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The Day for Change

On a beautiful day with fresh snow on the ground my entire family made its way to our polling station to VOTE.

I awoke giddy and will hopefully remain so throughout the week. It was as if our weather this morning -- a fresh new blanket of pure white snow covering the ground and layering the branches of trees -- was a sign of the new season of hope and change coming to greet us.

With the 5 yo and 3 yo in tow, my hubby and I cast our ballots into the big red box. People in line were smiling and chatty. There was a man there who was participating in his first voting experience, as he'd moved here from another country (not sure where from Europe) and he looked as if the whole experience might make him tear up. The kids behaved like saints -- asking educated questions and sticking tight to mom and dad.

The whole aura was one of optimism.

It was perfect.

Lighten up...or else!

My 3 yo son is obsessed with light up shoes. You know, the sneakers that light up when the kid is walking (or stomping, as my kid often does).

Before my son really came into his toddler years I always thought they were somewhat frivolous. I mean you can get a rawkin' pair of Vans at Famous Footwear much cheaper than purchasing say...light up Iron Man shoes or Wall E shoes from Payless Shoesource. And you all know how I feel about Wall E (if you don't read back a few posts).

In June we bought a pair of Spiderman light up shoes for the little man at Ross. They were $15 I think, so it was somewhat a non-issue. Now the shoes are beat. And by beat I mean there isn't an area around the perimeter of the sole that isn't scuffed and "burned" away. They have holes on both sides of the foot towards the toes from a summer full of skateboarding and learning to ride a bike and using his feet as a set of brakes. They need to go.

We tried getting rid of them last month, only to engage in daily morning battles about which shoes he would wear. Correction: would *not* wear. He desperately wanted only to wear his light up shoes.

So now I am embarrassed to write that not only do I continue letting him wear the shabby shoes, but I have yet to find an adequate replacement pair. One night I showed him a pair of Diego light up shoes from the Payless website. I finally got the green light for a purchase, which was tough. You see, they had to light up in front and back and have two straps, not laces. So I put the shoes in the virtual cart and got distracted for a day or two. I went back to the Payless site only to find that the Diego shoes were no longer even available.

I had committed a cardinal sin with the kid...told him he was getting the shoes - and let him see them - before actually purchasing. Now it's been ~two weeks of him asking when his Diego light up shoes will be here. Boooo....bad mom!

"Ummm...Mommy is still looking. I'm not sure, little man. Soon though.." Crap, I did it again.

And back to eBay, Craig's List and the like....

What is it about toddlers and the obsession with light up shoes!?

UPDATE Praise ebay! I scoured high and low until I found the Diego light up shoes and they'll be arriving to our house early next week!

It's booby month!

October is breast cancer awareness month. If you’ve read this blog for more than its last 5 posts then you know my mom has been working to kick cancer’s butt for over a year now.

And let’s say for no reason you want to do something nice for me, nice for others, and another reason to feel good about your day – just because.

Well, then it's your lucky day. Here are some things you can do:
• Visit this site which will provide funding for preventative diagnostics, aka a boob squishing mammogram that could save a life through early detection

• Shop here or here or here to purchase items that have a portion of the proceeds directed back to cancer research, diagnostics support or medicine

•Check out this site or this one for information on how to conduct a self exam and other educational information

• Check out this network of beauty bloggers that have united to form Total Beauty - Total Cure to generate additional awareness

• Send a Boob-e-Card to someone else

• Comment here and tell my mom how much she kicks ass for putting up such a fight

In case anyone wanted to know

Found this draft and thought I'd post, although it's a little tardy.

Took the kids to see Wall-E and there was some good and some bad. The good part was that the kids wolfed down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bag of carrot sticks by the close of the previews. Then, we lasted about 20 minutes into Wall-E before the kids looked at me pleadingly and asked to leave.

In my opinion, the lack of dialogue and effort one must put in to follow the nuances of the robots’ “body language” was just too tough for toddlers. I wasn’t entirely surprised, and knew it had been a gamble. Luckily, the theater I went to gave me three rain check coupons so we could try again with a different movie. And, of course we will. They have a movie goober for a mom.

Dear Rep Party: You see our lips moving, but do you hear what we're saying?

I’ve been stewing since Friday’s U.S. Republican VP candidate was announced. At first, emotionally, I was just infuriated because it felt like “Hey look, here’s a HRC replacement for you women out there” and Palin is no HRC. And now I’ve read all the rationales around why McCain opted to move forward with Palin, but I’m still stuck in place, processing my initial gut reactions.

Despite all the other reasons that may or not be obvious, three days later his choice still feels insulting – not because I believe the Republicans think women in general are “stupid” or that we’re blind enough to vote by chromosome only, as some have lamented. I get that the R party needed someone to woo back those on the far right and that there was a "marketing opportunity" to seize with HRC out of the '08 race.

What is so infuriating to me is the feeling that they are using Palin to reach out to HRC "fans" but obviously weren’t listening to WHAT women wanted and saw in HRC that inspired them. The Republican party just seemed to react to the fact that women were talking, and talking LOUD.

I’m still processing the information disseminating from both camps daily, but I already know that I won’t be voting for the McCain/Palin ticket. I knew that before Palin joined the camp, but now I am actually a bit frightened about what our family, and my daughter specifically, may face in the years to come if McCain is elected with Palin by his side. We're basically opposites when it comes to ideology.

Don’t get me wrong… as a woman, I respect what Palin has done in her career and obviously there's a number of people that support her in Alaska, but I don’t want the career she's built based on the foundation of her personal convictions affecting mine. And that's my choice.

However, to reiterate my main frustration at the Republican party again… they just don’t seem to get that “a woman” isn’t what women are looking for, especially not disaffected HRC supporters. Many of us are looking for an EXCEPTIONAL woman that believes in family and women’s rights – in the workplace and out.

Help?! Fashion emergency!

I need a simple and cute black skirt. I've been looking for that "perfect" skirt for ~a year and I just haven't felt the love. So, now I am asking for help.

Below, you'll find my paramters for the "perfect" skirt:
- It should fall just past the knee.
- I want to be able to wear it in Summer, but also in Winter with boots.
- I'm not a "flowy" type of person, so nothing too "gypsy-ish" but I don't want to have to diet before I wear it either.
- I don't mind some sort of trim or decor, but nothing over the top. A tie, ribbon detail, etc. - all good. A burnout or some sort of flower attachment? Probably not.
- As for budget, please keep in mind I love the styles of Banana Republic, BCBG and the like but at a TJ Maxx or eBay price. :)

I've almost given up... Anyone have any advice?

ps the one in the photo...it's close. But I don't like the "ruffle" at the bottom.

A little about home

Tonight I stumbled upon a Facebook group called “Bitch, please…I’m from Ketchum”. The name initially put me off. But slowly but surely my local Idaho brethren have been joining the ranks of Facebook and even though this is a teeny tiny town, I don’t get out much. Cause, you know, I have two kids, a FT job and a house that always seems to need cleaning and/or fixing. Actually, I probably could have stopped at “two kids”.

Anyway, I went to the group anyway thinking I might find some of my friends from town. When I got there, the group description cracked me up. It was a sincerely honest one of those “you know you’re from Ketchum when…” lists. It offers such a peek into what this place is all about that I decided to paste it here (for you non-Facebookers).

For people who grew up in Ketchum. As much as things change they never really do. You know grew up in Ketchum/Sun Valley if…

-You see your high school teachers at the bar.
-You have a mug.
-You know where to get your bell rung on the first.
-If you play buck hunter and don’t get the high score, you know the initials of the person who did.
-You revolve your work and sleep schedule around both dollar nights.
-Your garage looks like Cabellas, REI, and Woodside RV all threw up in it.
-You can find a poachable hot tub anytime you wish.
-You know crocs are lame, but still wear them to the bar.
-You know that you don’t lose your girlfriend you just lose your turn.
-You think chili in a bun and air-heads is the best ski lunch ever.
-You rarely pay full price for anything, and when you do you feel ripped off.
-You never pay covers.
-You come home every Christmas.
-You can’t give directions based on street names because you don’t know them.
-You have a conversation with every other person you see in the grocery store.
-You have a cruiser bike.
-You know that beer is as good as cash.
-You never worry about where you will stay when the bars close because that shit will just work itself out.
-You thought the fire was cool because it made all tourists leave, and thinned out the backside.
-You have a Smith sticker on everything you own.
-You know that when you’re done working landscaping, food service, or retail, you’ll become a real-estate agent.
-You remember Dawg Gone Good Teriyaki, The Burger Haus, The Western, The Buffalo Café, Louie's, Buckwheats, and the Saltwater Grill.
-Although there are lots of new buildings in town you haven’t been inside any of them.
-You never said hella and never will.
-The bands you listen to have your friends in them.
-You know multiple people who met their spouse on the dance floor at Whiskey’s.
-You understand even half of these.

An HPD and proud of it

If you’ve been reading this site for a long time, or from front to end (but let’s be honest here – neither of those likely apply) you’ll know that I am a complete Harry Potter dork, or as my husband likes to refer to me – an HPD. Luckily, there are a few others that I spend a considerable amount of my time with that are also HPDs, like Laptop Television Mom for one.

Well, if you’re an HPD you’ll know that today is a VERY exciting day! The trailer for the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie was released today. Now that I've been teased, the 115 day countdown to the theater release seems further away than it was this morning!

Also, if you’re a HPD and this post just isn’t enough for you, check out these other gems:
Veritaserum - Everything Harry Potter - Book 7, Movie 5 News
Harry Potter Books, Movies, and More - The Leaky Cauldron
HPANA - Harry Potter News and Rumors - Book 7, Movie 6 and More
HARRY POTTER STREET

And without further distraction...the trailer to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince!

Shel Silverstein 2.0(08)

Last night my daughter and I just finished the last poem from Shel Silverstein’s Falling Up. I’ve been waiting for ~20 years to have (a legitimate) reason to read Silverstein again. I L-O-V-E-D Where the Sidewalk Ends growing up. Until I started reading Judy Blume (Tales of a Forth Grade Nothing was a fave) Sidewalk was my favorite book.

My daughter, who will be five this Fall, loved Falling Up and now wants to start right back at the beginning and read it again. My next eBay Hunt (a favorite pastime of mine) will be for a good looking edition of Where the Sidewalk Ends.

I would love suggestions for other books to engage our daughter too. Suggestions from the potato gallery?

It was only a few days!?

Last week I went away for a few days to spend some time in our SF office and also to attend the BlogHer08 conference. When I came back I could have sworn that my son grew two inches and my daughter was three years older.

Okay, maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. But for reals, they were doing things they weren’t doing before I left.

My daughter was chewing gum (YES, it was sugar free).

My son can fill his glass with water from the fridge now with absolutely no assistance at all.

My daughter was brushing her own hair after her showers.

My son now wants and asks to go fishing (a lot).

These may seem trivial, but over the course of their little lives I haven’t really missed any milestones by being away. I wouldn’t call chewing gum a milestone, per se, but it’s amazing to me just how quickly these beautiful little people change.

Things I learned at Blogher…a preliminary list from the hollow corner of my processing brain.

Real women don’t eat danish

Just when you think that you’ve already surrounded yourself with your closest friends, you can find more

It’s great to think and talk, but it’s also important to DO

It’s obvious, but I’ll still say it; all women have something very valuable to say and contribute

The # of Bloghims at Blogher is growing

If you’re going to schedule a politics talk with members of the McCain/Obama camps, you better book a BIG room

Women LOVE their swag, coffee and Sesame Street

There were some amazingly brave women at Blogher08

Oh, and real women don’t eat danish

Political bling for your rig

Today I received our free Obama ’08 bumper sticker from MoveOn.org. If you want the latest “it accessory” for your wheels (it can be a bike, scooter, etc.) you too can nab a free one by clicking here.

BlogHer: One of the most eco-friendly tech conferences I’ve been a part of

Next Wednesday I’ll be leaving scorching hot Idaho for foggy and cold San Francisco. As if I didn’t get enough winter already this year. (Winter pretty much lasts from Oct. – May in ID.) Ahhh, well it’s a good thing then that I never put away my massive collection of pashminas and scarves then. But, it’s all worth it because I’m heading West again for the BlogHer conference.

This will be my first time heading to BlogHer and while I am excited about the lineup of speakers and topics, so far I am most pleasantly surprised by how environmentally minded the show organizers are. In the pre-conference guide it communicates an effort toward going green. I’m not an environmentalist by any means, although I DID go see An Inconvenient Truth in the theater which “scared” our family into trying to do its part. But maybe my “ignorance” is why all these efforts jumped out at me.

Some of the “little things” BlogHer is doing on this front:
* They won’t be providing bottled water and are asking folks bring their own reusable containers for water while at the show.
* They asked the venue, the Westin St. Francis on Union Sqr, to increase the number of recycling receptacles provided so that attendees will find it even more convenient to recycle.
* In its pre-conference guide it urges attendees to “power down, don’t just 'sleep'” when it comes to charging laptops, cell phones, cameras, etc. because leaving those items plugged in – even fully charged – still burns energy. The guide includes the quote that in 2010, according to estimates made by the DoE, 20 percent of each American’s electricity bill will come from appliances on standby.
* Their conference totes are reusable organic totes, perfect for a city with a ban on plastic grocery bags.
* Michelin, a BlogHer sponsor, is committed to offsetting 200 tons of CO2 to help w environmental impact of the conference.

For me, I’ll probably learn as much about making changes to my every day life to be more eco-friendly as I will about blogging.

The case of the missing ___________ (insert any clothing item you want). SOLVED.

For as long as my kids have been going to preschool we’ve had casualties. You know, personal items that went to school with them and then never came back.

Last Summer it was a favorite bathing suit that went missing at the end of June. Cost? A sad camper for basically all of an Idaho Summer (July and August) and a tired-out mom as a result. (everyone knows listening and enduring whining is very tiring.) And this Winter is was numerous gloves, and it always seemed to be the left one so we couldn’t even mix and match. The tipping point was a missing sparkle shoe…

So, after some frustrating losses and expensive replacements I decided some sort of action was in order. I went on eBay and bought some iron on “transfers” with our last name on them and spent an hour or two applying them to all the items that we definitely didn’t want lost – snow suits, jackets, etc. It was okay for things that didn’t get washed much, like jackets, etc. but the labels fell right off everything else after the second wash (if not the first). So, I resigned myself to thinking that we would just lose some things… until I happened across one of my best finds ever.

The labels from Stuck on You are fun and they were specifically created and designed for kids’ clothing, shoes, and other belongings. They had identification labels and nametags for everything imaginable…backpack tags, vinyl stickers for shoes and/or lunchboxes, allergy labels and, of course, iron on name labels. They were cute, and I was desperate. So I ordered two sets of clothing dots, basically iron on labels ($18.95 per set of 50) and one set of sticky dots shoe dots ($18.95 for a set of 20).

It may seem a lot to pay for some “stickers”. Instead, the transfers are one of the best investments I’ve made “AK” (After Kids). The Summer Program at our preschool isn’t exactly staffed by the elite like it is in the Fall, and so lost items during this season are usually at a peak. And despite the fact that we used to lose about one item a week (some would find their way back and others lost in the abyss forever), so far this summer we haven’t had one lost one thing. Everything has found its way back into the appropriate cubby by day’s end and I have to think it’s because everything has been labeled and ownership is obvious.

I’ve never done an “official” product review before this, but these labels are something I can definitely put my seal of approval on. If you have a kid that goes to daycare/school somewhere outside of your home, I highly recommend the Stuck on You labels.

Sometimes dreams still come true in America

Anyong!

Defamer is reporting, based on a recent interview with Jason Bateman, that there is indeed an Arrested Development film coming. According to the interview, they’ll film next year. For me, this rivals the excitement and anticipation of the final Harry Potter installment release. That’s saying A LOT.

Can’t wait for more news on this in the form of script details, a trailer, release date, etc. If any of you hear anything…please do share!

For now, I leave you with a great montage that will tickle the heart (yea, i said that) and make you cackle out loud if you have even just one piece of funny bone in your body.

flip flops for heels

I traded my flip flops for my "city apparel" this week. Last night I attended the DEMO Alum event in S.F. and it was a rockin time. Fitting, considering it was hosted at the Rockit Room.

Nicole Richie made me feel normal today

While I definitely am not further pointing out perceived shortcomings on Nicole Richie’s appearance like Perez did, I have to say seeing this photo of her w some unkempt hair was a relief. I’ve been wearing a sloppy bun or ponytail in my hair for about four years now. Yup, you remember right, my oldest kid is four. Sometimes there are just cooler things to do than your hair when you have an infant and have some time, like go shopping, take a shower or get some sleep.

Congrats, Mister David Cook

Say hello to stardom and an absolute goodbye to your privacy.

The headlines have already begun...
David Cook Dating Lacey Schwimmer?
David Cook is 'Going to Disney World!'
And now Perez is writing about his win Note that Perez posted at 10:39 pm and by midnight there were already 1,185 comments. Wow. Or as Joey might say, Wooooah.

Here's a peek at some of that charisma, and probably one of his very first hefty endorsement paychecks.

As close as I'll ever get to Oscar

FilmStew gave me a wonderful present this week.

Diablo Cody, the Oscar- winning director (for Juno, have ya heard of it?), has her own Twitter account and I’ve been following it for almost a week now. Like most Twitterites, she discloses a lot – personal details, thoughts on the things surrounding her life at the moment – and she also reveals very fun things about the activities and goings on in her life, professionally. For me, a self professed movie goober, it's like being a third-removed cousin from the movie set and it feels awesome.

So now I’ve become like the Twitterazi, following her moves on Twitter, looking for my glimpse into her life.