the whole thing. We have a health food store fairly close to my house but I had wanted to go to Whole Foods to browse because it’s a lot bigger. But I don’t see myself making that drive again anytime soon. Bleh.

***Update 9/16/09***
I emailed the store and got a nice response from the manager. Details here.