Fashion, Recipes and Reality

New Blog

Stepmom Diaries — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:59:38 +0000

Hey Everyone, just wanted to let you know that due to constraints on this site and wanting more out of my blog, I have moved to a new website. Please come on over for a short visit or an extended stay

www.dosanddonts.typepad.com

Non-descript clothing

Stepmom Diaries — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:20:52 +0000

Hate it?
Love it?
Can’t decide?

Let me know what you think and I’ll post the results

Do’s and Dont’s

Stepmom Diaries — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:10:08 +0000

Please tell me you know which is which.

So, short jean shorts and heels? Must I explain?

As for the classic scarf over sweater and white shirt? Perfect!

What Not To/Do’s and Dont’s

Stepmom Diaries — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:32:43 +0000

OK, so I have been thinking, I am religiously fanatical about watching What Not To Wear and religiously fanatical about perusing the pages of People Style Watch and Glamour (especiall the Do’s and Dont’s) so why the heck not devote some regular space of my blog to my own interpretation of these?

So here is what I came up with. I am going to regularly post pictures of Do’s and Dont’s (from my point of view) and you can let me know exactly what you think of the pictures too. I’m going to get the pictures from the net, and from my own log of pictures from the street. And hey, if you have any great pictures to share just let me know and I’ll post them and give you the credit. Oh, and I’m also going to put up pictures for you guys to vote on and I’ll even periodically put up some pictures of me that you can tear apart and talk trash about. I don’t mind It’s all part of the fun.

So get your cameras out and start snapping pictures. Let’s see what hilarious, dreadful or stylin pics we can come up with.

Oh and this isn’t just pic’s of women either. We gotta include the guys and the kids in this one too. After all, they need fashion advice too.

It’s trying to shine

Stepmom Diaries — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:48:50 +0000

We have been having absolutely koo koo weather here. It has intermittently been very warm and sunshiney and then snowing. Craziness I tell ya! So Jalin is feeling better today. So very glad for that. Yesterday the boys and I went to Wal-Mart (Love that store, could spend hours and hours in it) and we got ingredients to make lemon cupcakes today. I saw the recipe in the new Kraft magazine yesterday and I’m gung-ho to try it. See, this is how I look at it, if you want to eat kinda bad-for-you stuff, do it, just in moderation. And remember to exercise your butt off! Those would be my key points if I had a tell-all diet page.

So back to food, which I loooove. I’m trying to decide what to make for supper. I pulled some ground beef from the freezer and I think I will try to create something around that. Hey, did you know that you can go to Kraft.com and enter in some keywords like : potatoes, chicken, and greenbeans and it will come up with recipes for you? It’s bloody fantastic. I can never get enough of recipe sites cuz I like taking their recipes and then tweaking them to match exactly what I want. For instance, I love dousing recipes with garlic and onions so pretty much everything gets a ton of those added! And why the heck not? Their healthy and fantabulous!

I’ll let you know how that all went.

On to wedding stuff! Oh My God! So tomorrow Adam and I are going to go get passport photo’s done (both our passports somehow got lost and we haven’t needed to renew them til now). We are also getting all, or at least most, of the adresses for the invites, working on our home business (ok that’s not wedding), putting my lovely black Jetta up for sale (ok that’s not wedding either) and doing pretty much a gazillion things. Weekend? What Weekend? Oh and then on Sunday we have engagements photo’s and family photo’s down on the beach and we are meeting with the Officiant.

This Merry-Go-Round ride is making me sick! Let me OFF!

No, actually, it’s all good stuff and I have wonderful, supportive Adam to help me through it all. Man do I love him. He’s pretty much the best thing in the whole entire world….well, along with the boys. It’s a really good thing that he was a single dad for a while cuz now it means that he happily helps out around the house and realizes, at least to some degree, the amount of stuff that has to be done. OK, wait, maybe he doesn’t actually realize that all but he is very willing to help and does that part regularly. I really don’t think guys have a clue how much there is to do day to day. It’s not just copious amounts of housework. It’s about a million other little and big things too. Oh well, if their supportive and loving then that’s what matters

So now that I have rambled the time away, I gotta go exercise. Whenever I don’t feel like exercising or if the time on the elliptical seems to be going on and on I just repeat my mantra over and over: ”I’m a Damn-sexy-bitch”. This pretty much gets me through the laziness and fatigue and on to the finish line. You should try it

My Lil’ Angels

Stepmom Diaries — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:10:42 +0000

(Carter’s in Red, Ethan’s in the middle and Jalin (sicky) is in green.)

Well, this week is Laurie’s week with the boys and it’s also Spring Break. The boys (Carter and Ethan) are here during the day and gone at night because I watch the boys on Laurie’s weeks while she is at work. I love this arrangement and I think the boys definitely benefit from the stability of it. I can’t imagine how hard it would be for Laurie to deal with me having more time with the boys than with her. Difficult.

So the boys showed up all excited and jumping all over the place again this morning. Ethan is thoroughly enjoying having his big brothers home from school and they are lovin’ it too. Until yesterday. Jalin got the stomach flu and has been feeling very yucky. We have definitely had our fair share of runs to the bathroom in the past couple days. Poor little guy. And then this morning we had some projectile from the couch…all over the couch and carpet. Wish I could make him magically better. It’s very hard as a parent to watch your child endure pain or sickness and not be able to help them.

So now, of course, I have extra bedding and clothing to wash and stains to get out of the carpet and couch. This happened yesterday too. And I have to tell you about this amazing stuff I found that has completely removed these very dyed stains from the rug. OK, just a second, I forgot the name of it. Let me go get the bottle. OK, it’s called Spitfire. I have never used anything like this in my life. I can’t believe how well it works! And now I sound like I’m doing an Ad. I actually don’t know where you can buy it cuz we got it through Adam’s work.

So now I got your hopes all up on this and I don’t even know how to share the goodness with you. Sorry Next time I recommend something to you I’ll try to at least tell you where you can get it.

So now the boys are all cuddled up on the couch, Ethan next to Jalin as usual, and playing Big Brain Academy on the Wii. Happy as clams. I think I will finally check my facebook account and get some more house-cleaning done. The weird thing is I actually like cleaning my house! Yes, you heard me right, I get immense satisfaction out of organizing and making the house shine. Crazy? Definitely, but it makes me smile. Ooo, and maybe I’ll even have a chance to try out a new recipe today. It’s shaping up to be a great day already! And I even exercised this morning….Yay me

Wedding Mania!

Stepmom Diaries — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:22:50 +0000

Just under four months to go now until our wedding day! I can’t believe it’s coming up so fast. I am one of those insanely organized people with lists for everything, budgets made out, a wedding binder the size of Manhatten and multiple wedding sites to refer to. Oh yes, I am crazy. I never tried to convince people otherwise. Despite the craziness of planning a wedding, especially with three wonderful little boys underfoot, I have to say it is one of the best experiences of my life. I love being able to plan something so meticulously and not have people thinking that I’m a nutcase. You’re supposed to be this coordinated and detailed about a wedding. The boys birthday parties on the other hand….

So now that I have an excuse for matchy-matchy and scheduling that rivals top wedding planners I am truly in my element. If only I could figure out a cure for bridal stress besides my much loved wine I definately am looking forward to the honeymoon as I’m sure my ever-supportive fiance would agree on.

Obviously other areas of life have suffered in the face of such chaos (remember I’m also trying to start a business) but I know that good home-cooked meals and care-free trips to the park will soon return and I and my family will enjoy them more than ever. I can’t wait til BBQ season is fully upon us. Homecooked goodness in half the time. What more could you ask for. Speaking of summer…. I had a very bizarre experience today. I actually think I may be an amateur prophet. Here’s why: Last night I had a dream that today was a sunny day and suddenly through the sunshine, snow started to fall. On March 24 no less! So when I woke up this morning I looked outside to see if it had come true. Of course it hadn’t. It looked like a beautiful day was in store for us. Late morning I was sitting at my computer working, enjoying the sunshine, when suddenly, snow started to fall. I could not believe it! And don’t go assuming that I read or heard something about the weather being like this today because I absolutely did not! No, in fact, my earlier point is made: I am a prophet in the making. So let me know if I can be of any help to you and in the meantime I will try to use my new found power to predict what our wedding day will be like, or rather, where my stress level will be the week before.

To all who have been blessed with a sunny day, enjoy it and revel in it, even if it is snowing

Karaoke Night!!

Stepmom Diaries — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 22:38:58 +0000

Mo’s the blondie, Jules is making a signature kooky face, Joel (Mo’s boy) is the blondie and Ian is the other guy. Sorry guys I couldn’t get your pictures to come out the same size as the girls’. I’m a wee bit inept at this.

So the other night I met up with my friends Mo and Julie (and Mo’s new boy Joel) and we went to Karaoke Night at Ernie’s Pub. I luckily had a very sore throat so got out of having to sing anything. Good thing too ’cause nobody wants to be singing next to the likes of Jules. She has an amazing voice and people just listen in silence every time she get’s up there. Mo surprisingly got out of singing too but only because we know if we actually made her go up she’d get up there and say all kinds of crap about us to the world just to get back at us. She never has a problem speaking her mind.

I either didn’t know or had totally forgotten that there were going to be a bunch of people from The Bird there so it was nice seeing everyone again. A couple of the kitchen guys were friggen hilarious on the mic. One of them reminded me of Jack Black. I got some video of them later but the first song they did was the funniest and I completely zoned on getting a clip of it. It was good times. My ex ended up showing up and I hadn’t seen him in about a year and a half so that was definately a shocker. I had no idea until that moment that I was holding so much anger and bitterness towards him for what he did when he left us (Jalin and I). But seeing him again was the best thing that could have happened. His current girlfriend is friends with Mo and she and I ended up having a great visit. She is such a sweetie and through us talking and me seeing Mike again after so long I realized that I just wanted to let go of that anger and resentment and get on with being friends. We ended up talking for a little bit, not rehashing anything, just putting it all behind us. I told him that now that so much time had elapsed and he was happy and Jalin and I were happy it was about time we were able to at least say hi to each other and smile. He agreed and he asked about Jalin and how he was doing.

The rest of the night went great! I felt like this huge weight of emotional crap I had been under for so long was just gone. It was a wonderful feeling. I ended up staying out wayyyyy too late. I have no clue what I was thinking. Or rather, what the wine was thinking I think I got home at about 2:30 am. Craziness for me. And on top of that it was a weeknight. Luckily the boys are on Springbreak right now but I still rolled out of bed at 7:00 am. Holy was I tired yesterday. My mom and I had a full day of wedding running around to do and 3 bouncing little boys. It was definately an interesting combination. Mom just thought that I wasn’t feeling good cuz of my cold and stomach problems. If only she knew. We had a good day. Got a ton accomplished and spent good bonding time together. We even got her outfit for the wedding. She looks absolutely stunning in it. I told her that she looked so beautiful that she was going to upstage me. And that is just fine with me.

Today mom worked on bouquets and such. I’ve gotta hand it to her, she is being very good about doing this all even though it’s not her pick in flowers. She really wanted me to have white Calla Lily’s and I told her very nicely that there was absolutely no way. After the first little bit of talking about this she just dropped it and has been happily and very wonderfully been doing everything in my flowers and colors. Yay mom! You rock! How could I have asked for a better mother. And no I’m not saying this because she is going to be reading it. She won’t be.

I will have to figure out how to upload videos cuz I just tried and it didn’t work. If anyone has any suggestions just let me know cuz I have some gooders.

Want to Scream

Stepmom Diaries — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:06:39 +0000

I seriously just want to sit here and have a good cry today. I’m trying to do so much at once and it is so not working for me. On top of that Adam and I have been fighting for two days because we are both under extreme stress. I’m trying to get a home-based business off the ground, I’m trying to be a great mom, I’m trying to help Adam with his work, I’m trying to plan our wedding, I’m trying to keep the house running and I just feel like I’m going to pop! On top of it all my mom is here right now and we are working on wedding stuff and as wonderful as she is and as much as she is helping me out with the flower stuff for the wedding it’s just more on my plate right now. The funny thing is I don’t want to get away from it I just want to.figure it all out and get everything working properly. I don’t even want to write anything more right now because I sound like a depressing sob story and that is not me. Talk to you in a few hours when I figure it all out.

The Day the Parents Come

Stepmom Diaries — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:55:32 +0000

So tonight my mom and dad are coming. I love them, I really do and I’m very greatful that my mom is coming to help with some wedding stuff. They have been the most amazing parents I could ever hope for and I’m so lucky to have them. It’s just that they are very conservatively religious and I feel like we have to go through this whole huge process in order to prepare for their stay. Not that we’re crazy witchcraft practicing party-animals or anything but hey, Ad does enjoy his beer and I do enjoy my wine….in moderation…most of the time But it’s soooo much more than just that. We can’t listen to any music other than Classical because they think it’s wrong. We can’t watch most TV shows because they think it’s wrong. We can’t take advantage of when the boys are in bed and bring out our potty-mouths. We can’t let the boys watch certain shows or play certain games on the Wii. Ok wait, most shows and most games are taboo.

And ok, I must say that my parents are very loving and very accepting and know that we are very different than anyone else they associate with, even my sisters, but they still would be horrified if they knew the whole truth. We still go to PUBS?!!!! What?!!! Oh yes, our lives are filled with horrendous things such as junk food, too many treats around the house, Linkin Park and Michael Buble and too much TV…and beverages. Oh the horror! So many times I have longed for my family to just be normal. I don’t want a different family, I just want to be able to relate to them.

So Adam cleared all of the empty’s out of the deck cupboard, I’m lamenting throwing out the remainder of my wine in the fridge (do I just guzzle it in the middle of the day? ) Next I will do a thorough comb through of the house. Do the usual making sure that nothing offensive is in sight and prominently set out all gifts from parents. You know how it goes. I’ve debated even toning down my deep red nail polish on my fingers to a pretty pale pastel, but no. I will not go that far. And yes, I will still be wearing my rather large signature earrings. I’m neither a doormat nor a rebel. I am simply trying to keep the peace while holding onto some shred of my identity.