Mary Janes

I have been needing a new pair of black heels. Nothing fancy, just something in the mid-range. I have highish peep-toe pumps, black leather/black patent: kind of wing-tippy if you must know. Have another pair, very similar in taupe with black crocodile trim, also two pairs of black boots and some black flats I wore when I was pregnant, which truth be told, and really too big for me now.

I keep finding brown shoes I love. I don't need brown shoes. In fact, a couple of years ago I made myself buy the brown pair of shoes when I found shoes I liked because all my shoes were black. Now the pendulum has swung the other way and it's brown, brown, brown on my closet floor and I have no black shoes!

I think I'm secretly looking for something reminiscent of a Mary Jane. I love Mary Jane shoes. Love the strap. I have several pairs of semi-sneakery Mary Janes, a pair of navy blue pumps with an asymmetrical MJ strap, a red pair with those squishy tall soles that have been out of style for at least 4 years now, but I can't throw them away because they came from Talbots and they were expensive and they still look brand new, darnit!

So imagine my delight when my little cutie one received these as a present when she was born. These little socks from Trumpette just made my day. Thanks again, cousin Janet! There was nothing cuter than my little baby in her teeny weeny newborn outfits with matching or complimentary Mary Jane socks on her feet. In fact, I loved them so much, I bought her Mary Jane tights at Christmas from The Children's Place. In black AND red. Sigh. Adorable. Her little feet have already grown so much that these socks don't fit her any more, but I love the way they look still and decided to save them for her with some of her baby outfits. She may end up putting them on her baby doll's feet some day, who knows. Let's see if she loves Mary Janes as much as I do!

Recipe Rut

I have about 5 cookbooks on my shelf. A Better Homes and Gardens red and white checked one, a Weight Watchers Simply the Best, a couple of Cooking Light cookbooks I found at a yard sale for almost nothing, one about food from Italy, one for cooking with kids ... you get the picture. So, there's probably at least 2 years worth of meals in there. (I have to assume there are fish recipes and I don't like fish. Plus I hate the way it smells up the house. Bleah.)

So why am I still making the same 5-6 meals all the time? It's spaghetti, meatloaf, homemade little pizzas, chili, chicken stir fry and cheese enchiladas with an occasional marinara sauce and augmented with Costco's amazing chicken pot pie.

Okay, now I have to digress a moment. Have you tried the chicken pot pie from Costco? I am not generally a chicken pot pie fan. My daughter tried some one day when we were picking up a big box of diapers for her sister and really liked it. Since she's not really a chicken fan, I bought one since she loved it so much. I thank her for that every time I cook one for dinner. This pot pie is huge -- about the size of a medium/large pizza and competely delish. We could eat it for days. In fact we do, because there's no way we can finish one at one sitting.

I have read these cookbooks many times. I have marked recipes, but just never seem to try a new one. Maybe it's because my time is so limited that I tend to cook stuff I can do almost on autopilot. If this were the kind of blog with lots of readers, I'd say hey everyone ... give me your recipe recommendations. So if anyone out there stumbles on this blog, send your recipes my way.

Just remember that while I follow directions exceptionally well, I'm not into cooking things that take all day or a tremendous (more than 30-40 minutes) amount of preparation. In fact, cooking that chicken pot pie stretches my attention span to the breaking point. I have to cook it for 90 minutes. That means planning way ahead for dinner in my book!

Blow, baby, blow!

If only babies could blow their own noses. I know I'm not the first parent to wish this and I certainly won't be the last.

My poor little cutie one has a blocked honker. Her nose is stuffed up, so she can't breathe, so she blows out her binky at night so she can breathe. Then she's sad because she doesn't have her binky. So then you give it back to her, which calms her down. But then, her nose is stuffed up ...

So after doing this little dance at 5:00am for a while, I bit the bullet and took her downstairs for the dreaded nose sucking. That bulb-syringe they send home with you from the hospital? It's the Best. Thing. Ever. Only try telling that to your baby. She doesn't even like to have her nose wiped after this weekend.

Let me just say: many tissues were used before the green bulb syringe came out of storage.

At least I'm not writing 2007 on my checks any more, but ...

Are we really this deep into 2008 and I haven't posted anything? Yeah, I guess it's true. Of course, I'm the mom who wrote all her holiday cards after Christmas and then left them in my scrapbook room. They're addressed. They'll be mailed ... but just when, exactly? I went to all the trouble of making them, even dressing my darling daughters in matching outfits for the photo, and have addressed them by hand. By hand!! Not even labels!! I'm telling you, I was doing it all right.
And then ... sigh. The not-mailing of them.

Of course, I have a built-in excuse ... several of them, in fact.
1. I have a baby daughter (she's 7 months old now, so I guess I have 5 months left of this one)
2. I work full-time
3. My house looks like an interior tornado rages weekly (EF-3 on the Fujita Scale, I SWEAR!) and someone's got to make sure we don't get gangrene from the debris!
4. Fill in the blank

I have the stamps. There's really no excuse. I think I'll do it this weekend before the 100 stamps I bought at Costco are obsolete thanks to the U.S. Postal Service raising rates. Again!