Peas in My Hair

Although we are not traveling today, I do consider this Day 1 of our trip.

So far I have pruned some of the hedges, observed my pupa (doesn’t that sound like I’m looking at my girlie bits in the mirror?) and my caterpillars, cleaned Sweet Pea’s car seat, and packed Mr. MBA and Sweet Pea off to two session of Gymboree.

I plan to be finished packing by the time they return at 11:15ish (It’s 9:17 here now). That’s an ambitious goal that would be best begun by disconnecting from the Internet. I promise you right after I complete this post I am going to get started on the following:

1) Vacuuming (1 large rug and 1 room)

2) Unloading and loading the dishwasher

3) Tidying up just a very little bit

4) Putting everything we’ll need for our trip on my bed and then organizing it ever so neatly into proper compartments of proper cases

I’m taking a lot of stuff. We have a fully stocked kitchen awaiting us, but I’m still taking my mixer, muffin tin, cookie sheets, casserole dishes, et cetera. This should prepare me for our first ski trip WITH A TODDLER this winter.

Usually we fly places. I’m not sure why we’re driving. We like to do stuff the complicated way. It’s worked out for us so far. I’m praying it goes well.

I have a ton of errands to run, too. I need to get a new driver’s license, return some jewelry one of my resources loaned me for a chichi event, find a soft tray for Sweet Pea’s carseat, and buy an ice chest. The ice chest is key to the success of this trip. A well-fed Sweet Pea is a content Sweet Pea is a content and at peace Mommy (that’s me).

Oh, and I need to do some laundry. Joy.

I better get started now! Thanks for all your sweet emails and helpful comments. I haven’t written in so long and am forcing myself to do it for therapy. I’d much rather complain to y’all about stuff than to my husband. He deserves a perfect wife. Poor guy got stuck with moi!

Have a great day, you sexy thing!

Love, Peas

P.S. Afro–I didn’t have photos or video of the metamorphosis because I could not tear myself away from the sight for even a second. Once the body squirming started, my eyes were glued to the process. I sooooooo wanted to video it. Next time.

I saw the most amazing thing ever today***!

We have a butterfly garden in our front yard. It is pretty hideous and overgrown, but it is a clusterfark of plants that attract a rainbow of gorgeous butterflies all year long. My daughter and I love butterflies, so I fight off the urge to rip the whole mess from the ground.

Well, they’ve been visiting. They have been visiting and laying eggs! There are caterpillars being born and inching their way around the plants, growing exponentially and coming to full-size in what seems like a matter of days.

As if watching one of these creatures double in size OVERNIGHT is not amazing enough, today I saw something that moved me to prayer.

My favorite caterpillar made its way under a stem of the plant and suspended itself to prepare for the pupa stage. When we returned from a family outing, we checked up on the dear little thing, and we SAW it shed its final caterpillar skin and contort itself from larva to pupa.

It was incredible and moving, and I missed many breaths watching in awe.

I am so glad there are still things in this world that give me wonder, and I’m doubly glad I got to share it with my toddler. She was amazed at the process and amazed that Mommy was so amazed.

I am so thankful we have time together to do these things. I’m so glad we weren’t in a hurry to get somewhere or to do something or run some stupid errand. I love life.

xoxo, Peas

***If I had seen the birth of my daughter, I’m sure it would have eclipsed this. I didn’t see that, though, because I was squinting my eyes and focusing on the ceiling during her delivery.

Ah, I just freed up a couple of hours of every day of the rest of my life.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about hobbies and what I want my hobbies to be for the rest of my life. I decided to take up gardening and bought a bunch of flowers and mulch for our yard last weekend. I’ve been planning to actually lay the mulch and plant the flowers all week, and then…

We decided we are going out of town for the next two months. I find this highly amusing since now I have to abandon my gardening hobby for a while. Oh well. I can read books about gardening while we’re away.

I do plan to start writing more again, boring everyone on the Internet (or all 5 of my readers) with the chronicles of my life on the road and exploring a new state.

Oh, and important detail. We are DRIVING, not flying. We have never done that for a family trip before now. We are making it a tradition to take at least one road trip from hell every year. It should be interesting, and I have lists and lists of things to take. Today I am buying a new ice chest, a fold up portable potty and a car seat activity tray to help with our trip. I refuse to get a portable DVD player. I’m Luddite-ish like that.

We depart Friday and will stay in Baton Rouge the first night.

I want to say “THANK YOU” to all the readers who have kept visiting this blog while I’ve been otherwise occupied. It amazes me that my visits never decreased despite my recent lameness. I promise to be good and make it up to you one day.

Love love love and love! Peas

P.S. Please let me know what one takes on a 2-month journey. Thanks.

I was supposed to make a big deal out of my 100th post, and I just realized this is the 101st. Aghhhhh! Catch me at 200.

Well, today again is the best day of my life. I say that every day because it is the sum of all the other days of my life, good and bad! I guess the same can be said about bad stuff: “This is the worst day of my life.” But no, I have an awesome life. I can find good stuff on even the crappiest of days.

Today I thanked God for the universe, the Sun, the sky, the trees, my family, my friends, and for the little sandbox that Sweet Pea is totally and unequivocally in love with. I highly recommend it for hours of Kodak moments and video worthy squeals of delight!

Wait a minute! Should I ask them to pay me for writing this?

xoxo Peas

This is so scary.

Here’s the story the article mentions.

That said, Sweet Pea started swimming lessons last week. I’m being even more overprotective than usual.

Please be nice to your children.

xoxo Peas

I have recently become addicted to bargain hunting. This means I have 3 subscriptions to the Sunday paper (for coupons), buy 3 early editions at the store Saturday evening, and also buy special coupon books at two stores for extra savings. It also means I spend 3-4 hours every week clipping and organizing coupons to use that week and during future weeks.

It also means I have cut our weekly grocery bill from $150-$200 / week to $50-$60 / week. Dayum!

This is an outline of the chain of events that led to this.

1. Born a narcissist

2. Became addicted to Interwebz

3. Started a blog

4. Found some really good blogs, one in particular

5. That blog led me to a blog all about drama in mom-land

6. The drama blog led me to bitchy mom-land website / message board

7. The mom-land website has a bargain hunting group (it’s all about drama, though, not bargains)

8. I found a thread on the board that actually is about bargains

9. I tried a few bargains out at some stores I frequent

10. It was too easy to save money

11. Shopping will never be the same for me

12. Coca Cola. It doesn’t really play into the chain of events, but I did get a kick ass bargain on it the other day, and it feels so wrong not to mention Coca Cola. Esophagal burn of Heaven sent Coca Cola is the bomb!

I am now officially a desperate housewife.

I love it.

Check in later for more narcissism.

Love, Peas

I’m Mexican. One of the few words in my Spanish speaking arsenal is “raspa” (pronounced rOss-pah). At least, I think that’s how you say it.

If I were you, though, I’d verify that. I do know that just the other day I said “Bien ah kenavla” to my mom and asked her what it meant. She was like, “Wha?” Then I was like, “you know, that thing the familia says when they answer the phone.” Then she said, “Oh, you mean bueno, quien habla?” LOL. So for the last 28 years of my life, I hadn’t even mastered something I’d heard, oh, I’d say 10,000 times in my life. Funny. I tell that story so much better in person.

So. I’ve been eating raspas my whole life. My Grandma Celia and Grandpa Florentino lived right next door to a lady who had a raspa stand on her property. After a long day playing in the mud like little piggies and getting baked by the sun in 100 degree Texas heat, we’d walk over in bathing suits and flipflops, wet hair stringing down our backs and into our eyes, skinny little things eager to get fattened up with syrup y crema piled on high by the viejita at the raspa stand. I can’t describe how hot it was to you, but it was hot enough to make playing in dirt to cool us off acceptable. We were poor.

There was a period of time in my life when I refused any raspa syrup at all and would just get a cup of snowcone ice…this evolved into my unnatural love for Sonic ice, which I now know is shared by many around the world. Copy cats.

I once thought I’d never find a raspa in Houston that would compare to the ones made by the mysterious raspa lady who lived by my grandparents, but I finally did…at a little stand in what I believe is either Seabrook or Kemah, Texas (if you’re from these parts you’ll understand the difficulty one has knowing the difference between those two, especially if you have an aversion to maps and other geographical tools).

A gringa owns the place, and all her syrups are from New Orleans. Aye Dios mio! Raspa lady would roll over in her grave at that, but whatever. I have dietary needs and nostalgic synapses needing quenching. When we found the place, I was in high school. It was a ten minute drive from my house, and I made the trip frequently when raspas were in season (longer in Texas than in most states, I’m sure). Gringa lady had her two kids helping her out, and they’d fight over who got to put the ice in the cone. A few years later, they’d fight over who HAD to put the ice in the cone. The little shits. They’ve probably graduated from college by now.

The raspa stand with the New Orleans syrup soon surpassed my expectations of what a raspa is. It is fabulous Sonic-type ice with wonderfully magical syrup (not too sweet, mind you), mixed with just the right amount of cream, and plenty of good memories to go with it.

I took boyfriends there as a way to show them who I was and who I am. I would frequent the place when skipping school in May’s of yesteryear. I would complain that this year the parking was set up differently than the year before, and why hadn’t they consulted me about this? I imagine it’ll be one of those places I talk about when I talk to my kids and grandkids about the good ol’ days.

Off to go see if I can dig up that frequent buyer card I have for them. I think Sweet Pea needs a snowcone.

Love, Peas

My husband is brilliant.

I live in constant anxiety about what opportunity will next arise for us–where it may take us, what we will lose and gain in the process, how it will impact our family, and how many wrinkles the moving process will carve into my face.

Challenges have come and gone. We have grown together so much, and I never worry about much because I expect an ebb and flow of fortune.

BUT. Seriously. Make a decision and stick to it already!

He has been accepted to two wonderful law schools (he’s 29 and way into his career). He is interviewing for a new job. He HAS a great job now, but the new firm would open a door to partnership, whereas his current company is a small business whose owners plan to keep the business in the family.

Law school would start in August. We are still unsure about what we’ll do.

I am a planner. It is difficult to plan the rest of our life when we aren’t sure what exactly we’ll decide to do in August. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Any of the courses will be fine.

But I’m worried! I must know.

Ahhhhhhh, I’m so glad I got that out. I feel much better now.

Thanks for listening.

I remember reading somewhere once that deodorants / antiperspirants lose their effectiveness on your body after a period of time. I should google it to provide a source, but I don’t have time for that! I have to save the world with my profundity.

So, I sweat like a wildebeest. I have outgrown a number of deodorants and now swear by Mitchum (gel or smart solid, but mostly the smart solid). The gel works well, but I haven’t bought it in a while because I so love the smart solid. The only issue I have with it is that it ALWAYS ends up breaking off. This has happened to me for years, and I haven’t switched brands because it’s the only one that covers up my stink glands well enough to make me suitable for public consumption.

Anyway, back to the breakage. Usually about 1/3 of the way through, it starts crumbling. This pisses me off to no end, especially if I don’t have a backup stick on hand.

Well, I recently became a coupon freak bargain shopper. It changes the mindset. Last time my deodorant broke, I decided to call customer service.

>>>>>>>Oh, and I just need to have a little aside here (in the Shakespearean sense) to every company in the world: DO NOT PUT YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBERS IN PRINT ON YOUR PRODUCTS USING LETTERS AS SUBSTITUTES FOR NUMBERS. Example: 1-800-PEASHAIR. This is freakin’ annoying if you have a Blackberry or some other advanced phone that does not have the regular numbers matched to letters (ex: 1ABC, 2DEF, &c) system going for it. By the way, did you know there are a few variations of this? Even more annoying.<<<<<<<<<<<

Well, I finally figured out the phone number to call, and guess what!!! They are sending me replacements for all the broken deodorants I have on-hand (only 3, though many more have broken that I have just thrown away, frustrated to no end). Come to think of it, I was promised this about 3 weeks ago. Maybe an FU (Follow Up) call is in order.

So that’s good news.

Anyway, today I showered in a different bathroom of the house than where I usually shower. My regular type of deodorant was not in the medicine cabinet, so I used a Speed Stick. It made me think of a time in my life when I had just graduated from high school and was staying in California with a very serious boyfriend and his Mormon family. Not necessarily of the boyfriend, but of the times I wore the deodorant. They were good times.

Well, it was California. That must be it.

My current Mitchum Smart Solid reminds me of when I was pregnant and would get out of the shower in the morning, get ready for work and have the strong scent of my deodorant kind of permeate my blouses.

Secret reminds me of high school.

Degree reminds me of a sweet but very emotionally disturbed guy I dated for a long time.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about switching deodorants, but I feel as if I need a life change to catalyze the whole process. Nothing is really as good as Mitchum for my pits, except for those new uber deodorants that are roughly the price of a tank of gas. And I’ve always wanted to try that crystal rock thing, too.

Well, that’s all for now.

Love, Peas

Because I love you all, I thought I’d make you suffer with me through this whole school process.

Guess what! I have one paper remaining…that’s it! And I will be writing the entire thing tonight and submitting it to my group for approval. Yes I will.

Send me good vibes. Pray, chant, whatever. I am running on empty. Pizza on its way.

I seriously need to bathe. Gross.

Love, Peas