Liv's Cowgirl Party

So between vacation to Disney last week, Olivia's party this week, and Christmas around the corner I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. I have no idea how to entertain 1 toddler, let alone the 24 that will be at my house this weekend :) Stay tuned for how things turn out...

To iron or not? Of course I do mean only when there is company.

So Liv's big girl sheets came today and they are so stinkin cute! Floral Gem Sheet Set However, now I am perplexed about the whole ironing the sheets thing - do people really take the time to do this? - I think I know one person who does, but I freakin hate ironing. Can you iron while the sheets are on the bed? Do you steam them? Do you have to have a special iron (I'm sure that one in slightly better shape than mine is necessary)? I guess you can see how much I iron since this was some hand me down from like 15 years ago.

Do you have to have special ironing skills - know how hot to make iron, when to release the steam button, how long to hold the steam button down? OMG - this is exactly why I don't iron. But now all I can picture is how beautifully pressed and packaged those sheets were before I tore them from the packaging. Seeing their wrinkle free appearance led me on a Google search regarding if I should even wash new sheets to begin with - after reading about formaldehyde in sheet factories I opted for yes. Although if there were for Joe and I I might have just said screw it and skipped that step. And this is coming fresh off of buying a new mattress to put the sheets on which will be delivered tomm. That was a fiasco in and of itself since Joe and I can't even decide on a $6 appetizer let alone a mattress that costs thousands of dollars. I laid on every mattress in the store at least 15 times and then my lovely husband decided to tell me my feet were dirty when we got home(he didn't want to embarrass me in the store - how kind). Oh and I think I left one of my favorite garage sale sweatshirts (the blue one you got me mom) at the store as I was dropping all of my belongings throughout the store as I bounced from bed to bed. After I figure out the sheet situation it is on to a new headboard and a quilt. Joe is less than pleased that I refuse to use the bed frame and head and footboard we already have. It is a beautiful bed, but it doesn't match my vision for Olivia's new room so stay tuned for that ad on Craigslist. It is Cherry BroyHill Sleigh bed if anyone is interested in purchasing :) In the meantime I have recruited a few peeps to make the tufted white headboard a reality :) Stay tuned for progress and pics (or lack of progress and just the stories that result from it).

Garage Sale

For as long as I can remember all of my aunts, my mom, my sister and I had an annual garage sale. Before my grandma got ill, we held these at her home in Alliance and truly embodied the stereotype of a Hoopie! You know how frustrating it is when you stop at a garage sale and there is literally one card table with like a mason jar and some old nails laying on it - well, we definitely weren't those people. We went 180 degrees in the opposite direction. We had shit everywhere - and I mean everywhere. I will have to dig up some pictures for proof (aunt Donna - I distinctly remember one with you and a bird that landed on your finger). We took up two driveways, two yards, and then some. My husband would have been appalled. We would joke that we were like a department store with certain sections for holiday, bath and bed, and clothing. My grandma had a neighbor who would actually go on a payment plan throughout the year to pay for her garage sale purchases from our sale. God bless her- she was always good for the money she owed. I would see my mom and aunts over there pushing their goods on her while the little ones reclaimed the barbies and dolls their parents were so desperately trying to sell. It was shameless! Between all of the girls we would rake in close to $700 or so a year. The neighbor was usually good for at least $300 of that. Unfortunately, times have changed - my grandma suffered a rare neurological disorder, the neighbor has since passed away, and kids have grown up and moved. My mom and I still try to do a sale once a year. We start at her house Memorial Day weekend (we end the sale with a Memorial Day cookout and pool opening party - awesome that this year it is in the 40's - not ideal swimming weather), and then crazy as it sounds, whatever doesn't sell we cart back to my house and I organize a neighborhood garage sale (so I can spend all the money I made on my shit on other people's shit!). In spite of protests from my husband that nothing is coming back in the house that doesn't sell the first time around I win out and we go through the whole process again. OMG - I really am a hoopie! By the time it is all said and done and we pay for wine and pizza, the newspaper ad, gas, signage, etc. we are lucky we even make a profit (we're heavy drinkers in my family!)But oh what fun it is - to sit in the sun, sip on a cocktail, share the same old stories we have told 100 times, haggle with the clientele, and see once 'prized' possessions find new homes is truly a memory in the making. Tomm. my goal is to make $299.99. This is the first year I am actually setting a set amount of money I hope to make and have decided what I plan to purchase with it. I figure if I have a big ticket purchase in mind it will help me to let things go for a little cheaper than I normal would (my mom always says I price things too high!) I know what I paid for those things though! So tomm. watch for updates, check my status, and cheer me on to success. Here's what I plan on buying if I make enough (actually it might be prudent to first make sure I even have $300 worth of merchandise to sell!): Cheers, KAC RANDOM NOTES: It is always the things you debate just throwing away that actually sell - I will never forget my mom making fun of me for putting in the garage sale one of those plastic change holders that you get as a freebie - do you know what I'm talking about? You squeeze the sides and it opens up? I will look for a picture. Anyways, my mom was like 'just throw that damn thing away'. Well guess what - that sold and yet my crate and barrel stuff remained. In the end I made a 5 cent profit since I got free as a promotional item :) Tomm. I will take some pictures of our best and worst items and we will see what actually goes: Didn't think this would go....but it did! However, this didn't?! Here are some random pics of how much crap we had:

weekly wanderlust: Garage Sale Goal

weekly wanderlust: Garage Sale Goal: For as long as I can remember all of my aunts, my mom, my sister and I had an annual garage sale. Before my grandma got ill, we held these a...

Challenge - Quit Spending My Entire Paycheck at Giant Eagle Mission - Go as long as I can without going to the grocery store and use up everything possible in my pantry/fridge and then restock with planned recipe ingredients Goal - Save some money - if i wasn't so lazy I would calculate all my food costs from the past month and see if I can beat my number (hopefully substantially) with this new challenge. Added Bonus - I have the world's tiniest fridge and freezer so this should create some much needed space Pathetic Point - My pantry/fridge/freezer aren't all that full to begin with (in spite of spending my life savings at Giant Eagle and Marc's) Oh, and trips to the wine/beer/liquor dept. don't actually count as restocking (I have to be a partial realist here!) Random thought - I wonder if my husband ever started following my blog (only 6 followers so not likely) - this will be a good test since he is a facebook hater to see if is aware of this new life project. Stay tuned for start-up pics and daily recipes/reports. I tried to add pics here, but they were showing up in the middle of my paragraph.

Blogging's a bitch

So this whole blogging business is much harder than I thought.  I am trying to link my blog to Facebook page and apparently I need something like a programming engineering degree to figure this out.  I am writing this as a test to see if it shows up on my FB page.  I have read some posts that say it will only post new feeds and not old ones...we shall see....


file:///Users/kristinaambrosia-conn/Desktop/pinterest-88378.html

Your crazy if you go to Nighttown and order anything but the Dublin Lawyer. This is what I told some newbies in the group as we headed off to my favorite Cleveland restaurant- the only place I ever want to take guests.  And I hate to say it (well, not really) but I was right. Three new converts to the Lawyer which is made with Cayenne butter, heavy cream, white rice pilaf, and chunks of lobster. 

And lucky me, since it is independent restaurant week, I was able to get the P.E.I Mussels in a garlic white wine broth, my Lawyer, and bread pudding (not a huge dessert person but the rest of the table enjoyed it) for $33.00.

I just love everything about this place -

The atmosphere is cool without trying.

Eclectic, literary, relaxed, hedonistic, sexy - all at once. I'm not sure you can even use literary and hedonistic as adjectives to describe a restaurant but I am! And Nighttown would let me - it is a place where anything and everything seem to go - and go perfectly well together.

In my head I picture myself sitting in a booth in the back of the dimly lit room, smoking a cigarette, sipping a gimlet, listening to jazz and just 'being.'

In reality you can't smoke in restaurants anymore (and I quit some five years ago anyway, we didn't hear music last night or strangely enough ever there even though Nighttown is rated one of the top 100 jazz clubs in the world by Down Beat magazine, and I opted for the cosmo last night as opposed to the gimlet (both are favs of mine).

Already planning my next visit...

Linked below are some of my favorite write-ups on my favorite place:

http://www.nighttowncleveland.com/history.htm

http://www.scribd.com/doc/129550985/Nighttown-TheStoryteller

The saga continues

Today I planned on taking a lunch break at work and made an appt. to donate blood at 12:45.  I think in my acts of kindness excitement I forgot that I had a one o'clock conference call.  When the scheduling conflict dawned on me I tried to call Red Cross to cancel my appt. so I wouldn't take up a valuable donor spot.  Of course, no answer.  I actually had to drive there to say I wouldn't be there (not to worry they failed to put me in book anyway) and to reschedule for later that evening....Fast forward several hours - blood drive take two.  I read the eligibility book about which I had a gazillion questions, yes I have been to several European countries since 1980, my grandma might be of Hispanic descent since she was an orphan, I don't know if I took something with aspirin in it in the past 48 hrs. (does Ibuprofen have aspirin in it?)....I finally made it to the donation chair...I had read the book, done the screening, got the finger prick and was just calling my husband to verify we were in Costa Rica two years ago and not one when I realized I had forgotten to mention something...I called Joe and when he said we had been to Costa Rica last year I said, "no that can't be right - we wouldn't have gone to Punta Cuna only 4 months after Costa Rica" - oh my I forgot to mention the Dominican trip to my screener and so then I did....and guess what...a big fat DISQUALIFIED. I can't donate until 12 months have passed since our trip due to the chance of me having contracted malaria.

Seriously, why are my acts of kindness so hard to complete?!

So I started early...

Today at Giant Eagle this cute little old lady asked if I could help her reach a bottle of Pantene Pro-V shampoo that was pushed back on the top shelf.  It is not often, being short myself, that I can help someone in this type of situation, but thankfully I was just tall enough to reach. This woman was so grateful.  My first thought was 'damn - too bad my birthday week of kindness didn't start yet' and my next thought was 'well, that really couldn't have counted anyways since she asked for the help - what was I going to say - "no, figure out a way to reach it yourself" - what I did certainly didn't seem to qualify as a random act of kindness, but rather just something anyone would do in that situation. I continued on my way but couldn't quit thinking about how appreciative she was.  And so four or so aisles later I turned back - let me go buy her a flower or something I thought. I ran back to the shampoo aisle, but she was gone.  Darn - a missed opportunity. And then...

Suddenly I saw her - she was in the 12 items or less lane checking out.  I raced up to the counter like a lunatic and told the check-out boy I would pick up her bill (she had the shampoo, a conditioner, and a bag of cough drops).  I was on the opposite side of the aisle from her and I vaguely heard her say something about a book of stamps.  No biggie. Next thing I know the sales boy, Michael, turns to me, points to the total displayed on the register and says, "you still want to pay".... what could he mean, how much could it possibly be - and then I looked...

$114.00

It wasn't one book of stamps, it was 11!!!!!  

Panic set in.  Holy shit, I just paid that much at Marc's for my grocery shopping for the month. What do I do know? Do I look like a total ass if I try to back out?  But I can't afford to give someone $114 and still do the other 32 acts of kidness on my list (strangely enough it was hard coming up with kindness ideas that didn't cost at least a little money).

And then, spoken like a voice from the heavens, Michael gave me an out.  He said, "I'll just charge your card for the groceries ok." And so that is where we left it.

Anna, the lady who I ended up only buying $12 of groceries for was still very grateful.  We got to talking when I asked if I could take her picture to post on my blog and she told me the reason she needed all of those stamps was that she had spent the last 24 years writing her own poetry and sending it out to friends and family.

She asked for my address so that she could send me a birthday wish, an Easter poem, and a picture of baby Jesus for Olivia for Christmas. (She said 'Olivia will like it because she is just a baby too). Too cute!

Note to self- before doing any more acts of kindness  I must remember to put some makeup on and do my hair.

Well after all of this I was feeling very generous toward Michael who just saved me 'a benjamin' (now I'm thinking back to my old high school days with the likes of Puffy, Biggie, and Mace blaring in the background).  So I get in Michael's express line which now had what seemed like a gazillion customers in it.  I saw a $15 itunes gift card I was going to get for him, but then I wondered if it was presumptius to assume everyone owns apple products so I put it back.  A candy bar - no that's dumb.  An amazon card - lowest gift card denomination $25. An Olive Garden gift card (okay people - don't judge - my choices were limited to whatever was in reach at the checkout counter).  And then it dawned on me, just get some cash back and give him money.  What teenager can't use money. For what - I won't think about :) Does the below ring a bell old high school friends?

http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2011/04/drinking-the-bottom-shelf-boones-farm.html

So it is finally my turn to check-out and at first I tell Michael I want $15 cash back, but something about the $15 sounded cheap so I changed it to $20 (it was a little less painful to up the 'tip' when I was using my husband's debit instead of mine). As I am in the process of paying, one of Michael's friends comes up and asks him 'how's the baby' to which Michael responds 'she comes home from the hospital tommorrow'.

Well, that just sent my do-gooder high into overdrive (and hearing this I was happy I increased the $15 to $20) as I created a whole storyline in my head about this nice young man who was trying to support his baby in the hospital. And then I blurted out, 'you have a baby' to which he responded, 'no, it's my girlfriend's sister's'.

In any case, I still gave him the $20 and walked away smiling as he kindly protested....

Michael - if you are reading this leave us a shout-out :)

He was this friendly and happy before he even knew he was getting a tip.  I just told him I wanted to take a picture of the guy who saved me money.

Check out the 33 Birthday Acts of Kindness Tab for More

Fake foodie

Why the 'fake' you ask?

Well, I like to think of myself as a foodie...but I have no formal culinary training, no real knowledge of the inner-workings of owning and/or managing a restaurant (unless of course my former career posts as waitress at Waffle House and Spirited Scooper at Handel's Ice Cream count), no refined palette that can automatically identify the difference between a white onion and a yellow one - hell, I can't even pronounce some of the items on the menu at the fancier establishments I have dined at....But I do know good food when I have it - and when I taste something I love I feel it is my calling to talk about it incessantly to anyone who will listen.

I'm pretty sure that if I actually took the time to use one of those budget calculators online that turn your spending into an easy to read pie graph, that the biggest slice of pie after my mortgage and daycare bills would be attributed to food. Most of my free time is spent on perusing urban spoon, researching menus, and reading endless online reviews in search for that next 'foodie' hot spot.

Unfortunately, I am learning that I tend to be hard critic where food/service is involved.

And thus the reason for the blog (and a special shout-out to a good family friend for suggesting it) - I want to provide real raw no bull shit reviews of where I eat, what I like, and why. Don't expect reviews full of words such as acerbic, brackish, and caustic - I don't want you to have to refer to a dictionary to know if the local neighborhood restaurant is worth your time, your money, and what can seem like the, at times,  impossible task of lining up a sitter.

Just think of me as a friend, one that is obsessed with trying new food at new places, throwing out some suggestions on where you might enjoy a 'delectable' night out :)

Welcome

Okay - so this is weird - I spent all this time making nice categorized tabs at the top of my blog and adding info. inside and now my cover page which everyone sees first is blank. I am completely new to blogging. I never thought I had time for it before (actually I don't really have time now - it is near midnight and I have been trying to figure out this blogging stuff since 9 when I finally got my toddler to go to sleep, but only after she picked the longest book off of the bookshelf and one which we have read every night for the past week)....anyhow, my eyes are crossing from staring at a computer literally all day (I work as an instructional designer and spend virtually all my time in front of a computer screen) - oh, yay, maybe I can finally get insurance to pay for glasses for me (Thus far I have had perfect vision, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to don a pair of chic specs). You can see where this is going (or not going as the case may be) and how I terribly abuse the use of parentheses and stream of consciousness...I guess I am really just finding a long-winded way of saying - Welcome! I hope you enjoy reading about my lovely, exciting, picture-perfect (just see photo below) life.  (*wink*wink)

Our 'pretend' picture perfect family

Our real life - letting my child have costume races up and down staircase with a sombrero on that blocks her vision - that's safe right?!

The two seconds I walk away to get her coat this is what happens - I sure did send her to school just like that too (my husband was horrified).

I always have been a tidy housekeeper - everything in its respective place

 And here is where the rambling starts again - this little trip down memory lane reminded me of a website my friend sent me today - check it out and thanks Aunt B!

We Need to Quit Telling Lies on Facebook